Thurman#1

Whitner was horrible value where he was picked. If they had to have him, they should have traded back, snagged some extra picks and picked him in the early 20s. He'd have been there. And people wouldn't have had the unreasonable expectations for him that they had because he was picked so early.

Thing is, you're not the GM. Beane is. He's making this point again and again and again because he believes in it, deeply. He drafts BPA. Yes, position is a factor, especially when you need a QB, or when a position is less valuable to a team. You don't draft a long-snapper in the 1st round even if he's the greatest long-snapper the NFL has ever seen. Some positions are more important than others, some less. And that factors in. It's not a black and white discussion. There are subtleties and distinctions. But what Beane is telling you is what his priorities are. You might want him to take into account the needs of the roster. He's not interested in what others think he should do. He's got priorities. Here's an intelligent piece by Buscaglia that just came out: "3) Drafting for need vs. value explained further "- Just a day after the 2018 season ended for the Bills, Beane made a bit of a buzzworthy statement about not drafting for need, and that he refuses to do that as long as he's the GM of the team. However, it's a more nuanced discussion than it is cut and dry. So, with almost a month passed between then and the Senior Bowl, Beane opened up the conversation a bit. His justification is that -- especially in the first round -- drafting at a spot for need only and reaching for that player with other, more talented players at different positions available is how teams can get themselves into trouble. He then brought up the situation of last year and had they stayed at 21 and taken a quarterback, it would have been them reaching to fill a need -- but because they moved up to get Josh Allen at seventh overall, they had the need and the value meet eye-to-eye. I think there's even more to the equation than Beane mentioned while he was keeping it more general, in the sense of positional weight and how much each spot should be valued by a team -- which ultimately factors into the full value of the prospect himself. All of that sounds great in theory, but having the gumption to pull it off in a pressurized situation is something Beane has to stand by. I asked him off to the side about that side of it, when he's on the clock and the potential of passing on someone that helps them right away for someone that's of higher value to them organizationally. His response: " 'Well sometimes that’s not always the most popular decision and maybe not even in the building, and obviously with the fans, but you know, coaches, they want good players to help them execute and do their job better. But again, my job is to bring the best players that I can to the Buffalo Bills to give Sean and his staff. And if you start reaching, it may not hurt you immediately, but over time, you’re taking less talented players, your team is going to suffer a little bit.' " "As the first round goes, there isn't a real way to gauge what the Bills did in the first round in 2018 -- Beane's only draft in Buffalo -- because of the move up to get those two players at where they valued each player. We'll get a more definitive gauge of what the Bills do at ninth overall, and how it lines up with this draft theory." https://www.wkbw.com/sports/bills/5-takeaways-from-buffalo-bills-gm-brandon-beane-at-the-2019-senior-bowl Buscaglia uses the word "nuanced," and that's right, it's a nuanced discussion. But treating BPA as the most important factor is a strong, strong belief for Beane. It's in his DNA. That's why he harps on it over and over again.

Yes, they're still happy with McCoy. Lorax too. But that doesn't mean they're not looking to find their long-term replacements as a significant priority. Can't speak for him but it sure looks to me like he's saying RB is high on OBD's list, which it is. This is possible. I'm rooting against it, and I think it's unlikely, but it could happen.

Kareem Hunt? He's irrelevant to us. They aren't taking him. 2028 scrimmage yards and 15 TDs is "essentially the same production" as 1278 scrimmage yards and 10 TDs? Yeah, um, no. I'd've gone QB if I were in the Giants shoes, but the Barkley pick is very defensible.

Be surprised, be very surprised. Nothing's impossible but he's unlikely to be the BPA there. And if he is, they might easily look to trade back.

He just explained it in the PC last night. "Beane has been like a parrot all season whenever he’s been asked about the Bills' draft strategy. He refuses to draft for need because that’s when teams get themselves into trouble. He wants the best player on the board and he’s committed to that plan for as long as he’s GM in Buffalo. “'People say, "Well, last year you needed a quarterback and you drafted one." Well my answer to that would be: "We didn’t draft him at 21. We moved up to where we thought we needed to get to do that,”' Beane said. “If we had stayed at 21 and just taken whatever quarterback was left than that would be drafting for need. We’re at nine and we’re going to take the best player on offense or defense and we’ll continue to do that in round two, three and beyond.'” https://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/2019/01/bills-brandon-beane-on-2019-draft-were-in-the-top-10-and-we-dont-need-to-be.html Of course, teams do let needs affect the draft, particularly in ruling out certain positions in high rounds. The Bills aren't going QB in the first this year even if the BPA were a QB. They also aren't drafting someone at MLB early to compete with Edmunds. Nor will they go punter in the first three rounds. But within reason they think they will draft the BPA.

