BarleyNY

Ah. Makes sense.

Actually his specialty is press zone coverage and he did extremely well in Schwartz's Cover 2 that utilized him that way. Seattle uses a press Cover 3 and obviously a player like him could always press on the C2 side of a Cover 6. Gilmore has got a lot to offer in a lot of defensive schemes, just not so much when he constantly gets put on an island like in Wrex's dumbass scheme. What I don't know is how he'd play in McD's Cover 3 that calls for CBs to typically use the bail technique rather than press. Between that, him (obviously) wanting to move on and the cap situation the Bills are in I can certainly understand why he wasn't re-signed here.

I'm going to go out on the shortest limb ever and say that Belichick knows how to play Gilmore and that he only paid him that large because he knows he's a great fit in his defense. He played under a stupid, lazy, coach running an obsolete scheme the last two seasons. Everyone on defense looked bad under the mostly retired Wrex.

That's not going to happen as long as Dan Snyder is the owner because the front office will always be a reflection of him. And that's who he is as a person.

Yup. That's a killer. Washington let this play out to a point where they really can't trade him.

The Pats do have Brady, but they've also done a whole lot else right and it's been right in line with what analytics is showing to be advantageous. You couldn't be more wrong about the use of information in football versus other sports - it is absolutely as important in football. I'll just leave it there.

You think the Patriots have won by being more emotional? How can you type that with any sincerity? Analytics is not about blindly following charts, it's all about finding value and advantage by removing emotion from decision making and focusing on expected outcomes. You know, like Belichick has done.

It was pretty obvious that McD was in charge of this past draft precisely because it was far more analytics driven than previous ones.

After Monday's deadline a long term deal cannot be negotiated with Cousins until after the season. There is no way to work one out before then - and we'd need Washingtons blessing to even start talks. Since that's not happening trading for him now would get us him for the 2017 season and give us the opportunity to tag him again at $27.6M for 2018. The highest average contract value in the NFL right now is Carr at $25M so odds are extremely high that the bidding war would go on as scheduled.

I get what you're saying too, but 20/20 hindsight isn't a realistic way to look at situations like this. You can't uncouple the SB win and the contract Flacco got. Ozzie challenged him and the message was clear: If you want a blockbuster deal, earn it this season. Flacco stepped up as big as anyone could have and he earned his huge deal. Ozzie had no choice but to give it to him at that point. Can you imagine the backlash if he would have let Flacco walk right after that SB win? What if Flacco had gone somewhere else (Denver, Houston, etc.) and won there while Baltimore foundered and had to start over looking for their next QB? Ozzie would've been run out of town. At the time Flacco got his deal there was a slew of teams that would've jumped at giving him the deal he got because he was playing that well. At the time no one saw this kind of drop off coming. Ozzie made the logical choice at the time. Knowing what he does now about Flacco's fall off, sure I'd bet he wishes he would have let him walk. But who knows how that situation would've played out? And how is that helpful? Making a bad decision and getting lucky with it isn't much of a repeatable strategy. That would also be the deadline for him to sign a long term deal with any team that would trade for him (hypothetically). So that option is off the table at that point too.

It's discouraged, but not against NFL rules. Specifically teams can't franchise a player with the intention of trading him. Washington has certainly passed that test at this point. So he could be traded now. Trading him now wouldn't be the worst strategy, but they'd need to allow his agent to work out a long term deal with his new team. If that team is SF (as has widely been reported/speculated) then what would they give up to get him a year early?

It wasn't just about the deal, it was about how the situation played out. Ozzie told Flacco that if he wanted that blockbuster deal, then he had one season to earn it. Flacco responded by absolutely carrying the Ravens through the playoffs and to a SB win. So he got his huge payoff for it. I'm sure Ozzie would take the SB win even with the subsequent issues. Let's face it, there's no way they move on from Flacco after that season he had. But I'm sure Ozzie loves that he pushed Flacco at the right time.

Cousins to SF will be the least surprising FA signing next offseason. I'll laugh my ass off if Washington manages to free up enough cap room to tag him again though. I'm sure Washington would be happy to way overpay Cousins if he carried them to a SB win like Flacco did with Baltimore.

Agreed. Specifically those are my big concerns too. Taylor has struggled with timing and accuracy on anticipation throws over the middle and quick timing routes. I really like that he's being pushed in this regard because QBs must be able to make those kinds of throws to be successful in this league. He will either step up or the Bills will move on after this season.

If only there was something you could take for that. Highly lucrative drugs having their ads pulled? Methinks some patents must be expiring.

