BADOLBILZ

And @26CornerBlitz.........the top linkster in TSW history

Unfortunately thowing over him in zone isn't the only way to attack him in the passing game.............in 2020 with a couple of seasons of tape on him.......QB's instead manipulated him out of the areas they wanted to attack and because he doesn't make plays on the football they started making more tight window throws right in his jurisdiction as well. His 2020 was reminiscent of when QB's realized that the Bills brilliant CB Thomas Smith couldn't catch a football to save his life. He went from a dominant CB who saw perhaps the least number of passes thrown at him in the entire AFC in one season.......to a guy that teams attacked with surprisingly good results the next. That affected his confidence and compounded the issue. If the worst result is the ball falling to the turf incomplete.......that will not deter teams from attacking you once they figure that out. My guess is that Edmunds can catch the ball just fine........his father and brother were skill players. He doesn't have the instincts of a skill player though.......he's not the mirror image of the opposing RB in run defense........he doesn't sense where the RB sense's the action will go so he's always left reacting instead of correctly anticipating. And when the ball is in the air his clock shuts off the millisecond that he thinks the play is over........where a guy like Jordan Poyer is always ready to grab a stray deflection etc.. It's maddening watching a player with Edmunds physical skill leave SO MUCH on the table.

1) Which ones are you anointing as OLB or WLB? The players listed were all considered "inside or middle" LB's in 2020 and almost all of the top 10 are in the NFC. That's a good definition of a "big disparity". And the terms 3-4 and 4-3 are BOTH misleading........because most teams have only 2 off-ball LB's on the field more often than not.....not even THAT uncommon see just 1 LB on the field in dime.....so while you are for some reason comfortable quantifying Edmunds as a MLB a fan of another team could easily wonder how he is considered a "middle" LB when it's usually just he and one other LB on the field. 2) No Edmunds TFL numbers are clearly disappointing. He has just 19 in 3 seasons......and a woeful 4 last season........while players like Devin White and Roquan Smith had 18 each in 2020 alone. 3) TFNG might be the mode or it might not........but if it's NOT it's very close to a TF1G or 2G or 3G........all mathematically successful defensive stops. Nobody has presented data that proves otherwise. TFL's for those individual yardages are MORE successful defensive results and much less common.

1) Oh the disparity at MLB between the NFC and AFC is absolutely that big. Guys like Devin White, Erick Kendricks, Demario Davis, Fred Warner, Lavonte David, Roquan Smith, Deion Jones and Bobby Wagner are all clearly better than Edmunds(and if you think I am being unfair look at NYG Blake Martinez stats last year, the list could easily be expanded). Darius Leonard is generally regarded as the class of the AFC. So Edmunds is way down the list league-wise. What's concerning is that there are guys on that NFC list like Kendricks and Davis who are kinda' journeymen types that are clearly better. Edmunds should have blown past those guys, but his lack of instincts reduces him. 2) Whether you care if fans know who Edmunds is or not is irrelevant.........the OP was stating that the fact that coaches and players voted Edmunds into the pro bowl was proof that he was one of the top 4 ILB's in the entire NFL. That's not the case. Fans can't identify him because he doesn't make plays so he's not going to get fan votes. Pro bowl voting is not about who is the best in the league, it's about the conference. 3) Last year was absolutely supposed to be Josh Allen's breakthrough season. Not sure why you thought otherwise. You could sum this board and the media consensus up last offseason as "the Bills will go as far as Josh Allen takes them". He was absolutely the focal point. I was always a believer in Allen because he didn't let a lack of experience/understanding of the game prevent him from impacting the game. The problem with Edmunds is that his lack of instincts for the position has prevented him from making game changing plays. I hope he breaks out, I have praised his talent since he was drafted, but he has to show that his freakish talent translates to a position normally played by players with less $ valuable athletic profiles.

The pro bowl vote does not reflect the player's ranking within the league.......it reflects their ranking within the conference. That's why Edmunds can objectively be seen as perhaps just the 10th-12th best MLB in the league but still be a very reasonable selection by players and coaches for the pro bowl in the AFC. The AFC is just extremely weak at MLB. The situations at MLB in New England and Pittsburgh made it even weaker last year. Meanwhile, the NFC is relatively loaded at the position. As for the fans input.........as weak as the AFC is at the position it's really hard to expect fans to choose from a group that makes so few impact plays. To most non-Bills fans Edmunds is invisible because of the lack of plays and to Bills fans he's disappointing because they expected he'd be maybe the league's best at the position and he's much closer to average than being at the very top. His disappearing act on the big stage in the AFCCG.........when he had a chance to really introduce himself to a much broader audience.........was a big missed chance to elevate awareness about him as a player.

