Bleeding Bills Blue

As someone who recently quit smoking, and is sitting in an office... smoking a cigarette on a hot beach sounds fantastic right now

Yeah - might report right in to beane for all we know, and works hand in hand with all the pro personnel guys?

He stuck around a long time after that. I always wonder though... what if he was all about Big ben? Or was he against moving for bledsoe? Like who made the call on the trade, and who made the call on losman being worthy of a 1st?

Was he hired before or after donahoe?

If the price is low it makes sense - hence the interest in antonio brown. 3rd and a 5th was pretty cheap... it was the new deal for a 32 year old that probably turned him and most of the league off.

I mean... good luck. You play 1 game per week, so staying on the east coast is unreasonable to request. You'll have teams traveling east to west and back all season long. Players would absolutely hate it. Not to mention you no longer get home games against certain teams every year. This type of thing works for all the other sports with 82 and 162 game schedules. 18 with games one time per week makes it kind of challenging from a logistical standpoint.

It'll come down to beating NEx2, Pitt, Cle, Tenn, or baltimore. Need to win at least 1 -probably 2. These are AFC games for tiebreaker purposes, and the division win over NE or sweeping the Jets would be Huge. NYJ, MIA, MIA, NYG, CIN, WSH, DEN - thats 7 If they sweep the jets - thats 8. They would then need to win 2 of the 6 games against the AFC contenders to make it to 10. I didn't put dallas and philly since NFC games mean less. I think Baltimore is beatable. Need to take care of the ball in that game. Pitt is one of those games i just expect to lose. We haven't beaten them since the 90s, but we'll see how lethal the O is without both brown and bell. I know Pitt fans have that as a guarantee. NE is NE - its their division til we take it from them. Tenn - i hate mariota so i would hate losing to that team. Cle - Everyone loves them but offseason champs doesn't mean much At the end of the day - we have some easier games on the schedule with teams like Miami, Cinn, and NYG - but we also play some solid AFC teams. Good teams win these games, so hopefully Allen is ready to rock and the defense is as advertised.

I think moving those deals had more about flexibility moving forward. We weren't a playoff team with those players on the roster - moving them gives the team the ability to re-sign players without having to gut your team. The core was not successful, so why continue to try and use it. Blow it up and start over.

QB purgatory... He was willing to make a big move to move up for Watkins. But he never made a move to acquire a QB. Alex Smith was available that 2013 offseason - KC nabbed him for a 2nd... we traded down in the 1st and spent our 1st rounder on EJ Manuel...

Theres a tough stretch of Cowboys, Ravens, Steelers. Adding in the Browns (who people are high on), the Eagles (who are usually good), 2 against NE, and 2 against NYJ - its a tough schedule. You have to win a few of these games. Dallas is a thanksgiving game so that is just... a tough one to predict. Ravens absolutely beat us up the last 2 times we played so hopefully players bring it in that one as its at home. Pittsburghs roster just doesn't scare me at all, i think they look like a .500 team. To make the playoffs you need to win all of these MIA x2 NYJ x1 NYG Cinn Tenn Wash Den Pitt and at least 1 of NE x2, Cle, Phi, Dal, Balt, NYJ -- 2 to make sure. But the chargers and chiefs look legit - so they'll probably both be in. You have Houston who's usually good, and Indy looked really solid last year - add in Tenn and Jax too. NE is pretty much a lock. Ravens, steelers, browns probably only looking at 1 spot there too. 10-6 isn't a shoo-in so you probably want 11 wins.

I want to believe - but man... 15 wins in 2 years, 3 against teams with winning records and 2 against playoff teams. You gotta win those games to get in, so it remains to be seen whether we can. And a lot of the losses have been absolute beat-downs. A lot of it is talent, so hopefully we bridged that gap. At the end of the day it comes down to offense. By yardage measure we have had a bottom 5 offense, a bottom 3 passing offense, and last season we even had a bottom 3 offense from a giveaway perspective (peterman!!!!). If we can go from 4700 yards to something resembling 5700 (around league average), thats about 60 yards per game. Beasley helps move the chains - more plays=more yards. Brown adding another home run threat should help. Fixing the line should buy allen time, and open up lanes for the backs. They need to add 1000+ yards this season for it to make a big difference. Getting the PPG closer to league average of around 23 would be good too. We had a terrible offense from an efficiency standpoint. Need more 1st downs, need better execution expecially on short distances and in red zone. Singletery and gore should help there, in addition to the new guys on the oline. If we can approach 6000 yards of offense, and around 23+ points per game on offense... with this defense... we should be a playoff team.

