Thurman#1

Yeah, this. It's not in the interest of either side to not allow the rollovers. The only ones who would benefit are the relatively few owners not interested in being competitive if it means spending money, even if it's cap money.

I'd argue that signing both just would not fit their expressed methods. They've said again and again that they build with the draft and fill in with FAs and that they don't do a lot of expensive FAs. Assuming they are going to pick one or the other (unlikely but possible, IMO), yeah, I absolutely think one is more responsible than the other. The one who has played in 62 of 64 games the last four years over the one who has played in 35 of 48 games the last three years and will be 32, an age where injuries tend to increase. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/ Yeah, the Bills right now have 53 players under contract, and $89 mill available. Yeah, but that includes guys like Christian Wade, Kaare Vedvik, Cam Lewis, Tyrel Dodson and Victor Salako and you can say they have 53 guys, but those guys are absolute minimum salaries against the cap right now. It's not very different at all from last year. But last year we had basically nobody they could re-sign. This year quite a few guys could possibly be re-inked, including Tre'D or Dion Dawkins, though they also might wait to do 'em.

Well, if you seriously consider a "top 5" guy as a headliner ... not much I can say to that beyond that you're using "headlining" in a way that not many other people would ever use it. Yeah, another $10 mill or so a year contract is a very reasonable possibility this year and every year if it fills a need. Not so much $18 or $20 mill, though.

We're not underestimating the cap they've got this year. It's nearly exactly what they had last year. And last year they didn't have the opportunity they have this year to use a bunch of that money to re-sign their own guys, and yet they still didn't bring in the high contracts. And they left $25 mill unspent so they'd be in good shape this year, something they might well want to make a continuing practice. I mean, if you consider one $11 mill a year contract and several around $7 or $8 like last year a lot of spending then we agree, they're very likely to spend at that kind of a general level. Oh, and responsibly very often does mean inexpensively. Expect conservative cap spending practices, it's what these guys are about. Check their record at Carolina and their public statements.

Agreed, those two aren't the same thing. But neither of those describes Star. What Star is is a very good run stopping defensive tackle. He's a guy who does what McDermott needs done. The fact that he doesn't do things the way a few keyboard warriors would like is beside the point. McDermott was very aware what he was getting, he coached him in Carolina and paid what he felt that role was worth to him and Star is doing much the same thing here.

Yes, it's in a different place last year. That will undoubtedly call for different strategies. But it will absolutely not call for changing core principles. And building your core through the draft and filling in with low- to mid-level guys is a core principle with them. As it is just about without exception for the teams that are consistently good, the Ravens, the Pats, the Pack, the Steelers. It's industry best practices. And it's what they've publicly said are their principles. Now, those teams do indeed bring in a high-level FA every once in a great while, like every five or six years. But two in one year? Nah. I mean, if by "better FAs" you're only referring to talent then hopefully you'll be right. But if you're talking about money, it's virtual certainty they won't bring in two top-level guys. One? I doubt it, but again, even those class organizations do it once in a blue moon. Maybe this will be the year for us. They say they're going to find starters? Absolutely. They did it last year with Morse, Brown, Beasley, Spain, etc. I absolutely expect a few of those types again.

You wouldn't call an $11 mill a year player mid-level? I would. Star was even less. And pretending Morse and Star are "big name signings" is ridiculous. Morse was the 16th highest FA signing in terms of average salary, if you only look at last year's FAs. That is certainly not top-level. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them sign another $10 or $11 million FA this year. I'd be very surprised to see them sign a high-level guy, though.

They didn't overpay for him. They may not be getting what you want, but they got what McDermott wanted and that's why they valued him that way. Since he's been here, they've had two absolutely top-flight defenses. McDermott knows how to put together an excellent defense, and he values Star. That you don't is very much beside the point. Nonsense. You measure a guy by how well he plays his position. Star plays his very well, and so does Clowney. Clowney's better but in no way twice as good.

Same way it was last year, with lots of mid- to lower-level guys. With a bunch of re-signing our own guys thrown in. And there's no requirement that every last dime be spent. Last year they left a bunch unspent to be rolled over into this year, and they might very easily do the same thing again.

I don't think it's as clear as you apparently do that they were in on trading him. They might just have been doing their due diligence. As for your main question, no, I don't think so. Yeah, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the difference between knowing and guessing and yet smart people who are actually guessing think they know things all the time. That's what people say when the facts don't back them up.

