Thurman#1

Perhaps for the same reason that, say, Lamar Jackson went ahead of Wait, you mean a guy who every year evaluates the top 40 QBs ... gasp, sob ... was ... I can't say it ... wrong in one of his opinions? Wow, well, you're really done a great job there of proving that all of his opinions are wrong. I'll be sure to only listen to people who have perfect records of evaluating future preformance. Great job in going in depth on why he thinks that about Hill, too. Deep, detailed evaluation of Simms' position. How did his opinion about Bridgewater over Hill turn out? Nobody knows, really. Bridgewater did really well. Would Hill have done better? Worse? Nobody has any idea. Fine, you want to express an opinion on something you know absolutely nothing about - and seem proud of it - that's fine. Just don't be surprised when I'm not the only one who feels your argument has absolutely zero validity.

Yes, preseason. It's part of what's available. Have you gone through and watched his preseason throws? And again, if you have a question about how he did this or why he thought so, do some work and go find out what he said and how he made the decision. Otherwise your opinion (and anyone trying to make a good argument with no idea what he's talking about) doesn't have any real validity as it's not based on anything. If after you know what he said you still disagree, I'd be much more inclined to be interested in what you have to say at that point.

Well, if you're going to start off on an entirely new tangent and ask a new question, I would urge you to answer your own question and find out why he thinks what he thinks of Taysom Hill. If you think it's impossible to have an opinion about Taysom Hill, I'd say most of the football world proves you wrong by having one, one way or the other. And I'd guess that his excellent preseason pass performance over 108 throws might be a part of the answer. But again, go check it out if you'd like an answer to your question. I'm certainly not going to do your work for you.

It's arguable on both ends, but IMO Romo and Prescott fit, though hopefully Prescott will regress and have me looking like an idiot for saying this. Should've been Kemp and Lamonica, but that didn't work out.

This. Emphasis on cheap.

Faneca and Hutchinson were probably better, both right in his era, Faneca in the AFC until 2010 and Hutchinson in the AFC for his first six years. Faneca got six out of seven years in a row first-team All-Pro, Hutchinson five out of seven years. And Bruce Matthews, Randall McDaniel during Ruben's earlier years. Oh, Larry Allen too. So I don't think anyone would argue that he was the best at his position for the era. But among the best? Yeah, fair enough.

Pro Bowls? He absolutely deserved those. He was ferocious, one of the absolute run blockers in the league at that time. And please ... with the "he got well-known" thing. He wasn't on great teams much. Early in his career he was on the teams that were the dregs of those earlier Super Bowl teams, good, but not great. In order, The reason he got well-known is simply that he was extremely good, which was the reason he made All-Pro four times, not just the Pro Bowl, but All-Pro. Not HOF-good, IMO, but very very good. As a rookie, he didn't make the Pro Bowl on a team that won a Wild Card game and then lost the division round. Next year he made it on a team that lost the Wild Card game. Next year, 6-10 no playoffs, next year lost the Wild Card game, lost the Music City miscarriage of Justice, and that was the last time he reached the Playoffs.

It's not an unreasonable opinion, not at all. Doesn't mean he'll be right, but he's certainly got a chance to be, on this prediction. Simms is smart, smart and opinionated. He probably puts a bit too much emphasis on the physical ability to throw hard for my taste but he knows how to watch tape and he knows a lot more about QBing than his moderately talented physique ever let him personally display on the field.

I'd argue that you don't get to be All-Pro four years (no first team All-Pros, but still) without being one of the absolute best of your time. Top 2 - 3? Yeah, I think so, though a lot of his career. Ruben used to drive Bills fans crazy with his illegal motion penalties. Man he did that a lot. But he was an absolute road grader, physically dominant, a true beast. He incurred a lot of ire speaking up about problems at OBD, which led to his being traded. But I think he was right on target at the time. Most fans now seem to agree with this. That was a poor front office. IMO, Wall yes, Hall probably not quite.

Cutting Murphy and Smith would save them a bit over $7 mill against the cap after subtracting the dead cap. Anyone think Clowney's coming here for $7 mill?

They've made it clear they want to re-sign guys. Doing this would make that a lot harder. He might be available for a short-term deal, but it won't be a cheap one. Possible, but very very unlikely.

I agree that I don't think Kaepernick can throw from the pocket. But he's not going to be turning down offers at this point because of money, or at least not unless the offers are downright insulting, like veteran minimum or something. He might even accept that, things being what they are.

