Thurman#1

Or bust? Haiiiil naw. It'll all depend on the guy and the price. I'd love to get Garrett in particular. But only if it's good value. And I'd disagree that Brandon fails to get elite players early, because he basically never drafts early. It's a lot harder to get elite guys where we usually draft. And costs too much to move up far (Massey-Thaler, for example). Play it as it comes, and I'm hoping it comes so we can get Garrett.

Higher helps. Not as much as it does on a punt, of course. But if the ball is higher it's more affected by the wind and harder to predict for the returner exactly where it'll land. He's got to keep his head up higher and if it's near the goal line he's now got to think about The more the football's momentum is down rather than forward as it approaches the ground, and the less likely he is to be able to get a running start. Will that mean that the second returner might have to be over close yelling to catch it or let it go on plays where it's close-ish to the end zone? Yeah, probably, if it's close, but giving that guy something else to do rather than block is also a slight advantage for the kicking team. You're right, this isn't a huge deal, but IMO it's part of what we'll see, I think. I could be wrong. Time will tell.

IMO the returners will have pretty much the same choices as they did last year. But they will see very different kinds of kicks coming towards them if they pass this new rule, or at least that's the assumption from the NFL, and from me for that matter. They'll be seeing a lot more shorter higher kicks that have to get returned.

It's generally the kicking team not the returning team that makes this decision, by kicking it way the hell out of the end zone. If a TB goes to the 35, we're likely to see kicks that are shorter and higher, landing in the field of play and forcing returns.

As has been pointed out about a million times, and correctly, isn't that the D has been bad in the postseason. It is basically that the D has not been able to stop the Kansas City Chiefs in the postseason. Very few teams have, and the ones that managed it generally Mahomes having a bad day. Right from play one against the Eagles, Mahomes was missing even when not pressured. And Josh is not unaware that the first two drives or so in our game against KC this year he was awful, and that that cost us deeply. I just don't see that kind of attitude surfacing in Josh.

This.

Thanks very much. These days I just can't keep up with the whole league the way I used to. Affordable but good is the type of guy I think we'll have a reasonable chance to bring in. Appreciate it greatly.

Was not expecting that!!! A perfect answer.

Really. Nobody knows yet. There's a possibility they all go right along the trajectory already established. Probably several will. Anyone who thinks that we already know what will happen to all of them is absolutely kidding himself. Some might make huge steps up. No way to know for sure. Much too early. Look at Benford or Taron Johnson or Milano out of hundreds of similar examples. Hell, look at Josh. None looked like an impact playmaker after their first year. Some elite playmakers are already recognizable after their first year. Plenty more are not yet. Kid yourself if it makes you feel better. We just don't know. That's an irritating feeling, which reflect reality.

Much too early.

Milano's low 40 was 4.58. https://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php?PlayerId=127726&DraftYear=2017 But his higher ones were just about what are mentioned there as guesses for Dolac. Too early to know, really, till we start to see actual 40 times rather than informed guesses. I like what little I know about Dolac a lot. Always in the right spot. Good instincts. Tremaine was an excellent pass coverage guy, but more so zone than man. There really isn't a comparison there.

Way way way too early for me to have decided or even narrowed things down. But I'm with Alpha, my ideal would be to trade it in a (reasonably priced) package to get us Garrett or Crosby.

Not really caught up on either guy. Just looking at their production, that's the kind of guy who they could reasonably afford to bring in, it looks like to me. What particularly do you like about each guy, if you don't mind me asking. I don't know either one well at all.

Don't worry about him, he's not coming here.

Undefeated? Dude, please. Yup.

No, just the opposite. When 7 of the top 12 RBs are within the top 14 of 32 playoff teams that indicates success. Not lack of success. Right. Again, that's an indicator of success, not a lack of success. It means that QBs in the top 10 of AAV made the playoffs at higher rates than those below the top 10. Particularly as the two teams in the Super Bowl are both in that list of the top ten QBs in terms of AAV. And three of the four teams in the conference championships. Um, no, he's not missing that in any way shape or form. Of course having good to great WRs helps the most important position on the field. Of course it does. So does having good to great players at every single other position on the field. OLs. RBs. TEs. Punters, who help the QB get better field position. Pass rushers who help get more possessions. EVERY ... POSITION ... ON THE FIELD. RBs help take responsibility off the QB and make things much more difficult on the defense in terms of handling both offensive modes instead of letting them concentrate basically on the passing game. Everyone helps the QB, that's part of it being a team game. You're right, of course, that it's more complicated than a straight causative relationship. It's complex. Some great QBs either have rookie contracts (Daniels) or older cheaper ones that will be updated soon (Josh). Same sort of thing with WRs and RBs, and everyone, really. AAV isn't a perfect gauge of talent. It's a damn good gauge of how positions are valued, though. OP has a very interesting point. Values may start to go down a bit. They won't plummet, but go down in comparison to other positions? Could easily happen. But year after year it's unusual to see true #1s in the Super Bowl. It does happen, including arguably this year with A.J. Brown. But it's unusual. Usually teams that have QBs on second contracts have to cut elsewhere and WRs are usually one of the areas they cut out (see the Chiefs and what they did with Tyreek and his second contract). A spectacular QB can usually get by much much better without a true #1 than can a new QB or a more average QB.

