QCity

He's definitely getting 7 years. I would be disappointed in our new GM if he did this, I don't think the guy is worth it.

I don't know, I think combining a bad contract (Bogo) with a great contract (McCabe) to reach a reasonable average is faulty logic. I think Jeremy White must be running out of column idea in the offseason if he came up with that.

The theory that Bogosian will thrive in a new system is some serious wishful thinking. The guy has played 10 years in the NHL and his ceiling is a 3rd pair D-man. We're just paying him as a 1st pair, that's the big problem.

Hard to get excited about the NHL draft when we're probably not going to see this kid until 2019.

It dropped to -550 for a moment. People are idiots. Mayweather vs. McGregor Betting Line Is Even More Absurd Than the Fight Itself This will be a great spectacle for the people who watch Dancing With the Stars, because that's all you are going to see for 12 rounds.

No lines for food, beer, or bathrooms. Can drink the whole game. Warm and toasty in December. Servers get to know you by name and bring drinks to your seat at set intervals. The downside is the crowd around you isn't that much fun, and a lot of seats get sold to division rivals at a premium. Loads of Jets fans always around me, ugh.

Hard to say with all the backroom deals going on, but it looks like Carrier is gone? Maybe it's part of a deal to unload Bogo to them as well.

I don't think many are saying this (aside from the typical hope that a new GM/Coach brings). The front office made the same offseason missteps in asset management that it has been making for the past decade. Hopefully Beane can turn it around. Myth: A stud RB can lead you to the playoffs. No, a stud RB can lead your fantasy team to the playoffs. In today's NFL it's almost always preferable to use the running back by committee approach, it provides redundancy in case of injury.

This argument comes up in every single new stadium thread. It comes down to this: Are you the type of person that A) Enjoys driving a brand new car and typically trades-up before things start falling apart on your current car or B) Will drive a car into the ground running up 300K+ miles on it over decades and keeps the rust held together with duct tape almost as a sense of pride? Have you figured out which personality you associate with? Don't bother, because it doesn't matter. Today's NFL is a country club and they don't want your rust bucket in their parking lot. Sorry, but ticket prices are going up and the title of "Drunkest Fans in the NFL" is going away. A new stadium in the old First Ward may be the worst kept secret in town. Real estate speculation in the area is escalating, the owners just purchased a building that could conveniently be used as an Ops center, and hey -- there's already established parking for ~20K people.

Cal Petersen announces he’s turning pro Cal Petersen has announced he's leaving Notre Dame. I would expect him to sign with Sabres based on my chat with Eichel today. https://twitter.com/BuffNewsVogl/status/870019670769680384

Maybe we finally have a front office that isn't content to let our assets leave without any compensation. We're going to have to overpay to keep him here. He knows he's not going to get a record breaking Nike deal like OBJ just received with our offense. He's not going to get all the accolades, awards, and stats that his peers are getting if he stays here. The odds of his next contract working out in favor of the team over the long haul are pretty low.

I wouldn't buy a Watkins jersey.

Of course we know the value of the pick. This narrative that we are going to use it in a trade for a QB is just speculation. We have a GM that wants to build through the draft -- every draft pick matters. This scenario is Exhibit A of why you fire your employees on a Friday and don't let them linger around the job for a week. The notion that firing your GM after the draft will now be some new "trend" is one of the silliest things I've read this offseason. The question now becomes how exactly does Beane fix this mess? Ducasse and Davis aren't a problem, I suspect they'll be cut simply due to their performance -- there will probably be at least a dozen better players cut this preseason. But that only gets us back to even. Hauschka and DiMarco aren't going anywhere, those contracts have too much gtd money and dead cap. They can't sit around and pray Blanton qualifies as a CFA. Can they cut a guy like Holmes and still have enough space to sign a replacement? Money is still pretty tight.

That's pretty much it.

Cuts have no impact on comp picks. No, that's incorrect, he gave away a "slam dunk" 3rd rounder when we lost Byrd. Ironically and oddly enough, the only time he obtained comp picks was when he went on that spending spree in 2015.

You have to understand we've never had a front office that understood this concept or built a team in this fashion. This is foreign ground for our fanbase, but I can see that we're slowly getting past the snark and learning some sound principles in asset management. Comp picks obtained over a 3-year period are a great barometer to see if your GM is clueless or not. You simply cannot build a team through FA, and that's exactly what we were trying to do. Another thing to note, it's not about trading a 3rd round pick for player X when assessing value. That player or a player comparable to him could be signed easily after May 9th, so it's closer to a 3rd round pick for a guy who is 80% of player X (which makes it even worse). A good rule of thumb is always wait to sign depth. Of course, when you start getting 10 or 11 draft picks for a few years, you are going to find that these "holes" on our team are suddenly disappearing and depth isn't a big issue anymore. Here's some more data from this year's free agency period (as it stands now, could still change). There are 4 teams that lost 5 or more players in FA and are poised to get nothing in return: BUF, JAX, TEN, and CHI. Some pretty poor company to be in. Here are the teams that stand to gain 3+ picks: N.E., CIN, HOU, DAL, OAK, ARI, MIN, and G.B. Five playoff teams that get richer. Green Bay is best example in the league of a team that builds through the draft. In fact, they may take it a bit too far with their aversion to sign free agents. They are slated to get the max of 4 comp pick this year, and with a previous trade, should wind up with 12 (!) draft picks next year.

This was a major problem with Whaley. You simply cannot forfeit draft picks for depth signings. I mentioned this exact same situation about two weeks ago here, I'm guessing Rodak reads these forums because he basically re-wrote my post. We have the possibility of getting 7 picks in the first 4 rounds, which has great potential to be a franchise changing draft. There is another way to gain some help that Rodak didn't mention. If Blanton, E.J., or Hunter play enough non-special teams snaps, they can become a CFA and count toward our losses. This would mean cutting 3 of our FA's would get us 2 more picks. It's not that far fetched -- Barry Church is gone in Dallas and the SS position is in flux, Blanton could win the starting job possibly. These offseason moves really highlight the ineptitude of the Whaley years. This is also an early litmus test for our new front office. We'll know in the next few months if they know how to build through the draft as Beane claimed.

Who exactly is he going to rip apart? He was the organization. He did a lousy job and TBN is spot-on for reporting he did a lousy job.

The bar is set so low in this town that anyone with a pulse that is polite is revered.

The guy's been kicking on the west coast, moving east isn't going to improve his stats.

You're damn right he wasted everyone's time. He was in over his head from day 1.

And McD demanded control because Whaley was terrible at his job. There's no way you can twist this firing around into anything but he was lousy at his job.

He's 19 yrs old and has played in 4 games.

Cautious skepticism is the rational approach. I'd wager 99% of the posters here had no idea who Brandon Beane, Joe Schoen, and Brian Gaine were one month ago. We're only going by what we've learned from reports in the media which have mostly been positive. Ironically, these same members of the media are often attacked and ridiculed as incompetent and clueless when they have something negative to say, so.... we'll see.