BADOLBILZ

Like I said........with THAT great protection that Hurts gets. And remember that prior to narrowly being defeated in Arrowhead in the AFCCG, Joe Burrow had beaten Mahomes the first 3 times they met despite terrible protection. Hurts wouldn't beat Mahomes once out of 4 times behind that Bengals OL. We wouldn't even be having this discussion. Hurts isn't a slouch but is still largely a product of the system, IMO. The Eagles have even specialized in creating QB's who look like HOF'ers one year and then descend to earth. Like Nick Foles utterly outrageous 27 TD 2 INT season. Or Carson Wentz 3rd place MVP season. They are a special organization and Howie Roseman is the best GM in the business. Maybe Hurts transcends that but I have significant doubts.

Oh he's gotten much better.........he was a flat-out poor thrower of the football altogether at Alabama........the arm strength, touch and accuracy weren't there. But he's still not in the league of those others as a passer, IMO and I watched every Eagles game last season. He had a very nice Super Bowl but imagine Joe Burrow with that protection throwing against those rookie CB's in a SB. It would have been a slaughter. It was on a platter for the Eagles. Much better roster, opposing QB playing on one leg, ton of rookies(some who I think will prove to be scrubs) in big roles for the Chiefs.

This thread is hilarious. You can tell who watches the rest of the NFL and who just remembers a RB draft crush by their takes on Dillon. Once he got an expanded role he's been meh ever since and it's not because of injury.........he just isn't very good.

We will see. He had a future All Pro cast of receivers at Alabama and wasn't a prolific passer and was ultimately benched for Tua. With the 2nd best 1-2 punch last year at WR......behind Miami and with Jamar Chase missing so much time in Cinci.......Jalen Hurts threw for just 22 TD's. I think he has a lot of intangibles and a supporting cast that greatly simplifies his job........but circumstances change..........and I just don't know if he can expand the field the way guys like Mahomes and Allen can or dissect a secondary with precision like Burrow. And those are ultimately the standards.

I'm not sold on Hurts yet. I am a college football fan and he really was limited as a passer in college. He's improved A LOT but nobody had a better combination of blocking and receiving talent around him last year.

AJ Dillon is JAG. He did not look good last season........the power was not there........and he has fallen below league average producing on the ground and in the air when he touches the ball. Not that JAG isn't good enough to win a SB with........but he's not played up to being a second round pick and should have very little trade value.

Agree he had a really good offseason. Lotta' good, rational and informed takes. Some MVP votes for sure.

Newark Museum of Science and Trucking "Schedule and Logistics" award.......... @corta765 Now if the self proclaimed optimists would stay on topic instead of trying to denigrate the more correct people then maybe we could get some more nominations for awards like that. I think if you have a good one.........you can have a bad behavior one, right? Just gotta' keep it in this offseason so late January til now.

Funniest poster this offseason............ @Ridgewaycynic2013 I thought @Ridgewaycynic2013 won the offseason in this regard. Volume and quality. No offense to @Jauronimo who has the most sophisticated/refined sense of humor on the board and @teefwho is probably the top one-liner guy even with the duds.

Great points. I loathe to be critical but Winners never quit and quitters never win award......... @eball. He had a chance to run away with most improved this offseason after hitting rock bottom last offseason but chose to not participate on the basis of some principle that he created up for the occasion.

I mean, sure but you probably aren't getting many other MVP or Comeback Poster or Lady Bing votes with just 1200 career posts. Gotta' up those numbers for the big shiny one's. The plaque's and certificates are largely up for grabs though.

Davis and McKenzie already had over 700 yards in 2021.........hence they only gained 500 more in expanded roles while replacing 1300. The net result of not having enough good options was that they had to feed Diggs A LOT more. That looked good when he was on near record kinda' receiving yards pace in the first half of the season........ until teams finally realized that if they just took away Diggs the Bills offense would become chaotic and mistake prone because the other weapons were shaky targets. As for Beasley being brought back..........sure but he was thoroughly washed in 2022. I'm talking about the quality of 2021 players versus 2022. Beasley had been in decline in 2021 but was a helluva lot more useful than McKenzie or the off-couch version of Beasley in 2022. Just maintaining a level in the NFL requires replacing players who are declining with upgrades. The Bills did not do that. They inked a terrible Saffold to replace Wiliams and took flyers on high injury risk players in OJ Howard and Jamison Crowder and those both failed miserably. Then Davis and McKenzie played worse in expanded roles. They made themselves worse at a number of positions. James Cook was a nice addition when he was used more in the second half of the season but RB's don't move the needle much. They put worse talent on the field for Dorsey. Fact.

