Thurman#1

Yup. Plus once you guarantee it all for 2nd rounders, guess who starts not signing next?

Absolutely love to see this. You go, Josh!!!!

Kick the tires? Yeah, fair enough. Can't see how it would work out with the cap and his age and with a new contract being a problem. But I love McLaurin, great player, great attitude. Getting older, but a good guy.

Nice post, Roscoe. You say it gets harder on the borderline elite players. I'd say also that it's even harder yet on guys at positions that are not high-impact positions, which includes RB. If Cook were as effective as he is at, say DE, I think the Bills would value him highly enough that they'd be in Cook's neighborhood on value and would find a way to sign him. Sauce is at a high impact position and that adds to his leverage a great deal.

Oh, jeez, glad to hear that part. My heart was in my throat. The Cole Bishop comparison isn't a great one, IMO. Safety has to essentially run the backfield and know what's going on everywhere. DEs still have a ton to learn but not on the level that a safety does. Still would suck if he has to miss much time.

Glad I'm not a Bengals fan. Ownership is such crap there.

I don't know about never, but yeah, it's a bit ass-backwards. Yet, if you've got a really good receiver, but not a QB, shouldn't you do your best to keep the receiver in hopes you get a good QB one of these years? They're in a really tough situation. Thank heavens for Josh.

Just wanted to point out Coleman's pattern of usage last year. As far as targets, in the first three games he had a total of seven. That's not unexpected, to start slow as a rookie. Then, after they got more comfortable with him, they were using him quite a bit, 29 targets in six games. Then the injury, out for four games, no targets, obviously. Then the last four games of the year, when he got 21 targets, almost half, ten, in the final game of the regular season. To me, that shows four different periods of the season. And in the second period, when he had a bit of experience but was uninjured, I think they were using him the way they would like to. Here is a more complete breakdown: First three weeks (inexperienced): 106 snaps (62%), 7 targets, 5 catches, 71% catch percentage Weeks 4 - 9 (hitting his stride): 281 snaps (73%), 29 targets, 17 catches, 59% catch percentage Weeks 10 - 14 (including the bye): Out, no stats Weeks 15 - 18 (coming back from injury): 211 snaps (80%), specifically 63%, 66%, 90% and 97% in the four games respectively, 21 targets, specifically 2, 2, 7 and 10 in the four games respectively and 7 catches, specifically 1, 1, 3 and 2 respectively, a catch percentage of 33%. So it wasn't just missing games that resulted in the low targets and low catches. Early they weren't giving him many targets. After he came back from injury, he wasn't getting anywhere near the same catch percentage. Let's assume that they were using him the way they wanted to in weeks 4 - 9, and that healthy and with a few games of experience behind him he'd reached about his best catch percentage and could have maintained that. That's not anything you could take for granted but not unreasonable assumptions either. So if you assume those same rates over the whole season, he'd have had 73% of snaps, 70 targets and 41 catches, as well as 830 yards and 4.9 TDs. Assuming Keon has 41 catches next year, I think the two of them likely hit the over.

Yeah, I'm with this. It's a big if, but if they stay healthy, over.

It's indeed totally fine, but he's absolutely running full speed. You don't have a deep post called, notice that nobody's deep on the side you're running towards and nobody's going deep with you and think, "I'd better run slowly on this, let 'em have time to close on me, make the throw harder for Josh." He didn't misread the throw. He had a hard time going from a full sprint to adjusting to a throw in the most awkward possible direction for him. He had to get his feet not just ahead of him but also further towards the end zone so he could leap back towards the center of the field and the line of scrimmage at the same time. This forced him to run his legs ahead of his body, making a strange little curving path, but it was the fastest way he could adjust. There wasn't a way to do that quickly.

The instant Josh throws the ball, Kincaid has to jam on the brakes, turn around and dive backwards. He's running a deep post and the ball is thrown behind him and closer to the LOS, so he has to make a complicated adjustment, getting his feet further down the field and towards the sidelines than his body weight so he can drive and jump back towards the ball. That's always going to take time for a guy whose job on the play is to be running as fast as he can. You can see him speed up his feet and swing to the left while trying to slow his upper body down. It's an extremely awkward situation, more so for a guy with bad knees. No way he's settling under it, not in that situation. And he doesn't run anywhere near 15 - 20 yards. Maybe 12 or so? Maybe. He's in a horrible situation because his legs are behind him as he sprints and he has to get them in front of him and upfield to dive back towards the ball. Go look at the All-22. You don't have to guess as you do on the broadcast footage. You can see every step. You're right that it was not a laser throw, not at all, but he didn't have an extra instant to work with. There was no way to settle under it. He sees it, knows he will have to go from running full speed to going backwards and back downfield. It takes him several steps to do that, as it would anyone. If Josh had either thrown better under duress or had maybe two-tenths of a second more to gather himself, that's a TD running away.

No, not at all. The problem is that the throw from Josh was way the hell behind Kincaid. He had to actually stop, turn 180 degrees and go back for it, and he still had to dive for it. It was a hard play. One he should have made, but a hard play and a damn tough one for a guy on two bad knees.

