Thurman#1

Always worth checking in with Astro on this subject. He's on it as usual. Just as a for example, he says they guy they looked a lot at with our third pick, our second 2nd, is Josaiah Stewart. https://buffalofambase.com/2025/03/18/pick-six-for-2025-nfl-draft-march/

Trade up ... if the right guy is there moving towards you and you don't have to give up picks in day one or two. That's day one or two this year and every year going forward. Don't give away high-value picks in future years. Just don't do it unless you are desperate for a franchise QB, and we are very much not. Trade back ... especially if you can pick up the kind of pick you shouldn't trade away, day one or two picks this year or in the future. More picks means more chances to get a terrific bargain. There's a reason this is the standard wisdom. They've done academic studies on this and they all say the same thing, and that is that trading up with big assets lowers your overall chances of success, whereas trading down raises your chances. GMs, and armchair GMs as well, tend to think they know best which guys will turn out best. That's a mistake of perception. We can figure out guys who have higher odds and guys who have lower odds, but there's a reason that about half of all first rounders under-produce according to standards you'd expect from their draft slot. Predicting the draft is just a hell of a lot harder than it appears. That's why more picks is better.

I'm not sure about what a shutdown corner is, really. Does it mean only preventing completions at a high rate? Many INTs? Getting guys to throw elsewhere? Only in man coverage? Low passer ratings when thrown against? I honestly don't know anymore. So I'm not sure if Benford is one, but I think it's not really a hot take to list him as a top five CB these days. Here's one quick bit of support: https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-bills-christian-benford-pff-all-pro-team-first-quarter "His early season excellence has been recognized by Pro Football Focus, with the outlet naming him to their first-quarter All-Pro team. 'Benford's 83.0 coverage grade ranks fourth at the position, but he has prevented separation on 75.68% of his opportunities in 2024— the highest rate in the NFL,' PFF writer Gordon McGuinness wrote. Benford has been outstanding this season, allowing a position-best 14.6 passer rating when targeted. His PFF defensive grade of 79.9 and coverage grade rank fourth among corners with a minimum of 100 snaps. He's also ranked No. 1 among all corners with a tackle grade of 85.4. (Interestingly, Elam has the highest overall grade of all corners, but he's only played on 23 snaps)." This came early in the season, but we've seen generally agreement in several places as the season went on. https://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/2025/03/buffalo-bills-agree-to-four-year-extension-with-top-cornerback-christian-benford.html Apparently he got one first team all-pro vote last year and, "Although Benford lacks gaudy interception stats, he locked down the opposition last season allowing just 0.51 yards per coverage snap allowed. This was good for first among all cornerbacks." But yeah, he appeared to give up his chances of top three recognition -- by the market -- by signing a year early and getting immediate security for himself and his family in exchange. I would value the market's opinion a lot, but it's not the only one I value. Anyway, good talking to you, Shaw. Hope all's well.

Heh heh. Yup. The rule (backed up by research from such as the two seminal articles from Massey and Thaler, Bill Barnwell's here https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40052203/should-teams-trade-nfl-draft-lessons-deals-2024-class-winners-losers, the Harvard Sports Collective and on and on and on, with nobody doing the statistical research disagreeing, is that you massively reduce your chances of draft success if you use big draft capital to make big trade-ups. With the caveat being that great QBs are so important that that's the one exception. Great QBs are available outside the top ten or so. But much much less often, so much so that trading up in an attempt to get a great QB is worth doing. May be a huge miss. Or not. Too early to be sure. DeJean really was pretty good this year. How good would he have been if their D hadn't been so good at rushing the passer? How good will Coleman be when healthy because before the injury the first half or so of the season he was looking pretty damn good for his draft position. Hard to know in both cases.

