Thurman#1

No, that's NOT what he said. Not in that post or in any post here. What you ought to do when you talk about what other people said, you want to use the quote itself. You didn't, and therefore very poorly summarized what he said, whether deliberately or carelessly. Here's what he actually said: He did NOT say "this regime doesn't give up on early draft picks." He specifically mentioned, "after two seasons." Which is correct. Jones was traded five games into his third year. They gave him a shot to improve in his third year, but he simply didn't step up. Logic also DID say, "PARTICULARLY when the player showed a lot of promise in one of those years." And there isn't any question that Singletary showed a lot of promise his first year, top four in YPA among RBs. Where is Zay's top four finish? Top five? Top ten? I guess you could argue if you think that Zay showed a lot of promise. I'd love to hear you try to make that argument. I'd find it hard to swallow anything much beyond that he showed potential.

Also the same head coach who has taken this team from well below average to competitive for a Super Bowl. The guy who took this team from irrelevant for two decades to beyond relevant and into competitive for a title. Agreed that they wouldn't keep a player "just because they drafted him." True, not only for that reason. But the thing about Zay is that he wasn't good. Was Zay ever near the very top of the league in any year in any important stat as Singletary was in YPC in 2019? I sure didn't notice if he was. And despite having much more to prove than Singletary does, Zay did play with the Bills in his third year, though he didn't make it all the way through the season.

95% chance. EDIT: After re-thinking, it's a bit lower, maybe 80%. Weird stuff happens, but yes, he will. It'll come down to the draft. IMO the odds have risen a bit for picking an RB if more recent mocks are correct in guessing that most CBs, pass-rushing DEs, WRs worth the spot are gone, as well as guys like Barmore, Vera-Tucker, Owusu-Koramoah, Leatherwood, or a few others they might like. I put it around a 20% chance right now, which is higher than I'd figured before when how things seemed to be falling were a bit more favorable.

Puh-leeze. What swung that game was that the Bills were pretty bad in the second half. And that play on the kickoff was one of the rare, unusual and welcome cases when the NFL did the right thing even though they had to break the rules to do it. They followed the spirit of the game. It was fine. If they had not done that football fandom would have spent the next 50 years talking about how the Bills got a BS touchdown and the Texans, though the interpretation of the rules was correct, were ripped off. And they'd have been right. If we'd wanted to score on that drive, we should have earned it by going down and scoring.

But which team won? The better team. We scored when we needed to. And they got the ball with 2:30 left and our defense strangled them, not even letting them get near field goal range. The Chiefs - Browns in the playoffs was close also. Think they're worried about it?

I guess you're right about the financial area he'll be available at. And it's too much. Cap problems prevent it. Many people on these boards don't care about the cap problems, they'd rather find cans to kick down the road and worry about it all next year. Thankfully, that's not the kind of GM we have. We've got a guy who is building for consistent long-term competitiveness, and that is greatly aided by financial self-discipline. Which Beane has. He's a hell of a GM.

KC did it for a QB. They didn't have one. That's pretty much the only good reason to give up so much to go up. Again, the Massey and Thaler study was only the first of many academic studies to look at giving up a lot to go up. https://www.datascienceassn.org/sites/default/files/Overconfidence vs. Market Efficiency in the National Football League.pdf And they all say the same thing. Giving up a lot to trade up lowers your chances of a good outcome. Getting a lot to trade down raises your chances of a good outcome.

I'd argue the reason they let Teller go had less to do with Ford and more to do with Boettger, Bates and Spain/Long.

He's an absolutely excellent player. One of the better slot guys of all time. I don't much like him either but he was really good.

Me too. The defense was elite in 2019 and after 6 or 7 weeks to try to adjust to Star's absence and all the new guys on the DL, damn good in 2020. They need one more pass rusher.

He was also injured early in the year but played through it. And later in the year he was a lot better. I don't think that was coincidental.

Wow. Hunh.

Yeah, but Gallagher. He hasn't been a disappointment. If anything he's been unable to be unevaluated. First they put him in the wrong position for a year. Then they switched him in a year with no offseason. Then they switched him again to the other side, which is a huge adjustment. Then he was injured. He should be a good one as long as he doesn't turn out to be injury-prone. He has to prove it, but looks like he'll be good if they put him in one position - inside - and let him get used to it.

