Thurman#1

Honestly, it's not happening. Or at least bar a major change of mind. If he'd announced it to the Pats, it would have leaked. Stuff like that leaks. Some secrets people can't keep. More, he'd have eased up on his football regimen and people would notice, easily. More, the benefit gained by the Pats if people don't know would be miniscule. The Pats are going to have to be the highest bidder for a spot. That won't change if people know Brady's not coming back. I wish it would happen but there's no reason to think so.

OP, is that "or" or "of"?

Make your headline more descriptive, pretty please. As for the article, yeah, saw it yesterday, and it's a bit ridiculous that that unnamed guy would say that. Say that you disagree with the plan? Fair enough. Say that you think the plan is likely to bear fruit in your opinion? OK, that's an opinion. But that he doesn't have a plan? Nonsense.

You've said it a lot. Still not true, though. Again, Lotulelei has done what they wanted him to do. You just can't argue much with what they have done on defense. They've showed consistent improvement, to the point where they're one of the best defences in the league. And Lotulelei is a piece McDermott needed to get there. Signing Kyle for another year worked well. Bodine sure wasn't good, but he was acceptable, and if he hadn't been there we'd have had to rely on the worse Groy, not a great signing but for cheap, not bad. Bush played OK for cheap. Stanford played OK for very cheap and was solid on STs. So your take is pure bull####. He had extremely limited resources to use on FA, because they were concentrating on clearing the cap space for 2019, at which they clearly succeeded. (face palm) You're clearly right that it's far too early. That does indeed make a great deal of sense. He's got a ton to prove. But again, you can't judge GMs or coaches by record in the first year of a rebuild, and particularly not a rebuild in which the previous administration put the team deep in cap trouble. If you could judge coaches by their first two years in a rebuild, Bill Walsh would go down a bottom 5% coach, having won six games in his first two seasons. You can't do it and be seen as understanding the process. This rebuild could fail or succeed. But once they made the choice to rebuild, a bad record for the first two years was a fait accompli. Coming up with 15 wins was actually pretty amazing.

Kiko was a Nix pick. Tre White didn't start out as good as Watkins? That is arguable. And Tre stayed healthy. And while yeah, Kiko (Thanks, Buddy!!) started strong, he was tailing off by the end of his first season and in no way can you put his first two seasons against Tre's, considering he missed his entire second year. They're not even slightly comparable. And Kiko was a Nix pick. Yeah, Whaley likely had a lot of influence, but no, he wasn't the GM. Same with the trade-down for Manuel bringing in Kiko. Yeah, it was a nice trade-down, but the important choice that year was drafting a QB - again, Nix pulled the trigger so he gets ultimate blame, but you're acting as if moving back and then picking Manuel was a great decision. I suppose some people were ga-ga over Whaley but "so many"? I wouldn't say that. It was nothing like a consensus. Not even close. Even that early, two years in, his drafts looked weak: Watkins Kouandjio Preston Brown Ross Cockerel Cyril Richardson Randell Johnson Seantrell Henderson Darby John Miller Karlos Williams Tony Steward Nick O'Leary Dezmin Lewis There was already huge doubt about Kouandjio, Cockrell had been released before his second season. Miller was questionable. O'Leary was a JAG at best. Karlos Williams had eaten his way out of the league and nobody was calling him. It looked like in two drafts he'd acquired a WR who looked pretty good when healthy but always seemed to be injured, a solid, smart but uninspiring MLB in Brown, a good CB in Darby ... and that looked like it in terms of real talent. In no way did Whaley's drafts look as good as this FO's two drafts. I was still hopeful with Whaley but it didn't look good. And Whaley stepped into a situation which should have allowed him to look good quickly. He stepped into a reload. He was able to maintain a defense that was really good and had been built almost completely under Nix. The salary cap situation was solid. The new group on the other hand rebuilt, which makes it much harder to win early. Not to mention that their first two drafts already look a ton better than Whaley's first two did. And after his first two years we were already headed towards salary cap trouble thanks to his contracts on guys like Clay.

