billsfan89

I think having better players surrounding younger players can help aid their development. That being said the two primary positions I would seek out the best possible vet free agents would be along the O-line (At all costs need to protect Josh Allen) and at DT (Have to keep guys off Edumonds and Milano.) The rest I am fine with running young guys out there or the players that are currently out there. But those two positions would be critical to target as I think they too heavily can negatively impact the development of other young players.

I think Linebackers that can cover are restoring value to the linebacker position. I think the emphasis on the short and intermediate passing game has made a linebacker that can cover those areas of the field is super valuable. I also think that Edumonds has value some what in the pass rush but I think his value in the pass defense is something that is really valuable. You could argue if a trade up (even for a modest price) was worth it for or not but Edumonds could be a very valuable piece of the defense his skillset fits a valuable part of a modern NFL defense.

McBeane's rebuilding is actually the right way to do it. Get rid of bad bloated contracts, get rid of players that don't fit the system for draft picks of value, establish a new culture with high roster turnover, and go hard after getting the right young QB. The problem is that the cap situation from the Whaley years wasn't going to be fixed in 1 year and McBeane's limited free agency decisions haven't panned out. Once you get your QB and you don't have too many significant contracts you can figure out the rest. 2018 to me was always a rebuilding year, the team overachieved in 2017 (Finally the team got lucky one year) and but the trades need to get Allen and Edumonds gutted the team of valuable draft capital and the two big free agency acquisition Star and Murphy haven't yielded dividends at least not right away. I think come 2019 we will know just how good the rebuilding process is. They have the cap space, the big pieces in place (At least in principle) and they have another draft class.

This is a great deal for David Johnson it pays him a notch below what the elite backs like Gurley and Bell and gives him basically two years of guaranteed money. I honestly don't like this deal for the Cards. DJ was one of the best backs in the league in 2016 but he is coming off of a serious injury and his contract value wouldn't have been that much more than it would have been if he had another elite season (The Cards could always have tagged him to prevent him from hitting the market.) If DJ put together another 2016 type season how much more would he have commanded? 15-16 million, that's only 2-3 million more than he currently has. Whereas if DJ get hurt they could be stuck with damaged goods for 2 seasons at 13 million a pop. Any player needs to stay healthy for a deal to work for the team. I do think that this is a bad deal considering that DJ has only had 1 elite season and is coming off a big injury. I think the Cards were better off just seeing how 2018 plays out for DJ and franchising him if he has a great year.

The defense will carry the team to 6 wins somehow. I just feel that the bend don't break thing will pull a few games out of the teams ass. I think that IF (And I don't think this will happen) the Bills do get the number 1 pick I think they either go Bosa or trade down to a team looking for a QB. I am not sure if there is a top QB prospect projected to be out there but if one emerges as a legit top pick then the Bills will be in a good position to trade away that top pick to a team looking for their future QB. The Bills could Easily score a 1st in 2020, a 2nd in 2019, a 3rd in 2020 plus additional compensation to trade down if that scenario were to pan out.

60 million in cap space and only one major contract the team can't cut (Star) the Bills could easily free up an additional 30-45 million in cap space with a variety of cuts.

210 yards, 1 TD 1 INT 63% completion percentage. It will be a very Tyrod like number (minus the rushing yards) where there are a lot of garbage time yards and a very conservative passing game either because Peterson sucks or the O-Line is putting him under constant pressure. I think playing Peterman in this early brutal schedule is the right move. See what he has and throw him to the wolves. But I just can't see him or most QB's for that matter playing against these presumably tough defenses having success with this O-line and lackluster reciving core.

It will be a tight defensive struggle for sure but I see the Ravens moving the ball more consistently on the Bills "bend don't break" defense and slowly kicking a bunch of field goals. While I don't see the Bills offense generating much against a pretty good Raven's defense. I see it being a 21-10 Raven's win. That being said close defensive games come down to turnovers and one or two plays and that could swing to the Bills just as easily as it could to the Ravens. Week 1 always has some crazy upsets, I usually get out of my suicide pool very early or very late.

