Thurman#1

While I think we do move up using some of the later picks, there's some things people are not saying about the fact that we've got a lot of picks and fairly little roster space. First, plenty of those guys who don't make the roster might easily make the practice squad. Not necessarily all. But generally almost all. When fifth rounders are cut, they might more easily be picked up elsewhere. But not necessarily. More, there's an advantage to using a lot of picks even when there's not enough room. Let's say all of the picks from the top four rounds make the roster, and only two more will be able to do so. So in this case Beane has kept all ten of his picks. Hell, maybe he even traded back one of the fifths and got an extra 7th, leaving 11 total picks. Having 11 picks give you one simple, factual advantage. You get more guys to look at. So say that two of the 5ths don't make the team. But the 7th does. It happens. Sometimes those 7ths, as do UDFAs, are better than expected. When you have more picks, you have more chances to find a later guy who's a lot better than his draft spot says. Again, I guess we will trade up a bit here and there. But 6ths and 7ths aren't nothing, even though we tend to talk about them as if they are in situations like this. They're a chance. Anyway, OP, I think you're over-rating S as a need. I don't think it's top three. Maybe 4 or 5 would be my guess. Other than that I think you're totally reasonable. Oh, and the odds of Cook holding out or holding in or whatever ... THIS YEAR? Wildly unlikely. It's really uncommon after the third, though we do get some posturing sometimes. If they tag him next year, though, now at that point it becomes a lot more possible, but he's not going to do anything this year.

Jeez, I saw us clicking on all cylinders often. Not always, but nobody does it always, nobody. Kirk Cousins? That's a good comparison. 13 wins? No, I don't think so. Kirk is no Josh Allen, but he's pretty good (not that I saw him much last year but from what I hear the problem there was a lot deeper than Kirk). IMO the Cousins of the last four or five years gets us to maybe 11 or 12 games or so. Maybe closer to 11 than 12. Maybe 12 because of how awful the rest of the division was, but Josh had that advantage as well.

Cha ching!! This!!

Dude, no problem. There's so much going on here all the time, I swear I miss half of it.

I get that you may well have wanted to be taken with a grain of salt. Just wanted to quickly go through what it'd probably take in draft picks to get from #30 to #12. On the Rich Hill draft pick value chart, #30 is 620 points and #12 is 1200 points. Meaning that to go up that far we'd need another first rounder this year at about the same level. Or if we could give up both our 2nd rounders this year and that would about do it, though teams moving up usually have to pay a bit extra to do so. Anybody think any other teams are valuing Cook at the value of a late first rounder, or two seconds? I greatly doubt it. Throwing in Cook with #30 might get us up to the late teens, maybe. But maybe not. Any team we trade him to knows they are likely to have trouble signing him at what most would consider a reasonable valuation. It is $15M AAV he talked about.

Good point, Bill. $3.8M for four years, he's receiving. Getting that bonus check will take a huge weight off his shoulders.

I'd agree, he's an asset on the field. Just not a $15M asset, and not really close. My guess is that Cook is going to hold on unless they do indeed come close to $15M, and that that will turn the Bills off. Cook will be here next year whether they extend him or not. 2026? Now, that's up in the air. I don't quite get your point when you say that Beane has knocked down these contracts with hometown discounts and that Cook will be paid about what he wants. Why would we treat Cook better than we treated the others? Who's gotten away for big money? Tremaine Edmunds. Harrison Phillips got more than the Bills probably wanted to give him. Stephon Gilmore. Beane went public about how he wanted Robert Woods back but just couldn't afford him at that time. Guys get big paydays from here sometimes. No reason to think Cook won't, particularly if he insists on close to that number. And I couldn't blame him if he did. RBs in particular have to cash in quick. But I wouldn't pay him much more than $10M. $10 or $11M would put him sixth in AAV behind McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon, Alvin Kamara and Josh Jacobs. It's above Derrick Henry.

I'm sure that a bond must be part of it. But you're almost always going to get some discount when you sign guys this early. Players are highly aware of what could happen if they don't sign and get injured in the 4th year. Or have a bad year, or whatever. Getting the big payday and a big hunk of cash early is huge for these guys.

Absolutely fantastic!!!! If he comes down a lot, yeah, he'd be great to bring back. Heh heh. In your dreams.

I do remember how bad our WR core was before Cooper. They were decent even early in the year. Not really better than that but we moved the ball. Cooper was not the main difference between early and later in the season. He did make an impact. But he played 239 snaps for us. That's not a whole ton. And there was not a noticeable difference between when he was on and off the field. If he was the reason they improved, we'd have seen a difference when he was off the field. We didn't. They got better as Josh got used to the guys who he was playing with for the first time, as everyone improved their understanding of the new scheme and as they got experience together.

Basically, I'd agree, but with the caveat that if you can find a guy like Saquon Barkley, a bell-cow back that has every skill you look for in an RB, those big contracts look a lot more reasonable. I don't think Cook fits that description, though, and I think the Bills are going to want to keep giving Cook the same amount of limited snaps in the future that he got last year, again making him less desirable than a guy like Saquon.

This year? Before his rookie contract is finished? That would be serious malcontent territory. Next year, if they franchise him? Much more feasible. Can't see him holding out this offseason.

I don't think you can judge an FA class on what they did NOT do. I mean, if FA was the only way to get players, and if FA was finished, then yeah, you'd blame them for not doing better at CB. But we could still draft a CB, trade for one, find a terrific UDFA, or just pick up an FA CB later in the process. Douglas, for instance. And I can understand why people are upset about the suspensions, but I'm not real worried. They brought those guys in to make them better in the post-season. Not ideal, but not a big deal either, IMO. So, smart then. Nice.

I think you're overcalculating the question marks. Coleman is a minor question mark. He looked really good for a rookie till the injury. Still got a lot to prove. Palmer is like to be solid in the role they are projecting for him, which will not be being a #1. He'll probably be a #2, whether top middle or bottom of that cohort.

This, I'm thinking, is how it'll turn out. They'll likely consider Douglas but it'll depend. Cooper'll likely be too expensive.