Dude, whether an argument is "formal" or not is irrelevant. What is a formal argument anyway, is there some commission you have to run it past? Bad logic is bad logic no matter how it's used. You say, "I don’t like King for too many reasons to go into here. Only thing I shared was that opinion," and that's simply not true. You said, "For all those other outlets’ preseason rankings mean nothing, King’s mean less than nothing." You can't get more ad hominem than that, King said it so it's even less true than the rest. Albert: Peter King says this. Bruce: Peter King sucks. Bruce is using an ad hominem argument there. As you did. The whole point of ad hominems is to avoid having to address the substance of an argument by shifting the ground using an attack the messenger strategy. If you start a new thread about how you think Peter King sucks, that's not ad hominem. Joining a thread like this one and saying the same thing absolutely is. It's absolutely relentless here. A reporter says something seen as bad about the Bills and dozens of posters here talk about how he's past his peak, he's bald, he's a geek, he's ugly, he's got a squeaky voice, he's never played the game, he dresses like a high school chess club member, he's from a stupid state, he once covered a rival team so he must be bad, he once had a bad take on something ... it goes on and on and on. Same reporter says something seen as good about the Bills and suddenly there's no mention of the reporter himself, only his point and how correct it is. Finally in your last paragraph a reasonable argument. But it's nonsense that the college guys don't have "prior relevant performance indicators." College ball is relevant as hell, it's a good indicator. It's not a mistake that more first rounders are successful than second rounders, more second rounders than third rounders and so on. That happens because college ball is a pretty decent indicator of how well a guy will play in the NFL and more so the earlier a guy is drafted. Far from perfect. But especially when you're talking about trading away a first rounder, the first 20 or 30 guys picked have played at a high enough level and showed enough that it absolutely is relevant. Pro experience may be a better indicator but there are a ton of cases where FAs who did well one place do much more poorly elsewhere and vice versa. Look at Jerry Hughes. Look at how this regime has done with their first rounders so far: Tre'Davious White, Josh Allen, Tremaine Edmunds, Ed Oliver. We don't know with Epenesa, and it's too early to know for sure with two or three, and that brush with the law didn't look good for Oliver, but so far you'd have to say that they've been choosing pretty well with what returns are in. That's largely because college ball really is a relevant performance indicator. And yeah I'm "keenly focused on those attitude issues." You wanna ignore 'em because they don't fit your narrative, OK, but me, I'm keenly focused on all of his history, good and bad, incredible productivity and problems with not being thrown to enough by an offense that throws more than we do. All of it. Good, bad and mediocre. IMO that's the way we should all look at anything we're thinking seriously about, not throw out the things we don't find convenient, but looking at absolutely all of it. Well, I've said enough. See you on the boards. I like a lot of your stuff.

The attack the messenger fallacy is the name of a logical fallacy. Also called the ad hominem fallacy. It has nothing to do with whether the guy is making the argument or passing it along. Your argument here is entirely beside the point. It's not beside the point because you're the one making it. It's irrelevant because it's entirely beside the point. Arguments are true or false, reasonable or unreasonable entirely based on their own merits ... and the mention of who said something has no bearing whatsoever on how reasonable the substance of the argument is. Who said something is completely and entirely irrelevant to whether what was said is right or wrong. If Norman Borlaug says something, the fact that he saved millions of lives has nothing to do with whether what he said is right or wrong. Absolutely zero. And if someone absolutely and purely evil - say Joseph Stalin - says something, like maybe "Hey, it's May 5th," the fact that he's Joseph Stalin has nothing to do with whether he's right or wrong in this particular case. Sorry to unburden on you. The ad hominem nonsense is absolutely constant on these boards, almost always used against members of the media. And it's a horrible argument. I accused you of a fallacy because your argument is based on one. Doesn't prove your opinion is wrong, but yeah, insulting King does nothing to support your argument, no more than complimenting King would support the argument that he is right. What I personally think about Peter King means exactly the same here as what you think of him, zero, in terms of whether this argument makes sense. I don't use ad hominem arguments, whether I hate or love or don't have an opinion on the person making the case, and for the obvious reason Oh, and it's also unreasonable to say that you're arguing only on info we have at the time and opponents aren't. You're making a guess at the future, same as anyone trying to evaluate a trade. You're not ignoring the future here. Diggs has acted the diva in the past. Remember when Diggs was asked about rumors he wanted to be traded and said, "I feel like there's truth to all rumors no matter how you dress it up." Or when he purged all Vikes mentions and photos from his Instagram in February? Or when he stirred speculation that he wanted more money by tweeting "Tired of the cap ... lol." Or when he complained he wasn't getting enough passes in an offense that passes much more than Buffalo's and has a QB who passes better than we do (at least so far, though we all hope Allen will keep improving, and do better on deep throws). It wouldn't require a serious injury for this trade to not work out. Diggs has showed in the past plenty of behavior to support either argument, and there's an argument the Bills gave up too many picks as well, though that argument surely isn't popular among Bills fans. You're giving your opinion on what you think the most likely outcome wil be. It's certainly possible you'll be right. I'd argue it's just as possible you'll be wrong. I hope you're right.

