Thurman#1

You say JAGs, castoffs or end of career guys. But in fact, neither McCoy nor Singletary fit those three categories. McCoy got here when he was 27 and had three terrific seasons here. And Singletary is a young talented guy, one of the better backs in the league. As for the rest, you've got a number of FBs listed there, and that's not much more than a distraction, as they won't ever run up many good stats, but in fact, our FBS haven't been JAGs, castoffs or end of career guys either. They've been very good player, but not really ball carriers. And since 2015 you've got two different scheme / regime changes, so any team in that circumstance will probably see a lot of roster churn and that's likely to include a lot of #2s, #3s, #4s and guys who are primarily special teams players. As for wanting two really good RBs in case one gets injured ... why only RB? What happens if Allen gets injured? Or Tre-Davious or Tremaine or ... When a guy gets injured there's likely to be a bit of a dropoff. The idea is to limit the dropoff because there's no way to have equal talent everywhere for your second stringers. Take the Chiefs last year. Here are their RBs: Damien Williams, the 31 year-old LeSean McCoy, Darwin Thompson and Darrel Williams. Where are the two guys who aren't JAGs, castoffs or end of career guys? Hell, where's one? It seems very likely that they'll bring in another guy or two in the draft and FA. But if you're drafting for this year, you're not doing it right. Draft picks, especially higher-round picks, should be taken with the long-term in mind. And in the long-term, we've got our #1 RB for the next few years in Singletary. And we've got longer-term needs at Buffalo nickel, interior OL, CB, LB assuming we might not be able to afford to re-sign Milano, and our very old EDGE group. Not one under 30.

OK, we're not so far apart then. Enjoy the draft and the season.

There are a lot of good guys in the midrounds. I like AJ Dillon myself, but Evans looks good to me, as do Moss, Perine and Eno Benjamin. Oh and Joshua Kelley too. A lot of different types depending on what they're looking for.

Matt Waldman in his deep dive on RBs (I started a thread about it recently with the link if you're curious) said that Taylor was like a matador stepping out of the way in pass blocking situations, just avoiding it. I have to admit, I hate hearing that and I suspect that for our FO, who say that they like guys who love football, will really downgrade Jonathan Taylor for this issue. Waldman still had him 2nd-best in the class, felt he was the best pure runner in the group but said he was just unwilling to pass-block. Here it is:

I remember the name but not much more than that, I'm afraid. Good story. Thanks for posting it.

I'm kidding nobody, I'm making a point. The measuring stick is not the Chiefs. It's not any one team. Every year people install a new "measuring stick." That way is madness. That way you're always aiming at a moving target. When your goal is what Beane and McDermott's is ... to be consistently competitive over the long term, you look at the small group of teams that have managed that and you use that group as your target. What you absolutely do not do is pick one team. Because the next year you'll have to go with a new team, whoever wins the Super Bowl that year. You look at the group who have gone where you want to go and been competitive for a long time. The Chiefs have absolutely not been competitive for a long time. For a long time they've been good enough to make the playoffs and get knocked out by the good teams. You can make an argument that they had a shot last year. It's a reasonable contention but I disagree. Their defense just wasn't good enough, and that's why they lost every one of the four games they lost and then the Pats game. Last year on the other hand, they'd greatly upgraded the D and had several games where the offense wasn't all that productive but the defense made up for it. In 2018 they had zero wins when they scored less than 26. In 2019, three wins where they scored 24 or less. I'm not in any way arguing they're not a great team. They are. But the difference between the very good team of 2018 and the excellent team of 2019 was defense. And they haven't yet proved themselves consistent, though it wouldn't surprise me a tiny little bit if they do over the next few years. And when they do, they will become one of the group of teams that are the measuring stick for teams that want to be competitive not just for a year or two but consistently over the long term. You say, " How awful of a plan that must be, having a top tier offense." It isn't an awful plan. But it's only half of a really good plan. The best plan is to not have a major weakness on either side of the ball. In 2018 the final score of the Super Bowl was 13 - 3. The best teams, the consistent ones, can win many types of games because both units are good. The Chiefs defense meant they weren't on the field for that game. And the year before that, Philly won with the 7th-ranked offense and the 4th-ranked defense. Follow the latest winner and the target's always moving. Which is why you don't play it that way. Oh, and OF COURSE you have to outscore the Chiefs. Same with every team. But you can outscore a team 47 to 45 or 10 -7. Works either way, against every team including KC. Outscoring a team is done by both sides of the ball.

While I do think Brady was an awful lot of the reason the Pats did so well over the years, I find it hard to argue with Belichick at #1 with his record of success. And I hate the guy, and think they cheat. But with his record I think it's hard to argue. To put a terrific lineup out there for so very long with low low draft picks in each round is a great achievement.

