Thurman#1

Yup. And it does indeed hurt.

I know. Other defenses have fared so well against Kyler and the Cards. IMO Addison and Butler have been good. Some of the others not so much. And Norman when on the field, has also had some nice moments.

Yup, I thought so too, and good point about Murph.

I'd agree that it's easier to find a solid starting LB than it is to find a very good RT. But you don't replace Milano with a solid starting LB. He's one of the absolute best pass defending LBs around and he's very instinctive and solid in the run game too. It's just as hard to find a Matt Milano as a Daryl Williams. And every time Milano has been in this year the whole offense has been noticeably better, and not by a little bit. And please, enough with the Edmunds to outside stuff. The fans like it. The coaches show no sign of that. Just the opposite. IMO you don't get a Pat Williams or Sam Adams in the second round either, or at least the odds are very high against it (yes, I know Pat Williams was a UDFA but the odds are still stacked against it. I do know we get Lotulelei back and that should really help. I doubt it myself, but yeah, that's a reasonable possibility.

Haven't seen anything about Edmunds switching position. If I've just missed it ... I still doubt it's seen as an experiment in the way you're suggesting. More the best way to utilize the people who are healthy right now. EDIT: you're not referring to the very few plays last week when they switched him outside, are you? That would appear to be more about crossing up the offense than anything else. I'd guess that cap (and possibly their view of his injury history) would be a lot more important in figuring whether we keep him or Feliciano or Daryl Williams than how Edmunds does in his position. If he does, IMO it would decrease the possibility that it would be us paying that contract. I howled last year about cap responsibility. I was shocked when they spent so much money before re-signing Dawkins and Tre, leaving us so little. Now it looks like doing that will hurt us, and more so due to COVID's effect on the cap next year.

Google "drive start expected points chart". It's on something like FootballAnalytics.com Same deal as the fact that turnovers come in spurts. Sacks (and every measureable statistic, really) come slowly sometimes and fast at other times. Sacks tend to come in certain games, basically the ones where the matchups were good and also the ones where the other team got significantly behind and had to give up the run. Not just for Buffalo. For every team, in every season.

Of course they didn't find 1-tech a priority in the offseason. They had Star. Lotulelei was the 1-tech they needed on run plays. When he opted out - on July 28th - they'd already signed all the other DTs and had very little left in terms of cap, and the free agency cupboard was pretty much bare so they couldn't replace him effectively. There are few guys with that skillset, see Bill Parcells and the Planet Theory. And yeah, the hand-wringing about Star has been hilarious ... for teams that were going to play the Bills and planned to run a lot. "Ultimately, when you are rotating DTs do you need a 330# guy to just stand at the LOS and get in the way?" you ask. Dumb question. No, you don't need that, because that's not what Star did, nor is it what McDermott wants a 1-tech space eater to do. It's more complex than that. But if you re-ask that question in a way where it's worth answering, we've already got the answer, and the answer is yes. If you change it to "Ultimately, when you are rotating DTs, do you need a good space eating 1-tech like Star in a McDermott defense?" the answer is clearly yes. Couldn't be more obvious, as McDermott himself provided the answer by working with Beane to bring Star in on a 5 year $50 million contract. Of course they need a guy like Star. That's why they ... you know ... um ... brought in Star. And they didn't replace him after he opted out because there aren't many guys like him and the ones out there are on teams. I have mixed feelings about most things. Few situations are so cut and dried as to NOT bring about mixed feelings. But this is what I expected. I'm on record as expecting a few small moves with small cap charges, and that's what happened. Would've been nice if we'd have been able to pull something off where we got a great deal but it didn't seem likely.

... and in the discussion for league MVP as well.

I'm very aware of the fact that the first year hit doesn't have to be high. But kicking the can down the road has its own downsides. You're right about the bloodbath, though. We have $3.4 M left over this year. So let's say all of that gets rolled over. Right now we've got $5.37 M available next year. With the money rolled over from this year, that would be $10M. The rookie draft class generally costs $6 to $7 M. That leaves us about $3 to $4M. No matter how much we kick down the road (a strategy they have so far been loath to use, though part of that was simply the place were at in the life cycle of the team) it's simply not likely that we'll keep all three of these guys. I wish it was. It becomes a bit more likely if the NFL does something to leaven the cap problems next year. Still a problem, though. Agreed on the COVID vaccine being huge.

IMO the reason nobody is talking about Milano this week is that they know he's coming back soon. If he was going to be gone a long time there'd be pissing and moaning and it would make total sense. Milano and Edmurds together make this a much better defense.

Yeah, but the one thing that might help us is that next year with the tiny amount of available cap money still left league-wide is that contracts given will be low low low. If the Bills could give him a cheap one-year deal or something ... I'm grasping at straws but I sure hope so. RT Lane Johnson gets $18M/year RT Trent Brown $16.5M RT Jack Conklin $14M RT Ja'Wuan James $12.75M RT Lael Collins $10M So, $13M seems possible if people still think he's playing at a top 10 level. Which he does seem to be doing. Again, the dearth of cap money next year might be a factor. But it only takes one team. Generally, teams can keep and pay well roughly 10 core guys. That's plus/minus one or two but paying 12 generally strains resources and starts to put you in a bind. I think they'd try to keep all three if they had cap money next year. But they have very little. It's an interesting dilemma.

