Thurman#1

A hurry absolutely carries the value it always does. A hurry forces a QB to do something he doesn't want to do, whether it is to move from his spot or to throw early, force him into the arms of another player or whatever. Hughes is still getting the job done. Unlikely to be a candidate for a cut. We need more pass rush, not less.

Fair enough that you disagree. You're claiming the freedom to communicate unclearly, and nobody can take that away from you. To communicate clearly and well should - I personally believe - be the goal in any public communication. Message board or not. If someone wants to be understood correctly, he should speak clearly. But some people have other priorities, and that's their prerogative. And no, you don't have to say "I believe" or "in my opinion" before every opinion, to be clear. I pointed out four easy alternatives and there are surely hundreds if not tens of thousands of ways to point out you're expressing an opinion. But if you don't mind being misunderstood easily and often, who am I to challenge your priorities? Hell, I'm just a guy on the internet. On the other hand, I have the right to say something along the lines of "What you have there is an opinion, it is certainly not a fact," if you state an opinion as a fact. I'm not a mind-reader, just a text-reader. Even if your intention is to give your opinion, if I can't understand that from the writing, I'm gonna react to what you wrote, just as I do for everyone. I just do my best to understand the words on the page or the screen, myself. I think that's what most people do, they assume what someone wrote is what they meant. I don't think of myself as bright enough to elicit unexpressed meaning from text. Worth pointing out, though, that Simms spends a great deal of time and care pointing out that what he says is opinion. 01:30 "Zach Wilson is clearly the number one quarterback in the draft for me." 04:00 "To me, he is the clear-cut number one quarterback in this draft. I love Trevor Lawrence, there's a lot I like. But I think Zack Wilson and him, there's a separation there, for my money and what I see and what I've evaluated." He even prefaces the whole thing with a similar statement, "What I'm evaluating here is what I see on the field. Yeah, I hear rumors and all that kind of stuff, OK? But all I can do is see what I see on the field and use my knowledge that way, and that's really what my rankings are all about." That was only the first four minutes. He goes on like that constantly, in pretty much every podcast. Why? I think it's because through long experience he's found out that, people misunderstand him. They hear it as, "I know this, 'cause I'm just that smart." He's been faced with that misunderstanding often enough that he knows if he wants to be correctly understood he's got to say this.

The oldest pitch in the world. "We have more money than just about anyone else."

I guardedly agree that he could still throw. It's hard to be sure, but it looked that way. But IMO it was less that Rivers was coached all that much better and more that the Indy OL was very good and the Pittsburgh OL was very bad. Ben had to get rid of the ball very fast on nearly every play, and that did get predictable and thus easy to take advantage of.

Not really buying that 100%. It's true somewhat every year, and this year will be the same. But I expect teams, as usual, to target a few guys as their main objectives and go for those guys early. And then comes time for patience. IMO it'll be much like every year, but with lower prices and fewer competitors for the FAs.

2021 tag value for Dak Prescott: $37,690,800 2022 tag value for Dak Prescott: $54,274,752 https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/agents-take-dak-prescott-tops-12-franchise-tag-candidates-in-2021-plus-each-positions-projected-tag-salary/ And I believe the next year it goes up by 44% again. There's pressure on the Boys to get a deal done. He's worth signing even if you're overpaying a bit. But if I'm Dallas and I'm determined not to overpay, I draft a QB early this year, possibly with a tradeup. It would be a mistake, but if you're determined not to overpay it's the next-best alternative even if it's much much worse in its impact on your team.

It always shocks and surprises me when people start a negotiation by asking for a bit more than they're likely to get. It also shocks and surprises me when there is disagreement on the value of a unique product or service on the open market.

Your words. "_________ is ___________," is not grammatically how you present an opinion. It's how you present a fact or something you believe is a fact. "I've got _______________ as _____________." or "_______________ looks like ________________." or "I believe __________ is _____________." or "Doesn't seem that way to me." Those, and a thousand alternatives and a million variations are ways to present an opinion. You know all this. You find Simms using this kind of language constantly.

Come on, Bill. That's an opinion, too. A less controversial one than his, certainly. Could easily turn out to be absolutely correct down the line. But it's not a fact. We'll find out who the best QB in the class is a few years down the line. Right now we can't even agree on who was the best college QB. I have great respect for your opinions, but that is what this is.

Can't answer for Gunner, but I can point out that Miller is going to cost too much for us. The likelihood there is very low. I think JJ Watt will play up to the salary Arizona gave him. He'll be worth it. But he wouldn't have been worth it for us in our cap situation. Yeah, it's worth remembering. Mike Remmers is a decent right tackle. Far from great, but OK. In the Super Bowl he had to play left tackle. And he can NOT play left tackle at any kind of reasonable level.

Heh heh. Whip it right. He's both quick and fast. Hightlight packages always look great, but still:

The whole reason people hate the new onside kick rule is that it nearly eliminates suspense. They are converted so very infrequently that fans don't worry if the other team is trying one. Apparently the new conversion rate is slightly less than 10%. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/risky-business/2020/risky-business-week-12-onside-kicks ... whereas rates under the old rules were closer to 13%. That's the sweet spot, IMO. Kicking teams historically recovered onside kicks between 15% and 20% of the time in a given season. In 2018, in part to changes on the kickoff play, that number dropped below 10%. https://operations.nfl.com/gameday/analytics/stats-articles/why-fourth-and-15-from-the-25-insight-into-the-nfl-s-experiment-with-an-onside-kick-alternative/ And I think 4th and 25 would probably have a conversion rate even lower than the new onside kick rule that people find unsatisfactory because conversions are so infrequent nobody worries about them. I do think maybe you're right that 4th and 15 might be a bit easy. 4th and 17, maybe? 18? Something along those lines might be better, IMO. A fifteen yard penalty would result in a conversion, and that's probably not a good idea.

