Thurman#1

Exactly. Nicely put.

Not many. But nearly all of them have first round picks over the next five or six years. That's what the next three or four drafts are for. And he's likely to need someone to clean the snow off his spot on the bench more than blockers and receivers. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The Eagles don't win that Super Bowl without having spent most of the season riding Wentz.

Yup. And he does this with five different guys with different teams and different agendas. One guy smoke-screening gets swallowed up by the others. Yeah, maybe one guy wants everyone to stay away from Darnold. The others know their teams aren't involved. Involving a lot of guys levels things out. And yes, McGinn is very good.

Picking an RB this early is weird but defensible because of how good Barkley is. Trading up to do so would all but be evidence of traumatic brain injury. And they don't have to be picking the third QB. They could be very strongly convinced that one of the top two teams isn't going QB. They could also be interested primarily in one QB who they think fits their system, who they are convinced the top two teams value less highly. Mayfield, maybe, or even Rosen if they think the top two go Darold and Allen. I think they're not smoke-screening because smoke-screening this because doing so would be like pretending you're going to date Aileen Wuornos over Kate Upton. Not worth the breath.

Is it contradictory? I haven't gone back and checked, but I think the first story said that they had called, and the second story said they haven't had "discussions," correct? I could definitely be wrong but that's what I thought I read.

In this case, you get correct. Virtually all the evidence points that way.

Shaw, this isn't a semantic discussion. It's cut and dried. Yeah, "rebuild" has a million levels and variations and extents. "Total," on the other hand, is a very unambiguous word. There's no way to look at it that does NOT have it mean "absolute," "complete," and "unequivocal." That's what the word means. It doesn't mean dump everyone good, though. It means dump everyone good and getting older. Most particularly if they're expensive. The general rule is 29 or 30 or so, especially at positions where guys don't last. Particularly the athletic positions like CB, RB, WR, speed LBs, etc. Your team will suck for a while. In probably 80% or more of cases it will be three years or more. Guys getting older will be just old enough to be jettisoned when the good years get here. Less than total is partial. And that's what this is, a partial rebuild. Again, if it weren't, you just wouldn't keep Shady. He'll get you a win or two, he'll cost a lot of money and he'll be gone by the time the team will have a chance to win. Keeping him has no upside in a total rebuild. You trade him for picks. Absolutely Incognito too. He'll be used up three years from now, and you don't re-sign Kyle Williams. He's good, and he's old and reasonably expensive. You also don't do a total rebuild in your second year as GM. You do it going in. It's too painful and too long-lasting. You don't want your owner thinking after your fourth year, "Gee, he hasn't gotten things together yet." And even the patient owners think that after four years these days. You do it coming in. And yeah, total rebuilds are rare. But the Cleveland case is a very recent one that makes it clear that this happens. One win in two years. Immensely painful for the fanbase. But potentially extremely lucrative. So painful that the owner couldn't stay the course with that GM. That's the reason you don't do it in your second year as GM. Even owners who say they understand it will be painful and long-lasting often run out of patience.

He was saying $45 mill because they can't count Wood's dead money yet, until he officially retires. Wood's dead cap hit will be $10.3 mill, $2 or $3 mill of which can be delayed till next year.

Pittsburgh took like two decades of using that strategy before they were lucky enough to be able to get Roethlisberger. From when they lost Bradshaw to where they were finally lucky enough to get Roethlisberger at #11 they made do with awful QBs because they never had good enough picks to get a good QB. All because they were pretty consistently good but with QBs like Slash and McDonnell who weren't good enough to win titles. Without the luck to get Roethlisberger (and the Bills trying to trade above them but - DOH! - deciding it was too expensive) they'd still be the consistently good team that never wins titles. Maybe the Bills should have thrown worry about value to the winds and just traded up to get Roethlisberger. The NFL might look a lot different to Bills fans if they had done that. Which has a parallel to this year, by the way.

The trade value chart is a guide. But not an absolute. Teams that have the catbird seat get better deals. Gettelman is in an absolutely enviable situation now, with probably four teams desperate to get that pick and possibly feeling that if they don't get that specific pick there's no good fallback position. He's likely to do a lot better than the chart says.

Yeah, people who remember the Kelly years have a very different POV. I personally remember the Simpson years as well. Guys too young to remember often tended to make their goal the playoffs. That has always seemed to me a distraction. The goal should always be sustained excellence and consistently being good enough to compete for a championship. I think all fans will begin to appreciate that again as we go forward. I like Beane. I have faith in him. But I don't have much faith that there will be a particularly right call in this case. The odds of a major success went down quite a bit when the Jets made that move, IMHO. Love your name, by the way. I had the good fortune to read the book before seeing the movie. The book was even better. I'm a major Goldman fan.

Yeah, you're saying what's going to happen with nothing but opinion to back it up, and even being stupid enough to use the word "guarantee" on something you have absolutely no power over. I got it. And it was, is and will be stupid to confuse opinion with fact as you are doing here.

