HappyDays

Draft perceptions are funny. Fans universally hated the Coleman pick and loved the Bishop pick. They hated the TJ Sanders pick but loved the Landon Jackson pick. It's still very early for all of those players but the exact opposite perception looks more accurate as of now.

Keon was my guy before that draft. In this year's bold predictions thread I predicted he will lead the team in receiving yards and receiving TDs, with 8+ TDs. I'll stick with that prediction. He worked his ass off this offseason including workouts with Allen before training camp started. Between that and the training camp reports I'm fully bought in that we are going to start seeing that physical upside unlocked. That being said I'm not going to predict superstar production. I'd still bet on under 1,000 yards even as our #1. I expect us to run the ball a ton this year, possibly even more than last year whether fans like it or not. I envision a personnel grouping of Coleman, Palmer, and Hawes punching opponents in the mouth. No one tracks run blocking stats but it will be a big part of his game this year.

Not sure how a multi year contract would work but I'd be surprised if he got more than 1 year from anyone right now. Pats owe him $4.3M so because of offset language in his contract no matter what his new team pays him, Pats are responsible for the difference up to $4.3M. Unless some team offers him $4.5M or more which I don't think is likely, the new team has no incentive to pay more than the vet minimum and Peppers has no incentive to decline it.

Pats fans seem to be upset that he was released. My guess is they asked him to take a paycut and he declined, so with his injury history and presumably a new defensive scheme they are letting him go. But we could have him for the vet minimum because of offset language in his contract so there's no risk to us. And he has the exact type of skillset you use as a chess piece with very specific packages. I don't see any kind of downside here. I doubt any team is offering him a starting job so give him our best pitch for the role he'll play on a Super Bowl contending team.

Oh man I would love to add him, especially since it would be almost free. Cut Codrington and use Peppers as our kick and punt returner. He wouldn't start on our defense but we could definitely design packages to use his skillset. A lot of the player and coaching additions we made on defense this offseason were about adding variety and unpredictability. Peppers fits that philosophy to a tee.

The Packers are in a completely different situation. Since the 2020 draft the only two homegrown players they've given big extensions to are Jordan Love and Zach Tom. And it isn't because they were saving the money for something else, they just flat out haven't drafted well. By comparison over the same time period we've extended Brown, Rousseau, Cook, Benford, Shakir, and Bernard. Say what you want about those players, they are much better than the likes of Eric Stokes, Quay Walker, and Devonte Wyatt. If Green Bay had drafted better they would have extended their young players too, like every team does. Not to mention the QBs of the respective teams. Allen's cap hits the next few years compared to Love's: 2025 - $36.3M vs $29.7M 2026 - $56.4M vs $36.2M 2027 - $53.1M vs $42.5M The Bills are tied to Allen through 2030 no matter what. The Packers can get out of Love's contract in 2028 with a measley $15M dead cap hit so even assuming they rework his contract and extend him that year he will not have Josh Allen-sized cap hits on his contract until 2029 at the very earliest. The argument you're making would also apply to the Ravens and Chiefs. But they're in the same boat we are. When you've drafted well and you're paying a tier 1 QB, you can't just absorb a $47M AAV contract without warning. It was never realistic.

When you're gearing up to re-sign your own you see it coming and plan accordingly. It is much harder if not impossible to work in a $47M AAV contract out of the blue a week before the season starts after you just spent a whole offseason tying up your cap for the next few years. I'm more open to this argument as it pertains to DK Metcalf where we had a legit opportunity to add him while the team building process was still ongoing. That is a potential missed opportunity that could theoretically look really bad depending on how this season ends. But Parsons just wasn't possible IMO. The argument is Rousseau plus Bernard plus Hoecht, or just Parsons, and if that was the trade off I would of course take Parsons. But we weren't presented with that trade off and Beane couldn't just sit on his hands all offseason saving future cap for a hypothetical move that nobody saw coming.

If it was just the draft picks it's a no brainer. But it's that plus $47M AAV on a cap table that is already heavily lopsided in favor of the defense. We make this move and we completely lose the ability to add legit talent to the offense over the next couple seasons. If anything we would have had to make this trade back in like March before we had extended Rousseau, Bernard, and Benford, and paid Bosa/Hoect/Ogunjobi. Then you could have justified it while trading Rousseau and not making some of those those other moves. But we didn't know in March that this trade was possible. With the team as currently constructed it would have been insane to add yet another big investment to the defense.

Man I don't know if any pass rusher is worth $47M AAV. They need Jordan Love to be a lot better than he was last year for this trade to work out. Would have been fun if we had made the move but realistically I didn't think he was affordable. Anyways I was never one that wanted us to pull off a blockbuster trade for Myles Garrett or any other defensive player. I think you need waves of pass rushers constantly rotating and staying fresh throughout the whole game to be successful - that was Philly's formula last year. Hopefully the numerous investments we made on the DL this offseason give us that formula.

I just don't us being able to afford his contract. Would be pretty cool but how?