In terms of likelihood of a game turnaround and being better in synch with the spirit of the game, this would be best. Don't see it happening, though. They'd have legit safety concerns.

If they did learn something from the Morse experience, it was probably that they'd gotten an excellent player at an undervalued but highly important position. But that at that point when we switched to a different blocking scheme, going to a more power-oriented straight-ahead scheme over the pulling we'd been using before, that that had taken an excellent pickup and made the guy a poorer fit in the new plan.

Depends on the money and the other knock-on effects. If you upgrade your guard and you then can't sign Milano and Daryl Williams and you replace them poorly, you might easily weaken the team overall. It's a complex system. Every move has knock-on effect that aren't direct results of each move but nonetheless follow as a consequence. Beane is very aware of this, of course, but he didn't know the major cap drop was coming. The teams that are best set up to handle this are the ones with a lot of cap space. Including the Patriots.

This. It's his own foundation making the decision, and yet people try to manufacture outrage. Kinda sad. Change happens. Always has, always will. Society looks at things differently as we learn and change. Always have and always will. Pitiful how people get upset about it.

From what little I can tell, he wouldn't fit us. He's a pass-rushing 3-4 LB. Very talented guy, though.

"Only" is a bit strong. The Raiders got Waller off the Ravens practice squad. Kittle got 515 yards his first year and 1377 in his second. But yeah, draft and develop for a while is maybe the commonest way to get a good TE, and you're probably right about Knox being our best hope for a game changer this year.

Depends on the price. He isn't what he was but if he came cheapish, great. Minny has definitely cut his snap counts a bit the last couple of years. In 2015, he played 83% of their snaps, then in 2016, 92%, then 83%, then 88%, then in 2019 78% playing 16 games, then last year missed the last four games to a foot injury, but he didn't miss 75%, he missed 57%. We'd be well-advised to manage his workload but they'd probably want to do that often anyway. Still caught 81.3% and then 75.7% of his targets, which were two of the three highest percentages of his career (the second-highest was 2018 at 78.0%). Probably threw shorter than usual to him, with those high percentages. Worth noting. He got his highest Y/Target last year but I'm betting that's a bit of a statistical fread based on a fairly small number of catches, 28, and targets, 37. Sure, again depending on the price.

Nope The problem in those four Super Bowls wasn't so much the offense. It was that unfortunately all four of those teams that beat them had monster OLs and were willing and able to pound the ball again and again and again and again to burn clock and keep our offense off the field. Not to mention that most of the rest of the reason our offense was stopped was that they came up against terrific Ds. The teams we faced were the #1, #2, #5 and #2 defenses in points allowed in the league. Whereas we were #6, #19, #14 and #5. We had better offenses, and they had better defenses. They won. And as for the run D not being important ... man, you don't want to use those SBs as evidence there. XXV: The Giants rushed 39 times for 172 yards and that greatly assisted in allowing the Bills only 10 possessions (excepting a one-play kneel-down drive before half-time. XXVI: Washington rushed 40 times for 125 yards. That one was not close. They beat us up in every phase. XXVII: Dallas had 29 rushes for 137 yards. That game was not close in any way. They destroyed us in every phase. We had eight fumbles in that game!! We only lost five (three from Frank Reich after Kelly's) but that and the 4 INTs and we were never close. Nine turnovers !!! XXVIII: The other one we could have won. Dallas ran 35 times for 137 yards and 2 TDs. Held us to 10 possessions.We led at halftime and the second half was all Emmitt Smith. Thurman says he lost the game with his fumbles, and there's some truth to that, but our defense simply couldn't stop their run game in the second half. Yeah, pass defense is more important. But that doesn't make run defense unimportant. Less important, yes. Unimportant, no. Yes, precisely. It gets harder to draft well the further back you get in the round. But you still have to do it well.

There is a major difference between being wrong and having a different opinion than the speaker. What you have there is an opinion, not a fact. It's not an unreasonable opinion, not at all. But it is not a fact.

That's just not a reasonable thing to say. First, he didn't triple, that's a perfect example of a person convinced of something saying anything he can to make his point. And yes, he's huge, but some guys get huge without using steroids. Some use steroids, and some don't. But that Chippewas photo is from high school. Do we even know which year in high school? An awful lot of people get an awful lot bigger after high school without using steroids. Your saying you know he uses them from pictures is just as unreasonable as it would be for me to say I know he hasn't. More, what does whether a guy used steroids have to do with whether he's selfish or hard to coach or egotistical? Nothing.

Perhaps because you disagree with some guy on the internet as to whether a team is Super Bowl competitive. Bitter.

No. You make your team better by the largest amount you can. Defense or offense. And of course the Bucs defense can't be recreated. Neither can any team's defense or offense. But you can still follow the Bucs model, which among other things was to improve the defense as well as the offense. If you make our defense better, it's harder for the Chiefs to score. Focus on the team. Which certainly includes the defense. The reason the Chiefs went from contender to champion was that even when they had Mahomes they went out of their way to bring in two really good defenders in Mathieu and Frank Clark in 2019 and that meant they were harder to score against, which made every point they scored even more important as it was now harder to match. In 2018 the Chiefs were 1st in the NFL in scoring and 24th in preventing points. And got outscored in the AFC championship by a Pats Then they brought in Mathieu and Clark and went from 1st down to 5th in points but from 24th all the way up to 7th in points allowed. And won a Super Bowl.

Man, the sour grapes on here. He's a good player though certainly not the guy he used to be. He's a good guy too. We didn't get him. Fine. We move on and use the money differently. I think he might play up to the level of that contract. But in the Bills financial situation he wasn't worth that kind of money to us.