thurst44

How does that explain improvement from first half to second half of year two or from year one to year two?

I don't agree about the Browns being a more talented roster by any stretch of the imagination, but I doubt I'll convince you that a lot of our good players are good, so hopefully we see how it goes during the season.

It's amazing to me how everyone is going so far in either direction about this player. One can argue he's living off the past, but it's way offbase to suggest that he's living off one play. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was the number one recruit in the college coming out of high school. At South Carolina, he had a season with 23.5 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. I do also remember there was a prevailing attitude (or unconfirmed rumor) that no one wanted to pick him at number one, but that no one wanted to be the team that DIDN'T pick him at number one. My (admittedly amateur) take: he's better than people who think he's trash and worse than people who call him a gamechanger who just doesn't show up on the stat sheet. Clowney's attitude always seems to be talked about in whispers. He never seems like a bad guy, but there does seem to be a rep that he's not 100% head-in-the-game--but is it any more than rumors? The only thing we can truly go on is the fact he's jumped from team-to-team recently. He's a staunch run-stopper when people expect him to someday put up a 15-sack season (instead of the less than 5 he's averaged in a career). It's not a bad gamble for the Browns, unless he truly is the locker-room poison some suspect. By that token, it would probably have been a better gamble by the Bills. Maybe he lines up across from Garrett and Browns fans get the terror they're hoping for. Given his history, it's more likely he either helps a solid defense get better or doesn't fit in and is on to the next suitor in 2022. As a Bills fan, it doesn't worry me as Browns, for all their talent, still seem like a time bomb until they prove they aren't. Which Mayfield do you have (or was it just a bad line in 2019 and he's on his path to franchise status)? Is Stefanski a stabilizing factor or was the season a fluke? They have a lot of volatile players on there (one of their stars almost killed a man on the field), but the reason I still have to doubt stems from the on-field (well, when playing and not swinging helmets) Browns. Losing to the Jets in a key game (even with the injuries) is not a great look--they were this close to blowing it last year. Yes, they had those injuries, but Mayfield also fell apart. Bad games happen, and it doesn't prove they are the same ol' Browns. We'll see what they do in 2021. The other reason it doesn't bother me is I love what the Bills are doing so the Browns may get better, but they are still looking up at the Bills. Maybe they beat us. But until they do, I'm content with how McD & Beane are playing their cards.

Maybe some years, and most years I'd agree with you, but what's the point of trading down for more 2021 picks when it's going to be hard for rookies to make this roster as it is, especially if you see a guy you have a high 1st round tag on. This would seem the exact year, where if we saw say Jaycee Horn or JOK or Caleb Farley dropping--and we thought this could potentially give us two shutdown corners for 4-5 years (or in the case of JOK, a defensive game-changer--if you think he is)--you go up and grab the player you think could be a near-definite impact player within a year or two. I'm not against trading down for picks, but I'd want them to be picks for 2022 or beyond, either for the positive contingency that Oliver, Edmunds, and let's say Epenesa or Ford earn second contracts alongside Allen and the cap raise is not as much as expected or to keep building capital for that year when you see a guy falling that you are sure is the next Watt.

Let's check in next year on this. Many experts coaches and players disagree with you on this. Pro Bowl may be overrated, but it's usually that players get in on reputation, but in this case, what reputation? Maybe they're seeing something you don't. He was the captain and middle linebacker on a Top 3 defense just two years ago. Maybe we should take into account that last year was a very weird season plus he was playing hurt for most of it. Also, dude was playing with one arm yet people here were calling him soft.

If you're signing a depth guy who had 63 tackles in the final 6 games last year for what would likely be a vet min contract, HOW IS THAT BAD?!?!?!

If we're following that same logic (Diggs & Jefferson), Hunter will have 20 sacks and help get us to the Super Bowl.

You're overestimating it by counting the 1st rounds they traded away. When you move places in the draft or use a draft pick to get another draft pick, you can't count the draft pick you gave away. It's a good trade, but (1) we don't need to make it more than it actually was and (2) until they prove they can pick correctly and hold on to their 1st rounders it doesn't worry me that much. Besides, it doesn't change the fact that the Bills are now a very good team. . Here's the math from a Miami Dolphins page on SI today trying to paint it in the best possible light. "So, boiling it down, you could say that — excluding the other players and later-round picks — the Dolphins essentially traded Tunsil for a 2020 first-round pick, the sixth overall pick in 2021, a second-round pick in 2021, a third-round pick in 2022, and a first-round pick in 2023." https://www.si.com/nfl/dolphins/news/miami-dolphins-continue-to-benefit-from-laremy-tunsil-trade

