Thurman#1

Yeah, you're right. But Wentz and Goff also weren't the best players in the draft their year. Laremy Tunsil was on most boards as the best player that year. Bosa too. Here's Gil Brandt's top 100 that year. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000652753/article/hot-100-40-laremy-tunsil-is-top-prospect-in-2016-nfl-draft Wentz is #7 and Goff #8. PFF had Bosa #1, Goff #4 and Wentz #14. Think the Eagles and Rams are just full of remorse that they didn't pick the higher rated Tunsil, Jalen Ramsey, Zeke Elliott, Bosa, Myles Jack before his injury and DeForest Buckner. I bet they don't wake up at night regretting they traded up for the #7 and #8 players.

Brady isn't $15 mill per year. Check Spotrac. It's $20.5 mill per year. His signing bonus was $28 mill. And yeah, $20.5 mill is still a major break off what he could get if he wanted, but it's not some miniscule amount. And those moves are mostly not so much how he wanted to build the team (though it may fit perfectly with the fiscally conservative model he has talked about from day one), it was a guy being dropped onto a team that was in terrible cap shape, particularly for a team that simply wasn't very good. Whaley trashed the cap. For a team that wasn't very good and a seriously middling roster. And we now know that Beane promised the Pegulas he would get rid of all the cap problems within two years. Which he appears to have done. That's the $46 mill in dead cap. I love it. What they're doing simply fits in with the traditional way of building a good team, the way the smart teams have used, the way the worse teams have never had the patience to stick with. You get in good cap shape. You build mostly through the draft, supplementing and filling holes with low- to mid-priced FAs. You maximize the number of picks by using arbitrage opportunities, by trading back, by focusing on the rules for comp picks and maximizing the number of those you get. And still that's not enough, because you've got to get a good coach, get the GM and coach on the same page, do a good job with your scouting, get football people on the player personnel side, and nobody else. Then once you've got a good group you have to take advantage of the many benefits of keeping one system in place for a long time, the benefits of stability of system and scheme. And then you hang in there for what might be a while. You don't let short term thinking derail your long-term movement towards your long-term goals. You don't overreact to the inevitable bumps along the way. You trust the process. Do all that and if you have the right guys in charge (and you get a quarterback somehow) you might start to be consistently in the mix for a championship. That's not some new game plan based on the rookie salaries. It's how to run a great team, has been for decades. Not that you're wrong about rookie salaries, you're right. It has it's effect, it is something good teams keep in mind. But it doesn't change the way the good teams work very much.

Again, the negative story didn't say we didn't contact them. It said there had been no "discussions." There is room for all three stories to be correct.

Explain? Be glad to. Nix presided over a near-complete rebuild. That means you're going to lose for a while. A very small percentage of teams in that position do well in the third year but probably 75% still suck. It generally takes three years of suckage to get past the effects of a complete rebuild. Hope that makes it clear. During those three years Nix put together a roster that in the fourth year and fifth years was a very strong defence with almost all Nix players. The whole roster was really pretty decent when he left. With one major, painful exception at QB, an exception that is a lot of the reason that Buddy can't be considered very good overall. That and bringing in Whaley who turned out to be pretty terrible. QB and the new GM were the main things that tarnish his otherwise very solid legacy. His coaching decisions also had some problems but nobody wanted to come here at that point. He was handcuffed. Mario was very very good. Not quite worth the contract he signed, but not that far away either. Till that last year anyway.

While I think you make some good points here about how contracts have changed, I think you miss on the most important issue. You seem to be saying that to win the SB you've got to have a QB who's "exceptional value" because of the new rookie wage scale. OK, history doesn't back that up. The new wage scale started in 2011. Since then, how many QBs who were exceptional value were on the SB-winning teams. 2011 Giants - Eli was certainly not on his rookie contract 2012 Ravens - You can argue this one either way, it was Flacco's rookie contract but his fifth year. He was making pretty good money that year, though not what he would make after winning the SB and getting that new contract 2013 Seahawks - Wilson was on his rookie salary, absolutely exceptional value 2014 Patriots - Brady costs less than most terrific QBs but his salary isn't anywhere near rookie contract value 2015 Broncos - Manning was not cheap 2016 Pats - Brady again 2017 Eagles - Wentz was a terrific value That's two teams since the collective bargaining agreement that have won with a QB an exceptional value, though you can make an argument for Flacco too. This isn't the slam dunk you seem to be presenting it as. Yes, overall it matters. No it is certainly not crucial to have a QB on his rookie contract if you want to win the SB, even in these days. But it is crucial to have a QB playing at a very high level. Teams without that win SBs rarely, roughly 10% of all SBs.

The Vikings are indeed a good example but they're an example of why you need a QB. How many Super Bowl titles there? They overdrafted Bridgewater, and it might've worked if not for the injury, so now in their desperation they're wildly overpaying Cousins. And it's a good move. You've got to have a QB. How many SBs have the Bengals won? There are a lot of paths to very good. Very few to Super Bowl championships. Generally speaking you need one of the top ten or so best QBs.

