Thurman#1

Yowch! Hadn't ever put it together like you did in your first paragraph there. Good stuff. Couldn't agree more.

"Rashee Rice is actually WR1?" Now? Sorry, that's utter ridiculousness. When you get 938 yards with Pat Mahomes throwing to you, you're not a WR1. Gabe Davis in his third year equalled Rice's TDs and was only 100 yards below him. Was anyone saying Davis was only 100 yards shy of a WR1 at the time? No, and for good reason. The kind of stats Rice put up - again, with Pat Mahomes throwing to him - are NOT WR1 stats. And not particularly close. Rice "was huge for them in the playoffs,"| you say? Um, yeah? 262 yards (65.5 YPG over four games), 2 fumbles and 1 TD, and two runs for five yards, all in four games is "huge"? I think your idea of "huge" is significantly different from most. They were lucky to get both of those fumbles back or the story would have been much different. He was good in the playoffs. Not "huge," and not particularly close to "huge." I guess you could say he was the #1 WR on the Kansas City Chiefs. Not that big a deal, though, when you see that the #2 WR on the Kansas City Chiefs, Justin Watson, put up all of 460 yards. Now, is Rice a possible future #1? Yeah, he absolutely is. Hard to say how that will go, but there's a reasonable chance he reaches that level, possibly even this year, though the car crash case makes everything much less certain. You're right he doesn't have to be 'elite.' He also didn't have to be a #1. He wasn't and they won a Lombardi. Yes, the Chiefs brought in Rice, at pick 55, last year, and Skyy Moore at pick 54 the year before. And yes, they brought in Toney, but let's not pretend he was considered a sure thing. Sure things don't traded that early in their career. He was thought to be a guy who had a decent chance to be good if things went better for him in a new environment. Toney put up 420 yards in his first year with the Giants and played in two games in the first half of his second year before being traded. Then 171 yards in KC in his second season. The Chiefs brought in Rice, a solid guy, quite good for a rookie, at #55. And they won a Lombardi.

One caveat. Torell Troup was not a bad draft pick. Read this article. He was starting to really play well at training camp that year, and lots of Bills players were and are very vocal about that. He injured his back and was advised to use painkillers and keep playing. This article is a harrowing but excellent read: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/torell-troup-the-one-drafted-a-pick-ahead-of-rob-gronkowski/article_5b363410-dbdd-503c-a774-69fedf3d37d7.html "Through the 2011 lockout, Troup trained with a vengeance. He reported to training camp at a chiseled 319 pounds, eager to break out. Practices began at St. John Fisher and the kid who had 23 tackles and no sacks the year prior was dominant for stretches. “'Honestly, I was killing the offensive line,' Troup said. 'Eric Wood, I’m good friends with him, but they couldn’t handle me.' "One day in the lunchroom, head coach Chan Gailey and General Manager Buddy Nix couldn’t contain their excitement. The two asked Troup to sit down with them and told this bull in a china shop they had no clue what he did over the offseason, but, wow, were they ecstatic to see this all transfer to game day. "Their words added more fuel to Troup’s fire. His tear continued. Teammates today still remember Troup’s raw strength. "'Low center of gravity,' guard Kraig Urbik said. 'Super strong. Legs were very thick. Strong dude – he was tough to move for sure.' “'He was a strong dude,' Wood said. “'Big, powerful guy,' added veteran Kyle Williams. 'He’s probably not your pass rusher, but a guy who could stack things up at the line and make plays at the line of scrimmage and do some good things there.' ... but a bit later ... "Then, without warning, his world started to crumble down. "In a one-on-one pass rushing drill against Wood, Troup used a head bob to freeze the center. He smacked Wood with his right arm and Troup’s hand snapped, breaking the bone underneath his right knuckle. Initially, Troup thought he jammed the finger. By the time he reached the trainers he said his hand looked like a baseball glove. "Troup missed one week of practice, wrapped the paw in a club and was prepared to punctuate his knockout summer in the preseason finale against Detroit. To this day, he cannot pinpoint the play, the moment, but during this game he fractured his lower back. “'I played all through the game doped up,' he said, 'so I couldn’t feel it.' "On Wednesday, it felt like he pulled both hamstrings. He received an epidural. Tests later revealed the fracture. A disc in his back was slipping and pushing against nerves, causing burning and numbness down his legs. "Troup sat out the first three weeks of the season and returned. “ 'It’s easy to look back now and say, "I should have sat my ass down," ’  Troup said. 'But I was young. I was stupid. And it cost me my career.' ... and still later ... "When Gronkowski was scoring more touchdowns than any tight end ever in 2011, Troup was, as he said, 'all doped up' on Toradol to survive Sundays. During the week, he chugged pain pills like Tic Tacs. Troup played that season with a fractured back – his disc slipping, jamming into nerves – enduring the most unthinkable pain he doesn’t wish upon his worst enemies. Teammates told him to quit. Coaches, he claims, told him to play. So he played to the literal point of tears and the subsequent L4/L5 spinal fusion ended his career. "He’s more casualty of a ruthless business than bust. More commodity chewed up and spit out by the NFL than outright failure. Each creak of a joint in the a.m. is his aching reminder of his season from hell. “ 'They saw the pain that I was in, man,' Troup said. 'Being who I am, all I wanted to do was do what I was told. I never thought about talking back or saying I don’t want to play. No matter how much pain I was in, if they wanted me to play, I played. It went to where I couldn’t play no more.' ” That was only about 20 - 30% of the Tyler Dunne article. Hell of an article, and if you don't have a hell of a lot of sympathy for Troup after reading it, you're tougher than I am.