It's not a total rebuild. I wish it were and that it had happened last year, but it's not. If it were, they'd cut/trade McCoy. They wouldn't have re-signed Kyle Williams. They'd cut/trade Incognito. Total rebuilds essentially mean an acceptance that you're going to suck for an absolute minimum of two years and probably three. You dump ALL your guys over 29 or 30 because by the time you're any good they'll be too old. This isn't a total rebuild. It just isn't. If they had been going to do that, they'd have done it last year and got a high pick this year in the QB-rich draft. But yeah, it's a partial rebuild. One that started last year. And this in no way means they aren't going to trade up. A lot of the point of rebuilds - most especially total rebuilds but really all rebuilds - is to get to a place where you can get your franchise QB. Yes, they're going to rebuild primarily though not entirely through the draft, not because it's a rebuild but because they've said from minute one that that's their philosophy. But trading up for a QB absolutely is building through the draft. The most important part of building through the draft if you haven't got a franchise QB on the roster. Yeah, any GM hates to lose picks. But getting a franchise QB would allay that pain.

Fair enough. Everybody's got an opinion and they're all worth more or less the same. You ask an interesting question. Should the Bills trade the two 1sts this year and then next year's as well. I'd do that in a heartbeat. IMHO it's going to cost more, as the Jets set up a bidding war with the Giants the fat and happy winners. And I'd give more too. There's a limit, but it's a lot closer to all our top three round picks this year and next year's first as well than just the three firsts. We've got to get a quarterback, even if the cost sets us back a year or two. My opinion, always assuming Beane and McDermott like a guy who's available there a lot. Which I think they do.

Trubitsky says hi. He might well have sat the whole year if Glennon had been any good. Mahomes too. These days you can do that. Garrett got $30 mill at the #1 pick last year. $30 mill over 4 years. That's $7.5 mill per year. You can absolutely sit a guy making that if you think that's in his long-term best interest in becoming an excellent player.

The article says (and there are such things as smoke screens, but let's assume they're being honest) they're committed to to Tannehill ... as starter ... for next year. That wouldn't prevent them from taking a QB early.

The Jets strategy may cause them problems the next two to three years. Us using that strategy would mean no franchise QB which would mean lots of 7-9 or 8-8 seasons until we get one, which could be a decade if we're very unlucky. If they absolutely can't get one this year, trade back for picks next year and plan to draft somebody then. We had a pretty good roster except for QB in Nix's last year and Whaley's first. What did it get us?

Completion percentage is an awful stat to pick if you're only going to look at one stat. In any case, he'll get an honest chance. Hopefully against one of the top few rookies.

Yeah, as I said, a few nuts and fruitcakes will take nearly any position. I'm sure there are a few people. But no, getting to 3 absolutely would not have been meaningless. Same as the Jets just put us in an extremely difficult position, we'd have done the same if we'd been the ones moving up. Say the Browns go Darnold and the Giants Rosen or Mayfield. Would it have been useless to move to #3 early if as you suggest they think those are the three guys they want? Now say the Jets pick the third of those three. Still useless? This hurt us. Now it could still turn out OK, if say the Bills want Rosen or Mayfield and the Giants go RB and the Jets pick Allen. But if that's how it's going, the Giants are likely to get a major offer. What do we do if the Browns go Darnold and we call the Giants and they say, "Yeah, Arizona just offered us their next three 1sts and a 2nd this year. Can you beat that?" Or if they say, "Listen, the Jets just offered us the #3 pick so we can get the guy we want anyway, as well as their 1st next year. You'll have to pretty much do a Pacman Jones at a strip club deal here and make it rain to beat that offer. Whatcha got?" This hurts. It restricts our options and puts the Giants in the catbird seat, probably making it even more expensive to get there if that's where we need to go.

10% chance, maybe. Can't imagine it being too too much higher than that. They're a financially conservative team. Conservative in cap money and conservative in pick accumulation. And also a team that is building for the future, for consistent excellence. This move would not be financially conservative and it would be valuing this year over the future. It just doesn't fit the M.O. they've established. Assuming they don't find anyone in the draft they like, I could imagine them bringing in another cheapish vet. An injury replacement guy if they really don't want to see Peterman start yet or ever. Foles would cost a lot of draft capital in the trade unless something changes. If they can't get a guy they want this year, they"re likely to be trading back to try to bank some picks next year to try to draft their guy then.

No more ridiculous than any other educated guess. And that isn't a blue-sky guess. It's a fairly reasonable one. Myself, I wouldn't go that far. It's not impossible. But it just became much much much more unlikely. This was bad news for the Bills. Where are all the people who want him fired? A few nuts and fruitcakes, I would guess, but basically nobody. But yeah, this hurt bad.

That's correct. We don't know squat. Squat means nothing. We don't know nothing. Correct. It's certainly true that we don't know everything. Beane doesn't either, of course. Nor does anyone, unless you're a religious person and believe in an all-knowing God. Beane does know more than us. But we know plenty enough to make educated guesses. I've thought about that, and it's possible either way. Certainly if given a chance, they would have leveraged us. But some offers come with "look, it's a yes or no offer. You have to give us an answer now. If you want to leverage the offer we won't even give it to you. Say no and the offer's off the table" ground rules. I haven't a clue, but it's certainly possible that they didn't get a chance to bounce it off us.

That carries about as much weight as my barber guaranteeing me a shot at Kate Upton.

The second pick is still there. But for all we know the Giants have decided to use it. The Jets waiting to do the same move later wouldn't have made things any easier. Only a bit more surprising. This trade gives the Giants a lot of time to play teams off against each other. If the #2 pick is even available, this drives the price up, making any team wanting the QB of their choice aware that they absolutely must have that one pick, they can't wait for #3 or #4 or later. This may well have OBD saying, "Jeez, let's look at Mayfield again. Can't see any way to get Rosen, or at least without spending an absolute king's ransom."