Thurman#1

Having respect doesn't mean you have to like them. They're a terrific team, damn them.

By this definition, a lot of good players will be found to be great players five years after they retire. Gilmore has a pretty decent shot at the hall, though he needs to continue playing at this level for a while longer. What's that you say? Goff is young? Yup.

He's still a really physical corner, as he was in Buffalo. He still gets called a fair bit. Famous players get a bit more leeway. It's got nothing to do with the team he's on, IMO. He was really good in Buffalo. I still wish we hadn't been in such crappy salary cap shape that year. It would have been interesting to see if he'd have stayed. I guess he would have but no way to know at this point.

Fair enough, but if they do that, they shouldn't be surprised if Foles works in his ... threatening to not sign (or promising to sign if Philly wants to keep their options open). It had been a love fest between them till now. But all bets are off if this report is on target.

I suppose anything's possible, but I doubt it. I can't see coming to your fan base and saying we've married this guy for three years. I'd give him good money for a short term deal with team options or a long term deal that's much more affordable. I would be very willing to give him incentives. But more than Roethlisberger? More than Newton? For a guy who's never been a quality starter for an extended period? Nah, couldn't sell myself on that.

Isn't Sammy Watkins on the Rams? Brandin Cooks, too. Both firsts, though not to L.A., obviously. And Cordarrelle Patterson and Philip Dorsett on the Pats. This year's SB would tend to make the argument that you need two guys among your roster who were drafted in the first round, but not by your team. Last year, the champion Eagles had Agholor, who they'd drafted in the first, Jeffery who the Bears drafted in the 2nd and Ertz, who the Eagles drafted at #35. What good trading like five guys for the right to draft Julio Jones is it got them to the Super Bowl very recently. And I don't even like that trade. Arguing that there are some bad teams with #1 WRs therefore you don't need one is not a good argument. You could say the same thing about, say, the Chargers and Phillip Rivers. He hasn't got them to a Super Bowl so I guess you don't need an excellent QB. Except it really really really helps.

I doubt it. Allen's contributions to the conversation were two: "oooooooooooh." And "We could find out."

Fair enough. Their record said they didn't make the playoffs under Cassel. Their record said they won five games fewer than they did the year before with a healthy Brady instead of Cassel. 16-0 with Brady the year before, and 10-5 with Cassel. And as for how their QBs fared, from 2007 Brady to 2008 Cassel, they went from 68.9% completions, 8.3 YPA, 300.4 yards per game, 50 TDs and 8 INTs and a 117.2 passer rating ................. to 63.4% completions, 7.2 YPA, 230.8 yards per game, 21 TDs and 11 INTs and an 89.4 passer rating. Out of this world to decent. And 16-0 with a Super Bowl loss to 11-5 and no playoffs. And by the way, take Belchick's record in Cleveland and throw in that year with Cassel and his teams are 47-49. Throw in Brady's rookie year when Belichick was playing Bledsoe and it goes to 52-60. That's what his record says Belichick is when he doesn't have Brady as his starter.

"A young Brady in Buffalo wouldn't have been as good as Fitzpatrick was," you say? I agree with you in two ways. First, if by young you mean his first year and a few games into his second ... I agree. It took him a while to improve in N.E. He started his rookie year as the fourth-stringer and ended the year as the second-stringer. He made wild improvements, but he simply wasn't ready. Same would have been true anywhere, doubtless. Second, if by "wouldn't have been as good as Fitzpatrick was," you mean he'd have been almost infinitely better, I'd agree with that too. Fitzy under pressure throws INTs with spectacular consistency. Brady right from his first moments on the field didn't do that as much as Fitzy did. Brady was a game manager his first couple of years. He'd have done that in Buffalo too. "Brady can't throw like Brees or Peyton or Favre"? Um, yeah, he can. And he does. He throws with terrific accuracy. And he has has had a good strong arm though not an elite one through most of his career, though he seems to be losing a shade now. Manning and Brees have never had a rifle. They've had NFL arm strength, much like Brady. They were both sensational at pre-snap reads and have both benefitted from great consistency of scheme. Same with Brady. In fact, Brees and Peyton Manning are great comparisons for Brady. Not Favre, but the other two are. "Brady would have been a journeyman with most other coaches"? I won't say directly what I think about that statement, because it would be insulting. I have great respect for your opinions, but that comment is far far below you and crosses over the border into Wackytown. Belichick would have won without Brady? Yeah, I agree, and said so. I said I think if Belichick hangs around after Brady retires, he'll still win consistently. But the dynasty will be over. I agree he'd win. He's a smart coach. He'll win ten eleven games a year and not be a Super Bowl regular.

Didn't want him as our starting QB, but he was always a good guy. I root for him.

He doesn't? Not even near it? Yeah, he does. And while Belichick does a hell of a job scheming for other QBs, the way he beats them ultimately is that his Brady-powered offense outscores them. We saw for five years in Cleveland what Belichick looked like without Brady. And yeah, there certainly was more to it than that, but the major problem he had there was a lack of a franchise QB. Each would have been worse without the other. Brady was more of the reason they won SBs. If Belichick sticks around after Tommy Boy retires, I think you see a team that is almost always well above average but that the dynasty is over.

This seems like a very reasonable guess. Makes sense.

Doesn't meet the standards for being factual. I think he's correct, personally, but there's no objective proof, and there was no legal finding. Pretty funny, but he had to know he was likely to get fired. And Deadspin or whatever the name of that video company that put this up invited him to come on and talk about how his bosses are weenies. He should do that if he never wants to get another job outside maybe the salad bar at Wendy's.

