Thurman#1

You say, "It's obviously scheme," but I don't think that's clear at all. There are many other things it could be. Just one obvious example is that it could be matchups. It could also be that - since KC beat them the last two years - that KC feels just fine with how they do against that D as long as the Pats offense isn't doing anything. And in 2018, a championship year for the Pats, the Chiefs scored 40 points and put up 446 yards of offense, though the Pats scored even more, winning 43 - 40.

Please. Let the owners do the same? They already can, every year, and every day. It's called cutting a player and it's an option for them every day. I understand not wanting to hear this nonsense all the time, but the idea that the players are abusing those poor owners by asking for trades or holding out is just nonsense. But more, there's a way out of your situation and it's the easiest thing in the world. Just unplug. Don't read the sports pages, don't follow the sports news. Don't come here. Just watch the games. Easiest thing in the world.

Yes, Hap, exactly right on the private businesses point as well. This is the entirety of the first amendment, guaranteeing free speech: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." And while it is Congress only that is specifically mentioned, it has been taken to guarantee that government may not abridge your right to free speech in those ways. Until such time as the Buffalo Bills become a governmental organization, the Bills, and businesses generally, are permitted to abridge that right. Otherwise, businesses wouldn't be allowed to fire guys who publicly announced secret business strategies, tweeted the combination to the office safe, or called a press conference to announce that anyone who didn't sell every share of stock they owned was flat out nuts.

Sorry, your spin there is so violent, the centrifugal force is warping gravity. It is in no way his health decisions that are causing problems for the team. Whether he takes supplements, whether he is sleeping eight or nine hours a day, how healthy he's eating and how many sports massages he's receiving, that ain't the problem. It's turning things into a public issue. It's the willingness to risk the health of others, the willingness to cause his team competitive disadvantages based on NFL rules, and probably the willingness to make his response very difficult to predict, something teams don't like. IMO he's not going to get cut unless he's causing consistent controversy and distraction. That could happen, though my guess is it won't. But he also might end up retiring. That could happen and there doesn't appear to be any way to tell whether the odds on that are low or high. It's just up to Beasley and how he feels. And if that decision drags on too long, it could cause the kind of distraction and controversy that would irritate this FO.

Enough with the free speech nonsense. Nobody is having a problem with the fact that he's exercising his right to free speech. That's not the problem. It's what he's saying. It's the effects what he's saying might have on the team, on his competitive status. It's perfectly possible for someone to exercise his right of free speech to make an ass of himself. In fact, that's generally how it's done. This isn't a free speech issue, it really isn't. I can call my boss some unprintable names, and it won't be the fact that I used my free speech that will get me fired. It will be how I used it. Free speech doesn't protect me from getting canned for saying something that will have negative results and consequences for my company. The freedom of your speech does NOT imply that you are guaranteed a lack of consequences for what you say.

Both times the team was weaseling just as hard as the QB.

Well, sure, every Pro Bowl selection, every ranking of any type, is at least in part a result of such factors. Tremaine's injured shoulder, his decision to play through it because even injured they didn't have anyone who could play as well healthy as Tremaine injured, Star's opting out, etc. were some more factors affecting how he ranked, as did the ones you mentioned. And I guess we'll have to disagree about the NFC. You say that there are six better guys over there as if it's a fact, and it's not, it's your opinion. I think there are three or four guys over there who are simply playing better than Tremaine (nearly all older than him, by the way), but after that it gets very foggy. After his shoulder got healthy again, he looked like he was playing at much the same level last year as he'd been in 2019, but the defensive scheme wasn't working around him nearly as well as it had been when Star had been shielding him on early downs and Milano and he were both healthy and playing extremely well off each other, and the inability to replace Shaq Lawson last year hurt more than most seem to see. I disagree with your opinion about Devin Bush as well. He's a really good young player, improving and looks to be a really promising kid. Without question the healthy Bush played better than the injured Edmunds, but once Edmunds was healthy, I don't think it would've been a shoo-in by any means. And Bush was in a much better situation on that Steelers D than Edwards. And it's worth remembering that I was responding to the wacky assertions that "No Bills fan thinks he deserved a ProBowl nod last year," and that "the tape shows he played poorly last year."

Way. Both are controlled through 2022. And in 2023 we have at present $100M in remaining cap space according to Spotrac. They could certainly keep both if that's what they decide to do, which seems likely though not definite at this point.

