Thurman#1

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.

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.