BADOLBILZ

Well, sure GunnerBill.........but that makes it seem like Harrison has been singled out. What 1 tech have they even brought in for a visit or workout since Star opted out and they subsequently released Vincent Taylor? None. The one week they had tryouts they brought in two penetrators and Zimmer was added. What 1 tech were they connected to in free agency or the draft process? Nobody. Other than long snapper I think that's the only position they haven't even tried to address with depth since last summer. As I said last season..........maybe they ACTUALLY prefer asking some guys who can pass rush or actually get off a block once in a while and make a tackle.......to absorb the schematically induced double team for a modest number of snaps rather than playing a traffic cone 45% of the snaps.

Their UDFA approach was definitely different than their draft approach, wrt athleticism. More about production. With the exception of McCloud they were mostly guys who were seen as 5th-6th round picks toward the end of last football season but generally didn't really impress in workouts.

He's just as bad as Star Lotulelei was as a Bill prior to his opt out. Maybe that's better than Star now but it's not good enough to waste snaps on. If they decide they want a veteran they should call Snacks. Even last year, without a training camp and walking in off the street to Seattle he graded better in his limited snaps than Star at his best and he's only two seasons removed from being elite for the position.

I found it funny that Bills UDFA safety Tariq Thompson registered a .33 RAS out of 10. He plays better than that would indicate but apparently RAS scores can get pretty low.

Beasley's hands are around 9.5". I like Greg Cosell's take that he is more "John Brown-ish". He's a bit smaller than you want a more vertical target nowadays but his edge is straight line speed........maybe he can be more of a threat outside the numbers.......will be fun to see how his speed plays up. I don't really see the slot fit, in part because of the hands, yes. But more because his attempts at getting open quickly at the LOS are comically bad at this point. Go back and watch the 1-on-1's at the senior bowl. NFL CB's watching him dance at the LOS:

The comparison has some to do with the school and some with their measurables being similar(like their relatively unimpressive 30" vertical leaps) but I think it's also that they were both kinda' slept on in the draft process. Early in Campbell's college career there was a lot of speculation that he could be a top 5 overall pick. When he hit the draft process the talking heads were running him down and you'd regularly see him mocked as an afterthought in the 4th or 5th round. When Arizona selected him in round 2 the attitude from most was "too rich for my blood". The story is similar with Rousseau. First impression was great.........and people have been trying to talk themselves out of it since. Campbell ended up playing in the 3-4 which muted his production but people in the NFL knew how good he was. Then when he went to Jacksonville late in his career and was turned loose he put up big numbers despite not being a twitchy, quick edge. Campbell is more powerful, but Rousseau's length is more functional. His hands are almost 2" larger than Campbell and those have been Rousseau's calling card. He makes plays on the ball and tackles people from unexpected angles..........they function well with his "GPS" as Beane calls it........a knack for finding the football and getting to it. I think he has a chance to be a big stat producer, even if it isn't pretty. And that said, he's very inexperienced. Maybe they can develop him more as a pure edge rusher as well. I was impressed by some of the work they did with the relatively stiff AJ Epenesa last year.

Well, no.........he's young for having been in the league for 3 full years......but there were a bunch of 21-23 year old starting MLB's last year. SB winning MLB was 22. It's not an old player's position. And with so many top prospects early enrolling into college there are lot's of players that enter the league at 20-21 now.

Yeah he's an oldy........the union might make the Bills decide on his 5th year option after his rookie year.

Basham turns 24 during the season.

No, they don't. Only other teams that don't maximize the value of their controllable assets are mocked. When Marv Levy made that "arrangement" with Nate Clements the apologists were more concerned about the goodwill that Levy was creating with the mythical union of free agents of the future. We've occasionally seen this ridiculous sentiment re-emerge. Stupidly giving away value just makes you look weak. Marv made the Bills organization look spineless and that snowballed into more players asking to be freed and then the shark Eugene Parker smelling blood and turning into the official player agent of the Buffalo Bills.

He wasn't so much a football player that was passed up in the draft as a guy who didn't play college football.

Yeah if the cap space wasn't needed I'd keep him and try to trade him in TC/preseason after somebody loses a TE. That nets you something and decreases the chance he is familiar enough with his new team to go out and put up 80 grabs and embarrasses the Eagles organization for letting him go. Of course I would have franchised and traded Stephon Gilmore for a day 1 or day 2 pick..........not doing so was a much more egregious waste of value........and nobody got on the McWhaley about that. The reality is a 6th or 7th rounder is a tiny fraction of that kind of value.........and it might not be worth jerking around a guy who did a lot for the franchise or even worth risking him getting injured and having to actually pay him, etc..

