Thurman#1

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.

YPG is a nonsense stat. Depends far too much on how many throws a guy made, play calls, how often his team was ahead and whether they like to run out the clock, as the Bills do, when they are ahead. And what a surprise that you left all the running stuff out! Gosh, who could have predicted that? Except anyone looking at your agenda, of course. As for the rest of these stats, they're not all that representative of who Allen is now. If he'd stayed the same QB he was through the first four games of the year, we really would be in the position of having to worry. But he didn't. As he said, the NE game was a wakeup call for him and he played much better after it, as all his stats show. Taking passer rating as just one example, if you take his passer rating for the final 12 games of the season, it's not even close to the bottom 33% of starters. It's actually in the top half, 16th to be precise. Hell, his TDs:INTs ratio was 17:3, which put him well in the top third. So even throwing out the run stats, which shouldn't be done, he wasn't bottom third after those first four games. Again, what you have there is a very questionable opinion. Doh!!! Right is right, and you're right. Thanks for the reminder.

Listen, drop over to the house some time and I'll be glad to teach you the difference between "truth" and "questionable personal opinion." What you've got there is the latter.

Yeah, fans know way better than Andy Reid or Mahomes himself. There's no reason to think you're right about that. He had the whole year to concentrate more on putting together the mechanics and understanding of defenses that he needed to. He didn't have to worry about week-to-week game-planning. When you saw videos of the practices that year, you'd see him again and again ten yards behind Smith, mirroring every step on that rep and going through progressions trying to see what Smith saw and why he did what he did. Having that year was huge, and having it behind a smart guy like Smith made it even more valuable. Reid is a guy known for developing QBs. Him and McCarthy are among the absolute best in the game for developing a QB. That year was valuable for him, very valuable.

Alex Smith has journeyed, but he's no journeyman.

So now Shanahan is supposed to have been uncreative? Like us? And the Bills offense and the SF offense is supposed to be a good comparison? Garoppolo has a passer rating of 102 as a seventh-year man and Allen has one of 85.3 in his second year, and this is alike? The Niners have the 4th ranked offense in the league and we have the 24th and it's similar? Sorry, just don't see it. Not when it was happening and not now.

Not everyone wants those kinds of team jobs. And I doubt QB coaches are paid all that much. It's really when you start to hit coordinator that the money gets serious. More, he's said before that he makes a good living and chooses his own hours, who he works with and where he lives. Enjoys spending time with kids and family and is able to do that consistently with his current job.

Agreed Josh got significantly better. And I'd argue your hopes were too high. His accuracy improved, his footwork, his decision-making ... he improved on many fronts. But sophomore slump is a real thing. Mayfield is an example. Sam Bradford. Even Matty Ryan could be argued as a guy who performed worse his second year but then got a lot better. RG III (mebbe from injury, but it was real), Dak Prescott ... They think it exists too, not for everybody, but that it's a real phenomena: http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2019/12/does-sophomore-slump-exist-in-the-nfl/

Not by far. Remember how surprising it was that DeSean Watson was so good so early? He spent a lot of time with Palmer between the draft and training camp his first year. That's how come Darnold and Allen both showed up the next year. Screen passes caught behind the LOS and run for 40 yards count in that stat. He really did have problems with passes that went a long way in the air this year.

I don't think you can call that guy a reporter. An announcer, maybe? Sump'n along those lines. Anyway, funny clip.

No thanks on #1. The problem wasn't so much that it - the Sammy trade - didn't work out as that it was never very likely to. The rule of thumb - though consistently ignored by teams that are desperate or behind the curve - is that you don't trade away another first for anything but a guy you think is a franchise QB. For teams that do, the success rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20%. Don't do it even if you think you'll be in that top 20%. That's what the other 80% thought too. Re: #2? That's nuts. Two WRs in the top two rounds? That's science-fiction nuts, Terry Pratchett novel nuts. One or the other of Shenault or Pittman? That'd make sense. Maybe another in the later rounds too. It's an extremely good bet that we'll be bringing in another $5 to $10 mill WR in FA, and following that up with one high-round WR would make sense. But even if we don't address it in FA, it's still nuts to go WR in both the 1st and 2nd. We have other areas that they will want to address early.

