BarleyNY

When I was looking for my first car I took a test drive and the car died on me in the middle of a busy intersection. I had to walk back to the dealership. Before I left the salesperson asked me “If we fix it would you still be interested?” WTF do you mean “if” you fix it? Many years ago the wife and I walked into a Lexus dealer to look at an RX300. I asked what the stopping distance was since the wife had had issue with that in the past. The older sales rep said he didn’t know, then popped the hatch and told us that it easily fit two sets of golf cubs. We didn’t even play golf at the time.

I’m about 30 min in. Worth the watch. Swift even mentions Josh Allen.

NGL I want to watch that. Such a great story. Good for her.

I was going to start a post about the Bills ramping back up their cash spending in a big way. I believe that the Cook deal puts them into first place for this season. They’d been spending top 5, top 10 for several season u til last year. They were well back into the 20s. Now they’re using that cash again. It’s good to see. Edit: Actually they are 2nd, behind Minnesota (?!). https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cash

Barring catastrophe he's almost certainly here until at least through 2027, but 2028 is more likely. That is set up to work out well for the Bills. After 2028 he will have one season left on his deal and he will be heading into his age 30 season. He probably will get released at that point or have take a pay cut for that season. If he breaks down earlier it’s not optimal, but the team can make it work.

Not sure if posted yet, but contract details are out at overthecap. My estimate was a 4 year extension at $10.5M AAV with effective guarantees into the second added year. I thought up to about $25M would be the limit. I also said that a high salary in year 4 could be used to inflate the total. Cook got a 4 year extension at $12M AAV. The effective guarantees are $30M. That’s a win for his side. But the AAV of the added seasons through those guaranteed years is only $9.85M AAV. That's counting this season at the $5.6M he was already due. That’s a win for Beane and the Bills IMO. Seems like Cook took security over possible earnings. It was a reasonable trade off IMO. So I think this deal is in line with my estimations. My preference would have been less guaranteed money, but I don’t have any major complaints. Especially since he took a little less money to get that.

No hard drugs. Never smoked cigarettes outside of trying them as a kid and hating them.

I don’t think it would have been something that moved the needle for almost any other fan base. There’s such fervor here for this team at this time. Allen is so good and in his prime and we have been so close for 5 years now, people don’t want to see anything derail a potential SB run.

I don’t think Kincaid can be considered a starter. He’s our TE2, which is a role player/back up in this offense. Doesn’t mean that isn’t important, but he has a ways to go to supplant Knox as TE1.

FIFY

Glad it’s done. I thought it likely a deal was already finalized when I saw that Cook came back to practice. Not pleased that his hold in worked, but that’s life in the NFL. I will hold off on judging the contract until I see the details.

They sure did. But that says more about how the Bills prepared and played than anything Bengals related.

This season of “Quarterbacks” illustrated this point with Kirk Cousins. He got several injuries - ankle, throwing elbow and throwing shoulder. None were bad enough that he could not play, but they didn’t heal enough during the season for him to be able to play at an effective level. He was confused about what was happening and didn’t really process it until after the season. For players it seems not so much to be “I’m old and can’t play anymore,” as it is that they’re fine at the start of the season and can still play up to their standards. Then after getting some dings that they are used to playing through, they just can’t perform at a good enough level any more. Eventually they realize that that is where they are in their careers. It also explains why older vets who have transitioned to being role players or back ups can still look very good in limited action.

Burrow also has a terrible OL in front of him that gets him beat to a pulp all season. And no semblance of a defense to help him. It’s him, Chase, Higgins and nothing else.

To be fair I’ve seen many posters take one side or the other and portray the other as the unreasonable “bad guy”. Based on the other deals that Bean has done and Cook’s representation I’ve been of the opinion that it is more likely that the Bills are more in line with the market than Cook’s agent. That all said, none of us know what the Bills have offered or what Cook’s agent has asked for. We don’t know which - or even if either - is being unreasonable. Sometimes there’s just an unbridgeable gap and a team and player have to find a way through the season. Hopefully that’s not the case and they still come to an agreement before the season starts. Also I’m not worried about this being a true problem until it gets to week one.

Man, #63 Jake Kubas got abused repeatedly. Just checked on him. He is their 3rd string RG. Their 2nd stringer, Evan Neal, did not play.

🤞🤞🤞

I’ll say this about Oliver, when we drafted him I really thought we’d see a more dominant player more often. He balled out when he had a healthy Von Miller next to him. He seems to really need an elite DE next to him to be that consistent, dominant player. Otherwise it’s just flashes or a game here or there.

I don’t think any of the other DL have the potential that Bosa has. He can change a game. If I had to pick the player with the second most game changing potential, it would be Oliver. He was an absolute beast in the Ravens playoff game. As for the rest of the group, I haven’t seen “game changer” from any of the rest of them, but you never know. I think Bosa lining up next to Oliver is a big help. He can help Rousseau and the others as well. I think the DL has a lot of potential as long as Bosa stays healthy. Without him, I’d be worried though.

Even if so there’s still a lot of time for them to eff it up.

Bosa is our only hope to pressure with 4 against any team with a good OL. CB blitzes have been the only blitzes that have been successful under McD. Bringing LBs or safeties has rarely worked.

There have been a lot of coaches that have held back elite QBs from ever getting to (or winning) a SB. But there’s only been one coach and team good enough to get there four straight times and lose all four.

Vrabel’s teams are not only physical, they are also disciplined, unlike the Ravens who are physical, dirty and undisciplined. I’ve always wanted to see what Vrabel could do if he had a qb, but didn’t really want it to be in the AFC much less the AFCE.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m going to drop out of this convo. I can keep explaining this to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

The Bills put the players on the field that had played in those situations all season. If Cook could carry a bigger workload then maybe he’d have seen time in them and they’d have played him. But that wasn’t the case. Maybe he’d have fared better if they’d have put him in, but that’s speculation. All season the coaches didn’t feel comfortable playing him when the defense knew we’d be running. I’d wager that they had their reasons for not starting in the AFCC game.