Thurman#1

I remember a lot of people felt the same way about Sammy Watkins, including Whaley, unfortunately. Giving up the kind of assets we would have to give up to get him just isn't smart, except if you're trading up for a possible franchise QB.

When do they translate to destruction, disruption and impact? That's the question. And they have. Just not as consistently as I'm sure we'd all like. There are a few highlight here for instance, where Oliver rushes got QBs off their spot and set up sacks for Rousseau and others. This has probably been posted here, but worth looking at again. He doesn't look like this enough. But he does it a lot. And he was dealing with an ankle issue for a lot of the year, a tough deal for a guy whose strength is explosion. He took a step back. How much of that was due to the ankle? Seems like the Bills may have thought a lot of it was.

It really doesn't. The idea doesn't make sense. If his instincts were so terrible, Edmunds wouldn't have gotten the contract he got. He just wouldn't have. LBs with terrible instincts aren't good. He was really good last year, probably partly because he just improved and partly because Da'Quan Jones is the kind of DT they needed in front of him and they haven't had that kind of a guy there since the first two years of Lotulelei's stay here. Beane told us why Edmunds is gone. They really wanted him back but couldn't pay him that and maintain a reasonable salary cap situation that will be sustainable long term.

Perhaps to some people this post would be very clear. In any case, the D was worse when Edmunds was out. It was not hard to see.

That's a very questionable argument. Would've been a good one if the wins and losses came down to how well Dodson played. They didn't. Had much more to do with, in the two games Dodson started this year and played a majority of snaps, our offense scoring 38 and 31 and our facing Pittsburgh and Cleveland, two very low to mediocre teams and offenses in the league. The offense and STs are beside the point in a discussion of Edmunds and how he affects a game. When Edmunds was out, the defense was a lot worse. Hopefully, bringing in Poona and a healthy Da'Quan will make the job easier for whoever has it next, and that person will grow and improve.

Heh heh. It does. For me, a mild surprise. Thought it was reasonably likely to happen, but was by no means sure. And the timing is a bit of a surprise.

Maybe. But on the other side, Beane can specifically go out of his way to support a guy like Edmunds, to say that they wanted to keep him but couldn't make it work reasonably, and some of you would (and have over and over) found a way to not believe it and try desperately to make it sound bad. The coach here specifically went out of his way to point to specific but solveable problems, and for you that's apparently "the player sucks." If anyone's running on confirmation bias it's guys trying to pretend a megaphone was used here, and then trying to pretend that when Beane actually did use a megaphone we shouldn't pay attention because he clearly didn't mean it as it doesn't line up with the posters' narratives. My goodness indeeed.

Yeah, I think it's legit to say they're firing a warning shot off Ed's bow, that he's got to keep improving, and that one area where he's got to improve is playing faster. Working on nuances. Beyond that, the News writer made assumptions that appear completely unsupported. There's no mention of problems with preparation. That's only one possible cause of not being fast enough and having problems with nuances and subtleties. There are several things that could cause those kinds of problems. But he went out of his way to point out areas of improvement. They didn't have to take that public. They were trying to send a message for Ed, no doubt about it.

Yeah, open in the wrong place isn't much better than not open. Not to mention that you can't tell from that data how things changed from early to late in the season. Might easily have been open at a higher rate later. Or not getting open in practice earlier in the year so getting fewer opportunities, then doing better in practice later as it began to click with him, so he got more opportunities. Someone said it was a mystery? I guess you can say it's a mystery to us, but likely just that he got better as the year went along, a very typical rookie trajectory. That's not his snap count, it's his snap count against single man coverage. While 70 snaps is a small sample, there's no reason to think it's meaningless, or borderline. Extremely exact as a forecast? No, but it certainly carries some force. He got 275 total snaps. 30% of offensive snaps. Not meaningless.

Always? Just not true. We see all the deals that go through. We don't see any of the deals where teams say, "Nope, can't do it," or "can't do it and stay in the kind of cap shape we want to maintain." The one example we know of is the Saints and Clowney. The Saints tried to grab him and the NFL disallowed the gymnastics they found necessary to accomplish it. Because the Saints went public in trying to do it, we heard about it, whereas when teams can't do it you simply don't hear. Pushing the cap can narrow your options and eventually, if you go far enough, force a rebuild before you otherwise would rather do that. It can be pushed thoughtfully and carefully. This is how Beane seems to like to work. Pretty much every team kicks a few cans. Kick too many, though, and the road ahead of you gets constricted with them.

Indeed. Or they they might not want to use all of those restructures. It's hardly a requirement. They usually seem to want to go into the season with $4 or $5M quickly available in case of injuries and such. But perhaps they just consider keeping a near-automatic re-structure or two in hand instead.

... whined the whiner, whiningly, in his whining OP.

Not me. I also want a chance at many. Surely his being cut makes it more possible, since we don't have to trade anything. But I think anyone who thinks Hopkins is going to give us a one-year cheapish deal is kidding themselves. I'd love to see it happen, but I think that likelihood approaches zero. See ya on the boards.

Well, let's agree to disagree. I promise one thing, though. If we do sign him, there'll be another guy this fanbase just has to have, and they'll say we can just kick the cans down the road. If we sign him, there'll be another. It never stops. ALWAYS another shiny object.