You did state your position. On something completely different from what I had called you out on. You moved the goal posts. You challenged someone to post good catches by Kincaid, and Doc Brown did precisely that. And you said they weren't good, that they were average. It was a ridiculous contention, and I called you out on it. You replied specifically to that post of mine, and yet didn't say a single word about those four highlights Doc posted. You instead changed the subject, precisely as you showed in big letters above. If you have a problem that has nothing whatsoever to do with my post, that's fine. Unless you do it in a reply to my post. Which is exactly what you did. You replied to me, moved the goal posts and totally changed the subject, addressing not a single thing from my post. Again, feel free to bring up other points. But not when replying to a post about something completely different. When you do that, people will accuse you of moving the goal posts. Reason being, that's exactly what you're doing, moving the goal posts. As for the screen shot photo, yeah, you haven't seen it before because as I said, I screen-shotted it myself. From the All-22 film. You can very easily get the angle in a live sequence by looking at the All-22. It's right there on NFL Plus, as we speak. I just accessed it and copied the screen shot about, what? 45 minutes ago, probably. I'm sorry it's such crappy resolution. I usually watch in full-screen. Then I screen-shotted about half the field and tried to post it and TBD sends me a message saying it's too much data and it won't accept it. I cut the borders down and try again, same problem. I keep cutting it down, but reach a point where if I cut any more you can't tell what's going on. So then I make the window smaller and smaller. Usually somewhere around the point where the window is 2 x 3 inches and I'm still showing the minimum I can to show what's happening, the data gets small enough and TBD accepts it. I promise that's the correct play, and I promise I did my best not to frame the story to twist the narrative. This is a good attempt to show what the situation actually was. Nobody else on the field was going to get a chance to be involved in that play if Josh puts that ball out in front of Kincaid.

Is anyone arguing that that was not a drop? Are you arguing that there are any WRs who have never had a drop? Sorry, that's a dumb argument. Yeah, most TEs would have caught that probably 70% of the time. So would Kincaid. He didn't. No way around that, but it was a tough play, one that he usually makes, but did not that time. But your argument about what happened on that play is a bit nuts. He was not running towards any Chiefs. Just the opposite. If Josh had thrown directly ahead of him on the route he was running at that time, that was an easy TD. Easy. There would have been nobody with 5 yards of him or anywhere upfield of him. Instead, Josh, under duress but capable of terrific throws under duress, threw it way behind him, making it a difficult catch. Here's a screenshot of that play from the All-22 just as Josh let it go: There is nobody, and I mean absolutely NOBODY where Kincaid is running. The idea that he's running towards two Chiefs is completely and absolutely ridiculous. Josh throws that ahead of Kincaid and it is without question a TD. But I do understand why you changed the subject. You argued that those four catches weren't very fine catches. And they clearly were. No wonder you didn't comment, but instead moved the goalposts.

Nonsense. Those aren't ordinary catches. They're damn good. Incredibly spectacular? No. But damn good catches, for TEs or anyone else. You're right about going down easily more often last year. But you don't see that when you go back and look at his rookie year. When healthy he was bouncing off guys and running through arm tackles, and doing it an awful lot.

He absolutely has been good, damn good. But then not so good. He's been up and down. His first year he was really good. Second year up and down, and more down. But it's just not so that he's never been good.

I see. So nobody's saying it's collusion except a reporter with no access whatsoever. So, you figure that the fact that some guy with a column somewhere used the word, that it may well be collusion despite the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence, zero. Again, your own definition specifically mentions "agreement." And not only is there no proof whatsoever of agreement, or cooperation or conspiracy. Nobody has even mentioned the possibility, except I guess you. Having one guy tell a group of guys they should not overpay is not collusion. Nor is it even close. Sorry, man, you're a great poster, but this idea is just dumb. Saying it's collusion when nobody is even mentioning an agreement, on the basis of them listening to a lecture, just dumb.

Yeah, that's what collusion means. And again, the word has NOT been used in the witness statements. In other words, only the reporter is using it. The witnesses are not. Meaning the people who actually saw what happened are NOT accusing the owners of secret or illegal conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others. (Thanks for the definition of the thing they are NOT being accused of by the people who were there.) What is actually described by the witnesses is only a guy with some authority urging business owners to keep prices down. NOT secret agreement or cooperation to do so. Pointing out what's in everyone's best interest is not collusion. To further use your definition there, the witnesses are NOT accusing the NFL of having a "secret agreement to fix prices." Where's the agreement there?

It's not that wealthy people do that. It's that some wealthy people do that. There are also plenty of wealthy people who genuinely lose it all.

I'm critical in the sense that I don't think he's worth a $15M year contract. I'd be happy to get him back at a figure that's a bit lower. And whether you're tired of it or not is beside the point, pass blocking is a knock, a legitimate knock. Just because the OL is really good and Josh is damn good at escaping guys who get through the blocking doesn't mean we should stop taking blocking seriously from the RB position.