Yardage is not accounted for in decimals........it's rounded up or down for statistical purposes. So every play is a full yard figure or zero. So sometimes you may gain or lose a fraction of a yard and not be credited with either a gain or loss. The mode result isn't going to have a decimal in it. My point being that zero is the most common kind of tackle and since often half the players on both teams are within that very small area when the ball crosses the LOS......more than noteworthy on a 100 yard playing surface........it's then much more subjective to assign individual responsibility. It really becomes a "team" tackle at that point. That's why it's rarely cited in conjunction with splash plays like TFL or sack. It's sketchy as an individual stat. If you have a ton of tackles from the LB position you will get credit for a good deal of the most common type. Edmunds hasn't really stood out as a run-stuffer........I think even his biggest defenders would acknowledge that........but what he has done is play in a lot of games and been credited with a lot of tackles over the specific time period of 3 seasons. PFF does a lot of the type of analysis that the subject of the thread was trying to massage into greater meaning than it has........the assigning of value to each player on plays that are very complex and where credit seems very subjective. In PFF's world Edmunds is way below average.........much, much worse than the majority of his critics(like myself) see him as.

Everyone knows that scouts aren't paid a lot............well, GM's aren't getting $20M per year either.........more like $2M-$3M...........(though the Pegula's have a history of paying way over market on occasion like the $25M deal to Rex and the $5M per they gave that soccer coach to be their hockey coach). Simms grew up in a wealthy family........and made some pro money and has a cushy job........that GM kinda' money for that GM kinda' stress isn't as attractive as it would be for a guy who worked himself up thru the ranks.

Rousseau is a very high ceiling prospect.......I am a big supporter of the pick.......but it was not a "safe" pick. You can go broke in the NFL draft just trying to make a profit, though. The NFL truly escalated into a passing league with the rules changes in 2010..........and before that the Bills had spent about half of all of their first round picks on defensive backs(in a running league) and running backs (when they were a dime-a-dozen). They nailed a ton of those picks..........but often struggled to fill the more difficult to fill positions. Long term you are better off investing that first round pick in a high ceiling talent at a premium $ position............which is what they did with Rousseau and Basham and Epenesa. Said it many times.......the Bills played their first playoff game in 17 years in Jacksonville in January 2018 and in that game the only one of their first round picks on the field was the newest one, Tre White. The 2017 team was proof that you can be a playoff team without making successful first round picks every year.........the object should be getting potential franchise cornerstone, $20M/yr type players with early picks so you can be a legit SB contender.

Yeah it's just noteworthy because of his record of misconduct and complete lack of accountability..........so people have been expecting his first infraction.........and he didn't even make it to his first TC before he got his first slap in Jacksonville.

Peter King reported it....... owner Jeff Lurie confirmed it https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2015/6/1/8701371/chip-kelly-lesean-mccoy-demarco-murray-quote-oregon-ducks-running-backs-physical-one-cut What do I get for doing 10 seconds worth of search for you? People who ask for links for things that are so easy to search themselves are just being argumentative for the sake of it. I don't mind the banter at all but have some self respect.

1) If I gave you the satisfaction of a link would you respond with an apology? Nope. I don't do work for you.......who the ***** are you? 2) Numerous punches to the head/face area were exchanged by some very large offensive tackle sized Tampa Bay fans AND the mob of Bills fans that were encircling them and pushing them from both sides........that qualifies as a fight. It all happened on the curb of Abbott Road......right about where the TBDAHOT is usually set up........ as I sat bemused in the seat of a full size van just feet away as we pulled off Glen St. Maybe I had a better view than you and Hammer who was easily visible with his flowing blonde locks but basically underwater in the middle of the mass of people. 3) Cool story........just like Terry Pegula.........what non-Buffalo hockey team did you root for when you didn't grow up in Scranton PA? 4) Again..........the proof is in the pudding and the pudding was pud in youth and amateur hockey. 5) He built the Penn State hockey facility, bought the Sabres and built Harbor Center...........all hockey.........much of it done for kids who will never wear the uniform of a team he owns........before ever buying the Bills. 6) I do not care if you or anyone else THINK my opinions carry weight...........I just post them..........and I've just been proven correct over and over.

Teepublic https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/16142928-air-allen y'all owe me one now.........great place to get fan art type Bills shirts, hoodies, stickers etc........the designs kick the ass of most of the stuff the team/league puts out. Kinda' like TBD vs BBMB

Kiko got the last laugh that day. Eagles 23 Bills 20..........Chip Kelly's floundering Eagles managed one last win on the year(and his NFL career).........at Shady's expense.........all but dashing the Bills playoff hopes. Shady 20 carries for 74 yards and then he didn't fly home with the team so he could drown his sorrow and embarrassment in Philly that night.

