Thurman#1

Oliver is a very good player. Not worth his pick, but probably not all that far below it. And you can't compare one guy and say we could have had this guy or two behind him. If you start doing that, you can make about 98% of all NFL draft picks in history look bad. Ford was awful, as was Moss. With Bernard, you simply don't know. You don't. I don't. Nobody does yet. Any idea how many teams have made two really bad picks and one that's questionable in the last five years? I'm betting all of them. Unfortunately that's the way it goes. You have to also look at all of the really good picks on top of that. (Davis, Knox, Teller, Taron Johnson and Edmunds. Probably Rousseau, Benford and Shakir as well.) And the many solid picks. His drafting hasn't been average. It's been better than that. Not terrific, but quite good. Again, you're quite right about there being some failures. That happens. How is 1st rounder Edwards-Helaire turning out for KC, when they could have had Jonathan Taylor or Tee Higgins there, or Trevon Diggs? (See how that works with cherry-picking the better picks taken behind them?) Or more misses in bright Chiefs red like Khalen Saunders in the 3rd? Dorian O'Daniel in the 3rd? Kpassagnon in the 2nd? Breeland Speaks in the 2nd? Even the best teams miss on a few. It's how the draft works.

Fair enough, but equally, a GM has a ton to say about changing the culture. Beane a bit less so than others, as McDermott was already here, but Beane has stressed character in the players he's brought in in the draft, FA and trades. That makes a huge difference. People have argued that Whaley didn't have a choice with Rexy, but that's fairly speculative. If he'd said he didn't want to work with Marrone or Rex, the Pegulas would almost certainly gotten rid of either Whaley or the coach he didn't like. I'd argue it would have been the coach gone, as they like Whaley a lot till they got a load of McDermott. Donahoe had his choice and went with Greggo and Mularkey, neither of whom looked to me like they changed the culture all that much.

You also don't compare a guy's drafts without comparing where he was drafting. The Bills had worse picks under Beane than they did under either of the others, due to their success. More wins, lower picks. The best way to compare what kind of chance each guy had at picking good players is almost certainly by comparing the values of their draft picks. It's possibly worth arguing which chart to use, and if someone wants to go through this exercise with some of the other charts, go to it. I used the old Jimmy Johnson chart. Compare the values of their first round picks only, and it's close but Donahoe's picks were more valuable, with Donahoe's five totalling 5270 and Beane's five 5100. Look at all the picks and it's fairly different. (Note: I eliminated all fractions, so if the value was 21.6, I used 21.0 and I also eliminated all picks under 3.0 points (the whole 7th round) to make it easier and because numbers that small have very little effect. Beane's picks value was 7966 points. Donahoe's 9168. That's a very significant difference, and the fact that Donahoe's picks were worth more and yet your AV values say that Beane's choices had quite a bit higher AV values ... it says a lot. One caveat to my method. I used the picks they actually used to select people. So if one guy traded better and got more value that way, my method didn't show or account for that, though in fact it should be a major point in favor of the cleverer trader. Anyone who wants to go back and look at the original points before the trades would be doing interesting work that would be worth seeing. But right now, Beane looks quite a bit more successful than Donahue.

No. It's not data. As I pointed out above, when you start pulling sleight-of-hand like eliminating Allen from Beane's score it's numbers pre-adjusted to show a chosen result.

Dude, thinking this is proves what you say it does says a lot more about how desperate you were to believe what you thought coming in than it does about the draft results of each guy. A lot more. First, while I don't like Whaley's reign at all, it's not fair to assign the 2017 class to him. He was working under McDermott that year, and no matter what you think that means, it's not fair to give him credit or blame for what happened. He only had four years here, and I get that that means you only have four years to work with on Whaley, but there are other ways to handle that problem than assigning a year when the buck didn't stop with him to his total. You say, "If you subtract Allen from Beane, he goes to an AV total of 97 and 86 ..." And that's simply a desire to twist to support what you want to believe. You don't subtract a guy's best result and then compare him to other people without subtracting from them. You just don't. Unless of course you're desperately trying to lower his score compared to that of the others.

I like him a lot, but as I understand it, he's rising fast and is thought more likely to go in round three or maybe even round two these days. I loved him in round four or five, but can't see us going with him as far as he's risen.

Yeah, this. If the offer is good, there aren't too many players I'd stick for. Nolan Smith. Skoronski. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Njigba. If the offer isn't very good, several more.

