BADOLBILZ

Yes there is a perception in the media that the % of black HC's should mirror the % of black players in the NFL and that anything less than that is a sure sign of systemic racism. I entirely disagree with the concept because players earn spots thru physical competition while coaches are "chosen" rather arbitrarily by some measure of intellect........which would be racist in itself to say therefore disqualifies any person who isn't black. If that % of NFL players mattered Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott wouldn't be in the NFL they'd just be William and Mary alumnus probably working in finance or something. But the reality is that there is racism involved.........and there would be regardless of who the majority race of ownership was............and teams know there are bridges too far now when dealing with the public with regard to hirings. Oft-fired, middle aged white coaches with no history of success as a HC on any level are toxic candidates right now. That's not to say some team wouldn't hire Daboll..........it only takes one........but look at the hirings that just took place. The way to skirt discomfort with black candidates without mass criticism is to hire a young guy and say he's the next McVay..........an inspired young genius with a clean record. And teams are willing to go that route because at their core I believe most owners think there are an absolute TON of candidates for any HC job that could do the job well if given the resources.......so they will hire the person they feel they can relate and communicate the best with. They really don't think they are passing on better candidates.

You lost me here. After Mahomes you can slot Watson anywhere in the top 5.........but obviously not outside of it. His trade value is second only to Mahomes(Josh might be of equal value to Watson but Watson has a more proven track record).........which is really the biggest problem.......nobody who has anything of commensurate value to offer that is in the market to do so.

The reduced cap has given them a convenient excuse to kick a long term extension down the road a year. They will pick up the 5th year option this offseason.

They were also a bad offense in 2019. The similarities I see with Mularkey and Wyche were that they also had years where they were successful running the ball or passing the ball. Mularkey almost got the Bills to the playoffs in his first season as HC with a power running game. The following season was an atrocity of bad QB's being asked to throw and throw. Ultimately it's just coaching inconsistency. Teams would catch up to what they were doing and they would be painfully slow to adapt. For all the good that was accomplished offensively in 2020, I thought "Mr. I'm in the championship game every year" Daboll showed a lack of awareness down the stretch.........taking low hanging fruit instead of prepping his team for postseason football..........and his offense then looked plain BAD in the playoffs. Josh Allen running around for big plays or little else worked. Daboll wants to sell himself as a key part of New England's success..........but he needs to show he can adapt offensively the way Belichick and his OC's have. Lotta' tape out there now and KC was hardly the '85 Bears and shut them down so he's going to have to adapt and improve in a number of areas in 2021.

They were none too excited about their Browns interviewing Daboll last year. Are you expecting more St. Francis high school grads to get GM jobs? I thought the Polian mafia was thinning out. RICO laws and such.......

Ok yeah he's a great coordinator...........moving on......name me one NFL HC ever that had been previously fired from 3 NFL coordinator gigs. It's one thing for a club to hire a young guy like Nick Siriani and defend his whiteness.........it's another to pass on an Eric Bienemy to hire a white guy who has been canned from a lower job 3 times. Being a HC is not like being a QB........there are plenty of capable people to fill the jobs..........and yes, if Daboll wants to overcome his past and help sell himself to not only the ownership but also the fanbase and local media of a market as a new HC........yeah I think showing growth in his current job would be his best shot.

Hey, going into 2019 many thought the Dolphins had the very worst roster in the league and had just hired another in a long line of inevitably bad Belichick impersonators in Flores. But they turned it around and not on the strength of 1st round picks like Christian Wilkins and Tua. You can at least right the ship without a ton of immediate help from early rounds. Lot's of ways to fill out a roster. I think people overstate the depth of the Texans roster despair. Just about any situation can be turned around in a couple seasons and yes they were 4-12 but they were more competitive than that makes it seem and very dangerous offensively.

He didn't take them from an anemic offense in 2018.........he WAS the OC in 2018. And the first half of that season it was so bad that they were on pace to perhaps be the worst offense the NFL had ever seen since the merger. Hooray for improvement but we probably aren't looking at a generational talent at that post.... he has been fired from 3 previous NFL OC gigs.

Oh so now he is just going to sit out the preseason and maybe some games. Loyalty is everything? He should go back and listen to his weepy press conference when McNair made him generationally wealthy 6 months ago.

Sounds like a porn star from 30 years ago who might have been falsely accused of giving Magic Johnson HIV while using the surname of a famous 80's supermodel.