If people weren't reading it, the media wouldn't worry about it. Hell, I'm not following it closely, but I've read a couple of these stories and I bet a lot of the people on here did too. You too, I see.

Significant contracts? Hey, absolutely. Expect three or four guys in the $7 to $10 mill range, and that's very significant. White is signed up for the next two years? There's no particular reason to think so. It's very clear that you don't value re-signing guys, but the thing is, the FO does. Very strongly, and intelligently so. If you sign White earlier, you save money on the contract he'll take, and doing so in a year when you have a ton of space makes a ton of sense. It means that next year and the year after when Edmunds, Allen, other guys you want to re-sign come up for contracts you don't have to worry about signing White at the same time. Milano, White, Dawkins, Poyer, not to mention guys like Spain, Kurt Coleman, Kevin Johnson, Levi Wallace, Shaq Lawson, and a few other cheaper ones, could all make a ton of sense to be re-signed or extended. Waiting to extend or re-sign your core players till they all come due the same year just means you have to let some go. More, doing it in a year when you have less money because you weren't smart and you went out and won the offseason the year before is even more of a recipe for trouble, for a clogged cap down the road and having to let guys go that they don't want to. This is without the slightest question a year to improve the roster. But your idea that bringing in high-ticket guys is the only way to do that isn't factual. You almost seem like more of a fan of the "spend it while ya got it" approach than of the Bills. If so, it would make sense for you to pick another team to root for, at least up till April or so when the big FA money is more or less all spent. Lil' Danny Snyder's Washington team, perhaps. This FO is financially conservative. That's what they learned in Carolina, it's what they've said every single time they've been asked, and it's how they've acted. There really isn't much question about it at this point. They might get one big FA. You could reasonably expect one every five years or so, as even conservative teams sometimes bring in one of the high-priced guys in about that often. Who knows, maybe this will be the year.

Cutting Kroft would only save us $3.9 mill, not $5 mill, but yeah, that could be doable, I think.

There isn't a limited amount of time. There's hopefully around 15 years. Yeah, he's only on a rookie contract for a few of those, but the end of the rookie contract isn't the end of success. And please. Did Mahomes or Lamar Jackson do their college time at Wyoming? Allen was always going to take more time to develop than most, you had to know that when you drafted him. More, neither of those two teams did a rebuild as the Bills did. Their rosters were already quite good. We had nine new starters on offense this year. This was always very likely indeed to take some time.

Rodgers is still playing really well, and in the first year of a newish system. Age is the reason they're treated differently. 36 doesn't mean you're done these days.

I don't think that's at all clear. Brady's stats had an awful lot to do with the personnel around him. He can still throw with steam, probably with more steam than Brees. Saying that, I hope you're right but I don't think so. In that last game, Minny seemed to be willing to let Brees try to make those long sideline throws, confident he couldn't do it consistently on them anymore.

I think there's a decent chance Hill's the guy they continue forward with, next year or the year after. Bridgewater will have a say, but Hill was very very productive and Payton could want to switch his scheme to take advantage of a guy with different strengths. Chris Simms for one says he's hearing it from a lot of his contacts that this is a real possibility, that it's something Payton wants. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/chris-simms-unbuttoned/e/66369992?autoplay=true

Peters didn't force the trade. He attempted to force them to pay him what he was worth. Said in his Philly intro press conference that he was shocked by the trade, that after they didn't give him a new contract that he expected to play out his Bills contract and then go elsewhere.

Hunh? No. The last play wasn't a spike. They faked spiking it and ended up running a play, and Rob Johnson without a shoe and with his ankle tape trailing behind him threw a completion to Price who went out of bounds with 20 seconds left, and that was when they kicked the FG.