Thurman#1

Wilkins, a game-wrecker? Yeah, not really seeing that. My guess is he manages to get somewhere around maybe $15 - $17M/ year for his next contract. Good player, and so far better than Oliver. But game-wrecker is really overstating it for him. Oliver was headed in that direction in 2021. Definitely took a step back last year, but he had three injuries which looked like they really cut into his effectiveness. He hasn't had a lot of injuries, but he sure did last year. He could easily take a major step forward this year. Or not. We'll have to see.

Yeah, we get it. Thing is, that means that 31 teams every year sucked. Which simply isn't true. Having a good season is terrific. A ton better than having a bad season. Not as good as winning a championship, but still a very good thing. There are plenty of ways to have a really good season without winning a championship. The team that wins the championship had a better season, but anyone who thinks the Eagles had a terrible year last year just hasn't a clue. Same with us. To do so well with a player dying on the field, with a mass shooting in the city, with two man-killing blizzards, with the only time in NFL history that a team had 3 away games in a row in a total of 12 games, and all the rest, was a great accomplishment. Agreed it would have been much better if we'd won a Lombardi, but 31 teams didn't.

Nah. By that measure the Super Bowl Bills were awful through most of those four years. And they weren't. They weren't quite the best, damn it, but they were excellent. Doesn't make sense to judge by one game. It just doesn't.

And that's fair enough too. Same with everyone, really. But him a bit more than most. I think Bates is more and better than you think. Hard to say for sure, but that's what it looked like to me. And they could certainly draft a guy who is C/G flexible and could move in there when needed. "Sad"? Yes. You clearly are.

I'd strongly disagree with "safe" and "limited ceilings." They've made extreme athleticism a consistent focus. We go after guys with really high RAS scores, and those guys don't generally have low ceilings.

Yeah, exactly. If he has something he doesn't want to address, he's perfectly happy saying he shouldn't talk about that right now, or as Joe B. points out today in his latest Q & A, "I don't really want to get into all of that." Less smokescreening than just about anyone out there. He just doesn't seem to want to lie to people. Not all that many GMs hold themselves to that, but he seems to. Doesn't seem to hurt him either.

Really? Brandon Beane said, "[We are] Set To Double Down on 2022’s Big Disappointments"? You know, frankly, I doubt that. I think what you've got there is a paraphrase, and not a very good one. With some extra added negativity.

Hi, my hand's up. Mitch Morse is more than a tick above a good NFL center. He's well above average. Flitting around the bubble of the top ten or so. Very very athletic and a very good pass blocker. A really good run blocker too at pin and pull techniques and getting to guys on the second level. He's not a good straight-ahead smashmouth run guy, that's not his forte. But he's very good at knitting the line together with good communication and making the guys near him better. Do we need to get someone to replace him fairly soon? Yeah, fair enough. But it might be Bates, who is not a backup, and whose best position might well end up being center. Might not, but it could be.

Nonsense. The injuries were NOT just DL for the Bills, though we did miss probably three of our four best defenders in Von Miller, Hyde and Da'Quan. Did the Cincy offense miss three of their best players? Two? One? In fact, the Bills were in much worse condition. Poyer played but he was a shell of himself. White wasn't close to his best. And Jordan Phillips was playing with one arm. We had to give significant snaps to Jaquan Johnson, Dean Marlowe and Cam Lewis. Even Siran Neal played a few downs on D. If you think they were in as bad a shape as we were, you are absolutely kidding yourself. And speaking of kidding yourself, ignoring cap problems as a limiting factor is more of the same. As for the remainder of your post, it's not really relevant to my post which you answered, or even very understandable in paragraph 3 . But whatever. Guess I'm glad you're amusing yourself.

Me too. Not that we definitely will, but that we might. I'm becoming a Mazi fan. Seems like the obvious areas of need, such as MLB and WR, and maybe some areas of the OL, stand a decent chance of having lost the best players and/or not having good value around 27. If theBills don't trade back, DL seems one of the best alternatives to me, though certainly not the only alternative.

Nice.

That metaphor makes zero sense. The Bills D was crippled with injuries, absolutely a different defense than what they'd have been if even ordinarily healthy. And yet the defense held Cincy to their average scoring total for the year. Both sides were bad, but the problem in that game was the offense. The offense was absolutely awful, though unlike the defense they were healthy. The offense scored ten freaking points and yet nobody on here seems willing to blame anyone but the defense. Spending more premium assets on the D just makes sense. As does spending them on the offense. Comparing this D to an aging product line is ridiculous. We need help - premium help - on both sides. If you're going to ignore all of the rest of the year and go from the Cincy game, the offense was the one that played far far below the level that could have been reasonably expected of them. And it wasn't that Cincy beat up the offense because they were just not as good. The offense had an absolutely horrible day. These things happen, and unfortunately they did. This team needs to use premium assets on both sides of the LOS.

