Thurman#1

You do need to turn your head around if you hit the guy. The defender has the same right to the ball as the receiver, if he's trying to make a play on the ball. You can't do that without turning your head. It won't always get called perfectly, but that's the rule and it's generally called that way, especially if you hit the guy egregiously. That's downfield anyway, when the ball's coming in. It's all a judgment call, but that plays into their judgment. "WHILE THE BALL IS IN THE AIR "Acts that are pass interference include, but are not limited to: "Contact by a player who is not playing the ball that restricts the opponent’s opportunity to make the catch; ..."

No he didn't. He went from an extremely good defender here who the fanbase got angry at because he left for money reasons ... to an even better defender in New England. He was really good here. We just weren't willing to pay him what he wanted. The man/zone thing also played in. And fans hate guys who won't give a hometown discount. We were having serious cap problems at that time even though the roster wasn't good enough to be having serious cap problems.

LSD in the drinking water at NFL headquarters. Gotta be. Can't be that the 10 or 20 people on here who seem to dedicate their lives to downgrading Edmunds and the same two or three others they've habitually scapegoated were ... you know, wrong!! They see the world more clearly than everyone else, as they've said.

With Knox playing this well?

Many people. That's the answer to that. Zero handles himself well consistently.

If you can do that, great. I can't. To me, a moral issue is a big part of this. Can't cheer for the guy. It depresses me that that's so, but it is.

Yeah, 18 snaps and 38%. It's not a lot. No problem, really. I think people thought he'd be in the running for DROY, and that's pretty tough when you're platooning.

Are they booing? You don't get a sense of that on TV at all. He was one of my two favorite Bills last year. This year I can't bring myself to cheer for the guy. I don't think I would boo, but I'm not happy when he catches the ball the way I am with the others. I hope so. I also hope he's off the team next year. And I don't like myself for saying that.

... or not. You really don't know. You're pretending the facts show that what you want will happen. They don't. They only show what happened. After that, as usual, we'll see. Certainly did look like either a wake-up call or a replacement, whether temporary or permanent. Again, we'll see.

This is the concern. He's athletic, really athletic, but that doesn't always translate, particularly early in the process. In camp it was reported he had some trouble with speed. I'm rooting for him. I don't see him starting this year, but what do I know? Buscaglia raised the same question in his column today, talking about Cody Ford's pass protection problems so far this year. https://theathletic.com/2861979/2021/10/01/is-stefon-diggs-ready-to-erupt-5-thoughts-and-a-prediction-for-bills-texans/ EDIT: Ah, I see Yolo already linked to it, above. Yes. The year he struggled at guard he also struggled at tackle. It's why we were able to get him so cheaply.

It's as good as any system to deal with this problem can be. Any corrections would create their own problems. Those ten PI calls you counted, would probably be disagreed with about half the time by reasonable people.

That's absolute blather. Name all the 5th year extension pickups who got their extensions by the 3rd game of their 4th year. Hell, name ten. Exactly. As for the further nonsense in your second paragraph, again, obvious balderdash. You desperately attempt to frame it as Edmunds vs. Milano, but it's very obvious they want both. Which is precisely their M.O. Remind us, which of their two very highly paid LBs did they dump to sign the other one in Carolina? Did they dump Kuechly? Or Davis? By your jaw-droppingly bad logic here, signing Davis to a major contract was proof that they were going to let Kuechly go. He is playing like the Pro Bowler they hoped he'd be, and they probably think Milano is playing at a very high level too and thus they are thrilled to keep two highly-paid very effective LBs on the roster, just as they have done since Carolina.