I'm not arguing he's not shiny. Take a look at my recent posts in this very thread. But there's always a shiny object. Always. Hell, if we sign him, three days later it'll be someone else anyway, just one more guy and we can kick the can down the road. It's not impossible, IMO. It'll depend on Hopkins' demands, for one thing. But I'd guess it's very unlikely. We'll see.

And again, that argument works both ways. Neither is it a certainty he (nor Hopkins) stays healthy even if they bring Hopkins in. But him staying overall healthy for the next decade is probably the way to bet. Career-ending injuries happen but the way guys like Brady and Manning and Stafford are exceptions is not in staying healthy up to age 37 (your number). It's in being terrific.

How often is there a shiny object out there? It's really common. The question is how often do you have a team with an elite QB a very very good roster, probably top 3 or 4, in financial shape to be a terrific team for a long time? Does that happen often enough to ruin the situation for a shiny object?

Just wanting to win one now is your choice. Again, I totally disagree. Give me an exciting 15 years where we have a great chance. If that happens, we likely win one, maybe two or three or more. I totally disagree, but if that's your opinion, fine. But yeah, personal finances are for the long-term. Thing is, so is football when you've a got a QB as young and terrific as Josh Allen. And again, Beane does not agree with you.

Fair enough. But that argument works both ways. Next year isn't guaranteed either. Say they mortgage the future by bringing in Hopkins, and then Allen is injured and out for the year. Now they have no chance for probably four or five years. You're right, that 10 - 15 years isn't promised. But that's the way to bet. If they handle the money smartly, and keep us in contention for as many years as possible. Very questionable that bringing in Hopkins gives us the best chance. That's a guess. And IMO not a very good one.

Your salary can keep going up and there are ways to structure your personal loans so that they ... Same deal. Those things aren't get out of jail free cards. They just mean borrowing more from future years. And no, there aren't ways to structure contracts to limit their impact, in terms of playing games with the cap. There are ways to structure contracts to limit their impact in specific years. I mean, sure, you're right, you can structure a contract to limit impact. You could make it totally non-guaranteed, give zero signing bonus and vet min all four years. Very very limited cap impact. But D-Hop doesn't sign that contract. You've got to write a contract the player will sign. They want bonuses and guaranteed money and big money. The fact that the cap is going up is already cooked into the financial decisions Beane's already made. They reached the point where they Go for it ... if it makes sense. Otherwise, pass. I don't think there's a zero chance this happens. But the current situation makes it pretty damn unlikely.

You said nonsense, and then didn't say a single word that put any logical pressure on what I said. Not a single word. So your response wasn't nonsense. But it was irrelevant to what I said. Green Bay had a terrific run during that period. Didn't win another one, but came close numerous times and it was a great time to be a Packer fan. You can pretend that bringing in D-Hop would guarantee a title this year. It would only be pretending. It would raise the chances this year but drop them for years after. This absolutely is going to be our decade to decade and a half as long as we have Allen and don't put ourselves in cap jail at some points and throw away a few of those years.

In terms of whether we could use D-Hop and whether he would improve us, I totally agree with you. He'd cause opponents problems. He's a great player.

I personally think you're crazy. But it's a legitimate view. I'm sure you don't care if I don't share that view. Why would you? Thing is, it's a view that is also not shared by Beane and Co. They've said multiple times that their goal is to be competitive every year.

Unfortunately, it really is mortgaging the future. Precisely that. Unless D-Hop somehow comes here on the cheap. That would be fantastic but I don't see that happening, unfortunately. We're only $1.6M under the cap right now. Everybody knows this. What many don't know is that we're already $35M OVER the cap for 2024. And yeah, it would be great to draft better. Any team can say that regardless of their cap status. We already draft pretty well. I'm for drafting better, though. But teams drafting late in the round simply don't have the opportunities or likelihood of getting the best results out of their draft. Give D-Hop a big signing bonus and you've kicked money down the road ... and that $35M has gone up, as has the cap figure for each year of the rest of the contract. It's precisely mortgaging the future. You can do it, but there are limits and very very real consequences. Sure, sure. But the salary cap and credit card analogy is really right on target. Excepting interest, of course. But a team paying a signing bonus and the way the amortization works is a near-exact match to how credit cards work. You borrow the money? You have to account for it. Borrow enough money from future years and you'll destroy your freedom to spend in those future years.

Yeah, that's right. Particularly with already paid bonuses, (signing bonuses, roster bonuses and any other kind that they guy already received for future performance) must be taken away from the team's cap. There's no way to pay a guy a bonus for future performance, have it not count against that year's cap, and then when he's cut have it not count against the cap in any year. Can't happen. With the exception of money the team's sue to get back if a guy retires or something and the team feels they've been deceived about the player's commitment and intent to finish up the contract.) Think Vontae Davis requiring at halftime and voluntarily coming to Beane and returning the unused part of his signing bonus voluntarily. But other than that, if you already gave the player the bonus, it MUST be accounted for on the cap in the next year or the next two years depending when it all goes down. However, dead money also includes one other kind of money for guys who are cut rather than traded. If the team guaranteed future years of salary and then cuts rather than trades them, that same team is still on the hook for the guaranteed future salary, even if the guy isn't on the team.