Thurman#1

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

You're confusing fact and opinion. But don't worry about it, it's a common problem.

He thought that he was the smartest guy in the room when he was the smartest guy in the room. He's a smart guy. He's not dumb enough to think he's smarter than Brady. It's more fans who have minded his attitude than teammates. I hope the Pats don't get him.

You've got me chuckling here. Talk about a moving target, man. "I’m trying to think of a coach in the last 30 years who lost more games than the previous season for two seasons in a row and still turned the franchise into a winner. I can’t." Isn't that what you said, just above? Asking for ONE example? So I provide like twelve and out come the justifications and the mistakes. In Fontes's third year, he was 6-10. Ownership didn't fire him. He made Detroit relevant for pretty much the only time in the last 40 years. In Fassel's third year he was 7-9. Ownership didn't fire him. In Garrett's second, third and fourth year he didn't have a winning record, getting eight wins each time. And yeah, Jason Garrett's Cowboys have been a success. In the last five years he's had a 12-win season, a 13-win season and a 10-win season, and they look like they're set up to be good for a while. So yes, he "turned the franchise into a winner," which is what you asked for. They're winners. And again, I didn't look for every example. I went like halfway down the list of coaches and quit because I had a ton of examples.

That's a really poor post, and real misuse of a quotation. Not knowing exactly what has to change can be anything from admitting you're frozen and clueless on one side of the spectrum to an acknowledgement that in the real world that's how making difficult decisions in extremely complicated situations generally works on the other side of the spectrum. Or anywhere in between. More, he was referring specifically to the Sabres. That part of your logic was obviously just wrong. As for worst owners, they're not even the worst owners in the NFL, a league with Mark Davis, Daniel Snyder, the Fords ... there are far worse and it's too early in their career to put them very far down the list. If this regime doesn't work out, that would drop them. They still have a lot to prove. But this FO looks pretty solid so far.

Yeah, um, no. Go back and look again. Gruden had five wins in his third year and a bunch of the others didn't win in their third season either.

Some of both, actually. A lot of times consistency allows management to win. Would you keep a guy who went 1-13, 5-9 and 6-8? You would if you're PIttsburgh and that meant they kept Chuck Noll. Yeah, an owner ought to be looking at what the front office is doing. And if the GM is obviously out of his depth or the coach loses the locker room, yeah, you throw 'em out. But equally, improvement sometimes doesn't immediately show up as wins. Sometimes you have to wait and figure if they're not doing the job, or if they're headed towards a tipping point but just haven't reached it yet. Look at Garrett. I'm no huge fan, but I don't think he's the problem in Dallas. 5-3, 8-8, 8-8, and 8-8. And since then three out of five years with double-digit wins.

Maybe, maybe not, but there's no particular reason to think they actually will be worse than 6-10 next year. Marty Schottenheimer in San Diego went 8-8 and then 4-12 his first two years and then won 12 and 14 games in two of the next three seasons. Mike Shanahan's first three years in Washington were 6-10, 5-11 and 10-6, which is pretty damn good for that toxic environment. Dick Vermeil's first two years in St. Louis he went 5-11 and then 4-10, and then his third year was 13-3. Holmgren in Seattle went 9-7 and then 6-10. Mike freakin' Holmgren. Went 9-7 and then 6-10. Why do those numbers seem so familiar to me? Sean Payton went 10-6 and then 7-9 in his first two years with the Saints. The current Raiders coach, when in Tampa, went 12-4 and then plummeted to 7-9. And then 5-11 in his third year. He did pretty well in Tampa as I recall, didn't he? Sam Wyche went 8-8 and then 7-9 in Cincy before having two seasons where he won ten and then 12 games. Wayne Fontes was brought in mid-year and went 2-3, and then kept on. HIs first two full years he went 7-9 and then 6-10 and then had a 12 and two 10-win seasons, damn good in Detroit. Jim Fassel in NY went 10-6 and then 8-8 and then 7-9 and then in the next four years had a 12 and a 10 win season. Depending on how you count it, Jason Garrett went 5-3 his first year and then 8-8 three straight times. He didn't do as well as he'd done his first year till his fifth. I'm just looking down the list of head coaches and remembering guys who had a turnaround. It isn't all that unusual. And I'm far from finished with the list, as my point is made.

No.

He actually was. Right from the beginning he was getting into the backfield. Yes, he got better as time passed, but he was good right from the beginning. Nobody had to double the other DT, Larry Triplett. Kyle was very quickly the guy they double-teamed on that line, despite Schobel being a good - not great but good - pass rusher. No, rookie Phillips wasn't as good as a rookie Kyle. But I'm more positive about Phillips than most. He was good early in the season.

I know you don't want to hear it, but the major reason we had a bad run game last year wasn't the running backs. It was problems at OL and the complete lack of respect teams felt they could give to our passing game. I think you're right we'll draft one. I doubt it's earlier than the 3rd, perhaps even later. We'll see.

We don't have major needs as we did last year. No absolute holes. But I'm with most that the positions that most need an upgrade are just in line with what this draft offers in the top ten, DT and pass-rushing DE. After that, TE, maybe, but I don't see us going there in the first. And there are plenty of positions where we lack talented depth, such as LB. Brady was Brady before Gronk, and he'll be Brady till he retires. Yeah, Gronk was a major help, but he didn't even come close to making Brady. The Pats, with Brady at QB, had three championships before they drafted Gronk.

IMO you're calling it a year or more early. The OL will take a long time to gel. Allen is still very young and needs more development. I expect the defense to be very good again. But this is a young team.