The difference is that Saban is committed to being a successful HC. Urban is committed to Urban..........he will run the Jags however he sees fit and that will keep the owner in some hot water with the rest of the league...........and if he doesn't win the owner won't be able to take the heat he will have to pay Urban to leave. That's an Urban win-win scenario. A bit more like the Bills hiring Rex Ryan or Washington hiring Steve Spurrier than the Saban comp, IMO. Feigning a health crisis like he did at both Ohio State and Florida so he could keep his money without having to quit and seem accountable for his misconduct won't be as necessary in the pros...........though I wouldn't rule it out!

Agreed, for $3.5M in 2021 I'd think he'd have multiple suitors that aren't remotely interested in trading for him for $8.5M.

Yeah me citing "salary" was a poor choice of words......the actual issue is the cap hit. Jonnu Smith signed a free agent deal that would average $12.5M (if he saw all of it)............but his cap hit in the distressed cap year of 2021 is a mere $5.6M. Paying Ertz $3M more than Jonnu in 2021 isn't something many teams would do.......they appear to be going in different directions in their careers. So you could "try" to re-structure Ertz......but he is a free agent next year.........he would have little incentive to sign a cheap extension to help out your cap. If you trade for him you are probably using all of that $8.5M in cap space on him for just one season..........why should he take a pay cut in a scenario where he is traded and doesn't get to test the market? I suppose it's possible but I also don't really see the Eagles taking on the salary of Addison or Butler in exchange for a 7th round pick.........the Eagles had the 3rd most sacks in the NFL in 2020.........DL is a strength.......they don't have a need to take on one of the Bills bad contracts there. A good portion of the reasoning to move Ertz is just to save cap room.

Kelly wasn't wrong about McCoy.........they ran the ball very well without him in 2015 and made Shady eat crow when they shut him down in Philly by designing a gameplan to encourage Shady to bounce everything outside. Which he, of course did. An inexcusable loss to a fast fading Eagles team. But Kelly found out that it's hard to succeed running a dictatorship in the NFL..........especially if you don't have any rings like Belichick to prove what you are doing is going to work. Time and again in the NFL you see disciplinarian coaches run their course when players get frustrated with the demands..........and then players coaches stepping in and reaping the benefits of a well conditioned, hard nosed and then suddenly happy team. That's basically how the Eagles won the SB. They even ran chips RPO stuff in the playoffs/SB that had made Foles into a 26 TD 2 INT QB in one season under Chip. They got fat and happy quickly under Peterson though........his lack of attention to detail was the exact opposite of Kelly......and that's how it goes sometimes. Fortunately for us, Sean McDermott seems to be a more sustainable brand of HC. A detail oriented coach who demands hard work but has a lot of emotional intelligence to help keep the team in both good condition physically and mentally.

If they think he has value in trade then I don't blame them at all. My opinion is that his $8.5M salary is more than he would get on an awful open market for players........and that........combined with the awful season he had and his advancing age.......negates that trade value entirely. But it only takes one team to see it otherwise. They don't owe him his release and Howie Roseman just got them a SB trophy a few seasons back so I certainly wouldn't scrutinize Beane for tryna' get something for a fan-fave former stud TE if his stewardship had put a Lombardi in the trophy case at OBD. Roseman is just trying to make his team better...........I don't think he has asked or Ertz has offered money back after his very poor season last year.........this is logical, standard business, IMO. Best case scenario for us Bills fans........they cut him and the Bills sign him as a UFA for A LOT less.

Kelly traded McCoy because he wouldn't do what the coaching staff in Philly was asking him to do...........which was to be a more straight ahead runner and take the abundantly available yards inside. Shady had a habit of dancing in the backfield and then trying to bounce the play outside..........Kelly explained that in post trade comments that inflamed McCoy and made him pull the race card. (Kelly subsequently replaced McCoy with two other veteran RB's.......neither of them not black) His tendency to try to end every run on the sideline lead to inconsistency for the Eagles offense in Kelly's opinion...........and it lead to McCoy having the fewest yards per touch of any qualifying player in the NFL in 2014 (6.3) because LB's were getting smaller and faster and he was losing some speed. The stubborn McCoy then came to Buffalo and in 2015 he refused to take the inside runs that the Roman offense was giving him.........same as he had done in 2014 in Philly. After a brutal 2015 season he admitted that he was leaving too many yards on the field and needed to run the plays as they were drawn up(as the other, less talented RB's in Buffalo had been doing). That's how his big 2016 season happened. But no, he wasn't traded just so that Kelly could get Alonso........McCoy was put on the block by Kelly because he wasn't being coachable.