I think you're right that Allen will have a great year. Your original post was solid, though the headline was deliberately provocative. Your guy Mahomes had a bit of a down year with a poor receiving group, but the kind of a down year that ends in a Lombardi is a type I wouldn't mind Josh having.

Fair enough, but he was really productive for his time here. It's not a mistake that some team is paying him $13M a year. A fourth rounder. Yes, this. Limiting expectations, especially for the first year, often means improving production as there isn't major pressure for immediate production.

I'm good. Probably not perfectly satisfied, but that's not Beane's job. His job is to handle things as well as he can with the limited resources he's got. KC has won titles with some very good WRs, and won another last year with a very motley group indeed. Beane will bring in two to five more WRs, including some camp bodies who have tiny chances of showing themselves good enough to compete for a roster spot. Might it be a question? Sure. Most teams have questions that might or not be answered as they draft, as they bring in FAs and as guys on the roster develop.

Greatly doubt it. He still might develop and become a really good player, but he has an awful lot to prove.

It seemed possible, but hadn't happened yet. It has now. That's the sound of the market moving.

That's about where I'm at. I remember wanting him in the draft, but not in the first where he was being valued. Haven't been thrilled with what I've seen in the NFL.

He doesn't get a pass. But any careful look shows he's a top ten GM and probably a bit higher than that.

A jackass. There's a good argument he's declining a bit. I bet he's over 1200 with the Texans this year and that his regression bites harder a year or two after that. I don't think we had a choice. And down the road we'll be OK. But this will hurt a lot in the short run. But one of the main reasons everybody wants an elite QB is because with one you don't need a true #1. Look at Mahomes the last two years. The overwhelming majority of SB champions didn't have an elite receiver. Good ones. But Josh can do this with hitting a bunch of different guys, as Mahomes did. Still, this will hurt, particularly in the short run.

The reaction to Diggs' problems was pretty damn restrained until the trade. If this had been NYC, now then we'd have seen probably not a 5 alarm fire but 3 or 4. Before the trade it was one or two alarms at most. It was a fire, but not a huge deal by any means. Myself, if this Parsons thing gains legs, I'd expect bigger waves. It's a bigger market.

Yes, of course we are. Diggs was our best receiver, Morse an excellent center. It goes on like that. Of course we are, particularly the starters. They were the best players on our team at the position. Particularly Diggs and Morse, but White and others too. Does that mean we're doomed to a horrible year? No, we could still be a damn good team. But we absolutely got worse. Very significantly. The question now is how much better we can now get. The sour grapes we see here is the same every time a player leaves the Bills. He left, so we didn't need him. It's nonsense. But we can now watch Beane fight his way through replacing them. That's part of the fun of the off-season. The defense was absolutely demolished by injuries and we still came within a play or two of a win. For how many players either couldn't play or were seriously injured, they had a a great game.

