Thurman#1

If they're not planning on renewing White, this isn't the year to get his replacement. They would let White go in 2026, which would be the fifth year for the new guy, meaning we'd already be paying him a lot of money, with more soon to come. If we did decide to let White go (which would be nuts ... it's way too early to decide that ... what would make sense would be to decide that we might at that point let him go depending on how things stand, which isn't much of a decision) the year to draft a 1st rounder would be 2023 or 2024. That way you at least get a year or two not paying too much at CB. If we draft a CB in the first this year the season five years from now will be a distant consideration. I also trust Beane and agree that we don't know. You never really do in the draft, though plenty of people might guess right, especially on one guy.

Yup, liked the article, and it totally makes sense.

There'll be a rotation as long as McDermott is here. As usual, some guys will get a few more snaps, some a few less. IMO at Miller's age they'll sit him a lot during the regular season.

IMO Crowder would be very hard to beat out in the slot. But yeah, it's a one-year contract. And money will again be tight next year.

Edmunds is good, Epenesa and Basham might easily be good, it's too early to know. Yup, Ford and Jones were bad picks. No reason to think this record is bad. In a few years we'll know more, but right now we don't. Yeah, I'd assumed Gaine, but you're right, it's not a sure thing.

I hope you're right. But odds are pretty good that if he's in his prime (a reasonable thought), he's nearing the end of it. He'll be 30 in a few days. On average, centers begin to decline around 31 or 32 and tend to fall off faster following their 32 year old season. https://socalledfantasyexperts.com/aging-curve-nfl-offensive-players-every-single-position/ I like Morse, and bringing in a replacement certainly isn't an immediate necessity, bringing in a flexible C/G type would make a lot of sense this year.

Morse has been very good as center. We don't need an upgrade. We do need to prepare for a future without him as he grows older The idea that running back sucks is flat-out ridiculous. Singletary for his career has averaged 4.7 YPC, which is really good, and was playing very well once the OL came together last year. TE is your second? Wow. Not going to spend a lot of time on the specifics then. You're indeed an outlier alright.

Please. The guy's had a sensational career.

Not even slightly surprised they kicked the tires. It's smart. But in their salary cap position, he was never going to accept what we could give him. Von Miller was our big move this year, and it's a huge one. Perhaps if they hadn't taken Miller they might well have gone hard after Gilmore.

Yeah, about to say that. Four is NOT a lot, but it's not two. 68, 69 (both as the Jets, not the Titans or Oilers), 98 and 02. That 02 team looked like it might be the first of many till Pennington had those shoulder injuries.

That being sure Beane was working with McDermott while he was actually still in Carolina with no way to know McDermott might be able to bring him in, and knowing that he'd be committing a jailable offense by sharing his corporation's own information thing? Don't worry about it. Lots of otherwise intelligent people are convinced of nutty things. It's part of being human. But they actually have done quite well since 2018, quite well. Not incredibly, but consistently solid with few outright mistakes and a lot of useful guys picked right into the later rounds. Too early to judge a lot of it yet, but an awful lot of starters on one of the league's best teams have been acquired in those drafts.

Hard to argue. They've been brilliant. Anyone putting them outside the top three or so is kidding himself. They've been consistently smart. Consistently using best practices. We're incredibly lucky to have them.

A pretty fair amount. Not a lot of big names, but a fair amount. And why are you limiting it to after Week 9. There are 17 weeks to the season when we might have injuries or see opportunities. And it's not like unspent money disappears. If you have some around, that doesn't mean you have to spend it. Fair enough that good players don't just fall from the heavens after week 9. There generally aren't that many around after June or July for that matter. A few final cuts from other teams, maybe but not a lot. But there are some who could fill needs that come up.

No rush. No need to do anything but if we do there are probably still around 5 or 6 Xavier Rhodes-type $4 - $5M vet CBs around. That's my best guess if they do anything.

Both great points, Doc. But I do think it's an interesting question.

When I saw this, I thought it was a great question. Comes from Joe Marino here: It's at around 1:11:36. He points out that in the 2015 season, the Panthers went 15-1 and lost the Super Bowl, and then in the offseason they declined to re-sign Josh Norman, and Peanut Tillman retired, their two starting CBs. In response, they started two rookie draft picks, their 2nd (James Bradberry) and 3rd (Daryl Worley) rounders. Joe doesn't mention the results, which were not very good, but I'm sure he's aware of it. McDermott and Beane are too. And while the replacement CBs sure did not have a good year, they were far from the only reason this team got a lot worse the next year. Interestingly, when I went back to quickly look at that team, I found that the 2016 Panthers went 2-6 in one-score games. That sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? And the next year they went 11-5. To me, it raises some interesting questions. We're in a better spot than they were, with Tre White coming back. Would they not bring in a mid-level FA CB, a Haven or Rhodes or that type? Would they be comfortable starting one rookie, a 2nd rounder maybe and having a 3rd rounder keep the seat warm for a few weeks for Tre if he's not read? Or the 2nd rounder and Dane Jackson till Tre gets back? They did a mock at the same link with Olave and Parham in the first two rounds, without this thought in mind, just doing their best picks.

Eliminate? Nah. Think the Colts might use the 5th year option on Quenton Nelson? The Steelers on Minkah Fitzpatrick? The fifth year option is only one factor to be used on who you pick in the first. A much more important factor is who is the best player available at a position of need at the spot. It certainly has an impact. It is a factor. But not nearly enough of a factor to eliminate guys because of the position they play. Heh heh heh.

