Thurman#1

This is kind of cute. Like watching a newborn kitty try to take his first steps.

Yeah, perfectly put.

He's smart enough. But doing that isn't just a matter of being smart. You've got to put yourself in everyone's place. It makes it tougher to be ready for the play, especially if they're running a lot of motion, quick snaps, etc. Milano's forte is explosion, penetration and causing havoc. That might be harder when you're having to think for everyone else before the snap. They might have one of the safeties do it. If they're running different MLBs in situationally, they wouldn't give the dot to them.

I don't see a lot of disrespect for Allen, myself. I mean, clearly the Cincy game was not good for him but everyone has bad games sometimes, absolutely everyone. I'd take Allen over Burrow. I think most would, though Burrow will have a chance to try to change that over time. Worth a double face palm, honestly. This is just a dumb take.

Certainly that could be. But I don't think the Lawrence pick is even the slightest bit of a surprise. Things look the same with Oliver that they did a week ago. IMO they want to keep him. They might be able to. But maybe not. I don't think it's clear, particularly before the season. Even with Poona on board they still don't have anyone under contract through 2024 at DT. I think they'd love to keep Ed, and might be able to.

He is what he is? Polite disagreement there. He could improve or not. He got better each of his first three years, then didn't last year while he fought through ankle problems. IMO it's early in his career for us to think we know what he is. It's not completely clear yet. He is impactful at times, showing flashes of excellence fairly often, but not doing it consistently. Impactful, but not often enough. What he does consistently is play good 3-tech at an above-average level. But shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as the guys above who will get paid in the $20M level. Someone above said he was a bust, and he just isn't. Maybin was picked at #11, and spent only four years in the league. That's a bust. Whitner was picked at #8, a close comparison, and spent 11 years in the league playing safety at an above average level and even managing two Pro Bowls later in his career. That's not a bust. It absolutely is a case of a guy being picked too early. And in retrospect, that's how the Oliver pick looks like it will be remembered (assuming you're right and he is what he showed last season, which again I think is not yet clear). Picked a bit early. Absolutely not a bust. Will probably have a long productive career in the NFL. At the time, picking Ed seemed like a good value. There were serious questions as to whether he'd make it to us, and he did so largely because so many QBs were picked early. Having said that, the narrative was really different before last year. He'd been improving consistently each of his first three years and was looked on as a guy who might take a jump up among the better DTs of the league. He didn't. But at the same time, he quietly fought through ankle problems last year. He might easily take that jump this year if he stays healthy. Or not. We'll have to see.

I heard you out. No.

Oliver isn't a guy who'll get a contract like that, unless he sees vast improvement. If the Bills somehow get a guy who's worth that kind of money, it'll be worth it. They might not be able to afford it, but if they got a guy like that they'd likely do their best to keep him, and it would be worth it if they managed it. Who's worth it? The absolute best DTs, the top five to eight or so. Simmons is certainly one, and he'll get one whether it's with the Titans or another team, a good one. He's elite. He changes games. Again, he's worth it and how good his team is has nothing to do with it. Aaron Donald, without question. And about four others who are coming due about now. Quinnen Williams. Dexter Lawrence, Simmons and Chris Jones. I'm less sure with Daron Payne. He's already got a contract like that, but Washington isn't exactly an organization that has shown good judgment. Not sure there. But the five above deserve contracts like that. Maybe Buckner and Hargrave as well. They're already very close anyway, and they probably deserve to be. In his heyday, Fletcher Cox was worth that, but they weren't paying DTs that way at that time.

Please, Oliver isn't a bust. He's a genuinely good player, impactful. Not worth his draft slot, but very good.

No, just the opposite, I think. It's the new way to build a team. In the old way, a DT just doesn't get that kind of money. Welcome to the new NFL model. DTs are now worth more. So they're getting it.

Agreed. He'd love it if a byproduct of what he wanted to do screwed the Jets. But he wouldn't do it to screw the Jets. He'd do whatever he thought was best for his team.

It's about winning. And we are winning far more than we have for decades, and far more than nearly all NFL teams in this period. Every year, 31 teams are angry and frustrated. We're still in that 31 and not the other one, but the FO has put together a consistently excellent team. They are doing a terrific job.

It's not too clear whether it's you or PFN saying this, but it says, "McGovern’s contract incurs a $3.6 million cap hit in Year 1, which is in line with his value. But after that, it explodes to a functionally guaranteed second-year cap hit of $7.5 million and hits $8 million in Year 3 — an unguaranteed year but a difficult one to cut because he would incur $4 million in dead cap space." Hunh? How is the second year "functionally guaranteed"? It's not, according to Spotrac. If they don't like him they could easily cut him. Wouldn't save any money that year, but would only lose $100K, and would save a lot in 2025. Cutting him before the 3rd year would save them a couple mill. They did give him a signing bonus which will look too big if they don't like him. But they could easily cut him if they want to. My guess is they're going to like him too much to want to cut him.

Greatly doubt they will cut Morse unless serious health problems crop up. If they'd wanted to cut him, they'd have done it before paying him his $1M roster bonus on March 19th. On the same day, $1.36M of his salary became guaranteed, as well. I disagree here. Terrific, no. Good? Yeah, they do.

I'm not sure it's safe to say that. Vegas disagrees, anyway. They have us in the top four right now. Not sure I agree with that, but I'd put us probably top five or six. Last year before the season we were top two.

Nonsense. Every bit of it was deserved last year. Before the injuries the Bills were a wrecking machine. I should say before the injuries, before the mass shooting incident, before Knox's brother died, before a Bills player died on the field ... it goes on and on. But at the beginning of the year they deserved every bit of that hype. This year, particularly with the questions about Von, who is one of the two most critical pieces, significantly less is deserved. They'll have to prove themselves. But still look like one of the four to six best teams in the league.

Weirdly, it's mostly Bills fans who go on and on about 13 seconds being a choke job. Most other folks consider it mostly Mahomes being absolutely sensational and having two terrific receivers in Kelce and Tyreek. Same as they don't blame the Chiefs defense all that much for Allen's heroics in the same game. That was mostly two QBs being simply otherworldly. Not that either D was playing well. But that was one of the all-time best QB performance matchups in NFL history. The Bills and their fans can't look at it the same way if they want to feel they have a chance the next time. But just as we don't blame the Chiefs D much for the Bills offensive success in that game, most folks give the Chiefs offense and Butler most of the responsibility there for that long field goal. "Ultimate choke job in NFL history"? Um, no. It just wasn't. Not that it was good or even OK either. But you are wildly wildly overstating there.

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.