Thurman#1

Left-handed passes, no. 50 TDs, sure you can. Look at what a bunch of coaching did for Aaron Rodgers, who was pretty awful his first two seasons in Green Bay till McCarthy put him in "Quarterback Camp," changed his mechanics and developed him. Also helps, mind you, if you put him in an offense surrounded by top-flight weapons and a really good line. https://www.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/13/themmqb-exit-interview-bob-mcginn-green-bay-packers-milwaukee-journal-sentinel-nfl-beat-writer The MMQB: "You documented how fortunate it was that Aaron Rodgers didn’t have to play the first couple of years—he just wasn’t ready. McGinn: “He was a very poor player here for his first two summers and regular-season practices. Fortunately for him, and he knows that down deep, he didn’t have to play early. His delivery was a mess, bad body language, he didn’t know how to deal with teammates. He learned so much from Brett Favre on how to in some ways be one of the guys and relate, and he became much more of a leader. He was really poor and how many great players have ever had a start like that? Not that many. A lot of scouts look at that exhibition tape those first two years and he was a little bit better the third year, but not to any degree, and then he just really developed. He lost a lot of close games in ’08, but by ’09 he was playing great and by 2010 he was maybe the best in the business." And yet it happened. And the idea that it defies logic defies thought. There are plenty of veepy guys throughout the world of business who directly control the people under them and yet still do what the guys over them say.

Here's what you do when you have questions like this. There's this website called google, and you go there and enter the prospect's name along with "college stats." And you find stuff like the fact that Bosa has played in 29 college games. EDIT: Thank you, Kirby, and others.

You're right, he was a part of those drafts. So were a lot of scouts. Whaley gets the credit for helping.

"How can you not respect a guy who swings for the fences?" Um, with great ease? With very little effort and for obvious reasons? I could come up with more. Swinging for the fences and striking out isn't something a decision-maker should be cheered for. A home run hitter who leads the league in HRs and strikeouts? Maybe. But an executive who leaves the team with a career record under .500? Not hardly. The Watkins trade was a swing for the fences, but it looked awful from minute one. For execs, swinging for the fences means squat. Building an excellent team is what you should be judged on. He didn't do that. And again, that front four you're going on about were all Nix gets.

Being on the phone isn't being in charge. I can assure you of that from many times when my boss had me negotiate things over the phone after telling me what he wanted. I wasn't the one with the power or the decision maker. McDermott was in charge. IMO, it's far too strong to say that Whaley is an idiot. He's not. But he wasn't as good as either McDermott or Beane. He didn't have an overarching plan. And he left us screwed on the salary cap when we were a mediocre team. Our cap looked like a team at the end of a Super Bowl window and we didn't have the wins to make that kind of a fiscal problem necessary. And he didn't draft very well, though his pro personnel decisions were good.

The top ten defense was built with all but two players brought in under Buddy Nix. And the two acquired by Nix were neither standouts. Preston Brown and someone else. Lorax, maybe? I forget, but that's not the heart of that defense. Agreed on Mahomes.

While I agree that perfect BPA is a myth, I think the people who are using the phrase are well aware that BPA is for the best player on each individual GM's board. There is no one board to rule them all, one board to find them, one board to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. I think we all get that. But you're right that each GM's boards have included schemes, fits, and so on. I think some people still want to believe of all those words you used there, that for BPA GMs there is no "need" included when putting those boards together. Which is more of an "in an ideal world" kind of situation.

Very unlikely in several ways. First, that White would be available at #9. And second that they would want White, who seems to be a classic MLB, not a Seth or a Wally (sorry, I'm bored), to call signals as a rookie. If Edmunds plays the Solomon, you've got a rookie signal caller yet again, in a year when they start to feel pressure to improve in the wins column. And have a surfeit of good fast LBs. Doubt it for those reasons.

Read my next post. But what I complained about is that you quoted Jeremiah as saying "Bills more than open to trading back," and then didn't show the quote in your post, leaving us wondering if he'd said that or not. And what you did quote seemed to indicate that the quote came from the conference call. A bit confusing. But I tried to go back and edit it once I'd read the other article, and the interface for some bizarre reason wouldn't let me either edit or delete the post, or touch it at all, really. Has happened a few times lately.

That isn't "how it usually goes." It usually has a million variations as to what the GMs actually do. Relatively few actually trade, obviously, far less than a third. The true method is ... (drum roll) ... different for every team. And no, nobody does absolute BPA, picking a guard for his high first round pick if a potential franchise QB who's second-best player, not the best. Or picking the BPA if he's a 3-4 NT or DE when they run a 4-3. Or picking the greatest punter in the history of the league rather than a pretty good EDGE. Yeah, teams eliminate positions. But generally not many, not the teams that are heavier into the BPA method. But do some teams make BPA a guiding but non-absolute principle. Yeah, and the Bills are one.

