Thurman#1

"Signing bonus: Money earned by a player for signing his contract. Typically paid out within the first 12-18 months. Prorated against the salary cap for the life of the contract (five-season maximum). This is how the Cowboys could afford to give Dak Prescott a $66 million signing bonus this offseason. For cap purposes, Prescott's signing bonus counts for $13.2 million against the Cowboys' salary cap for each of the next five seasons (four-year contract plus 2025, a void year)." https://www.nfl.com/news/2021-nfl-free-agency-glossary-all-the-terms-you-need-to-know It can't be counted against the cap till it's actually paid out, but can then be prorated for five years after that.

This is true. Not all of them manage, but if you do, it's ideal. And if you get the space, you might easily never use it, and it gets rolled over to next year. Either way, no problem.

That's really a good point, Shaw. Hadn't thought of it that way, but now that you say that, I think you're right on target. There just aren't the usual number of niggling details and problems and worries.

Fair enough that they've had problems with DL so far. But it's ridiculous to say that it's been a failure when they had one of the three or four best Ds in football in 2019 and were close to that in 2018. Star has been a success. Phillips looked like one until the injury. And while Murphy just didn't seem able to be what they'd hoped in terms of the pass rush at all, the others seem to have been greatly affected by the loss of Star last year, and its knock-on effects. It meant that guys were put into positions they were not supposed to be in, particularly Jefferson. I'm a lot less worried about run defense than pass defense. When Star has been on the field, the run D has been pretty decent. Pass rush has consistently been not so much a weakness as just not a strength except when sacks have been schemed up. The rookies, and Epenesa's development, do look like they may have a real effect there, but it's really too early to say after one padded practice. Agreed it's not a one-year turnaround, though, and that hopefully we see it fully pay off this year. My sister lives in Fort Collins so I get up there around once a year or so. Really nice little town. Last time (two years ago, pre-COVID) we saw that insane costumed bike race, and we always get up to the reservoir and rent a boat. Awesome. And I don't know the name of the restaurant, but every time we rent a boat, my brother-in-law goes and buys a giant load of barbecue somewhere, and oh, my God, is that good barbecue.

True, and maybe it's also true that they are saying to themselves, "Did I really do that? Jump onto a pile with a guy with a red jersey under it? What the hell is wrong with me? I deserve this and so do we all. Jeez, that was stupid." I'm willing to believe that Judge isn't a good coach, but there's too little evidence to say that so far, IMO.

As a guy who pays for both of those, I'd disagree. Both are a bargain.

Brady? Yes. He worked every single year with a guy on his throwing fundamentals. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/22/tom-house-baseball-football-tom-brady The same guy, Tom House, also worked with Brees, and was extensively responsible for helping him recover from his devastating injury. https://www.si.com/nfl/video/2016/08/02/meet-man-who-makes-your-favorite-qb-better Cutcliffe is most famous for helping Peyton learn to deal with his shoulder injury, but he was his coach at Tennessee and Peyton had visited him before the injury. https://balldurham.com/2020/08/19/duke-football-david-cutcliffe-offers-2023-top-qb-prospect-arch-manning/ And Peyton was famous right from college for working relentlessly on his mechanics, all the time, and every year.

He's a good player. It's simply a matter of slots. We'll have to cut some good players this year.

Funny thing is, most of the people on here have been saying this for years, with no sarcasm. I've been fighting this battle for decades, and most folk on the boards would tell me it was impossible. Only after we got a guy who clearly needed to improve in that area did many make the sudden realization that it actually might be possible after all.

LOL to anyone who thinks they know what's going to happen this early. And no, it's really not pretty safe at all. Again, way way too early.

Equating yourself to Schrute on this issue? NIce. You've indeed missed the point on it regularly. Getting Lotulelei back does indeed appear to be important.

You absolutely could be right. And a QB's development greatly depends on his environment. Darnold was delayed, sidetracked and probably hurt by the last group there. But I think Wilson could be a good one. Yup. Totally agree here. It was only a day or two, but not a good look.

Allen made Diggs. Diggs certainly helped Allen out a ton, though.

Agreed, it does matter. IMO most of the problem with the run game was in the line play, though. Beane has said the same thing. And I also thought they were effective last year. Far from great, but effective. 4.4 and 4.3 YPC are pretty damn solid, especially when their distance before contact was one of the lowest in the league. I think we're maybe getting pretty close here. See you around the boards.

Yeah, the Bills let people do that, encourage it, I believe. Who knows about the Giants, though.

You're missing the point. Two guys running for a total of 1500 is just as "dangerous" whether both run for 750 or one runs for 1000 and the other for 500. It doesn't matter. There's absolutely zero variation in "fear" depending on whether a guy reaches 1000 or not. Teams fear based on effectiveness, and you can be very effective with or without reaching some totally irrelevant milestone that will be based mostly on carries anyway. Yes, good running makes Allen's job easier. No, not having someone reach your irrelevant milestone doesn't mean the running isn't good. Ah, I see. Hadn't noticed that, and it does make a difference. But IMO even back them it wasn't a glaring need.