No, you're leaving out an awful lot there about Tyrod's Pro Bowl game. Brady and Roethlisberger were voted in and declined. Dalton was the first alternate and he couldn't play. Philip Rivers said no thanks. Luck was injured and ineligible. Alex Smith was rumored to have been asked under the table to play but refused. And then there were the NFC guys. That group of Pro Bowl QBs was the weakest in history: Eli Manning (in a year when his QB rating was 86.0, a year when he tied for 4th-highest in INTS with 16, one per game) Derek Carr, Tyrod, Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and Teddy Bridgewater. Probably one of the top 6 or 7 QBs that year, in Russ Wilson. Wretched. Right, none, except most. That Pro Bowl wasn't controversial except in your small group of Bills fans watchers. Again, nonsense. Yes, it's about control of the player. But if he was the player you absurdly claim he is, nobody would be interested in controlling him. He's played well enough to make the Pro Bowl, to make nearly every list of top ten LBs out there. And no, it doesn't mean I didn't watch the games, it means that I, like nearly all of the football-watching world, disagree with you and your ridiculous biases.

Shaw, it's still too early to know about Oliver. Plenty of guys who became great had not showed much by the end of their 2nd year. Chris Doleman ended up with 150.5 sacks, including 21 in one year and by the end of his 2nd year he'd managed 3.5. Strahan is another guy who took a while to get going. Jim Marshall. Fletcher Cox at the end of two years was still promising. Cameron Heyward is another. Chris Jones' first two years looked an awful lot like Oliver's. Especially at DT, it takes a while for some guys.

I think you have a fair comparison here. Both were built to stop the pass first. But that older D was really really small through the middle. They had no Star Lotulelei. Jeff Wright played on the nose for them ... at 274 pounds. Even for the time, that was small for any DT, and outright tiny for a 3-4 nose tackle. Wright was a penetrator more than a space eater.

Dude, awesome find. Thanks for posting it.

The quickest Bruce ever tried to use leverage to get a new contract was after two years of a three year contract. (He got a new contract in '97 when he'd signed a three-year deal in '95.) That is hardly "right after" his new contract. And that three-year deal was three years for $8.3 M. Not $8.3 M per year, but $8.3 over three years. Even at the time he was worth more. Agreed that he was the best Bills player ever. There are two or thee others in the conversation, but I think he was the best.

It wasn't "all because of how they played the Chiefs offense from a scheme standpoint." That surely was a factor, but so was the fact that they did a good job rushing the passer, that Mahomes had a bad game, that Watkins fumbled a ball away in the red zone ... The Chiefs didn't appear to have much of a sense of urgency and were noticeably off in this game that was delayed by a COVID outbreak. When they needed points near the end, they got them, and they had no reason to fear that the Pats were going to score enough to win. The Chiefs were ahead the whole game, though the Pats kept it close.

The Buffalo Bisons would beg to disagree.

You think the Browns are tier one? Interesting. I hadn't really followed them this offseason. Wow. Looks like an interesting season this year. Glorious to be real players in the playoff picture in Buffalo. Not a pro hoops fan at all, but this has been a fantastic story.

Oh, nonsense. It is useful having you here spewing this stuff. It shows how how nutty some people get on Tremaine. The tape doesn't "show he played poorly last year." That's utter nonsense. The Bills were almost universally expected to exercise his fifth-year option for around $12.7M. The reason this expectation was so very widespread was simply that the tape shows just the opposite of that. It shows a guy who is playing very well. Not elite. But playing very well after the injury stopped holding him back so much the first seven weeks or so. It's just as widespread an opinion (again, simply because it's sensible) that with the way he's played so far, in no way does he deserve the kind of contract discussed in the OP. He'd need to be a top three or four LB to deserve that kind of money, and he's not there yet, nor is it sure that he ever will get there.

Sorry. You're right, it doesn't read so clear. My fault. Bad writing.

