Thurman#1

There's no particular reason to believe that beyond the fact that you want to. He is a legit #2. There really isn't a serious question about that. All you have to do is look at his production, understanding that he was injured, out and simply not himself for four weeks. He's very productive. Yeah, he'd be a very good WR 3 or 4. That's because he's a #2. Does he have a limited skill set. Yeah, fair enough. Not super quick and not a good separator because of that. But he also has palpable and obvious strengths. He does really well on more vertical routes, and he's excellent at scramble drills, which is something Josh really feeds on. He stacks really well also once he gets beyond his guy. #2s have a limited skill set. That's why they're not #1s. $10M to $15M will probably be a very reasonable price for him. Probably the low end of that range unless we see further improvement, but we easily might see him get better, particularly if he just stays healthy. We might not be able to afford this without draconian measures elsewhere. If so, he'll be gone. But if we can fit it reasonably, it'd be a good move. And reasonably likely.

I doubt it at #27, frankly. But if they trade back a bit, I'd love it.

It's not a replacement pick. That's just a nice way of spinning things. It's an entirely different pick. If we don't trade for DHop away, we would have TWO 3rd rounders. That's a LOT better than one. This is simply a way to try to spin something people want. It's like people who win some money at the casino saying, "Hey, why not bet it, it's just house money." And it's not. That is a logical fallacy. Once you win it, it's not their money anymore. Assuming we will get a 3rd rounder for Edmunds, that's not a house pick. It's our pick. It's an asset that we can use to pick a player. If we trade it away, we won't have it anymore, we will have lost it, and it will not be replaced.

Not at his current salary. Just wouldn't work out for us. A two is probably too much for me anyway, but without the Cards taking on a ton of his salary, no way.

At #27, there's nobody the rest of the league will be scared of. You're right they wouldn't be scared of Campbell. They wouldn't be scared of anybody that will be left at that point. It's more a matter of how the guy fits in and makes the overall unit better. If we get Campbell, people will likely think it's one of many possible picks that look good right now. And it's not an offensive league. It's an offensive and defensive league, same as it always has been and always will be. The latest example is the Chiefs beating the Bengals 23 - 20 in the AFC championship. Not exactly a wild shootout where the offense does what it wants. Or Bills 24 - Chiefs 20 during the season when we still had Von Miller and Hyde and the D was still healthy. Defense matters. So does offense. They both do. And it's not like to use your pick on a defensive guy you have to sign a contract not to use any other picks or FAs on the offense.

This was worth a chuckle. Hope you're right. He's one I like.

I do hear you, but honestly, every year there are usually somewhere between roughly 15 and 20 first round grades. At 27 we're rarely going to get a guy to fall to us, unless our grading greatly differs from most on someone, which could easily happen, really.

My guess is yes. My hope is they trade back and get some extra picks.

I guess you can say that. He put him on the field. And sooner or later, that'll screw up any QB as time passes. Other than that, though, Allen's not screwed up and McDermott's been fine.

That's interesting. Quoting your own imagination.

Um, yeah. I would never argue that. What I did say, and you appeared to argue (perhaps I misunderstood?) is that reaching full physical readiness automatically means you are there. Being physically completely ready does not mean you are ready. You appeared to call that "playing scared," and that is just wrong. Being physically completely ready is a step. But there's more left. And that includes far more than just getting into football shape. Every person is different. Every body is different. Every mind is different. And every mind-body connection is different. Some people need almost no extra time, but a very large majority need either a little or a lot of time beyond that. If I misunderstood you, I apologize.

Yeah, it's that simple ... if you're desperate to kid yourself. In the real world, though, it's a long complicated process with a ton of steps along the way.

You "fully expect him to be playing at a high level very early on"? I'd argue that falls much closer to "desperately hope" than something that should be fully expected. I certainly hope you're right, but 34 year-olds just do not heal at the same rate as youngsters, or at least very few do. The doctor from Banged Up Bills was on Cover1 within the last couple of days and he doesn't expect him to even play early in the season. The people who call that "playing scared" are eejits. You can be in game shape and still need more time to re-train your brain for confidence in the area. These guys aren't supermen, no matter how much we would sometimes like them to be. The mind-to-muscle link has been broken and it can take some time to get it back, and that process doesn't even really start much till you're given the full go in your physical recovery.

It's not getting fleeced if nobody would have given you more. At least they cleared $5M. And I bet they shopped him around looking for a better deal. I'm not at all convinced, though I do think it's possible. He hasn't looked the same to me, though I didn't All-22 him or anything.

Yes. I remember that too.

This stuff I don't mind at all. To me, making your mock different is totally sensible, because there will absolutely be major surprises in the draft. When people mock the same sorts of things everyone else is, people scream "Oh, he's just copying Kiper," or whoever. I understand that stuff totally. What I hate is what I think Beck Water was angry at, the headline implying that the move in the mock had really happened. Really frustrating. But it's mostly the headline writers rather than the content providers at fault when I get pissed.

I didn't see that, but it would have irritated the crap out of me too.

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.