That's the opposite of my guess. We'll see. I'd put them in order of importance ... Milano, Feliciano and Williams. All of them are guys who would be fantastic to keep, but unless they do something like subtract $15 mill from the 2022 cap to add it to the 2021 cap (and I'm not sure this is at all likely), I don't see it as possible to keep all three, particularly as they will be trying to fill holes elsewhere with lower-level FAs as usual.

Just taking him at all when they already had three QBs on the roster - QBs they wanted to keep and indeed did keep all season, they went with four QBs that year - was an unusual move, and did indeed show that they liked him. It was good scouting. We liked Russell Wilson a lot but didn't take him when we had the chance in the third. That was bad scouting. If you take a guy before anyone else does and he turns out good, you did good. If you like him but wait too long, that's what's bad. The Pats didn't wait too long.

Without those 4, we'd be 12th in defensive turnovers. Thing is, if you also went to the 11 teams that were ahead of us and since you had taken out our biggest game's worth of turnovers you evened things out by taking out each of those team's biggest game of turnovers as well, we'd be right back in the general area we're in now. Tampa is #1 in defensive turnovers, they had a 4 turnover game against Carolina. NYG are tied for #2 in defensive turnovers. Against Washington, they had a game where their defense had not four but five turnovers last week. Since they're only one turnover ahead of Buffalo, if you take out every team's highest-turnover game, the Giants would drop into a tie with us. Pittsburgh are tied with the Giants, one turnover ahead of the Bills. They also had a 4-turnover game against the Ravens, as well as TWO 3-turnover games against the Giants and the Eagles. The #5 Browns had a 5-turnover game against Washington. The #6 Titans didn't, though they had two 3-turnover games. The #7 Chiefs had not one but two 4-turnover games. The #8 Dolphins had a 4-turnover game against the Rams. The #9 Patriots didn't have one, but they had two 3-turnover games. The #10 Seahawks didn't have one, but had a 3-turnover game against Dallas . I'm not going to bother looking at the rest. When every single one of the top five teams (and seven out of the top ten) had at least one game of four or more turnovers, you can understand that for good defenses (probably everyone else, really) it's not an outlier. The Bills would still be ranked within two or three places of their current level. And I didn't find a single team that hadn't had at least one game of three or more turnovers. And enough for the "if you take out this one thing," arguments. What they are essentially saying is that if things were different, they'd be different. And who didn't know that? Thing is, they aren't different. Reality is what actually happened.

Exceptional!! Great job, fans, and great job, Josh.

So, just like last week, then? And losing to KC wasn't pooping the bed. It was losing to probably the best team in football after keeping it very close. My guess: We win. Nah. The Bills played well against a very tough Pittsburgh defense, and Allen was absolutely a star against Dallas.

Yes, but look at what the Jets are starting with. Still, you're right that this is a good thing for them. Miami will have $35M. I wouldn't call that a ton, myself, though it is indeed well above average for next year.

Sigh. I can only shake my head and walk away.

Not only have I never heard of him, I haven't even heard the name. Living in Japan really isolates me in many ways but I read about half the Uncut and Mojo magazines that get published. Well, there are worse things than being out of it. Me likey some Prince, though, so I should give him a try. EDIT: the Blinding Light video above is really nice. Good toonz.

Maybe. They're 4th next year in available cap space, and next year will be a terrific year for picking up FAs at low prices, because there will be very little cap money available for most teams. I'd take the over on .499, that's for sure. My best guess (far too early, of course) would be 8-8 or 9-7. I do expect real improvement. You're right that it wasn't only losing Brady that killed them. Their optouts hurt a lot and they really had sold out to win during their window. But they will recover quickly, and the optouts will really help, in that they had very little space left under the cap before the optouts, and now they're 4th highest in the league in present cap space, and can roll over $25M, which will help a ton next year.

Harry and Michel? Not so much. This is Harry's second year and he's better, and Michel is one of the best recieving backs in the league. Neither is a great draft bargain or anything at #31 and #32, but both are good players. But he hasn't had enough hits lately, no doubt.

I agree without Brady he doesn't have even close to his current legacy. But he's been pretty good at evaluating talent. Less so the last few years, but part of that is trading draft picks for FAs lately. Three first round picks the last five years. It's harder to do a great job drafting when you're in the last 20s nearly every year. Still, he hasn't done well the past 3 or 4 years.

You need to check the dictionary on the meaning of the word "statistic," 'cause what you've got there ain't one, it's an opinion. Not a wildly unreasonable one, but it's in no way a statistic.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise. I didn't listen much this week, so maybe you're right that the grandma stuff is overdone, but I felt the 2016 received tough coverage for very good reason. Or tough coverage for Buffalo, anyway. Compared to what most big city teams get, Sully and Bucky were straightforward, demanding but still polite. They were fine. If things have gotten mushier, IMO it's much about the 2016 team continuing a long period of bad to mediocre football and this team having a history of going through a rebuild and since then improving consistently. When you're not a good team you get more pointed questions, and that's as it should be.

IMO they then lose to the Football Team and go 1 - 1 against the Cowpats. Agreed that we couldn't stop the run. Disagree that was a coaching problem. It was much more a "their Olsons outweighed our DLs by about 40 pounds per person and only Bruce could still win despite that" problem.