Some pretty good DEs still left. Likely to cost a bit much for us, but possible, I think, if the demand isn't what the players hope. We'll know after or possibly even during the draft. And for the Bills particularly, on May 3rd.

What? WR is in no way "the Bills biggest need as of date." In no way. Could they go WR? Sure? Four or five other positions just as easily.

Again, silly article. So, Davis' $2.742M for a total of $24M for the two Bucs, with Evans' $13M this year and White's $11M, even assuming we don't renew either guy costing us even more money?

Silly. $11M this year and if it's not one and done then there'd be an awful lot more after that with a new contract. Very good player of course, but we're not in a position to do that with any degree of fiscal care.

You may be referring to Astro (Dean Kindig)'s spreadsheet. That usually comes out just a few days before the draft.

"Up to" $18M. Wonder how much of that is actual money. People on here weren't seeing how much he'd be asking. That's why he isn't here, IMO. As a player, he'd be a really good add. With his salary requests, not so much, maybe. Seems like a "Lamar, come back, see the shiny thing we got for you?" kind of a move to me.

We don't have a huge hole in the defense except for one ... where we let one of those first round picks leave because he was so good he priced himself out of our salary cap range.

It isn't a switch. I say that as a regular listener. Cover1 has been talking about DE and DT as legitimate possibilities since January.

It's neither right nor wrong till you know who they think will be available and who they would draft. Edge is a need. If there's a really good one there, it would be worth it. I'm not convinced a really good one will be there, but it's all about BPA at positions of need. Edge is a position of need.

I understand fans wanting this. IMO the likelihood of Beane doing it in a year when he already has less than seven picks is less than 10%. He'd have to get a great deal. "Why not use a future draft pick when the heat is on now for a successful pick," you ask? Jeez, where do I start? First, because the heat is on every year for a successful draft, and you're screwing yourself next year, which is a draft that looks like it will provide a lot more good players than this year's class. Second, because trading up and giving up significant resources in the trade is a proven losing strategy. Moving up a spot or two and giving up late-rounders much less so, but giving up big resources (except when chasing a franchise QB) has proven very consistently to be a poor strategy. Once you get to trading away 3rds or even 4ths, you're hurting yourself far more often than helping. Massey-Thaler and many many other studies make this very clear. Oh, and Beane's NOT on the hot seat outside your imagination. He's just not. Yeah. And possible or not, it would be a genuinely horrible idea. Luckily not something Beane would even consider.

No, simply not true. Rousseau is no JAG, that's simply nonsense. Elam looked like by the end of the year he'd figured zone out a bit, and that was his weakness. He was one of the few to play really well against Cincy. Looks like he's going to be a very good one. Those two and Tre White (excuding the trade for Diggs) are the only three first rounders we got in the 20s, and not a single one can be accused of being a JAG, though Elam still has some things to prove.

I see. An hour or so? I'd disagree even more strongly about that, though. I mean, if they pulled it off, fantastic. But you'd have to have demand for the guy be almost completely guaranteed. I don't think that happens here. Again, if it did, I'd be thrilled. I'm not sure I remember who you mean by Green Bay to Seattle. Can't be Matt Flynn, he was an FA. But i'm willing to believe it happened. But the fact that you can't quickly come up with five, though you managed more than I did, shows the problem. That kind of thing is rare, even when you give it three years, as was the time in the Rob Johnson deal. Nice catch by the way, I wouldn't have remembered that one, I guess. But we couldn't wait three years to get value back. With Johnson it was a huge success, getting a 1st rounder for a 4th, but using a first rounder for Hooker expecting the same thing would be much riskier. And part of the reason Johnson brought so much in trade was that he played a bunch due to injury. What if that doesn't happen with Josh? I'd love to see them using the old-style Belichick conveyor belt to get more picks, trade a 3rd for a 2nd the next year, then the next year trade that 2nd for a 1st. Just like a conveyor belt. But Beane doesn't seem willing to do that. It's a nice thought experiment using Hooker that way, IMO, but I can't see them doing it. If I were GM, I wouldn't unless a couple of teams were showing rabid interest. At that point I'd start thinking about it, but what if they back off after you drafted him. Then you're screwed. It's a bit different when the guy is a top five pick. You're right that Eli is proof that "holding never works" is wrong. But it does require that the situation work in a very specific way. It's why they're so rare. If a GM was as desperate for Hendon Hooker as the G-Men were for Eli, they'd go get him way above #27.