Rams over Raiders seems to be the best bet in my mind.

Bills Wins OVER (6 wins is my projection) Allen Starts UNDER (7-8 is my projection) McCoy rushing yards UNDER (over 1000 though) Leading Reciver yards OVER (I could see Benjamin getting a 1000 yards or close) Leading receiver catches OVER (See above) Total INT's UNDER (Regression from last year) Player with most INT's UNDER (see above) Player with most sacks 8.5 UNDER (I think the Bills spread out the sacks) 1st win week 4 OVER Draft picks number 6 UNDER (Top 10 pick but not top 6) Bills Pro Bowlers 1.5 OVER (I could see the secondary producing 2)

I don't think Flacco has been all that bad the past 3 seasons considering that the Raven's best skill position player the past 3 seasons has either been a mid-level RB in Alex Collins or a washed up Jeremy Maclin. Flacco hasn't been very good either, I think he has been average but an average QB with poor talent around him isn't going to produce very good results. I think that the Raven's do have an edge in terms of QB over the Bills. That's objectively true based off of what you can project and predict based off of what both players have done and are expected to do. Now that may not be the case once the pads come on and the players go after it. And even if you acknowledge the Raven's having an edge in QB play that doesn't mean the Raven's will win. But I think adding up all the pieces of the Raven's vs. the Bills I think that the Raven's just have an edge in too many avenues for the Bills to win the game. I hope to be proven wrong.

Joe Flacco the past three seasons has thrown for 52 TD's in 42 games (He missed 6 games in 2015) against 40 INT's and has had a completion percentages of 64.1, 64.9, and 64.1 and considering the fact that the Ravens have had very little talent on the offensive side of the ball I wouldn't call those numbers awful at all. Peterman is a completely unknown entity but there is no reason to believe that given what little we know about Peterman (low draft pick, horrendous pro-debut, not a great physical profile, and his only positive is a pair of good pre-season) that Peterman is better than Flacco who is at worst a competent starting caliber QB. Now could it be the case that Peterman plays better on Sunday? Yes, but there is no reason to believe that based off of anything other than chance, all past performance indicators and future projections do not lead you to believe that.

Bell would basically be tossing out the year but Bell simply is not risking a huge contract by playing in 2018 on a franchise tag. Bell will lose the 14.5 million plus several million in fines in 2018 but he will hit the market as an elite 27 year old running back coming off of a season of rest (I think he gets 35 or more million in guaranteed money on the open market.) Or The Steelers can simply give Bell a new deal that offers him more beyond the 2018 franchise tag. The Steelers aren't going to get Bell to play on the tag, they have put him in the untenable position of having too much to lose and only needing to lose one year to get to free agency. Bell played on the tag one year and that was risky but it burnt the first franchise tag off (And continued to establish himself as an elite RB for a 4th straight year) and now Bell only needs to sit one season before hitting the market.

I would say the franchise tag of roughly 14.5 million is close to his value in terms of average annual value but it offers him no security beyond this season. If Bell had hit the open market this past off-season he would have had over 35 million in guaranteed money as opposed to the 14.5 million he currently has on the table. The risk of playing on that tag is far too high for him.

It's a business and Bell has more to gain by sitting out the season than he does playing. The Steelers can't franchise him anymore and their plan was to ride him for one more year than let him walk as he enters the latter years of his 20's with 5 straight years of wear and tear (2014-2018.) So why play this year on the franchise tag if you stand to lose your long term value if you get hurt? Bell has already proven for 4 straight seasons that he is an elite starting running back in the NFL, he has very little to gain by being elite for a 5th season. Yes it does suck for his teammates who are losing a great player but why put the blame on Bell and not on the team for not signing him? It seems to be completely one sided for the team to just blame Bell and not express any frustration with the management. The CBA also allows for a player to holdout provided that they pay fines. So if a player does not want to play on his deal he is allowed to pay the fines.