And yet again the attack the messenger fallacy. So popular here and generally on the net despite the fact it has absolutely zero logical validity. Attack the argument, not the messenger. And no, there's no guarantee that any of those guys will be better than Diggs. There's also no guarantee Diggs doesn't turn into a locker room problem or diva and end up somewhere else a year or two from now. I wouldn't have done this trade myself. I do get that Beane is doing a terrific job. He's smarter than me at this. But it's very legitimate to have the opinion that we paid too much, that Diggs had a problem with not being thrown to enough or well enough by a team that throws more than we seem to want to and by a QB that's very accurate compared to how ours has thrown so far. Could that portend a problem? Yeah, maybe. Dunno, nobody does, really. Plus the salaries Diggs is receiving the next four years are terrific from a team point of view, but will he start to fuss about this? Nobody really knows. IMO there are very legit arguments on both sides of this issue. Might be a great trade. Might not. Short term it's certainly better for the Bills but the long-term effects are still unpredictable.

And as pointed out here, it's generally the 1-tech who uses it. In your OP you have him running between the center and the guard and that would again put him in the 1-technique. IMO the last thing they want is to put him in the 1-tech and have him drawing double-teams in the middle. The McDermott defense does have a guy at 1-tech and drawing double-teams, but it's usually an absolute horse of a guy, Lotulelei for example, and I believe they had Ron Edwards before they drafted Lotulelei in Carolina. If you wanted to put him in the tilted 3-tech position I'm not sure how well that would work out. But I think McDermott has his defense worked out and is happy with it. He seems to be willing to use variations but I don't think he wants to make major changes at this point. And Oliver played the 1-tech in college despite pretty much everyone thinking that he'd be better off as a 3-tech, including the Bills. I see you addressed this later and and you did mean they should try him as a tilted 1-tech. That's not going to happen, I don't think. I did like the article. Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting it. Yes.

Fair enough. I think there's still a bit of a question but if you think it's completely clear, fair enough. Kittle's better. He's more productive with QBs (1377 yards in 2018 with Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard throwing to him for all but two and a half games) who are a ton less effective, he blocks better, he's a lot farther from the end of his career. Take a look at Kelce's stats before Mahomes. And Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard are no Alex Smiths. And I'm a Kelce fan. Great player.

When you hold the ball a bit too long in a VR situation, who smashes the everlovin' crap out of you? It will never have that sense of reality to it. You don't have to deal with the massive infusions of adrenaline and that's half if not three-quarters of the battle Much more likely to be used in training than evaluation, IMO.

Yup. I'm not as convinced on Josh as you are, but still very hopeful. Dallas wouldn't make that trade. But yes, right now Dak is absolutely better, it's not even a question.

