Thurman#1

We had some deficiencies last year. Every team does. But until the rash of injuries and Josh's elbow injury we looked like the best team in the league. The best team in the league going through an unprecedentedly harrowing season. This year we look about the same, a bit worse in total, IMO, but not much worse. Losing Singletary hurt, but we've replaced him successfully. Kyle Allen is a downgrade from Keenum. The OL is better. Poona Ford is an upgrade. And our first two picks have the potential to improve us. Everyone's a year older, some for good (Shakir, Elam and hopefully Rousseau, for instance) and some just got older (Morse comes to mind but there are others who could start to get worse, such as the two safeties and Latavius Murray). Bottom line is that a huge amount of this comes down to a few players. Will Von Miller be better this year than he looked to be at the start of last year. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely, and it's a key piece. Will Tre White be what he was, or has he reached his post-injury ceiling? RT looked better at the start of the year last year. But things went downhill. This year is a guess. Was it down to injury? That will play a major role. We're likely to bring on another FA DE. Who? How old? Having lost Edmunds was a major blow, and not having much FA money to replace him hurt greatly. Last year we had no obvious holes to attack at the beginning of the season, though Saffold turned out to be one. This year we appear to have an obvious hole. NFL teams will not overlook that. If Miller and Tre White become their old selves, we'll be as good or probably better. If not, a bit worse. Oh, and we'll be hyped. It's just that hype season hasn't started for real yet.

Maybe someone has already posted this. Gets me every time. Darius Leonard. "Bleacher Report: Darius Leonard one of Draft's Worst Picks" "Just grind like tomorrow isn't coming." Yikes!!

Yes, but significantly less than 1%. Wildly unlikely to play enough snaps before we even look at the rest.

Fabulous news. They're reporting he took less. If so, that's really unusual for a guy at his stage. Over 5 years he's made about $14M. Guys aren't usually giving discounts to new teams at that stage of their financial lives. Excellent.

They stunt sometimes. Not a whole lot, but they do it. Randomly picked the last game of the year and went looking. Found two in the first half, and stopped looking. First quarter 13:56 and second quarter 0:16.

Very cool. The whole Hamlin story is just wonderful, and it could have turned out very differently.

"Part of the equation was knowing how to use him," you say? Yeah, fair enough, part of it. Yeah, but for a rookie, I'd argue that him knowing how to be used is a lot bigger part of the equation than the OC knowing how to use him. When 2013 got here, Olsen was already a canny, wizened 7th year veteran. More, those low WR target numbers may well have been a result of having Cam Newton throwing, and of having some poor WR groups. 2013 Steve Smith 745 yards, #2 Brandon LaFell 627 2014 Kelvin Benjamin 1008 yards, #2 Cotchery 580 2015 Ted Ginn Jr. 739 yards, #2 Cotchery 485 2016 Kelvin Benjamin 941 yards, #2 Ginn Jr. 752 2017 (even with Olsen injured most of the year and receiving only 38 targets) Devin Funchess 840 yards, #2 WR ... -------------------(not counting RB McCaffrey's 651) Kelvin Benjamin 475 Put another way, they had one WR that whole four years that (twice) beat out Gabriel Davis' 2022 total yards, both by our oold friend Kelvin Benjamin, 1008 yards in 2014 and 941 yards in 2016. Those were deeply unusual teams in terms of how they threw the ball. And yes, having Olsen there may have been part of that, but again I'd argue that a lot larger part would have been having Cam Newton at QB and a pretty bad WR group the whole time.

??? Yeah, but 2015 was Olsen's 9th year in the league and 5th year on the Panthers. In Olsen's rookie year he had 66 targets, and in his first year with the Panthers, which was his fifth year in the NFL, he had 89 targets.

IMO this year, Davis. Next year, Kincaid. Yeah, almost certainly not. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

I'm not convinced there is any gap. The Bills just had an awful game. On top of the absolute wave of defensive injuries. After a season like this, an awful game isn't surprising, in retrospect anyway. The healthy Bills handily beat the Chiefs this year. They've been good enough both of the last two years.

Yeah, that's the logical flaw here. They probably figured Rodgers was good enough to compensate for a (relative) lack of weapons, and the new guy isn't. None of which means that Rodgers isn't an a-hole. My impression is that he is.

If all else is good, I'd love to have him on the team.

Poona will likely be too expensive. It'll be one of that bunch of 6 - 9 experienced solid unsigned DEs, for one. Probably whoever will accept a contract of around $2 - $3M. And maybe a DT. Linval Joseph used to be good. He's out there, but maybe too old. Who's tough but affordable?

