Thurman#1

Yes, but Tyreek Hill wasn't invited to the combine. His pro day work out would have been #9.

The thing is, many do break down. But some don't. You get some Roscoe Parrishes. And then you get some DeSean Jacksons. We'll have to see which way he tends. I know I didn't want him in the first. But I also didn't want Keon Coleman in the first. He's a Chief, so I hope he doesn't work out. Making a joke? I see. Sorry I didn't pick that up. Having said that, no, he doesn't take daily workout videos. But he used to do plenty of videos and interviews about his work with Jordan Palmer and what he was working on back when he was young in the league and worried and highly motivated. Last two years nothing. That's what makes people speculate. Anyway, see you round the boards.

Oh, please. Nobody minds Josh taking a week or two to have fun. And more on the weekends. It's whether he doesn't consistently work during most of the offseason. His first few years here he worked a ton in the offseason and he let people know it. There were no problems with him also playing golf and going to the Masters and whatever. But the last couple of years we don't hear anything about his offseason work. It's totally legit to question the differences there. And Josh knows it, which is why he's again let us know this year when he's working. He knows that narratives matter. They do. We don't need him being a Peyton Manning, though I personally wouldn't mind. But we need to know he's taking it seriously and addressing problems in advance.

Hmm, projection. A clear sign he's got a point.

Nope. Or anyway, you have to stretch to say so. Before the season Manning agreed to a reduction in salary from $19M to $15M. Top 6: Rodgers $22M Ryan $20.75M Flacco $20.1M Brees $20M Kaepernick $19M Cutler $18.1M That $4M they saved was big money back then. In other words, Manning was making a salary that would have put him far above the top five cutoff, and he then agreed to a reduction that took him outside that cutoff. And that's the team that won the Super Bowl. This is an argument that the OP is right, not that he's wrong. In fairness, he ended up making the money back. His $4M pay cut was exchanged for $4M in unlikely to be earned incentives, namely $2M if they made the Super Bowl and $2M more if they won it. But unlikely to be earned bonuses count against the next year's cap. He earned it. They don't win that SB without Manning, but he gave the team back money that allowed them to make some moves. Specifically, Manning took the pay cut on March 4th and they signed the new contract for Demaryius on July 17th. Back then, $4M was almost 3% of the team's cap. Who else did they bring in with that money that helped them win a title? There is certainly no way to show they would have signed the Thomas contract if they hadn't got the extra money from Manning. Oh, and yes top five was a somewhat random choice, but also a completely reasonable one. It's not squeezing it down to the top two or something to eliminate as many candidates as possible. Yet it keeps the field down to teams spending very very serious money on WRs. The fact that you only found one that was even close points out that it indeed appears to be a line that has some real life consequences for crossing. Obviously, getting and paying, even very highly, an excellent QB, particularly one as good as Allen, is an excellent idea. The very questionable part here is paying the WR. Once the QB's salary starts to bite, teams have to make compromises elsewhere. Bringing in in stead a solid group of WRs, and particularly a good TE since they cost less and can come very close in productivity, is what has proved the best strategy to win a Lombardi.

Well, yeah, that is indeed a ridiculous premise. I'd argue that he was exaggerating a bit in the headline, but has an excellent point. Saying it can't be done is indeed likely over the top. Many of us are saying that winning in those circumstances appears to be much less likely. And that paying both a top 5 QB and a top 5 WR is maybe not such a great use of money. That's an entirely reasonable argument. And yeah, as I said, I'm sure you are right there are more. Which just makes the point stronger. The fact there are quite a few teams that tried this strategy who made the top four, the fact that none then won is significant. Have a great Sunday, Doc.

Kupp has now signed a huge 3-year $80M deal. In 2022. But when they won the SB, Kupp was on a 3-year $47M deal, by no means a top five deal. Julio signed a $22M deal the same year Kupp signed that contract. The top 11 guys were making $16.2M or more. https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nfl/2020/03/04/highest-paid-wide-receivers-nfl-ranking-wrs-salary-2020-season/4953433002/ Which made sense at the time. His first four years he put up 869, 566, 1161 and 974 yards, with respectively 5, 6, 10 and 3 TDs. He was a good receiver, but it wasn't till his Super Bowl year going 1947 with 16 TDs that he looked like a #1.