True, but there's less reason to think that than there is to think the defense will return to form. (1) Allen has improved every year since JuCo. He could regress, but there's more aspects about him that suggest he will stay the same or improve: he's a natural born leader, he's smart, he's addicted to studying tape, he doesn't appear to have any distractions, players around him seem to love him. (2) Bringing back almost the whole offensive line. Other than Dawkins and Ford, there's no reason to believe any players are on the upswing, but the fact that they will have continuity should help. (3) Davis and Knox could both make huge steps. Sure, Gabriel Davis could have a sophomore slump, but he had a knack for the endzone and a seemingly preternatural sense of the sidelines. Dawson Knox has been maddening sure, but he's also made some spectacular catches for all the inexcusable drops. Also, he's a brutal runner after the catch. (4) Singletary had a 5.1 ypc year his rookie season and would have had 1000 yards had he stayed healthy. He could rebound or last year could be more indicative of who he is. Moss is raw and had moments and is probably more likely to improve than go backwards. There's a good chance they could add a dynamic rookie like Etienne or Najee Harris. Sure, Christian Wade is probably never going to play an NFL game, but we have seen his top-level speed.

This is my way of thinking too. When you lose in the AFC Championship and went into that game on an eight game winning streak where you beat your opponents by double-digits in all but one game, you WANT to stand still. More often than not, you lose key players. This year, they kept the players they wanted to keep. There's a reason a lot of national outlets are giving us praise for the offseason despite for nothing "splashy" happening.

There's a very good chance that our defense last year was a fluke--that we were hit harder by the inability to play together. Star will likely help, but we also have a bunch of players on the ascent, and will likely not have two star linebackers playing with one arm most of the season. In any case, I suspect we'll be closer to the 3rd of 2017 and 2018 than the 16th of 2019, and have many reasons to feel that way.

The thing is we might be looking at a strawman here. How many people in this thread have said "go for the shiny stuff"? Most have said there are probably small moves that could be made that would not strangle us. Let's say Carlos Dunlap or Justin Houston or Melvin Ingram say they're curious about the process, but the lowest they can take is 5m/yr. I could see them pushing the 8m or however much it would take into the future if they think one of those veterans could help. On the other hand, he was never going to sign one of the big-ticket CB options as there are teams willing to overpay there. Yes, clearing out 12+m for one player would be a bad football decision and was never going to happen after we signed our guy.

I agree, but the only thing I will add is that people who think that might have underestimated what those two might get and that's understandable in such a weird year. You wonder if at some point the market will dry up and given that 13 teams started worse than the Bills, maybe Fuller or Jackson would hit a wall and if they could get them for 6 or 7 mil contracts or 10/yr where the cap hit this year is much lower than the other years, you might do it. That was never going to happen, but I doubt most reasonable people thought the Bills were going to easily make 13m of space for one player.

Funny thing: I watched the exact same conference you did and got a slightly different idea of what he meant and I felt it vindicated my point too (as he is pursuing players still)--something that can happen when a guy who plays his cards close to his chest speaks (you know, any GM really). He said that it was a possibility, and he wanted to be very careful before doing it that he isn't backed into a corner. He also said that he was talking with players both returning and new players and would still be pursuing players, just not high-priced players. I don't know if it was you with whom I was talking, but the thread that I got into a debate, the other person was saying they could not possibly sign any of the three positions in the original location and that there were ways to free up money without bankrupting them for the future. I'm pretty sure I said almost exactly what he said: that he would target players who were willing to take a lower contract when the money dried up in the strange off-season. If you asked me if they were likely to sign Adoree Jackson to the contract he signed for the Giants, I would say an emphatic no. Making space to sign huge contracts is indeed how you get into cap hell. That said, I still can't understand the Rams and how they somehow keep signing players while in cap hell for years. Also, we are currently slightly over the cap, so no matter what, we're going to have to make SOME restructures.