Sorry, you're right, Doc, I purely mis-stated. Nobody's paying him Barkley money, but I'd guess that if he doesn't sign here someone will pay him what he's asking for. That's what I was (poorly) trying to say. And if I'm right, $15M was the 12th highest APY for FA contracts last year. That could easily make it into the top five percent Davis got $13M and Floyd $10M. Cook may get more than they did. It'll depend on how much he actually gets but IMO a 4th rounder is likely at that level and a 3rd not totally out of the question.

While I agree about the other three, I think Benford is absolutely a star. I mean, not a top three guy yet, but pretty close to it, particularly after only three years. Interesting.

I'd offer that. My guess is they already have, and that he is not going to sign for anything close to that low. Recently? Who? And in particular, who who was in the neighborhood of 1009 yards rushing, 1248 yards from scrimmage and 485 snaps (48%)? I personally estimate his chances of holding out this offseason to be about 1% if we're talking about a holdout of more than a symbolic day or so.

Some team will pay him Barkley money and we'll get a high comp pick. I think they can live with that. And it's a smarter use of resources. And you're assuming he can be signed for that. It's certainly possible, but it's less than Cook wanted. He might not sign for that even if they offered. Which I wouldn't. Not for a guy who is going to get less than 50% of snaps probably, unless he steps up his blocking game quite a bit.

Worth the headache for having him on the team this year without signing a new contract? There'll be virtually no headache. Hell yeah, he'll be worth it. His saying this on social media is a big nothing. Worth actually signing him to a new contract for near what he's asking for? No, I don't think so. But I don't think fan disapproval for an un-extended Cook will go beyond about (maybe) one tepid boo at camp on the first day. Probably not even that.

Possible death? Lack of arm strength making a fumble when hit by a charging linebacker a likelihood and not just a possibility? If by "little person," Leach was referring to someone like Tyrion Lannister. If you're only talking about smaller NFL-sized guys like Codrington, it's still not all that easy to throw 185 pounds three yards high to get over the line and three yards forward to make the first down, all in about two seconds. And man that guy would be open to some absolutely vicious shots on the way down.

Haven't watched anywhere near enough tape but if Ezeiruaku falls, I'm hoping they think he's a game wrecker.

That last option shouldn't be "No trades," it should be "None of these trade-ups". Wouldn't mind trading up a bit but not giving away major pieces of draft capital.

Might've easily been able to play if he hadn't missed most of TC with an injury. We'll never know. Agreed that you don't take a 3rd round DB in round 2. But I don't think that's under consideration. Could be, though, that you think he's a round 3 guy and they think he's a 2.

No, that would be the fact that in the first two years we in no way were a good enough roster due to what they inherited and the smart decision in the situation to rebuild, and after those first couple of years, it was the responsibility of the whole team. McDermott gets his share of the blame, yeah, but so does everybody else.

Actually, nobody takes big discounts early in their career, but a few do it late, after they've cleaned up their early contracts. I wouldn't expect Simmons to do it, but it's conceivable, or it is if the Bills offer him that kind of a contract. And again, we don't know if the Bills were in on Simmons earlier. We just don't know. They might have been but lost out. Not all contacts and negotiations become public. An awful not never become public knowledge.

Butch Byrd, maybe. Might have been Stephon Gilmore if we'd kept him. I really loved Antoine Winfield. Watching him tackle in the open field was an absolute joy.

They might have wanted him last year but not been able to come to a contract agreement. It could happen, I'd guess, but would he come here for, say $2.2M for one year when he gets an offer for $5M elsewhere? If they think he's still got it. I haven't a clue, myself.

I'd argue Beane has had some home runs over the years as well. Milano, Taron, Benford, Shakir in the 5th. Bernard if he can stay healthy. Plus a guy many forget named Josh Allen. He's at least a triple, I'd say.

