Thurman#1

Sully is cranky, but he's been plenty positive over the years many times when it was called for. He just hasn't been around many teams that deserved to have more than bits and pieces of good things said about them. I remember 2011 when Sully said that if things continued as they had - the Bills were 5 - 2 - Gailey deserved consideration for coach of the year. He definitely put the conditional in there, as well he should have, as the Bills ended up 6-10 that year, but when there were good things to be said, Sully has said them. He's still eviscerating the Sabres, deservedly, but he knows the Bills are looking special and he's said it plenty of times. Carucci will be a loss. He's always been a solid, insightful guy.

Nah. The idea's silly. These moves provide zero extra leverage. They certainly don't make the Bills more likely to pay more money. Yeah because other teams love guys who cause trouble, accumulate fines and bring lots of bad media attention. Sorry, makes no sense.

Seems to be from here. https://www.fantasypros.com/2020/01/best-and-worst-rbs-at-creating-yards-in-2019-fantasy-football/ Only took a quick look, but it's still pretty opaque. "Below you’ll find which stats I found particularly relevant to evaluating a player’s yards created profile. More factors can certainly be used, but they are what I felt was most important along with links on where to find them: Adjusted Line Yards Second Level Yards 8+ Defenders in the Box Yards After Contact Per Carry (YCO) Yards Before Contact adjusted for Team Offensive Line Blocking (Adj. YBC) Yards After Catch Per Reception (YAC) Total Touches – smaller sample sizes are less reliable Yards Per Carry (YPC) "Now that we have all of this information, it’s time to blend it together. Each category gets weighted against the league average. Each variable is dependent on others, such as how yards before contact depends directly on blocking and how many defenders are in the box. We can then calculate what each player was expected to gain versus what they actually gained. This difference you see in the chart is what I am labeling as my “yards created above or below expected per attempt.” In the following chart, each running back with over 80 carries on the year is listed along with how well they performed in 2019:" "RB Yards Created Above/Below Expected Per Attempt, Adjusted for Offensive Line, Stacked Box%, Yards Before/After Contact, YAC and Avg YPA"

Thing is, there's no particular reason to think Star is going anywhere next year. We have nobody to take his place. Bringing in an FA would cost as much as Star or more, for probably a lower level of play. Drafting a replacement and this regime doesn't generally play rookie draftees much, particularly early in the year. Addison's likely to be gone, but they won't save a penny. His contract ends this year except for $2M in dead cap next year. Same for Hughes He might not be here but we won't save any cap. Next year, with the current guesstimate of a cap, we have $1,563,548 available under the cap as calculated right now (Spotrac). Even assuming Star, Mario and Jerry are all gone next year that would raise our available cap money all the way up to about $4M. I don't see that bringing in another impact player. We'll cut some guys and re-negotiate and the cap will probably be a bit higher than Spotrac is guessing. But we aren't going to be rolling in it.

I see. Except for the Beasley stuff, what you say here makes sense to me. Edmunds absolutely needs to be making continuous improvement, as do they all. That's what you said, and it totally hits the nail on the head. I'm not convinced they expect him to put this team on his back. My feeling is that you're right when you say they expect him to make others better around him, particularly as signal caller and an up-the-middle guy on this defense. But "carry the team to victory"? I don't see them expecting that. I think you're right that they hope to see him become dominant at his position. He really does have quite a bit of achievable improvement available to him, even though he's already playing very well. But to me, this team is about a system in which they want everyone to play their part as well as they possibly can. I don't see anyone on this D putting anyone on their back and carrying them. On offense, a truly great QB can do that. On this D I don't see anyone doing that unless they can somehow get someone to rush the passer at an extremely high level. We're probably saying the same things here, using different words. I really am looking forward to seeing the defense this year. Healthy and with Star and a couple of rookie stud pass rushers filtering in to play their parts, IMO things look really good. As for Beasley, though, he's said, "If I'm forced into retirement, so be it." What's he talking about there? It's absolutely clear they aren't forcing anyone to retire because they're not vaccinated. So it looks to me like he's saying there may be some things they require of him as an unvaccinated person that he wouldn't be willing to do, that he'd rather retire than follow some of those regulations. Hope I'm wrong and you're right. It certainly could be. But he's said that he talked to the NFLPA and that, "From what I'm told these are guidelines for preseason and it's nothing final." So what if those requirements that he doesn't accept do become final? Or if the regulations for the season turn out to be the same as the ones for the preseason? What does he do? https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/31660735/buffalo-bills-wr-cole-beasley-addresses-vaccination-concerns-nflpa I don't think we know. Oh, and you were using a synonym of "grab," hunh? Got it. Took me a minute or so, though.