Not necessarily. A better player would improve the team. Running is only part of the job description. The Bills clearly put a very high value on pass blocking, and for obvious and good reason. And yeah, getting a better player at any position would be a good thing. But our RBs are already good, as with most positions on this team, basically. It's absolutely NOT a glaring need, as the thread headline says it is.

Welcome to her. Looking forward to her writing.

This. Thank you.

Um, no, it was less meaningful back then because it was more common. Bell is not a good example. As Allen2Diggs says, Wyatt Teller is a far better example. I can't remember his name right now but another was a linebacker from maybe the '80s or '90s who didn't fit the scheme and had a long career elsewhere. They're few and far between, really.

No. The problem was the size of that defense through the middle. They were terrific at rushing the QB, as they had to be to get out of a conference that featured Dan Marino. But we had three DLs, and they weighed 265, a 274 pound nose tackle, and Hansen at 278. That's tiny. And unfortunately we had the bad luck to face four NFC East opponents in a row in the SB. And that conference was built around power running behind big physical OLs. The Cowboys OL had three guys over 300 at the time. The Bills simply couldn't stand up to that level of power and strength. And running so much kept Kelly off the field. Horrible, horrible matchups. Much like last year's Bills D without Lotulelei, we were very athletic but didn't have a lot of sand in the pants. A power running game was our kryptonite, and we faced four teams in a row that were built around that. If we'd been as lucky as Peyton Manning's Colts, to face a team one year that they matched up well against, thing would probably look quite different. But we didn't. The NFC East was perfectly set up to beat that team, unfortunately. Marv wasn't a game day genius, but the Bills program was set up terrifically. To get out of the AFC East you had to beat Marino consistently, and that's how we were built.

Disagree. Maybe the first. But in all four the major problem was simply that the D was built to stop the pass and we were unlucky enough to run into four opponents in a row with huge offensive lines and power run games. All four were awful matchups for us. Disagree. Know what happens with bad big game coaches? They don't make Super Bowls, much less four in a row. Marv was a damn good coach.

Please. They didn't get dominated by Indy. They played pretty well, held them to 24 points, well below their scoring average, and won the game by stopping them on their last drive. The Colts got the ball left with 2:30 left needing only a field goal to tie, and the Bills D absolutely strangled them. They put up a big turnover on the INT against the Rams, and stopped them on a crucial 4th down in the 3rd quarter, and both of those led to Buffalo TDs. And against Tennessee, the offense's three turnovers was a huge part of that awful showing. They also did OK against the Chiefs the first time around. And again, this is NOT the defense that played badly early in the year. At that point they were suffering from injuries and the lack of an off-season to allow them to figure out a way to get by without Star. They got much better late in the year with Milano back and Edmunds healthy and Oliver not having to play 1-tech anymore. They weren't as good as they had been the past two years, but the last half of the year they were pretty solid.

You're completely ignoring my point, most likely because it just makes sense. You say that the Pats did well, so it must be scheme. I say, yeah, they did pretty well, but that doesn't mean it's scheme, there are other things it could be. Then you say, no, they did quite well, so it must be scheme. Sorry, dude, ignore the argument or not, there are plenty of reasons besides scheme that some teams do well against certain others. Matchups being the very very common one, but there are plenty of others. There is no particular reason to think this is scheme beyond the fact that you simply appear to want to think so. In KC's case, they are a team that consistently has games where they often appear to be sleep-walking through things until they get in trouble and wake up and do what they have to do. Against the Pats the past two years, they simply didn't need to wake up. You're talking about the 2018 game when you say the Chiefs held them down pretty well except for big plays? Please. That's how it works with the Chiefs. They get a few big plays nearly every week. That's part of the reason they are good. You can't take away their big plays and argue that the rest of the way they weren't special, not unless you're willing to point out the obvious, that if you take away their big plays, their offense often doesn't look that good. That's not because they're not good. It's because they're an offense built to have big plays, and taking the big plays out is missing the point and distorting reality for no reason. And yeah, they got a long return, but again, even if you disregard that, they put up a ton of yards with just the offense and scored 33 even if you take away that TD, which you shouldn't. That was a very good game for KC's offense, with Mahomes seeing his first year of action.

The whole "vaccinated people can spread it too," thing is a ridiculous argument. Yeah, they can spread it too, but unlike the unvaccinated, they have done the single best thing they can do to prevent themselves from spreading it. The unvaccinated have not. Yeah, the vaccinated can spread it, but they do so at much lower rates. They have done everything that can reasonably be done. So of course they can spread it without penalty, since they've done something making spreading it much more difficult. The unvaccinated have gone out of their way to avoid doing their best to prevent spreading it. So of course it's mroe reasonable for them to expect to get penalized. And yeah, I understand why some people would be frustrated with the NFLPA. Same reason my kid gets frustrated with me when I don't let her eat ice cream before dinner. She wants to do what she wants when she wants, and she wants to do it without consequences. Consequences are frustrating. If your argument is that working in a quasi-monopoly is so very tough, I would point you towards the salaries they earn when in that industry. No, they won't be able to earn the same money elsewhere but most of them can make a perfectly fine living elsewhere, as football coaches, insurance salesmen, whatever. Nobody's stopping them from earning a living. Actions have consequences.