People want to pretend that getting to the Super Bowl only takes one game, and that's absolute nonsense. It takes 16 to start and then two or three more. It absolutely is a passing league. It's not a mistake that the two teams in the SB are 5th and 7th in offensive passer rating, or that the top seven teams in passer rating (Saints, Ravens, Titans, Seahawks, Chiefs, Vikes and 9ers) made the playoffs. Now look at defensive passer rating ... both SB teams are again in the top seven. The top seven in the most equivalent stat (there isn't a really good equivalent, but this is probably the best) for running, YPC, had two of the top seven teams make the playoffs, the Ravens and Titans. The Ravens, Cards, Titans, Browns, Cowboys, Panthers and Giants are the top seven. That's not murderers row. Defensive YPC? The Niners are 22nd, allowing 4.5 per carry and the Chiefs 28th, allowing 4.9 YPC. And for those who say you have to look at total running yards, you're confusing cause and effect. Teams that are ahead run more. So of course teams that are good will run more as they try to burn clock while ahead. The question is which teams run best. And YPA is the best measure we have of that. Not that having a good run game doesn't help. It absolutely does. But it's less important than a good pass game.

Yeah. I've wondered this before. Will we find out someday that he had CTE? No way to know, but it looks possible to me. Whatever the problem, I hope he gets over it, but the odds don't look good.

No. Wrong in two ways. First, while Watkins had 114 yards, he had eight targets, but only had four catches. And Gilmore was on him for only one of the four. https://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2019012001/2018/POST20/patriots@chiefs?icampaign=GC_schedule_rr I can't tell you when Gilmore was covering Watkins. But I can tell you when he wasn't, and that was on three of Watkins' four catches. 2Q 6:03 15 yards. Gilmore is on the other side of the field covering Robinson 3Q 13:48 55 yards. Gilmore is covering Watkins. And it would have been sensational if he'd managed to cover him. On the play, Mahomes literally has six and a half seconds with no rush before he throws. Hard for anyone to cover someone for that long. Still, on this completion Gilmore was on Watkins, the only one of Sammy's catches where Gilmore was on him. 3Q 1:25 10 yards. 3rd and 2. Two Pats are lined up next to each other on the left with Watkins outside. Gilmore lines up opposite Watkins but deeper than the other defender. Watkins cuts underneath for a quick slant. Gilmore and the other defender switch and Gilmore covers the other guy. 4Q 2:54 38 yards. No Gilmore, he's on the opposite side of the field.

I'd argue coaching and specialized personnel is not how they're doing it, so much as it is part of what they're doing. Both having good QBs I would argue is a more important piece. But good teams have a lot of things coming together. Oh, and Daboll is predictable at times and unpredictable at others. The end result is you don't know what he's doing, but you can hope you do and if he's being predictable right then you'll stand a better chance of being right. And you're dead wrong that Daboll's not a championship coordinator. Nick Saban can tell you that he is. I suppose you could say that Daboll isn't yet an NFL champion coordinator. That's correct ... so far. And I'd argue that without a defense like the Ravens 2000 defense or the Bears Buddy Ryan defense, OCs coaching QBs with the talent and experience of the QBs Daboll has coached are virtually all not championship OCs under the circumstances.

Plenty of good, unscared QBs have bad games against very good defenses. I never saw him scared. Confused, yeah. Overwhelmed at times, yeah, that's fair I think. But did he regress? I mean of course he had areas and times when he did, but overall? Just the opposite, he improved. Still has a lot farther to go, but he's trending in the right direction. As father of a bilingual four year-old daughter, I approve of this message. And she did start slowly, but now speaks both languages naturally and appropriately.

You don't need that. It's ideal, but plenty of teams get by with less and have a lot of success. If you're using the words "consistent high end quality" option in a way so as to exclude Beasley, and you are not even sure that Beasley ("probably"), or Singletary ("possibly") counts as "supplementary," or even mention Knox as possibly supplementary, there are plenty of teams that don't have two such high end guys and 2-3 more supplementary ones on top of that. Look at SF. Kittle's excellent by any standard, but after that? But Deebo's production is pretty similar to Beasley's. Who are their supplemental guys if Beasley might not even qualify and Knox doesn't? KC certainly fills your standards, but how about the Titans? Corey Davis is their second option and he's less productive than Beasley. How about the Packers. By most standards, Adams would be considered high-end, but who do they have after that? Yeah, we should work on getting more targets in, no question. I disagree with the specifics of your statement here, but do they need a real upgrade at WR and very possibly at TE? Yeah, I'm with you.

