Thurman#1

Yeah, they probably do. The Bills did a complete rebuild. That takes time, painful time. The lucky rebuilds get genuinely competitive in their third year but that's very few, and almost always a team that gets it's franchise QB in year one. Reloads like the one in LA are supposed to come fairly quick. And with how LA is playing now, it's worth wondering whether they are going to be a good team. SF was set up beautifully by following on from Kelly's 2-14 season. And it's worth throwing out there that SF might not look as good if they hadn't managed to luck into Garoppolo that cheap and easy. I get that it's frustrating to hear that the Bills might need more time. Doesn't mean it's not correct, though. They really might. And they might even get a lot better next year, though nothing in the future is a given.

Yeah, weird that they would put their guesses out there. Nobody on these boards guesses on trades. Oh, wait ...

Six more years would put him way over average at his position. And plenty don't make it much past 32 or so. I always look at Smerlas and Jim Burt, but there are plenty of other examples. Thanks. I'll take a look. If they do bring in a DT, this is the kind of guy they might well look at.

For a 31 year-old? A first and a fourth? I'm glad you're not the GM. More, grabbing him doesn't seem to be the type of move this FO makes, bringing in very high-priced FAs, and especially very high-priced older FAs.

It's not "obvious it isn't his position," to any but a few annoying Bills kibitzers. What's obvious is that despite a bad game the defense has quickly developed into an extremely good one, and that McDermott knows a ton more about D than you do.

His "massive" regression? Puh-leeze. If he'd massively regressed, McDermott, I'm guessing, might possibly have noticed and, you know, not brought him to Buffalo. What, pray tell, was his "massive regression"? Going from averaging 2.5 sacks his first four years to 1.5 sacks that final year? Woooooooooooow!!!!! Massive!!! He's never been a big numbers guy. His sacks have mostly been of the I'll keep active and occasionally the edge guys will cause a QB to run into me type. He's a space eater. It's what he's always done and it's what they hired him to do here. And he did it just fine last year, but there are questions this year.

While I certainly wouldn't mind getting a premier edge rusher, it's not an absolute necessity. Carolina was 2nd in the league in sacks in 2016, McDermott's last year there. Who was their big sack artist? Mario Addison led them with 9.5, and the next guy got 6. In 2015 they were 6th in the league in sacks. Kawann Short had 11 and Addison was next with 6. In 2013 they led the league with 60. They had Greg Hardy in his one truly great year with 15. And Charles Johnson did very well across from him with 11.0. Is Charles Johnson an "elite edge rusher." The year after that they had 40. Again, I wouldn't mind a bit if we get a guy like that. But it looks a bit as if McDermott defenses manufacture sacks from scheme and lots of guys getting a few. And while drive-killing sacks are nice, any way you kill the drive is pretty much as good.

Not really buying this. Or at least not yet. We're still early in the Beane-McDermott era. And we played the Pats, a tough team that can run, very tough. It certainly was a bad game this week. So far, that's all it was, one game. And Edmunds has every chance of being a good run stopping force. He's 250 pounds and violent. The last thing we need to do is hit the panic button as you suggest and change the plan. Instead, work the plan. This is a young team. They have a lot of developing still to do. Man. People go nuts here with the wailing and gnashing of teeth after a bad loss.

Yup, four posts in a row acting as if because it's your impression it must be fact, and not a single stitch of evidence. The last and only specific you gave was wrong ... trumpeting that he should have made a tackle that he actually had made. Kinda thought so. But I'll keep looking for all those other 300+ pound fireplugs chasing down all those RBs from behind.

I'm totally sure when you wrote this it seemed to be clear and specific. And yet more moaning about film and evidence without a single actual piece.

Yup, more opinions with zero evidence. The Lotulelei haters' M.O. The guy who criticized Lotulelei for not getting the "tackle [on] the RB if he has wrapped up his legs," when he in fact did get the tackle ... that guy accusing others of not watching the plays? Yeah, great point. And by the way, when a runner is past a space eater, the space eater is done? Yeah, shocking observation, especially when you notice all the other expensive way over 350 pounders like Dontari Poe and Grady Jarrett and Linval Joseph chasing down so many RBs from behind. Good lord!

Yeah, Scott. Vet min for 4.9 yards per carry. If you think that's nothing, that shows far more about you than it does about Murphy. And yes, something for nothing is indeed pretty much the definition of good value. Do you really not get that?

Yeah, he did. He did what they brought him in to do ... which is what he did in Carolina. He plugged up the run. Did a very good job last year. And as so often is true, people without a good point have to misquote to try to make a point. What I said about Murphy wasn't that he was wildly productive or that he'd be around for years, but that he was not a bad value at all. A vet minimum pickup who averaged well over 4.9 yards per carry for us. Anyone who thinks he wasn't a pretty good pickup at what we paid is just nuts. Oh, he takes plays off? Wow, thanks for all the terrific evidence there. I see who you are now.

