Thurman#1

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.

I think it's really overstating it to say he has awesome instincts. He overran plays and hit the wrong hole an awful lot. He's got a lot of upside but it isn't a sure thing he's got the instincts to play LB at the NFL level.

You act like it's either/or. It's not. Some talented guys are leaders and vice versa. And what's proven isn't that he places a premium on old less talented leaders. You have to spin like a dervish to pretend that's proven. You look at the leaders they brought in and some did really well. Some didn't, but the ones who didn't weren't especially high-paid. What was proven was something more like, um, maybe ... ... In a specific rebuild situation with massive turnover, McDermott and Beane valued and made a real attempt to bring in a leader at every position group. Will they continue to place such a strong emphasis on this as the culture develops and solidifies? Will they start developing their own leaders rather than feeling they have to bring them in? I guess so.

Yeah, I think they see the needs. We'll see, I guess, but I'm confident they do. Average roster turnover in the NFL is around 1/3 every year. You can be below average and remain more intact than most and still see 15 new guys. With our salary cap situation, even after we extend/re-sign some of our own guys, I expect a lot of new faces.

Genuine #1 with a large catch radius isn't a bare minimum thing. It isn't even a need. It's a want. You don't need one to win a title. Very few SB winners going back quite a way have had a guy like that. It's a legitimate thing to want. If we got a guy like that it would be great. But it's not a need ... and thank goodness for that because getting one is extremely tough. There are so few to go around. What we genuinely do need is an upgrade at #3 WR behind Brown and Beasley. If that guy turns out to be the type of guy you want, fantastic. But it's unlikely. And if we instead get another genuinely good receiver, or maybe even two. that would be plenty. I'd expect Beane to bring in a big radius guy, unless they really think Duke Williams is going to improve enough that they'd be happy with him. I wouldn't expect the guy they bring in to necessarily be a true #1. That would be lucky.

Well, first, he was very good. Not outstanding, but very good. He tied that line together, a line that had not had a single guy ever play beside either of the guys he was next to. But yeah, by NFL free agent standards, he's medium-priced. The top 100 players, by average salary are nearly all on second or third contracts, either FAs or guys who were prevented from going to FAs by being re-signed. Morse doesn't make that list. For OL FAs, he was medium-priced.

No, that's not putting words in his mouth. He's specifically said that they have to have the talent, that without the talent they don't get into the room.

If by splash signings you mean guys like Clowney, or guys who are the #1 FAs at key positions, I really doubt it. They've said all along that they will build through the draft and supplement with low- to medium-priced FAs. If you mean medium-priced FAs, guys like Morse, like Brown and Beasley, I'm totally with you and would expect to see more than a couple. I could see one really expensive FA. Most of the best teams do this, they build through the draft and supplement, but some of them bring in a big-ticket guy every 4 or 5 years or so. I could see that happening here, though I'm not sure this is the year.

I'd root for Brady. I hate him because he makes the Patriots win. If he didn't, I'd have no problem with him. Belichick I just don't like, also. I respect him, but he's so contemptuous. Yup. Refs gave Michael Jordan the benefit of the doubt. It's stars that get that. And home teams.