Thurman#1

That's nonsense. You're not 100% luck just because they didn't draft you in the first round. If it were luck, this would happen in a roughly even distribution between all teams. It doesn't. It was a damn good pick. Was some luck involved? Sure. Same with nearly every pick. But 100%? Um, no, not even close.

Um, no. First, Taron Johnson and Milano are All-Pros, that's fact. Josh Allen is also, not a first-teamer, but not because he isn't dominant or doesn't change games. Benford appears headed in that direction. Barkley was picked first overall and Jalen Carter 9th. How does that compare with Shakir, Cook and Oliver, you ask? Unfairly. Philly got them in trades, not drafts outside of Carter, and spent more resources on them. We have a ton of guys who are "A" types, including three All-Pros and two or three more guys who are in spitting distance. You don't have to be the best in the league at your position to make a difference. You just have to, well, to make a difference.

No, but he isn't a burner and that's what most people wanted. A closed mind is a terrible thing to try to change.

So, a different receiver, who is a different type of receiver, runs different routes, is used differently and was healthy last year, performed well? Well, you've certainly made a point there. But not one that has much of anything to do with Kincaid. I like Hollins. Was disappointed to hear they hadn't re-signed him. You too? Is that your point?

First, catch rate is NOT a receiver stat. It is a stat that takes a ton of different things into account, QB, weather, defense, on and on and on. Receiver too, don't get me wrong, but a whole ton of other things as well. I mean, if the QB misses him by 30 yards, it's still an attempt and an incompletion, in other words, it causes the numbers to slip. If the pass is perfect but the DT knocks it up in the air and intercepts it ... still an attempt, still an incompletion, still lowers the numbers for that receiver. Second, he apparently had several injuries, not just the one. So that could help explain why it wasn't only after Week 10 that he was underwhelming. Third, as pointed out above, he had one of the lowest catchable target rates in football, 36th. If your catchable target rate was 36th and your catch rate was 31st, you're actually over-performing.

I don't think we need an elite pass rusher. Just a very good one. Von wasn't an elite guy anymore when we got him. But IMO if he'd stayed healthy we'd have a Lombardi or two right now. What elite pass rushers have the other teams being compared here drafted? Chris Jones came on a trade. All depends on your definition of elite, but generally elite pass rushers go in the top ten, and many years the highest part of it. Some elite guys do go later, no question. But there just aren't many elite pass rushers, period. Much less elite pass rushers drafted later.

This!!!

Never. I respect you, Richard, but it doesn't sound like my cup of lemon ginger kombucha.

6.5 yards of YAC per reception just last year? He absolutely has produced YAC on short passes. No, he's no James Cook in pure speed or avoiding tackles, but yes, even injured he ran up YAC. 23 1st downs last year? 29 the year before that? He's run up a bunch of them. I think it's fair to say he hasn't put fear in defenses. Will he in the future? Hard to know. Maybe. Maybe not. "... shown nothing so far that we couldn't get out of a typical Day 2 - 3 pick"? Um, I'd have to totally disagree with that. 10th in the league in receiving yards? As a rookie? That's nothing you get out of a typical Day 2-3 pick, it simply isn't. "Show me that many of his passes were uncatchable," you ask. Fair enough. There's no official stat like this, but I did find someone charting it. https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/dalton-kincaid/ They say that in 2024 his catchable target rate -- just what it sounds like -- was 65.3%, only 36th best in the league. You asked, I provided. Is this set in stone as an exact stat direct from God? No, but again, you asked. He took a major step back last year, and it does appear that the injury was responsible for an awful lot of that. But he still has a lot to prove, no question.

Can't speak for him, but no, not I really don't think it's particularly warranted. He had an excellent rookie year. He got injured and had a much less good second season. He was a very consistent weapon that first year, so we know he can do it. There should be angst for nearly anyone, to some degree. Kincaid hasn't proven himself yet, so he certainly deserves a certain amount of it. Again, most of the team also. We know he can do it. But we don't know he will do it. Seems pretty likely but yeah, some worry. But worry this early in the off-season that he hasn't put on noticeable amounts of weight so quickly? When recovering from injuries? No, that doesn't seem worth any concern to me. If he still looks slender as camp approaches ... that would be worth some worry, I think. At that point he'll have had about eight months to get the weight on. That's enough time. Three months, without drugs, not so much Can't say I've noticed Kelce's body composition lately. He's simply a guy who performs well, damn it. What he looks like has never much attracted my interest.