Also - get rid of that touchback rule on the goalline. You give the defense a distinct benefit to almost knock the ball out of the endzone instead of attempting to recover it(i know this is technically a penalty, but if it doesn't look obvious it won't get called). Call it an "illegal advance" and make it 1st and goal from the 10 or something. Plus it wouldn't be as big of a game changer when a guy dives for the pylon (one of the more exciting plays in football), and is slightly bobbling it as he touches the pylon.

As long as he backs it up I'd be good with him here.

Allen 99 Throw power... lets goooooooo

It's tough to really determine. Belichick has made it such an importance to fit into their culture. Hard work - do your job. etc. Everyones so accountable Brady has created a persona of just, an ultimate competitor. The guy will do anything to win, he doesn't care about his numbers, or your numbers for that matter. It also rubs off on other players that their QB is just a total gamer who doesn't care about anything but winning.

Yeah - cool that they make their own olive oil though. 3500 bottle wine cellar and a tasting room. Seems like a cool place but not a place to live all the time - and for that amount i feel like you need to be a lot wealthier to afford this kind of estate.

I just hate the pick plays like that - i guess because i can contact you in that area its ok? but its still a strange gray area. If they add PI to challenges i expect like 90% of them to be rub routes.

He probably is - his playoff numbers are insanely good too. Last 3 years, 8-1 in the playoffs 66% comp, averaging 358 per game - they scored a ton of TDs on the ground this past year, but that all opens up because brady basically carves you up unless you play nickel. And if you're in nickel they just abuse you with the ground game. One of these things is not like the other.... 4806 50/8 68.9% 16-0 vs. 3693 21/11 63.4% 11-5

i suppose not that obscure... but rex ryan was living in the building over from me when i lived in regency court a few years ago. He had just moved to buffalo and i think the apartment was fully furnished so he could be by the stadium while he was getting his house together. I remember seeing his car on deadspin and the same day i got home from work and this giant bills truck is in my like 12 car parking lot between the 2 buildings. Ran into him a couple of times - never got to tell him how utterly disappointing his tenure here was.

Im not a big fan of blocking before the ball is thrown in general. I know the rules are like - within a yard its OK, but i don't really think it should ever be OK.

Everyone has a full 90 right now - its kind of hard to find trade partners when teams have like 7 running backs a piece. Pittsburgh and KC look like good fits, but LA isn't stupid enough to trade to afc contenders. Gonna have to wait to see if some players get injured. Their depth is OK, but if they make a move i'd try and grab someone like duke johnson to play 1b if ekeler becomes the full time starter. Before last year i'd agree, but he was pretty good last year.

No - but even 20 guaranteed is more than the 5 he's guaranteed right now.

Yea - deferred money is a big thing agents hate. The nationals big harper offer of 10 and 300 was actually kind of BS, since a ton of salary was deferred payments. Owners are always about that bottom line.

Considering most running backs really only get 2 contracts - and he's averaged about 1200 total yards and 10 TDs per year. I don't really blame him. Hard to determine his value - he's not gurley or bell, but he's also 26 and if he plays out this year he's subject to a tag year - thats 11 million in 2019. Assuming he plays well this year and gets tagged next year he'd make approximately 16-17 million. He's now 28 - the team will have drafted his replacement and "his best days are behind him" so he ends up with a modest mark ingram style deal (3yr 15 mil 6 guaranteed). He probably plays out 2 and makes 10. So he made 26 million - if he plays well and doesnt get hurt. He signs a big deal now in the realm of the bell 4 and 50 - he gets 25ish guaranteed at signing. If he plays well he probably makes more of that 50, or signs a 2nd deal when he gets cut - if he doesn't play well (or gets hurt) he still makes the same 26 he would have made by playing out his 5th year option/tag. From a business perspective running backs kind of have to be selfish...

Both hold the ball too long just like Tyrod. Allen needs to improve the rhythm passing, and stop with the hero ball at times. There's a lot to improve and a lot to like. The o-line makes his 2018 season kind of hard to evaluate, as do the lack of consistent WR threats. I hope to see some pretty stark improvements this year. LJ had a ton of designed runs like kaepernick - that typically works when you drive the ball down the field more. You open up deep outs, fly routes, etc by forcing them to keep extra guys in the box. Greg Roman is the O-coordinator... who was coordinator with Alex Smith, Kaep, Tyrod etc. He's likely going to continue running LJ at least 10 times a game, and hes going to emphasize hitting receivers outside the numbers. LJs sack% last year was almost 9 and i expect it to hover around 9-10 next year as Roman typically seems to coach a protect the ball type of offense. He also struggled in the playoff game when his team was behind and he was forced to take out the read-option stuff. 7 sacks, 1 pick, 3 fumbles. Also something to keep in mind - he only threw 3 picks and had a 1.8% INT rate... but he fumbled 12 times and 3 more times in the playoff game. That is a LOT of fumbles.