Mainly? That would be a no. It certainly did have an impact, though, a big impact. I don't know if there's one factor that's mainly responsible. It's a bunch of things, but Allen's progress and sticking points will be the biggest factor in our success or lack of it for the foreseeable future, as it was this year, IMO. But he was far from the only factor.

Star is a two-down guy. But he's a two-down guy who gets the job done that they want done. He is still doing what they want from him, same as he did in Carolina, eating space, taking up blockers. He doesn't run up stats, but they've made it clear, players and coaches, that what he does is valuable and they like how he does it. And it simply isn't true that he doesn't get doubled much. He does, particularly when teams are going to try to run through the middle. And he does a good job taking up those doubles.

Me too. I've never understood why Bills fans don't like the guy himself. On the other hand, it's also hard to understand those who argue that he's ever delivered on his potential or even come close. I always wonder if he still hasn't fully recovered from his foot problems. I'll root for him, but I don't want him back unless his salary reflects his productivity rather than his potential.

"An offense that was among the league's most effective"? That is utter nonsense. They were an offense that was good at running and below average at passing, an offense that wasn't able to catch up when they fell behind, and an offense that was greatly helped by the very solid defense, and an offense that though it didn't turn the ball over much consistently left the defense with crappy field position despite receiving good field position from that same defense. Not that the rest of your post is any better, though. You've missed the point, again. They got rid of most of those guys for the very very obvious reasons that you still appear determined to pretend don't exist ... that they were in very bad cap shape and were determined to fix that extremely quickly, and that they needed to make trades to get them in position to have enough draft capital to get one of the top QBs the next year in a QB-rich draft. The Eagles, Rams and Niners? You mean the two teams that had already got franchise QBs the year before and the one that lucked into Garoppolo from Belichick and had terrific draft spots besides? They had franchise QBs and of course they were quicker. None of them rebuilt because none of them needed to rebuild. The Bills did. Rebuilds take time. The Rams started the year in 2017 with around $44 mill under the cap and the Niners had around $93 mill. All those teams did a great job but they had franchise QBs or (Niners) extremely high picks. And yeah, McDermott and Beane did self-mutilate the roster. That's what rebuilding does for the first couple of years, especially when you have an atherosclerotic cap situation that you need to remedy on top of the complete lack of a franchise QB. That's just wrong. A few rebuilds have gone faster, but looking at the history, those are very few and far between. They do exist, and the Walsh 49ers rebuild that went 2-14, 6-10, championship is the poster child. But the Bills are around the 95th percentile putting up 10 wins in year three. More, the Bills rebuild was handicapped compared to most quickly successful rebuilds by never getting a really good draft pick. Walsh had the first overall pick two years in a row coming in, while the Bills in their first two years came into draft season with #10 and #21. Not to mention I can't think of another quickly successful rebuild that started the first year with a new coach working with a GM he clearly didn't trust or want to work with. Yes, there are plenty of turnarounds that have been faster. But not rebuilds. People who try to refute this generally use as their examples teams that suddenly improved by a bunch of games in one year but were either reloading, just following the plan or were in years 4, 5 or 6 of their rebuilds. The 2008 Pennington Dolphins that improved by 10 games are often mentioned but that's a perfect example of a turnaround that was not a rebuild.

Nonsense. They're absolutely a top 3 defense, any way you look at it. I mean, if you want to say they should really be ranked at #4 or something, then OK, maybe. But they're a terrific defense right here and right now. But that doesn't mean you can just stop working on that side of the ball, of course. The guess would seem to be that they will do more work on offense, though. But that big 'ol hunk of salary cap money available is just what we need, not to mention that it's evidence of intelligent design.

'Cause he's helped a lot more than he's hurt. That people know that is why he's getting interviews.

Thanks, I'll take a look. The in-depth stories on the guy do seem to show a kid who started out as a genuinely good kid. As a big tough kid (high school, I believe), he was threatened with a knife and just handled it really well, non-violently, and with no retribution. Losing his dad really seemed to have bad effects, as did his choice of friends as he grew older. Sad story. Agreed. And it wasn't just psychological issues, it was physiological brain damage.

Duplicitous? As in "lying"? Please. Where are the examples? Yup, just like Tannehill. Oh, wait.

Look at Tannehill when he got put in the right position. He could develop into something. Or not. I thought he could become something but he absolutely has been handicapped by his situation. But on the other hand, Arizona had the choice of keeping him and building around him, and they didn't. It's an interesting question, but at this point really hard to say.