Strength of schedule matters big time, but strength of last year's schedule is far less indicative of actual strength of schedule than what we'll know about how hard the schedules were by the time we reach the end of next year's slate.

I absolutely do believe it matters. But it's not something that can ruin a season or anything. It's just an advantage or disadvantage. IMO nearer the end of the season is generally better, allowing a rest nearer the playoffs.

He worked his ass of and was a good player for us. Best of luck to him.

They took all the dead cap to get rid of Diggs because Allen and Diggs did not work together well at all that fourth year. He was still a terrific pickup for the young Josh Allen, helping him out a ton. I already said that, but it's so obvious it shouldn't have needed to be said. You're advancing your argument not one jot. Why is that? As for your argument about Coleman ... Well, yeah, after that big game, things went downhill, AFTER THE INJURY. You're right, after the injury, he did indeed perform much less well. It prevented him from making the kind of contested catches he was making a lot of before his wrist damage, and of course his results did look a ton worse. But again, in the five games before the injury his yards looked like this: 51, 49, 26, 125, 70. An average of 64.2 YPG. He'd improved a lot from his first few weeks. Then came Nov. 3rd and the injury. He was never the same. But when healthy, he'd started to look really good. Again, at that point he was #2 among the rookie receivers, even though he was the 5th guy picked.

Oh, sorry, autocorrect strikes again. Yes, I typed Taron Johnson, not Aaron. Not drafted by Beane, but drafted by this regime. I guess if you want to edge them out, I understand. I won't argue. As summed up here, I don't totally agree with your opinion here, but I think it's certainly in the reasonable range. As a GM overall, you have to say that he's got something to prove and his term will look better with a Lombardi attached. As for his ability to draft, I don't put him at the top of that group you cited, but not at the bottom either. Drafting is tough and he's right up there with them.

Yeah, totally messed up Josh. Yeah, I mean, his completion percentage went down from 63.5% to 66.5%. Oh, hang on, that's up, not down. And his total yards went down from 4283 to 4306. Oh, wait, that's up also. Josh had a very good year that year, as he always has Allen wasn't "totally messed up" or anything like it. That's a completely ridiculous take. Is it maybe a legit contention that Diggs didn't help much that last year here? Yeah, totally. Hard to say why, no matter how you pretend to totally understand the situation. But he was very unproductive, for whatever reason. I know I was wildly pissed seeing the hand gesture he made to Josh on that last drop in the Chiefs playoff game, like "oh, we just didn't quite get together well enough there." But the first three years Josh leaned on him tremendously. Neither made the other. You have to be willing to contort yourself into absolute pretzels to pretend that. They helped each other. Tremendously. And yes, players do get injured, Keon included. Some years. Not others. Again, you're contorting yourself like a circus act here. Extrapolation only looks "meaningless" if you don't happen to find the meaning it shows as convenient to your own pre-judgments. "A decent first half of the season"? Again, nonsense. For a rookie he was having an excellent first year, second in yards among rookies, if I remember correctly, despite being the fifth WR taken, with two in the top 9 picks. Did Keon do very well in that one game? Um, yeah, that's how it works. Good games and bad games. I mean, if you want to "take out that clear outlier," his best game, fine, but you have to throw out the worst also. And what you get is just about the same average. He was having a really good rookie year that first half, and getting better. He was a different player after that injury, suddenly losing about every contested catch when up till then he'd been winning a lot of them.

Yes, but what you're not mentioning here is that the reason they could make that trade was that they originally had the 6th round pick in 2021 due to crappy play. They were able to trade back and get the extra pick. We're not holding their draft slot against them. But we're also not willing to look away and pretend it didn't exist. We're saying that that terrific slot came to them from crappy play, a 4-win season, which is worse than the Bills have put up since 2010, far before the current regime. And helped them get some of the best players they've drafted.