Trying to figure out what you suggested they might do to a name player. Very much on target. I was so shocked that they could and then that they would re-sign all of Milano, Daryl Williams and Feliciano. That made it a fine off-season for me. I guess I'd disagree that Trubisky in any way creates competition. IMO he creates good 2nd string depth. I also don't think it's fair to compare Tremaine Edmunds to Lawrence Taylor or JJ Watt. He doesn't have their physical talent. Edmunds is fast, and he's strong, but not as sudden as either of those guys and probably not as stronge either. There's a reason Edmunds was drafted 16th and Lawrence Taylor 2nd. They manifestly had different levels of physical talent ceiling than Edmunds does. Same with Kuechly, really. His 40 was a bit slower than Edmunds, but look at his 10 and 20 yard splits. He was more sudden while Edmunds has a higher top speed. Kuechly was also a lot stronger (27 reps vs. 19 for Tremaine). Hopefully he can get to Kuechly territory if things go really well, but there's zero indication that he should ever be mentioned with Watt and Taylor. They were drafted earlier for a reason, Taylor in particular because he had sacks and INTs in college that were out of this world. They're QB attackers. As good as he was at everything, the reason Taylor is venerated is because he sacked and threatened QBs constantly, something Edmunds is never likely to do as an off-ball LB. Comparing him to those guys, outside maybe Kuechly, isn't reasonable. And like the others you mentioned, Kuechly was picked significantly earlier, 9th, and for good reason. And while I'm hopeful as you are about Beasley, the guy has said he's willing to quit rather than obey the NFL regulations on this issue. Hopefully he was just blowing off steam, but there's a far wider range of possibilities for him this season than Bills fans seem willing to admit. He used to be my favorite Bill, particularly after I learned about the broken leg. But otherwise I really agree with the thrust of your whole post. Continuity is a big part of the process and we've got a ton of that this year.

Hap, I've always assumed that they could contact each other, though as you say, the team couldn't require contact. I'm willing to learn, though. I could certainly be wrong.

Thanks for the interesting safety discussion the last page or two. Great stuff.

Edmunds did deserve the Pro Bowl for how he played after he was healthy again, I believe. But you're right that if you consider also the time when he was playing with one shoulder, over the whole season he didn't deserve it. But people seem to allow guys who are having issues make the Pro Bowl if they go back to Pro Bowl standard for most of the season. The classic Bills example is Jason Peters the year he missed camp. The first four to six weeks he was in great shape - he'd been working out hard, as the Bills noted - but not football shape, and it showed. He wasn't good. But by week 7 or so he was kicking butt and taking names again and people noticed and everyone voted him on. And Peters haters here in Buffalo pissed and moaned about that selection for a decade, long after it was wildly obvious that the Eagles had valued him right and we hadn't.

We don't "know" he "thinks he's in the running to land a playaer who might be at the very least a bit more impactful than Jones." That's a supposition. Certainly one that's very possible, but not something we know. Could be he gave one of the coaches some lip or didn't show up to a Zoom call or in some way didn't live up to their expectations. He is indeed likely to grab somebody to fill the spot. Could as easily be that they fill the spot because they let Jones go as what most here are assuming, which is that because they need a spot they let Jones go. Remember when everyone was convinced that we'd given Diggs a re-fi on his deal because we needed the money right then and there? Sometimes they make moves because they're good moves, because it's what they need to do next. Maybe they're doing this to make room. But since cutting him moves it from 89 to 88, and the limit is 90, they could have brought someone in without cutting him. Maybe they just wanted to cut him. We'll see.

Jeez.

Slightly disagree. He appears to be below average blocking and slightly above average receiving. That, to me, is not average, it's particular. So far, the Bills haven't given major opportunities to that kind of particular guy. Allen was anything but typical. There were certainly questions about whether he would succeed, but not because he was average.

Good point. Didn't even think of that till you said it, but that makes total sense. Generally I like joint practices, but don't think it's a very big issue either way.

"Unranked" just means outside the top ten. If you had him as the 11th best LB in the league, you wouldn't rank him. So "completely" IMO greatly overstates how negative the act of not ranking him is. On the other hand, I can't understand anyone ranking him #1. He certainly was not better than everyone else in the league, even in the latter half of the year when healthy. IMO, top five is pushing it. I guess the ESPN thing is asking people to predict where these guys will be ranked next year rather than where they are now, so being a bit high or low on anybody is reasonable as you're guessing, you're predicting. Nah, it's just that for some reason some Bills fans love to underrate him.