No, not even slightly close. That's just wrong. Far less than 2/3rds of all offensive plays are passes. Far less. The highest pass/run percentage in the league is Cincy, at 62.8%. League average is closer to 55%. And that's passes. NOT just passes to wide receivers. Subtract out all passes to RBs, TEs and eligible OLs, and it's way less than 40%. More like 1/3 than 2/3 of offensive plays target WRs.

When are people going to accept that it looks like we don't know. Maybe they found somebody who they think has found some kind of breakthrough. Maybe Ciano is becoming unpleasant to deal with. Maybe he's been coming in late more and more often. Maybe there are personality problems developing. We just don't know. Most likely we never will, though folks closer may and it may come out eventually. Or not. We don't know. I'm with you that the evidence is that he did a good job. Over the - is it nine? - years he's been here they've had two really bad years for injuries. In football two out of nine is far more healthy than usual. He's not the strength coach anymore. But he was. Or the Strength and Conditioning Coach, anyway. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2025/2/15/24365585/buffalo-bills-part-ways-with-former-coach-of-the-year-recipient-eric-ciano From what I've observed when they let someone go, he's gone from the website extremely quickly.

Let's be honest. What you have there is a guess. Some QBs decline much earlier, as Cam Newton did. Others much later, as Tom Brady did. Within the middle area where most are, there's huge variability and a lot of it depends on injuries. Peyton Manning could have gone another year or two at a tremendously high level if not for the arm injury. Stafford's playing as well as ever at 37. Five or six years is plucked out of the air. Will his run game drop off probably around then? Yeah, maybe. But he's got the same ability to move in the pocket as someone like Brady did and Brady stayed 100% relevant way into his 40s. The way he played this year is something he can most maintain, very possibly for a long time. Being honest doesn't mean you're correct. It only means that your opinion is deeply felt. Urgency winning a Super Bowl? Absolutely. As they have every year. They should in the future have as much or more. We were probably one play away this year, damn it. They need to improve. Every year. They're aware of this.

Bill, I took a look at Derrick Harmon after you picked him. Man, I am salivating. Thanks so much for all the time you spend. Great stuff. I'd really like all three of these.

Yup, that's my guess. Shiniest toy in the store will always have people standing in the aisles. I see them bringing in a solid #2. Possibly that's Cooper. My guess is it depends on the price. They did really really well last year without anybody great. They should still try to upgrade. The only massive salary cap hit I see them taking is maybe Myles Garrett. And that won't be for running fly routes.

That's certainly one guess, that he would've been fired. No particular validity to it. We'll never know either way, because, you know, if different things had happened, results would have changed and nearly every decision after would have been made differently. Thing is ... they did draft 17. They didn't have to. And while now that looks like an easy decision, at the time it was really really unpopular. Most people would have made a different decision. Beane didn't. He nailed it, and apparently they like Allen from very very early in the process. So your argument here ... if they had not had a good process and not made that incredibly good decision ... yeah, thing is, they did. They've made decision after decision that have put them in contention every single year. Not every team with a great QB can say that or anything like it. And yeah, Beane's never been a scout in terms of going on the road and covering an area. He's been doing player evaluation for most of his career. Same with Howie Roseman. Same with plenty of GMs around the league.

"Getting lucky" is simply your way of spinning a terrific decision. What they did ... they got it right. No particular reason to think that it wasn't just simply good decision-making coming from a good process.

Player's side, he's worth it, or close anyway. Team's side, no thanks. Draft another third-rounder. The new guy will play great behind this terrific OL. Too many other key guys coming due the same year. It's not S.O.P. But it's not uncommon. Nothing especially wrong with it.

People who complain about dead cap endlessly or make comments about "we're paying him and he's not on the team, " ... understand the system perfectly. Or rather people who say we're using a giant chunk of this year's cap and getting absolutely nothing for it because the player is on another team ... they understand perfectly. It's a major handicap. As it was for us last year with the Diggs contract. When you have a huge dead cap hit, ala Diggs, it means you wasted a huge amount of money, and that that money is coming out of the cap in a year when that guy is not even playing on your team. If you do it perfectly, it's still a problem but yes, not as big a problem. It's still a problem even if things went perfectly because many of these long-term contracts have void years, and even if that works out perfectly you're still going to end up having dead cap. It has consequences. Last year, each team received $255.4M in cap space. The Bills only spent $225.25M in cash. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cash/_/year/2025 Why? Why did they spend in cash about $30M less than they received? Well, it's complex and there are a ton of factors but arguably the single main factor was the $31M in dead money that was being taken off the cap for Diggs while he was playing in Houston. And all of the rest of the $75M in dead cap hurt just as much dollar for dollar. More, when you say, "if things go perfectly, it's all fine," ... how often do things go perfectly? Never is the quick answer there. Things might go perfectly on one contract, but on all of them? It doesn't happen, these being human beings on both sides of these contracts. That's why the lowest dead cap total in the league last year was $13M. Nobody's perfect. Absolutely nobody. The more of those contracts you write, the more you will end up paying in dead cap generally. There are advantages and disadvantages. Both need to be looked at realistically.