Thurman#1

Didn't look that way to me. "As of conversations today, my understanding is that ..." is not a way to introduce speculation. On the other hand, "apprehensions with production & consistency at the #Bills tight end spot are still a topic of conversation," is very very unspecific about anything maybe happening in terms of bringing anybody in. You can't assume that will happen from what she says here.

Fair enough. But again, very few people agree with you, and pretty much all of them are Bills fans. To believe this you have to throw out more than just the 2 Pro Bowls and one (excellent) team's game plan. You also have to throw out pretty much every LB ranking out there. If you're willing to do that, your choice, fair enough. Myself, I make my evaluations not by ignoring data and facts with which I disagree, but precisely by looking at as many facts, as much data as I can, then looking at context, and then taking my evaluations based on everything. When I first saw the "facts" you and Badol presented, I went looking for context. I wanted to find out what those numbers meant. I wanted to find out how those numbers compared to other LBs over a 3-year period, and various other kinds of context. I couldn't find anything. I am not surprised you couldn't provide any context, but I hoped you would. I'd love to see the context for them. Without context, those numbers are like saying that in baseball, Batter X had 250 hits and 17 triples over the past three seasons. That doesn't tell you much without knowing much more. How many at-bats did he have? What were his power numbers? Walks? You have to know more to make those numbers useful. Same with the numbers you and Badol produced. When you look at all the facts, the rankings being near-unanimous, the fact that the coaches love him and paid him his fifth-year option, how well the defense has done during those three years, and the fact that the Ravens, the only team we know defensive specifics about treated Edmunds as the key to their game plan, by far the most obvious conclusion is that he's playing very well. Far better than OK, not reaching the level you'd call great. You want to just push "aside" 2 Pro Bowls, one game plan, the fact that they gave picked up his option ... you're limiting your ability to understand the situation, I would argue. But that's your business. Good luck to you, and see you around the boards.

The reason I think it's just a small group who feels that way ... is that It is just a small group that feels that way. Again, he was a Pro Bowler. Again, the Ravens built their game plan around doing their best to nullify Edmunds. It really is just a small group. All you have to do is google best LB lists. https://athlonsports.com/nfl/nfl-linebacker-rankings 16th best LB. Not 16th best ILB, 16th best LB https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-linebacker-rankings-entering-2021-nfl-season PFF 24th best LB overall. https://fftoday.com/rankings/playerrank.php?o=2&PosID=60&LeagueID=1&order_by=Rank&sort_order=ASC&cur_page=1 15th best LB overall https://www.profootballnetwork.com/the-top-25-linebackers-in-the-nfl/ Pro Football Network 11th best LB overall Those are just the first four I found. It really is just a small group who think what you do. And I'm sorry, but the whole "they can't say what they really think" thing is flat-out nonsense, EVERY SINGLE TIME it's said. That's just a way to poorly attempt to justify disagreeing with someone who knows a ton more (let me clarify, the people who know a ton more than you are McDermott and Beane and Frazier.) It's nonsense that they can't express dis-satisfaction, just simply observably wrong. I mean, clearly they can't say, "OK, the guy stinks and will never amount to anything." A guy would never play for you again. But there are a million ways of gently saying you're not satisfied. Look at what they said about the TE room last year, that nobody feared them. That's one example, but there are tons more. When the coaches rave about someone, they mean it. When they say, "Well, he gives 100%, we love his attitude," and that's where it stops, yeah, they likely aren't thrilled. That's not what they do with Tremaine, they rave. More, they gave him the fifth year option. There's only one good reason to do that. Because you think it's a good financial decision. You don't have to do it to keep the guy, you can turn it down and still re-sign him the next year. If Tremaine wasn't worth it, they wouldn't have done it. And yes, you and Badol have given me stats to back it up, but you haven't shown how those stats you've given compare to similar stats to anybody. Yeah, he gave up some tackles and TDs over the course of three years of playing every game, including his rookie year and a year when he spent the first half of the year with a shoulder injury that prevented him from playing like his usual self. How did those numbers stack up? Just as an example, you said he allowed nine TDs over three years. OK, well, the Bills allowed 118 TDs over those three years. So if you just divide up those 118 by 11 guys on the field, you get that he allowed less than his share. Now, do MLB/ILBs usually allow 1/11th? Or, as I would guess, more? Until we get a lot more in depth and comparative numbers, they don't mean much. Agreed that he backslid last year ... again, he was injured the first six or seven weeks and the defense didn't work nearly as well without a space eater. Still, the last half of the year he was playing much better, which is why he made the Pro Bowl. We do have some common ground, you say he's not playing great now. Hey, fair enough. I agree. Way better than "OK," though. He's playing very well.

