WhitewalkerInPhilly

Wait, Sammy can be used on screens? Someone tell Doug Marrone!

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. In Philly when they talk about "fast paced" they mean time between running plays. Which is great when you have an offense which can sustain long drives. When that fails... Throwing in a lot of motion keeps the pressure on, confuses defenses and, even better, chews up clock and doesn't let the defense relax.

I find this interesting. So much of what we heard was "Ground and Pound" so I'm curious to see what they try to set up in training camp.

From what I heard, the seam route had been the Niners bread and butter. Teams got wise, and started to scheme that. When their line got injured they lost the ability to ram the ball down their opponents throat. With Davis taken out of the picture they had no way to make their opponents pay deep for stacking the box. Maybe if Kaep was more accurate they could have relied more on their WRs deep, but that was never the case. Unlike there, Roman has receivers (Sammy, Harvin, Clay and Shady) who are great at picking up YAC. I just hope they pull it off.

Dammit! I had successfully excised from my memory and now it's back.

Same here.

You mean, besides us?

I don't think that we're doing a high powered/up tempo offense no matter who we have at QB. But I agree that if Tyrod winds up being the guy, and that he can be reasonably accurate, he absolutely can do well without needing pinpoint accuracy. The Bills have playmakers who can do wonders with YAC on short passes (Sammy, Shady, Harvin, Clay) and guys who can truck it on the ground (Shady, Freddy, Karlos). Really, as long as you can make teams pay if they play too close by being able to hit a few deep passes you can run a working offense.

I'm pretty sure you can't be a fifth year rookie. I'm not saying Tyrod will be the guy, but I have to imagine that if the ability to pass the ball is equal you go with the younger, cheaper guys whose contracts don't end this year.

"It's ridiculous! He didn't do anything! And besides it wasn't that bad!"

I agree about us not surgically passing the ball. The deep threat is going to be necessary to make sure other teams don't pack the box.

I know he has physical limitations, but I would imagine that his body of work up until now would have silenced some doubts.

From the last three years, I've heard the exact same thing about Robey at this time: "Wow, he has such a high motor and such great ball skills. It's too bad about his size, and we have so many talented players in the secondary..." And he keeps kicking ass. I'm a little surprised that we seem surprised. With spread offenses and people going pass happy, is it really a shock that we want to have a counter to the Tavon Austin/Wes Welker/Amendola slot receivers that high powered offenses love?

Oh god, is it training camp yet?

As much as I take PFF grades with a grain of salt, they did wind up being spot on with Bradham last year. I remember not being thrilled with the pick at the time, but the more I hear of him, the more it sounds like Brandon Spikes, only he isn't a liability in coverage.

I shut down when he started to complain that Chris Gragg is more talented overall than the guy who won the award for best TE...or anybody. I think he's a psychic out in California

In response to the OP the Philly perspective is that it was a culture thing, and that it's Chip flexing his muscles. I think they mentioned last night that they were going to kick the tires on Mathis. No promises on getting him, especially since he wanted more money and we will be outbid, but a big part was the culture.

I hadn't heard that they wouldn't pursue Mathis. But I agree about Urbik.

As a note, I think it's entirely possible to believe that Chip Kelly is a brilliant coach, yet a really bad GM.

And he did cut Jackson, who was coming off a Pro Bowl year.

The sad thing is that he even mentions that Roman's style is perfect for EJ.

Really? That's the best you've got? C'mon, you can do better. You can joke that the best he could say about EJ is that he put on weight. EXLJ?

That's where I am too. They are the opening argument. I want EJ to win it, but I fully expect the decision to come in training camp when we have all of our receivers.

I'd do this in a heartbeat. Maybe structure it for a big payday in year three but balance the guaranteed money. Whaley is good at cap management. If we really want to, Incognito has nothing guaranteed left (I think) and would be gone next year anyway.

+1. This. I can barely remember the Super Bowl years. The first full seasons I can remember where when Kelly, Reed, Thomas and Smith were in their twilight years. I grew up with their image pristine and that there were the greatest of all time. As an adult, hearing about Kelly's incidents, and the Bickering Bills shocked me. NFL players are people. At some point, normal people get pissed off, say things in the heat of the moment and do stupid things.