Thurman#1

Fans seem to think so, but the idea just doesn't make sense, especially when you're comparing him to picking up Harvin as the 2nd-worst. This defense has been excellent the past two years with Star in the middle. McDermott has proved a lot of things the past three years but if there's one above all others, it's that he knows how to build a defense. If he thinks he needs a guy like Star, if he pays that much, if he brings him in as a guy he knows a ton about from his time coaching him for years at his previous stop, if he plays him consistently and if the defense is flat-out excellent ... then yeah McDermott needs him and thinks he's doing a good job. With Harvin on the other hand, he was seen coming in as a massive injury risk, having played in 14 games the previous two years combined, and - who'da think it? - turned out to be a massive injury risk, playing five games for $6M. Clay and Harvin were the worst two by a long way. It's fair to say the two safeties were maybe the two best. The D has been terrific at pass defense all year and those two are two of the biggest reasons for that.

The article is looking at the period since 2015. Since 2015? Percy Harvin comes immediately to mind. $6 mill if I remember and a smidge over 200 yards for it. EDIT: Nope, Harvin's a distant second. Having gone back to look at 2015 again I have the definitive answer. That was the year they wildly overpaid Charles Clay. Clay wasn't a bad player but for those who think we paid too much for Lotulelei, look at the Clay deal. Lotulelei at least plays a position that our coach needs filled, and he performs on a defense that has been terrific since he got here and costs less than the offense does. (Offense $74M, Defense $63M this year according to overthecap.com) Clay got 20% more in guaranteed cash than Jimmy Graham at that time and twice the percentage Gronk got. The Bills signed him to work with Manuel or Cassel, but Tyrod won the competition and was never threw much or well to the deep or intermediate middle. And it was originally a $38M contract over 5 years with more than $20M guaranteed, but it also had a $10M roster bonus in his third year, and the Bills ended up paying that as well. Awful contract. The new regime hasn't got a contract in the Harvin - Clay neighborhood of badness.

Yes, that is indeed how to think of it. A huge percentage of 6th and 7th rounders don't turn into much. That is the expectation and if you do end up beating the odds, you've done well. Genius is far too strong, but you've been very successful if you get much more than STs guys And our WR group is not full of bums. John Brown and Cole Beasley are for real. Did we need WRs in 2018? Yeah. Thing is we needed players at pretty much every position. And that draft looking back is starting to look like a very good one, though it will depend on Allen's development in the end.

Beasley. John Brown. So that's just wrong. As for drafting WRs, Beane has spent one 6th rounder and one 7th, and that's it. Yeah, it only brought in McCloud and Proehl. But that's not so much picking WRs badly as it is not spending any resources on them. Fair enough if you want to include the trade for Kelvin Benjamin (who was not a good pickup by any means, but without whom we don't make the playoffs in 2017, as Benjamin was crucial in winning two games) but the Zay pick was made by McDermott and Whaley while Beane was still in Carolina. And again, Beasley and Brown were excellent pickups, so Beane has not been brutal by any means. It's very reasonable not to have much confidence in him being able to pick a good WR. He hasn't used any real draft capital to try. He's got a lot to prove. But Beane's WR picks so far don't show any inability either.

I don't think you can call the trade-up for Allen business as usual. It was a very specific thing for a very specific need. Trading up for a franchise QB is a move they absolutely felt they had to make, without a guy like that on the roster and with their rebuild starting with no pick higher than 10th in either of the first two years. The Edmunds pick was one where they had two third-rounders left and were able to give away one and still be able to make a pick in the third. They had tried to trade up higher for a QB, as high as Denver at #5, and would likely have been willing to trade away the pick they traded for Edmunds. It's possible they would have made the trade even if they didn't have that second 3rd rounder, but as far as business as usual ... even including the Allen trade, Beane hasn't traded away any pick without either having made two picks in an earlier round (he traded away the 2019 4th, but had already made four draft picks, a first, a second and two thirds in Singletary and Knox, and the Allen pick when he traded away two 2018 2nds leaving him without a 2nd, but having already made two picks in the first). In fairness, McDermott and Whaley did leave that kind of a blank round in the 4th in 2017. But we haven't seen Beane do that yet, though that certainly doesn't rule out the possibility. In fact, it seems likely they'll do it soon in later rounds, if not this year then soon. You're right that they do trade up for guys like Ford and Knox, but those involved smaller picks being traded away and again, Beane didn't leave any blank rounds unless he'd already essentially made that round's pick but in an earlier round. And yeah, having Brady was huge, but the Pats have stockpiled picks not just through comp picks. They've also consistently traded a lot, trading down quite a bit more than they traded up. https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2017/4/15/15164566/nfl-draft-trades-patriots-won-bill-belichick https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/draft.htm