Nah. Gore's playing well, as is Singletary. Yeah, they need someone in the offseason. If they bring someone in at the trade deadline, I doubt it'll be an RB.

Funny stuff.

Again, ridiculous. He's working as hard as he can. And while he had some bad plays yesterday he also had quite a few very good ones. You expect a DT to tackle the RB if he has wrapped up his legs? Yeah, um, did you watch the play? He did tackle him. I wish he'd made a better play but he clearly gave it everything he had. Accepting that he's not playing as well this season - I'm not certain of it, but it certainly seems possible - it's not clear why. Does he have an injury he's playing through for the sake of the team? Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. If he does, is it temporary or permanent? Dunno, and nobody does. Has his body broken down and will he never be the same at age 29? We don't know. There's no reason to think that he's not trying as hard as he possibly can, beyond the scapegoating and wild overreacting that constantly goes on among football fans.

Man, is your desperation to find things to criticize coming out. Your perceptions are skewed, which is why you took a play where Lotulelei ended up wrapped around the RB's leg and somehow found that proved that he wasn't an effort guy, nonsense on the face of it. And as for Lee Smith's contract, it's the 26th highest TE average salary. For a guy who's an excellent blocker, and an acceptable though not especially athletic receiver. That's how contracts work. As the cap goes up, salaries do too. And to pay a guy $9 mill for three years when his last two contracts with Oakland were for $9.35 mill for three years and for $2.25 mill for one year and most recently a three year $9 mill deal almost exactly what Buffalo gave him ... that is only a team paying a guy a very reasonable value. Ridiculous. You're desperate. Star did what they needed him to do last year, and Joe B. - the guy saying he isn't playing as well this year - made that clear.

Well, that's certainly one opinion. But he lived up to it just fine last year.

Looked to me like a bad game. Casey Hampton had them too. Everyone does. Just checked a couple of years on Hampton and saw a few games when the Steelers got gashed on the ground despite Hampton playing. In the 2007 Jax game, they allowed 227 yards on the ground, for instance. And you can see that Alexander and Frazier are very clear on how very well he did his job last year. I'm not clear on how he's doing over the whole year this year. Has he regressed? It's not clear to me yet how well he's done over the whole year. Joe B. looks at all the tape and says he's not doing as well. And again, is he injured? Regressing? Attempting to do too much? It's not clear yet. As for how it could happen if Star is playing well, well, it could easily happen if the other players in the front seven are getting beat. Or it could happen when Peko is playing and Star is on the bench. You can't blame all defensive problems against the run on Star. Only the ones he's to blame for. Again, I'm not clear, and I've made my unclarity pretty clear. Maybe it's time for you to either believe Joe's opinion or go back and start watching film like a maniac. One thing for sure is that as happens after bad losses, the default for fans will be wild overreaction. Same as after good wins most overreact to that as well.

Train wreck? Please. That is a wild exaggeration, typical for the folks on your side of the argument. He had some really good plays. And at least a few bad ones too that I saw . He was out of the play there, but he was moving towards where the RB headed when he got the ball. Looked to me like he was in the right gap and covering it. But I'd like to have seen him turn his momentum around when he saw the RB cut back. He should've been able to at least squeeze the hole there, and he didn't.

He's wrapped around the leg of the ball carrier. You can complain that he didn't do his job well enough. But that he's not an effort guy is flat-out nonsense.

Of course it hurts us. We're now just about out of contention for the division. And we have one more loss than we would have otherwise.

https://www.wkbw.com/sports/bills/2018-buffalo-bills-all-22-in-review-defensive-tackle https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/2019/01/bills-lorenzo-alexander-says-star-lotulelei-earned-every-bit-of-big-contract.html "But Buffalo linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, who called Lotulelei “disruptive,” said that the former Panthers tackle was well worth it and is going to be a staple on the team for years to come. “Obviously he (doesn’t play) a sexy position, but he allows other people around him to make plays,” Alexander said. “I’ve definitely been able to have a pretty good year this year. A lot of it is contributed to what he’s been able to do as far as keeping guys off me, allowing me to run free. “In the pass rush, people can’t step up. On first or second down I know a couple of guys that have gotten sacks throughout the year just because Star has gotten that great push. He’s earned every bit of what he’s got with that five-year deal.” It’s hard to argue with the results that the Bills defense had this season, finishing the year ranked second in the NFL in total defense and No. 1 in pass defense. Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier raved about Lotulelei’s first 16 games in Buffalo and explained that his unselfishness allows others to thrive and young players, like linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano, to develop. “He demands a double team which allows our linebackers to run free and make some of the tackles that people might think the nose tackle should be making,” Frazier said. “That has been a plus for us, helping our linebackers to improve. But also to help our run defense. He’s done a good job of commanding attention from their interior, their center and their guards. It’s hard to block him one-one-one and that’s what we needed and he’s given us that.” Alexander said he shows others how to succeed because of the example he sets. “He’s a great leader. He doesn’t say a lot but the way he works and the way he goes about his business and the way he relates to guys in this locker room goes a long way,” Alexander said.

