Thurman#1

"If you follow the NFL closely, and you were born before yesterday, you probably know that teams and agents alike treat the rules governing free agency like glorified yellow lights. What you might not know is to what degree everyone has their foot on the gas in advance of being able to legally contact the proverbial belles of the ball." Nice. Shows the whole "he couldn't know if anyone was interested, or how much" thing is nonsense. An interesting look behind the scenes.

Oh, man, Tasker's about to cough his lungs up. Get that guy some Mucinex and Dr. Halls.

Doubt he, or anybody, really, monitors us. Do you get much when you monitor the Jets or Fins or Pats boards? I've tried it a few times and didn't get much. In any case, I like Barnwell a lot generally, a very smart guy, but yeah, not a lot new here. The Preston Brown thing is interesting, maybe. The thoughts here have been that we need more speed and that that means that Preston should go. That's not a bad take, but the opposite is just as reasonable. I think his mentioning of Henne and Moore is kind of interesting as well. But yeah, fair enough, no hot takes here at all. Not news. Should it have been? He's doing a series and one on every team. Should he be expected to have news on each one? No, they could bring in one and keep Peterman. They may like him more than you do. My guess is that they're gonna keep three, either on the roster or using the practice squad. Just a guess, obviously, but certainly possible.

Foles didn't beat Brady in the Super Bowl. What happened was the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots. The problem with Foles has always been that if he has time and space he can be very very good but if he's rushed and throwing "off-platform" as the new buzzword goes, he's not good. In the Super Bowl the excellent Eagles line and the poor Pats pass rush had him standing back there with all the time in the world. He was really good, but that could have been another story if the Pats had had a pass rush.

He hasn't got a problem with lack of leadership. Find a place where his high school or college coaches or teammates have complained. Yeah, he's outspoken. And some teams might not want that. But that doesn't equal a lack of leadership.

Interesting. PR is a curse on society.

But the reason people are saying that, I think, is because they have some trust in OBD to correctly identify a guy who would fit the system and be good enough to thrive in it. Not that they believe necessarily that all four are going to be franchise guys.

That's the thing, Hapless. That 2004 draft is the one this is being compared to. It's better than the past four or five, a lot better. And all of those guys had flags. Manning, Rivers and Roethlisberger. All of them had red flags. Everyone does, every year. You're quite right that Losman had more. But there was a ton of ink spent on how Roethlisberger had played at a very low level school at Miami of Ohio and you didn't know what he would do against real competition. Rivers couldn't run, had footwork issues, had a long slow delivery, his deep balls have problems with sailing and overthrows ... it just goes on and on. Everyone has issues. Everyone. And by the way, it's a very reasonable possibility that Losman in the right circumstances might have become good. The Bills handled him very poorly. It was bad luck that he broke his leg but the year after that they should have had him compete with Bledsoe and keep developing if he lost that competition. They didn't. They gave him the starter job before the season, ready or not, and pissed off a lot of the vets. And then when he finally had a pretty good year in 2006 and looked ready to maybe break out ... they got rid of his OC and brought in a guy who decided to change the offense to a system that played not to his strengths but to his weaknesses, Steve Fairchild. He was never the same after that. Would he ever have been good? Dunno. But the Bills did a terrific job of minimizing the chances by handling him very poorly. Now, there's no way to know for sure if this class will be up there with 2004. There never is. Maybe you're right. Maybe there are two. But maybe three. Or four. Or zero. No way to be sure. They've got to do what teams that need a QB should always do. Scout the hell out of them and find the guys with the talent and the character and the ability to fit the system they want to use. Maybe there'll be two guys. Maybe three. Probably not all of them. But then you do all you can to get the best one for you and if that doesn't work out you try for the next. Stay away from the ones who wouldn't fit. Get one you believe in. By the way, I think your headline brought in a lot of opponents and arguments here. "Why we don't want to draft one of the top 4 QBs" sure sounds like you don't want to draft any of them, though from reading the rest of what you've written you don't actually feel that way. But that's how it read.

I strongly disagree. The Giants need to make their decision, Eli for another two or three years or draft a QB. If they do go with Eli, they need to spend every bit of draft and FA capital they have going for a championship in the time Eli is here. That would be my guess, personally, but I could easily see them going the other way and drafting a QB high instead and building for the future. They have got to either completely go for it in the short window Eli provides (and think of the disaster it was for them last year benching Eli), or build for the long-term with a new pick.

When did Nix do anything like that? He didn't. Pretty much what he did was build a terrific defense, but not ever get a good QB or successor at GM. Anyway, while getting an RB early can be sensible in a few situations, we aren't in any of those kinds of spots. And trading up to do so ... insane in any situation at this point. I think this guy was doing a pretty solid job of trolling. Lots of takers, including me, really.