Use him to trade back? I mean I'd love that. Anything we can use to trade back would be helpful. But Hooker isn't generally predicted to go this high. We've got no leverage to use Hooker in that way. You mention "teams that think they can trade up in the 28-31 range and get him." That's a pretty big assumption. It's possible. If we can do it, I'd love it, but IMO if someone trades up with us, it's more likely to be for someone else. I could certainly be wrong about that. As for drafting him and holding him, a QB doesn't get more valuable generally in a year. It happens very very occasionally, but not often. Things have to fall just right Could you give, say, five examples of times when QBs not drafted in the top 10 or 15 get traded (let's open it up a bit, in the first 2 or 3 years of their career) for more than they were drafted for? That's not a challenge, just that outside of Favre it gets hard to think of guys like that. I'm sure it has happened, but generally for guys outside the top ten, it happens more often if they get playing time. If Allen is injured, I'd rather see a vet in there. Finally, I think Beane has got to get some value from his first down draft pick this year. Not necessarily a full-time starter as people on here keep complaining, but you've got to get some value. If he wants to make future drafts better, I'd rather see him do something like trade our third-rounder this year for a second next year, that kind of thing. Especially if the teams balance things out with a late-rounder or two. This should be BPA at a position of need or trade back, IMO.

Oh, I see. I argue. Whereas you never argue, you're far above that. You find it objectionable when people argue because you never do it. Yeah, right. Anyway, I do understand why you're bowing out, as I'm sure any reader here does. Your argument has holes, significant, serious ones. I mean, you argue that the regular season means nothing once you reach the playoffs. And then when someone points out the wildly obvious, that it means a hell of a lot in terms of home field, playoff opponents, the week off for the one seed, etc., then suddenly you're angry because I argued. Right. Anyway, one more point, you keep talking about this mysterious 9-8 team that then wins the SB. Thing is that sort of thing happens spectacularly rarely, for just the reasons above. How many teams have won SBs with 8 or more losses in the last 25 years? Went back and checked it for the hell of it. Zero, as I'd thought. Now how many teams have won SBs with 9 or more wins in the last 25 years. I thought it was one, the Giants, and I was kinda psyched to be just on target. It's spectacularly rare. The regular season matters a ton.

Everybody had a crap day. Nobody on the team or coaching staff said it wasn't their fault. They were explaining. Telling what happened. You didn't hear one of them say anything like, "so it's not my fault," or "that's why we don't need to worry about it." There is no issue here with avoiding responsibility.

Um, it absolutely does matter, and a hell of a lot more than a hill of beans. Ever heard of seeding? Heard the #1 seed gets a week to sit? Heard of home field advantage? If you haven't, you ought to go look them up. You'd be amazed. And you're deliberately misunderstanding what he said about what would be best. We all understand that a championship would be best. It's you who doesn't appear to understand that we're saying that the regular season matters, to the Bills and to nearly all of the fans. If it doesn't matter to you, don't watch the regular season. See you in January.

I disagree that the first Bengals game looked like a loss. IMO it looked like the beginning of a shootout. In the playoff game, our first two offensive series were three-and-outs. In the regular season game, our only offensive series involved moving from our own 25 to the Bengals 7, and kicking a field goal on third down and three. The Bengals probably has somewhere around a 55 - 60% chance of winning that game. It was very very early. Fair enough on the last two paragraphs.

They looked plenty ready to win it all in most of the games last year, but particularly before Von Miller's injury. But the Cincinnati game was very clearly an absolutely terrible game. The players simply played badly. And it wasn't because they were bad players, they played awful in that game. Someone else in this thread said I believe that his wife said they didn't look like the Bills. Yeah. 1000%. I was thinking the same thing and so was about half the country. And the players themselves made it very clear in the post-game interviews that they felt the same. "“There was no real energy, juice, no momentum.” said linebacker Matt Milano. Milano also said they played "flat." Those weren't all weaknesses being exposed. That was a team playing far below what they were capable of. Maybe the coaches too, but certainly the players. They had a terrible day. That doesn't mean that everything's OK now that we've established that and no changes need to be made or thought to be put into it. They do need to work on how to improve, as does every team. But they had a really bad game.