Thurman#1

Doesn't make sense. Any absolute standard won't. The success of a draft depends on context. Teams drafting later should be judged with that included. It's much easier to find a starter at #35, say, then at #61. Teams that already have good lineups should be judged with the understanding that that this makes it harder to start the guy even if he's just as good as the guy who is starting on another team because last year's starter there was easy to beat in competition. One of the main reasons for the quick development of Milano was that he was in the lineup quickly because we didn't have much in front of him. Players can and do develop from the bench, but when they are ready to start but there's not a spot for them yet, it does slow their development. A guy drafted in 2020 or 2021 on the Bills is less likely to develop quickly than a guy in an earlier Bills draft, partly because in the earlier draft he wouldn't have been the pick 5 or 10 or 15 slots earlier and he is less likely to see the field early than he was in the weaker lineups we had several years ago. That's reality. Oh, and saying that Gabe Davis, the #128 pick, had disappointed, it's just nuts. Spencer Brown the #93 pick, has been inconsistent in his 2nd year after off-season surgery? Um, of course he has. To assume otherwise would show unreasonable expectations. Basham might be a failure. Or a success. Or fulfill expectations. We will have a much better idea a year or more down the road.

No, for me the disappointment is that some people simply refuse to get it. "It" being that evaluating picks too early is a ridiculous mistake.

Schottenheimer should be in the HOF. He made more out of mediocre lineups and QB play than any coach I can think of. Sid Gillman had one HOF QB for one year, Van Brocklin, out of his long and successful career.

Champion is just plain the wrong word. You're not a champion till you win a championship. Thinking yourself a champion when you're not is just trying to fake it till you make it. Doesn't work. But maybe you could say "Alpha Dog" instead of champion and then it would make sense. I'd rather have 'em feel themselves a talented underdog than an alpha dog. Till they've won a championship anyway.

This won't be Belichick's last year unless he quits or forces his way out. You can't say he got lucky with Brady. He drafted and developed him. But yeah, after the first four years or so, it was more Brady than Belichick.

If you don't count Davis' one-handed TD grab against Pittsburgh as great I'd say that's on you and not him. His contested catch 30 seconds before the half in the Vikes game was also really sweet. Shakir's contested 31 yarder against Pittsburgh was really nice. And counting Knox, Singletary, Davis and Cook, he absolutely is surrounded by weapons. Elite weapons? No, but weapons, yes. And that's the way a lot of teams look. Where are Mahomes' elite WRs. Kelce's elite. Otherwise he's got some good guys but nothing deeply special. And that is absolutely not a "bottom-tier offensive line," though they certainly took a step back with Morse out. There's a tendency to get frustrated if there's not someone special at every position. But that's not a reasonable possibility. You're always making compromises, that's the world GMs deal with.

Sure hope so, but it's getting late. Starting to really doubt it.

Way way way too early to say on Watson, and a year or so early on Wilson as well. Me, I hope to see Wilson pull it together with good coaching but Watson fail.

Turns out you're right, or at least for the first few snaps for each of game 1 and game 2 last year. I went and watched just two snaps each from the first drive of each of game 1 and game 2, and Ford was at guard and Williams at tackle. Nice catch. And thanks. My point still stands though, as Brown took over from Williams, also a vet but a much higher-paid one, very early in the year.

Yeah, it does take some doing. But this could be one of those cases. He's replaced higher-paid guys with lower-paid ones before, and vets with younger guys, particularly later in the year when the younger guys are showing signs of getting it. Look at Singletary taking over for Gore late in his rookie year, Milano starting with nothing and pushing into the lineup so quickly, look at Taron Johnson and how quickly he got fully trusted. Look at Cody Ford being ushered away from tackle when they started trusting Brown more in game four of his rookie year. It's not the norm. But it happens when he decides he trusts one guy more than another one. I think they do trust Saffold not to make rookie mental mistakes, but equally they must see that he's not what he used to be physically, and that particularly at pass blocking he's getting beat more than they had expected.

Yeah, and the coaches hired by the local junior high schools too.

