Thurman#1

Who is Mel? He's one of the better guys working in a field whose goal - matching guess to pick for 32 straight picks or even getting say 12 out of 32 correct is virtually impossible without having team sources actually telling you their pick. You love him or you hate him but he's interesting and well-informed and maybe obsessive and that's why he's still around.

A member of the media guesses that the coach may not know the pick ... and that's the fuss?

Whew. I'd been holding my breath. Now I can finally relax.

Every team can offer 3 firsts. Once the draft opens, every team can trade their 2020 picks. So every team could trade their 2018, 2019 and 2020 firsts. No other team could offer four 1sts, though, outside of the Browns and the Pats.

IMO, that's not the point at all. They didn't give up too much for Griffin III. They picked the wrong guy. You've got to be right, but if they had been, what they paid would have been long forgotten. Although I totally agree with you that they horribly bollixed up the Cousins situation. Every team has far more needs than just a starting QB. Including the 2017 Eagles who traded for Wentz anyway. And day one means ****. Was Drew Brees a bad QB because he didn't play the first year? Brett Favre because he didn't play the first year? Tom Brady because he didn't play the first year? Aaron Rodgers because he didn't play the first year? I could go on. Ideally, yeah, your guy would be ready. But that isn't even close to the most important thing. The most important thing is simply this ... is he going to be a franchise QB, a top ten or twelve QB?

We'll see. It may well be the wrong choice. I don't think so. It's a reasonable choice, IMO But Eli has been up and down his whole career. It's not just the last couple of years he's had problems. It's when he's in a bad situation, which he certainly was last year. The Giants were 26th in running and averaged 3.9 YPC. Teams could focus on stopping Eli and it got a lot easier with Beckham out. Their OL had some serious weaknesses. And Eli won't turn 38 till January. He's still a bit younger than aging generally hits most QBs. This is a reasonable choice. Either way. When you have a QB like Eli, you're in a great position. It's fairly unusual. Making taking advantage of it your priority is a very reasonable way to go about things. Plenty of non-QB rookies, particularly first and second rounders, play very well very early. Comparing Eli and Tyrod ... you left me a bit speechless there for a second. There's no comparison. Eli has two Lombardis. That's why it's reasonable to think he might play better in the next couple of years. Gettleman is on record as saying he thinks they can get two more good years out of Eli. Maybe he's wrong about that, but with full access to the coaching staff he has a lot more info on the situation than we do. And if he's right, he might well be doing the right thing to take the chance of working towards a title in the next few years (and maybe bringing in someone like a Lauletta and developing him). I wouldn't do it myself. I'd go QB early. But either way is reasonable.

Yeah, the Falcons should never have drafted Favre and the Packers should never have traded for him in hopes they could fix his accuracy. His college career at Southern Miss: 1987 79/194, 40.7% for 1264 yards 6.5 YPA, 15 TDs and 13 INTs 1988 178/319, 55.8% for 2271 yards, 7.1 YPA, 16 TDs and 5 INTs 1989 206/381, 54.1% for 2588 yards, 6.8 YPA, 14 TDs and 10 INTs 1990 150/275 54.5% for 1572 yards, 5.7 YPA, 7 TDs and 6 INTs 1992 Green Bay 302/471, 64.1% for 3227 yards, 18 TDs and 13 INTs ... ... as a 2nd year NFL player The point should be something along the lines of make sure you respect both the pluses and minuses and without emotion put in the work to figure out if your guy can improve in accuracy and the other important measures of being a good QB. And you'd better be right.

Good point.

Overhyped? Not even close. The Super Bowl or the World Cup get a ton more hype. Overrated? Hmm. Maybe the brackets pick in the World Cup is close. But maybe yeah. What it really is is over-extended. Should never have been moved to early April. Moving it back allows more hype but allows teams less time with their rookies having the playbook. It hurts the teams and it's fricking boring. Move it back to early April.

You're using "&" as "other than"? Is that what you're doing here? Not sure at all. Is that what you mean? And do you mean the Bills also do it? Do you mean the other team trades above the Bills? Sorry, I'm not clear on this at all. I think your headline threw me off.

