Thurman#1

As far as that, you're very reasonable and I actually agree, except for the part about what people were thinking in December means. They've had more time to watch more tape and get a better picture of the guy. But I'm also hoping we're not looking at him.

That's true. Some rookie QBs play in year 1. However, I think if you look carefully, there are no requirements about that anywhere in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. And that's utter nonsense that the best way to learn is on the field. The best way to learn varies. Different guys have different needs. Sitting, learning, re-jiggering his throwing motion and attending his head coach's "quarterback camp" was the best thing that ever happened to Aaron Rodgers. Thinking there's one best solution for everybody is pure idiocy.

Don't see this affecting the draft in any way. Browns go QB at #1, probably, or at least #4 and plan on sitting him.

Mayock has him at #2. Is he smoke-screening for someone? It's pretty much the consensus. I personally hope we don't take him but I wouldn't rule anything out. Beane and McD are from the Panthers, who chose Newton first overall, a guy who was on absolutely nobody's radar before that final year. Newton threw six passes in two years at Florida then spent a year at that JUCO, and then his terrific year at Auburn. Not that I want Allen. But I don't think there's any way to rule him out. I agree they've been looking at the QBs in this draft for awhile, but I can't imagine they'd close their minds when another guy starts to look draft-worthy.

Yeah, QB is likely their #1 pick unless they really see the top three QBs as exactly equal, which is wildly unlikely.

Broncos are going to be very interested in trading up.

Sal became well-known out of nowhere exactly because he had sources inside the Bills organization. He posted scoop after scoop after scoop. Regimes have changed since then, but we still don't know if his source was someone close to the GM or just someone in the building somewhere who overheard things. In any case, he's pretty good. He's measured and pretty careful. Not a huge fan, but he's alright.

IMHO that's just what they did is pull a Nix. Nix got FAs, but not the high-level expensive guys, or at least not till his third year did he go after one. Nix was a financial conservative. So is this regime. These days you can unofficially sign guys early and you couldn't in Nix's day, but these guys are signing just the kind of guys that Nix did, and Nix built a really good roster ... minus the QB and the coach. Remember the last time anyone thought we had depth? It was during the Nix regime. I think they would've liked to get some of those QBs but knew they'd be too expensive and would destroy the cap. And I think Cousins is the only good risk-reward shot in the group. I would love to have gotten Keenum or Bridgewater, but I figured it would just be too expensive. My guess is that's what the Bills thought too. They probably did due diligence but heard that their guesses on trade price and signing price had been pretty reasonable. They figure McCarron is unproven, but that that made him an affordable bridge. That was the first improvement on Tyrod and the second is that McCarron fulfills their one requirement, that it has to be a guy who can play from the pocket. There's a higher chance that McCarron becomes a good QB who can play from the pocket than there was that Tyrod could become the same thing. An upgrade and a savings. Though he could easily turn out to be an unproductive guy, he fits the offense and could at least be a good mentor for a couple of years if he doesn't play well.

This isn't a big deal. You said it yourself. Money. Money is what drives most free agency decisions on destination from the player's sides, in probably 90% of all deals. The exceptions are generally when the offers are very close and there's no big financial difference or for guys who have already brought in tens of millions of bucks and now on their later contracts can afford to look at championships rather than just money. I think Beane's doing a terrific job. I'm not saying this to slight the Bills in any way. But picking the Bills over the Pats would not be any kind of a big deal unless the terms the Pats were offering were better.

Well then I’ll take the statement at face value and respond like this.... sure. Those guys had a role. Not nearly as big as the qb’s. Good talk. Not wiggling out of anything here. I do admit to holding back and not attacking the dumber part of his post. Is that wrong? Yeah, I agree that that part of his post, "Not nearly as big as the QBs," was wildly missing the point. You're right about that. I mean, it's stupid on the face of it. Did more credit for the Ravens 2000 Super Bowl winning season fall on the shoulders of Trent Dilfer because he was the quarterback than belonged to Ed Reed or Ray Lewis? You're right. The idea's just plain dumb. Dilfer was on another team the next year for a reason. That's part of the reason I said in the same post that it had been a terrible talk. It really had. And it's also the reason I said, "at least you finally get me," rather than "Yeah, you completely get it" or something totally positive. Yeah, that part of his post was dumb. You're right. But at least he finally got the other part. "Those guys had a role," he said. Exactly. Tyrod had a role and so did everyone else. Wins and losses are team achievements. That was indeed what I'd been trying to say, and he hadn't even managed to hear that until that post. Then he did. That was good. I thought it would be nicer to compliment that than to point out the nonsense that came after. This is the final profound truth. The wins and losses go to the teams. Period. End of story. But some sad people keep on trying to forget this and say nonsense like, "Sure, it's a team thing ... but let's ignore that and stupidly and impossibly try to divide up the credit and the responsibilities so I can make my favorite guy look better." Like, "QBs get more credit ..." and that kind of codswallop. So since you managed to ignore the correct part of what he said and endorse the nonsense, I guess I have to go ahead and give the obvious and correct counter. Which is this: Tyrod gets more credit? Nah. No particular reason to think so. I compared his role to Ducasse's and those other guys? Yup. They were 2017 Buffalo Bills. Ducasse had a pretty good season actually. He was a better guard for most of the year than Tyrod was a QB. Once you start to say he gets more credit because he's a QB you have to also face up to the fact that for a starter, Tyrod was a below-average passing QB and passing is in the end what you need your QB to be good at. You have to look at the fact that the offense was weaker than the defense despite the fact that the run game was quite strong. That when the passing offense was arguably the weakest of the four phases and really weaker than the STs too, that that's not a real good argument that the quarterback deserves more credit than most other players. Maybe if you turn the word from "credit" to "responsibility" you have something nearer a decent argument. Dividing up the credit is a losing game. There's no reasonable way to do it. Tyrod gets his share of the credit / responsibility. So does everyone else, including the coaches. It's a team game. Who gets the credit / responsibility is the team. End of story.

