Thurman#1

We assume the playoffs becauses of both. Justin Herbert is a damn good QB. So is Dak Prescott. So is Kyler Murray. So is Russell Wilson. Matt Stafford certainly showed this year the difference between an excellent QB in a great environment and an excellent QB in a crappy one.

Very much agreed with your first two paragraphs. But after that there's bunch of simplification. You say that "Josh Allen is the achilles-heel for a Belichick defense. Pure and simple." And that's wrong. It's just not that pure and simple. If it were they'd have played fantastic against everyone but Buffalo. And they didn't. The Dolphins had a very solid game against them late in the year, 298 yards and controlling field position. The Colts had 275 yards and a very solid game, sealing the win with a spirit-crushing Jonathan Taylor 67 yarder. The Texans in a loss scored a TD above their average points and way above their average yards with 360. The Cowboys put up 567 yards and 28 points by the offense. The Saints beat up on NE's defense with their passing game pretty much tied behind their back. And that Pats D really is very good. But they get beat several times a season regularly, always have. It simply didn't matter with Brady piling on the points. Yes, the Pats had often called the right defense against the Bills but got beaten anyway. That's not all that rare in the NFL. It happens a lot. When you call the right defense you win more downs than you lose but you don't win them all. We did match up better against a wide variety of opponents.

Nothing, really. Or rather, they're missing whoever they lose over the offseason. If they lose Wallace, they'll be missing a #2 CB. If they lose Harry, they'll need someone to take his place. Same for Klein and a few others. They were a very good defense. They weren't missing anything. The question is what they need to do to improve, and there are a lot of things to say there, as there are for any unit in the NFL, really. I don't really agree with your overall theme, that they need to change to add versatility. Wouldn't hurt. Your post is really smart, but I'd quibble with the overall conclusion. The reason they've been running the same scheme for 5 years is that their defense has steadily improved for the first few and then maintained a very high level from there onwards, with a few dips that appeared to be due largely to injury. You don't run the same scheme for five years, see it be consistently successful and figure that means we should change it. I agree with most of your examples and smaller conclusions, really. I don't think we need more versatility or changes in emphasis. "The McDermott/Frazier scheme is NOT the best gameplay for stopping EVERY SINGLE team," you say? Yeah, dead right. But no scheme is. All of them have strengths and weaknesses, schemes and personnel they match up well and poorly with. It's how things go, not just in defense, not just in football, but in all complicated endeavors. Belichick has indeed fielded a great defense consistently without star power. So has McDermott. McD hasn't had the length of success that the Dark Lord has, but he's absolutely had great defensive success without star power. And while Belichick's defense has been consistently excellent, they've had put-lenty of games over the years where the D was bailed out by having Brady running up the numbers on offense. I pretty much agree with your last three sentences. I'm pretty sure we'll be running more zone, always, but shrewdly mixing up coverages to confuse QBs, as we generally do. I think we already switch things up a lot, but surely could continue to do more. I'd love to see a good space-eater, though when they figured things out, their removal of Taron Johnson for Klein ended up starting to work pretty well. Having said that They can and should improve. Every unit should. But the scheme isn't the problem, IMO. Anyway, good post.

Agreed the locker room wouldn't fall apart. But having no valid backup who can at least manage a game is taking a major risk if Allen is out a few games, or more than a few. If he's out for the year we don't have a real shot regardless, but if he missed, say, eight games, the difference between the four to six that Fitz would have a real shot at getting and the one or two a late-round rookie might get if he was lucky could be the difference in making the playoffs and important in seeding.

IMO they're talking about if he takes a major discount for the enjoyment of a Super Bowl run. You're right they can't afford him if he demands anywhere near his market value.

Wetzel. Gallery. Kevin Gogan. And plenty have played at 6'6" and a fraction. Tyson Clabo, who played ten years, was measured at 68.9 inches at the combine. It's very unusual, but it does happen.

They sure would have noticed in 2020. But yeah, at this point, probably.

Well, they didn't really need to upgrade the OL last offseason. It would have been nice, certainly I was hoping for an early OG in the draft. But the OL played quite well in 2020, particularly when Feliciano was on the field. But in 2021 Feliciano and Williams declined significantly and it wasn't completely clear why. Feliciano's weight loss may well have had something to do with it, but perhaps not. But there was a real decline. Combine those two guys getting worse with Dawkins being affected for all but the last few games by his Covid, and that line had a major downgrade.

You're probably not much older than I am, and I'm with him. Give me a long-term window like the one we've got now. Yup. He didn't retire from life. Just from football.

I see Penning has started games at guard at Northern Iowa. That makes it a possibility, IMO, if they like him.

He lived up to his contract in 2019 and 2020. Out-performed it, probably, it wasn't a huge contract. No, he wasn't terrific, but he was solid, smart, and the offense worked less well in 2020 when he was out. Not so this year. As I said, the weight loss absolutely affected his level of play. I'm not the first to notice this, far from it.

