Thurman#1

It sure didn't look anywhere near as clear to me as it does to you that he has the physical ability. Looked to me clear that he had the toughness to run-block and handle the bull-rush, but very unclear whether he had the ability in foot-speed to kick-slide well enough to stay with good speed rushers on the edge. Looked very questionable to me, though maybe there's something they can teach him that will get him to show improvement.

Agreed, I like the chances for improvement this year.

I'd guess it's far closer to "have some hope he'll be the answer" than "see him as the answer." At RT at least. There's good reason to think he'd be the answer if they move him inside.

Disagree about the similarity. Missed games - in chronological order - in the last four years: Greg Olsen: 0, 9, 7, 2, totaling 18, including two last season AJ Green: 6, 0, 7, 16, totaling 29, including all of last season

That's utter nonsense. You can kid yourself that it's somehow not important that the Chiefs and 9ers were both in the top eight in scoring defense. But that is what you'd be doing, kidding yourself. Both offense and defense are important. Yeah, the Bills offense still needs a lot of work. But it's not somehow unimportant that the Bills defense was genuinely excellent. It is a huge step towards being a good team. It didn't go over, because it didn't happen. First, it really wasn't media criticism. It was criticism by clueless fans. The media mostly had muted positives. When they voiced those and went to the Bills and the guys who watched tape they got much less muted positives. At that point, fans started noticing what they should have been noticing all along, that he was doing a good job at a thankless task. Lotulelei didn't suddenly elevate his play. People just suddenly started noticing that he'd actually been playing pretty well.

Not so much more faith as much better perception of reality. Your "effort issues" are perceptible only to yourself and a few other Star haters on these boards. What the Bills say about it is exactly the opposite. What you hear about Star from them isn't the boiler-plate Crash Davis platitudes about giving 100%. Instead you get over-the-top, unbounded compliments about how he works like a dog doing the dirty work to let others get the glory. Yeah, pretty much the whole world, Bills included, expect him to continue to both prepare and perform at a high level in 2020, to do what he's always done. The fact that the Bills guaranteed 2020 and parts of 2021 does indeed mean that the people with access to his workouts and offseason preparation that you simply don't have are indeed very satisfied with his past effort and production and do expect the same going forward.

"Wasted a season"? Man, you just do ... not ... get it. A rebuild isn't a waste. It's utterly clueless to think so. It's accepting a couple of bad seasons with the promise of having great improvement in exchange after the end of the trough in years 3, 4, 5 and on. Which is exactly what is happening so far. Wait, why am I even answering? Not a single thing you said here makes the slightest bit of sense. I'm sure everyone else sees that as well as I.

I disagree with your first paragraph, though I think you're right on with the rest, but he really isn't overpaid. He was paid what he was worth to McDermott. He isn't just a run-stopper, it's more complex than that, as I'm sure you know. He's a space eater, and there aren't that many of those guys to go around, so the good ones get paid well, as there are two or three significantly above Star in the top ten. It's a really difficult job that few are able to physically handle. Not every defense needs one, but the ones that do need them badly. Space eater may not be a "premium position," but neither is $10 mill a year a premium salary. Star is tied for 148th highest paid in the league, in terms of average salary, and 129th highest in terms of guarantee. Calling that a premium salary would be ridiculous. The bottom line is simply that this is a position that McDermott needs filled in his defense and needs filled at a pretty high level. He knew Star could fill it at that level, having coached him in Carolina. And if McDermott has showed one thing, it's that he knows how to put together a really good defense with consistency. He needed Star to do that. As you point out, this is a good deal for both sides, a small pay cut for some guarantees the Bills are willing to live with because they want him here.

Well, that's a fair enough opinion, but it's certainly not the only one. Polished isn't necessarily the most important thing. Eric Moulds wasn't polished. Great pick, though. Drafttek has him at #27. If that's his actual value, #22 is a reasonable spot to take him. I like him, myself. Tough as nails. And there's no especial reason to think he may never develop.

Yeah, he has a lot of those touches that have not much to do with route-running. But when he does run routes, he gets open consistently. He probably has a lot to learn but when you're getting open, you've got a head start on your learning.

Hap, just wanted to correct this, as I see it being used again and again the last week or so. That's not how you calculate money saved or spent. It's NOT CAP COST minus DEAD CAP. Doing it that way counts the dead cap money twice. The correct formula for a cut would be something like MONEY TO BE PAID THIS YEAR (generally salary plus roster bonus plus workout bonus plus any other bonuses) minus DEAD CAP. Dead cap money is counted twice in your equation there. A player's cap cost includes his unamortized signing bonus cost for that year. And of course that is also included in his dead cap money. But if they cut a guy, they don't save the unamortized bonus. Cutting Dareus will save 'em $17.5 mill.