He improved his accuracy all the way through the pre-draft process. This was commented on by pretty much everyone, from Mayock To Eisen to ... well, lots and lots of people. He was expected to sit most or all of the season, which would have given him a bunch more time to keep grooving those mechanics down deeply into muscle memory. But he ended up being forced in early and pretty obviously reverted to old habits. Fair enough to say that working with Palmer isn't guaranteed to work. But it's got a very decent chance, if he can be consistent about his drills and his habits.

So, if a defender was standing right in front of Zay Jones and Allen didn't see it and threw it and it was deflected or dropped by the defense but if it hadn't been deflected or dropped it might have been caught by Zay ... that's counted as on target in that analysis? A good throw? And if a receiver was running a crossing route and had a step on the defender and the throw was behind him, allowing the defender to catch up and knock it away, that's a successful, accurate pass, right, as long as the receiver could have caught it if the defender had been a bit more considerate and not knocked it away? That's a success, right, an accurate pass? On target, according to these guidelines? And this analysis is one we're supposed to take seriously? Yeah, um, OK. If we're going to use that definition of accuracy, they clearly aren't going far enough. They should also include INTs as accurate throws. Or at least they should do so if the ball would have possibly been caught if the defender hadn't been so impolite as to get in the way. Whether or not a throw is spectacularly dumb or not should have nothing to do with whether it's considered accurate. When judging Josh Allen, plenty of his INTs should be considered accurate throws. Not when you're evaluating non-Buffalo QBs of course, but absolutely when you're looking at Allen.

That's terrific. Allen's accuracy improved a lot throughout the pre-draft process last year as he worked with Palmer. One of the main things he worked on was mechanics, which Palmer said were a main cause of Allen's problems with accuracy. Because he ended up starting a lot of games last year, his mechanics drills regimen for accuracy ended up being a much lower priority. That's what happens when you start, you're mostly working on game planning and prep for that week. And his accuracy definitely was affected. So this could easily have a real positive impact on Allen's accuracy issues. I really hope so. Palmer does know his stuff, and will I'm sure help Allen figure out a good plan - doubtless with input from the Bills - for the offseason for Allen. Mechanics are huge for QBs. This is great.

He wasn't our DC. He was our head coach. And at this point IMHO nobody should look at him as a head coach again. I think it's fair to say he's a brilliant defensive mind, myself. Feel free to disagree, but I think it's reasonable.

Nah. Here's what he said: "Much like there is OL holding on every play, there is hand fighting on every pass play between the DB and the WR. If they allow that ticky tack stuff to be reviewed and enforced ..." It's extremely clear that he is NOT referring to that play. He is referring to "hand fighting on every pass play between the DB and the WR," which is why he used the phrase, "that ticky tack stuff". And he's right that if you allow a process to correct plays like the Robey-Coleman PI, you're also opening it to the ticky-tack hand fighting on every play. It's hard to imagine a concrete way to draw a line between egregious and ticky-tack. You're overplaying your hand there. They didn't defacto state that they have no confidence in them. They defacto stated that they're sure they won't be perfect. Nor is anybody. If New Orleans had played better they'd have been ahead enough that the call wouldn't have mattered. The players make mistakes too, and more than the refs. But player mistakes are treated as part of the game.

I'm sure they will. But part of the way they sustain it may well be refusing to cover certain things like this one.

I like your post a lot. Worth noting, though, that on guys like Taron Johnson and Phillips, you're not allowed to renegotiate before three years are finished.

A well-paid QB makes it harder. But not impossible. You can argue that Brady isn't highly paid compared to most QBs and you'd certainly be right, but he's still expensive. This year his cap hit is $22M, and next year $27 M. And the Pats seem to do OK. The Broncos won recently with a highly paid QB. The Giants and the Saints too.

It completely looked like roughing the passer, a hit to the head. Until the video was slooooooooooooooooooooooowed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down. It was a wrong call but extremely close. Which is why the announcers also got it wrong till they saw the slo-mo.