That metaphor just doesn't fit the situation. I mean, you can pretend if you want that every draft pick works out the way you think it will, but that's what it would be ... pretending. Remember 1st rounder Laurence Maroney? Only slightly, right? Me too. Ki-Jana Carter, 1st overall? Yeah, they overdrafted him but everybody liked him in the top ten or fifteen picks. Remember Kenny Irons in the 2nd? Bishop Sankey in the 2nd? Montee Ball in the 2nd? I could go on and on. It's pretending also that the best few FAs left are Pintos. That's just nonsense. If you wanted to make that metaphor more realistic you'd have to put it something like ... you can get an inexpensive Corvette with minimal wear (college ball) knowing that a very fair number of them turn out to be lemons though plenty perform well, or you could bring in a more beat-up nicked-up old muscle car that you have a terrific history on with an engine that has shown itself to perform well over time but also knowing that most cars bought that way don't have much left in terms of ceiling and will wear out within the next few years. You don't want an FA? Fine, fair enough. The FAs are Pintos? Nonsense.

A top twelve RB? How is he not? 6th highest RB YPA in the league among backs with 100 or more carries. Raise the standard up to 150 carries and he's 2nd highest. More, the backs that were higher played on the Niners (Mostert and Breida), Ravens (Edwards), Cardinals (Drake), Titans (Henry). All of those teams except the Cardinals have offensive lines that are conspicuously better than ours. He was absolutely performing as a top 12 back in the NFL the last half of the season. You've made it plain you don't want to see that, but that doesn't make it any less true.

The measuring stick isn't the Chiefs. If you do it that way, what you are aiming for will change every single year as different teams built different ways win the trophy. You're aiming at a moving target that way. The measuring stick is the teams that have been consistently competing for a championship. Why? Because they've made it clear that's what their goal is. And with those teams (Pats, Steelers, Ravens, Packers ... maybe one or two more and maybe you can squeeze the Chiefs in there. But what you find about those Chiefs is that they've been good on offense for a while but only really competing for a championship this year when they finally got their defense among the best ones in the league. What you find among all of them is that they have a damn good QB and that neither the defense nor the offense is bad. You want some balance. Oh, and the Chiefs scored 28.2 points a game. Arguing that the Bills have to be TD better each week or they're not good enough is ridiculous.

Brandon Beane, please draft the best players available. Please don't draft a QB early, but other than that do what's best for the long-term good of this team, please, and that's get the BPA.

Yes, please. Here are his freshman highlights. I love the way he won't go down, the way he bounces off, throws people away and just runs through contact. This year, Dillon faced stacked boxes on 75% of his plays, as BC's offense was predictable and Dillon-heavy. That makes it hard and yet he was consistently productive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rBNT-LQ3Cs In any case, the great thing about this year's RB crop is that you can get real NFL talent right through the middle rounds. There are a lot of guys they could grab and get real production.

Really? Singletary "was not shifty enough in the open field to break a big gain, nor was he fast enough to squirt out of there for a big gain by outrunning the defensive linemen and LBs"? Seriously? You think he can't even outrun linemen? Frankly, that observation is nutso. Good grief. He's among the top five or so shiftiest backs in the league. He caused missed tackles at just about the highest rate in the league. Those are ridiculous interpretations. And while Singletary isn't a 4.4 guy he is certainly fast enough to outrun DLs and most LBs, particularly in the open field. In any case, the vast majority of passes to RBs around the league aren't aimed mostly at getting big gains. Coaches hope that a certain percentage will be broken long but they're mostly going to be shorter catches. You look at the best pass-catching backs in the league and you see that Tarik Cohen averages 7.6 yards per catch, Ekeler around 10, Fournette 7.5, James White 8.8, even Kamara averages 8.5. They're not worried about Singletary because he's not going to be breaking off 30 yarders all the time. Virtually nobody does.

Good stuff.

Yes, he's traded up. But except for the major haul of picks they acquired to bring in a QB, where they ended up lucking into not only a QB but also Edmund with the extras ... Beane's never traded away anything from the first two days. More than that, he's never emptied out a round. That is to say, he's never traded a pick unless he either had another pick left in the same round or he'd already doubled up in an earlier round. If he keeps that up, he'll only trade away one of our two sixth rounders, unless he accumulates some extra picks from trading back or trading player for pick. So I could definitely see him trading up, but the folks who expect a big move upwards are expecting him to break his tendencies. Agreed that pass rusher and receiver are bigger needs than most realise, though I don't think size is the factor you do. If we need a big guy, they can just keep Duke Williams.

Using the Drafttek chart, and assuming that the 2nd pick in round 2 and round 3 are both the last picks to make them as cheap as possible, acquiring those two picks would cost us 270 + 82 = 352. Trading away all the rest of our picks, the 4th, the 5th, the two 6ths and the 7th would bring us in ... 44 + 23.4 +15 + 7.4 + 1 = 90.5. So, gee, we'd be almost there.Only short by 262 points. Which means he'd only have to throw in the #33 pick next year, the first pick of the 2nd round. Yeah, I think this could happen in Bizarro World.

