Thurman#1

It's not insignificant, but it can be very dependent on luck. For instance, the 2017 Bills put up one pick-six and two fumble returns for TDs. How? Well, they managed 17 INTs and 16 forced fumbles. Pretty good. How about the 2018 Bills? 16 INTs and 23 forced fumbles. But, wait, that's better, right? Yup. But how far you can run with an INT or a fumble is based largely on how many people are around you, who sees the fumble what yard-line it all happens at, which side recovers the fumble, and a ton of other stuff, most of it pretty luck-based.

12th to 7th as we did last year was 300 points difference in the standard chart. This year's trade would only be 250. It's also based on which team is desperate and how much so. A 2nd and 3rd would seem like really good value to me.

To save $1,030,000? On a team with $90 mill available under the cap, meaning we'd increase our available cap by, what, 1.3%? When he's the best backup? I don't even begin to see it.

The '90 Giants put up 205 yards passing (plus 3 sacks for 25 yards) and an INT while they also ran up 166 yards. That's not a passing problem.

The problem in those SBs was that teams ran on us like crazy. A CB would not have stopped that. And Kirby Jackson wasn't bad. What we really could have used was a nose tackle weighing more than 260. And you really loaded the dice in that list. Of course when you draft a safety he's not likely to become an excellent cornerback. He's a safety. Burris and Thomas Smith were pretty decent, actually.

Yup. Our offence needs to get better, as does our defence.

You have to see things realistically. Most of how good an offence is reflects the QB. You pack a great OL and skill players around Dak Prescott and you get a pretty good offence. Our offence will mostly be as good as Josh Allen. Now, I'm not saying you don't improve the offence. You do. And the defence too. And don't give me the narrative that Goff is good because of the coaching and the skill players around him. Sure, that helped. But he feels that the biggest difference is that he got better. Says he knew early on his second year he was going to be better and that McVay would get the credit but that he knew he had improved a ton and that was the biggest thing. Also says he's thrilled to have McVay and the extra offensive guys they brought in, but that he had simply improved. And he's right. He was a #1 pick for a reason. And Peyton Manning had the same kind of first year as Goff did, pretty bad with flashes of real potential. Peyton improved a ton in his second year and kept doing so. It wasn't the coaching and the skill players, though they did help. And yeah right now offence is predominant. That will change. This is a cyclical league. Attacking the QB will always be a huge part of the puzzle. The Pats are in the Super Bowl not just because of their offence but because their defence held KC's offence almost completely ineffective through the whole first half. Yup, offence is up right now. Defences will adjust and catch up. It the way the league works.

Yup. And the way the Bills handled him sure didn't help him develop. They found the scheme he was pretty good in ... and changed it totally in the offseason to one he was pretty bad in. And carefully kept him behind an OL for his time here that was even worse than the current one. Terrific LT and nobody else. LG to RT in those days made the last two years look like Pro Bowlers. Remember Mike Gandy, Melvin Fowler, Duke Preston, Chris Villarrial in his last year in the league and Terrance Pennington? Or Tutan Reyes? Or Mike Schneck? Those guys were blocking for JP the year he looked pretty decent.

Excellent coaching from Reid. Excellent. He's exactly right. People want to focus on that one play, but what about the entire first half?

Kiper's very good at what he does. He's stopped submitting his mocks to the Huddle Report, but back when he did he was in the top five for accuracy over a five year period. He's very good and he's got tons of connections in team personnel departments. And as Mayock has said, the thing he admires about Kiper is how early in the process if you ask him about some safety at a small school who's maybe going to be a 6th rounder if he's lucky, Kiper spits out an informed take. He watched absolute squatloads of video on these guys. And he's thoughtful. Think he's a blowhard? Fine, that's reasonable. To me, he looks like an obsessive who I'd love to spend time with when I'm in the mood to talk football. Very opinionated, but I like that, personally. There's room for all opinions. But he's very good at his job. Not that that means he knows who the Bills, or anyone, will pick. Nobody does. But he does generally have a reasonable take with the info at hand at the time.. Which is what you can expect in a good mock. The side that the BPA plays on. Agreed the O needs more work. But they'll fill in the major holes in FA.

Not quite. The team that gets him is only on the hook for $6.5 mill ... if they cut him before the first game. If they keep him, they start paying the whole $16 mill of his 2019 salary. I don't think it's likely somebody would pay that, especially as Bortles will likely be an FA one way or the other well before the season.

Yeah, it's complex and interesting. The original post was a bit hard to read and a bit misleading. From what I can figure out of Spotrac, $6.5 mill of his 2019 salary is guaranteed, so if we picked him up, we would be responsible for that guaranteed money. Jax is scheduled right now to have $16.5 mill of dead money if they cut him. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/jacksonville-jaguars/blake-bortles-14412/ Trading him to us would I think save them only that $6.5 mill. The other $10 mill (of Jax dead money) is just the amortization of the signing bonus they paid him, and that can't be transferred to any other team in any way. I may be missing something here but I think that's all they would save by trading him to us, $6.5 mill. And I can't see them giving much in picks to save that little. A 7th rounder maybe, if they're right up against the cap and desperate? And yeah, we could cut him right away if we traded for him. This would mean we wouldn't have to pay anymore than the $6.5 mill. His unguaranteed salary is $16 mill, so if you kept him for the season he would cost another $9.5 mill. Can't imagine them paying that for Blake Bortles. If I've missed something here, could somebody tell me? EDIT: Ah, I see Hapless agrees with me about it being only $6.5 mill saved for Jax. I feel a bit safer in the opinion now.

It's more than BPA to an extent. It's BPA as the controlling idea, the number one priority. Need plays a role, it's a very slight role, mostly in eliminating a few positions from consideration high ... or a positive role if you need a QB, though even then Beane moved to make draft slot and the value of the player they needed meet so they were getting what they felt was BPA at the slot they were drafting at. BPA is 90% of how he works. You keep saying there's a role, and nearly everyone agrees with you but you've been told a bunch of times that it's a slight role. Believe that. You'll get more evidence of that as Beane spends his free agency bucks. He'll fill the obvious holes with guys who can play at an NFL level, now that cap issues won't hold him back. That will leave him without any desperately urgent needs. This is what he's said, and you should expect him to live by it. This will then allow him to eliminate even further the importance of need in his draft.

Good grief. That is awful. Thanks for finding it. Pieces of that story made my skin crawl.

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.