Thurman#1

No particular reason to think so. Beane puts a very high value on that space-eating 1-tech. You only have to look at Star's contract to know that's true. Yeah, if picked, Davis might only get 50% of snaps, but our DL platoons to keep fresh. We only had two DLs over 50% anyway, Oliver at 57.8% and Hughes at 51.7%. I don't think that would even be a factor. IMO they'll sign Harry and consider Davis strongly if he's there. No real idea if he'd be their guy, but I think he'll be one of the group they're thinking about there. If they don't take Davis, I think you're right that they will be considering one of the 5-7th rounders to develop, although the OP mentioned Fatukasi and he's interesting, though I think OP has his price too low, unfortunately.

Yes, talent evaluation and fit. But again, when you look at the list of SB winners, the Rams ways has produced some, but far fewer than the build through the draft, supplement with free agency method. Circumstances differ, but generally you'd do better modeling the way that has succeeded more often. Which is what Beane and McDermott are doing. And they've produced a hell of a roster that way.

It really really really isn't. Not even close. Not in any way. You are kidding yourself if you think those guys wouldn't cost a ton of money, even on one year contracts. Letting go Star, Feliciano and Beasley (all possible cuts / or salary cuts) would probably be enough to bring in Gronk. Or alternatively perhaps about 60 - 70% of Suh. This team is finally going to be in good cap shape next year. You'd destroy that. Doing what the Rams did to their cap might make sense when you're dealing with a geezer like Stafford. Not when you have a young Josh Allen.

Goes both ways. Or are we now pretending that Albert Haynesworth never happened. There are plenty of FAs who don't work out either. The Rams method works. Occasionally. But all you have to do is look through the lists of all Super Bowl winners and you find that a great majority of them did not use the Rams method. They built mostly the core of their teams with draft picks, supplementing with FAs.

Of course they're not going to sit out FA. They never have and never will. Morse, Daryl Williams, Beasley, Sanders, many more. They won't be doing much this year but good cap management now will mean that as early as next year they'll start to have a cap situation that would allow the to pick up a guy or two. And frankly, I think the Bills right now were a more talented team than the Rams were. I'd bet they'd have been favored if the Bills had made the Super Bowl.

There just aren't that many Matt Staffords around and available.

If it's true, this idiot owner tried it and the coach refused him. As would any coach, I think. It's not in their interest. No. I'm losing a bit of interest but it has nothing to do with Ross and everything to do with becoming more of a Buffalo fan than an NFL fan as I get older. I watched the Super Bowl but I just didn't much care.

Yup, no way. He'd see that offer as a sign of disrespect. Here's what they said on Cover 1, at about the 2:16 mark. (They had Tompsett play Beane, as Tompsett is the cap experts - and he really does know his cap stuff inside and out - and the others presented to him what they should do with each guy.) First, Romeo, and Pro-Ant recommended keeping Hughes and there was no real disagreement. Tompsett: There's a couple that we want to go through. I think they keep Ike Boettger and Justin Zimmer, but not on a tender, they just come back as a minimum contract, probably the same thing with Jake Kumerow, is the kind of guy who would come back on a minimum deal. They will have to tender Ryan Bates, and that will cost us $2.4, so that one does count some of the cap space. ... I do think they will need to be able to keep him. So that brings us down to $13.8 without anything for Jerry Hughes. And if they keep Jerry Hughes it would be right around, to be conservative it's going to be right around that $3.8 million number. So you're probably talking, if we re-sign Harrison Phillips for about a three-year $15 to $18 million deal, we re-sign a starting cornerback for around $6M, we'll say it's Levi Wallace, we tender Ryan Bates, we keep Justin Zimmer, Ike Boettger, Terrell Dodson and we bring back Jerry Hughes on a very reasonable deal just to be there as the rotational guy. And we keep Siran Neal, I also had him as a guy we would keep at that same kind of slightly above minimum, we're probably walking in with $10M. And from then on they seem to use $10M as their best guess, so I think they're keeping Hughes. This is after they cut some guys and told some others that if they want to stay they have to take a cut, originally clearing $28M. This was a fascinating discussion. I listened to every minute and learned a lot. Not that everyone has to agree, but they put up reasonable thoughtful guesses across the board.

Could've been a TD if it had been a really good pass. It wasn't. It was an instant late, really. And here's where you see the CB who is further outside than Rodgers was and was not going to have to disengage. There's a possibility Rodgers escapes him with a juke or something, but I don't think it's a very good chance.

"And"? No. I mean, maybe one. You point out that they added Sanders, tried for Watt and inquired about Ertz. But they didn't bring in Watt or Ertz, and money was the reason. They brought in Sanders only. Cover 1 had 'em with about $10M after making space and then bringing back the guys they wanted. With the coupons still available. So if they think Hunter's health is something they can deal with, I wouldn't be surprised to see them cash in a coupon for a guy like him. But all three? Pretty unlikely, IMO. Guess we'll see. Berrios seems to me like a possibility. He wouldn't cost a lot and he can return kicks besides being a solid slot.