Yeah, it's a narrow lens. But that's no reason not to look at it that way. Just the opposite, in fact. It's precisely that narrow lens that we're trying to fit through. We made the Super Bowl four years in a row. Didn't win one. Do teams look at us to see how we did it? Hell, no. The goal is winning a Super Bowl. Of course you're going to look at how the winners did it. If having a narrow lens were a problem, you wouldn't ever look at narrow lenses. And making a Super Bowl isn't much less narrow. It's just more convenient for folks who don't like the results when you only look at the winners. Same with the final four. It's less narrow, but still very narrow. We already made that group you're talking about. We were a top four team in 2020. Did you feel you got to the top of the mountain? If anything, looking at the final four tells you just what we need to be looking at. We've been a damn good team, extremely competitive, for years now. We need to know how to take the next step. Making the top four is NOT the goal. So yeah, you're right that "it can be done," to make the top four doing that. You found, what 6 teams? There are probably more. So if six or more teams got that high but none of them made it to the mountaintop, that in itself tells you something. We need to know how to differentiate ourselves from the top four into the top one. So if paying a QB and a WR both is the way into the top four but not the top one, we should be looking at finding a way to win a Lombardi, not just to get to the top four. The salary cap years are over 30 years now. That's statistically signficant. How many teams in those years have paid both a QB and a WR? Now how many of those teams were competitive for a championship? 25? 50? And none of them won? That's statistically significant.

$16M may be reasonable for the guy, but not for the Bills present cap situation, particularly in a year where they are making a conscious effort to clear up the cap so they can go back to normal operations next year. Also don't think the Bears get rid of him. The likelihood is that if they bring in another guy he'll prolly be in the Beckham - Chark salary range of around $5M or so.

Well, there you go. Obviously this was a sneaky move to bring in a new WR. He's probably working on route-running as we speak. Everyone knows all we need is speed there.

The run game is important, as are all phases. But it's probably the least important of the four phases. The Chiefs haven't had a better than average running game for a long time, and they do OK. 17th in total yards and 13th in yards per carry last year. Very average. The Texans run game weren't good, 22nd total and 29th at YPC. They will absolutely compete this year, though they may get better at the run game. They have a ways to go to get better than average at toting the rock.

Agreed that they likely took a step back. But how would you avoid that in a year where they had to cut so many for the reasons you stated, and where Diggs then got his wish to get out of town? I don't think they expected to get rid of Diggs this year. But pile that on top of Morse, Poyer, Hyde, Tre, etc. and a bit of a down year seems inevitable to me. This draft looks to me like one that will help us build towards the future, while still giving us a shot this year. I'm not excited about it, but it looks solid.

Not even close. Reloading is a factual difference in approach, meaning you can still be competitive this year and certainly next. Rebuilding means you have no chance the next two years, and an extremely slight chance in year 3, and you have a new GM. If you are a GM trying to sell your owner a rebuild you'd better have a couple of Super Bowl championships under your belt, because you're telling the owner that the roster you built has no realistic chance for a championship anytime soon and so you need to throw it all out and start over. Without championships you're telling the owner that you just weren't a good enough GM.

"Rebuild" is way too strong a word here. "Transition" makes a ton more sense. You don't rebuild when you have a Josh Allen on the roster, you just don't. An extremely successful rebuild can be competitive in the third year, but 90% take till the fourth or fifth. The Bills will be competitive this year, though they will likely not be quite as good as last year unless things go really really well. Again, transition fits the situation much much better. Which is why Beane used it.

Doesn't make sense. They're paying Hollins $2.6M for one year. They paid Kumerow $1.1M. The reason for the difference there is that they expected very little offense from Kumerow, and more from Hollins. He generally gets around 30% of the team's offensive snaps or more, if you look at his history.

Looked pretty good but not great to me. I don't see where you get "all time." We'll see in a few years.