"Was not getting any separation"? "Has lost the ability to separate down the field" you say? Those are major major exaggerations of what he said. You make it sound like the guy said he'd totally lost it, and that's not at all what he said. Brett Whitefild did have some criticism of Diggs. He said, "You do see a slightly decliing player. I still think he's a fine player. Probably not worth his paycheck anymore, though." Around 6:15 Joe asked why there was such a statistical regression later in the year. He replied that "Diggs wasn't winning vertically the same way you're used to." Said even during the hot start the efficiency numbers anything beyond ten yards was not great. "I don't think he has the speed to stack DBs anymore, or get in their blindspot. You're paying him to be a 3-level player. He wasn't playing with that efficiency anymore." He continued, "Great in the red zone still, that's one of his strengths, ... but ability to win vertically really declined, and I think that's kind of what set this whole thing in motion." Joe asked, "How much of that is Josh Allen? I feel like, some of those vertical shots, Josh missed him. ... I feel like there were some opportunites but I feel like they just didn't hook up the way they did in the previous three years." He replied, "Yeah, some of that's for sure Josh, especially when they got clean looks ... I didn't think that was a huge part of the deal, though."| I did like hearing what specifically a guy who watches a ton of film thought was causing some of the regression, but that the regression wasn't as big as it sounded like you were implying. "I don't think the rate of clean looks was the same as it was." He said consistent separation wasn't there anymore beyond 15 yards. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whats-next-at-wr-for-josh-allen-and-the-buffalo/id1145479962?i=1000651431326 So Allen had a part in it. But plenty of it was on Diggs, particularly in terms of long He's not saying Diggs is cooked. And he absolutely was NOT saying that the argument that Diggs was getting a lot of attention and opening things up for others is not true. He did not even mention that argument once, not at all, not in any way. And what I personally saw yesterday in just watching the end of the Chiefs playoff game is that there is not the slightest question that Diggs was pulling huge coverage and absolutely opening things up for others. One play in particular, the 3rd and four completion on the missed FG drive, and on that play they had Diggs in close on the right and trips on the left. And the Chiefs had literally four guys surrounding Diggs at the beginning of the play, and one safety right over the top of Diggs as well. And the two of the four who rushed both started really slow to block Allen's lanes to Diggs, taking them out of the rush basically. That left two guys in Diggs' area AND the safety over the top. On the other side there were three on three, allowing an easy completion for a first. And just to add in, Joe asked Whitefield if he was up for trading up for one of the top three WRs in this draft. He said there really was a big drop off after the first three and that if for example Odunze falls to #12, they should pick up the phone and explore things, but that if it involved a future first rounder he was out.

Are people really saying any of that? Weird. I mean, number 2 makes some sense. Allen clearly work, but it's fair to question how hard. I hadn't heard it compared to Diggs. I'm sure Diggs works hard on his body, as I think it's clear Allen does. Beyond that I don't think receivers have anywhere near as much work beyond keeping in shape as hard-working QBs do. A guy like Peyton Manning or Brady has insane work habits even in the offseason. I hadn't heard that about Diggs. I'd seen the podcast. And while it's not the greatest thing Allen said, it's one sentence, immediately after a horrible game, and we don't know what Diggs said. To me, I don't hold that against him one bit.

I mean, yeah, sure, what will be will be. Several years ago many others of us learned a lesson by way of the guard position. Feliciano, Brian Winters, Quinton Spain, Rodger Saffold. What will be will be. But sometimes what is ... is not that good. Sometimes there are too many needs for all of them to be addressed with enough of our limited resources. This year with several cornerstones leaving absolutely looks to be one of those years. I wish it didn't, but it does. Beane still has time, and the draft. But we need that time and those picks to be used very well.

Safety, corner, sledgehammer RB, IOL, pass rush. WR also. Plus depth.

While I see where you're coming from and I have some feelings in common with you, I think that that is NOT the question. Also disagree with you about Whaley. He wasn't a bad talent evaluator. He was a bad overall strategist. The horrendous part of that move wasn't drafting Watkins. (Not that it turned out well, but at that time from having that pick, he was a reasonable pick.) If we hadn't picked him, he'd still have gone within the next couple of picks. He was widely considered to be as close to a sure thing as you can get. The stupid part of that move was moving up to make the pick. That's the part of this that the academics tell you is very likely to raise your chances of an unsuccessful draft. EVERYBODY makes bad picks. Including the absolute best scouting staff in the league. Even in the first round. It's part of the deal. Look at the Chiefs for one. Their 1st rounder last year played 218 snaps, without injury. DE Anudike-Uzomah totalled half a sack and 14 tackles. Now, it's way too early to say he's a bust. But was his first year a disappointment? The Chiefs won't say that, but yeah, he was. How about Edwards-Hilaire? Bad pick. Decent player, but a bad pick by a really good scouting staff. EVERYBODY makes bad picks. Everybody. Drafting is not an exact science, it just isn't. Look at Cody Ford. Our scouts obviously really liked this guy. Thing is, you're going to make bad picks. So you understand that and you use best practices to maximize your chances. And best practices are to NOT give away big value picks in trade-ups for non-QBs. (Again, see the Massey-Thaler study, "The Loser's Curse: Decision Making and Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft." Key findings: "[The NFL draft] It is also a domain in which multiple psychological factors suggest that teams may overvalue the chance to pick early in the draft. Using archival data on draft-day trades, player performance, and compensation, we compare the market value of draft picks with the surplus value to teams provided by the drafted players. We find that top draft picks are significantly overvalued in a manner that is inconsistent with rational expectations and efficient markets, and consistent with psychological research." Massey and Thaler are extremely respected. Thaler has got a Nobel Prize. And the other studies in this are that have followed have all agreed.) What all those bad WRs drafted in the first ten picks in the last ten years should teach us is NOT that you shouldn't draft WRs in the top ten. If you're already in the top ten, go ahead and draft one if you believe in him. It is that trading away premium assets to get higher lowers your chances of draft success. You said the question is whether you trust the scouts. That's not the question. The question is should you make a trade-up of that size when ALL of the studies done on this question tell you the answer is that in this kind of situation you absolutely should not, because it lowers your chances of successful drafts. It's certainly not impossible that we make a trade like this. But IMO they shouldn't, and I don't think they will. You don't get into and win a Super Bowl by improving your wide receiver room. You do it by improving the team. The whole team. 'Nuff said by me in this thread. Have a great draft season, all.