They wouldn't be paying him as a top 3-5 LB. They'd be paying him as the 5th (not the 3rd or 4th, but the 5th) best-paid off-ball linebacker. Leonard, Warner, Wagner and Mosley all get $17M or more. If we pay him at the numbers you're suggesting (a reasonable guess), he'd be 5th. And generally when you have a guy who is, say, the 7th to 12th best at a position, he at first will be paid somewhere around the neighborhood of 5th best. That's the way it works. Then a year or two down the line he has fallen to to 10th or so, and a year or two still later he's still lower. It's anything but nuts, it's S.O.P. if you want the guy. And I agree with you that they seem to love him, probably because he's doing what they want him to do and is improving with time. Barring injury or regression, it does indeed seem very likely. There are generally somewhere around 9 - 11 guys on most teams who are the core guys and who the team feels they have to pay. The defensive captain who they love and who they have already guaranteed $12.7M to in 2022 seems likely to be one of those. And as Gunner points out, they could re-structure his 5th year option only if they give him a longer contract. And in 2023 they are around $90M below the cap and the cap seems likely to rise a lot at that point as well.

Why not force the opponent to prepare for both ... to not know? The way we have it now, they already have to prepare for Moss's brand of explosiveness. But they also have to prepare for Singletary's brand of explosiveness. As for your argument that Moss more consistently finds 8 - 15 yard opportunities, I'd argue that's recency bias and the unfair decision to try to gerrymander out the longer runs of both guys. Here are all of the gains for both of them of over eight yards. (I went play-by-play, and I could have missed one ... please feel free to check my work). SINGLETARY eight or more yard carries (35 rushes for 180 yards) Pitt 10:35 1st Q 8 yards Pitt 8:35 4th Q 15 yards Pitt 7:46 4th Q 25 yards Mia 12:33 1stQ 46 yards Mia 1:15 2nd Q 8 yards MOSS eight or more yard carries (21 rushes for 86 yards) Mia 5:16 1st Q 10 yards Wash 14:59 2nd Q 8 yards Wash 0:45 3rd Q 9 yards Wash 5:21 4th Q 8 yards They appear to be pretty similar with Moss getting slightly more eight-yarders per carry, but the difference probably being statistically insignificant. But Singletary appears to get more longer higher-impact plays.

It may matter to Moss and Singletary, but I greatly doubt it matters to the coaches. If it did they'd pick a guy and stick with him. And it doesn't send any kind of bad message, because the coaches feel, and doubtless communicate, that they are playing these guys for game-specific advantages in who they start. This isn't going to piss anybody off or send bad messages, the idea's ridiculous. It's not like the Bills are doing something wild here by going back and forth. It's S.O.P. these days on many teams.

Not really feeling this. Certainly not at anywhere near the 80/20 ratio you're suggesting. I'd expect somewhere between 40/60 and 60/40 depending on what situations arrive.

Typical. When there's no reasonable argument to be made, pull a quick switch, insert a straw man and pretend you're arguing with what he actually said. Remind us, with your arguments about turnover differential, did he ever say that turnovers are random? Yeah, the answer to that is "No." Wouldn't make sense to. Interceptions are anything but random. Nor is causing fumbles. What is pretty close to random is who recovers them. Having disposed of your first straw man, let's proceed to the second. Did he say that recovering fumbles was evenly distributed among all players based on number of snaps? Because if he had, you certainly polished off that argument very well. Thing is, that's not what he said. I wouldn't go quite so far as random myself, not on the player vs. player level. Some positions get more, some get less, those are facts. On the team level, yeah, the stats show that offense/defense recoveries go pretty close to 50:50. On the player vs. player level, though, yeah, it's wildly affected by luck, by how close you are, by direction you're going, by the bounce, and so on. That will - duh - not result in recoveries being spread out evenly across the roster based on number of snaps. That's not how randomness works.

We have watched. What you have there is not particularly correct. He often makes stops on runners. Do the runners generally try to run away from Tremaine? Yes, they do, it's their nature to run to holes if they can, but he fills holes and makes tackles plenty. Fair enough that he doesn't look quick or shifty. Tall guys with long legs rarely do. But the facts show that however he looks, he actually is extremely athletic. His scores show that, as NewEra displayed above. I would agree with you this far, when he has to reverse field, he looks a bit awkward, but he put himself in the right place often enough that you rarely see him reversing field.