I liked it well enough. Thanks for posting it. Worth pointing out that drops aren't all on the receivers, though they deserve the blame on plenty of those plays. Allen got better at using touch this year, quite a bit, but he still occasionally puts too much on it even in shorter throws. He's getting better, no question, but some of that is on him. Also worth noting that drops are really subjective. While some might have them as 9th worst, some others are quite different. Stats Inc. has them at 18 drops, 15th best in the league, ever so slightly better than average. https://scores.nbcsports.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?type=Receiving&range=NFL&rank=232

Ouch!! Point made. It worked out that our two RBs were both solidly efficient despite one of the lowest and worst Yards before contact figures in the league last year. Not that speed might not have helped, but we did pretty decently on offense even without it, and they brought in Breida this year.

You wouldn't be surprised? And your lack of surprise is supposed to work as evidence against Edmunds? Seriously? Good lord, no wonder you're so deep in belief in this, your bar is wildly low. Of course you wouldn't be surprised. That's good evidence you're suffering from confirmation bias, not that Edwards isn't an excellent player. You say that when Edmunds has been out that his journeyman replacements have duplicated his play. Where's your evidence on that? The last game he missed completely was game two last year against the Fins and Dodson and Klein looked awful. Edmunds hasn't missed much time, that's the fact, he just took several for the team and played injured. When he did have to go out, nobody filled the position at replacement level. And Preston Brown had a lot of tackles, yes, but wasn't anywhere near as good at defending the pass as Edmunds has been. Nor was he - and feel free to prove me wrong with stats on this - second in the league in his time here in stops at the LOS or for loss.

Gotta say, I disagree with your evaluation of OBD's style. Allen indeed seemed high risk high reward. But with nearly all of them, that's what you get when you pick a QB in the 1st round. But Edmunds always appeared to have a medium to high floor. Never seemed high risk. My guess on Rousseau is that if he'd been taken earlier than he was he could have been seen as high risk, but at #30, he was solid value, medium risk, medium to high reward. I don't see Beane as a guy who takes big risks early. If anything he's more of a value guy, trying to minimize risk and get guys who are good fits for scheme and for Bills types. He appears to try to get high ceilings as part of the package if he can.

Nice try, but saying it's "20, max" isn't saying that you think it's arguable. If it's arguable, then it's not the max, is it?

Enough with the clickbait argument. Not everything we disagree with is clickbait. Simms doesn't operate that way. He wants to be a GM some day, that's what he's working towards. Clickbait will not help him. He does disagree with the common wisdom a pretty fair amount. But he never denies it later or says he's sure of it. He simply says what he feels. Plenty of room to disagree with him. He's been on target pretty well with QBs, even when he's not taking a popular stance. A bit less so with non-QBs, but he's still pretty smart. I'm hopeful but not convinced on both guys. He could easily be right. Or the folks, yourself included, who disagree could just as easily be right. My problem personally is that I can see it either way. Drives me crazy. Beane and the Bills are smart and good drafters. But not perfect, nobody is. I just don't know, myself. He absolutely was very strongly a Josh believer far before last season. Even back to his rookie year.

Right, nobody acknowledges us as the the biggest competitor to the Chiefs. Except basically everybody. This ain't the truth, it's an opinion, and probably an undervaluation. But yeah, no disrespect.

Love those helmets. IMO, no, '73 was better, but watching OJ again is a treat. Thanks for giving me the excuse. What I notice is how he'd make little set-up moves 5 - 7 yards before he reached the guy, to get him just where he wanted him. He was so precise, but also violent when he wanted to be. Love how he just tosses the ball to the ref.

Anytime you see someone talking about an umpteen-million dollar EXTENSION, understand that the figure is NOT based on what the guy will be receiving per year, but instead on how much positive spin can be applied to make a contract look better on the player's side. He was due to count $11M this year, but along with the extension, that $11M has been reduced, but we don't know how much. Say for example he ends up getting $5M this year. That'd make the whole deal 6 years and on the order of $95M, which is still a lot, on the order of $16M, but not as much as the headline would make you think. Now, how much money at the end of the contract is back-loaded and unguaranteed? The devil's in the details.

OH, jeez. Back to sleep, then.

Switch "Knox isn't" to "Knox wasn't" and I'm in agreement. The guy is so green the fact he wasn't particularly good last year doesn't tell you whether or not he'll be good this year.