Manning may come out in 2026. Or not. We don't know. Some other good young players may well be there.

Power was a terrific safety. Yes, the last half of a year here he was a shell of himself and in Miami he didn't look like he'd recovered a bit. But he was excellent through most of his career here. Diggs was a great pickup. Great. No, things didn't end well. And you can certainly argue the extension near the end. But he helped Josh become Josh Allen. Elam was a bad pick. It's not like other teams don't screw up sometimes. They do. Every single one of them does. Yes, Reid still talks about Mahomes, when he's asked about it. And yes, Roseman goes on about Hurts when he's asked about it. Beane was asked.#3, fine. But the fact is that he was playing like a lower-level #2 -- as a rookie -- until the injury. And yes he had some drops late. Think the wrist injury might have had something to do with that? He might easily have gotten 750 if he'd played without an injured wrist. No way to say for sure, but in the first 8 games he put up 396 yards. And in the last games before the injury on Nov. 3rd he'd averaged 64 yards a game, We don't really know what he'll be but there's a pretty decent chance he'll be quite good indeed.

Well, first, people don't say, "We can't find difference makers picking so late." They say, correctly, that it's harder finding difference makers picking so late. It just is. And if you pick late more years, it will be harder in those years. The Bills did pick later more often. And yet they also found difference makers. All Pros aren't the only difference makers, they just aren't. Aaron Johnson is a difference maker. And an All Pro. Matt Milano is a difference maker. And an All Pro. Dion Dawkins is a difference maker. Spencer Brown looks like he's getting there. Christian Benford is a difference maker. Terrell Bernard too. Josh certainly is, kinda goes without saying. Kincaid showed every sign before the injury, but still has a lot more to prove. There's a reason why in every draft ranking the Bills are listed top six or seven for the length of the Beane/McDermott era despite winning more games than nearly anyone else (including Philly with three SBs in that time including two wins) and thus starting with worse picks. They've done quite well. The last three years both have been really good teams. The years before that Philly did much better with getting losses and higher picks during the years when they brought in guys who are now matured pros. The thing Philly has done a lot better is being pretty bad in years when they didn'T make the Super Bowl. Damn them. Very well run franchise. And the Bills are close.

That bit about the Bills and Eagles evening out the further you go back is only if you go back specifically to 2018. The reason Beane had high picks in 2018 had a lot to do with McDermott trading way back in 2017 to get higher to be able to pick a QB in 2018. So in 2017 the Eagles picked 14th while the Bills picked 27th. And you can't expect Ford to be All-Pro, he was a 2nd rounder. All-Pro would have been a very significant over-performance. Edmunds at 16 got two Pro Bowls, that's meeting expectations. Oliver has been a bit below expectations, but everyone has some of those. The Chiefs did indeed trade up for Mahomes, from 27th to 10th. And the Bills traded up for Allen. Traded up almost as far, from 21st to 7th in two steps. So if you want to give the Chiefs credit for savvy you have to do the same for the Bills.

Really? In the last four years, you say? I only see one, from 15 up to 13. And a few other small moves a bit further back. The last five years, in which the Bills never won less than 11 games, the Bird had one year when they won four games and one year of 9-8. That helps your draft slots.

Yup. That and the fact that he hadn't been one of those coaching camp regulars that have their mechanics smoothed out early and get early exposure to everything.

David Carr was a bust largely because Houston figured an offensive line was more a guideline than a requirement. He had the confidence and the poise pounded out of him. That team failed him.

As I understand it, the convo went like this. Starks was asked which NFL he was looking forward to picking off the most. "I think I want to get Josh Allen," Starks said. "I want to get Josh Allen, it would just be fun and a really cool moment for me." And you folks think Josh takes offense or gets angry? Zero chance. Our first rounder was asked the same exact question and said Mahomes and Lamar. Think they're furious at Max? Again, zero chance. This is a nothingburger. Ramsey I would guess pissed him off. Ramsey was trying to shake him. Very much didn't.