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Brandt, formerly VP of the Packers, knows far more about football than I ever will. That said, there's a giant hole in his logic. He says that teams with big-salaried QBs are not challenged to build contending teams. He goes on to explain how rookies on rookie-contracts (more than half the roster) only take up about $30 million of cap space and any money a team doesn't spend in one year is rolled over to the next, and so on. With so much money to spend on a comparative few number of vets, there's plenty of money to build a roster. Here's the problem. A team with a QB on a rookie contract might be spending about $1 million on their starting QB. The Packers, for instance, are spending over $50 million. Teams helmed by youngsters have roughly $40-50 million more to spend on free agents than teams with veteran star QBs. That buys you a lot of talent. It's easy to build up a roster when you have a rookie-contract QB. It's much harder if you don't.

That's just a silly thing to say. They have varying degrees of expertise and there's little doubt some are very knowledgeable. For example, Mike Brown (owner of the Bengals) was the son of the legendary Paul Brown and grew up with football. He was the assistant general manager of the team for 22 years before becoming the owner. Art Rooney II is another guy who's been immersed in football his entire life.

In the 1970's, football was about running backs. The best athletes became RBs. RBs were far more likely to win the Heisman or get picked #1 in the draft than QBs. Offenses were built around great running backs. Defenses - unlike now - were built to stop them. In that bygone golden era, one back stood out like no other, like a man among boys, like a god among men. In the 1973, OJ had 75% more yards than the next best back. Not even Jim Brown did that. Certainly not Emmit Smith, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, or the many other pretenders for the title of RB GOAT. Incidentally, OJ rushing total in 1975 was 46% ahead of the best of his peers. His dominance was insane. Only Jim Brown ever did better, comparatively, than OJ's 2nd best year. I'm not a hockey fan but I get the love for Hasek. But did he ever outperform his peers by 75%? OJ is a horrible, horrible human being, but he was a preternatural football player.

Beane struck gold with Allen and deserves praise for that. It took some clever maneuvering and propelled this team to relevance. Otherwise, it's not just the RBs who are JAGs. Most of his draft picks are JAGs. Not enough All-Pros and playmakers.

The Bills are spending $124 million on offense versus $118 on defense. The top two cap expenditures this year are offensive players (Allen, Diggs). The Bills have invested in offense. What they haven't done is built a good OL. Or found a good #2 WR. overthecap.com/salary-cap/buffalo-bills

I'd vote for OJ: both the '75 and '73 seasons were amazing. But, as an old-timer, I have to dig further back with Tommy Hughitt of Buffalo's original NFL team. The 1920 and 1921 seasons both stand out. As player-coach, he led the All-Americans to a 9-1-1 record in 1920. Tommy played QB on offense, LB on defense, and occasionally punted & kicked FGs. The team began the season with four consecutive double-digit wins - an NFL record not tied till the Patriots of 2007 - and led the league in scoring by a wide margin. The team claimed a share of the championship with a win percentage of .844 - same as the Akron Pros. But the league meeting, led by the Akron owner, declared Akron the champions. The next year Hughitt led the team to an undefeated season - not including two exhibition games that not all players participated in. Once again, Buffalo was screwed. In an infamous miscarriage of justice known as the "Staley Swindle," the league decided to count the exhibition games and awarded the championship to Chicago. Hughitt finished his coaching career with a .694 record which ranks 7th all-time among qualifying NFL coaches. Twice he had the NFL championship stolen from him in controversial league decisions. He should be in the HOF for his accomplishments as both a player and coach. www.profootballresearchers.org/biography/Hughitt_Tommy.pdf

Not a popular opinion but I'm kinda onboard. $120m was a lot to spend on Von even given that many DEs continue to produce well into their 30s. Now we're in cap hell and don't have the resources to fix our weak position groups and create a SB caliber roster.

This is actually humorously logical. But while Beane has thus far been far from perfect in the early rounds, we do have to give him credit for Josh. And I'd hate to give up 1st and 2nd round picks. When you look at a much bigger sample of all teams over the past 20 years or more (instead of just looking at Beane's picks the past few years), the probability of getting a high-quality starter is much higher in the early rounds. The Bills need more high-quality starters and fewer jags.

I'm confused. You said the only OL we should retain is Dawkins. But then you list Morse as our starting center again in 2023 in your bang-bang-bang scenario. And you really want to start next season with three untested rookies on the OL? Yikes!

I like ChatGPT a lot. But it's not ready to run the Bills personnel department... yet.

I don't know what actually happened but I do know innocent-until-proven-guilty is dead in America.

Here's the full quote: "You look at him statistically and what he's been able to do in his first four, five, six years in this league, you know, it's kind of unmatched by anybody," he said. "They're the mantra of what you want to be and how you need to do it. Because, again they're just constantly in the AFC Championship Game; he's been in three Super Bowls now. Gotta find ways, it's a copycat league, you gotta find ways to be like them." It's vague what he means by "you gotta find ways to be like them." He was previously talking about their success: Mahomes' stats and KC's playoff success. Is that what he's referring to when he says 'you gotta be like them.' At no point does he mention how the KC roster was built or the design of their plays so if he's referring to that, he's not making it clear. The only obvious interpretation is that he wants to replicate their Lombardis.

This makes absolute sense. But as much as we need another good receiver, we need OL help even more. It would be great to successfully address both needs but resources are limited.

Football didn't become football until Walter Camp.

What accountability do you want? Beane's made the roster better overall. But he has failed to build a good OL. A lot of people - McD, Dorsey, Josh, Motor - would perform much better if Beane had acquired better offensive linemen. So what do you do? Do you fire Beane? Do you write him up? No. You identify the shortcoming and drive on. Absolutely, this roster, coaching staff and front office all need to get better. Firing a bunch of people isn't the best answer unless you have better people waiting to join the team.

"Without punishment for mistakes, there can be no accountability." That was probably the leadership model of ancient Rome's Ninth Legion. There are more modern leadership models available.

Every good team - save one - ends the season in failure. Every defense collapses at some point - both D's collapsed yesterday in the Super Bowl. Maybe both teams should fire their coaches.

My first thought post SB.... We need Philly's OL and KC's offensive coaching staff.

It's not like shooting free throws. It's a team sport. If the receivers aren't getting open and the OL isn't protecting, the QB is gonna have issues.

732 earthquakes in the past year - mostly little ones - where I live. The biggest one - 5.1 - made me wonder if a truck just crashed into the house. Then I remembered I live in CA.

Wow! I can’t believe the emphatic negativity about a guy nobody knows much about. He may end up being a good addition to the staff. None of us is in a position to know otherwise.

Glass half full? During the drought, I just wanted a simple playoff appearance. Beans and McD have gifted us playoff wins. The average NFL team has a 1 in 32 chance of winning the Super Bowl. Our odds are better than that. So, while I admittedly get frustrated sometimes, overall I'm grateful.

You may be right. But he's 32 (a year younger than Beas) and his yardage production has declined the three past consecutive years. And I wonder how much he'd want?

Interior OL (2x), OT, WR, CB, Safety (if Poyer leaves), RB (if Motor leaves), LB (if Edmunds leaves), DE. There are too many holes to fill. Sadly, when I look into the Swami's crystal ball, I don't see a SB run this upcoming season. Still, I'm hoping Beane finds some forgotten treasures in the bargain bin. He'll stay quiet at the beginning of free agency when the market is hot. Then see who's still available when the market cools and there are good values to be found.

Okay, I'm cheating... From the latter part of the 2021 season until halftime of the 2022 Packer game. For a while there, I was starting to think Josh just might be the best QB in football.