HappyDays

He's just a different type of personality. Not the usual alpha you get from the #1 caliber X WR. He battled through a wrist injury instead of getting recommended surgery. He wouldn't have done that if he didn't care about his career. All that being said I'm not interested in bringing him back. This team is cursed with 30+ year old players, it simply never works out in our favor. Last year they had to make a mid-season trade for an outside WR to give themselves any kind of fighting chance, so I don't begrudge Beane for the trade even though it didn't work out quite as well as I hoped. But he really needs to start investing high draft picks into the position on an annual basis so he's not stuck making those desperation moves. This draft is known to be weak at WR but I hope the value matches up with one of our first 3 picks. There is a realistic scenario where that isn't the case, so if that happens maybe Cooper is still sitting around unsigned after the draft. We're already past the primary phase of FA, so a player of his age and coming off a down year might be better served waiting to sign until May when at least a couple teams will be desperate to fill out their room. In that scenario I'd be fine with it.

I mean he ran step for step with Hollywood Brown in the AFCCG and broke up the pass. Anyways the Bills scheme doesn't ask its CBs to keep up with elite speed WRs. Tre White had the same knock against him, and did it ever really matter?

Blame the Bills medical staff and the NFL at large for that 2nd concussion. It's been long enough that we can admit Benford should not have been out there. Zero doubt in my mind he only cleared concussion protocol so quickly because it was an important playoff game.

Jordan Phillips made our best defensive play in the AFCCG! Crazy, but true. Not that I'm singing his praises, but as a 6 game stopgap whatever it's not a huge deal. They'll draft a couple DL too so there will be a chance for rookies to make an impact as rotational depth. If we lose the 1 seed it won't be because two rotational DL missed 1/3 of the season. There are several much more fundamental issues with the roster that I'm very concerned about. Beane needs to step up his game in April and McDermott/Babich need to step up their game in September.

For sure, CB2 and WR are still by far my biggest concerns, followed closely by safety. Beane has to find a couple quality starters at those positions in the draft. It can't be like last year where our rookies barely contributed since the roster as it stands right now doesn't have the talent to man all of those positions at an NFL level.

Here's what Beane said on Benford yesterday: Reading between the lines sounds to me like the two sides aren't close. I think Beane's MO is to offer his drafted players a hometown discount contract a year early, knowing that a lot of times they'll take it to mitigate injury risk in that final year. I would bet he offered one to Benford but Benford would rather bet on himself and maximize his value for next offseason. It sucks not having CB1 solved for the long term while simultaneously not having any young CB talent in the pipeline, so I hope they can figure it out at some point. This will be the second offseason in 4 years that we're entering totally desperate at CB and last time it turned out poorly. Hopefully Beane learned his lesson and won't force anything, but there are 3 CBs that I think would be great picks in the 1st round.

I feel pretty much the same after sitting on it for a day. The reason there's so much fan outrage around it is because the two suspensions hitting at once is magnitudes worse than just one. But in reality Hoecht is the only part of the story that Beane can be criticized for. I do think we overpaid him especially given the known suspension but it's not some crazy overpay amount that capsized our ability to make moves in FA. With Ogunjobi I blame the NFL for not getting these results out a few days earlier. I mean really, players sign on Wednesday and you're sending results out on Thursday or Friday? That's amateur stuff. That's not on Beane at all. And I accept his explanation that by the time they found out about the suspension the DT market had dried up so their best bet was to accept the cap savings and continue with the signing. Although FWIW I was not a fan of that signing to begin with, felt like an overpay for a 30+ year old DL coming off a down year. As to how this affects our season - I don't think it does. Bring in Quinton Jefferson and Jordan Phillips to hold down the fort in those 6 games. Is that really so bad? If we're losing several games in the early part of the season we have much bigger problems than our rotational DL players.

Hilarious timing.

Ogunjobi at least wasn't their fault. Why wouldn't the NFL make it a point to lay these suspensions out before FA starts?

Hoecht's contract numbers already looked high to begin with. This news makes those numbers almost shocking. Just a bizarre story.

You're mistaken, we went from 204 to 170. https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/2025-nfl-draft-cowboys-revised-selection-order-following-free-agency-trades-for-kaiir-elam-kenneth-murray We still own the first pick of the 6th round. https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp No joke it was probably that damn notebook. I genuinely believe that. This regime at times emphasizes the wrong things like character over talent. This was one of the draft rumors from that year on Kyler Gordon: https://walterfootball.com/2022-NFL-Draft-Week-Rumors-Friday_NHP.php They went with the personality they felt safer with instead of the better talent. If that trend continues this year, if James Pearce and Walter Nolen are both on the board they'll pick Donovan Ezeiruaku instead. But you'd think by now they would feel comfortable enough with the culture they've built here to take a risk on a potential character concern.

I'm even less optimistic in this case. Claypool at least had a season or two of production. Shenault hasn't done anything. As far as I'm concerned he's competing with Jalen Virgil for a PS spot.

Kupp is not a #1 at this point in his career, and what we really need is a boundary WR. Metcalf was the big fish to go after. Since we didn't get him there's no sense just throwing bad money at the position. I'm as pro-WR as anyone on here but the move still has to make sense for the team. No #1 WR is coming. Draft someone relatively high and hope that Coleman develops, the rookie hits the ground running, and/or Palmer proves he is more than just a baseline starter. I'm not too happy about it but that's where we're at.

We keep 5 WRs every year. I don't see that changing.

No more WRs past their prime. We need to draft one by the end of day two and keep the youth pipeline going. Kupp makes no sense for us IMO.

Yeah they should have traded Garrett for multiple 1sts and 2nds. They are being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. Their window is at least 3 years away, by the time they get there Garrett might not be the same player. They could have jump started their rebuild but Jimmy Haslam probably thought it would make him look weak in the eyes of the media so he had to draw his little line in the sand. Not surprising behavior from a guy that makes QB decisions based on what random homeless people suggest.

I'd be surprised if at least one of Barron, Revel, or Hairston aren't available at our pick, and any one of them would be worth #30. That would be my preference actually, especially with Benford's long term future on the team in doubt. But yeah they need to add a baseline starter at least so they're not totally desperate. At this point I'd even take Douglas back as long as it's very cheap and he understands a starting spot isn't guaranteed.

There was no rumor, just speculation. This regime has a hardline stance on CB arm length and McDuffie didn't meet the criteria. I can believe that KC thought we would take McDuffie but I think they were mistaken.

I've seen a few people say this but it's really not true. We moved up 34 spots on day three. That isn't just a token cost, it's an entire round of picks we're getting ahead of. It could be the difference between still having draftable players on our board or not.

1 year $1.3M

I don't know. The coaching staff was seemingly totally unprepared for the possibility that a recently concussed CB might get knocked out of the game. If Elam looked like a nervous wreck in that game, that was a direct reflection of his coaches. They were intimidated and not able to handle any kind of adversity.

One thing I'll say is I hated how we used him in the AFCCG. We spent two drives playing him way back off the line out of fear and Mahomes had the easiest reps of his life just casually throwing the ball underneath him. That was horrific coaching for sure. If you're forced to play a backup at least let him play a style that he's comfortable with. Whatever happened, it was a complete top to bottom organizational failure that this regime has otherwise avoided which is why it sticks out. A rare case where the front office and the coaching staff were not on the same page.

Every franchise has an Elam level bust at least once in the last 5 years. It's disappointing but not crippling. It does become a real problem if you stack consecutive 1st round busts. We need a lot more from Kincaid and Coleman starting this year. If those two bust right after Elam then Beane will have some very difficult questions to answer.