It's what you see .. fair enough. You're not the only one. Very true ... there are indeed a very small group of people who see what you do. The huge majority think you're wrong, and that majority includes Beane and McDermott, not to mention the Ravens offense, as Daymond Talbot reported recently that they built their offensive strategy around trying to deal with Tremaine Edmunds. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-air-raid-hour-draft-recap-w-damond-talbot/id1431321970?i=1000519982980 It's not potential that props up Edmunds on these lists, that's nonsense. People making these lists don't give a crap about potential, except in draftees and such. Nonsense again that they give a guy a fifth-year option on potential, pure nonsense. If they felt he wasn't yet worth the money, they'd have turned it down and if he improved a lot this year they'd have had plenty of opportunity to sign him again anyway. You sign a guy to his fifth-year option because you believe that doing so gets him cheaper than you would otherwise be able to do in his fifth year. And no, I did not say he was a top ten LB. I said he was top ten at his position. His position could variously be called ILB, MLB, whatever. The Pro Bowl calls it ILB. Those numbers you're referring to ... 14 - 23, and PFF having him at 23 ... those are against all LBs. And that is in a year when he had these problems: Badly injured shoulder through most of the first half of the season ... no comment. Playing in a defense which requires a space eater to allow the LBs to run free, but Lotulelei opted out ... no comment. The bottom line is that when you differ with Beane, McDermott, Frazier and the Bills about how good a Buffalo Bill defender is playing, it's not likely them that are off-target. And yes, McDermott made a mistake and started Peterman. Remind me, did McDermott have Peterman starting for 36 games? Did McDermott pick up Peterman's fifth year option? Were the offenses Peterman called the signals for #2 in his rookie year, #3 in his second year and #14 and improved a lot at the end of the year in a pandemic year with no real offseason in his third year? McDermott doesn't stick with his mistakes. He's willing to change his mind.

More typical stuff for you, man. If you're losing the argument, go straight for the straw man, mis-state the other guy's argument and destroy what you said while ignoring what he actually said. Yet again, here specifically is what I said ... first, he's unlikely to win DPOY, as is everybody in the league outside of five or six favorites. And that you are so very willing to believe absolutely anything negative about Tremaine Edmunds that you will say things that are completely and utterly wrong and simply not check them because they're negative about him, so they seem right. Remember, this all started with something I said to someone else, "Don't bother Badol with facts when they disrupt his narrative." That's what you felt the need to reply to. I wasn't talking to you, although I was certainly chuckling at your post. And you jumped in to justify, wiggle and squirm. And you still haven't even responded in any way to the fact that you said he'd zero forced fumbles which was simply wrong. Two complete mistakes. You felt the need to confront me about what I'd said, and yet now you keep trying to change the subject and use straw men. You said two things about the guy that are demonstrably wrong, absolutely unfactual, and yet you're simply unable to just admit this and move on. Again, here's what you said: ... and there is no defense of saying it. Cue the squirming and the justifications. And by the way, real estate in my head is indeed cheap. That's what happens when instead of going with your prejudices and ignoring all evidence that shows you're wrong you simply look at what the evidence shows and make that your opinion. You let the evidence point the way. That way, you don't have to worry about how to squirm and justify and writhe and use straw man arguments because you're not willing to admit when you're wrong. You should maybe try it sometime.

Yeah, exactly. Beane seems to have a way he works, he figures out how much he's willing to pay, he makes the offer and if the guy wants more, he resigns himself to not making the deal. He seems to be willing to be a bit flexible, especially if the guy is willing to change other parameters of the deal. Yeah, I also think Watt wanted to come to the Bills but decided he wasn't willing to give up $6M a year for the privilege.

