Thurman#1

Wow!! That's convincing. Great find, Happy.

Or BPA worked out such that a CB we liked was never BPA on our board when we drafted Never heard of him before but I like the way he tackles in that video.

Sometimes your best decisions are the things you don't do. This is one of those cases, IMO.

Yeah, the people wanting a home run hitter are likely disappointed by this pick. But Beane said as much recently that they wanted a vertical runner with power when explaining why Yeldon didn't see so much time.

Thoughtful. Thanks.

8 - 9, yeah. 9? It's very rare. That would leave only two guys to play outside/deep. Assuming only two receivers, it would still mean the CBs were on an island. And for safeties to be up closer is common these days, but actually in the box is really not. While it happens, it's mostly on goal line stands.

Heh heh. Interesting, Doc. And telling as well.

I really could see this. But a few others too. Terrell Lewis, maybe, if they like him. Mims or Claypool, maybe ... If he does trade up this year, I'd expect it to be a small move. I wouldn't mind that either, John, nor would it surprise me.

What you or I think about whether they need a guy like this is less important than what they think. And what they think is probably best indicated by the fact that very recently they became the first team in the league to hire a "Nickel Coach." It's huge for them. Hyde and Poyer are already on the field when they bring in the big nickel. Siran Neal was OK at it but not good enough. And he's too small to really fit the role all that well. Both Chinn and Dugger are significantly bigger than Neal and yet also quite a bit more athletic. Jaquan Johnson is 5'10" 191. He' a safety or a CB, but the guy they're looking for ideally is a lot bigger than that. Marlowe is another smaller guy at 203. I'm not a huge measureables guy, but this site charts size with athletic ability. Take a look at what our guys look like when charted like this. https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/dean-marlowe https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/jaquan-johnson https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/siran-neal Now take a look at Dugger and Chinn: https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/jeremy-chinn https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/kyle-dugger Measurables aren't everything, far from it. But these two are a different kind of beast from the guys we're going with presently. The Bills having visited Lenoir-Rhyne three times speaks to how important they think this is. Not that that means they'll definitely go with either guy. But yeah, the Bills obviously think this is a need.

First, they didn't always use Gore and Allen. Singletary had a very nice 2.5 yard TD run against Washington. As for why they used Allen, it's for several reasons, first because when he scrambles he can sometimes turn passes into running TDs, 2nd because running sneaks can be very effective at scoring if teams don't fill the middle with bodies and because forcing them to do so can create problems for them elsewhere. Like any quick-hitting play sneaks can surprise and be very effective, and RPO plays stress the defense knowing they have to defend both run and pass. As for why they used Gore, they seem to have a philosophical liking for big strong vertical backs in some situations. Plus it was very obvious that they absolutely loved Gore. That they "schemed around [Singletary's] weaknesses" is purely your assumption. They might as easily have been scheming around defensive tendencies, not to mention Allen's, the OL's and Gore's perceived strengths. Or simply playing to their own philosophies about heavy backs in certain situations. So far every year they've had at least one big pounding back on the roster even when their evasive back was by far their best. Was it because they were "scheming around Singletary's weaknesses] that they ran Allen for 8 TDs ... in 2018 when Singletary was still in college? Or is it just something that they like as a philosophy? No, you're right, it's probably that they were putting that idea in place as practice for when they drafted Singletary the next year.

Right, totally. Just to buttress your argument here, could you come up with, say four or five examples of the situation that you argue "often" happened ... where he got 15 yards to pad his stats but didn't get the first down? We'll wait. That's a ridiculous point. That may have happened one or two times but every team in the league pads the stats of their backs in that way when it's near the end of the game and they're ahead. But they also degrade the RB stats by running more than they pass late in the game which makes them much more predictable. (For ex, in the first quarter, KC passed 68% of the time, highest in the league, and in the 4th quarter 47%, 29th highest.) https://www.sharpfootballstats.com/situational-run-pass-ratios--off-.html Buffalo's YPA in the 4th quarter was 0.7 YPA lower than in the first quarter. Singletary's YPA didn't benefit from running late in the game. Yards per carry isn't just a good measure of an RB's performance, it's the best measure. Not perfect, but absolutely the best if you have to choose one measure. Arguably the single worst measure is total yards. It does mean something for the guys who got a ton of carries ... if you got a ton of carries and your YPA is still high, that's impressive. But for everyone else it means far far less than YPA. YPA correlates to effectiveness and effectiveness is what you want from a back.

9 in the box happens around 20 - 30 times a season, mostly in goal-line stand type situations.

