Thurman#1

Worth noting that the Falcons - Pats Super Bowl a few years ago looked like this one but reversed, with Brady and the Pats down. Falcons up 28 - 3. Then stuff happened. The momentum in this year's game never switched. And a lot of that was that Brady never let his foot off their neck. One mistake might have switched things around, given the Chiefs hope. Brady never made one.

Um, the 2018 Pats defense was #7. 13th in points. 2016 Pats were #8. 1st in points. 2014 they were 8th in both. Those were only the first three I looked at. So, no. Or are you saying that the opponents Ds were all top 3? Because the 2018 Rams were 20th in both.

Possibly true, but the guy on twitter entirely misses the point. You don't win a Super Bowl by winning one game. First you have 16 during which you have to make the playoffs. Then three more and you have to win all three. Then the Super Bowl game. And I promise that if the Bucs start the season with those 20 other guys they don't win the Super Bowl except with Brady and maybe Mahomes and Rodgers. Josh is very close but I'm not sure. Yup.

I didn't see all that much adjustment, myself. They were better wire to wire. And you're right that Tampa's D was better, the fact that Tampa's offense consistently scored and kept the pressure on, while the Bills offense ... didn't ... was huge.

Strongly disagree here. They were not good the first half of the year but the second half they were very good. And yes, the Chiefs made them look bad but if having the Chiefs offense score a lot on you means you're bad, then nearly every D in the league is bad. I wonder how the Bucs D would have looked if the Chiefs hadn't lost their OTs and had Mahomes limping. Second half of the year we put an excellent product on the field, excellent. Doesn't mean they don't still need to work on improvement same as every team but they were very good. We do need another serious pass rusher, though, no question about it, and it'll be good if Lotulelei returns next year as well.

Nobody with a single ounce of sense said this about the Bucs. Out of 22 starters this year, 14 were Bucs draft picks.

I absolutely can. I mean, you have to be utterly convinced that he stands a very solid chance to be your franchise guy. Without that, of course it won't happen. But I think there are teams out there willing to believe that. His salary is $15.4M and the roster bonus is $10M. That's a lot. Unless he's a top ten QB. Then it's actually cheapish. Plus nothing is guaranteed in 2022. Very doable for any team that believes.

Sorry, man, that's just a dumb idea. Sure, if you want to judge Marrone and Whaley negatively ... hey, that's totally fair. You'll get a bit of an argument, but only from a relatively few folks. But you have to stretch yourself like you're being racked, drawn and quartered to pretend that McDermott and Beane can be judged in any way by what the Bills did in 2013 to 2017. They can not, by any even slightly logical standard. Comparing the first four years of this regime to the first four years of the Chiefs, makes total sense, as long as you acknowledge that McDermott and Beane rebuilt, while Reid reloaded. And yes, McDermott traded away the pick that became Mahomes. He's made it clear several times since that he simply didn't have time to do what was necessary here as a new coach with a GM he didn't trust to also do the work necessary to vet those QBs. Hard to imagine why McDermott didn't trust Whaley to pick his QB when Whaley had gone all out saying he'd been in on the EJ choice ... why wouldn't you let the guy who apparently chose EJ, let that Doug Whaley choose the QB who would define your legacy with the team? And a team with Josh Allen on it doesn't have to worry much about any earlier QB decisions. Yeah, Whaley - Marrone sucked. But the new regime is only four years old and appears to have pulled off an extremely successful rebuild and be heading in the right direction even faster than Reid did. After Reid's first four years he hadn't reached the Conference championship.

Saying that you want to compare the Chiefs and the Bills rebuild is like saying you want to compare these two fruits: apples and medium-rare steak. But steak isn't a fruit, you say? Precisely. And the Chiefs didn't rebuild either. You're comparing the Chiefs reload to the Bills rebuild. You can do that. But thinking you're comparing two rebuilds is completely missing the point. The Chiefs could have rebuilt. Instead they brought in Alex Smith as an FA and became a competitive team immediately, winning 11 games the first year and losing the Wild Card game 45 - 44. Whereas with Tyrod we looked absolutely awful in that Wild Card game, scoring three points total. And in Reid's second year there, they went 9-7, while the Bills went 6-10 in McD's second year. That's not close. Especially when the Chiefs 9 - 7 included beating the Patriots in a year when they went 12 - 4 and won the Super Bowl. The Chiefs also beat the 12 - 4 Seahawks that year And that's what tends to happen. Rebuilds suck much more in the first year or two. A reload where you bring in a QB like Alex Smith has a possibility of being relatively pain-free, which is what happened with the Chiefs. And yeah, there's been a lot of criticism for the Chiefs game, but that's exactly because people now are considering our current FO as an extremely capable one. As well they should, Beane and McDermott have been terrific. This is understood extremely widely. When you are criticizing a coach for losing the AFC championship, you're considering him as a successful guy. You're accepting much higher expectations.

That's very far from clear. The argument is that for a four-game stretch we did much worse than any other time of the season, but that four-game stretch is also when we played 3 of the top seven defenses, in the Rams, Fins and Pats. May have been a factor, though.