No reason to think Davis will be gone this year, or next for that matter. It's one of the possibilities. But they also might easily find a way to keep him. I'm with you that I think he'll be better this year, though I don't know about great.

And yet most teams have several spots for ST guys, including just about all of the good ones. STs make a difference. Less difference than they used to, that's correct. But they still make a difference. Teams fight for every advantage, as they should.

The SB was 38-35. But the AFC championship was 23-20. Fans generally will always choose offense. The problem is that the other guy's offense is against your defense. The offense has gotten better, but they were already one of the best. 2nd in yards and 2nd in scoring. There isn't all that much room for improvement. The defense (before injuries) was damn good, but as the dings mounted they got significantly worse. And there's a lot of room for them to get even less good. And this year there's an area we're really weak at and will (likely) have to actively cover up. That increases the likelihood of problems elsewhere. Should be an interesting season. That's certainly one guess. But when you look at his outbursts, none came when we were winning, even when he had few targets. But IMO this has very very little chance of actually happening. Cards ownership won't eat the money. And the Bills won't make the trade unless they do.

Used to be a lot more than that before our roster was so good. And it's worth remembering that an awful lot of NFL players are UDFAs. It changes year to year but here are a couple of articles about it from different years (2019 and 2022) and I threw in the All-UDFA historical team for good measure: https://nfldraftdiamonds.com/2019/09/undrafted-2/#:~:text=The NFL has always been,called in the NFL Draft. https://nfldraftdiamonds.com/2022/09/undrafted-free-agents-2/#:~:text=23 percent of the NFL are Undrafted Free Agents | It keeps growing https://www.nfl.com/photos/nfl-s-all-time-undrafted-team-0ap3000000567319#:~:text=There are nearly 500 undrafted,Fame who also went undrafted. Most of these guys don't amount to anything. Sometimes, though, they do. Not at all. Unlike giant MLBs who can't defend the pass, big tub of goo DTs are alive and well and common in the NFL these days. They aren't paid as much as they used to be, and they're often drafted in the 5th or later, but there are plenty of them getting a bunch of snaps every year. Look at Siaki Ika. Brodric Martin. Keondre Coburn, who went to the Chiefs. The Bills wanted one this year, to platoon behind big Da'Quan. But Beane said things didn't fall right.

Works in favor of the team. You can bet he gets virtually none of that guaranteed. Beyond the signing bonus anyway, which will be very small indeed. So this just gives the team exclusive rights on him for three years, though if they don't like him he's gone by morning. I like this pickup. A great STs guy, so it'll keep that pot boiling.

I mean, yeah, they paid a lot. But that's the way it works when you want to get into the top three from that far back. I don't think they get up there if they don't give up a future 1st. That's what you have to do if you want to go up that far and into the top three. The bottom line is it'll be totally worth it if Anderson works out. And a total failure if he doesn't.

Rules are rules.

I like bits and pieces, but the end just ruins it for me. The other GM is the weakest sad sack there. I mean, how far on tilt does that guy have to be? If he makes that trade he doesn't even make it from the corridor into his office before his owner is there asking for the key to the executive bathroom and discussing the compensation he'll get for being fired.

Michael Wilson and Ika. Not so great, IMO. Teams with "a serious deficit of offensive talent" don't get the second-most yards per game in the league or the second-most points per game. The idea's ridiculous. We didn't have a serious deficit on this team except maybe MLB. Certainly not on the offense after they filled in the guard spots in FA. We have several areas that could use some targeted upgrades. And those are on both offense and defense. Wouldn't have minded that at all.

He didn't "definitely" force this pick. This is what is known as a guess. As is what you are saying there are "the plans" for him, but which are really your guesses. Nothing wrong with having guesses. Nothing whatsoever. It's only a problem when you start to confuse guesses with facts. And again. You're not being a realist here. You in fact don't "just know he's going to be useless." It's a guess. I don't like the pick either so far. But I don't kid myself I know what's going to happen in the future.

Ah, sorry to misunderstand. But equally ridiculous. As I pointed out, there's a reason Tremaine is now the fourth-highest paid off-ball linebacker in football, behind only Roquan Smith, Shaquille Leonard and Fred Warner. He's an extremely good player. Terrific applies. The whole D played much worse when he was out. Hard to replace, as we seem to be finding out, though I hope I'm wrong about that.

Thank you, you're correct, sorry to be careless. I still don't feel confident that many guys I would pick, and especially really covet at this point will be there. Some will. Plenty will be gone, though.