Joe Flacco won a Super Bowl while Nate Peterman made Tyrod Taylor look like a savior. You can say Flacco sucks all you want but Flacco has been a pretty decent QB for a team with very little talent at the receiver position and offensively in general the last 4-5 seasons. Flacco might be highly overpaid but he is a competent NFL QB, something I can't yet say about Nate Peterman whose greatest accomplishment thus far in his NFL career has been that he looks good in pre-season. So yes I feel very confident saying that the Ravens have a better QB than the Bills do at least on paper and from what you can project based off of what each player has done in their respective NFL careers.

The Ravens have some offensive issues but they have a better QB and a defense that should be able to handle this teams offense. I don't think it will be a blowout because I don't think the Ravens will score a lot but I think it will be a 21-10 type affair.

There is a fine line between optimism and delusion. I fashion myself a realist about the team. I hope that the coaching makes a big difference for this season. The talent isn't tragic but there are fundamental flaws with the team.

I hope to be proven wrong but I am not too optimistic about the Bills chances, I don't think it will be a blow out but I really don't like the way this lines up for the team.

I am one to think that unless a QB is in a somewhat decent situation talent wise (in terms of surrounding offensive talent) and has a fairly pro-ready skill set (while displaying that skill set in training camp and pre-season) then they should at least sit the first part of their rookie season if not all of their rookie season. I think it is hard enough to learn a pro-system, how to handle a pro-locker room and how to handle the things that come with being a pro-QB while holding a clipboard. I can't imagine the learning curve that comes with actually trying to be a starting QB. So unless you have a QB who is under ideal conditions starting right out the gate seems to me to be a bad idea. I think with Allen the best bet is to play him 7-9 games into the season, feed Peterman to the wolves against the better defenses and see what he can do. Then if the season is lost throw Allen in there and see what happens.

People say that CBD oil is good for a lot of other things like Anexity and inflammation. I think it is inconclusive for most other ailments people claim it helps treat. I think that the certainly there are benefits to it beyond seizure treatment but as I said they just haven't been able to clinically prove it. But I have heard a lot of similar stories that that of your close friend.

The Raiders got way more than I thought they would. I thought they would get something in the range of a 2019 1st, a 2019 3rd, and a 2020 3rd plus a throw-in player. So for the Raiders to get two firsts is a big boon, even factoring in the swap of a 2020 second for a 2020 3rd it is still a good deal for the Raiders. I think Chicago is giving up a lot for Mack (All those draft picks plus a massive contract) but Mack gives them one of the best pass rushers in the league to a defense that was ranked 10th last season despite the fact that they didn't have that big-time pass rusher. To top it off the Bears did add the best linebacker in the draft in the top 10. But these trades tend to benefit the teams receiving the draft picks and not handing out the big contract. That's not to say that there aren't exceptions to the rule. We all know how the Jason Peters trade ended up. But if I had to put money on it I would say that the Raiders will most likely come out the "winner" of this trade.

Hell no, a big contract and 2 first round picks for a non-QB player is too rich for my blood.

Following up the Sammy trade with Cyrus (Who was not viewed as a bad pick at the time) was not a good draft, from 2013 to 2014 Whaley missed on 2 picks in the first round (EJ and Cyrus) and didn't hit a home run on a pick he mortaged the farm for (If you trade picks 8 and 19 for a player he can't be a double.) That's not to say that Sammy was a bust but rather that Sammy Watkins was not worth the cost and considering the high caliber players that were drafted around that spot and the cost of the trade up. Had Cyrus been a high caliber RT that wouldn't have been nearly as tragic a draft. I was always frustrated with Whaley because a lot of his moves weren't considered to be all that bad at the time they were made except for his 2013 and 2014 drafts. But a lot of Whaley's pro-personnel moves were actually good moves both at the time and in hindsight. I kind of feel the opposite on this regime, their drafting seems to be good but their pro-personnel moves are puzzling.

Didn't they sign Incog?