Yes, Mahomes increased Tyreek's production by about 30% ... just by throwing to him more. His catch percentage was higher in 2017 (71.4%, which dropped to 63.5% under Mahomes). He had 105 targets and then 137 under Mahomes. I'm not convinced he was much better with Mahomes, just more used, though. His yards per target was higher in 2017.

I can't click through there. Something wrong with the link, or something. But that looks way way low to me. If they can get him for that I'm all for it. I think he's going to get a lot more than that.

Interesting article. There's nothing about hate or anything close in it. And it does sound to me like he missed Reich, among others, as Reich could control him better. Does help explain his regression, though. And it sounds like there are a lot of nuances to the situation. It's neither that his teammates hated him nor that his coach knew he wasn't the answer, as one poster above put it.

If he gets them to the Super Bowl it's not too much. Even if it's three or four years from now, it's worth it, IMO. Not that I would want to pay that much if I'm the Colts. But if they genuinely believe in Wentz, it could be a great deal for them. You've got to have a QB. Really tough decision. Not laughable at all, IMO. I could go either way on that, depending how much I believed in Wentz. That's what it looks like to me too. They'd better be damn sure if they have to give up two firsts and a player, though.

A fine player. We'd be a better team with him. Don't see us being able to afford him. Make an offer, and wave goodbye.

This isn't the year you want to be trying to trade away guys with a big contract. There's very little money out there assuming the new cap is what they're predicting. And there will be a lot of WRs hitting free agency and realizing that at least for one year they're not going to get near what their value would ordinarily be. People have said that they could re-negotiate downwards and then trade him. IMO if Brown does re-negotiate, he'd want some kind of guarantee that there'd be no trade, or that he had approval. He wouldn't negotiate down so he could then be traded to a four-win team, especially if the re-negotiation includes an extension. Being cut would be much better for Brown in that case. Yes, speculation. And disagree with Joe all you want, but whatever else you want to say about him, you can't reasonably say he only goes on stats. The guy is a hard-core film-watcher and thoughtfully analyzes it. But again, you're right, this was only speculation.

Yup. A prediction. Certainly one that's very possible, but other things could happen. They could re-negotiate. Might even keep him and make other cuts instead. Poor headline.

Tyreek cuts so fast he can only get his hand on his hip rather than around it. Great hustle by Zimmer. Hill is just too fast.

If ... and it's a big if ... but if the answer at DE is on the team ... ... his name is Darryl Johnson. Ed Oliver is the answer at 3-tech, where he already is.

The difference being that Haason Reddick was considered a massive bust while Edmunds has been a two-time Pro Bowler at MLB. They picked him for MLB because he has the skills and abilities that they want at MLB. You may not want them there, but McDermott and Beane do. And I'm not sure what you're talking about with Oliver. Attacking 3-tech is exactly what he's already doing.

I agree with most of this. But I don't think they'll be able to re-sign Williams. He's going to be expensive and IMO they'll prioritize Milano first. No way to know, but that's how it seems to me. That and why would you think they'd put Boettger at LT? Am I even understanding you right? I'd guess they might have to choose between Feliciano and Morse, and that if they do, they'd go with Feliciano. So if that' is correct ... My guess would be: Dawkins / Ford / Feliciano / Boettger or Nsekhe or rook / Nsekhe or rook It should be interesting.

I think if you check, you will find he is. No telling how long that will last, but Peterman is in fact an NFL backup. Not a top-rank one, as his salary clearly shows, but he is one. He sure looked horrible here, but a part of the problem was that he shouldn't have been starting. The Bills were partly at fault in this. If you look at Peyton Manning's first four games, he threw 3 TDs and 11 INTS and had a QB rating around 50. Peterman is likely a very different guy now than he was when we saw him. And before the people with less than perfect understanding of arguments begin, no, I'm not saying Peterman should be compared with Manning in any way other than the way I just compared them. I'm using Manning as an example of a guy who turned into a superb QB who wasn't good when in his first few games on the field. And Manning was drafted way way above Peterman.

I know, I know. I mean, what a crap lineup, right? Let's just take a look at the 2nd team: QB: Josh Allen RB: Nick Chubb WR: Keenan Allen, AJ Brown TE: Darren Waller T: Eric Fisher, Orlando Brown G: Joel Bitonio, David DeCastro C : Ryan Kelly DE: Joey Bosa, Frank Clark DT: Cameron Heyward, Calais Campbell OLB: Bradley Chubb, Matt Judon ILB: Tremaine Edmunds CB: Marlon Humphrey CB: Stephon Gilmore S: Justin Simmons, Tyrann Mathieu I mean, that lineup couldn't play their way out of a paper bag. They'd have a hard time beating up on the Jags, right? I mean, right? Right? Anyone? Right? I think they're going to try as hard as they possibly can to keep Milano. He has been a crucial piece here and they know it. After that, assuming they still have a decent amount of money left on the cap next year, I think they'll likely end up working to keep Edmunds as well.

Golly, this is such a brain puzzler. On one side the pundits and the players who vote for the Pro Bowl and the Bills coaching staff and a defense that has been consistently good for several years now, though without an offseason and Star Lotulelei they had a very slow start this year ... and on the other side .... Twitter. Golly gee whillikeers, I wonder who's right.