Certainly possible, but I doubt they would make any trade that would require then to give away their third-rounder. I mean, if someone they thought was a top seven pick fell, yeah, possible. But when you're trying to build through the draft, a third-rounder is a pick you want to cash in on. We'll see.

Fair enough if you think so. But year after year guys don't work out at the combine, there's a fan firestorm about it along with a few quotes from scouts and pundits, and then the guy goes about where expected. The teams don't seem to care, which makes total sense to me, personally.

This was a story reporting on something said in another story. When you go to the original story, here's what was said: "2. The Bills showed plenty of interest in running backs at the combine. In the past, McDermott has made a point about having a veteran leader in every position room. It looks like the team will lose Frank Gore in that role as he mulls retirement and will become a free agent in a few weeks. The question is whether Devin Singletary needs another veteran in the room or if he’s ready to assume that role after learning from Gore for a year." There's nothing here ... nothing but a guess.

Trying to trade him for either of those two? At the end of last year? Please. Packaged is right, it would have taken an awful lot more in the package than Lawson. And neither of those guys makes us competitive for a Super Bowl last year. They don't get us over that hump.

Aargh. I edited to try to make it clearer. And you've already posted. Sorry. I'll try again. The $22.5M, the "original cap hit," is a sum that only makes sense when the guy is on the team. When he's on the team, all $22.5M is applied to the cap. From the perspective of the team, all $22.5M is positive, it's added to the cap, both what you are calling the "savings pot" and what will become the "dead money pot," though it's not dead money till he's cut. All positive. That's no longer true when he's cut. When he's cut, the dead money is still positive. It's still applied to the cap. But the salary, roster bonus and workout bonus are NOT applied to the cap anymore. They're negatives, and must be subtracted from what the old cap was. They work against that amortized but unapplied portion of the bonus. Now, how can you take subtract $20M (salary, roster and workout bonuses) saved from the cap and add $2.5M applied to the cap and come up with $22.5M? Or rather a negative (saved) $22.5M? Put another way, everyone here clearly agrees that the salary, roster bonus and workout bonus equal $20M and are NOT applied to the salary cap anymore since the cut. They are savings. So $20M has been saved without in any way accounting for the dead money. And yet people are saying that the total cap impact is $20M, the same $20M. Before considering the dead money, the saved money is $20M and after considering the dead money, the saved money is the same? How is that possible? Is the dead money not any factor on how much is saved and spent when you cut a guy? Still willling to apologize big-time if someone can explain this to me sensibly. But I just learned I have another big project that I have to work on through early Monday your time, so I won't be able to reply till then.

Gunner, I totally see that you are not applying it twice. In fact, if you're saying that to find the total cap impact you must now take what you're calling the "savings pot" and then subtract from it the "dead money pot," then you're saying what I'm saying. That makes sense to me, with the proviso that total cap hit is only important if the guy is still on the team. When he's cut the two figures can't be added, as the "saved money" is now subtracted from the cap since it's not paid, whereas the "dead money pot," is still applied to the cap (though depending on the "Post June 1st Release" designation, a bunch of the money may be applied next year, though it's not relevant for Dareus). Adding them together as positive numbers at that point makes no sense at all. The other folks talking about this here, on the other hand, have the "saved pot" as $22.5M, precisely because they include what you do and then also add in the unapplied portion of the amortized signing bonus there. And then also use the same money again, over in dead cap. The way you're doing it, though, the saved money is essentially all of the unspent money, the pluses, the money you expected to spend but can now save. And the dead money is all of the minus money, the money you must apply to the salary cap now. So if you want to calculate the total cap impact of cutting a guy (not just the impact on one year but the total impact on team cap), you take the savings pot and you subtract the dead money pot. And that leaves you with a total cap impact of $17.5M. I'm not just looking at this year's impact, as many of them appear to be doing. I'm looking at the total impact of cutting the guy. $17.5M. Am I misrepresenting what you said?

