Thurman#1

I do, myself. I think limiting his snaps as an older dude is something he'd love. Not to mention that if they did bring him in they'd absolutely put a bunch of 12 formation plays in. Throwing a dangerous two-TE package in on top of everything else would force defenses to spend yet more prep time on that. Little sleep that week for opposing DCs. To me it would depend on compensation. They may well just be kicking tires, but I'm sure a creative OC would rub his hands together in glee with both Knox and Gronk on the field sometimes.

I completely lost track of him after the draft. Cards articles read just now say he's had problems getting off the line against press. Makes too many moves, takes too much time. Also say he's a body catcher, which in a guy his size even further reduces his catch radius. Also say it may be that their lack of an OL forces Murray to start dodging rather than looking too early in the play and this may be having efffects on him never finding Isabella in scramble drills. They also wonder whether playing him exclusively in the slot when he only played outside in college may be a mistake. They also want to point out that Edelman sucked for his first four pro years while he learned behind Welker and such. They were aware that that was a stretch, and it really really is. Edelman played QB at college. Most guys who suck in their first three or four years in the pros don't turn it around. It's not impossible. There really are a few who manage it, but they're few. I liked him that draft. Wouldn't give much now, though. I'd love to give him a try, but I'd set a low ceiling on possible trade compensation. In the article in the OP they suggested that even a swap in one round might be enough. But with the Cards at #23 and the Bills at #25, that obviously wouldn't work.

Or, you're wrong, and Beane's right. I know that possibility might not have occurred to you. But it really has to most of the rest of the world. And we're a pretty damn good football team for one that according to you keeps missing on crucial draft picks. We have one of the absolute best rosters ine league, and about 13 of our starters (depending who you want to call the starters on our OL and DL) were drafted by this regime. And Diggs wasn't a bad use of a draft pick either and on top of those 13. So, nonsense. They haven't been perfect, but they've been quite good.

Not true at all. Every player in the NFL is effective or less so based on the guys and the system around him. As they point out on the podcast above, Lavonte David has always been very good, but how many people were saying Lavonte David was an absolute stud until they got Vita Vea, Pierre-Paul, Suh, and McLendon in front of and around him? Same with Ray Lewis. Started out and quickly looked like a hall of famer. Then Siragusa left and it was widespread that Lewis had regressed and simply wasn't the same guy anymore, that he was still good but that he'd never be great again. Who'd ever have guessed that a couple of years later they draft Haloti Ngata and instantaneously Lewis was awesome again? Well, anyone paying much attention figured that there was a good chance of it. And it happened. I mean, I guess you can argue Ray Lewis wasn't very good to begin with if you want to. Not many will listen, though. Lewis might be the best example but there are a million more.

If you want to argue that he's not as good as many think, or that he's under-performing, I won't spend a lot of time arguing, though I won't disagree. But we know that the last time they played Baltimore that they felt that they couldn't succeed with Edmunds doing what he does, that their main objective was to try to nullify Edmunds. Damond Talbot made that very clear on his interview with the Air Raid Hour here: It's at about the 29 minute mark. "The Ravens game plan against the Bills is try to get Tremaine Edmunds out of the play. Try to get him, by running motions try to move him out of position. Their entire game plan was to get rid of Tremaine Edmunds." So, when you say that he's not a guy opposing teams have to account for, he very much is.

I wouldn't. He's a great player. But he will cost $7M+ on the cap and more going onwards. I wouldn't spend that much on an RB, and McDermott isn't likely to either. Excellent player, when healthy, though. And it's not that we shouldn't spend that $7M. It's that we should spend it better, filling holes rather than improving strengths. People should note that the Giants drafted him and didn't win many games and they're now strongly thinking of getting rid of him at the end of his rookie contract if they can, while run by a new GM using Bills-like methods of team-building. There's a reason that's happening.

Some other guys have their salary cap hits go up some years. Josh Allen cost us $10.2M last year. He'll cost us $16.3M this year and $39.3M the year after. There's a ton of that kind of thing. Diggs' cap hit goes up from $6.3 to $17.9M this year. Which is why they may well re-do his contract giving him some kind of extension. As recommended above, you should really learn to use either the spotrac website or the overthgcap website. You can just google Buffalo Bills Spotrac. And you're golden. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/ You can see each player's contract values through it's whole existence, the team's cap for several years back and forward, and you can even play GM using the "Manage Roster" function, cutting guys and seeing how the cap space changes. There's a learning curve. You have to figure out how signing bonuses are different from roster and option bonuses (each figure is given separately), you have to lear dead cap, etc. Took me a short time to learn most of it. But then realized I'd been wrong about one thing and it took me years to realize I was wrong, with much ridicule and help from folks on here. And I deserved the ridicule. That took like two years. But if you're going to be a serious fan, these days you've got to work on slowly picking it up. I think so anyway. Also worth understanding that when people on this thread talk about saving $20 or $30M, that will partially just be used to pay for re-signing guys whose contracts ran out at the end of the year but will be re-signed, such as Horrible Harry, McKenzie, a backup QB to replace Trubisky, Levi Wallace, etc. Or guys to replace them if they go, but in case they go, there's no way to guess how much the new guys would cost. Cover1 estimates they'll have around $10M left after all adjustments and bringing back all their guys, with the ability to generate around $20M more by pushing money down into later years. But Beane does some of that but doesn't like to do it excessively. Again, take a look at spotrac and overthecap.

Yeah, they could get by with the two of them getting what they want. Cut five or ten of their other highest-cap number guys. Then here are some suggestions: Cody Ford at guard. TJ Yeldon at RB. Vlad Ducasse, Jordan Mills. They can put a roster together. They oughta be great cuz they have Aaron Rodgers. That's maybe a fair market value for him, but it would be force a rebuild sooner and not later. They'd be crippling the beginning of the Jordan Love era. Not that Rodgers cares. He's all about Rodgers.

They did, that's fair. But they also benefitted from a bad game by Mahomes. If he'd played that badly against us, we'd have wiped the floor with them. Teams have dropped a lot of players out before against Mahomes and he's handled it better. He didn't this time.

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.