Thurman#1

Outside the 2018 season and a few this year, he actually has stayed healthy. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2021/3/21/22341413/injury-analysis-buffalo-bills-te-jacob-hollister-2021-nfl-free-agency

Ertz would only cost us his salary, $8.5M. Njoku $6.013M, as you said. IMO both of those are too expensive this year, though they could jigger things around to fit one.

I disagree that he wasn't the guy they wanted to move. If they were getting maybe a 3rd or a 4th or something, then yeah, make the trade even if it makes your lineup a bit weaker. For a 6th, though? I don't think so. It's not a big enough return to get you to get rid of a guy you'd like to keep, IMO.

Hate to see him go, but I think it's clear that this means they weren't keeping him anyway. A 6th isn't much, but it's something.

You don't see burst? I don't know what to say. I see burst. Again and again and again. The evaluators saw burst. Burst just does not appear to be the problem. When it comes down to change of direction I'd agree that at that point he does sometimes seem a bit awkwardish, and his height does appear to be an issue on that kind of play, but in terms of immediate burst, he's really good. Yeah, good speed as well, we see that the same, but that's not all it is, he's also quick. As I say, those were the first three evaluations I saw, and after I copied those three I looked at four or five others. They all said he had burst and was athletic as hell. Every one. As for the goal line stand play, yeah, Klein slashes into a gap, and Edmunds doesn't. But the fact is, there was a gap just in front of Klein for him to run into, and in front of Edmunds was a mosh pit that looked like it might move over to his right allowing a gap to open up just in front of Edmunds. So yeah, he waited, but the instant that gap appeared, he filled it. If he'd done anything else, it would have been a touchdown. I agree that the people who don't like him seem to want a slobber-knocker, and I think you're right that that's not what McDermott needs, nor what Edmunds is. Here's Baldinger talking going on about what a savage he is: Here's Mirsky and Troia breaking down a bunch of plays. It's good stuff, and you see him filling a lot of holes, beating blockers to the point of attack, and so on. It's good stuff, certainly not all positive. It's a couple of months old, well before camp started, but the breakdowns are good. He fills a lot of area in the middle in the pass game. But he's a good run defender too.

I think it's precisely that simple. The only real problem with letting the the other team get a lot of TOP is that you get fewer possessions. Other than that, it's fine. The Kelly-Thurman Bills used to be killed week after week in TOP. But the offense was good and so even if they got fewer possessions, they scored enough points to make it work. To work very well indeed. I'm getting your point. I'm disagreeing strongly. The Bills offense had nine possessions and punted four times and was intercepted once. That's awful, and it is basically the reason KC won.

While I think your work is thoughtful, observant and interesting here, I think you're off-target in one area. To me - and of course this is just an opinion - I think you are approaching this wrong on the DL. You seem to be saying that there is likely to be a trade (reasonable), so I'm going to look trade-first and figure out who we keep after looking at the trade. And I don't think that's the way they do it. I think they look at who they want to keep, and after deciding that they see if they can rustle up a trade with the folks they don't want to keep. And to me, Obada has been kicking butt this year, to the point that he's one of our two or three best pass rushers, and maybe even better than that. And yet the league-wide perception of him is that he isn't that great. I mean, we were able to get him for a one year, $1.5M contract. So I think if we traded him, we wouldn't get as much value in trade as he would give us on the roster. I think he's right here this year. I agree with most of the rest of what you said, it all seems reasonable and possible. I think it's really possible that some other DL will be traded.

Yeah, there is a legit counterargument there. You'll tend to get fewer drives, as the other team burns time. But when you hold the Chiefs to 26 points, your defense has done a pretty good job. The Chiefs averaged 29.6 a game. The Chiefs offense averaged 29.6, but their defense averaged allowing 22.6 a game, and we only managed 17, far below what they can generally be touched for. And it was worse than that. We only scored our 2nd TD, going from 10 points to 17, when the game was all but over, with 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter. The problem that game was mostly with our offense.