$17.5 mill, looks like to me. Hard to imagine them keeping Marcell at that price. They save $20M on salary and roster bonus but lose $2.5M as dead cap.

I thought the odds were against us paying as much as he'd have cost anyway. But he'd have been a nice fit. That's what tends to happen with 24 year-olds who play like him.

Probably because he doesn't have a bad attitude and we don't know yet whether he'll ever be good or not in good circumstances.

Teams worry about Singletary, and about Brown as well. If Allen had hit ... say three of those five or six long bombs on which Brown was open long but overthrown, teams would have started to seriously back up the safety on his side. Agreed, though, that they need both another WR and another RB. I personally would expect them to target an RB who's a style contrast to Singletary, a hammer to Devin's sting like a bee.

He's a die-hard rugby fan, but mostly of the national team. Not much of a fan of sevens either. There are a lot of people out there like that, he says. I'm not a rugby guy at all, but he is.

No. Improving isn't a sign you haven't peaked. In fact, improvement is always what happens just before someone peaks. There's certainly a ton of room for hope. I'm hopeful and if I had to predict, my guess would be that he's going to keep improving. But really there's just no way to know, either way. Oh, my God, that's classic. Really? An unrealistic expectation? On them? Aren't you the guy who thought he was going to be in the running for MVP in 2019? I mean, seriously, isn't that exactly what you said in literally hundreds and hundreds of posts? Nearly anyone else should be able to say this. But not you. A lack of realistic expectation, thy name is Trannie.

We can stick with Barkley. Don't know if we will, but it's arguably the most likely choice.

Sure seemed like he was too frustrated by the English national team's unwillingness to pick him. A good buddy of mine is a Brit and when I told him the first couple of times about Wade he kept telling me that he'd never heard of the guy so he couldn't be very good. When I told him Wade was 3rd all time in tries in the Premeireship he had to go look it up.

You ask why is it the position rookies can succeed in, and I think a part of the answer that you're ignoring is because those rookies have been playing football for years. Rugby runners absolutely learn a lot of the same things in terms of open-field running, but there's no real blocking in rugby. Following and setting up blocks is a skill that nearly all Americans who play football take for granted. Rugby guys not so much. Remember that long run Wade broke on the right side where there was a defender and a blocker ahead near the goal line? Wade turned his run inside and thus was tackled before getting a TD when he should have gone directly vertical. The concepts aren't that difficult, but learning to do it with that instinctive speed and decision-making that good RBs have isn't as easy as they make it look. You say that all he has to do is learn pass pro. I'd argue that's no small feat. Plenty of guys never do learn that, and Wade's size, (5'7" and 190) means it's going to be physically tough for him. I hope he does well. I think it's possible. But I'm right with Parrino that he's more likely to spend another year on the PS. Hope I'm wrong.

Even if they're rebuilding, I don't see Carolina getting rid of a 22 year-old on the rise.

The advantage of that for the team is that they can get a cheaper contract per year than they would have if they wait a year. Which would from the team's perspective move a lot of the burden to a year - this year - when they can afford it. Lower the burden in years when other contracts will need to be paid for in future years. It's a good move for the team's cap future. It's true this isn't a common move. But it could really make sense, again, depending on their views of how valuable he is to their future. Maybe they intend to treat him the way the Panthers did Josh Norman. If they think that McDermott can do incredible things with CBs who aren't by themselves that terrific, maybe they don't do anything like this. But if they are sure they want him and want to free up cap space down the road, it could make sense. Let's say that next year he signs a $16 mill a year over 5 years contract. Now over the next 6 years the guy is making $1.8 mill in 2020 plus $70 mill, totalling $71.8 mill. So you sign an extension with him this year, extending him for $70 mill over 6 years. Same amount, you say? Yeah, but this year they have a ton of cap space. They're not all that likely to see this much cap space for a while. They're doing the opposite of kicking the can down the road, they're hauling cans forward so as you go down the road there are fewer cans and a smoother future. They might even get White to take a few mill less for the chance to get his money early and insure himself against injuries. As for players liking the last years of a contract to be heavily loaded so they don't get cut ... hunh? The only thing they like better is getting the money front-loaded so they can invest earlier. And having the last few years of the contract pay less means they're more likely to stick around as the team will be getting a great deal on those last few years. Or even better the team extends them a second time or cuts them for a team that will pay more than the last few years of the old contract would have. The players love this. I mean, if Tre were older it might not make sense but the end of that theoretical second contract would come when he's 31 and can probably get a really nice third contract somewhere, maybe even here.