I disagree with you pretty strongly about the Giants not wanting just one of a group. Of course if you're at #2 you"re not thinking that you want one of a group of five or so guys. But particularly if the Giants are sticking with Eli for the next couple of years or so in hopes of winning a championship they are very likely to end up trading back and thinking exactly that way. Yeah, the Browns aren't likely to pick Barkley and hope one guy falls to them. That's not because the method is flawed. It's because they have one priority, quarterback, which far outweighs any other need. So yeah, for three reasons, they're not likely to go RB first, since QB is their need that far overshadows any other need, and also because they're pretty likely to get Barkley at #4 anyway, and because they already have a ton of extra picks. The Giants do NOT have a ton of extra picks, and if they want to win a title in the short run on a tight salary cap, they absolutely need to fill holes in the draft with guys likely to play soon and well. That means they need extra picks in the early rounds this year and next. As for who they would pick at #5 or #6 or #7 if they trade down, yeah, they likely have them ranked in order, but they also likely have a group of three guys that they would be happy to get. There are in fact three or four real difference makers who will likely go around there, Chubb, Quenton Nelson and Barkley. All three are at positions of need and all three are thought of as terrific prospects, guys who will be dominant, and all three at positions the Giants have built their teams around historically, front seven pass rushers, tough OLs (pundits are comparing Quenton Nelson to Hutchinson!!!) and runners to take the pressure off the QB. Any of these guys are likely to make whoever gets them very happy indeed, and the Giants would then also be able to get some excellent extra picks. When you want to win now, in a short window, and you're looking at how the Giants played last year, you're not looking for one guy to change your team from a 3-win team to a Super Bowl champion quickly. You need to fill holes. And with good players. I"m not 100% convinced they won't go QB at #2. My guess is that if Darnold (I assume that's who they want) is there, that's what they do unless absolutely overwhelmed by an offer, but if their desired QB is not there, they might easily trade back depending on getting a good enough offer. There are three or four dominant non-QBs likely to go there and the Giants could easily have a group of guys they would be happy to get any of. I think the question is very likely to indeed be exactly that ... will the Bills pay the price the Giants want?

No particular reason the Giants would want only #4. Probably #5 or #6, perhaps even #7 might be fine for them, enough to get one of Chubb, Barkley, Quenton Nelson or Minkah Fitzpatrick, or Ward or whoever. IMO the reason they didn't accept the three 1sts (assuming the rumor is true) could just as easily be that they think they can get a bit more as that they don't want to trade below 4th. Bucky Brooks has an article out now about why the Giants won't go QB. It's convincing. Not slam-dunk of course, but it makes a ton of sense. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000927745/article/aaron-rodgers-deserves-better-giants-wont-take-a-qb-at-no-2 My guess is that a tradeup to #2 is most likely, #5 next, and #4 third most likely. I'd put #6 higher but I feel the top three QBs and maybe even the top four are gone by #5.

And that's a bad thing for team building in the long run? Also, it's pretty decent odds that this year's team will be Bad O line + Rookie QB on the bench + McCarron on the field.

Washington gave up 3 firsts to get RGIII. And a bit more. Would've been a terrific trade if Griffin had been a good QB. It's not only Andrew Lucks for whom you give up that kind of a bounty.

They might simply think that they can get a better offer, either from the Bills on draft day or someone else. And they might be right.

More a reflection of how well Flutie played the PR game. Many fans really saw it as one or the other you can't like both. And the easy stereotype of Johnson was the surfer boy. Didn't matter that that really didn't fit who he was. Pretty sad to be so desperate to make your point you're willing to pretend that's what happened. You're looking more and more like a troll rather than a poster here.

Whiffing on the QB will kill a GM's career whether it's at #1 or #4. Whiffing on an RB, not so much. That's how to establish the priority.

That's not the reason we will take a QB in the first, assuming we do, as is very likely. That only comes into play in roughly picks 28 - 40. Yeah, there's some reason for teams to trade up there if they're really confident he's their guy. But if the Bils trade up for Rudolph, it won't be because they're worried about the 5th year, IMO, it'll be because they're worried about him being gone later in the draft.

