Thurman#1

Keee-yikes! Money that is left over under the cap this year will get rolled over into next year's cap. It doesn't just go into the Pegulas investment accounts. Agreed the team is a bit worse without him. But not $15 mill worse.

It's pretty clear they absolutely are considering it. Beane says as much in the article. I hope they do it this year. This large amount of cap freedom they have this year and the need to get Dawkins, White and Milano on board make this a good time to do so. But it'll come down to details and negotiations, as usual.

Um, to each their own, I guess.

Hap, not exactly. They aren't listing total savings at $20 mill. Theyare calling it "Cap Savings" but you'll notice that they then list - separately - $2.5 mill in dead cap. That dead cap is NOT included in what they are calling "Cap Savings." Take a look. Both list Dareus as receiving $9.5 mill in base salary, a $10 mill roster bonus in March and $500K in workout bonuses. That totals $20M, and it's what they are calling "Cap Savings." To me it should be called something clearer, like "Cash Saved," but whatever, they're calling it "Cap Savings." But after that $20 mill which they would have had to pay him this year is saved, they still have $2.5 mill in dead cap subtracted from the cap. The total is $17.5M. I guess if people want to ignore the dead cap, that's their business, but it would make no sense to me.

You're so right. And here's another: Yeah, offense bad in 2018 when they didn't put any resources into it. News flash, though. That's what happens in rebuilds, and especially rebuilds when the previous regime left you in very bad shape cap-wise. You suck for a couple of years. "How many times does Mahomes have to carve up a top defense for people to see offense is what sets winners apart from pretenders," you ask? Great question. Here's another, with just as much logical sense. How many terrific oranges do you have to eat before you realize that no other kind of fruit is worth eating? I mean, you may have asked the world's dumbest question there. I guess that's an achievement.

He does know his football. But I really don't think you recall that correctly. You mean Rodgers, correct? Yeah, I don't think so. But if you can show I'm wrong .... I like Barnwell a lot, personally. He's heavy into analytics and he doesn't mind taking unpopular positions. He's smart. He'll be wrong a lot but also right in a bunch of places where very few thought he would be. He did like Tyrod a lot more than I ever did, but he wasn't off the edge nutty about it either.

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.