hondo in seattle

I feel like some fans, in an excess of hope & optimism, bury their heads in the sand. * Our OL will be fine this year with the FAs we signed. * Our running attack with be fine with Harris onboard - he's stronger, faster and better than Motor * Our receiving corps will be fine with the speed we added * Our secondary will be fine with Poyer, Hyde, and White all back and healthy * Our DL will be fine when Von gets healthy which is soon * Our LB corps will be fine without Edmunds - he wasn't a difference maker anyway * The Diggs-Allen relationship will be fine despite signs of strain - they're both professionals. Several of these assumptions may prove to be true. But I doubt if they all will. After enduring multiple two-win seasons, 4 SB losses, 17 years of drought, and countless other disappointments in 50+ years of fandom, maybe I've become a bit cynical. But when I see a cloud on the horizon, I don't ignore it.

Look, I agree I may be reading too much into it. But I find the people attacking me hilarious. I believe I bring up a legit point. There were lots of bromance stories last offseason. But the season ended with tension between the two and now - IMHO - Josh seemed to answer a question in a very politically correct way without any allusions to an ongoing bromance. Considering Diggs's blowup last year, and the diva stories from his time with the Vikings, it's reasonable to have a concern. I'm not condemning anyone. Not Diggs; not Josh. But as a Bills fan, I don't assume the world is sunshine and roses. I've been disabused of that years ago. There seem to be ugly surprises every season with my favorite team and I hope the Diggs-Allen story doesn't become one of them. We are after all talking about millionaire twenty-somethings who aren't always maxed out with EQ.

We all know that Allen and Diggs are/were best friends. We also all know what happened with Diggs at the end of the last season. Recently, Allen was asked if his relationship with Diggs was still solid. He responded, "Absolutely... Stef's gonng be Stef. I love the guy. He is one of my favorite people on this planet. He is so fiery, so competitive. He wants the ball in his hands 24/7, and I’m never going to not like a guy like that. He wants what’s best for the team.” To me, that sounds a lot like coach-speak. Allen keeps it positive, as he should. But he never actually says that he and Diggs are still talking, hanging out, playing games together, acting like brothers from different mothers... And his comment, "I'm never going to dislike a guy like that" came off as a little odd to me. Who said anything about disliking? Do you have reasons to dislike Stef that you're overcoming? I'm not going to churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques, bawling my eyes out, earnestly praying for divine intervention for them to patch things up. But I do have some concerns about their relationship this year. I hope those concerns are wrong.

Sportswriters need content. So when there is no news, they invent some: mock drafts, trade rumors, refuted trade rumors, speculation...

I agree with most of what you said. But, when evaluating Josh's 2022 season, I think you paint an incomplete picture if you don't mention the porous OL or the many drops.

Being a GM is a weird occupation. All draft picks are possibilities - none of them are sure hits. As a GM, you're rolling the die throughout draft weekend. You're hoping you've done your evaluations thoroughly enough that your probabilities of scoring a hit are greater than the other GMs. And maybe you succeed at that. But if you don't hit on your QB, you're screwed. Owners don't evaluate your process. And they don't care how many hits you get if one of them isn't a signal caller. Beane's got job security for a while because he hit on Allen. Had he missed that one pick - fair or not - he'd probably be gone by now.

I'm starting to wonder if we take a pick at #27. Beane has conceded, more or less, that there aren't a lot of 1st round grades this year. So why use a 1st round pick on a 2nd round talent? He could trade up to get an actual 1st round talent in the 1st round. But with what capital? So I'm starting to think he'll trade back.

How do you know who the other guys are or how fast they run? I personally think it would be interesting to see TO put on an NFL uni again. Can an NFL WR still compete at age 48? As an older guy myself, I'd love to see it.

Looking back, Steve Largent supposedly only ran a 4.8 forty in college and yet became one of the NFL's best-ever receivers.

Maybin?

They also list this as one of his weaknesses: "Height can be a detriment in short-yardage, defender can get under his pads to hold the line." Well, no sh*t, as tall as he is!

I didn't want more than 20 questions so I skipped some like Beast Mode and Thurmonator. But Amish Rifle, Meatball and Lunchpail? I flat-out forgot about those!

It's the offseason so a good time for trivia... We all know Romo calls Josh, "The Alien," but how many of these older nicknames from Bills lore do you know? See how many you can answer correctly with both the first and last names. 1. Cookie 2. Earthquake 3. Mini Max 4. Biscuit 5. The Mad Bomber 6. The Magician 7. The Dancing Bear 8. The Condo 9. The Hitman 10. Pooh Bear 11. House 12. Golden Wheels 13. Chroise 14. Captain Checkdown 15. The members of the Bermuda Triangle 16. The members of the Electric Company 17. Spiderman 18. Machine Gun 19. Dr. Sack 20. Pit Bull

How much difference is there between a 3-4 Nose Tackle and a 1-technique in a four-man front? When the OP says, "Nose Tackle," I think he means 1-tech.