Not really worth saying, IMO, about their teams being bad. Both guys are indeed on teams that finished way below .500. Signing those guys to those contracts are probably somewhere around the 30th most relevant reasons for those teams being bad. And I disagree those guys are overpaid. I mean, yeah, in the sense that most good players signing second contracts are overpaid by the standards of the year that contract was agreed on, sure. Most good players sign contracts that rank them higher in terms of money than their level of play would indicate. Equally, though, in the later years they're often bargains as the cap continues to rise. That's what both of these guys look like. Cunningham is going into his fifth year, he's visibly improving, and his contract was for $14.5M per year. A year or two down the line and this contract will probably put him in the 20s or 30s for LBs. It's a very reasonable 2nd contract for a very good player. At $10.75M/yr., Schobert is the 24th highest. Both pretty reasonable, particularly with contracts likely to explode in 2022. Blanket? No. I didn't say everyone does this, or anything like it. It's a group and it's wildly obvious who they are. Ridiculous? If only it were so. It's unfortunately right on the mark for many on here. Around the league he's seen as an excellent player on the rise, though certainly not elite. Here there's a group of people who seem to pick two or three guys to hate and go at them. He's one of them, for this group. EDIT: Wait, did I misunderstand you? You are the guy who said, "Hate = Truth"? And I'm the one being ridiculous and using blanket statements? Good lord, that qualifies for the rare double face palm. No small achievement.

Yup. A year too late, but totally sensible.

No, not him. As many on here know, I live in Japan. Much older than Fetes as well. And even in my OP, I made it clear that I don't agree with all five of his predictions, just that I think they're defensible and worthy of discussion. Anyone who informs himself and has a different opinion than me on that might get disagreement from me, but certainly won't be told that he's wrong, Gugny is simply wrong and unwilling enough to spend a few seconds fact-checking. I do have very little respect for that, it's true. It's a popular modern view ... I said it, therefore it must be true and I don't need to check no stinking facts. So much of the problem in our modern discussion is driven by this deep-seated belief that because someone has an opinion he thinks it must be correct, and that having uninformed opinions is something that is actually worth anything.

Agreed on both. Hopefully these moves won't cause major problems but I do expect a down-tick in both areas. Robert in particular was under-rated for his contributions last year. He really did an excellent job.

I get it completely that you don't know why it doesn't work, and can't ever understand until you listen to the video. It would require you to listen to the entire first twelve seconds of the video for you to figure out why it doesn't work. But doing that much research appears beyond you. Better to just defend an opinion about which you are completely uninformed. But it's clear at this point that popping off with opinions about which you have zero information and no inclination to learn is your pattern. You don't know me, but you think you understand me. You don't know the video but you think your opinion about it is worth something. Things are awesome for me right now, actually. First day of a four-day weekend, and I just finished reading my kid a part of a Ramona book as a bedtime story. But no, clearly you know more about me than I do, or so you think. Your idea that I'm uninformed is wrong, and provedly so. I've seen the video. You haven't. I'm in the process of living my life. You haven't an ounce of insight into the video or my life and are yet willing to think your opinion about either is worth something. It is kind of amusing, though sad, but I've been amused enough at this point. Your feets have failed you now, and when it comes to informing yourself to even the slightest degree, you ain't Willin'. You had the chance to take the high road but instead you went Lowell. But the Feat references don't work here. And you still have no earthly idea why your joke doesn't work and aren't willing to check your facts as to why. Anyone interested enough to read the past few posts has seen that very clearly. 'Nuff said.

He said "So I see Emmanuel Sanders catching 65, 70 balls (1000 yards and 70 balls would be 14.2 YPC) and a couple of them being 65+ yarders for touchdown." That's maybe warm, but it isn't boiling. If he gets two long balls like that, he could easily average 14.2. When you look at his last few QBs, they are the 2020 version of Brees and Taysom Hill, half a year of Garoppolo and four or five years of Denver's carousel of mediocrity with Flacco, Lock, Keenum, Siemian, Osweiler and Lynch. He did get Manning in his last couple of years, and though Manning wasn't exactly throwing downfield a lot at that point, he made Sanders look sensational and he ended up with Y/Rs of 13.9 and 14.9. Is it really so unreasonable to think Sanders might do better and get longer throws with Josh Allen throwing to him than the motley group he's dealt with since Manning retired? I don't think so.

Yes. Uninformed because you feel the need to talk about something you aren't willing to inform yourself about. And the fact that you seem proud of that proves my point. You are off the mark, that's not an opinion, it's a fact. Your little joke doesn't work, and you're too determinedly uninformed to ever know why. My day's fine, thanks, though I am watching something sad on a message board.