He absolutely did blanket that route. What he did is the definition of blanketing. Blanketing is simply covering something very well. That's what Edmunds did. The fact that you're denying it says more about how desperate you are to find negatives about Edmunds than it does about his play. Heinicke wanted to go there. The reason he didn't is that the route had been very effectively covered. Blanketed. When they cut back at the end as the ball goes towards the INT you can see that Edmunds is still about a yard away from Humphries, even as his focus flows towards the side of the field the ball is headed towards. As for the rest of it, you are guessing. What we know is that he covered a zone, but that he very quickly got to just the right spot. This likely came about through a ton of film study, through listening to good coaching, to his instincts in coverage and to an excellent grasp of what Washington was doing on the play and an understanding of what his part was in thwarting them. Not to mention being 6'5" with an 83-inch wingspan, a silhouette that makes QBs sweat at the idea of throwing near. He's a really good coverage defender, and this was an example of him doing everything right, and of good team defense, and of Edmunds doing his job beautifully, which forced a longer time in the pocket, which allowed the Bills to make a big play.

This is the thing. The coaches love his coverage skills. Plenty of times when throws go elsewhere it's simply because it was supposed to go elsewhere. But sometimes it's because the first read was taken away. QBs don't like to throw around It's arguable how? Easily is how. Yeah, you can fill the spot on the field. But now with someone who plays as well. What was impressive there? He got to his spot more quickly than most, at the same time correctly identifying the route. Humphries on a linebacker is a matchup a QB is going to be thrilled to see, and it was his first read. And yet Edmunds just eliminated it. QBs don't like throwing near a guy that tall with arms that long. Heinicke appeared to keep his eyes there for a while, expecting Humphrey to get free. Edmunds didn't let that happen. And by the time he got to the read he threw to, he was surrounded in the pocket and he panicked a bit. That was a very nice play by Edmunds. Theoretically any LB should be able to cover Humphries on that play. In real life, few can and do. And while obviously nobody can guarantee that they will pay him $13 - $15 M per year starting in a year in which they have $90M available under the cap, the fact that they already guaranteed him him $12.7M in a year when they only have $20M available indicates that not only is it possible, but that it's quite likely, barring regression, injury and yadda yadda.

Makes total sense. You must be seeing things correctly. After all, if he took forever to react ans was slow to get to the ball and struggled to make one on one tackles, and didn't ever make plays in coverage, that would definitely incline McDermott and Beane, two guys who have put together a consistently very good defense, to play him regularly and to guarantee him $12.7M for next year. Yeah, clearly you're seeing this correctly.

It must indeed be discouraging, seeing the world so differently from everybody but a few other Bills fans. Turner is seeing the world the way the rest of us do, including OBD. You choose to see differently ... and then are surprised it's discouraging to see the world in such a sad and discouraging way. Yeah, I'm sure it is.

On the contrary, Sanders has been a deep threat his whole career. He's not the usual style of deep threat in terms of being a pure speed burner, a Henry Ruggs type. He's always been fast, but he earns his deep balls a bit differently, with great route running, so that they don't know he's going deep till he's already past them. Go to pro-football-reference and look at his longest pass each year. From 2013 onwards, it's 55 yards, 48, 75, 64, 38, 64, 75, 51 and 41 this year. He's always been a deep threat. It's just that he's also a short threat and a medium threat.

James Lofton was absolutely a burner. Here's a story about the Buffalo News in 1991, back when even going 4.4 was not that common. "So far, according to Lofton, his last big physical change came four years ago when, as a member of the Raiders, his 40-yard dash time dipped from 4.3 to 4.4 seconds." https://buffalonews.com/news/lofton-wont-put-timetable-on-his-nfl-career-wide-receiver-wonders-if-he-might-be/article_ed94d084-26da-5527-8ba1-cd1b656a245d.html Lofton's speed was his biggest weapon.

I hear you. But Canadian Football Hall of Fame says no.