The quick answer is no. Manziel's problem was his atttitude and inability to work hard.

It's all about the team. Everything else matters, now and always. You don't draft for this year. If you do, you're not doing it right. Needs for this year are filled in FA and trades. Diggs fills the primary need. Most of the rest of the offensive improvement will come down to how much better Josh got. BPA, at positions of relative need, which is most of them, but not all. One could answer because Reid may have thought that RB was the BPA at a position of relative need.

Getting a good player? Yeah, maybe but maybe not. But surely there'll be plenty of good ones still available. But probably 60% of those guys will underachieve expectations.

Worth remembering, though, that sometimes drops are caused by passes thrown too fast, without touch. Not all of them, by any means, but Josh sometimes rifling short passes in at high speeds contributed to the problem. Though he did improve over his rookie year. We've seen real improvement in many areas of his game, and that's really encouraging.

Great work. It's hard for me to care that much about first round mocks with the Bills not drafting till the 2nd, but I appreciate your effort and think that's a great job. I saw that in The News today Daniel Jeremiah said that because of COVID and how everyone's been in the buildings for so long not out there mixing, that he'd talked to several GMs who said that they thought that this year the mock drafting crowd is further off than they've ever been. I think it was Jeremiah again, in the same article, who also said that because the scouts from every team aren't out there together talking and building groupthink and consensus unconsciously, that between the teams there may be far less consensus about who should go where. There may be a lot of teams astonished that this guy went so early and this guy went so late. I'm looking forward to seeing how correct that opinion is. It'd be fun if there are a lot of surprises this year. In any case, I'm amazed by the amount of work and care you and Gunner and others put into it. Fantastic.

Trades do make it even more difficult, but even if the NFL outlawed trades for a year, or if each pick was just #1, #2, #3, with who does the pick completely eliminated as a factor, it isn't almost impossible, it's beyond reasonable probability.

Just fine. That Fins win in the shortened season you talked about? I was living in Rosslyn, just across the bridge from Georgetown that year. I jogged over the bridge and the fans were going absolutely fricking insane. Traffic was stopped on M Street and every single car was hammering on the horns while fans on the sidewalks jumped up on hoods and danced and nobody in the cars minded. They didn't mind one tiny little bit that it was a shortened season. Then or now. That one that was really close in the 4th quarter with the Fins ahead 17-3 and 10:10 remaining in the 4th and Washington goes for it on 4th and one, and everyone knows it's going to Riggins and it does and Miami packs the box and when Riggins busts through the line there's nobody left between him and the goal and he sprints 43 yards for a TD, and Washington goes on to win? Any football fan older than about five years old at that point does. It was a terrific game. How many remember that Washington had gone 8-1 that year in a shortened season? Not many. How many Washington fans care? Basically none do. That Riggins run is one of the franchise's iconic moments, still played on local TV again and again and again.

I think they're going to be trying to find an edge who'll deserve to be paid that kind of money.

You're like the Carnak the Magnificent!!

None of the draft pick value charts would allow that to happen without teams giving us 40 - 50% discounts, and teams just don't do that. Still, he could do that if he trades away a day two pick next year. He's not going to do that, though. Thank goodness

Demanding certain positions will likely lead to disappointment. They'll go BPA, particularly early. Positions of need factor into their boards, but they won't be using checklists, nor should they. It's bad draft strategy. I'd hope that maybe 3 - 4 guys would see significant time this year, as backups, platoon guys, etc. If there's a starter, that'd be great, but not so likely, injuries excepted. Two to three years down the road it'd be great to see two and hopefully three guys develop into starters. I'd make that number higher if we had a first-round pick this year. But we don't.

Yeah, I really blame him for getting so few yards on those passes they don't throw to him and the times when someone else ran the ball. A really good RB would have run his stats up from the bench. The question isn't how well he did when they didn't get him the ball. It's how well he did when he did get the ball. And the answer to that is ... he did very well indeed.

No. Fournette's fifth year option would be for $10,189,000 in 2021 according to OverTheCap.com. That's nutty money, particularly when you've already got a cheap talented #1 RB. He was damn good last year, so my guess is Jax doesn't let him go cheap. They're not going to get a 1st for him, IMO, but it also isn't likely to be a 5th and a 6th or something along those lines. No, thanks. EDIT: Joe B. has a good point about maybe getting a comp pick back for him after this year. Hadn't considered the possibility of just keeping him for one year. That would make it a bit more likely but I just don't see it myself. Still think Jax isn't going to let him go at a price that would make it a reasonable move for us.