In my mind the argument kind of runs like this... I have some heartburn about Brady being crowned the GOAT... When you look back at some past GOAT candidates like Jim Brown and even OJ, they were clearly the very best at their position in their time. There was no debate - they dominated. Like Babe Ruth in baseball. In 1920, when Ruth hit 54 home runs, the next-best guy only hit 19. Brady never dominated any particular season like some other GOAT candidates did. There were always other QBs like Rodgers and Brees who were on the top of the pyramid with Brady. If Brady's the GOAT, it's because (1) he sustained excellence for so long and (2) he's got the rings. And I have problems with both points. The hardware argument always bothers me because football is a team sport. Brady didn't win his rings alone. Even those who say Brady made Belichick, and not the other way around, will probably concede that Brady wouldn't have won as many rings with Rex Ryan as his HC or if the rest of the roster looked like the '84 or '85 Bills. And if the so-good-so-long argument is valid, we'd have to conclude that Emmit Smith is the best RB ever. Yet I personally wouldn't put him in the top five. Plus you do have to wonder, like the OP, if Brady would have played so well for so long if he played during a more manly era. Namath's years of effectiveness were cut short by knee injuries. Theismann's leg was destroyed. Steve Young's career would have been longer if not for concussions. Some for Troy Aikman. If sustained greatness is a criterion to be named the GOAT, Brady has an 'unfair' advantage by playing during a time when the rules treat QBs like princesses.

For all those advocating for a 4-3 defense next season, I have an honest question. One of the things we hear from coaches is that you need to get your best players on the field. At present we only have one good LB. We now seem to have 3 good safeties and, debatably, 3 decent/good CBs. So why would we line up with 3 LBs?

Unless you need a QB, I think GMs should draft BPA in Round 1. Round 1 is your best chance to add an All Pro to your roster. Almost regardless of the position, it's better to draft an All Pro than an average starter or high quality backup at a position of need. If you need a QB, you gotta find a way to get the QB you want. If you don't need a QB, you don't draft one.

I'm trying to understand the OP's suggestion... So with our one 1st round pick, we'll take a QB we don't need instead of someone we do? And then trade him to some unknown team for some unknown quantity we'll figure out later on - instead of taking a known quantity in the draft? That's the idea?

Beane may indeed move up. He's done it before. But I wonder about that approach. Needless to say, the deeper you go to into the draft, the less chance you have of finding an All-Pro. And that's what you need. Jags, even if they earn a starting role, don't win Lombardi's. But does it make more sense to package a bunch of picks to move up and increase the odds that your first rounder is a difference-maker? Or trade back in the draft to get more picks? For example, would you rather have two second round picks or one first round pick? Let's say a guy taken around Pick 10 has a 35% chance of being a All-Pro. If second rounders have a 18% chance of being an All-Pro, you're marginally better going with two second rounders. Forget the trade chart - I'd like to see an analytics guy or gal take a hard look at this. It depends on the details of course but my hunch is that it's better to have a lot of picks than just a few good ones. The more darts you throw at the dartboard, the more likely you are to hit the bullseye. In other words, I hope Beane doesn't trade up. But if he does, I'm praying he's right - even if I am an agnostic Buddhist.

Before coming to the Bills, Jerry averaged only 1.7 sacks per year. I'm not sure why you left that out. But, yeah, it's a little weird that Jerry only got 2 sacks in his last season with the Bills and then 9 his first year with Houston. Maybe we did misuse him. Maybe we're misusing Ed Oliver, too. He's very fast and athletic. But he's smallish and maybe a bit weak. There might be a better way to leverage his strengths. But I'm not sure how much McD will introduce because I think this was his defense - not Frazier's - all along. Maybe the departure of Edmunds and the addition of Rapp will result in some new wrinkles. I'm not thinking the DL will be much different.

I agree about the hubris. Fans have a lot of it when they think they can run a draft better than a team of NFL professionals. But I'm open-minded to being proven wrong. So I challenge you to set up a thread during a draft. We'll all chime in with our votes when Beane is on the clock. Then, as time goes by, we can compare our consensus picks versus Beane's actual picks. Personally, I think it's unimaginable that bunch of fans will outperform a team of professionals who were chosen for their personnel jobs because of their expertise. Scouts who study film, watch games live, talk to players, talk to coaches, even hire detectives in some cases... living, sleeping, breathing college football all year long.

I wish the salary cap only applied to the other 31 teams.

Beane is just making use of a psychological phenomenon known as the "Pygmalion Effect." In layman's terms, the Pygmalion Effect says that if you treat people like winners, they tend to become winners. If you treat them like losers, they tend to become losers. The Pygmalion Effect has shown to be true in the classroom, in business, and in the military. I don't know if it's been studied in sports but I assume it holds there. If Beane doesn't specifically know about the term, "Pygmalion Effect," I'm sure he knows the concept through experience. A lot of coaches grasp this intuitively and use it to their advantage. No matter the truth of the matter, I personally wouldn't want Beane to come out and say: "Brown, Oliver and Davis were all huge disappointments for us. We tried to replace them during free agency but unfortunately nothing worked out. So this year we're just going to do our best to work around their crappy play again." Public negativity doesn't build up the team or the individual. It tears them down.

With some trades, Bean pulls this off: Bijan Robinson Darnell Wright

There have been a couple times in my life when I saw a player get injured so bad that I thought it would end of their career (e.g. Joe Theismann, Kevin Everett). But I only witnessed one athletic performance so horrifically bad that I thought it would be career ending. Yet, somehow, it wasn't.