Right. Either that or he is.

I like Beane a lot. He looks like he's got an intelligent plan. But some of your points here can be looked at just as easily as negatives. He had the brains to walk away can be just as easily looked at as "He was forced to walk away in abject defeat with no hope of accomplishing his goal." He still has a top 10 draft pick can be looked at as "they were among the 10 worst teams last year and have a first round pick as does nearly every team. Big deal." Wheeled and dealed to get into position to draft a franchise QB could just as easily be looked at as, "spent a ton of draft capital to draft a QB, but then ended up with a guy who is not accurate. He's smart, competitive and a hard worker, but could easily turn out a bust." You spun 'em positively, I spun 'em negatively. Neither is outright untrue, at this point. And I really doubt they'll have $100 mill in space next year. We're already down to $75 mill, as he's continued spending. $75 mill sure ain't peanuts, but they were 10th in space a few days ago but have now climbed up to 9th. People should keep up with this before making claims about it. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2020/ Best shape it's been in 20 years? I don't see it. The 2004 Bills looked a lot better than this as did the Music City Miracle Bills. And right now Beane's gains are all on papers. The Nix Bills just up till they picked EJ and handed the reins over to Whaley had as much potential as this group, IMHO. I'm really really hopeful. If I had to bet, I'd go very positive. But he hasn't proved much yet, not coming off a 6 win season, he hasn't. And I'll be the first to say that he was rebuilding and shouldn't be blamed for a bad record at this point. True. But we have yet to see how the rebuild turns out. Some work great. Some very much don't. I think he's smart and I love his plan. But the cake's still in the oven.

As he says in the article, there's no really good grasp on the general area where he's going to go. He's been consistently mocked everywhere from #6 to #31. EDIT: Sorry, I left out the link in the OP. I put it there and here it is again: https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/04/04/brian-burns-nfl-draft-2019-florida-state There's a lot more there in the article.

Good article on Burns. Made me interested. He's explosive, smart and serious. Here's an excerpt, including the bit about the Bills in red: "Burns admits he didn’t truly get into the mental aspect of football until his sophomore year of high school, but he’s leaned heavily on his brother Stanley McClover, a former Auburn defensive end standout and 2006 draft pick, as well as the aforementioned Walker and Lawing. His knowledge has also trickled down to the likes of former four-star prospect and FSU rising sophomore defensive end Xavier Peters, who recently credited Burns with helping him transition from Year 1 to Year 2 in Tallahassee. “ 'I’d rather learn the knowledge now and be able to apply it in my rookie season than waiting three or four years and saying I wish I knew this as a rookie,' says Burns, who lists the Panthers, Colts, Titans, Cardinals and Bills as the teams showing him the most pre-draft attention. 'When I was a freshman in college I wish I would have taken that more seriously as far as picking other guys’ brains and the legends who came around. But now I don’t want to make that mistake.' "As soon as Florida State’s disappointing 5–7 season ended without a bowl appearance for the first time in 36 seasons, Burns went to work on his game’s biggest weakness—his mass. From the second week of December up until the combine, Burns scarfed down 4,000 calories a day while training at EXOS in Arizona. To go from 230 pounds to his current 253-pound weight, Burns would eat eggs, toast and sausage for breakfast. After a workout, he would then have his first protein shake. For lunch it was chicken or steak with brown rice, potatoes and kale, followed by another workout and another shake. He’d head back home and have the dinner that was prepared for him by EXOS. Then he’d maybe bake chicken or cook some pasta (his brother taught him to cook those). And right before bed he’d have a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to sit on his stomach all night. In all, it added up to six meals a day for two months for 20-plus pounds of added weight." EDIT: Sorry, I left out the link: https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/04/04/brian-burns-nfl-draft-2019-florida-state And this isn't the whole article. There's much more at the link.