No, it's not typical coach speak. It just isn't. Typical coach speak is as vague and unspecific as possible. "He gives it 100% all the time. Tough kid. Gives it his all. We like him. The whole defense has been very very ...." That's coach speak. On the other hand, when Beane is specific and long-winded with his praise on a guy, he means it. And again, Beane is perfectly comfortable NOT supporting his guys 100% when they have a problem. Remember his thing a couple of years ago about how nobody was game-planning to stop our TE room? He's got zero problem expressing dissatisfaction. No, he's not going to say somebody is as lazy as the guard dog at a slaughterhouse, or that someone's dumb or that someone just doesn't have talent. But he's perfectly capable of expressing dis-satisfaction or that a guy still needs to improve. Does it reasonably often.

These are my two favorites. IMO they wouldn't fit into our financial plans unless they give large discounts. Which is I suppose possible but surely unlikely.

Plan should be that months ago they picked the guys they didn't want and eliminate them. Of the others, establish contract limitations that would be acceptable for the team for each guy. Then tell them we're not picking up anyone before the comp pick formula effect deadline, the Thursday or Friday of the week after the draft, if I remember correctly. Then either tell them what we'll give or keep it a bit nebulous if that provides a bargaining advantage. Wait and see what happens. A couple of these guys look really good to me. But I doubt they will be affordable under the financial plans the Bills have made to deal with the cap over the next few years.

Not saying I know you're wrong. And yeah, Sanders is a good player. But I am saying that Lawrence Taylor was not an MLB. And an MLB is what we're missing. Sanders had 10.5 sacks in his collegiate career, 5 passes defensed and three forced fumbles. Taylor had 21 sacks, 10 forced fumbles and 2 INTs. 16 sacks in his final year there, playing his second year as an LB. And Taylor hadn't played organized football until 11th grade and started at UNC as a DL until he was switched. I don't see Sanders as our LT in any way. LT was drafted second overall. Is Sanders being discussed in that range? IMO that's a huge huge stretch.

He did mention bringing in competition at RT. And now some folks seem to think that means there's no other way to address that than the draft. And that's not true. FA continues right throughout the season. They could do something in the draft. If they don't, there's still a lot they could do in FA. Or by trade. Agreed that what he said about Brown was in fact very strong. He meant it, and all those saying, "Oh, he has to say that," are just plain wrong. He does not have to say that. Or anything close. There are a ton of ways to answer these questions without giving glowing endorsements.

That's just dumb. Mediocre rosters don't go 13-3. Nor does Vegas put them as third favorites in the offseason for the next year's championship. They're an excellent roster, and even if compared to rosters without considering QBs, still very good. Yeah, they have concerns. Every team in the history of the NFL did/does. And even more so before the draft and this early in the process. Nonsense also that they have no choice to tout and commit to these guys. Of course they have other choices. It's also really questionable whether they actually have committed to these guys. If they performed poorly enough in camp, they would likely be cut/traded or whatever. Again, they have other choices. Some could still be made. But most of the other choices are visibly and obviously poorer uses of resources and talent.

They did NOT make the statement that his replacement is already on the roster. "Sometimes your answer is on your roster."

It's pure opinion, of course, but I think they'd both have roughly equal chances. If forced to choose, I'd give Mahomes/Bills a better chance, but not a ton better. Mahomes would indeed do a lot of damage with Diggs/Davis/Knox etc. As did Allen last year with a throwing arm injury through a very significant portion of the season.

Do I believe it? Yes, of course I do. There isn't a good reason to say that if it's not true, to pretend he's taking a year off if he isn't. "He should honor his contract"? That's just dumb, man, he did. It's not a contract of slavery. He's got the right to leave if he wants. Bless him.

Whatever.

The fact that he wanted to go. Him. He pushed himself out. Possibly not getting the Bears job in particular.

Every team has a harder time in the playoffs than the regular season because you play better teams. It's not the Bills. It's everyone. Offense and defense. Yeah, when Mahomes (or Allen) are playing at high level, pretty much nobody can stop them. But last year it was more about their horrible injuries, losing Miller and Da'Quan on the DL for that last game, and the whole team playing like crap, appearing emotionally hung over. The D really didn't even play that horribly. Not well, but not horribly. They held the Bengals to their season average of scoring. The problem was that our offense scored ten points. With Von and Da'Quan and Hyde, and with Poyer and Tre White and Phillips moving the way they normally did, that side of the ball might have looked totally different. Against KC, who knows, but when Von and everyone was healthy early, they strangled the KC offense last year.

While it's idiotic to think he's a league minimum player, and while he's a good soldier, there's a reason he's still available. The market is pretty good at making sure guys get fair contracts. Not perfect. But pretty damn good. Shaq was tough, he worked hard, but he didn't display much of the glamour skills at DE that get guys paid at a high level at DE. He'll get a contract somewhere, maybe even here, but it won't be for a lot, and there's a reason for that. $1.5M for a year, maybe? He's got value, but he's not much of a pass rusher and that's what everyone is looking for primarily.