Hilarious. Do you see this, folks? He's still simply unable to admit the fact that in a post where he cited four facts, two of them were dead wrong. He still can't bring himself to simply admit it and move on. I always feel sorry for people who can't bring themselves to simply admit what happened. Doesn't stop me from pointing out the mistakes, though. And as for his talking only about what pertains to NFL DPOY, that's nonsense and we now have FOUR ways to know that: First, he was answering me, and I had specifically said in the same post that DPOY was wildly unlikely. No reason to argue DPOY there. Second, he used the word, "never." Not the words, "almost never but he actually did at a time that is not used to calculate DPOY." He used the word, "NEVER." Third, he didn't mention DPOY or anything like it. Fourth, hey Badol, you were completely wrong about his forced fumbles. They happened in the regular season and thus affected DPOY rankings ... if DPOY was your reason for thinking it was OK to say that, you'd be on here now saying, "OOOOOOOPS!!! I WAS WRONG ABOUT THE FORCED FUMBLES! TOTALLY WRONG!! Those affect the DPOY rankings, so clearly it was only my mistake." And yet, weirdly, you didn't even mention that mistake. Who could have predicted that, that you wouldn't even mention it? Except anyone watching this argument. And indeed you're right, ignorance is not a defense. Thus, your ignorance of the facts on both forced fumbles and recovered fumbles when you said this: ... it was indeed indefensible. Two assertions ... both factually incorrect. Again, you said, and I quote, "He's never recovered a fumble." Now, tell me, what does the word "never" mean to you? Does it mean "only during the regular season"? God, I'm just loving this. Nothing more fun than arguing with people making indefensible assertions. Then you go on to say I didn't know that only regular season stats go towards DPOY. Also factually incorrect. I did know it. Again, I had said in the same post that I found his DPOY chances to be wildly unlikely. So why would I make the irrelevant connection to DPOY. I was only laughing at his pointing out how wrong you were when you said, "He's never recovered a fumble." Again, you used the word "never." If it's negative on Tremaine Edmunds, you appear willing to both say it and back it up, whether it's false or not.

Sorry,man, you're not being "real." You're being wildly pessimistic. If he were seriously "often lost in coverage. Often hits the wrong hole. Often misses tackles," they wouldn't have picked up his fifth year option. He wouldn't have made the Pro Bowl twice. What you're seeing isn't congruent with what the Bills see, what the NFL sees. Not only is the "Pro Bowl" talk not nonsense, but pretending it's nonsense is ignoring reality. He's a two-time Pro Bowler, that's a fact. Are they still expecting him to improve? Yeah, I'm sure they are, and I'm sure they've told him, and he's made it clear he expects it of himself. But he's already very good. Please. Tyrod was a fifth alternate one year and a third or fourth the other. Edmunds was a first alternate one year and last year since they didn't play there were no alternates, yet he was selected. There is no comparison there.

I greatly doubt that. They got Oliver as a 3-tech. Last year they had to use him as a 1-tech because they didn't have Star and were trying anything to fill that void. I'd bet the starting rotation at DT will be Star and Harrison Phillips at 1-tech and Oliver and Butler/Zimmer at 3-tech, with maybe Rousseau or Boogie sprinkled in occasionally on 3rd and long. When they had two functional 1-techs in 2019, Oliver didn't see time there. When they drafted him they made a big deal out of the fact that he'd played 1-tech in college and that was what had held him back from making more tackles and pressures.

I'm with the others. This would have been the place to end your post.

It's perfectly reasonable writing. The most likely scenario was that they made an offer, but that it was quite a bit less than Arizona's. "The Buffalo Bills ultimately ended up losing out on free agent J.J. Watt, who signed with the Arizona Cardinals. He would end up signing a two-year deal worth $31 million, with $23 million guaranteed. "he expectation was that Watt would get a deal around $15 million, which he did, but it appears the Bills and general manager Brandon Beane didn’t plan to go that high. In one tweet from John Gambadoro, the Bills were the biggest competitor to the Cardinals. However, he followed that up with another tweet that said the Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts actually offered Watt more with the Titans being comparable to the Cardinals deal. "The fact that the Bills were not mentioned in the second tweet indicates that Brandon Beane was only willing to offer so much, which appears to not be as high as the $15 million. If J.J. Watt would have come to Buffalo, it would have been on a discount." https://buffalowdown.com/2021/03/02/buffalo-bills-stayed-course-didnt-panic-j-j-watt/ They absolutely did try. Making a lower offer and having it rejected for a higher offer can't be considered "not trying." Not trying is never making an offer or showing interest. They were in the last three teams in the running. That's trying. And since they didn't manage it, that's failing to sign him, which was the wording. There were a number of reports that they were actually in the running, several that they were in the last group of three.