I've linked and quoted the story many times on here. It's old news. If you want to think it's crap I really couldn't care less. Have you ever heard Terry Pegula talk about being at a specific game in the 1980's? Me neither. Better yet do you remember when I posted on here about that fight at Hammer's Lot after the Tampa game...........and literally everyone here who had comment insisted I was lying.........and you were the only other one who actually saw it? Yeah. I don't post lies. Here's the more important aspect of the article you linked........"lifelong Sabres fan".....but......."Detroit Lions fan". So get exercised if you want........regardless of which story is true TPegs has been invested in the Sabres for a whole lot longer than he was the Bills...........and he's gone WAY THE ***** out of his way to promote youth and amateur hockey. Football? Notsomuch. Only a fool would deny his love of hockey.

I have no idea if they would sell the team..........I have heard Paul Hamilton say that the Pegula's now regret giving Beane and McDermott total control of the Bills though........which is a little concerning considering that the Bills are just a couple notches from being the best team in the NFL and the Sabres are absolutely the worst run organization in hockey(and possibly all 4 of the major north american pro sports). In the end, they are their toys and understanding that I don't necessarily tie my entertainment entirely to the end results. I greatly appreciate them keeping the two teams in WNY because the Sabres are barely even viable and the Bills could be worth a lot more in another market. But losing will always lead to criticism.

Show me the stubs........I got my info from the news media as well...........and the quote from Kim in THAT story was "the traffic was too bad" for them to attend games when they lived in OP. So while there may be inconsistency in the stories they've told about the Bills............and of how they became husband and second wife..........Terry Pegula being a big hockey fan has been the consistent story...........and the fact that he funded the construction of the ice rink at Penn State indicates that his love for the game extended beyond just a specific pro sports team.

It's not strange. Ralph Wilson was a terrible football team owner..........he didn't know how to build a winner......he was meddlesome, mercurial and prone to decisions made in anger.........but he still ran into a few good decisions. The best bold decision he ever made in the post merger era was actually paying the going rate for Chuck Knox.........then he stupidly ran Chuck Knox out of town......but was too cheap to fire all the former LA Rams personnel people in the front office that Knox had brought with him and they ended up scouting and drafting the foundation of those SB teams and developing a young Bill Polian etc.. A decision to save money accidentally lead to about 12 years of good football.......the only sustained stretch where it looked like Ralph had a clue. The Pegula's had no idea how to build winning organizations in pro sports either.....which was predictable.......they were entirely new to it. The problem with the hockey end is that they haven't accepted that they are clueless there yet. The Bills were different........they hadn't ever attended a Bills game in OP in person until they bought the team........and they lived in OP!.......they clearly were very casual fans. They were desperate to hand the reigns to the Bills off to someone when they hired McDermott because they knew they didn't know sh*t about football and it was pretty clear that when you fail at football you become a national laughingstock. They wanted to avoid that kind of scrutiny. With hockey, Terry Pegula grew up a big hockey fan and thinks he knows a lot about the sport........and when you lose in the NHL nobody from outta' town really notices........so the chaos will likely continue until the family either accepts their limitations as hockey ops decision makers........or runs into good fortune.

@YoloinOhio pondering the impact of this allegation on Urban Liar's myriad and all 100% legitimate health concerns

1) Regarding your first paragraph......you are of course correct that most runs result in a "some" gain of yardage. Last season the average carry netted 4.4 yards. But "some" is not a specific yardage number........a TFNG = exactly 0 yards gained. Your team may only run for zero gain 3 times in a game but they aren't likely to run for any other exact yardage amount......positive or negative......... more often than they run for exactly zero. 2) TFNG are valuable......one yard more valuable than a tackle for 1 yard gain......2 yards more valuable than a TF2YG.......3 yards more valuable than a 1 yard sack. As I've said, stats like TFL and sacks are broad and they don't ALWAYS reflect exceptional individual performance........but if a player gets a lot of them it's fair to assume that player is doing exceptional work. I pointed out two other MLB's that had 18 TFL each last year........Edmunds had only 4. That's a very big difference. 3) MLB is ABSOLUTELY a devalued position........much like the RB position, you need one but you don't need a star quality one. And just like Derrick Henry is a playmaking difference maker at RB.......a guy like Devin White can be that at MLB. Tremaine Edmunds.........despite physically being the "Derrick Henry of MLB's".......an absolute freak........has not been a game changing, playmaking, difference making MLB. He's been above average in a league where there aren't many above average MLB's......and a league where there don't need to be. Average is fine at that position. Average is NOT fine at pass rusher..........and that is a position that Edmunds seems to project much better too.