Can't seem to edit posts here sometimes, and this is an example. So I have to make a second post. Here's the Jeremiah quote, "But I also hear when it comes to the Bills they’re a team that would be more than open to trading back," but it's not from the conference call but the OneBillsLive interview with Steve and Luke Tasker. Wish I could edit or delete that last one. I'd eliminate it entirely. I'd found it wasn't in the Jeremiah article but hadn't yet checked the Talbot article. Oh, well. Sorry, Alphadawg.

Alphadawg, bad punctuation here leading to confusion. Jeremiah only said, "“You kind of look at it from a 30,000-foot view here, I think that there’s 15 to 16 players that everybody in the league kind of agrees are the top guys, and then after that once you get to 17, 18, all the way to 50 or 60, they’re in all different order there.” The writer of the NewYorkUpstate article is the one who said, "Buffalo could make a slight drop down from No. 9 and still land one of the best prospects in the class while also adding addition picks to select players from the second tier of available prospects." I had to read all the way through Jeremiah's fifteen pages to realize he hadn't said that. Dude, come on!!!!!!!

There's no such thing as a "wrong order" in this case. It's done both ways; some of each succeed and some of each fail. We'll know which this is when we see how things turn out within the next few years. And whether or not the decision looks good won't be decided by "whether Allen is as good or better than Mahomes." It will be by whether the Buffalo Bills turn out to have a team that is consistently competitive among the best in the league, McDermott and Beane's stated goal. Also, a good part of the reason KC was in a great position to take Mahomes is that they could sit him for a year. He might easily not have done anywhere near as well if forced into action as a rook, or with such poor pieces as the Bills offense has had the past two years. Mahomes had a much better situation in nearly every way than Allen. There's no reason to think Beane would have taken Mahomes if he'd been here. He might have. Or he might not have. Had the Bills been planning to draft Mahomes, they might easily have bailed on Taylor to save money. That's what they did the year they decided to actually draft a QB.

You're right that they don't need "extra guys." What you get in the second and third round are not extra guys. Was Matt Milano an "extra guy" from the fifth round?

Yeah, if by sophomore slump you mean a dramatic decline, those aren't all that common, and I wouldn't expect one. Plenty of guys don't improve very much, though. You want to see a lot of improvement from a soph. I'm hopeful.

Everybody's wrong. I don't get the chance to watch him much these days, not at all live. But from what I do see on after-the-fact videos, he's mellowed if anything. He's really entertaining, I think.

Yeah, I'd guess they're very open indeed. Might well be a 2018 Denver situation where they're willing to trade down but only if their guy doesn't fall to them. Oliver, maybe? Picks in the 2nd and 3rd are valuable this year even more than usual.

One of the worst things about being here in Japan is not getting ESPN. Watching Mel is fun. I'd much rather do that, but I don't have a choice.

10 draft picks. Could trade up. Or back to next year. Or not at all.

Fair enough that you don't buy the coach speak. But they mean it. And surely even you feel that what Beane and McDermott want is more important than what you want, or what I want or what anyone on here wants. And there's no such thing, really, as BPA at the biggest need. That's just called drafting for need. BPA and drafting for need are opposites. On the other hand, nobody drafts strict BPA with zero considerations for need. We wouldn't draft a QB if he were BPA in the first. And need factors into the grades. Beane has said that we wouldn't rate some guys as high as a team with a 3-4 defense would. Exactly. It ain't 100% pure BPA. If the need-free BPA were a 3-4 DE, he wouldn't be our BPA. Nobody drafts 100% for need. But Beane and McDermott feel, absolutely correctly, that drafting 100% for need pretty much guarantees that you won't draft very well. They seem to be an awful lot closer to BPA than to drafting for need. And yeah, Metcalf does seem to be the highest rated WR in this draft, for most. Brandt has him #1: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001026448/article/hot-150-gil-brandts-topranked-prospects-for-2019-nfl-draft Here's a couple of others, but there are a lot: https://thedraftnetwork.com/prospect-rankings https://www.drafttek.com/Top-100-NFL-Draft-Prospects-2019.asp Jeremiah disagrees, though. But who's the best WR is beside Beane's point. Who's the best player who would fit the system with maybe a few positions thrown out for lack of need, such as center and QB ... that would seem to be more of how Beane works. I wouldn't mind if they pick him, though my guess is they won't. But if they do, it'll be because they thought he was BPA where they picked him.

Agreed. Ssssssssssssso .... there'd be a salary cap. That would be much the same as it is now, only the defacto cap total would be higher.

That is one, count it - one, reason for the existence of thebtag. Not the only one

That would immediately create two tiers of teams, the rich ones who can always buy a franchise QB, and the others. Dallas makes a ton more revenue than Buffalo, for instance. Let them have a QB outside the system and when their QB got old, another poorer team's QB would be absolutely thrilled to move there and be paid five times more. No way does that make sense beyond the five or six teams with the highest revenue.

Nah, Kyle was good right from the beginning. As good as he would become? No, but very good. 54 tackles as a rookie DT and generally looked like he'd be a good player and a terrific bargain. Good post. Thanks.

I disagree. He started out that way, but by the end of the season he was understanding what he saw much better. But you're right, we do need that to keep going.