With TEs, being physically faster and quicker is one way to create a mismatch, but only on about, what, 6 - 7% of the plays of the game, when you throw to him. Another way to create a mismatch, but on nearly every play, is to have a guy who can both catch and block well. Makes him much more unpredictable and thus dangerous. And helps both the pass and run game a ton.

Nah. Just more of the same, filling holes so they can go BPA. I think if they find someone like that at a good value, they'd take him.

Sadly, you're living up to your reputation, Ghost. I'm kinda proud of myself for making it through the first four paragraphs. It was a slog.

That's just not so, Scott. They were in a crappy situation with the cap and that had a huge impact on their personnel decisions. The Bills went into last year's offseason in the later twenties in cap space rankings, with somewhere around $28 mill. To be precise, $29.3 million on February 12th. https://buffalonews.com/2018/02/12/salary-cap-bills-have-more-space-but-too-much-dead-money/ But at that point, Wood had already retired, but his dead money hadn't yet officially hit the cap, because his resignation was not official. His $10 mill bonus money was finally at the end of May all put against the 2018 salary cap, which lost the Bills about $5.5 mill, as his salary had only been $4.8 mill. So in February, the Bills knew they effectively had about $23 mill. Which would have put them in the lower quarter of the rankings. Yeah, they cut a few guys and got it up into the thirties but those cuts - Tyrod and a few others - left holes and were motivated partly if not largely by the need to make some money available. And that was before they re-signed Kyle for 2018. Already in bad shape, they knew they had to make it worse by absorbing so much extra cap space into the 2018 salary cap figure to clear the space that they are now finally enjoying in the 2019 season. And on March 14th, after dumping Tyrod, going into the FA period, they had about $37 million. Not $50. And again, the $5.5 mill they knew Wood would cost hadn't yet hit the official cap figures. So practically it was $31.5 mill. https://apnews.com/b46c18d8192d4ef8a14d916488e317fc More, this was after the Cordy Glenn trade to free up cap space and bring in draft capital. And yet going into FA they were still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay below their final dead money total. On March 13th, after the Glenn trade, they had only $36 mill in dead cap. As they ended up at around $70 mill, things clearly got a lot worse. https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/2018/03/5_thoughts_and_a_grade_for_buffalo_bills_trading_cordy_glenn.html Their lack of cap space was a huge factor on signings last year, especially with their intention, announced to the Pegulas, of cleaning up the cap situation by this year, which they did an excellent job of. Huge.

Yeah, I'm aware they aren't on our team. But you're the one who said "All of our good, established, players were free agents or we traded for them." That sentence is in the past tense, so it sure looks like you were talking about last year. And Wood absolutely would've been here if he hadn't had the career-ending injury. They gave him an extension just before. "Shady, Hughes and Lorenzo" you say, again talking about "the past two or three years," were more impactful than Kyle Williams, Tre, Matt Milano? First, nobody is talking about three years ago. That was pre-McDermott and has nothing to do with what is happening now. And second, not so much. While Shady might've been up there in 2017, last year he wasn't in our top fifteen. There's an argument with Hughes, but as good as Lorenzo was, he wasn't better than Tre or Kyle. And again, they do have a lot of young draftees who look very good. But they're young. For an FO that's only had two drafts, they have a lot of young promising guys from those drafts. The odds look very good that in a year or two we'll have a lot of established young guys from those drafts. Tre, Dawkins (had a down year, apologized for a sophomore slump where he says he wasn't serious enough, and he still was pretty good), Milano, and last year Teller, Taron Johnson, Harrison Phillips, Edmunds and Allen all have a solid shot at establishing themselves, though they have a lot to prove. But that's because they're young. And that's what happens when you constantly switch schemes as the Bills have done over and over through recent years and then on top of that increase the problem of keeping few draftees by rebuilding. You're gonna have few guys from previous regimes in a situation like that, especially if you're looking at the end of the second season or at the third season. It's the way things go when you rebuild, and especially so when you do a significant scheme switch like the on from a Ryan defense to a McDermott version. I didn't address whether they are looking for stars, but if you wanna talk about it in a reply to my post, OK, I guess. I think they're going BPA. I think they hope they get a guy who wins his one-on-ones consistently in the first and hopefully in the second. They have made it very clear that their core will be built through the draft. But a guy like Morse could hopefully turn out to be on Wood's level, maybe even a bit above

So, nothing happened? Nobody predicted it? Come on. Misleading title.