He has a ton left. He hasn't gotten a lot of sacks but his pressure rate is still quite high. Yes, sacks are better. Still, pressures screw up offensive plays, and Hughes gets a lot of them.

It really wasn't zero chance. A good throw could have been a touchdown. That wasn't a good throw. But everyone has bad throws time to time. Even the best. Even Josh Allen. Wins are a team stat. They are not a QB stat. They just aren't. If they were you'd be forced to believe that Matt Stafford was a far below average QB for his first 12 years and then miraculously became one of the best in the league this year.

Yup. Saw it a couple of days ago. Great stuff!! Strong disagree on Hughes. He was easily their best pass rusher. Did a fine job. I'm with the Cover 1 folks, I'd fully expect them to try to tempt him back one more year for another shot at a championship somewhere in the $4M range. And I hope they get him. He would probably be a major positive factor in the pass rush as he was this year.

Your analogy has basically nothing to do with your questions. The examples in your poll are completely irrelevant to the question you ask. Your whole first sentence is completely obscure. The whole thing is somewhere between missed the point and pointless. If I just ignore whatever your point is early on and just look at the question ... for a Bills fan it has to be about Super Bowls. If you look at the last ten years, the Eagles. If you look at the last twenty years, the Steelers. Of course. But that's got nothing to do with how good the teams were and for how long. It's purely about Super Bowl wins.

Really? Seriously? Good lord, this is pretty dumb stuff. #1 - It's the defense's problem, when the opponent scored 10 points and managed 230 total yards? That's pretty far out into Stupidville. #2 - The defense wasn't great, but the offense was worse. #3 and #4 - When Mahomes is playing like that, nobody can stop him. You can maybe slow him down a bit and you can outscore him. He had an awful game against Cincy, lucky for them. If he'd played that bad against us, we would have made it a laugher. The offense was sensational this year but just not good enough last year. And leaving out all the games that don't support your point is just pure bush league.

Yeah, if they bring him back it would have to be for much less. Best of luck to him if he does retire.

Yup, every single thing. I mean, he managed to throw in grammar problems, capitalization, spacing, typos ... I think you're right, it's really everything.

That's a lesson that teams with young dominant quarterbacks should in no way learn. Teams with Matt Stafford, maybe. Teams with Josh Allen, no.

The Vikings are $14M under the cap for 2022. The Bills are $1.3M under the cap. We are in a bit better shape, but not a lot. And Hunter would cost us $19.5M this year. Yes, it's possible, and yes they could kick cans down the road, but it would start us towards being in consistent cap problems. And Beane doesn't want to do that. Which is going to be a good thing for a lot of years. I don't see it, myself, though again it's certainly not impossible. But for a guy who's played seven games in two seasons I'm guessing it's too big of a gamble.

Or He wants to spend more time with his family. or At least he feels that way right now and is seriously considering it.

They're looking for a guy who can stop the run and be a space eater. Jordan Phillips is not that guy. Not even that type of guy. There aren't a lot of good space eaters around. Or even alive. Lots of decent 1-techs? Yeah, maybe. But that's not the same thing.

Yeah, and there's teams that don't keep first rounders and also don't win a Super Bowl. Bobby Beathard in San Diego as just one example. Not having first rounders makes it harder, especially in your future. But it doesn't make winning a Super Bowl impossible. 31/32 teams don't win, each year. Thing to do isn't look at the losers. That doesn't tell you much because there are too many of them and they lose in so many different ways. Thing to do is look at the winners. Few SB winners have consistently traded away 1sts. There are a few. But generally you want to follow the way that has produced more SB winners. Having said that, at the end of a window it can occasionally make sense. And it can reasonably be argued that having Stafford at QB puts them at the end of a window.

I don't know how they do it with those hours. It sounds like a fascinating job, but even if I were good enough to do it, I wouldn't. I already spend too much time at work, and I spend less than they do. My family's more important.

Even though you're agreeing with me, I think you overstated the case a bit. I don't think our run defense is a huge liability now. But they did have a couple of awful games against the run and a couple more bad ones. And ramping up the pressure, they are getting old or they're FAs. Horrible Harry is an FA. I'd guess he's coming back, but it's not a certainty. Star has been a good player through most of his tenure, but he's getting old and he simply wasn't the same player after Covid. Will he be what he was? Can they overlook his availability issues? They've got to be building for the future through the draft. That's the way to use the draft and Beane is well aware of it. If they like this guy and think he's a fit, he'd make a good choice if he's there. Too early to be sure whether or not he's likely to be there. Could be there, could be gone. BPA at a position of need. Space eater is a position of need. But so are WR, IOL, CB and pass rusher. But IMO if he's there and they think he's a fit, he'll be a real consideration.

Sorry, man, that doesn't make sense on the face of it. Pretty much every team has picked a DT in the first round. Plenty of those picks worked out extremely well. The most recent world champions picked Vita Vea with their first rounder a few years back and are still thrilled they did so. Oliver, Aaron Donald. Plenty of others.