Thurman#1

Just wanna point out that probably Trent's single best game was the game after the Arizona game. That's one narrative, that the big hit did for him, but it's not necessarily anything more than one way to look at things.

Don't quite remember that, but I might easily have missed it. What Lynn also said when he took over and was asked what he was going to change is that he said he was going to simplify the reads. Not complicate. Simplify.

Probably "reasonable" or "smart." If he was that good, he wouldn't have had to take a major contract cut. Which is the reason he's still in Buffalo. Not so much. Completeness doesn't by any means automatically imply better analysis. It means more data. It doesn't mean what's done with the data makes any sense whatsoever or reflects reality well. A chimp who watches every play won't produce better analysis than an NFL coach who watches a small selection, for instance. You love to pretend that other QBs need to be compared. They don't. You can easily make judgments about Tyrod just by watching his game.

Quick question about this "stole the draft board" nonsense. When do teams generally put together their draft board? Late December? Before the Senior Bowl and the Bowl games? Because the guy was hired on January 11th and was interviewing way before that. They first interviewed him on January 4th. The Bills draft board was "rounding into shape" on February 4th. Which is the way this works. http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-2/Bills-draft-board-rounding-into-form/8acc2efa-ef5d-4c2c-b3d8-1eba744ec687 Folks, they didn't have a board for McDermott to steal at that time. The Panthers have known for a year or two he was an obvious head coach candidate, this wasn't a surprise. Enough with the obvious crap.

The key man is the bald one. And grades this early mean virtually nothing. They're fun, but carry no weight.

I don't think "not ready" meant that he hadn't learned enough of the playbook. It meant a whole bunch of things needed to be worked on, from mechanics to reading defenses and on and on.

It's not a rule that three is the maximum. Two or three is the most common, but they could easily carry four. And then they could put Woodrum on the practice squad if they wanted. But IMHO they'll let Woodrum go and judge Cardale's progress and if he's improving enough keep four.

I feel like maybe things might be getting better. Hard to say till we see the GM, though. And I've thought things might be looking up a couple of times before in the 16 year slump. I tend to like McDermott but doubt the Pegulas and their ability to pick a good GM. They should have kept LaFontaine and they should have hired a czar for the Bills and bowed out, and they should probably do that now. And I don't think they will.

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/ Yeah, unfortunately. It'd be easy to re-work the contracts. And what it would do is move the problem down the road to next year. There's no way to make these problems disappear. Once you've paid a guy money, you have to account for it on the cap. No way around it. And I love it that they're not doing that this year. They're suffering, losing guys they probably would like to keep like Gillislee and Gilmore and Zach and so on. They're suffering and dealing with the problem so that next year things will be significantly better. Love that. But it means this year is not going to be a year when we can spend money. I could be wrong, but I don't think either guy can be had for vet minimum. I'm betting it would take a couple of mill apiece, somewhere in that neighborhood.

The Hughes trade happened on Nix's watch. But he gets the credit for the Shady trade. He said yes. Could've said no.

It's an awful lot harder to make the Pats roster than the Bills roster. And 2013 was not a Whaley draft, it was a Nix draft. As for Bills - Pats, you've noticed the Bills consistently draft around 10th and the Pats around 27th to 32nd, right? Bills 2014: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, two sevenths (4, 44, 73,109, 153, 221, 237) Pats 2014: 1st, 2nd, three 4ths, three 6ths, 7th (29, 62, 105, 130, 140, 179, 198, 206, 244) Bills 2015: 2nd, 3rd, 5th, two 6ths, 7th (50, 81, 155, 188, 194, 234) Pats 2015: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, three 4ths, 5th, two 6ths, two 7ths (32, 64, 97, 101, 111, 131, 166, 178, 202, 247, 253) Bills 2016: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, two 6ths (19, 41, 80, 139, 156, 192, 218) Pats 2016: 2nd, three 3rds, 4th, three 6ths, 7th (60, 78, 91, 96, 112, 208, 214, 221, 225) The Bills averaged far higher picks. It's much harder for the Pats.

The problem with Levy and Jauron wasn't that they drafted character guys. Belichick does that too, as do the Packers and most good teams, really. Then if they have to bring in an occasional bad egg ala Moss or Hernandez, they've got a good locker room to deal with it Not that that always works, but having a good locker room is crucial. The problem with Levy and Jauron wasn't that they drafted character guys, it was that they drafted guys without enough talent.