Yes, he certainly did produce in Carolina. But not much more than he did here. When you look at the numbers you're referencing (which are NOT the only important thing, far from it) those numbers were very low there. A bit lower here. But in terms of production per snap of the "glamor stats" people are looking for, it's all but statistically insignificant. The kind of thing where once or twice a year a DE chased a QB into Lotulelei. Or didn't. It also has to do with Carolina's offense being better which had teams throwing more regardless of what down it was, which gave Lotulelei more snaps that were passes with Carolina. And it's nonsense that he's not a disruptor. That's exactly what he is. A perfect example on the Jordan Phillips tackle-for-loss at the Bills two this last week when the center's need to go over and double Lotulelei opened a hole for Phillips to get through. Phillips did a terrific job there disrupting the play. So did Lotulelei in making Phillips' play possible. He disrupts a lot. Just not the way that you recognize. Doing a good job absorbing a double can be an impact play even if it's someone else who gets the tackle or turnover or hurry. And absorbing double teams is a huge help to teams with talented sack artists. We don't have enough of those right now, unfortunately, but other teams with space eaters manage to sack plenty. Especially as many space eaters, including Star, are on the bench on obvious passing downs when most sacks come. Whether a team uses a space eater doesn't necessarily tell you how they'll do with sacks. And Star is a great example of that. Carolina were close to the top of the league with Lotulelei on the team and it wasn't his roughly two sacks a year that made the difference. And defenses aren't judged by sacks. They're judged by how well they play defense, how well they limit the other team's offense by hook or by crook. Our defense was excellent last year and elite so far this year. Is that all on Star? Absolutely not. But has he played his part? Yup. As noted here before, if you look at the salary rankings of DTs, not all of the highest paid are space eaters. There are 1-techs, 3-techs, penetrators, five-tool guys like Aaron Donald, but there are also some space eaters. They're still greatly valued by some defenses. And as should be dazzlingly obvious by now, Again, I'm not arguing how well he's doing this year. I'm not convinced either way on that. He may have regressed as Joe B has said. And if so, that may be due to an injury or just regression. Hard to be sure with a guy doing such a dirty blue-collar task in the middle. Or not without extensive focused film study anyway.

Same old nonsense about Beane and the cap. The problem was already there before Beane was hired. Till they cut Tyrod they went into that season with around $20 mill in cap space, somewhere around 26th in the league. Beane didn't create the problem. Whaley did. It was already there. And it wasn't scheduled to get much better the next year. At the time they'd already committed a lot of money for that year too. So that's crap. Now, did he by cutting and trading a ton of guys both accumulate enough draft picks to trade up for Josh Allen and at the same time clear up vast amounts of cap space for future years partly by eliminating guys and partly by moving money forward from future years and thereby stacking up a ton of dead cap space? Yup. But that wasn't creating the problem. It was solving a cap that was clogged by sewage for years forward by running a drain snake through things, dislodging stuff that was going to be there for years and accelerating the progress of some money forward into 2018. It was flat-out smart. What he did was to go from 26th in the league in cap space to one of the teams with the most space and maneuverability. In a very short time. Despite the pain, it was worth it to scour out the clogged cap situation. Star has been living up to his contract. Not that the fans who only look at stats have noticed. But McDermott knew what he was getting, he'd seen Star in practice and the locker room for years and he wanted him and was willing to pay that for a space eater. Excellent space eaters, the best few, get that kind of money without building up a ton of stats. Star's teammates through the years have thanked him over and over for making getting tackles much easier for them by doing what he does. There's some question whether he's had a regression this year. He might be playing at a lower level, though it's hard to tell without extensive film study. But the Bills have been happy ... they got what they expected. That you expected more is irrelevant. The line is still gelling, which was to be expected. No way to know what they'll look like as they play together more but they're a ton better than last year despite not a one having ever played next to any of the guys they now do. Perhaps your problem is indeed what you say it is, that you're "admittedly biased to win now mode." They've made it as clear as glacier melt water that they're about consistency. They've said it again and again ... they want to build a team that's competitive year after year. Which is the smart way to go about it. If you're a win now guy, perhaps you should pick another franchise to follow that subscribes to your plan. The Redskins, for example. The Cowboys. There are others.