First off, if they could restructure, that was likely always a part of the plan. Although, truly, is 8m or so (as you've pointed out it's not 10m) really all that crazy for a 1T DT if he WAS one of the main reasons the defense played as it did in 2018 & 2019 and that they were the best team against tight ends. Yes, there could be many reasons, but when a player is brought in to fix a particular problem and when he is there that problem is gone and when he leaves it's back, that's quite the coinkidink you've got there. You act like being double-teamed and eating up space in the middle is something insignificant. He takes up another blocker and eats up space in the middle the way he's supposed to and it makes it all that much harder for the opposing QB to make that pass up the middle (or run); it frees up Oliver, Hughes, Epenesa, et al to wreak more havoc behind the line; that in turn makes it easier for Edmunds and Milano (and Poyer and Hyde even) to do their jobs covering receivers and TEs in the middle. We'll see what happens next year, but if the defense is back in the top 5 and suddenly we can guard tight ends again, maybe we can start giving the guy some credit. For 8m, to me, that's a pretty good deal in today's NFL. As for Murphy, I was mostly agreeing with you. That said 7m does not seem that bad for a rotational DE who was a major part of some wins, but as you said, there were too many games when he was inactive, so, I'm fine he's gone and would have been fine if they had released him last season. Addison--I thought I was totally agreeing with you. I'm glad he's back because he had moments and I'll grant it was a weird year all around last year, but mostly because in interviews he's clearly a big part of the culture there and I'm glad he'll get the chance to prove his worth in what will hopefully be a more traditional year. That said, if he had not taken a pay cut, I would have been fine with his release.

Well, we'll see this year, won't we? We were 13-3 with a defense that went from 3 to 16* (not sure of this years actual finish, but know it was middle-of-the-pack) so we have that luxury. Phillips did not do much in Arizona. Shaq was a bigger loss than people think and when I watched him with the Dolphins he looked good--although he got injured a lot. You may be right, but we were also terrible against tight ends before he got here and it was one of the reasons they got Star. Either way, what is your argument that he is NOT doing his job? Have you seen him out of position? Not being double-teamed? Have you done a deep-dive? Or is it just b/c many posters have decided it is so and/or he does not get stats? He's never going to get stats. All I'm arguing is he was brought here to do specific things and all of those things were better in the years he was here than the year before and the opt out year. I'd love to see a deeper dive as I am no expert. I watch and read and try to pay attention, and I do recognize a trend to tend to look for the positive that could be bias, however, I've yet to see an argument against Star that uses logic and when I've watched him and based on what he was expected to do and what happened, and I can't help but feel the people who have dismissed Star as a bust are using lazy logic. Prove me wrong.

Can we maybe re-think this with Star?! The Bills had the #3 defense both years he was there and dropped to middle-of-the-pack when he was out. Could be purely coincidental, but also something to think about. Moreover, and not to keep beating this drum, but part of why he was brought in was to clog up the middle making it harder for QBs to step into that middle and complete intermediate passes and passes to tight ends. During his two years, Bills gave up the fewest yards to tight ends... this year they gave up the most. I know, correlation, causation, but I would love to see Cover 1 do a study of Star's impact. I'm just going off of what I've seen in games, what people said he should be good at when he came, and how the defense as a whole played when he was at the 1T as opposed to when he was out. Star was never going to get big numbers--that's not what he does. He's there to take up an extra blocker and make other players get more stats. Murphy had his moments, so I wouldn't call him as big bust, but hard to say he totally "lived up to expectations". Addison showed flashes, but definitely below expectations. However, I'd argue that McDermott and Beane probably feel that Star L. lived pretty well up to their expectations. And I'd add the Butler and Jefferson signings if we're going there, but I also kind of feel that the moves might have worked if it was a season with full preparation to get to where they wanted to be playing as a unit.

I dunno, the article kind of suggests that he's regretful. Perhaps it's part of Sean's "come to Buffalo and be your best self" That said, I suspect he's just visiting. Although, a weird coincidence: Watkins was my first jersey. I was never a jersey guy, but flush with excitement at Reed's HoF induction, I decided to buy one and figured since he had just been drafted and was a can't-miss, I could not jinx him. Ah well. I had retired it last year and thought I had thrown it away. We were cleaning this weekend and my wife called out "do you want to hold onto your old Bills jersey?" For no good reason, I said "hm, why not" In any case, he's still pretty young and if he's coming in on a little over the minimum on a prove it and his ego has shifted to the point where he can take a role player, WR5/return guy, as others in the thread have said, he'd be good at it. I'd rather just keep McKenzie, but would also certainly buy in to a Watkins reclamation story. Doubt it's gonna happen though.

Who could?

I agree with you mostly, but it's also very likely the salary cap is going to explode in the next few years. Is it savvy to play off that idea (like Bill Belichick seems to be doing) or savvy to hedge your bets? I'm not going to claim I know the answer. I'm no capologist, but from my vantage, it seems we're nowhere near the dangerous ledges the Saints and Falcons and others have put themselves on and we can probably afford a couple restructures to get a bargain-with-upside DE, CB2, TE. I'd avoid RB, b/c free agent RBs are so rarely worth their price and their success can so often be a part of the offense they are in more than some positions. One of the restructures could even incorporate Diggs' raise for 2022 and beyond. Furthermore, I suspect the clauses for Dawkins and White are there for that reason. Barring something terrible happening, we will still want them around at the end of their contract. That said, I'm also fine with rolling with the current roster. We were indeed 13-3 and a game away from the Super Bowl and I've never bought into the idea you should play to beat one other team. They don't have many (if any) glaring holes (pass rush was not great but not as awful as people think--we were middle of the pack on sacks and many analysts pointed out we were actually pretty good at winning our blocks), and a lot of young players who are likely to step up next year (Oliver and Edmunds are likely nowhere near their ceiling).