Yeah. He talks about learning this (never overdraft anyone) in the Seattle and Green Bay scouting staffs. Green Bay already had their QB. Once you have your QB, yeah, don't overdraft. Seattle got lucky that nobody overdrafted Russell Wilson. If someone had been smart enough to do that, Seattle would never have won a SB.

QBASE: Trubisky has a 49% chance of busting. DeShaun Watson 56% Mahomes was best at 45.7% https://www.footballoutsiders.com/nfl-draft/2017/qbase-2017 Wentz 61% Goff 28% Prescott 54.9% James 61% Mariota 22% Huntley 36% Kind of interesting.

Not worth it. There's no such thing as tanking in football, but there are total rebuilds and we should have implemented one. Hah!!! I like that idea.

Take a look at the starters on that top five defense that Whaley "built." How many of the starters were brought in after Whaley became GM. Whaley became GM on May 16th, 2013. The 2014 team was the one that had the 4th ranked defense. Here were the starters and how they were brought to Buffalo: Jerry Hughes - Nix trade Mario Williams - Nix FA Marcell Dareus - Nix draft Nigel Bradham - Nix draft Stephon Gilmore - Nix draft Aaron Williams - Nix draft Da'Norris Searcy - Nix draft Robey (slot corner) - Nix UDFA Kyle Williams - pre-Nix draft Leodis McKelvin - pre-Nix draft Corey Graham - Whaley FA Brandon Spikes - Whaley FA Preston Brown - Whaley draft Whaley "built" that defense? Please.

Yeah, overall Nix was good. He put together a very good overall roster, with a lot of depth. He was responsible for bringing in almost everyone who formed the defense in Whaley's first year, a really really good defense. A good football guy who worked well with scouts. But his legacy was greatly hurt by the two things which lasted the longest and always looked to be what his reputation would be based on. He didn't find a QB and he brought in Whaley as his heir apparent. Both huge holes in his resume, and the two things that have had the longest lasting impact.

Cleveland already has a million picks this year. If you want to tempt them, you'd better be willing to give up picks from next year or even the year after when they don't have any yet. What Cleveland wouldn't want to do is have like eight guys in the first three rounds this year and then four years down the road have to say goodbye to half of them because they can't afford all of those contracts hitting together. Bet we're gonna see them try to space out the riches over the next few years. We can't be sure of anything, much less that a 2nd would be enough for the Giants to move back from #2 to #4. It could work. But I can also see plenty of reasons it might not. The Giants might decide they want to go QB unless they get an offer a lot sweeter than that one, for instance. We'd then be stuck at #4 without a trading partner and having given up both firsts in trade. I'm trying to think how that would feel, to be stuck at #4, and watch three QBs come off the board. My guess is that it would depend on which three were picked and that that comes down to too much reliance on luck for them to be happy with the situation. If the whole thing here worked out and we could get all the way to #2 for that price, I'd love it. I'm not as confident about that as you seem to be.

If they can't move up in the draft, maybe they settle for Rudolph or Jackson or Lauletta or someone like that. My bet, though is that if they can't move up then they trade one of their firsts back for a first next year. And maybe they trade a 2nd for a 2nd next year too. They prepare themselves to try to get a great QB next year rather than settle for a lesser one this year. And with a very easy schedule where even the good teams were mired in slumps when they played us and even with all that luck we only managed 9-7.

While I agree with the main point, I have to disagree with your use of the words "legitimate starters." They need more than that. Tyrod was a legitimate starter for us if that's what we wanted. Slightly below average but top 32. You need better than that. You need a guy in the top ten or twelve QBs. If one or two guys are there, you think, it's very much worth trading up even if the cost is exorbitant, over getting a legitimate starter.

Maybe McCarron was the best left over after the four or five best went. Cousins, Bridgewater, Keenum, Bradford all looked better, IMHO. After they were gone, yeah one of the best. I've been predicting McCown would be here for months, and now it looks like for once I might have been right, that they really wanted him until the Jets re-signed him. Agreed, maybe McCarron's not as bad as he might be. We don't really know. Could be a great pickup but I think it's fair to say he's a major question mark. Exactly right that this ranking misses the main point, which is that we're going to be trying to answer the long-term questions here in the draft. Yeah, the OP is missing the point. We're trying to upgrade in the draft. McCarron is a bridge guy who with maybe a lot of luck turns out to be more than that. We're fine. This team's goals are long-term.

I liked Darby a lot. There are some folks who think he doesn't fit the McD scheme, that he's mostly a man coverage guy. I'm not sure I buy that, but maybe. But the bottom line was that they needed trade bait for a QB and they needed to clear salary cap space and knew he was going to cost a ton to re-sign. The return was worth it, though it turned out Matthews was injured and was never right. That was a shame. Might they have gotten more this off-season? Maybe. If he hadn't fit this defense, maybe not. I've been constantly harping on about the salary cap and how it was causing us more problems than people were wanting to admit. Now it's out that Beane had promised the Pegulas to get it under control and handled by this year. That took a ton of moves, some of which hurt in the short term. This was one of them and we at least got a valuable pick out of it. Not to mention that the secondary was excellent last year without Darby.

