Thurman#1
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Posts posted by Thurman#1
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18 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
They're apparently looking at signing Greg Olsen, who has an injury history perhaps not too dissimilar to Green?
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
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4 hours ago, BillsVet said:
NFL teams are defined in the playoffs by how well they score points. Not their defensive prowess against a lightweight schedule during the regular 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.
4 hours ago, BillsVet said:I wonder how that went over the the "culture" of their locker room. Highest paid defender suddenly getting good after media criticism. Makes you wonder why it took that for him to elevate his play.
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.
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3 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:
So you think concern about possibly being out of the league in 2021 is going to motivate a player with on-field effort issues who is going into his age 31 season.....coming off two years of declined production......and has now pocketed nearly $50M in his career to both prepare and perform at high level in 2020?
Well you have more faith than I.
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.
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4 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:
It's only relevant if they dont learn from their mistakes. McD let Gilmore go, passed on Mahomes, and Beane traded away more talent than he brought in. Beane admitted the 2018 team was not competitive. So they wasted a season and multiple draft picks to get Allen and Edmund's. Their fates are all intertwined. So far Beane has shown that he seems to overpay in free agency, drafts reasonably well but the jury is still out on most of their picks, and gets higher compensation back in trades than would be expected.
"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.
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9 hours ago, billsfan89 said:
He was overpaid from the get go. Run stuffers aren't a premium position in the NFL and Star was paid a borderline top 10 salary at his position with a hefty guarantee. Star was good at his role of clogging up lanes and shifting along the line but he wasn't an elite player nor the type of player (interior disruptor) that defenses pay a lot for at his position.
BUT that doesn't me had has no value, other than the few games in the middle of the season Star's play ranged from solid in the beginning to really good to close the season. Him taking a modest pay cut of close to 2 million simply makes him less overpaid which is a win win for both sides. The Bills get some cap space and Star gets security for 2020 and some guarantees for his 2021 salary.
I think a lot of people got on him excessively failing to see that just because a player was overpaid for his position doesn't mean he doesn't bring value to the defense.
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.
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8 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:
He's great value in round 2 because he's a jack of all trades and can do alot
He's not good value in the first because he isn't great at any WR skills and may never develop
And 22 is not tail end of round 1.. you can get an absolute stud who is way more polished than Shenault there
31 would be the tail end
And I honestly don't want him at all. 22nd pick of round 2 sure
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.
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9 hours ago, OldTimer1960 said:
I agree that he looks fast in the tape that I’ve seen, but I am very concerned that many of his touches are on passes within 5 yards of LOS and on run plays. Does he have the tools to become a good WR? Yes, I think so, but I worry that his route running and experience are limited to the point that he won’t be much of an asset in year one and there is risk that he never develops as a WR.
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.
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7 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:
That's nice, but they are gonna have to come up with some money, since right now they are $3.4M in the red
This was being discussed in another thread.
Cut Dareus - $22.5M cap - $2.5M dead cap
Cut Linder -$8M cap
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$22.1M cap available
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.
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8 hours ago, YoloinOhio said:
If they tag him, could see a hold out. They also have no cap space (though cutting Dareus frees up like 13 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.
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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.
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5 hours ago, whatdrought said:
Also, his take on Rosen is laughable. These main stream guys still refuse to admit that Rosen's just not good, and has a bad attitude.
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.
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13 hours ago, thebandit27 said:
Right. We need dudes that opposing DCs worry about.Right now, we’ve got one: the QB.
That’s it.
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.
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3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:
Yea I suggest your buddy might not be much of a rugby fan. I am only a casual viewer of domestic club rugby and I knew Wade. He was also one of our very best sevens players. The reason he struggled a little bit to make the international first XV is that he is a bit one dimensional. Wade is an old school flying machine of a wing but if you look at international rugby today the majority of the best wings are more versatile guys and technically adept guys who can come inside and be offloaders and creaters as well as finishers. I do think Wade probably got a bit or a raw deal only getting one or two caps. There was a period when he couldn't get in the England team but was in the Great British Lions touring squad.
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.
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6 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:
How far he's come and the fact that he's relatively young to the game in terms of expert reps and practice as compared to most 1st round prospects and his significant improvement from year 1 to year 2 is, first of all, an indication that he hasn't peaked.
Clearly that's at the very least a sign of optimism for everyone.
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.