I get what you're saying, but you're misconstruing what I'm saying or adding things I have not said (that could be on me, not you as maybe i'm not being clear enough). I dud clearly say I'm happy with the team we have now. Making tactical signings as the market prices drop is not the equivalent of a spending spree. I'm not even advocating doing it, just pointing out that it's a bit silly to say there's no way to do things b/c we don't have money--this is especially true since many said it about re-signing Milano, then Williams, then Mongo, then Wallace. (1) He already HAS restructured many players' contracts, so why would he completely stop now. Beane says a lot of things, but we also know he's someone who can be very inscrutible. (2) When did I say "spending spree"? I said 2 or 3 mid-level contracts I absolutely do not think they should go on a "spending spree." I've not mentioned it here, but I've been railing against the Pats moves, as I've scoffed at about every team who is the "winner of the off-season." This may not be original to me, but I call it Snyder-ing (3) I'm not talking about mega-signings (I mentioned the Rams Floyd contract b/c it exasperates me and I think it's stupid, but Rams never seem to face consequences). Yes, he has stood pat, but as many of the experts have said, because of the unusual cap squeeze, this is a good year to wait and then pounce on a few bargain players. The contracts going out this year have been wildly inconsistent. If he can get, say, an Adoree Jackson (unlikely), Cordarelle Patterson (maybe), or any of the pass rushers left (quite possible) for 5-6 million, he might judt jump. He supposedly offered Gronk a similar deal. (4) There are apparently (although even knowledgeable local Bills columnists aren't sure) clauses in contracts that can extend contracts and free up 7.5 million from Dawkins and Tre. These clauses were put in there by Beane or his money man, and it's probably for this very reason: to have flexibility for this very purpose. My point is not we should throw caution to the wind. I'm just saying people who argue we're not going to do ANYTHING b/c we don't have the money are probably wrong (maybe i'm exaggerating the views of some here myself, but that's what I've heard). There's always money in the banana stand. Ultimately, at this point, I trust whatever Beane is doing. This is one awesome team, and if the defense bounces back (as I expect b/c last year was goofy) and the offense does not regress, this team will be ridiculously hard to beat.

That's fair and I know the Hill contract was a mirage. Atlanta Falcons seem to be kicking the can somehow, but at least they didn't make any ridiculous signings this off-season. With the Rams though, I have to struggle to kick CTs out of my mind that the league is hoping no one is paying attention and letting the Rams do whatever they want to promote L.A. football. (I know this isn't what is happening, but I still can't understand how they were able to sign a guy for 21m when they were over 36m and somehow made it under by 4pm today). That said, even knowing there is a lot I don't know about cap management (see CT joke above), I do know that a few more mid-level signings is not going to have that much impact on Allen/Edmunds unless something happens similar to what it did this year

(1) The Rams, Saints, etc., never seem to really have to "pay the piper" The Rams have been in supposed cap hell for years yet they just keep signing players. When the Rams signed Leonard Floyd, I didn't see a single pundit point out they were waaaaay over the cap. (2) This is an unusual year and it's pretty well known that the salary cap is about to balloon in the next few years, so they probably will be able to sign Josh and Tremaine and Ed Oliver if he takes a leap the next few years. (3) I'm not saying we should, just saying there clearly are ways to do this. Honestly, as long as this team just keeps doing better every year, I'm gonna trust the process. This team has enough young talent with upside at key positions that I can't help but feel they are a better team even now just by the likelihood Oliver, Edmunds, Milano, Allen, Dawkins, Epenesa, and many others will be better players. I suspect the defense will rebound in a more normal year. They are one of the top Super Bowl contenders just as they are (and isn't that fun to say without feeling delusional). It's just that I'm tired of people saying there is no way to do this. Teams always seem to find a way.

There's always cap money somewhere. There's still a bunch of players who they could restructure. Hughes could be extended a year and money moved. Somehow teams like the Rams who were 36m over a couple days ago find ways to sign players to 20m contracts.

Do you not watch Flack? Seriously, though, yeah, that would be way over-the-top.