Yeah, the scores were 6- 0 and 7-3, weren't they? You're right that defenses were important in both games. So were offenses, though. Also worth pointing out that winning a Super Bowl isn't a one-day thing. In fact, winning the game might be the easiest part. The hard part reaching the Super Bowl. Both winners had good defenses, you're right about that. The people who think defense doesn't matter have lost the plot. It's still huge. Yup. And Edmunds and Oliver were still fighting through injuries that greatly handicapped them, plus Milano wasn't even active. Our best defense was not on the field that day. Still, Tennessee is a genuinely good team that just got better.

I politely disagree. I think Henry is still going to see a ton of carries. This will just make the passing game better. Quite a bit better.

Yes, the thread is about DPOY. The thread. Remind me, were you replying to the thread? Or were you replying to me? Now, if you were replying to the thread, how come you clicked on "QUOTE" to my post? And if you were replying to me, how come you were trying to convince me about DPOY when I had already said - in the same post you were replying to - that DPOY is wildly unlikely? Either way your reply was clueless and off-target. And factually incorrect, which is why I was laughing. Facts: You were replying to me. And in the same post I'd said that DPOY was wildly unlikely. You didn't have to convince me of that. I was only laughing with BillsfaninSB about your amusing little mistake in facts. And yet, predictably, you felt the need to attempt to wiggle and squirm your way out. So, let's go through it again ... Quick, remind me. Did you say, "He's never recovered a fumble and we're only counting regular season because the NFL DPOY is only based on regular season production"? Or did you say, "He's never recovered a fumble"? Yup. You said he had never recovered a fumble. WRONG!! You said he "hasn't forced a fumble in 42 games." WRONG!! Two complete factual inaccuracies in one very short post. You weren't interested in being careful about facts. You wanted to find absolutely anything bad to say about a player you clearly don't like. And by the way, the way a mature, sensible person handles this by saying something along the lines of, "OK, fair enough, that was a mistake, I missed that, but ..." and continuing on. Well, two mistakes, in your case, but the idea is the same. Instead you try to finagle and justify and squirm your way out of it. It's one way to operate, I guess, but it's a tactic that only makes the reader wince in sadness and understanding.

Um, yes, another corner. Or a center. Or a WR replacement for Sanders, or to do with 1st round picks what good teams do, look down the road and see what high contracts could be replaced soon with a talented young guy on a rookie contract. 1st round picks are gold. You'd better be getting a Diggs, and Diggs was uninjured, on a much cheaper contract and a ton younger.

Huge, yes. Sensible, no. Affordable, no.

Damn that Rousseau. Now we're back down to $9.8M on the cap.

Quick, remind me. Did you say "He's never recovered a fumble and we're only counting regular season because the NFL DPOY is only based on regular season production"? Or did you say, "He's never recovered a fumble"? Yeah, that's what I thought. So, desperate sad justifications aside, the "fact" that I'm referring to is the one that you fumbled. The one you totally got wrong. Edmunds is generally considered a top ten guy at the position. And for good reason. That's why he twice made the Pro Bowl and it's why they exercised his fifth year option, and why exercising his fifth year option was never considered to be much of a question, except by the same few usual suspects on here. The DPOY prediction is meant to be a wildly unlikely one. I certainly don't consider it to be at all likely. Off-ball LBs win DPOY, but it does not happen often. Kuechly, Ray Lewis, Urlacher, Derrick Brooks, Singletary Randy Gradishar and Jack freaking Lambert. That's not a lot. I certainly wouldn't put any money on it no matter what odds I got. But is he likely to be a top ten ILB again? Yeah. Is he likely to improve a lot, especially with Star playing in front of him again? Yeah. He's young, smart and athletic and the team believes in him. And yeah it's wildly unlikely Edmunds gets DPOY. Except for Aaron Donald and maybe a group of six to ten other guys, it's wildly unlikely anyone else gets DPOY. You may not have noticed but they only give it to one guy out of half the NFL who are eligible.

Subjective indeed, as your bad take here clearly shows. The AFC has a bunch of good young MLBs who've played very well the past two to three years. Edmunds is certainly one of them.

Yes he did, but don't bother Badol with facts if they disrupt his narrative. Narratives are way more important to some guys. DPOY is certainly wildly unlikely, but he's already playing very well and could certainly improve a lot more with Star in front of him again and as he gets more experience.