On TSW........the offseason IS the season. I can't believe it's almost over........it went by so fast. Here are some of my opinions about the best of the offseason TSW 2023 MVP...... @GunnerBill Gunner has had another tremendous offseason. His hard work and attention to detail leads to some of the most informed takes on TSW. And without a high volume linkster to steal votes I think it would have been something of a landslide. Most Improved......... @Logic I gotta' say his posting has improved immensely, IMO. I used to say his posting was ironic.........because there was a lot of illogic.........but much improved. Most interesting offseason turn of events.......Heel turns from @Einstein and @Nextmanup. Love it. Heels are the best written characters. Even though I take great pride in being universally loved here on TSW......I will admit that I have a soft spot for those who can work a crowd. Most ridiculous idea that is currently or becoming accepted........that drafting a RB in the 1st or 2nd round every 4-5 years is smart because you avoid paying a veteran. Talk about making no sense.........and yet there are some GM's who actually appear to subscribe to this. Maybe even our own. It took far too long for most teams to realize that having high quality individual RB's doesn't correlate at all to winning championships..........and despite the fact that the leading rusher on SB winning teams every year is usually a guy with a paltry amount there are still people who think you want to get a stud RB early in the draft at the expense of all of the harder to fill positions. It's nuts. It's like the people who are the last to admit that stud RB's don't make much difference gotta' find some way to still justify the need for quality. On TSW we still have our irrational 1st round RB fans and nonsense like this being kicked around by people within the league doesn't help bring fans to their senses. These are just my opinions of course but feel free to share your takes on the offseason. And remember....... @YoloinOhio departed in-season so in itself that wasn't really an offseason move. Personally, I think bellcow linksters are a thing of the past and I support a move to linkster by committee......but I digress......I think we should have these kind of acknowledgements and aspects that tell the story of a TSW offseason.

Yeah really. Replacing the solid and versatile Daryl Williams(67.5 pff grade) for the thoroughly washed version of Rodger Saffold(horrific 43.7 pff grade).......maybe the worst OL to start every game in the NFL last year.........was a massive failure. Williams would probably have started at RT for the first half of 2022 given Spencer Brown's struggles recovering from back surgery. We thought Williams was a disappointment at RT early in 2021 after his excellent 2020 season(79.5 pff grade).......but Spencer Brown in the first half of 2022 was much worse. 2021 Daryl Williams would have been the second highest graded player on the Bills OL in 2022(Dawkins 73.5 was #1). And they lost Emmanuel Sanders(and didn't replace him) and replaced 2021 Beasley with McKenzie. 1300+ yards of targets gone. Two big downgrades. In elevating the ham-handed Davis and McKenzie to much larger roles they only gained 500 of those yards 1300 yards back........and kept us all on the edge of our seats as the Bills then had the highest dropped pass %(6%) of any team in the NFL in 2022. It really became Diggs and the Pips........which allowed teams to be more creative in how they defensed Diggs in the second half of the season. After 6 100-yard games in the first 9 weeks he only had 1 the rest of the way out. Coinciding with the Bills offense becoming much less consistent. The 2021 Bills were more talented on offense. No doubt. They were just hamstrung at times by Brian Daboll inconsistency that season. After that 6 point performance in Jax and after they took that L at home to the Patriots to fall to 7-5 nobody in their right mind thought Daboll would be getting a head coaching job in that cycle. Dorsey came in and raised the offensive floor of the team in the regular season by simply not coaching any of those games so badly that it cost the team a W.

There will be much better players available on practice squads at midseason if they have that many injuries. He's been washed since before Covid.

Yep Gillislee lead the NFL in yards per carry and was also somehow the best short yardage RB in the NFL in the same season.

This is true.........and part of the reason is that today's RB's(with the exception of Derrick Henry) can't hold a candle to the last crop of great RB's that arrived when guys like Adrian Pederson and Marshawn Lynch entered the league. The wall got closer......falling from 30 all the way to 26......when the great talents started playing other positions. So these guys are complaining about not being paid like a great RB of yesteryear...........but they aren't as good, either. It's the only position where the quality of athletes has gotten worse. They aren't the Thurman Thomas.......they are Kenny Davis. They aren't Jerome Bettis they are Barry Foster. If the league wants to be equitable they should pay them more on their rookie deals. They may not have the longevity of yesterdays starting RB's but they are doing a lot of work relative to what they get paid. But if not, then it's not a big deal. There will always be some RB's because there are still plenty of muscle hamsters that can't hit a curveball and can't play other positions.

