Thurman#1

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.

He has enough arm. He just doesn't have an above average arm. But he can make all the throws. Montana didn't have much of an arm either. Not that I know if Peterman will make it. But if his only problem turns out to be his arm strength, he will.

Next three years? Yup, you'll get some intelligent takers. Maybe even two years. And we aren't excited by drafting a QB. We're excited by drafting Nathan Peterman. He's an anticipatory thrower, a guy who uses the whole field and has an NFL brain. Does that mean he'll be a franchise QB? Nobody knows, same as all the other draftees. But it's exciting to see and smart this late in the draft.

Yeah, it's fashionable to rag on them, and for good reason, but I like what their new regime is doing. A lot. And they pick up yet another first for next year on top of this year's haul in the first. Yeah, I'd assume it's a competition, but Taylor is a strong favorite and I'd expect him to win it this year. Maybe Peterman will compete for 2nd. Maybe.

I really like him, especially this late.

This doesn't show an ax to grind. Only that he believes it. And like it or not, the News guys have a lot better sources than we do. Doesn't prove he's right, but it's likely. How many times has Whaley traded down in a situation where he pretty much knew he wouldn't get the guy he would've picked in the earlier spot? His most famous trade-down, the Manuel deal, was one where he traded down only because he thought he could get the same player in the later spot. And he was right. They weren't going to pick Tre'Davious White at #10, were they? This deal is very different from Whaley's M.O. Yup, Rex, Pat LaFontaine, Regier ... Remember Tim Murray's 2016 contract extension? It's one thing I like about Pegula. He's willing to throw away money if it gets him out of a deal that would hold him back if new evidence comes in to show him he made a mistake.

I went and listened, expecting to hear proof, and there was absolutely nothing. Only thing you've proved here is that confirmation bias is alive and well and living in your head on this issue. Here's what was said, word for word, "I’d been working about five or six different deals. I started this one probably about five days ago. And Doug and I just talked through the whole thing. We talked every day and then we talked before the draft, ‘do you still agree?’ He says, ‘Yes, I still agree.’ So we had some sort of gentleman’s agreement." That's it. This doesn't even begin to address who was in charge in Buffalo. All it says is that Whaley was making phone calls. In my long career in business, government and academia there have been hundreds of times when bosses told me to go make phone calls and find out what kinds of deals or possible agreements were out there. Hundreds. And then told me to take or reject the deals or negotiate more based on what I told them. I wasn't in charge but I was the contact guy. Being the contact guy absolutely does not prove that you're in charge. It simply doesn't. Sorry, but you've proved absolutely nothing here about whether Whaley is in charge. You ought to look inside yourself, because what you assumed here is only what you wanted to be true, not at all what the evidence shows. No, the Bills scouts expecting to be fired was from a source, not speculation. And that sure tends to back up Whaley's lack of power.

Like the pick. Not at all sure I like the trade. We're now left with nobody till the fifth, no thirds and no fourths. I like the guys we got, but they're the only guys this draft who're likely to do much for this team, though occasionally late-round guys surprise. And we've got a lot of needs. True in the sense that once the guy is drafted no grades mean anything. So they don't mean more than anybody's, yours or mine for instance. But they have more inside info than we do and are likely better guesses, especially if untainted by love for the team.

You're making an assumption there's no particular reason to make. Being on the phone doesn't mean you're the decision maker. Not even close. They were probably talking with twenty different teams about twenty different trades, not knowing which ones would work out and become possible. It could easily be McDermott behind the wheeling and dealing. McD said that his relationship with Reid made his communication easier on this trade, that his trust and familiarity with Reid made things easier. Does Whaley know Reid?

I'm not sure how you can say it's 171 points. We don't know how many points to assign to a next year's first rounder. Next year's first rounder is worth this year's second, but which pick in the 2nd? Nobody's ever said. The middle pick? If so we got the value. There's no way to know where the Chiefs will be picking next year. We can't value that pick exactly on the chart. For the Chiefs this will all come down to Mahomes. If he's a franchise guy, brilliant trade. If he never is, an ultimate waste.

Top five? It might have been worth it to suffer through a bad year for that, but we won't be that bad.

Yeah, if he keeps improving at the same rate, we have no chance. And that's the best guess as to what will happen. We'll get somebody, though, maybe even start a pick ladder where we pick with the best of the two and trade back from the second getting another third or fourth and a first the next year. No, that really wasn't said much till after the season. Before the season it was business as usual with the 2017 guys like Kaaya and the rest being probably a good class.