I'm center-left, and I don't see him as a hero. He's a scientist, a guy who lets the science tell him what he should say. But he didn't have much of a choice but to develop the politician side of his personality. When you're constantly being grilled by Senate committees, trying to get you to say what they want to hear regardless of how well it fits with the science, you have to deal with it. But this thread is nuts. A writers tries to develop a source by treating them politely ... and it's proof of something? Somehow "carrying water"? Flat-out bizarre. You think if that woman wrote a letter to Rand Paul asking him to keep her informed that the tone would be different? Puh-leeze. Sad indeed, this thread, but now in the way many of the denizens here think.

I wanted a guy on the other side who was a real deep threat. Not just a deep threat, but a guy who made teams worry about him going deep. I am a bit depressed that you see decline in Sanders. I really haven't watched much of him. Hope it was an injury or something. Teams aren't as likely to play as much two-deep against us this year as they did last, I'd guess. We might see more variations of coverage. It'll be interesting to see how the Bills counter if teams start shortening the field in this way. Perhaps they'll start giving Marquez Stevenson some snaps as a gadget guy/deep threat.

Folks, so you see that he's again utterly mis-stating Royale's point. Royale was not arguing against correlation between obesity and illness. He's arguing correctly that you are taking data from a society-wide sample and wrongly arguing that it proves something about an extremely small, specific and rare group of people. Badol's keeps putting forward this completely unsupported idea that he can show correlation not between obesity and illness as Badol keeps saying, but specifically between active NFL linemen being overweight and illness. There is no evidence of that. It's amazing how you manage it, Badol, but you do ... you consistently misunderstand what he says and then follow that up by unsuccessfully attempting to argue something that's not closely connected to what he argued, and then claiming victory when you've not addressed his argument. The figures brought up by RichRiderBills still don't disprove his point. They do prove that more DLs who were active long ago have died from heart problems than expected. But the study doesn't address what they did after their careers, which is one of several unaddressed key variables. Even back then some guys after they finished their careers cut down their calories, got their appetites, their physiques and their health under control ... and some didn't. Nobody argues - least of all myself or Royale - that a guy like Fridge Perry, who is now beyond morbidly obese and was in a wheelchair last I saw, is not going to be likely to have health and heart problems because he used to exercise a lot when he played football. Everyone understands that the poor guy has a bad quality of life and is unhealthy and that that will very likely have serious consequences in terms of his cardiovascular health. But there have also been plenty of guys like Alan Page who appears happy, healthy and slender after working hard for 20 years to pack on enough functional weight to (sensationally) play DL in the NFL. Of course, living the rest of your life after football as an obese, inactive person is likely to have bad consequences. Nobody argues this, and yet Badol keeps pretending we are. The question is whether guys like Page, like Matt Birk, like Eric Wood, like Marshal Yanda, like Joe Thomas, like David Carter, like Brad Culpepper, like Golic, like Roger Brown, whether the group of guys like that who spend a decade or more eating voraciously in order to approach their ideal playing weights as very large tough linemen but then change to a healthier lifestyle, can be healthy. Badol argues that being an active NFL lineman will lead to large percentages of them being unhealthy because of what they did as active players. And he simply can't prove or even strongly indicate that. There simply is no proof that that guys who lead the NFL lifestyle can't be wildly healthy as long as they don't live the next 30 years of their life doing little or no exercise and eating too much. It's impossible to say whether playing DL in the NFL makes you unhealthy or whether the type of guy who becomes good enough at playing DL in the NFL is likely to have enough other risk factors - unhealthy habits after playing days end - that more of them end up having health problems than average.

Can no longer say which games they were, and it's fair enough to say he's had different games and teams have defended him and the Bills differently. But in 2019 I read all these people arguing that he wasn't getting doubled much and that he was getting pushed back a lot, and I went and watched four of the most recent games at that time on the All-22. Took me a long time to go through slowly, repeatedly and very carefully. And on run plays anywhere through the middle he was doubled way more than half the time. He absolutely did have a few bad plays. But overall was pushed back rarely and did the job of clogging up the middle very well indeed. He really has not failed at it. I suppose you could say, "Hey, you only watched four games," and that's true enough. But it's really basically only a group of Bills fans saying this stuff about Star not getting it done. Around the league there's really no significant Star sucks group outside Buffalo. They're saying it hurt us that he was gone and if he hasn't regressed it will help a lot that he returns. And for good reason. No, he's not elite, or even close. But yeah, he really is a good space eater, and that's what McDermott needs out of a two-down 1-tech.

Perhaps a bit. If you think it was really significant, I just disagree. It sure didn't look to me like a coincidence that we were quite a bit worse last year against the run, as YPA clearly shows.