Agreed that looking at cap space as a one year deal is seeing it wrong. But that's the thing ... after a first year when they spent very little new money, they still were in bad shape the next year. When McDermott got here, he started the league year with the 26th worst cap situation. But on that same day, the start of the 2017 league year, the next year's cap situation, the 2018 cap, was, if I remember, the 28th worst. Whaley had put them in an awful situation not just for a year but for the fairly long term. He had a lot of long-term big contracts on the books. Whaley was simply poor at handling the cap. If he'd had that situation with a team that went 13-3, then hey, you'd be much more forgiving. But they were a mediocre team with no real QB, an awful right side of the OL, Dareus having just received a huge new contract and then regressed, and a defense that was really well-coached that had some very good players and then a bunch of JAG starters like Zach Brown, Adolphus Washington, Corey Graham, Aaron Williams breaking down from injury, and Preston Brown, etc. And if the new group had signed second contracts with guys like Sammy, Robert Woods and Cordy Glenn, their poor cap situation would have continued right along being poor. You (EDIT: and Kirby) were right and I'm wrong about Woods being out before Beane got here. It must have been McDermott who was the one I remember lamenting how much he wanted to keep Woods but that it simply wasn't possible with the cap situation they were in. My bad. Another GM coming into the situation might have seen it completely differently? Well, since there really isn't a situation where that's not at least theoretically true, yeah, fair enough. There are bad administrators and bad decision makers in every field. Could they have found one? Yeah, maybe. In fact, if the Pegulas had told everyone they interviewed that they believed that this team could win a Super Bowl with Tyrod Taylor and what they had, that the owners believed they were only a few players away from a title, there isn't a doubt in the world that they could have found somebody to say "Hey, I'm your guy, I'm just the genius who can win a Lombardi with this group." But that's just it. The Pegulas didn't say that. They weren't that dumb. They hired the guy who said that they needed a franchise QB, that to get one they needed a rebuild and to win a title they needed that rebuild and at the same time they needed to get their bad cap situation back under control. You yourself admit this, saying he believed and was committed to this. Exactly, Bill. You seem to be arguing that a rebuild wasn't necessary. That's a wacky position but it's also not what this argument has been about. This argument has been about whether they were in bad cap problems. And for a group committed to a rebuild, as you admit they were, it isn't much of a question. It is something they committed to getting under control, despite the pain, from as early as their interview. So saying that it was about wanting to turn over players doesn't make sense. Sure, they wanted to rebuild and they absolutely must have known that some or many of the guys on the previous roster were gone. But what they've also made clear is that when they got here an awful lot of their time was spent on figuring out which guys would fit the new group and which wouldn't. They spent a ton of film study on it and they also gave a number of guys a year to show whether they could be a part of this team. They seem to have wanted Dareus to be here till he made it clear he wasn't going to let little rules get in the way of his lifestyle. Though maybe they were just trying to have someone fill the Lotulelei role and at the same time lower that massive cap hit by waiting a year or two, till he started missing meetings. Doesn't make sense to say they knew before they came in what they wanted the turnover to look like. Yeah, rebuilds mean a bunch of turnover. But sometimes guys who fit can stay. It's not a mistake that Kyle Williams stayed, or Lorax. They fit the locker room and were good players. McDermott and Beane were likely hoping there'd be a few more like that.

Not saying Stevie was bad. But yes, I am saying that he wasn't our MVP of the decade in any way, shape, form, method, scheme, means or manner. Or process. He wasn't even the MVP of any of those Bills seasons. Fitzy for one was far more valuable. Probably Kyle Williams too. Freddy, maybe. Hell, Dareus was in his first three years and looked like he was going to be a pillar of that team for a decade, it wasn't till his 5th year that Dareus lost the pass rush part of his game.

A "prove it" deal for Clowney is still likely to be somewhere around $15 M, probably. Doesn't fit our circumstances.

Stevie Johnson? Good grief. Most valuable, as opposed to best yeah? So, it makes sense it's QBs, the way that the NFL MVP is pretty much always a QB. But Stevie Johnson? Yeah, not seeing that.

Varies from QB to QB and from WR to WR. More, it's a complex system with a million variables. The correct answer, really, is that they affect each other. But overall, the QB makes the WR more than vice versa. The QB doesn't have to throw to a WR. You look at how great a receiver Will Fuller is and how little he got thrown to because of Deandre Hopkins being on that team. Look at Robert Woods' career. Anyone think Deshawn Watson is going to suck now that he's lost the best WR in football?

Kirby, you also are a terrific poster. But Beane didn't need to lie to sell people on this. People were dying to buy into any plan. And they certainly did have a cap issue. On the last day of the 2016 league year, in March 2017, they had the 26th worst cap situation, with around $18 million in cap space. That's really bad. Again, it wasn't cap hell. But yes, it was a serious cap issue. They had to start wiggling and cutting right off the bat, and they did. Beane went on record not long after, about specifically about how much he wanted to have kept Robert Woods but not being able to because of a money issue. The Rams didn't pay Woods all that much. They didn't want to "turn over' Woods. They had money problems. They wanted to clean up those problems and have cap space by 2019 and the way to do that (and at the same time accumulate draft capital for bringing in a QB) was to cut money and trade away guys who'd bring back some picks. I'm not going to argue here whether or not they needed to rebuild. Not here. It's hijacking the thread, it's a separate issue, and it's been discussed elsewhere. But from extremely early on in the process they had decided to rebuild. And rebuilding is harder when you're in a bad cap situation. There were plenty of other ways to urge people to be patient, particularly by the time he talked of "cap jail" in September of 2018. It was very obvious by then that we had a long way to go and were going to have to be patient like it or not. And those who weren't patient weren't going to be swayed by talking about the fact that a year and a half ago we'd been in cap jail.