Kyle Williams. Eric Wood if he'd stayed healthy. Milano. Draftees who were among our good, established players. Is Tre established? If not, he will be soon. Same with Edmunds, IMO. I agree that team culture is crucial to this FO and generally. But if you use "established" as guys who've been around a while, of course you're not going to have many when your team has so often switched coaches and schemes and then on top of that you rebuilt two years ago.

I don't think they're using ceiling and floors as crucial measures. People overthink this, IMO. It's just BPA, with some position value and needs involved. And they try to limit how much position matters by doing a good job filling obvious holes in FA. They did a good job of that in FA this year. Just BPA, but not at QB or safety or centers without position flexibility early or, I would argue, MLB, though some disagree with me there. And if they can get a pass-rushing DE or DT or further shore up OT or TE earlyish by picking the BPA, all the better, and that may mean moving around a bit. I agree with the OP that Oliver looks like if he's still available he could be BPA at a position of need, and thus could easily be the pick at #9. I'd also bet they try to get some of the guys they liked at the Senior Bowl, as Beane did last year, guys like Risner, Bradbury if they think he can play guard, Deebo Samuel, and probably a few others we're not so aware of. Dillard, maybe. McLaurin?

There are a ton of studies like Massey and Thaler, Brian Burke, Gertz, the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, and many others on the draft and they all say much the same thing. I don't think you'll find as many reputable articles telling you that buying medicine makes you sick, much less so much of a consensus.

That's how your original comment read to me. Thanks much. For a tidbit, it's tasty.

I hear your point and don't disagree, but McCoy has been talked about as a center who could also play guard. He did actually play there for two games in 2017. A tough smart, technically solid interior OL with position flexibility does not sound so bad to me for the Bills, even early.

Ethan, we do know who drafted EJ, we really do. The guy who was GM? He's the one who pulled the trigger. Buddy Nix. With Whaley in agreement. Doug Whaley had plenty of chances to back away from the pick and distance himself after Nix was gone. He never did, and his speech right after was a classic ... "He's got 'it.' " He agreed. We also know very clearly that Whaley was in agreement, as Nix put Whaley in charge of a committee to pick a QB. Whaley did so. Nix said yes or no, and in this case, yes. We also know who had the power with McD and Whaley. Whaley did for the first couple of weeks McD was here. And then the Pegulas fell in love with McD and he got the power. It was in the papers at the time. Exactly who put what where on the board? No. But who was in charge? And therefore who gets the responsibility? That was McD. We don't know the smaller details in either case. But the responsibility was clear in both cases.

Mostly speaks to several other facts ... the fact that free agency is far from over, and the fact that we were rebuilding and had salary cap problems the last two years and thus didn't have the money to bring in better FAs. Rebuilding teams generally drop their more expensive FAs early, as we did, and we didn't have the money to replace them till this year. Not to mention that this is what free agency looks like. For example, you know who won the Super Bowl last year, right? The Patriots? Would you say they had "poor roster development"? 'Cause outside of the FAs they re-signed, they lost 18 and 11 are still not on rosters, though one of those is Gronk. The Bills are not unsimilar, having lost 11 and 8 are still not on rosters, though one of those eight is Kyle Williams, and another is Vontae Davis, and yet another is Ivory, who was only released yesterday. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/buffalo-bills/

Possible, I guess. Seems likely to me that it might be a family member with a serious illness or drug or serious psychiatric issue.

They already had the draft? And we traded? Wow, missed the whole thing.

Rapaport: a "family situation described to me as private." Sickness or a family crisis of some kind. Hope it works out OK for him. http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap3000001024659/Rapoport-explains-why-Schiano-is-leaving-Pats-role