I posted this in another thread. I think it's worth hearing again. Here it is: Quick question: What do these players have in common? Kevin White, Corey Davis, Mike Williams (from Clemson to the Chargers), John Ross, Drake London and Sammy Watkins? All WRs chosen in the top ten picks in the last ten years. We tend to think "a top ten guy, he'll be a Ja'Marr Chase." And that ain't necessarily so. There are some very good WRs chosen in the top ten of those same drafts. But more who never justified the pick. For those curious, here are all the rest of the top ten in those ten years: Chase, Waddle, DeVonta Smith, Garrett Wilson, Amari Cooper, Mike Evans. That's five terrific players, one pretty damn good one in Smith and again, Kevin White, Corey Davis, Mike Williams (from Clemson to the Chargers), John Ross, Drake London and Sammy Watkins. That's why you don't make such massive trade-ups unless you're doing it for a franchise QB. GMs tend to get carried away by their surety in their own abilities. And that's fools gold. Very very very few are genuine sure things. That's why Massey and Thaler and all of their inheritors say what they say. The data says tradeups that big are desperate, not to be made except for a franchise QB, as drafting a possible franchise QB is worth the prospect of a possible catastrophic failure, because you pretty much can't win without one.

It's certainly not impossible. IMO we shouldn't do it. And - again in my opinion - we won't.

Suddenly you're breaking this down into two deals. That's just a form of spin. You posed it as one deal. That's how I read it. And no. The Bills should not take that. Again, if they did that, they'd be paying $49M on this year's cap for Metcalf and Diggs elsewhere. That major cap hit means we would have to leave holes unfilled. And a greatly reduced chance of bringing in other good players at reasonable cost because you've emptied the early parts of these two drafts. That's part of what this deal's results would be. We'd have great WRs for the future, but be weaker in several places elsewhere. Deals aren't made in a vacuum. You can't ignore the Bills' cap and roster situation. As the cap and the roster currently stand, strong pass.

Did he say that he was JUST tall and fast? Or is that you just paraphrasing badly? Nobody doubts his speed or his height, they're terrific, but he does have other good traits. But he's got some question marks also. He's not great at separation on short and mid-range routes, he's not a very sudden explosive cutter. And there are questions about how he'd handle parts of the route tree against NFL DBs.

Man, you frightened me there. I thought I'd misread the post. Went back and checked it. It's the 2024 1st rounder and the 2025 1st as well, plus the other picks. For Brian Thomas, no I am not. Even throw in the right to pay Metcalf $18M and I'm not.

You talk the way you talk. I'll talk the way I talk. OK? You've summed up the results perfectly. For one guy, we'd have traded away two firsts and two seconds, getting a (considerably better) first in return, when we don't have a third round pick that first year.. That's absolutely the heart of two drafts, in exchange for one player. Who, like it or not might turn out to be a Kevin White, Corey Davis, Mike Williams (from Clemson to the Chargers), John Ross, Drake London or a Sammy Watkins, though all of those guys were thought of quite a bit more highly than Brian Thomas. Bray, I am sorry, though, I didn't see Metcalf in your original post. My fault. But while I would like the results at WR, it would leave even larger gaps elsewhere because we'd be spending $49M on this year's cap for the WR combination of DK Metcalf and Stefon Diggs catching balls from Stroud. That's about 25% of our cap this year for two receivers, only one of whom is actually on the team. IMO if you give up that treasure trove of picks, you're going to need your FA money to fill in the holes.

Very much this. I'm sure he's got a plan. But it's unlikely to be the kind of huge splash folks on here would like it to be. IMO it won't be trading for Aiyuk or someone of that sort, but my guess is that kind of move is more likely than the huge move in the draft so many here want. Guess we'll see.