First, Singletary is a 3 down back. Same with Cook, really. If you're thinking about a bell cow, there is zero reason to think that we need a bell cow back. How many recent SB champs have had bell cow backs taking most of the carries? Certainly far from a majority. The goals should indeed be to win Super Bowls. No reason to think there's all that much of an advantage in terms of winning Super Bowls in having a bell cow back. Ah, sorry, guess I misunderstood. Have a great week.

"Why is it always team friendly?" you ask. I don't even understand what this means. It isn't. Some deals are team-friendly, some player-friendly and some roughly neutral. But as I noted above (and not with great originality, it's well-known) this is going to be a good year for finding solid decent FA RBs. There are a lot available. It's not a good year for a non-elite RB to be looking for a player-friendly deal. And as happened with the Pats all those years, and maybe even more so, we're seeing that players like to come back to teams with a great chance of winning a title, and even more so for a player-friendly coaching regime like ours as opposed to a Belichick type. Players aren't going to give massive discounts, particularly RBs getting second contracts. But small discounts to re-sign? Yeah, if the situation is near-ideal as it is for Singletary right now. It's not a sure thing, but it seems likely.

Productivity is measured over a season ... per rush. Jacobs is a very good and productive back. So is Singletary. Not as good as Jacobs, but very good. Yeah. This is a good year to be trying to sign an RB to a reasonable contract. Supply is high and demand is pretty much as usual. A lot of good-looking young backs coming out in the draft this year, and a lot of solid guys are available as FAs.

I hate that guy. Always have since he chose the Cowboys. I shouldn't. But I do.

No, you're not seeing the big picture. Point differential doesn't mean anything. The key thing is wins in one-score games!!! Oh, wait, we're doing well at that this year? Then the key stat is wins in one-score games in the last two years. That's what tells you everything you need to know. Oh, and point differential in the last seven games against teams with winning records. I'm telling you, this team is in deep trouble.

Yeah, I still think he's got a real chance. Not a great chance, but still a chance.

An RB is a poor use of the money that would cost us. Jacobs is a damn good back, but they might have a bit of a hard time signing Singletary, much less Jacobs. Yeah, and this year there are going to be a lot of backs available roughly in Singletary's tier. I love Singletary for this team and my guess is he'll be available at a pretty reasonable rate and happy to return if their offer is fairly competitive.

That rule makes total sense to me. IMO they're not saying gambling is bad. Just that they're not going to allow guys who are inside a team - who could turn games - to run the risk of going under water to guys who in the end wouldn't waste a minute selling a big debt to corrupt influencers who also wouldn't waste a minute deciding whether to fix a game using that sad degenerate debtor as their lever. I don't think they have a choice. They've got to do this.

"We know how they did against the #1 offense," you say? Yeah, they did very very well against that #1 offense. Held 'em to 20 points, which only one other team was able to do. Yeah, we've seen issues. You always will. Perfection doesn't exist. Teams go up and down, all of them. But for the last five games you're worrying about, they've allowed less than 20 PPG average. Against a damn good group of offenses, as you yourself pointed out. Particularly with our clusters of defensive injuries, and against a vicious schedule, they've performed very very well. And having a great overall defensive DVOA, defensive scoring record, the 11-3 record, etc., are all far more important than a somewhat cherry-picked stat. This doesn't rise to the level of a worry for me. As for not having had a thorough beatdown in a while, I just smile at how the target changes. For two years people have been complaining that we don't do well in one-score games and how most of our wins are only just beatdowns. Now we're turning that around and the new complaint is that we don't put up enough beatdowns. The target is always moving for people looking for a reason to worry. 11-3. That's the bottom line.

Despite all the injuries our D is #5 at defensive DVOA. Nope. Not worried. Concerned, but I'll always be concerned.

Yeah, agreed. He still might become good. At this point the odds are very low on that, but who thought Geno Smith at this point in his career would become good?

I wanted them to pick AJ Dillon, though I thought he'd be available much later. But the Bills RBs are fine.

Best of luck to him.

Again, no it hasn't. The results of those studies are often mis-stated. They don't prove what the headlines generally claim that they prove.