Never mind our original pick. Packaging the rest of the draft wouldn't get us up to #32 unless some team was willing to give us a major discount. Like about 40% off. There never was a reasonable option to move up to the first. And with only three picks in the first 130, they're not likely to give up any of those. If they do move up in the 2nd, odds are it won't be by more than a pick or three.

Clowney, maybe? Or the Bengals trading the first pick or someone trading up for Tua?

Yards are very far from meaningless. On the contrary. yards is a very important stat. It corresponds perfectly with field position. The more yards you give up, the better field position the other team will have and the poorer yours will be on both offense and to a lesser degree defense. The fewer yards you give up, the better field position your team gets.

Picking one? Yards Allowed. Points Allowed is more important, but it isolates the defense very poorly. For example, if your QB throws a pick six, Points Allowed puts the blame for that on your defense, which is outright dunder-headed. If your RB fumbles and the other team recovers on your 1 yard-line and takes four plays to hammer it in, again, Points Allowed blames your defense seven points worth for what was actually a pretty decent defensive series. Worse, if on the same fumble, your defense sacks them three times, forcing a 42-yard field goal, Points Allowed blames your defense for what is actually a resounding success. Defense holds the opposing offense to zero yards on three plays? Your returner fair catches? Your offense gains zero yards on three plays and the opponent runs the punt back for a TD? Points Allowed says your defense is at fault. The defense is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% - 75% responsible for Points Allowed. Field position is huge in how likely a team is to score on any give drive, and the offense and STs have tremendous say in how bad or how good the opposing offense's field position is. Number of drives faced is also huge in how successful your defense will be in Points Allowed. If your defense faced 20 more drives than another team did, they'll allow more points even if they're exactly as good. And again, offense has a huge role in how many drives your defense will face. Yards Allowed almost completely isolates the defense. Over the course of a season yards defended will not be wildly different from team to team. Is it a perfect measure? Nah, far from it, there is none that's close. Turnovers in particular are also big, though some of that - particularly fumbles caused vs. fumbles recovered - comes down to luck. But if you have to pick one, Yards Allowed is probably the best. That's why it's how defenses are ranked.

Oh, please. That old "some team's reject" argument is just plain ridiculous. Here are just some of the Hall of Famers (or future ones) who have been at some point in their careers FAs before playing very well with another team: Reggie White, Drew Brees, Deion Sanders, Charles Woodson, Brett Favre when he still had some terrific football in him, Tom Brady ... Not to mention Bryce Paup, London Fletcher and Takeo Spikes (yes, he was officially an RDA when Cincy didn't match) for the Bills. Sam Adams, Hyde and Poyer, James Lofton, and Big Ted Washington also come to mind. Also, Priest Holmes, Simeon Rice, James Farrior, Mike Vrabel, Mark Ingram, Tyrann Mathieu and Mitchell Schwartz for the champion Chiefs, Richard Sherman for the other Super Bowl team, Andrew Whitworth, Alex Mack, Calais Campbell, Allen Robinson II, Za"Darius Smith, ... it goes on and on and on. And we don't need to get somebody who other teams are scared of. It would be fine if we did but it is anything but a need. The guy other teams are scared of is Devin Singletary. We'd be just fine pulling a move like the Polian-Levy Bills did when they needed a 2nd RB behind Thurman and they brought in a "reject," (your word, not mine) from Green Bay who had averaged 4.0 yards per carry in his three years there which led to the Packers letting him go in free agency. Kenneth Davis did just fine here as "some team's reject."

It's really not doubtful at all. Last year Beane signed Yeldon three days before the draft.

I think that's fair ... if the guy turns out to be a gadget player. I believe there's a fair argument that Shenault can become a good receiver who can also be used as a gadget player. I'm not 100% convinced, but I think it's possible. He still needs work on route running, and yet he often gets separation. That's a guy who might become a receiver down the road, IMO. Isn't McCaffrey at his heart a gadget player, though? Not that Shenault is McCaffrey. But isn't McCaffrey an example of a really successful gadget guy? In any case, you don't draft people for how well they will do their first year, particularly not in this situation with such a strong roster. You draft a guy for to enrich the roster, to maximize the talent pool over the time he's here. Few if any of the guys we draft this year will be likely to start or do much more than platoon, play STs or be depth, injury replacements or play in spots. That's not a problem when it's caused by a good roster. A big problem when it's caused by bad drafting, but so far Beane's drafting has been good. You could be right, though, that he turns out to just be a gadget guy. And maybe that as a gadget guy he might not have much impact. If so, a team that picks him early will be disappointed.

Man, that's word for word what I should have said. Can't believe I spent so much time on it. Food for thought. Thanks.

Interesting. I've been sort of hoping they wouldn't go corner in the 2nd, that they could fill that need later. I keep falling into that trap, whatever I'm thinking about that day, that's the position I hope they go with round 2. It's seductive. You've given me something to think about. Thanks again. Your work is amazing, I honestly don't know how you manage it. Great stuff.