This doesn't tell you the most effective WR. It tells you the most productive WR in those particular weeks, with the particular plays being called, without accounting for double coverage, for who was being used more to draw the defense, for what routes were being given to each guy, etc. Allen missed Diggs about five times when he was seriously open deep on go routes. The others not so much. Stats mean something. Not everything. Certainly not in this case. This group is likely to be about what KC had last year while winning the Super Bowl. Yes, they had Kelce, but he only had about 300 yards more than Kincaid last year. He wasn't the old Travis Kelce. Yes, they had Patrick Mahomes. We have Josh Allen.

The stats are indeed the stats. But they don't show what you appear to think they do. They don't show Shakir and Kincaid were more effective. They show they were more productive. What the stats show is that over the course of their careers Diggs has been vastly more productive than Shakir and even last year, much more productive. The stats are the stats. But there is reasonable interpretation of stats and unreasonable. Arguing that the stats show that Shakir is better than Diggs because after the OC changed Diggs became much less productive doesn't make a ton of sense. As much as I love the Bills, Diggs has the most upside. He received much more coverage even later in the season and he was still open quite a bit. My guess is he goes for 1100 or so next year.

Yeah. IMO it will be a mid-level guy, though, not from the five or six guy group that everyone keeps mentioning.

Marquise Goodwin because so many here need the speed. Hollins is not only an STs guy. He'll be playing WR on a bunch of snaps unless something goes wrong in some way. He does play STs, but he has 1086 STs snaps to 2699 on offense.

Speed does matter. So does size. And strength. And leaping ability. Smarts. Anyone with half a brain can keep going and going. Speed is one factor. It matters. But again, so do many many other things. If he was running a 4.8, that'd pretty much rule him out. But he runs 4.5. And there are plenty of excellent WRs in that range, particularly when they're big and strong, guys like Anquan Boldin, Jerry Rice, Brandon Marshall, Hines Ward ... it just goes on and on. Puca Nacua and Cooper Kupp, if you want recent examples. Nobody wants to hear the simple truth on this ... we have to wait and see. He might be very very good. He might not. But it's just a fact that his speed absolutely does not mean he won't be successful or even very very successful.

This.

Gesicki can NOT block anyone. Doesn't even try. Kincaid is already blocking people pretty successfully. No, he's not a very good blocker but he is willing and already solid at getting in the way, though certainly not a people mover by any means. Kincaid is already far better than a "nice piece." Davis was a gem, for a 4th rounder. We do appear to be a worse team, though it might not turn out that way. That's because we had to get rid of some salaries in Morse, Hyde, Poyer, White, and Floyd, among others. Losing Diggs will absolutely hurt us on the field as well. They don't appear to have expected to let Diggs go this year, but things got worse. The WR room would have still looked solid with Diggs there. They'll try to do it in the aggregate. Having Josh should make that possible, particularly with Kincaid, Shakir, Knox and Cook chipping in with catches. We'll have to see how well it actually goes. Last year's team came damn close to beating the Chiefs in the playoffs, and that team took the trophy home. Those seem like good guesses to me. And that 11 to 9 doesn't include the 1st traded away for Diggs, correct? So, it's actually 11 to 10. A lot of this is just confirmation bias.

Yeah, Wallace was a starter and a pretty decent one too. And a UDFA. Benford appears better. That could be a mirage, we'll see, but he does look a bit better. Plenty of guys we've never heard of have been drafted in the fourth or later and become good players, for us and for other teams as well. Milano Gabe Davis Bass Dane Jackson far outplaying his 7th round status Taron Johnson Shakir Hodgins was never as good as some want to make him out to be now that he's gone, but he's done really well for a 6th Teller Doesn't make it much easier to watch on TV, but these round have produced important contributors. Plenty more filled roster spots or ST spots and not more, but a surprising number have been real contributors.

Do you really think that if we say, "No," they just go hide in the basement and say, "Curses, foiled by the Bills"? They wouldn't. They'd have made the same offer, well, probably giving up less to the team at #29, or #30 and likely got them that way. Hell, he probably would still have been there at #32. No reason to think we'd have stopped them by refusing this offer, no reason whatsoever. So if they are going to get him anyway, much better that they only do it by paying us for the right to do it.