This year without the combine setup flattening out the situational factors, everyone is running faster than any other year. Yeah, Moore is fast, very fast. I like him a lot. But you wouldn't put him in Hill's speed neighborhood until he starts proving himself in the NFL.

We're already competing for a Super Bowl, as the roster is right now. If you count on injuries wearing down a team, that certainly happens, but not only to the Bills. It happens on every team, to varying degrees. There certainly is a way the receivers last. Might not happen. But it might. Same with KC's receivers, and every other team. But yeah, they certainly need to keep working, and the draft will be a very big part of that.

.. which is the McDermott system ... I think you're right that those others can do more, but especially on run downs I'm not sure McDermott wants more.

It is a very reasonable draft need, another 1-tech. No reason to think he would take over next year, though. They would save very little getting rid of Star even next year, so barring regression Star could easily be around to the end of his contract. Again, barring regression.

No, not all of them. There's a reason they call it a football team, not a football person. But yes, he was badly missed and is likely to make a big difference.

No. 1) This offense is already elite. 2) We're not getting TE Pitts.

Yeah. Allen needs to keep improving. He needs to keep getting better at working with Diggs. The intended starting OL didn't play together for a single snap. They need to do a lot better than that, and with Ford and Feliciano as the guards, they need to take advantage of that beef and aggression and improve the running game, and last year's RB rookie and 2nd year guys need to keep developing. Were you thrilled with how the defense performed against the Chiefs? I'd argue they have to improve a lot more than the offense.

Second in points isn't good enough? Nonsense. Ask Tampa Bay about that. They were 3rd, but had a damn good defense as well. And you're kidding yourself that one RB is going to crank scoring up 6 - 7 points per game to "37-38 PPG," your words. That's ridiculous. One team in NFL history has scored more than 37 PPG, and their run game was not particularly impressive (4.1 YPC). And with all those points they didn't win the Super Bowl.

Any first round RB. But the more I look at it, the more it seems that in the positions where we'd want to grab a guy in the first round, #30 is in no man's land. I'm hoping they trade down if that's their best option for a pick at #30.

Great post. Very thoughtful and a lot of effort. One small quibble is that you say "I think it's safe to say the first 21 prospects will be gone, and you can throw in QB Jones for 22." I would disagree. There's often a guy or two who falls. At a guess, 20 of those 22 will almost surely be gone, but I wouldn't be any surer than that. In any case, very interesting.

It's all speculation now but he did play a lot of STs, and that will tend to get you some head trauma.

Dugger is doing a lot more than LB stuff with the Pats. He did a lot of many different things. Which is what I think the Bills are going to ask of their big nickel, though it's impossible to be sure. "Dugger’s Pro Football Focus grade sat behind only Antoine Winfield Jr. of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Kamren Curl of the Washington Football Team and Xavier McKinney of the New York Giants among safeties from his draft class. "PFF credited Dugger for four quarterback hurries and 11 stops against the run. His coverage was held responsible 274 receiving yards and no touchdowns. Dugger’s in-the-box role brought assignments versus tight ends and running backs. It was spelled by work in the slot as well as in the outfield. It saw him start seven of the final eight games while playing no fewer than 53% of the downs in the process. "The longest look came in the finale versus the New York Jets. Dugger never left the defensive huddle over the course of New England’s 28-14 win. He served as an inside linebacker amid a series of injuries, with veteran arrival Adrian Phillips’ in-game exit being one of them." https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverthomas/2021/01/14/kyle-duggers-rookie-season-proved-to-be-a-hit-for-new-england-patriots/?sh=5551c7a74f5c They rush him, he played slot corner, deep safety, LB, covering TEs and RBs ... The Bills love to try to prevent QBs from getting easy pre-snap reads. Having a guy who can do nearly anything adds a lot of confusion to the pictures you can present. Many on here seem to think that big nickel means "guy to cover tight ends." And that is very far from the only thing a guy like that would be used for, though it certainly is one of the possibilities for a good one.