I really liked Flutie in his first year here. After that his arm seemed to go and he couldn't throw the deep outs anymore and teams were able to strangle him by not covering the routes he could no longer throw. It wasn't Flutie who won those games. It was the Buffalo Bills. That's how it always is. Wins are a team stat. And part of winning is also who you beat. The teams we beat with Flutie starting were not exactly a murderer's row. 1999 (Bills had the16th best scoring offense, 2nd best defensive scoring allowed) Indy 13-3 (loss) Jets 8-8 (win, loss) Philly 5-11 (win) Miami 9-7 (win, win) Pitt 6-10 (win) Oak 8-8 (loss) Seattle 9-7 (loss) Balt 8-8 (win) Wash 10-6 (win) New Eng 8-8 (win, win) NYG 7-9 (loss) Ariz 6-10 (win) 2000 (Bills had the 20th best scoring offense, 18th best defensive scoring allowed. That was a terrific defense.) Minny 11-5 (loss) Jets 9-7 (win) Patriots 5-11 (win) Bears 5-11 (win) Seattle 6-10 (win) Not that Johnson was a great QB either. But he was a bit better than Flutie after the Dougster's arm went downhill.

Well, of course the player may need to learn the game fully by making and learning from rookie mistakes. Just not necessarily in their rookie year. Did Tom Brady need to make his rookie mistakes in his rookie year in order to learn the game fully? Drew Brees? Aaron Rodgers? All three, the best in the game took their rookie years off. Some guys don't necessarily need a year off. Some teams might need their young guy to play. But it wouldn't hurt anyone to take a year off. Next year's version of FAs like Peyton Manning or Cousins are entirely imaginary. They don't exist in reality. They'll be guys like Foles and Brissett, Cutler if he hasn't retired, Yates, Osweiler, EJ Manuel. Bryce Petty, maybe. Siemian. Hundley. If you're really lucky and the Ravens draft someone early this year and he pays off, maybe Flacco might be available. Those are next year's versions of Peyton Manning or Cousins. Guys like those two come around very very occasionally. It's not a mistake you had to go back six years to find your second example, Manning.

Till 2020. Depends who it is, but this is a young regime filled with guys who are capable of tuning out fan mob reaction, which is a good thing. They'll manage expectations as well as they can and they'll deal with negativity. Sure, some fans will panic. Most Bills fans are reasonable people and they know this year doesn't look like a good one anyway. McCarron's a guy who will make things interesting and give us reasonable chances to win, IMO.

The year before they went 16-0. With Cassel 11-5 against a really really easy schedule. They're not dead in the water without his royal highness but they're not the same team. But yeah, with Garoppolo they might not have missed too too much. It was great to see the back of him.

Solder's injury history? His injury history is that he's played 15 or 16 games a year in all but one of his seven seasons. The reason he got that contract is simple. He's an excellent left tackle, one of the top five or so in the league. He's not overpaid. And if you bring in a rookie, it will take time to get him up to speed, hopefully a lot of time, but LT is a very tough position to really get the technicalities of. They don't have the cap space to keep Solder? True. But that's a result of other decisions and other priorities. They prioritized other things than keeping their QB healthy. And more to the point, as I said it's beside the point whether or not he is overpaid. The question is whether he'll be missed. He will. Salary has nothing to do with that. The Pats will regress at LT, and likely - and hopefully - that means Brady will be beaten more consistently, and often when he doesn't expect it. Scarnecchia is very good, as I said, so if you're lucky you won't miss him too too much. But yeah, you'll miss him. Agreed that the Butler decision was strange. Weird things going on your way.

Can't remember who, but it was someone who had sources. But this close to the draft, sometimes the sources are smoke-screening or adrenaline- and confirmation-bias-blinded. Rosen could fall but it is nowhere as sure as people here seem to think.

Sure. But the odds are probably a good deal better than even that at #6, you can no longer get Mayfield or Rosen. Heh heh.