Nope. People don't believe everything they read. They believe the stuff that they already thought when it's confirmed. The people who don't like the idea shout "smokescreen," which translated means, "I don't like him."

IMHO, they "like" him isn't linking us. The main problem with Leaf was an unwillingness to work. Leaf missed his interview with the Colts. He was wildly arrogant and had substance abuse problems, serious ones. These two are not twins from different mothers. Not even close. I'm not a big Allen fan at all, but Ryan Leaf? Nah.

Maybe. And probably the Colts GM, Polian, said the same thing too as he picked Peyton Manning. This is a rich QB draft. You're right that they might make a mistake. They've got to try to figure out who the best guy/guys are and get a genuinely good one. You get a guy at a position that is rich in that draft when you have the ability to trade up. Which is now. But I might feel differently if I had Eli Manning on this team and felt I could get another two or three years and a shot or two at a Lombardi out of him.

Generally, the more trades down they do, the better. The exception is right now. They've got to get a QB. And it sure looks to me like they're going to have to trade up to do it. But generally, yeah, trade down, get more picks. This. Except ... Watson? Do you mean Watkins? Or am I missing something? But yeah, there'll be good QBs in the future. And we'll have an even smaller chance of being able to move up and get them. The best QBs, the ones who are obviously good, in those future drafts will be going very high, and unless you think we're going to be drafting first, the odds are good that the team that is drafting first will want him and if they don't we won't have enough ammo to move up to get him.

I haven't looked at the QBs next year but I bet next year won't be another this year, that the class will be less impressive. Solid, maybe. As good as this year, doubtful. First, because that's how it generally works when you have an outlier. There's not generally another outlier the next year. And second because if it was another great year we'd have heard it by now. The pundits would be all over it. We were hearing about this year's class 13 and 14 months ago and how good they were going to be. And we're not this year. Doesn't mean you can't be right Maybe you are. But that's not the way to bet. And Da"Ron Payne is very good, but he's not an outlier. There'll be a very good run stuffer next year. Not that I'm against Da'Ron Payne. Seems like a good player to me. Will the Bills do what the Rams did? The Rams were in position to do what they did because they'd already put together a terrific defense. So, no, I doubt the Bills will do what the Rams did. But they don't have to. A slow build is pretty common for teams on the build. Whoever we pick will need to develop. There are many ways to do that. And sure that means building a talented core around him, but I'm sure McDermott and Beane are aware of this.

Fair enough to agree to disagree. And of course it's right that you can only play who they put on your schedule. But that doesn't mean that the schedule doesn't make your record more impressive if it's difficult or less impressive if it's easy. And this was easy. And while Arrowhead is a tough place to play, sometimes it's tougher than others. We caught the Chiefs in the middle of a four-game skid. The week before, the Giants beat them. The Giants!!! And the week after, the Jets beat them. The freaking Jets! The Chiefs won five in a row to start, lost six of seven and then finished with four wins. We caught them right in the middle of a part of their season when they were playing very poorly indeed. Yes, they did what they needed to do. Luckily for them, this year they didn't need to do much. Every good team they played was in a funk. Again, if you have to keep boasting about beating the Colts, you've obviously got a very difficult argument to make. They were 4-12. And again, Atlanta was in the doldrums and had their best player go down in the game along with a bunch of others who either went out or were out before the game. And again, I like McDermott and think he did a good job. But he also got very lucky with how things fell this year. Our opponents cumulative record was well below .500 and we caught the good teams at their lowest ebb. Fine, agree to disagree. Agreed. The Patriots, for instance, shouldn't have been worrying about comp picks in Belichick's first year, when they got Brady as a comp pick. And the year after, the year when Belichick's maneuverings resulted in the 2001 comp picks, how did they do? They had three comp picks, a 5th, a 6th and a 7th. He worried about it. So should we. You worry about comp picks every year. Every single year. Occasionally something may trump them. But generally they're important for the most obvious of reasons, because extra draft picks increase your chances of being able to pick more people, improve your chances of bringing in guys who will help at a tremendous price.

Nobody saw much "move up" talent last year either. Back then it was "This group sucks. Wait till next year." Then it turned out there were some guys there who despite having flaws look like they might be good. And it was the same the year before. The Eagles and Rams were idiots for trading up to get guys with so many flaws. You're right that we have some problems around the QB this year. That will make things harder for whoever is in the games this year. But you don't draft a QB only if you think he'll be in a good position in his first year. Peyton Manning was in a horrible situation his first year. So was Troy Aikman. You draft a QB to have a good career. If he's good his first year, terrific, but if not it's not a big problem. This is the richest QB draft in a decade or more, according to everyone, most recently Mayock. If you don't see anyone this year to trade up for it's likely because you are unwilling to ever see that kind of talent. Whether we can get up there at all, or how much we would have to pay, those are separate issues that might indeed prevent us from going up. But there's a better group of talent there this year, likely to go in the top five or six spots than we'll probably see for a long long time. You know which QBs have significant flaws? All of them. Every single one, every single year. And part of the reason none of them stands out far above the others is that the top two especially and maybe even top three, are very very good.