Let us know how many steamshovels are in use.

With the possible exception of Brady.........no player in NFL history has benefitted more on the field from cheating than Troy Brown did. Made him look like an entirely different player than he was.

And the 16 point second half lead in Houston.......Hail Murray......13 seconds.......... Blue helmets it is

At least it's not the Chiefs (obviously).

Bill Barnwell.........who is one of the more respected opinions and thorough analysts among NFL media.........had the Chiefs as 19th and the Bills 20th in terms of offensive weapons in his rankings a couple weeks ago. There are A LOT of talented receivers in the NFL and smart teams saw what the Chiefs did loading up their receiving corps around Mahomes in 2018-2019(adding Watkins to Hill and Kelce then drafting Hardman)........and the Bills adding a Stef Diggs to a high quality WR2 in John Brown and a very good slot WR in Cole Beasley did for Josh Allen in 2020..........and they've been copying this ever since. The Bengals went so far as to bypass a need at LT to add Jamar Chase to Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd(and it paid off with a SB run). Meanwhile the Bills have since been acting like they could get by with less.

Among the UFA's they signed to above minimum deals(some quite generous to say the least) were.........DT Larry Triplett, DB Kiwaukee Thomas, C Melvin Fowler, RB Anthony Thomas, TE Robert Royal, WR Peerless Price, WR Andre' Davis, QB Craig Nall, G Tutan Reyes. They also made a run at some RFA's........just negotiating the contract for those teams.......which was further idiocy. Ultimately a bunch of guys they thought were just coming into their own as NFL players but were in hindsight all really just what they had proven to be......fringe, backup or bottom roster players. They really thought they had hit the jackpot.......it was "the Patriot way" of free agency in their minds. The Peerless Price one was actually the one most mocked by the league.........he was on the street with no offers and Marv paid him $2M.

I am dismissing Harty's "last full season" because he missed basically all of last year after the week 2 turf toe injury that eventually required surgery and we have no idea if he will be the same player again that he was for those couple months in 2021. He's been plagued by hamstring injuries......I can't remember seeing a player with as many hamstring re-injuries on his record..........and now a very serious turf toe. Availability itself is a huge problem for him........his game is being outrageously good wrt speed and quickness.......if he loses any of that after all the injuries then what good is he as a 5'6" WR?? When the Bills signed Trent Murphy he had played to a 75+ pff grade and had 9 sacks and 10 TFL in his last full season in 2016. It was an outlier season for his career but he had been an impact player for an entire season. He joined the Bills after a year of recovery and played to a 57 rating with 4 sacks and was never the player again that he was in 2016. You can't just write off the impact of injury on guys who have struggled to even find a window where they can excel in the NFL. Harty had one solid(but still injury disrupted) season where he made some nice plays. Otherwise nothing offensively. See Robert Foster. If all you look at are these guys highlights in their brief window of success then you think they were better players than they were or have been. I could run down a long list of these guys. Bills free agent history is littered with one hit wonders that they signed hoping to recapture that moment. Remember Andre Holmes?

Actually the odds are that the veterans will continue to be the kind of players they've been over the course of their careers.........not that "2 of the 5" will be a lot better than their career averages. It doesn't work that way. Did you not live thru the offseason where Marv Levy and Dick Jauron signed 15 free agents who had been unable to excel anywhere in the NFL or in recent seasons and the best of the lot turned out to be the receiving inept Robert Royal? Or Beane's 2018 class of free agents where he allocated $100M to contracts for a half dozen players who had once been solid starters but had been in steep decline or injured more recently and ALL of them turned out to be terrible signings? There is not a law of averages associated with players who fail to excel or have injuries. This isn't like flipping a coin. But don't take my word for it..........the general consensus is that the Bills offensive weapons around Allen are mediocre. And that's despite having Stefon Diggs and reasonable expectations for Dalton Kincaid as a rookie. It's just not an impressive group of receivers. I hope they play better in their continued reserve roles than their years of compiled stats indicate they are. Maybe the Bills get lucky and defy the actual odds........but I am presuming the more likely outcome.