I'm not sure I agree with your contention that he isn't good at it. He appears to be good at it sometimes, though if what you mean is that he isn't excellent at it, or nearly as good as he is in other areas, I'd agree. It's true he isn't a mauler or a guy who often blows people up, though again he does it sometimes, such as on the goal line stand where he stoned the RB at the one last year. But he's too tall and rangy to consistently blow up guys. He doesn't have an easy time getting underneath them. It tends to be squattier guys who are the real slobberknockers. Totally disagree with you about the burst, though. His draft evaluations speak pretty eloquently about that: "Edmunds is an explosive athlete with rare physical gifts for a linebacker of his stature. He possesses both quick short-area burst to close in on the ball and recovery speed to track down ball carriers in pursuit. " https://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/tremaine-edmunds-nfl-draft-profile-and-scouting-report-249 "Edmunds combines elite size, speed and explosiveness into a productive, versatile linebacker package ... Twitches for a second when it is time to make a play ... Combines length with rare reactive athleticism and agility to access and tackle opportunities from unconventional angles" (Zierlein) https://www.nfl.com/prospects/tremaine-edmunds/32004544-4d00-0000-c30c-56fb5191e34f "Sometimes his amazing athleticism helps him to recover and still be in position to make the plays, but at the NFL level, playing against better athletes, he will need to improve his play recognition skills drastically." https://www.cover1.net/draft-recap-round-1-pick-16-lb-tremaine-edmunds/ Those were the first three that came up. All of the evaluations mention athleticism burst and quickness very positively. I think he's good at it depending on the situation, but that it's not his greatest strength, or even close. Agreed that it generally isn't his job.

Makes total sense to me. The run defense and run offense are the third and fourth most important phases of the game, and have been for many years. Doesn't mean they're entirely unimportant. They're not. But passing is what the game is about these days. Having the other two phases also be strong makes your team more bulletproof, but the key is the passing game. It's not a mistake that there are so very few Brandon Spikes types out there these days.

I don't even agree with this. He's got areas where he's stronger than Smoke, such as health so far, and high-pointing the ball, but a healthy Smoke to a second-year Davis isn't an upgrade, IMO. Well, we'll see. Obviously there's no way to prove you're wrong, short of watching the season play out, but I sure think you'll be shown wrong there.

This year on this team? I don't even see him challenging for #3 unless one of the top three get cut or injured. Ever on the Buffalo Bills in his career? I don't see it happening in the next eight or nine years as long as Diggs is here. My guess is no. Ever on any team? There I'd say it's possible. Maybe he'll improve greatly over the next few years. But he looks to me like a solid guy who's really good at the scramble drill.

No, you say I'm sorry you feel that way, but you've done something wonderful, something that will have positive effects not just for you but for the people around you, for your friends, and for your society and even for your world. You've done something great here, I'd like to shake your hand. If I met McKenzie, I'd congratulate, support and compliment him.

No, because there's nothing to hate him for. The vaccinated player has done his best to see that he doesn't get it, and thus that he doesn't pass it on. The measure he took is not perfect. He still might catch it and thus risk passing it on. But he's at least done his best to prevent that. Whereas the unvaccinated player has refused to do something very easily done with very little downside. He's refused to take the best most efficient step towards protecting others.

"Attempting" is a bit overstating it. What they did was propose it, apparently at the beginning of talks involving back and forth proposals.

While that's certainly one outcome, it's far from the only one. And if they were smart, the folks above Nagy would rein him in on that logic and tell him to value the long-term over the short-term here. From how it looks, they may already have started that. You're very right that there may well be pressure on Nagy. There's nearly always pressure on people to make stupid decisions based on short-term logic. Many decisions are made based on that kind of awful process. But the fact that there was a lot of pressure doesn't make the bad decisions any better. Yup. Good point about their OL. I still think David Carr could have been a really good QB if he hadn't been systematically mishandled and forced into a case of PTSD.

On 9/12, in week 2 and week 3, there's something at stake to gain by taking the risk.

Trying to slow down the video, I don't think Oliver got a hand on it. He got his hand up so maybe the QB had to throw over him. He was around a foot low to touch the ball, though. The way it's written, I almost wonder whether Oliver's play that they refer to was on an earlier down or something.

You may well be right. History points that way. I hope for his sake that he sits for most of the year, if not all of it.

The long term future of that guy, which for the next four to six years will probably correspond well with the long term success of the whole franchise, is way way more important than winning (very likely losing, actually) one game in a season in which the team will not compete for a championship. Sit him, work on his mechanics and his understanding of the game, and do it for the whole year if you think that's what will work best for him long-term. Follow the Mahomes plan.

Yeah, I agree with this strongly. Start him, don't start him, whatever. But limit his playing time so he's not too worn down late. Winter is coming.

Erased it. Don't want to spread misinformation. Thank you. And yes, I'm hoping they see the five days at home as a wakeup call.

In the lowest four teams of the league is absolutely low. If I were vaccinated on that team I would be angry.

Heh heh. Didn't want him in the first. But I hope he recovers as soon as possible. Hate to see things like that.

That is some stunningly bad logic. Because a thing has not happened yet is not even close to proof it won't happen soon.