Really? That'd be a first for me. Better put that in the ol' scrapbook. Thanks. I enjoy your posts, even when I don't agree.

I don't see them drafting a tackle earlier than about the 5th, myself. He's pretty tall. Too tall for guard? If so, I don't think we'd head in that direction. Great highlights reel, though.

After he lost the weight, he wasn't the same guy. If they can get the old guy back, great. But it may be too late at this point.

The question is never "if we can afford him." It's whether we can afford him reasonably, without too many other hardships being caused. I don't think we can or will. Same with Allen Robinson. Both good players. Myself, though, I'm with Sierra Foothills above. I wouldn't bring in Hunt when there are other guys. Not to mention we just don't need to spend major salary cap bucks on RB right now. I see us bringing in someone more on the level of Weldon, drafting a mid- to late-round guy and telling Moss he'd better get over to Singletary's off-season coach and work his butt off because the level he played at last year was not acceptable in the long term and won't get him a second contract, and maybe not even a fourth year.

"Average year?" No way. You look at his TDs, his blocking and how young he is and that year was in no way average. It was a very good year. Good yards per catch, good catch percentage, for a third year guy. And I'm with Doc Brown above. If he gets an 80 catch 1000 yard type of season he's going to get much more in a contract. And IMO he'll have that kind of season if he's targeted the way the TEs who have that kind of season are targeted.

Yes, it's really overlooked, but he was a significant part of the running game's major improvement. His blocking made a massive leap this year. Guess we'll have to disagree. Good TEs that can be had in the mid-rounds are guesses. Some might work out. Some might become as good as Knox. The odds are it would be most likely one or none. Knox at this point is a sure thing. And a guy who can both catch and block. Those guys don't grow on trees. And if your team is built around success in the pass game and your first priority is to make your QB comfortable and give him dangerous options - and that's the Bills - you don't give away a sure thing weapon for a maybe in a few years guy. Not that I'd mind picking up one of those mid-round guys. That'd be great if he's BPA. Two TE offenses can make a really nice change. But I really don't see them getting rid of Knox, barring injury or some other problem. The guy is still on the way up.

He's going to be very expensive. You have to pay him. He's a top-flight weapon for Josh. I mean, there is probably a figure we wouldn't pay, but as long as everyone's reasonable, he should stay, and he should get a lot.

Fine with me. He's not as awful as the Jets made him seem, but last year was not a good omen for the rest of his career. But yeah, fine with me.

One of the worst in Bills history? Utter nonsense. Doesn't even reach the same hemisphere as contracts like Charles Clay or Dockery, or even guys like Triplett, Langston Walker, Dwan Edwards, Percy Harvin, Robert Royal, or Brad Smith. Mark Anderson isn't well-remembered, but his was an awful deal. Shawne Merriman at least brought good feelings, but that was an awful deal. Do people remember that the Bills gave Kevin Kolb $13M for two years? Puh-leeze. That claim says a lot more about you than it does about Star in these inflated days. You're right that this regime has been pretty good. No awful contracts, really, which is why it's fair to say his contract is one of the worst for this group. Maybe even the worst. But not in the same ballpark as many many other from earlier GMs.

Most of us understand that he opted out of 2020 because of Covid. That was completely understandable. And he certainly didn't skip most of camp. His lack of availability during the season this year is indeed a real concern, though.

In the Cover 1 Salary Cap Spectacular, Tompsett predicted a 3 year extension so you get him under contract for all five years possible to stretch the bonus out, And that from an agent's standpoint that they would be able to announce it as a 3 year $75M extension. Which would total just barely over $100M over 5 years, putting him 3rd or 4th, around there, overall in AAV. Tompsett suggested they could take his cap hit this year from about $17.9M down to about $12.7M. So you're close to his guess. Seems very reasonable.

Folks, nobody can be that stupid. This is utter proof he's completely trolling. You can't change the past. But you can (and anyone with a tenth of a brain absolutely will) count the entire amount paid over the course divided by the number of years as the key figure, assuming of course that he plays the whole contract, as Diggs will. By your logic, a guy worth $1M a year would be perfectly happy if he'd gotten $50K in 2018, $50K in 2019, $50K in 2020, but $2M this year. That would thrill him by your logic. He wouldn't say, "Um, hey, I've got a four year contract worth $2.2M, I'm underpaid." No, he'd say, "Wow, I'm making twice my value this year. Psyched.l" Nobody is that stupid. You can see that he's not just misguided. Don't feed the trolls.

I think he's trolling. I missed it at first, but in his last sentence he suggests we replace him. Nuts. Utter bull####. No player gives a crap about what he made this year only. They're not that dumb. It's what he makes per year over the length of time he's under contract. No person who earned $10K in 2019, $10K in 2020 and $200K in 2021 will be happy if he's worth $100K per year. It's the overall value per year. Yeah, recency bias affects us. Not enough to make us that stupid. But overall he's paid quite a bit less than he's worth. He's 17th. In AAV. Which (assuming the player plays the whole contract as Diggs will) is what matters.

That's about what I'd have guessed.