I don't think the statistical ranking matters much. There is a lot of information available now. I think showing growth and adaptability is what would serve him best. It only takes one team though.........Mike McCarthy OC'd San Francisco to a 30th ranking in his only season there and Green Bay promptly hired him to be their HC. All it takes is one team.

Overrated as an OC........he's got too much of that "wicky-wacky"..........as they used to say about Mularkey and Sam Wyche.......in his play calling and design. Looks great until it looks woeful. Doesn't mean he couldn't be a great HC but I think that and having been fired at so many other OC jobs are significant negatives.

Hardy was a freak of nature. #1 overall pick kinda' physical talent. Charles Johnson was also a stud player in his 24-28 year old range. The Panthers got them with 6th and 3rd round picks, respectively. Roughly the same range the Bills have used picks on Bam Johnson and AJ Epenesa. I think both of those guys can improve but not likely to see them become much like that pair. I do think they've been uncharacteristically unfortunate the way the pass rusher cookie has crumbled for them.........but they also mishandled Edmunds, IMO.......he should have been an edge guy from the start. Maybe their over-confidence that they could fill the position like they did in Carolina came into play in decisions but in general I think they've had some misfortune there. You gotta' get right in front of him though because reportedly he can't turn his head.

The math is not in the favor of your argument. Traditionally there is about a 15% chance of getting a franchise QB with your first round QB pick.........getting a top 5 guy will be even lower even if the 15% figure isn't as accurate in recent drafts. As for the rest of the picks........... about half of your first round picks don't live up to basic expectations(as defined by not having 5th year option picked up). The piling of draft picks sounds good but if that worked the Browns be a dynasty after all of them they piled up. All the Julio Jones trade bonanza got them was more losing..........and eventually they bottomed out entirely and got a QB who could win some games for them but even then they would appear to be in a QB purgatory now because Baker doesn't look like an elite one. IMO the best way to handle Watson is let him choose to sit............build up the culture and character in that locker room the way McDermott did and Flores has in Miami .........and then maybe you can either mend fences with Watson or trade him next year for another actual superstar QB and possibly more. Right now what they can be offered is mostly shite. Darnold is broken and high risk. I can't imagine drafting anyone other than Trevor from this class and having him come in knowing that he has to follow DeShaun Watson. That's crazy pressure.

People get like that when they put up 14.5 sack seasons. The Bills have been astonishingly fortunate to get chances to draft Mahomes, Watson and Jackson and PASS on them.........and still come out of the fray with Josh Allen. Similar luck at other positions that previous Bills GM's had virtually none of. But that A1 pass rusher has been inconveniently out of their grasp for several years. They have to feel some desperation at this point.........McDermott's defense is predicated on getting pressure from 4 and he just hasn't had the weapons he had at DE like he had in Carolina.

A blessing in disguise? It could very easily take them 20+ years to get another QB like Watson. Top 5 types are rare and maybe you under-appreciate that because they tend to play a VERY long time so it seems that they must be more replaceable than they are. The Bills just went 25 years between seasons of elite level QB play.

Actually more QB's rising to the elite level is actually increasing demand. When it was just Manning, Brady, Brees and Rodgers in tier 1 "league MVP" type level it was a lot easier to make the excuse that you could still be somewhat successful........and maybe catch a lucky break in the playoffs........without one of those guys. Now that the field has expanded significantly the have-not's are feeling a lot lonelier and more uncompetitive.

The most "accredited" source that Thurman quoted was ESPN........who also called the Lotulelei signing the Bills worst FA move since 2015 in a more recent article. Forbes called Lotulelei the worst cap value of any DL in the NFL a year after his signing. It was a foolish contract. No hyperbole necessary. Thurman doesn't want to include PFF in the criticism because they are HIGHLY critical of his play. I don't think we need a bunch of cherry picked feedback from people on fan sites who don't do their own evaluations of play to have known it was terrible value. They owe him $11M+ guaranteed going into the 4th season since he signed.......they got 3 years of middling play that wouldn't have inspired anyone at ANY pay rate...... and he'd be looking at a league minimum salary if he were a UFA and so inclined to keep playing. And don't give me any opt-out excuses.........as Jon Feliciano said last summer........Star opted out because his pay was guaranteed anyway, not because he was just more concerned for the welfare of his family than anyone else. As Ginitti pointed out......asking players to give money back does not endear them to the organization. Has backfired twice on Beane now with Incognito and Lotulelei. Guaranteeing more of his money was a mistake that Beane made without benefit of knowing the NFL would allow opt-outs........but cutting his pay was necessitated because of the terrible initial contract.