Somewhere recently I saw a story titled something like, "If you can't the guy you want early, how about this guy instead." It listed about fifteen pairs of guys who were the same type of players, and Hill and Pitre were one of the pairs. Pitre is a bit of a poor man's Hill. You could be right about Booth.

I've heard a lot of Bills-centric pundits talk about this guy for the Bills. Sounds interesting.

Wanna see something hilarious? "His own numbers flaunt his conclusion." Now that's hilarious. It's a terrific article, one of many there that make me happy I pay for The Athletic.

Yeah, we get it. You don't like him. The people who coach him do. He calls the plays well in an extremely complicated system, he has terrific range, he is most of the reason teams just don't throw to the middle much at all, and that causes the QB to have to go to the next read, giving the rushers a better chance. You know all this. Correct, Beane's not perfect. But in this case, his opinion of a guy who's been there four years, when Beane has access to not just the film but to the locker room, the practice fields, the assignments on each play and the coaches grades, he's far far more likely to be right than people on the internet. It's also about the fact that $17 million a year is pure and utter guesswork. That's probably somewhere close to what he could get if he goes elsewhere but plenty of Bills on this team have given a team discount. And yet another factor you're not addressing is the opportunity cost of drafting Lloyd. That would mean we couldn't draft someone there at positions where we have a real and immediate need, such as WR, CB, IOL. If it is $17 mill he demands, I'm with you. In that case let him go. Bringing in Von Miller changed their cap calculus. They haven't really had to let anyone go that they desperately wanted to keep since they straightened out the cap. I remember Beane was rueing have to let Robert Woods go, but since then not so much. That may change now. They have significantly fewer contracts they can squeeze some cap cash out of then they have since they straightened out the cap. I think Miller will be worth it, but there's a downside.

You certainly could be right. My guess was that they would extend him when they feel the time was right, without feeling any particular hurry, depending on how much he was asking. And that the odds dropped a bit after the cap impact from bringing in Von Miller and putting ourselves on shakier ground there. I don't think, personally, that it makes sense that they were circumspect early and then changed things around by being much stronger. If they'd wanted to be circumspect, they'd have left things as they were. Looked to me like both are quite positive with certainly the second being more powerfully so.

Oh, please. We know it because they've specifically gone out of their way to say it. Your argument here is deeply off the mark. When Beane doesn't want to say something good, he and McDermott have both shown a mastery of Crash Davis speak where they say nice things that mean nothing. They go immediately from commenting on the player to commenting on the room. Asked about an a lineman they'll say, "Well, we really like the OL room. Of course, you need improvement everywhere but overall we're quite happy with things in that room." And they've said plenty of times things that were not complimentary at all about the players. No, they wouldn't ever say, "He sucks and we have no respect for him," of course. But remember when they said this, ""It was never where the opposing defense was like, ‘Man we’ve really got to stop their tight ends from going off,' " Beane said. They have zero problems indicating unhappiness. Your argument, that they can't say bad things, is what always comes up when somebody disagrees with something Beane or McDermott says. They have a history of being willing to say things that aren't all that nice sometimes, and of throwing out the sports cliches that mean nothing. "Player X, we'd go to war with him. I want him beside me in an alley fight. I want him in my foxhole. He gives 110% every day. He's really a football player." When you see those, you know they're not willing to give specifics. They've given specifics over and over again with Edmunds, most recently that he's definitely a core building block moving forwards.

Beane said, "Yeah, we definitely do consider him a core building block moving forward." "Definitely." "Core building block." As for the season-ending PC, I don't see any reason to think it was faint praise. Here's what the News said Beane said: "'I thought Tremaine did a really good job again,' the GM said at his end-of-season news conference. 'His leadership, Tremaine is a quieter guy, probably if you compare him and Josh (Allen), they're both the quarterbacks of their side of the ball. Tremaine is naturally quieter, more lead by example. But when he speaks, guys do listen. “I think, year by year, he's more comfortable being that guy, being that alpha, even though maybe it's not innately natural to him. Tremaine has done some really good things. I thought his physicality improved this year … getting off blocks, I thought all that improved. There's still things that he wants to get better at and we think going into next year, he's a young player still, but going into year five, we think he'll be even better.” Fair enough to say he's not giving a completely positive take there, but it's not weak either. If we do draft Devin Lloyd, it'll be very very clear what they think. I don't think they want to do that. My guess would be an LB in Round 3 - 5, something like that, hoping to replace Klein and maybe hope he turns out to be good enough to do more.

That's not the problem. He's better than many fans think he is. The Bills love him, and that's the important thing. He does a ton more than most fans know, and the Bills have said this over and over. Beane says he's absolutely a building block going forward. You folks don't want to hear that, but that's Beane, not some guy on the internet. You're right that it could be his last season with us. Certainly could be. But we thought that about Milano too, and look what happened. Could he go? Sure. Especially if he insists on getting market value. Milano didn't. Tremaine might, but he might not. We'll see. And no, Poyer and Hyde can't call the defense. The idea's ridiculous. Especially in hostile stadiums nobody's going to hear them, they're too far back. Last thing you want to do is change their positioning. That's part of what makes them special is that they position themselves so as to make the D unpredictable. You need the MLB to do it.