Not very exciting to me, as they're all either rushing records or rookie records or both. I'm hopeful, though.

'Cause it's the truth and so obvious it's too dull for those who need more than the truth. And a perfect example of how nuts home-town fans are. No way they rig any of this because it's too stupid. Monster risk for negligible reward and enough people would have to be in on it that it would be absolutely guaranteed to go public. Nobody's that stupid. It would be like being married to Kate Upton, she has a prenup that says you get absolutely nothing if you get caught doing any form of cheating and when you're flat sober you see an unattractive woman at a party who says she's not going to do any more than kiss you ... and you somehow decide to do it. I suppose there are people out there that dumb, but the NFL knows it has a golden goose.

The Hogan play could have been called either way. The other two were bad calls but the Brady call at real speed was unbelievably close. The announcers called it roughing the passer and it looked that way to me too. It was only after the slo-mo replay that the announcers and everyone else too, could see it wasn't a head hit. The officials don't get the benefit of slo-mo. The Chiefs made a lot more mistakes than the officials did.

A lot more mistakes are made by the players than by the refs. MIstakes are part of the game. Coaches, refs, players, hell, I'm sure the waterboys miss a guy here and there. It's humanity. We ain't perfect. Fans too.

OK, we won't tell you. But even if we don't, they're not. What you see is people making mistakes, which happens in every human endeavor.

"... enemy of good." Am I right? Do I win something?

First, the Colts also brought in Glowinski in FA, which was huge. And Slauson, who played five games, also was an FA. More, the Colts did a great job fortifying their OL, yeah ... but wasn't an awful lot of that because really good OL prospects happened to be available when they picked? There doesn't appear to be a Quenton Nelson in this draft, and you can't force that to be so just because you wish one was. Long-term, this team should work hard on building the OL, and that includes using the draft to seriously address it. But that doesn't mean we should force OL even if it's bad value. I'm not sure whether or not there will be good value at OL when we pick. If there is, I would not be against going OL. And I disagree about your take on FA. There will be plenty of solid decent guys available, guys who will be real upgrades for us even if they're not top ten guys at their position. And with their available cap space they might even bring in one of the top two or three guys available at C or RT.

Yup. The Pats are maybe the offense in football over the last several years and virtually the whole country except New England wants them out of the Super Bowl. Good competition is the key thing to keep people watching. Inigo, I respect your point but disagree. 9-6 games at half-time can be found very exciting indeed, and by large audiences. It depends whether the 9-6 is a result of poor play or excellent defense. You're right that a 9-6 game between two three-win teams at the end of the year can be seen as boring. Because it's bad football. But was the Philly - Chicago game boring last weekend when it was 6 - 3 at halftime? Eagles - Saints was 14-10 at halftime and only 10 more points were scored. Was it boring? And yeah, Rams - Chiefs was often thought of as the game of the season. Would that be true if there was that much scoring in every game? It was considered terrific because it was so unusual.

The rule changes are most of it, but yeah, those rule changes also allowed things like the spread offense and other strategies. But while overall the passing game is favored by the league ... the league is also a cyclical thing. First defense gets the upper hand, then offenses adjust and innovate and catch up and become more important. Then the defenses adjust and innovate. It's the way things work. It's also never the way fans think. Each time there's a change, most fans think it will last forever that way. But the cycle will happen again here. Defenses will better become able to handle the spread and the rule changes over the next two to three years.

Yup. All males. Mostly Americans. Athletically talented. But no, there are plenty of teams that aren't particularly happy with their last two drafts. Plenty of teams that haven't showed as much as these guys. It's early. A lot to show yet, but it's a promising list. In comparison, look at Miami, and I'm no big Miami fan but would anyone trade the Bills drafts for these guys? 2018: Minkah Fitzpatrick, Mike Gesicki, Jerome Baker, Durham Smythe, Kalen Ballade, Cornell Armstrong, Quentin Poling, Jason Sanders 2017: Charles Harris, Raekwon McMillan, Corder Tankersley, Isaac Asiata, Davon Godchaux, Vincent Taylor, Isaiah Ford Or look at Detroit or Tampa. Those were the first three I thought of and they would trade their guys for ours in a second, IMO. I bet plenty of other teams would too in terms of quality.