I don't think that's all that clear. The Jets are the one team that had the most clear ranking, as they told absolutely everything to Albert Greer. Every other team has leaks of varying degrees of believability. We know the Jets had Allen #4. And Darnold #1. They would have picked Darnold if they'd had the #1 pick and were shocked that Cleveland didn't do so. https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/05/16/new-york-jets-sam-darnold-2018-draft "When the Jets dealt up to the No. 3 spot in the draft in March, they’d identified three quarterbacks—Darnold, Mayfield, and UCLA’s Josh Rosen—they were good with." ... and ... "APRIL 8, 2018 "The final set of draft meetings is underway, and it’s time for scouts to present their background on players. Three stand out on the Jamal Adams level: Darnold, Mayfield and Barkley. Zach Truty, the national scout, has Mayfield. Shields, the area scout, has Darnold, Allen and Rosen. He’s written up 320 players in the 2018 draft cycle, but spent about 20-25% of his time over the last year on those three. "The quarterback the Jets believe they won’t get stands out to everyone in the room, along with the quarterback they would wind up never having a shot at. "The grading scale goes to 9. Truty’s report marks Mayfield a perfect 9—exceedingly uncommon—as a teammate, leader and worker, but has lower grades elsewhere on him. Shields has Darnold in the 8s across the board—in football character, family background, personal character, off-field, work ethic, coachability, accountability, leader by example, vocal leader, physical toughness and mental toughness."

Yup. The last three weeks or so there were a ton of leaks that Allen would be the pick. And yet the guy they really wanted ... not a word got out. A classic bit of draft misinfo.

Was just coming back to this. The Player's Union would self-immolate. Teams're supposed to spend 89% in cash on players (over a 4 year period yadda yadda yadda but that's the bottom line) ... and you're going to change that so they could sell the unspent money instead?

Either way, under either system, Team A gets what it wants or doesn't. Under your system they are more likely to get what they want due to having yet more competitive advantage over poorly-run Team 2 whose general manager has put himself under yet more pressure with poor cap management than poor cap management produces now. The effect on parity is that Team A has yet another method of exchange to trade for what they need. The smarter team gets the bigger advantage. The dumber team gets more pressure on them from the results of their decision-making and is more easily forced into making decisions. Bad teams will be forced to sell competitive advantage in terms of players on the field for the ability to mitigate their poor financial decision-making. That's the opposite of parity. Don't fix what ain't broken. The NFL is very much not broken and particularly so in terms of the salary cap.

That wouldn't create parity. Just the opposite, it would allow the rich to get even richer. And making things more interesting isn't a good reason for anything. That's essentially change for change's sake, which isn't something you should do for something that is a wild wild success.

That's a fact, not a problem. Oh, the reason he lost snaps as the season went on was that he was not effective? I didn't realize that. But if that's a fact as you're presenting it here, then you'll be able to link to where Beane or McDermott said that. Otherwise - and we both know you won't be able to find anything like that - what you've got there is a guess that fits your preconceptions. He lost snaps as the season went on? Yeah? Here's how his week-by-week snap percentage looked. 48% 66% 36% 50% 43% 46% 39% 53% 47% 39% 44% 49% 46% 53% 47% 44% Is that what it looks like when a guy loses snaps as the season goes on? In four of his last five games he averages more snaps than he did over the year? Or were you just completely making that up? Yeah, precisely. His snaps went up and down week to week, probably depending on formations and game situations, and they didn't go down as the season went on. He was brought in to be a two-down guy. He'd been one in Carolina, under McDermott. He was under McDermott for four years and in two of those four he was below 50%. And the other two years he was at 59% and 65%. They knew what they were getting. He's doing just what they expected, just what they wanted. Yes, PFF tends to grade guys who aren't pass rush types average. That's fine. But clearly this is what McD wanted and knew very well enough to expect. And you may well be not that sure ... but how you feel ain't really all that important. How McDermott feels, that's the key. And judging by the fact that the defense took another major step up, he likely feels pretty good about it.

People have been talking for ages about how we had the largest amount of money available in 2020, and I kept cautioning that that was more a function of not having many guys under contract for 2020. I warned that that would change. And it has. It had adjusted itself to not being #1, but instead being top five, as you've noted here. But it's kept going. Right now, we're 10th, according to Spotrac. Still significantly above average, but not so much so as we used to be. We're around $11 mill below the top five at this point, but about $20 mill above average. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2020/ In any case, I wanted to post that caveat, but that was a great post. I think you're right on target.

In answer to your question, no, it doesn't need to be reiterated how many horrible huge contract we've handed out that made no sense. Reiterated, no. Argued convincingly for the very first time, yes. This administration has handed out very few big contracts. Lotulelei is a good example, but of the exact opposite of what you're arguing. He's not making huge bucks. He's tied for 14th for average DT salaries. And he's doing the job they brought him in for very well. He's part of the reason they were a very good defense last year. They're not in a bind. Or not more so than any other GM. Yeah, they committed very few resources to the offense last year and that showed, which they expected and didn't worry about, as they knew it was a rebuilding year. They also got the cap situation in excellent shape, expecting to be able to commit a lot of resources to the offense this year, and they've done so. The plan is moving ahead just as they expected. They're bringing in medium- and low-priced FAs, which has always been their plan, as they've made it very very clear that they expect to get their impact guys through the draft. You're underestimating Bills fans, who see this. They've upgraded the talent a lot. They've got the offense up to where an offense which had major gaps and holes last year doesn't really this year. Depending on how Allen develops, the offense has every chance to be functional this year, when it really wasn't last year so early in the rebuild and with the awful cap situation. That's big.