Not just the Eagles.........nobody was rushing to take on an $8.3M cap hit in trade for a guy coming off a down year that thinks he's going to bounce back and have a big year and maybe get a $10M per long term deal. Not a lot of motivation for him to take a pay cut or sign a cheaper long term deal if you trade for him. As a free agent, when he can choose his destination, different story.

Yeah he doesn't sn*tch the ball out of the air on slants with those hands so while he projects to the slot because of size and quickness........he's probably never becoming a full time slot. Tyreek Hill has even smaller hands but he is SO explosive that everyone plays off of him.........allowing him to excel as a body catcher.

Chad says don't worry about the tiny hands Marquez

The window to get a late round pick was probably pretty small and all but gone on draft week. Teams clutch their draft picks.......often a bit irrationally so.........so it wasn't going to be easy for Philly to get value here.

It was a pretty deep tackle class and there are 2020 starting tackles still on the free agent market so I doubt Ford has much trade value as a mediocre guard with right tackle-only flex and coming off of injury. But he'd only cost about $1M in base salary for an acquiring team, so there is that. Forest Lamp was a former recent second round pick G and he didn't garner much interest in UFA. I suspect Ford will not be on the final roster......but maybe he comes in sharpened by the threat of losing his job and has a good TC/preseason. More likely he gets dealt for a late conditional after another team has an injury though, IMO. Maybe Howie Roseman liked him in that 2019 draft and would take him for Ertz but I doubt he'd be enough.

No the option is 100% base salary.

It's just like a guaranteed base salary. They can mutually agree to a new deal and convert much or most of that fully guaranteed base salary to signing bonus etc........but the extension has to be for at least the value of the 5th year option, of course. The extension will probably be 4x that or more.

Yeah, I'm not saying Beane is an idiot. I'm saying he made choices. Every GM makes mistakes. Beane made a ton of them early and some of that was, as you said, the fact that the destination was not appealing. That was part of the risk of tearing down the roster rather than trying to add to it though.........do you keep a Dareus for $6M non-guaranteed base salary for another year? Or do you go out and spend a bunch of money to replace him? He was playing outstanding 1T for them. They chose to deal him and replace.......and that got EXPENSIVE. Between Dareus dead money and Lotulelei's pay they have expended over $60M in cap room in 3 years for a position that only gets 45% of the snaps........and they have stunk at the position and still aren't done paying Star.

The primary risk with giving a high traffic, off-ball LB a fully guaranteed season 2 years from now is injury. As discussed, we've lost young studs Damien Covington and Sam Cowart to sudden, basically career ending injuries. Takeo Spikes injury reduced him from All Pro to a JAG overnight. Beane has taken risk like this before..........he surprisingly extended a 30+ Eric Wood in the summer of 2017..........a post-season physical revealed a neck issue........I believe Beane ended up eating $10M because of that.

I knew Gilmore was underrated. Not franchise tagging him was a stupid decision. Even if he didn't want to stay, anyone who knew how good he was knew he would have netted a high draft pick. Maybe a #1. I know Edmunds has been a disappointment. Not the same situation. It FULLY guarantees his 2022 salary. Right now. Regardless of quality of play or injury.......they can't cut him and save that money at any point now. That's the way the 5th year option works now.

The money spent on Star, Murphy, Eifert, Bodine and Newhouse was cap space they do not have now and they've gotten almost nothing out of those guys. You can roll over unused cap space every year.........so every cap decision carries a future impact. That's why you don't sign a 30+ year old Eric Wood to an extension the summer before his UFA when you know he's highly unlikely to leave Buffalo. It's why you don't just toss Shady McCoy a couple extra million to keep him happy that same summer. When Kelvin Benjamin shows a lack of effort and performance in half of a season in 2017 maybe you should move him rather than pay him $10M in 2018 and quietly cut him half way thru the year. Choices. They made a lot of decisions that nickeled and dimed them into the cap position they are in. It really added up to A LOT in-season in 2017 and the offseason of 2018........creating dead money and acquiring dead money walking. They also made a lot of good personnel decisions. But their cap issues trace back to the first 12 months of Beane's money decisions.