Yes. Many don't remember DC Buddy Ryan actually physically attacking OC Gilbride on the sideline for not running the ball and burning clock. The surprise onside kick was also brilliant, saving the Bills a ton of time when it was successful.

I'm high on this group. They're smart and they have a smart plan. It'll still depend on Josh Allen, though. I'm not nearly high enough at this point to be thinking about the 1990 offseason. That was one terrific team and Kelly was showing real mastery. But I really do like the direction they're headed and the consistency of their progress in that direction.

I don't think they saw him as purely an RT prospect. They seem to have thought he might (or might not) need to be switched from early on, though clearly they have hoped and are still hoping he will develop his footwork and make the grade at tackle. As for not converting guys after a year, sometimes it works just fine. Off the top of my head, I believe Geoff Schwartz was switched T to G after a year or so, and that's worked out fine. Some guys you do and some guys you don't.

I was ready to totally disagree, but you at least edged me over towards the "possibly" area. I've never thought he wanted to change. If he actually does, I guess maybe. Many here say he's never been a process guy, and I would disagree with that, though it's definitional. Certainly his fines and penalties aren't the kind of guy they've ever wanted. But in terms of how hard he works and how good he is in the locker room, how football smart he is, yeah, he has always seemed to me like a process guy, though a wasted one I never wanted on my team. If he has actually changed, maybe. I doubt it would happen and I don't think I want it either, nor am I sure he fits this defense. But at least I can imagine it now. Yeah, this is a question I have. Don't remember if he can cover, but he might not even fit this defense. Might not even be worth asking the question. McDermott does want very athletic guys.

Not for Newton it's not. But yes, for the whole team it's a massive massive problem. Wins and losses isn't a QB stat, it's a team stat. The concern for Newton is how well Newton himself played in those games. And it's really hard to figure how one guy is playing sometimes in the middle of a tire fire. But in a quick and cursory look at his last eleven games it sure looks like in his last five he's been pretty bad and the six before that he was terrific. What that says, I don't know. I think keeping him or dumping him are both pretty defensible at this point.

We should get a slight discount if we do it during the offseason, to remove some risk from him and to get him money earlier. But basically yeah, absolutely.