Good point. And I love to see them now drafting two guys in two years.

Yup. Whaley was on board. It's always been obvious, more so every year as he has categorically refused to step away from the decision (for which I respect him). Having said that, setting up the board isn't much. He did it this year too. And not the one year before Nix left, but the last two. The power is in making the picks, saying yes or no, and being the guy who can walk up to the front at any time and switch two guys and nobody switches it back. Setting up the board is doing the grunt work and running the process. But unless the decision-making comes with it, it

Yeah, who could imagine anyone saying the Pegulas haven't done well? Shining exemplars of owners who win, it's obvious to anyone.

Nix said he put Whaley in charge of evaluating the QBs that year. So that's one thing. But it's more than that. He's had dozens of chances to back away from that pick, dozens. All he had to say was something like, "Well, you know I wasn't in position to pull the trigger back then. But I've always had great respect for both Buddy Nix and EJ Manuel." Boom, it's obvious he wasn't fully on board. He's never done that. He wanted Manuel. But there were a lot more bad decisions, particularly in the selection of coaches and the weak drafts.

Whaley is responsible for at least the first two of those three coaches. If in the meetings, he'd said, "Look, I can't work with Rex. He's personable, a great guy, but we need someone to work with the offense, not change up the excellent defense," the Pegulas would have had to listen to him or fire him and that way of being fired would have ended with him being extremely well-respected throughout the league. Same with Marrone. Instead he went along. So yeah, his coaches screwed him. But they were his coaches. He was the GM.

This'n.

$10.4 mill, according to Spotrac. Before the rookies, who will likely be somewhere around $5-$6 mill, which since they'll be replacing some minimum salary guys will be an extra $4 mill or so. For a team that, like most teams, goes into the season every year with around $6 mill in their pocket in case of injuries. We don't have a lot. Now, there might be a few cuts that will free up space, but we just don't have much money to spend. Outside of UDFAs and a few very very cheap guys, I wouldn't expect much.

Same is true of players, yet plenty here celebrate guys getting cut for other guys they think are better. It's the nature of fans. They celebrate anything they think will make the team better, even guys getting fired or cut. Nobody got so angry when Rex was fired and his lower-paid assistant coaches also. That's a good point, IMHO. Maybe they just wanted to sweep clean and give the new GM the chance to build his own staff. Maybe he could even rehire some of these guys, though that would be unusual, I think.

The GMs need some help from the coaches as to fit, but there are plenty of situations where GMs make decisions without consulting coaches. Depends on the individual relationships, the hierarchy, etc.

Yeah, maybe. Terry said in his PC it was up to the new GM, that Terry would try to support Overdorf but it was up to the new guy.

The trade strategy was worked out in advance ... as one of several possible strategies. Mahomes could have been gone at #10, then it wouldn't have happened. It couldn't possibly have been the only thing they had prepared to do. No reason to think the QB tour was a ruse. Under the right circumstances, it might have happened. They might have determined that only Trubitsky was worth the #10, for instance, or that they wanted Watson but that getting him would be their third choice, if the KC trade didn't work out and they could trade back somewhere in the #15 area. There's no way to know. Did I say I had "proven" that McDermott was in charge? Or did I say it was likely? I said it was likely and ... gosh, it turned out it was. And yeah, he found it necessary within the structure of that article to say those things. They weren't really noticeable to me or to most, since they looked to be probable. Only people who disagreed found them standing out. He was only reporting on the situation. The salty ones were the people objecting. Now where are all the mea culpas from those who attacked this article? It's a weird situation. Pegula also said in his press conference that they ran the process and then only made the decision after the draft. So, how come the scouts knew a week in advance that they were getting fired? Looks like they are running a PR playbook here rather than worry too much about the truth. As long as they get a good group in charge, it won't matter. But this process is going to be absolutely crucial.

Don't like Pats fans, but nothing so terrible here. One guy pointed out that the Pats did the same thing when they hired Belichick, they hung on to the GM till a few days after that first draft. Another said it's a sad day to see two bozo GMs go. Correct. It could hopefully make things harder for the Pats. You will lose your dominance when Brady's gone. :-)

How do you know this? Pure guesswork, correct? I want all the dead wood out. Not sure whether or not that includes Overdorf and I don't think anyone outside the organization can be any surer than I am. But yeah, the GM is more important.