Like Ginnitti said......... the optics on it were horrible. This was a guy with a limited market.........a 1 tech without real nose tackle flexibility......projected to make maybe $4m per year in a league where teams are filling that position with guys making $900K..........and he got a $50M deal with half of it guaranteed. His deal was likely driven by Beane comparing Star's market with what Damon Harrison had gotten with the Giants.........but he shouldn't have been a comp...........Harrison was REALLY keeping LB's clean by making 70-80 of his own tackles per year while ACTUALLY drawing constant double teams as a real nose tackle aligned over center not a 1 tech inviting doubles by lining up in the guard/center gap. Beane's first year as GM was pretty awful wrt pro personnel. He's improved a lot but it's important to remember that he was only semi-involved in personnel decisions in Carolina for two years prior to getting hired as GM in Buffalo. Most GM's are drawn from the personnel departments rather than the executive assistant pool so it was probably to be expected that his personnel decisions would be a work in progress.

The desperation for the teams that want Watson will only increase over the next year.

The Star signing was roundly viewed as the worst FA deal handed out in the NFL in 2018........even then it was a travesty. Appropriately the Bills are still being punished for astonishingly paying a $2M player $10M instead of a typical free agent overpay like giving that player $4M. Trent Murphy deal was bad.......eating Corey Coleman's $3.5M for 2 weeks of camp.........Kelvin Benjamin's $10M cap hit........wheew.......Beane strung together some seriously bad deals in a little over a year as GM. But he's improved consistently in a number of areas, assigning value and executing deals are one of them.

Oh @GunnerBill is right they are too far down the hole to move Edmunds now..........and they aren't going to draft someone early and challenge him, his confidence is fragile enough as it is. They will have to draft someone later and have him step in for Edmunds while injured and outplay him..........which is very do-able if given a 3-5 game stretch. That's how situations like this play out. Bottom line.......Edmunds playing just above replacement level in the middle is all fun and games right NOW.......but they really can't afford to have a MLB who doesn't make plays on a $80-$100M contract. But hey......this is the front office that paid Star Lotulelei $50M to be the type of immobile traffic cone that teams aspire to fill with day 3 draft picks and practice squad elevations.........so we could use some intervention from an unheralded, instinctive young LB to make sure that doesn't happen.

The Bills got the 28th pick and a 4th rounder for an All Pro LT in Jason Peters...........the 30th pick is a lot of value for ANY running back. The reason why the availability of an All Pro RB versus just some dude off the practice squad doesn't move Vegas lines is because run plays average so little yardage/scoring versus passing the ball. The difference between an average RB(4.2 npc) and a guy who gives you 5.0 ypc like peak McCaffrey is a lot less than the chasm between that 5.0 and the near 8.0 yards you get per pass attempt with a top QB. The real value of McCaffrey is in the passing game but he's basically a slot receiver and the Bills already have a pretty good one at the moment in Beasley. The upside is that his cap hit wouldn't be too onerous as a receiver after Carolina eats the signing bonus money and he could basically replace Beasley in 2022 and allow the Bills to use more 12 personnel or bigger receivers(which might be good in late season weather) etc.. Any time you pay a RB good money it's robbing Peter to pay Paul in some way though. It never works out..........but I understand why it's tempting. Why does a rebuilding team with cap issues want an $8M+ mid-career RB coming off a season lost to injury? I can't see them wanting ANY players already on a second contract in return in trade.

It's crossed my mind because if Carolina wants Watson they need draft picks. I saw McCaffrey included in a proposed Watson trade and thought that Houston would prefer a 1st rounder of any kind to a RB of any kind in such a swap. Buffalo is positioned with a late first rounder........which should be the most that a RB with some mileage and a big contract is worth spending on. Not a fan of that idea but the Buffalo/Carolina connection is natural and on the surface he'd kill a couple birds with one stone for the Bills so I wouldn't discount the possiblility.

I'd take Edmunds over them as an edge guy.......where I thought he would be stationed......... but no question they are clearly better ILB's. My takeaway is this guy really likes his RB's.