GMs have much larger staffs working on all this than the guys doing mocks do. The team doctors get to directly examine the prospects, that's a huge advantage. Generally the more decisions are crowd-sourced the better they're likely to be. Journalists have much less of a chance to do much of this, and if they do they'd likely get closer together as they got better, and readers will start criticizing. And in terms of process, not the preparation for the draft, but the draft itself, the GMs have it much much easier in maybe the most important way ... the guy drafting 22nd will know absolutely for sure which 21 guys he can't pick. While the mock makers are only guessing. They have to do all seven rounds before the first pick is made, so your mocker might predict the Bills going with a guy who was picked 17th, say. Plus the GMs have a much more focused task ... maximize the talent their team gets out of it in a way that maximizes team performance. The mock community has to as well as possible simulate every pick, an absolutely impossible task. This is a pretty huge advantage. IMO another advantage they have is a much greater knowledge of the coaches and staff's opinions of their own players ... how smart those players are, how well they fit the system, etc. Guys doing mocks are guessing ... educatedly, but they're guessing. The GMs know what kind of guys the coaches are looking for, how much improvement a player is making, who's understanding their own assignments and helping out others, who works like a dog ... all that stuff. Which gives them a major advantage in knowing what is needed, what is not, and what kinds of solutions would be best to fill those needs in the coaches' opinions. Having said that, it's absolutely clear that word gets out in the last week or so about what teams want and like. Some of it's smoke certainly, but a surprising amount is not. The community figures some things out as they better get to know the GMs, and as they hear from the janitors who clean the rooms war rooms, or the owner or the assistant defensive line coach can't help but talk to his chatty girlfriend, or whatever. Predictions do get closer the last few days or so. Word gets out. But not everything, and yeah, plenty of smoke too. But after the draft it comes out, especially as the NFL releases those little war room dramatic videos as they've done the last few years or the Peter Kings of the world do a story where they tell about the war room they were embedded in, or whatever. And that's not even mentioning stuff we never used to know like how many coaches visit guys ... like the number of Bills coaches who went to Lenoir-Rhyne which has pretty much only Dugger as a major pro prospect. Or who the Bills get in for their facility visits. People have a surprisingly decent grasp on what's going on. Far from perfect, though. There'll always be lies and misdirections, and when you have to do all your guessing before the first guy is even picked, you have a poorer chance the later the pick.

Looming FAs, yeah. FAs that are very unlikely to be FAs, less so. Do you really think Jerry Jones, a guy in love with the concept of triplets, is going to let his be broken up? If so, I guess we can agree to disagree, but Amari Cooper's free agency is less looming than barely perceptible except among dreamers, IMO. Hey, it'd be fascinating if it happened, but what's the likelihood? And I was and am correct about the cap savings. It will never make sense to first add and then subtract the dead cap money. Doing so completely eliminates dead cap as a factor. And that doesn't make any sense. Dead cap absolutely is a factor when you're calculating the total cap impact of cutting a guy. I totally get that what I'm saying is counter-intuitive. On the surface of it, it seems wrong. But when you look at it in a deep and detailed way, it's correct. Haven't had time to get back to that in a week as I do my student grades, but I will get back to it. Sorry, I really shouldn't hijack the thread. I won't comment more on this here. And I do appreciate your tone here, Bandit, very reasonable, even if I disagree. I hope mine here had the same feeling to it.

Whether we boards folk would take him is beside the point. McDermott has made plain his feelings about the guy by cutting him when he was still easily one of the better players on the team and at a time when cutting him was financially punitive.

Here's an idea ... why don't we wait till Dallas says or indicates Cooper will reach free agency before we start stuff like this? Because there's probably in the neighborhood of a 5 -20% chance he isn't with the Cowboys next year.

Yeah, people forget about Kevin Johnson. I could see him making a bit of decent money, possibly here. I'd guess you might be wrong about Jordan Phillips. I think he's going to be overpaid by someone with stars in their eyes. We'll see.

Tom Brady. Our own Kurt Coleman. James Conner. Aaron Jones. Marion Mack. Juszczyk. Mike Daniels. Dak. Jonnu Smith, Enumwa, Glowinski, Elandon Roberts, Pernell McPhee. Not to mention you can trade 'em.

Nothing to get upset about. Yeah, comp picks are very important, and the good teams over the long term work towards earning them. But last year we had very few FAs we let go, having just rebuilt and gotten rid of most of the guys reaching the end of contract signed during the Whaley years. And we brought in a bunch of FAs, having had a ton of cap money and a lot of holes to fill on the OL and at WR and a few more spots besides. They know comp picks are important, they've made it clear. As they start having more of the guys they signed reach the end of contracts, we should start to see this be something to look towards.

You still talking about the mistake I made in the other thread? Dude, you can't bother me a bit with that. If there's one thing about me, it's that if I make a mistake, I acknowledge it, long and loud. Go back to the thread, you'll see I already admitted I was wrong. And I was wrong. Badly. Having said that, is it so important to you that you're pursuing it to another thread? That's kinda sad, to be honest. You never made a mistake? But I should end the post again saying that I made a mistake. Must've been totally exhausted to be that stupid.