Really? You're not convinced this group of WRs is better? Wow. Well, I am. I mean, we can't know, of course. But with Elijah Moore and Joshua Palmer? And Coleman in his second year? It's sure the likelihood that we got better. Injuries happen, and expectations sometimes aren't met. But we look significantly better. And yeah, we did keep drives going. Yeah, it's hard over 17 games. But we managed it with a poorer WR group. We managed it with Devin Singletary and Zach Moss a couple of years ago We've got Josh Allen. That's a huge part of the calculus. Yeah, Cook's a big part of their everyone eats results. But that part worked just about as well with Johnson and Davis. The difference Cook made was his breakaway long runs. That's the thing he does that nobody else on the team is anywhere near as good at. Cook wasn't second in TFLs. He had the seventh-most in the league, with 21. Bijan Robinson, Derrick Henry, Kyren Williams, Josh Jacobs, Jonathan Taylor and Saquon all had more. Are you talking about TFLs per rush, maybe, or something like that? In any case, TFLs are more usually about blocking than they are about RB skill. Well, yeah Singletary's YPC was bumped up by his rookie numbers. But he had more carries that year than other years. Sometimes being a change of pace guy improves your YPC. Sometimes not. In any case, his rookie numbers bump his total up, but not by all that much. And about halfway through that rookie year, Singletary was the starter. Even without that year his YPC is still very very good. And Singletary started most of the year for Houston as well. The Giants had him as a backup, though, after they saw what Tracy looked like. Singletary did not look as good last year, whether it was injury or the crappy line or just age or scheme fit or whatever. Cook isn't as good as Singletary at making the first guy miss (or at least as good as Singletary used to be; I haven't kept close track of himsince he left the Bills). Singletary was one of the absolute best at forcing missed tackles since he joined the league. Cook is better at using those missed tackles to create really long runs, of course, and that's a huge talent. Oh, but I'm totally with you about the contract problem not being just about AAV. AAV is just a convenient shorthand. But the Bills clearly don't think Cook is worth what he thinks he is. But I personally wouldn't do any $15M deals with Cook unless it was one of those things where there's a ton of non-guaranteed salary money in the last year of the deal that is very unlikely to ever be paid, the kind of thing Von Miller signed with the Bills for instance.

Boy, I don't agree with that for one second. He just wants to maximize his earning potential. Which from the player's perspective makes total sense.

Concern, I understand. But we aren't the offense we had last year. We're already better at WR, and Kincaid being healthy could very well be another major step upwards. It's possible Josh could keep having problems working together with him as he did last year, but I'd guess it's not the way to bet. And while we didn't create many explosives last year, we did keep drives going without explosive plays, really well. Again, I would love to get Cook back. But I understand totally that they seem to have a value that they're willing to give, and that they don't want to go beyond it. I myself simply wouldn't give $15M per year. Well, we'll see what happened. Oh, and I'd disagree with calling Singletary a plodder. He wasn't. He also wasn't nearly the breakaway threat Cook is. But he was terrific at making the first guy miss and turning 2 yard gains into five yarders. You look at his 4.7 YPC, with an OL that wasn't as good as the one we've got now, and it's not reasonable to call him a plodder. Not nearly the long threat Cook is but a good solid back.

Well, that's a big if. IMO the reason he didn't get more snaps last year was because of the deficits in his game. He's not a true smash-mouth short yardage hammer and he can't pass-block well. And Johnson's a better receiving back. If Cook improves his pass-blocking and pass-catching, maybe he'll get more snaps. And if that does happen, you could easily be right that he might get his 15M. Far from a sure thing that he'll make those improvements, though. Nor is it a sure thing that he ends up with a similar amount of TDs next year. Last season was a wild outlier in terms of TDs. My guess if given the same opportunities again next year he'd end up with closer to 7 - 10 TDs. Which is still damn good. But it's no 16 TDs. We'll have to see how it all turns out. But there's no particular reason to think that if we get rid of Cook that our run game would be "underachieving," your word there. I'd agree they'd have less of a threat to break one big, certainly. But our offense was still exceptionally good when our RBs were Singletary and Moss.

Um, I guess you're saying that I poorly mis-stated what you said? I don't see it myself, they appear nearly exactly the same. But let's say I completely messed it up. Thing is, what you actually said was every single bit as dumb as my recap of what you said. The idea that because something is said at a PC rather than a written interview ... that it wouldn't show up on the internet isn't just dumb, it's false. PCs have reporters covering them, and they put what is said into print. PCs these days are also on video. Again, they are covered ferociously, strip-mined passionately. If Josh had said something as incendiary as that at a PC, it would have been quoted a million times and been not just able to be found on the internet, but ubiquitous for days afterwards. The reason you can't find it is he never said that. As I pointed out before, all those things that Josh gets quoted on on the net? He said pretty much all of them at PCs and interviews. Hell, he said the thing you're quoting about Cook at a PC/interview. That somehow got reported on the net, didn't it? If you want to keep kidding yourself about that, go ahead. But the reality is the reason you can't find it is he never said it. Oh, and I love McDermott and Beane, both of them. I hope they'll both be here ten years from now. You know he said this at a press conference, right? And yet somehow you can find it on the net, in many many places. Which is how it works.