"He's never going to be a big stat-guy, but a $10M cap charge for a guy who can stuff the run seems...OK." Comments are about Dareus, but make equal sense about Star.

As the Rams have pointed out, just before that the refs didn't call the roughing passer hit to the head that the Saints clearly committed against Goff that would have turned the game the other way. It's not like the Saints are the only team that's ever had the refs not call a penalty. Quit whining, Saints fans. This. Love the Saints, except for Payton. Good fans too. But they've been acting like martyrs over this. Get over it.

Wow!!

Sure, Belichick can coach as long as he wants. And he'll do really well. But without Brady they wouldn't be close to the juggernaut they've been. Belichick without Brady will produce a fine team. Not a dynasty. And while Brady has lost a little something from his arm strength, saying that he "can no longer throw the ball in the air over 20 yards with any real chance of success," goes beyond serious exaggeration into being just wrong. You do know he had a 28 yard TD throw last week, right, a catch that was caught six yards deep so it actually went 34 air yards beyond the LOS? You know that right, and that it was a pinpoint pass, right? And that that beautiful back shoulder ball to Gronk at the 9 with a minute left in the game was a 20 yard pass? You say Brady is one of the most physically limited players in the NFL? Yeah, maybe. But it's been true his whole career and he's probably the GOAT despite that. It's both Brady and Belichick but if you had to pick one, it's more Brady.

No.

Yeah, not this early anyway. Mocks are liked mostly by how well a given team's fans feel that team fills - in that mock - its biggest needs. This mock does indeed very thoroughly fill Bills fans biggest desires in terms of position. But Beane has said he won't act from need.

No. Just the opposite, in fact. Think about it. McCoy fumbles and the opponent recovers on the Bills 10. The chances of having points scored just soared. There's a tremendous chance of them getting three points and a very good chance of them getting seven points. But not when you're talking yards. With a total defensive failure, the most the defense could give up here is 10 yards, which is actually a very good result for one drive. Other teams getting the ball in consistently good field position doesn't help increase yardage totals one bit. It may even - very slightly - decrease yardage totals. If opponent offenses get the ball closer to their end zone, their potential yardage is slightly lowered. If they get the ball on their own one and the defense doesn't stop them they can make 99 yards. If they get the ball on the Bills 1 yard line and the defense fails, they only get one yard with the TD. Good field position for the offense raises the possibility of points and lowers the potential yards available. For the D it's the same. When opponent offenses get good field position the D has a higher chance of allowing points and fewer possible yards to allow. But in terms of yards, one drive's no different from another in terms of impact on the final total. The key figures here are two ... number of drives faced and average field position at drive start. Chicago's defense faced the most defensive drives this season, 183. Buffalo was 2nd, facing 182 drives. This is terrible news for the defensive yardage stats. Buffalo faced the worst field position of any defense, with opponents starting on the average of the 31.36 yard line. But the team that had the best situation had an average of the 25.57. The difference is miniscule, especially when a very large majority of drives don't get near the end zone. So again, yardage totals do a terrific job of isolating the units. Points don't. And average drive starts are so close together as to give almost no advantage or disadvantage in terms of possible yardage available. And yeah, yeah, the Bills D wasn't good in red zone defense. But they were very good at keeping teams out of the red zone, thus limiting the damage of their bad red zone D. Despite facing more drives than any other team than Chicago and the worst average defensive drive start, despite having a poor offense that gave away a ton of turnovers, meaning more drives starting closer to the red zone, the Bills tied for 11th fewest drives that reached the red zone. 1. Chicago 2.5 per game 2. Baltimore 2.6 3. Houston 2.6 4. Denver 2.7 5. Indy 2.7 6. New England 2.9 7. Carolina 2.9 8. Detroit 2.9 9. Tennessee 2.9 10. New Orleans 11. Buffalo 3.0 Again, they did a really good job of keeping teams out of the red zone. Not that they shouldn't work on their red zone defense. They should. But overall, the defense was really really good. And again, I'm with you in hoping we get a good pass rusher. It's a major need.

Yeah, this. It's the deeper question. Fans assume everyone wants to coach in the NFL. Palmer is on record as saying he loves to work with young guys. No way to know what he would want to do, assuming the Bills are interested.

Mahomes had the huge advantage of having a year on the bench to absolutely imprint his mechanics to deep muscle memory. Allen's being needed to play meant that his mechanics were essentially forgotten while he worked on the much more necessary in the moment needs to work on understanding and memorizing game plans and how to understand and work on countering defenses. With more time in the offseason, hopefully Allen can get those mechanics more deeply downloaded. It's great he's already working on it.

No, Fins, don't do it!!! Don't rebuild!!! Reload again and again. One year of easy wins isn't enough. Reload and give us five more years of fairly easy wins instead of one year of extrmely easy wins.

But most are in the right neighborhood. That didn't look bad for so very early.

Oh, that's a shame. He'd have been a good pickup. Disagree. Plenty stay as good and a reasonable amount get better. Incognito. Hutchinson's the classic example. Zimmerman was a historically great pickup for the Warner-era Rams. Andruzzi was successful with the Pats. They're around. And you don't need a guard to change a team. You need him to successfully fill a hole and to play well. Those guys are out there. Very few players at any position change a team but you don't stay away from FA because of that.