I was going to post almost the exact same thing and I agree with your subsequent points too. Tyrod will either step up in his problem areas and we will have our QB or he'll be out - and a WCO will absolutely showcase those areas. Pushing him to improve is absolutely the right move because this needs to be the season to find out if he can do it or not. Not to anoint Peterman or anything, but he's definitely a fit for the WCO. It's probably the only kind of NFL offense he has a chance to be successful in. It shows you the kind of QB the Bills will likely focus on acquiring if Tyrod isn't successful.

I think it probably was Rex that wanted Ragland, but ultimately Whaley had final say. Many GMs have failed because they listened to coaches instead of going with the players they preferred. Phil Savage talked about that exact situation as the one bit of advice he'd give to every new GM. That's what led to him choosing Wimbley over Ngata. He now knows the mistake was ultimately his own fault. The same goes for Whaley. As for Ragland, I do expect some production from him in base and big sets. Again, just because a player is taken earlier than he should have been doesn't mean he doesn't hold some value.

Outstanding work by you both! I needed that.

The higher you draft a player, the more of both you'd want that player to be. It'd just as big of a mistake to highly draft a workout warrior that isn't a good football as it is to take a guy who is a great college player but doesn't have the physical ability to succeed in the NFL. Ragland's physical traits are a bit below the NFL average, but that doesn't mean they are terrible or that he won't make it in the league. It's important to distinguish between criticizing a GM for drafting a player too early or paying a player too much versus criticizing a player or calling one out as a bust. Players are drafted and paid based on educated guesses and virtually every one will either overperform or underperform their draft position or contract. GMs should be judged on how well they execute on those guesses, players on well they play. I don't think Whaley made a good guess with Ragland, but we have yet to see how good of a player he will be. Here's hoping he exceeds expectations.

I hit on the biggest factors regarding Ragland and his availability in the second round. Plenty more detail there, but here's the jist: He has good qualities and certainly produced at the college level, but he did not test all that well physically and he came from the Alabama program. His SPARQ scores were only in the 33rd percentile of all NFL players at his position (starters and backups included) and Bama is known for maximizing their players' potentials so he's probably pretty topped out developmentally. A player who is productive in college, but is below average physically isn't a 1st round pick. I'd even question spending a 2nd round pick on a player with below average measurables unless I thought there was a good reason they were inaccurate. I hope Ragland is a quality player for the Bills, but I wasn't excited about the pick when it happened. He looked like a "2 down LB" to me pre 2016 draft. These days 2 down LBs aren't on the field two out of three plays, they're only on the field about 30% of the time. It's tough to justify spending the 10th pick of the 2nd round on a player that is on the field so little. But that's a sunk cost. He's on the team and I hope we get quality play out of him even if it's only in base, jumbo and goal line defensive packages. I think he'll be fine in that regard, but I'd like more out of a player picked where he was. He should be judged on how he plays, not against where he was drafted though. That's not in a player's control.

Forgive us for talking football here on this football message board.

Correct. Too many people here had high expectations for him when he got back to practice after game 8 and then on the field in game 10. I argued about it on a number of occasions. Lawson literally had zero NFL practices under his belt when he started practicing halfway through the season. And there's no way he could have been in proper shape. It's good he got some game experience to get his feet wet. That was important. We should have a very good idea of what we have in him by the end of this season/start of 2018. We just have to wait and see.

Too much significance is given to dead money. There are good and bad reasons for having it on the books. Out of context it really doesn't tell anyone anything of importance.

Yeah, it's always a great plan to count on someone being an exception to a rule. In all honesty, Ragland holds some real promise. He's a good fit in the new scheme that requires LBs to play a lot of underneath zone. He's got a lot to learn about leverage in McD's scheme, but that role is a huge plus. He's a player that plays the run very well and did a great job of working through traffic and getting sideline to sideline in college. Plus he was an effective pass rusher which could make him a great player to move around and provide the defense with some real flexibility. My concerns with him are all physical. Bama is known for getting everything possible out of their players at the expense of a lot of physical wear and tear. Lots of players come out of there beat up and having already topped out physically. Ragland is in the 33rd percentile of off the LOS LBs (SPARQ). That means he tested as good as or better than only 1 of 3 NFL players - starter or reserve - at that position group. Bama got him into as good of shape as imaginable so I don't think there's really any room for growth there. Then there's the physical nature of his play. That doesn't scream longevity or even 16 games a season to me. The optimist in me sees a sledgehammer who could be a flexible, complete and very effective 3 down MLB in McD's scheme. The realist in me see some very real reasons why that won't happen to the extent we'd all like. I hope things click and all goes well. It'll be interesting to see. SPARQ link: https://3sigmaathlete.com/rankings2016/lb/

That's probably why he was drafted in the second round.