Seems like I'm saying this every year. It really isn't the defense in the playoffs. It's the defense in the playoffs against the Chiefs. And not to many defenses have stopped the Chiefs in the playoffs if they're playing well. Mahomes had a bad game in the SB this year. The Eagles defense was part of it, but not all. Even early when not rushed, he just wasn't throwing well. Having said that, yeah, the D needs work right now, and the draft looks set to make a big start on addressing that. Heh heh. Cracked me up!!

IMO they'll keep [Cook] for this year and just take the comp pick in 2026. Wouldn't mind being proven wrong on that, though. But they'd likely then have to use a 2nd - 4th on an RB. It'd leave us with no proven starter, though Davis might be just fine starting.

Franchising him next year would be in the neighborhood of $14.2M (Overthecap.com estimate). That's just too high, and if you were going to do that, why not just give him the $15M he wants? But a second year would be $17.07M. That's nuts. No way they do that. Bottom line is he's very good but at 190 pounds, you can't make him a bell-cow back without greatly increasing his injury potential or just wearing him down. And you don't want him at 3rd down back because he can't block. $15M, as he's asking for, is nuts unless you're a bell-cow and a game-wrecker. The franchise number is virtually as high. They're trying to put some weight on Cook and buy him a house here.

Who says the acquiring team would want to use him as a bellcow? Has he learned to pass block yet? Has he grown from 190 pounds to where teams would want to use him as a hammer on 3rd and short? $5M for Cook would indeed be a good deal but my guess is nobody would want to use him as a bell-cow.

It's not clear what the Bills actions say about Douglas being in their plans. You might be right. Equally, it could be a case of, "You've got our offer, Rasul, let us know if you can agree." There'll be room for him if they want him, and they might. They might also go with six this year. Last year did not turn out well in terms of CB depth. Priority re-signs don't always sign quickly. Sometimes there is a difference in contract terms, and sometimes guys, especially old vets, don't want to have to go through the whole offseason program. And yes, he didn't look as good. How much of that was from injury? We don't know. He could easily be here. Or not. Time will tell. Oh, and I'm with Logic in that I'd rather see this year's Rasul rather than Dane Jackson.

While I think we do move up using some of the later picks, there's some things people are not saying about the fact that we've got a lot of picks and fairly little roster space. First, plenty of those guys who don't make the roster might easily make the practice squad. Not necessarily all. But generally almost all. When fifth rounders are cut, they might more easily be picked up elsewhere. But not necessarily. More, there's an advantage to using a lot of picks even when there's not enough room. Let's say all of the picks from the top four rounds make the roster, and only two more will be able to do so. So in this case Beane has kept all ten of his picks. Hell, maybe he even traded back one of the fifths and got an extra 7th, leaving 11 total picks. Having 11 picks give you one simple, factual advantage. You get more guys to look at. So say that two of the 5ths don't make the team. But the 7th does. It happens. Sometimes those 7ths, as do UDFAs, are better than expected. When you have more picks, you have more chances to find a later guy who's a lot better than his draft spot says. Again, I guess we will trade up a bit here and there. But 6ths and 7ths aren't nothing, even though we tend to talk about them as if they are in situations like this. They're a chance. Anyway, OP, I think you're over-rating S as a need. I don't think it's top three. Maybe 4 or 5 would be my guess. Other than that I think you're totally reasonable. Oh, and the odds of Cook holding out or holding in or whatever ... THIS YEAR? Wildly unlikely. It's really uncommon after the third, though we do get some posturing sometimes. If they tag him next year, though, now at that point it becomes a lot more possible, but he's not going to do anything this year.

Jeez, I saw us clicking on all cylinders often. Not always, but nobody does it always, nobody. Kirk Cousins? That's a good comparison. 13 wins? No, I don't think so. Kirk is no Josh Allen, but he's pretty good (not that I saw him much last year but from what I hear the problem there was a lot deeper than Kirk). IMO the Cousins of the last four or five years gets us to maybe 11 or 12 games or so. Maybe closer to 11 than 12. Maybe 12 because of how awful the rest of the division was, but Josh had that advantage as well.