If it was where he started, it certainly wasn't what he said. I wouldn't have disagreed if that had been what he said. In fact, I've long since agreed with that part of it. He went on about how it was completely unrealistic that any team would offer so much He's said, among other things, "I believe that they can’t trade 2021 still," and he said that after I'd first posted the Rosenthal quote. And this, "Who else can offer anything like that? I was thinking about putting this is a new thread but can anyone design a trade for another team to get to 2 that beats that offer using the Rich Hill hill chart? Who else can pay the 146.51 points that the Bills would give with 12, 22, 53, 65 and a 2nd next year?" And the answer to that of course is any team hot enough on one of these QBs that they want to add in high picks in future years. Kirby was quite correct when he said that this year we have much more than anyone. And certainly that's an advantage. But he went beyond saying that, insisting that if a kind of trade had never happened before it was unrealistic. But values given in trades increase year by year, especially for QBs among the first few picks. If that's what it costs, I'd certainly do it. IMHO, might even be more.

Agreed. With the proviso that something that might be unreasonable another year would be quite reasonable this year when you have a lot of picks and a lot of good QBs in the draft. He might have to spend more than we would like. He should still do it. There should be a limit. The limit should be quite a bit higher than most here think. As for the OP, I don't think he has goals for this year. I think his goals are long-term, that that's what the process means. You consistently work as hard as you can towards the long-term goals, understanding there'll be bumps, bruises, regressions, advances, disappointment and achievement. You don't worry about any of them too much. You just keep advancing towards those goals..

Just about to suggest that. He was a really good player.

I suppose there would be a few buttheads in the media. But most of them are smart enough to give time. Plenty of idiot fans would go crazy, maybe. Not most, but plenty. And all of that means .... absolutely nothing. Yeah, some buttheads would call for the new guy. Who cares? Most people get it. Things take time. You seem to assume that the minute the fans start yelling that McD is going to give in and put the guy on the field even if it's not in his best interest. There is absolutely zero reason to think so. McD has done exactly what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He has not worried about fan opinion. He has done what he thinks is best for the football team. Expect him to continue to do so. The last thing in the world that you want to do ... further back than raising botflies in your bedroom ... further back than staring at the sun for the whole length of an eclipse ... further back than mortgaging your house to buy scratch-off tickets ... further back than having sex when you're in a horror movie and then going outside alone ... further back than all those things is making decisions because some fans may get upset in the short term. No, man. This would be the opposite of a football stupid move. There are a few, but they're outweighed by the good reasons to do it.

Thanks, Bill. Yeah, I can't find anything that contradicts that. So teams could give up 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 picks, once the draft has started. And seeing how many FA deals were already completed before the FA period started, they could easily do deals with 2021 picks before the draft started and have them only become official when the draft started.

It "is maybe precise, but is highly inaccurate"? And what does your headline mean? From what I can figure you're supporting trading up, correct? I'm with you there. Hope they can get to #2, and I don't mind giving up an awful lot if they get a guy they really like.

No reason to think that the QB has to be ready to dominate right away. Just doesn't make sense. You get a QB in hopes he's good for 15 years. The first year is one when he's going to be learning. Was it a bad move to draft Peyton Manning? He wasn't very good the first year. Goff didnt exactly dominate his first year and neither did Wentz. Were they bad picks. Again, no reason to think they are going to insist on that. Having McCarron could well allow them to bench the guy for a year and give him a shot at figuring out the league and filling in his weaknesses. As for weaknesses, the OL has problems. The LBs too. QB, honestly. WR. How good will Zay Jones be this year? Who'll be the #3 or the slot? The DL looks acceptable now but Lotulelei is a bit of a question mark. Will he play great the way he started out or a bit flat as he has recently. How will Kyle's age affect him? How much of a pass rush are we likely to have? Too early to say right now, especially before the draft, but we'll have some holes. They seem to be headed in the right direction, though. Also seem to be the smartest FO we've had in a very long time.

Well, that's one guess. But there's no evidence of any kind whatsoever that says that you're correctly understanding what they mean by the process. And it's nonsense to put the responsibility for that much on one player. You can bet the brain trust won't do that. Wins and losses are team stats. If they do draft a QB there'll be no "forcing." If there's one thing that's not part of the process, "forcing" something to do something it can't do would be an excellent example. There's a very decent chance that even if we trade up we'll be seeing McCarron for a year or so. They've made it as clear as can be that their goal is long-term, to build a team that consistently is in play for titles. Another thing you don't do in the "process" is sabotage your long-term goals for short-term gain.

Bills moving up for Rosen would be one of the moves best calculated for long-term success. There are no guarantees, but they'd have a good chance of looking very very smart.