They made it clear what a QB needs in their system. One thing. He has to be able to play from the pocket. Tyrod can't. The whole point of a bridge QB is that he's there to make the future better. The way to do that is to play decent ball (Tyrod can do this), and to allow the offense to put in the offense and run it and practice it so that when the new guy comes in the whole offense has had a year or more of time to run the offense, to ingrain it, to make it second nature. Tyrod can't do this. You yourself say they would have to put together an offense that would maximize the strengths of TT. That's NOT what a bridge QB does, force you to build an offense around him that you'll then have to change when he's gone. If they have a bridge guy it's likely to be someone like Fitz or McCown or Foles or Bradford or even if we're lucky Bridgewater. A guy who can run the offense these coaches want to input and be using for the foreseeable future.

You can fill holes in FA in ways that don't cost you comp picks. It's how the Pats have traditionally used FA, as well as Green Bay, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc. Comp picks count, especially so now that they're tradeable. Smart teams value them and can work around losing them while still bringing in good (though not the top, most expensive) FAs. The best teams in football, the ones who win consistently, disagree with you. But if it's any comfort, most of the others do go along with you. The best teams in football maximize their comp picks and lead the league when you start to look at two or three years or more all put together. No, it's not the biggest piece of the puzzle. But it's one piece. And again, it's not comp picks vs. getting suitable free agents. Some free agents don't hurt you on the comp pick formula. It's not an either-or. Smart teams can do both.

Funny stuff, mon.

Some drafts are deep. Some are shallow. Some are deep and shallow at certain positions. Like the unbelievably deep WR draft in 2014. The year we traded up for Sammy Watkins. And later end up with another guy from the same draft, Kelvin Benjamin. This year is a deep QB draft. That's not an opinion I came up with myself. It's what the GMs are saying, the pundits, everyone. Those four or five drafts you looked at ... they weren't deep at QB. This one is. And of course a GM should pick the one or two or three guys he thinks he wants, that will fit the team and the scheme and the situation. Of course you shouldn't just grab anyone from the pile. But the reason this draft is different is that it has a bigger bunch of guys with a better shot at success than you have in your usual draft class.

Here's a clear and extremely in-depth article on it. It's not quite as easy as suggested above. https://overthecap.com/the-basics-and-methodology-of-projecting-the-nfls-compensatory-draft-picks/

I disagree with your disagreement about it being luck. There was a lot of luck involved I would argue. Yeah, the Broncos were 2-0 when we beat them. In their first game of the year, Denver had beaten a Chargers team that lost its first four games and a Cowboys team that started at 2-3 and those two wins were only the Giants and Cardinals. That win looked a lot better at the time than it turned out to be. Same with the Falcons win. Atlanta looked pretty good the first couple of games, but a bit weaker against the Lions and then we were lucky enough to see Julio Jones get injured in our game on top of having lost Sanu, Beasley and their RT, can't remember his name. After Julio's injury they only scored seven in a half and a bit more. Also, the Falcons lost to Miami the next week at home in Atlanta too. The fact that you're boasting about a win over the Colts to me kinda sums up the whole thing. I agree that McDermott did a fine job, but he also got very lucky with the schedule (opponents cumulative win-loss was well below even and we hit the better teams at very good times).

Agree with most of this, but two comments. First, it was very clear who was calling the shots in the 2017 offseason. It's been reported on again and again from many different sources and letting Whaley go instantly after the draft only made the obvious even more so. McDermott was calling the shot as the Pegulas loved what McDermott did almost instantly and the power quickly devolved on him. Second, very recently there was an interview with Beane about comp picks. He values them. "I will be very cognizant of the comp formula," Beane said at the end of the season. "When I walked in, it was too far to really do much with it. But I do believe in it and we'll definitely pay attention to it when it makes sense." http://buffalonews.com/2018/02/03/inside-the-bills-how-gm-brandon-beane-views-the-changing-nature-of-free-agency/

You could definitely be right that it's smoke. But are you actually saying that you think it doesn't fit their draft to build through the draft because Beane stated that he will built through the draft? That makes no sense at all. Bringing in Rosen would be building through the draft. People here want us to safeguard those picks against being used to trade up when that is almost certainly what they were acquired for.