There's all kinds of bridges. Some are there knowing they're a bridge and others want to win the starters job and keep it forever. Some are mentors and others aren't. The thing that makes them a bridge is that they allow the team some time to sit the new guy. That's it, really. Anything else is a bonus. One classic example is Doug Flutie. Not here. In San Diego. He allowed them to sit Brees his first year and Brees has ended up being mildly successful. Pretty sure RGIII didn't know he was a bridge, but effectively that's what he was, giving Cousins a chance to learn, grow and be ready. Testaverde for Pennington. Till Pennington's shoulder injury, that looked like a classic, extremely successful version of using a bridge guy to give a rook a chance to age in the barrel a bit.

Wow, that was eye-opening. I thought he was weak at long throws. But Waldman is a consistently excellent analyst and that was a good video. Thanks, OP.

Nobody should start Rosen or Mayfield either. All of this group would do well to sit and learn for probably a year. What a QB does in his first year should have little to do with the decision of whether to draft him. You draft a guy based on the kind of career you think he might have. I'm not an Allen fan, but I figure Beane knows more than me. And I hope that if they pick Rosen or Mayfield, both of whom I like, that they start them on the bench till their heads stop spinning.

There are a lot of questions about him. I personally don't want him. But having said that, when you say, "he is literally being hyped solely based on his physical attributes," you're wildly exaggerating. Yeah, that's the first thing people talk about. But he has more than that going. If he didn't he wouldn't be being considered the way he is.

No, it was a pretty crappy talk. But at least you finally got me. Yup, Tyrod had a role. So did everyone else. Football is a team game. You can have success with good players, medium players and bad players at spots important and less so. Depends how your team does as a team.

Being in cap hell doesn't necessarily mean you can't get out of it by cutting / trading guys. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. The fact that they wanted Smith gone was huge for them in clearing out space. That saved them $16 mill in cap space this year for a guy they wanted to clear out anyway. The Chiefs were in a great position to clear space. Some teams aren't. Depends on the contracts and what year the player is in and dead money and so on. But I'm with you that that won't be an issue for the Bills after this year for a long time. The new administration are a financially conservative bunch. I love it.

Indeed. Jeez.

Yeah, Beane has just stacked up good moves. He's really impressive so far.

Woh, $16 mill per year and $30 mill guaranteed? Wow. It's more on potential than production, but that kind of thing happens when you're the #1 guy in F.A. at your position sometimes. Good luck to Sammy, except when he plays us.

Well, congratulations, you've misunderstood me with terrific consistency. Admirable, I guess, in a way.

You could be right, but I doubt it. Sure looks like they want to trade up. Otherwise, who can they be very confident they can get at #12 that they felt they couldn't get at #21? Can't be sure at all of Allen. Plenty are predicting him as a top five guy. Jackson? He's likely to be available at #21. Doesn't make sense.

Wanna know my point? Read the post. My point is in there. I was responding to Magox. And the bolded in my last post should make it pretty clear. Enough said for me.

OK, I'd love to hear exactly where I said "similar impact." Could you point those words out for me, please. Magox said, "So Taylor played no role in the Bills making the playoffs?" And I said, "Yes he did, he did, no question. And so did ..." Humber, Dennison, Jones, etc. I continued, "I could name around 50 - 70 guys who played a role." You fell for Transie's bait and switch in a straw man, a consistent favorite tactic for him.

Yeah, you can find a narrative like that every single year. Narratives are crafted for a purpose. But in very very few cases is a one-year turnaround what really happened. Yeah, the Falcs 13-3 in 2012, but they were being strangled by the lack of high picks due to giving so much away in the Julio Jones trade. They were developing holes in that lineup and not filling them with good players. In 2013 they were just bad, going 4-12, in 2014, 6-10 and in 2015 8-8. Yeah, they were rebuilding. Not a full rebuild, obviously. Better called a reloading maybe but they were a team that spent three years retooling themselves to become winners again. You look at the difference between the rosters of the 2012 good team and the 2016 "overnight turnaround" and you see they had a huge turnover. It simply wasn't a one-year thing. And no, a 9-7 team isn't a bit better than an 8-8 team. I mean, of course it was for those circumstances in that year, yeah ... but it doesn't show the underlying strengths of the roster or the direction the team is moving in. Those 8-8 Falcons had been rebuilding, getting younger and improving consistently through a horrible period when they had some nice high draft picks. They had a franchise QB in his prime years. We on the other hand have been switching schemes nearly every year, shedding guys who no longer fit the scheme, have no franchise QB yet, and our best players are old guys, with the happy exceptions of our safeties and Tre White. Incognito, McCoy, Wood, Kyle Williams. Fair? We're not a team that has a strong young core yet, IMHO. We're in our second year in the system, but consistency will be hurt a bit by letting Dennison go and bringing in Daboll. The defense on the other hand should be helped by having a year in the system. And frankly, our 9-7 last year was very lucky. An easy schedule with opponents totalling well under .500 and we hit the good teams on the schedule perfectly during losing streaks. The timing was pretty uncanny.

Go read what I said. If you still have a problem, come talk to me about it. But right now, you're far off the point with your serious question. Here's my post and the one I responded to, to make it easier on you. As usual, Transie used a straw man to pretend I'd said something I hadn't, and you believed him. What I said there was dead on target. Still is.