I believe you're using "footwork and mechanics" in a different way than it was intended, and in a different way than it is usually used about QBs. When he came out of college, he absolutely had some specific traits that were advanced, his ability to adjust arm angles, his unconventional ways of doing things. But those aren't what people generally are referring to when they talk about mechanics. I went back to a (very prescient and smart) pre-draft piece on Mahomes by Matt Waldman. He uses mechanics that way it's meant here, saying Mahomes needed work on his mechanics ... but that you wouldn't want to turn him into a robo-QB. Reid took advantage of his innate abilities but not his mechanics. Here's an excerpt: "Mahomes will not be a good choice for a team that has a coach or general manager that covets the safety of a passer that thinks, moves, and functions as one of the thousands that could have rolled off an assembly line. It’s not that Mahomes can’t develop into a technically sound quarterback, it’s that he needs an organization that will allow him to build on his strengths. And his strengths are not part of that straight and narrow path of traditional quarterback development. "Mahomes has the caliber of arm and accuracy that allows him to make pinpoint throws without the constant need of fundamentally sound footwork. A former shortstop and son of a major league baseball player, Mahomes throws the football with the accuracy, velocity, and acrobatics of an infielder. The speed of his feet and Mahomes’ wide range of arm angles and accurate delivery points are rare gifts. Identifying and addressing areas where Mahomes can make easy fixes on traditional drops, sets, and pocket movement is a reasonable expectation for his long-term development. But thinking that Mahomes needs to eliminate the baseball infielder from his game is misguided and dangerous. "Good developers of talent recognize gifts and focus on ways to build on the positives. They also possess the wisdom to ensure that the effort to correct the negatives doesn’t bury the very things that make the individual special. "Learning proper three, five, and seven-step drops with a good setup won’t be difficult long-term, and it will set him up for future success with on-platform throws. We see young passers develop these skills every year. What we don’t see every year is a prospect with fast, fluid, flexible maneuverability, and extreme accuracy with unconventional footwork when forced off-script. "At this point of his career, Mahomes will always have moments where is footwork is sloppy because he’s played long enough with these mechanics that some of his setups and release points will be difficult to change. But with the exception of Mahomes’ opponents, there will be a lot of plays where no one will want him to eliminate these things from his game. "Mahomes can deliver accurate intermediate and long-range passes with velocity and touch. Some of his touch passes, such as a 38-yard completion from the opposite hash thrown with pressure in his face, were calculated strokes of genius. "It’s Mahomes’ skill for delivering the ball with a wide range of velocity, touch, arm slots, and stances that make him dangerous. While he’s not a significant breakaway threat, he’s quick enough to buy time, big enough to shake off defenders, and has the arm talent to successfully target open receivers as the secondary breaks down. These are the skills that made Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Brett Favre stars in the league." https://mattwaldmanrsp.com/2018/09/22/chiefs-qb-patrick-mahomes-matt-waldmans-rsp-pre-nfl-draft-scouting-report/ Exactly. He still needed to learn mechanics and footwork but you didn't want to take him out of his game when pressure or a good defensive call made things difficult for him. That report was originally written for Waldman's 2017 draft guide and man, did he ever nail it, and it looks like Reid did exactly what Waldman thought whoever picked Mahomes would need to do.

Uh. Why would he NOT give the team a discount if they extend him this year? Getting a big contract this year instead of one or two years down the road is a huge benefit for him, huge, not to mention a great insurance policy against injury. Early extensions always get a discount. If they didn't why would the team do it? I'm not saying they will do this. As Gunner says, it's complex, but it also makes sense to do this if possible in a year when they have a ton of cap space and a chance to get him at a bit of a discount if you do indeed think he's going to be here for a long time. And Gunner, why not give him a guaranteed first year salary that's high with a lower signing bonus? In a year when we have so much cash, it might easily make sense, depending on their exact aims on what to do with the money this year and their exact plans for him in the future and the value they place on keeping him. The big money is indeed usually backloaded but depending on their tactical aims, this might work for them.

How many SBs has Atlanta won? You act like that argument is a clear and obvious winner. It's not. There's still a lot of questions about whether they should have done that, and that certainly includes Atlanta fans. That trade is still questioned by many. Nobody doubts for a second that Julio is terrific, he just is. But there's no particular reason to think that the huge bounty of picks they traded away to get him aren't in large part responsible for their dropoff after that trade. The year before that trade they went 13-3. The year of the trade they dropped three games to 10-6. Then 13-3 and things looked good but the draft class was again weak and the next year ... uh oh, 4-12, then 6-10, then 8-8. Only the next year did they finally appear to have recovered from those weak drafts. A trade up for the Bills this year? Sure, if you're trading away a 5th, maybe, or a 5th and a 7th. Absolutely. I'm in. A major tradeup? For a WR??? In a draft that's extremely rich in quality WR prospects? That makes no sense whatsoever. Assuming it's not for WR, I still doubt the FO would consider it unless they somehow acquire a few more picks before the draft.