6 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:If people expected him to go from what he was his rookie year to Drew Brees in his 2nd, that'd be a ridiculously unrealistic expectation and that's on them.
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.
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4 hours ago, Irv said:
With the top UFA's out there - I have to think most want to be starters or retire. We can't stick with Barkley right?. He was great in the one Jets game a while back but sucked this year. Any thoughts? With Josh running so much worried he will get clocked.
We can stick with Barkley.
Don't know if we will, but it's arguably the most likely choice.
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4 hours ago, Turk71 said:
Why would a 28 year old rugby player be willing to spend half of the year practicing football for $560,000? Why??
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.
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5 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
Okay, Dawg, here we go again, you and me against the world. Last year it was Duke (who I still have hopes for next season); now it's Wade.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Why is it that the position that rookies can succeed in from day one is running back? Because it's fundamentally a position that requires speed and instinctual skills. Learn pass protection and learn to a half dozen receiving routes and you're good to go.
He's clearly shown the raw physical talent. He's had an entire training camp, preseason and regular season to work in the system. He could have another training camp and presseason to polish what he knows.
By September 1, 2020, he should have learned enough. The question is simply whether he's good enough. He'll have plenty of opportunity to show what he can do in preseason games. (Well, maybe less if the preseason schedule is shortened.)
Just like with Duke, I'm waiting to see what the summer brings.
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.
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Even if they're rebuilding, I don't see Carolina getting rid of a 22 year-old on the rise.
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23 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
Because I don't see any advantage in the team of doing that beyond "they lock up White" which they could do next year anyway. I don't know why you'd voluntarily give up that year of cap control. Yes it might reduce the cost in future years by a mill or two but you are never getting that "it's enough to pay an extra guy" space back.
My view is that they should work out what the parameters of a White deal would be and plan around it so that they are ready to go as soon as a new CBA is in place. But I don't think extending him with a big cap hit this year is the way to go. Nor is there any guarantee White would accept that. The reason players coming off rookie deals like the way those second contracts are done is they naturally push guaranteed money into the later years of the deal for cap purposes (even though in real terms that money goes in their pockets straight away) and the fact that teams are then faced with dead money cutting guys towards the end of those contracts makes it more likely that they choose not to do so and, therefore, it increases the chances of a player like White, getting the big but unguaranteed numbers in years 4 and 5 of the new deal.
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.
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8 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:
#9 in total TDs. (more than Brady, Brees, Cousins, Wentz, Goff, Ryan....)
Tied for 1st in 4th Q comebacks.
10 wins (only 7 had more).
But yeah.....that QBR and YPA.
As I said....credit Reid for seeing the obvious and picking Mahomes. I never understood the argument that "x amount of teams passed on him"---that's a testament to bad decision making.
Footwork and Mechanics? They have served him well the past 2 years. In fact Reid took of advantage of his footwork and "mechanics". They are the foundation of Mahomes success, as it turns out. Reid himself would tell you that.....
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."
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.
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6 hours ago, Ethan in Portland said:
Uh, the highest contract in the league for a DB is $75M with an average of $15M and max guarantee of $50M. So you would be offering 33% more than the highest DB contract and $20 M more in guaranteed money. White is good but he is not Deion Sanders. He is not even Richard Sherman, Patrick Peterson, or Revis.
Now is not the time to extend him unless he is silly and gives the team a discount. Get one more year on his rookie deal and then extend him after his fourth year when you still have the leverage of picking up the fifth year option and franchise tags.
Use the cap space this year for a WR and or DE in a front loaded contract that still leaves money for White, Allen, and others down the road.
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.
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On 2/2/2020 at 1:11 AM, ScottLaw said:
Tell that to Atlanta who made an even bolder trade to land Julio Jones..... I’d be all for a trade up considering where this team is currently at in its development and the amount of picks they have.
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.
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8 hours ago, BigBillsFan said:
FACTS 2019
Last in YPG
Last in completion %Last in TDs thrown for 16 starts
Bottom 10% in fumbles
Bottom 33% in QB rating
Bottom 33% in QBRBottom 33% in YPA
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.
12 minutes ago, H2o said:
Doh!!! Right is right, and you're right. Thanks for the reminder.
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10 hours ago, BigBillsFan said:
Allen currently is poor, in bottom 1/3rd of all QBs. Sorry that’s just a truth.
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.
Do you think McBeane see Cody Ford as the answer at RT moving forward?
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted · Edited by Thurman#1
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.