I continue to be completely unperturbed about the safety position. Hopefully Bishop will rise to the occasion so that 2nd round pick won't have been a total waste. If not and Hamlin or Poyer need to fill in, so be it. They'll both hit their landmarks and we'll just have to scheme around their athletic limitations. It's not fatal. I actually think Poyer might be a better option than Hamlin if push comes to shove. The DL just has to be much better this year. And we need average play from our CB2. And we need the play calling to be better. If all of those things happen no one is going to care about starting one replacement level player at safety.

Rookie EDGE Bradyn Swinson cut from the Pats was the big shocker to me. Admittedly I hadn't followed him through training camp or preseason but he was widely mocked in the early/mid 3rd round and I know some draft analysts really liked him. He fell to the 5th and the thought was that the Pats had gotten a steal. Instead he was waived on cutdown day and went unclaimed on waivers, and ended up on the Pats PS. Not sure what happened there, I guess the draft analysts were just way off on him.

I've said no such thing. That is not my conclusion. We can go ahead and stop the conversation here.

Their lowest scoring games correlates to when they play better defenses. Shocking. They give up more points when they face playoff Josh Allen. Again, shocking. Sorry man but this is classic confirmation bias. You're trying to stretch the numbers to fit what you already believe to be true. Nothing about their playoff history indicates that if the Bills held them to 20 points, Allen and the Bills offense would randomly struggle to get past 17. That doesn't make any kind of sense at all. There is no sentient will of football that shapes KC/BUF games to be more exciting. If our defense simply held up its end and the offense did what it always does against them we would beat you guys by multiple scores.

The only thing you "proved" with that list of games is that KC regularly blew out playoff opponents when they had Tyreek Hill in his prime, and then didn't as much after they traded him. Big shocker, that. In fact there are still 3 playoff games they won by 2+ scores after trading him. Along the way they also got blown out in two Super Bowls where I guess according to you they just decided not to try and score. I'm sorry but you're not going to convince anybody of that ridiculous argument.

They literally blew us out in our first playoff matchup. 38-24 and it was only that close because we scored a garbage time TD. Get out of here with "they don't try to score points unless the game is close." That's patently ridiculous and you know it.

Ok but this is just a thing you said. It has no basis in reality and isn't a convincing argument. I didn't get that sense at all last year. If anything there were times where I wanted us to open up the passing game more. The Rams game would have been a blowout loss if Allen didn't start throwing lasers downfield. Two big completions to Amari Cooper are what won us the KC regular season game. Two big completions to Mack Hollins are what kept us in the AFCCG. Reverting to low % chance passing attempts didn't lose us that game. Quite the opposite - we did so many short yardage plays the game came down to a referee spot. On the final drive we tried dinking and dunking our way down, this failed and put us in a 4th down situation, and then when we absolutely needed a long completion our pass catcher failed in the clutch and that was game over.

Okay but it isn't just homers saying it. It's become somewhat the trend lately amongst national analysts to not have Mahomes ranked #1. Chris Simms, Kyle Brandt, even some of the NFL coaches and executives interviewed by the Athletic for their annual QB ranking. I'm not saying any of these people's word is law. But it is a legitimate conversation/debate. If you've decided game winning drives and total championship wins is your deciding marker, cool I respect that. A lot of analysts are ranking based on other factors and it is not as clear cut as you seem to think. I suspect Mahomes is aware of the chatter around his play dropping off and he will have a bounce back season this year. Especially with the addition of a legit LT and his best passing target returning in week 7. I don't expect them to go 15-1 again but I expect their offense to be significantly better than last year.

You've manufactured a binary choice. The correct answer which you decided not to include is that Andy Reid has had McDermott's number big time. We run our normal defense that they already saw in the regular season, while they add new wrinkles that we are woefully unprepared for. It's as big a coaching mismatch as I've ever seen between two supposed rival teams. FWIW I think McDermott is a good coach. But he needs to get his nemesis figured out and start performing at even an average level against him - hell I'd take slightly below average - or the result will never change. I'm optimistic that some of the defensive additions on both the roster and coaching staff mean there are real changes coming. But I need to see it happen when it counts.

Every fanbase of those 4 teams has an argument for why their QB is the best. Lamar unfortunately has a lot of bad playoff performances on his record and unlike Allen and Burrow he has an excellent roster, so he probably has the least excuses for why he hasn't gotten his Super Bowl yet. But like I said the differences in play are negligible. When you're playing at the level those 4 guys are over the course of a season, the ranking comes down to any given week. If you want to say Mahomes has been the most clutch out of all of them, I think that narrative is slightly overblown but I won't fight it. I'd add the context that the team around him has also been more clutch than the other 3 teams. Also game winning drives has never in history been used as a bulletproof argument for ranking QBs. It's for sure the stat that more than anything else makes him a tier 1 QB, but just plugging your ears and ignoring what happens over the first 55 minutes of the game isn't a sound process. So I default to my original stance that there are 4 elite QBs and each fanbase should feel comfortable proclaiming that theirs is the best one.

Baltimore and Cincy wouldn't. None of those 4 teams would trade their QB for one of the others because they've built their teams around their own QBs and the difference in play between them is negligible. Now if you gave those teams the opportunity to swap coaching staffs, every last one would take KC's. Rosters outside of QB, they'd all take Baltimore.

Allen and Cook, yeah. Not sure if you watched the game but KC's offense looked like it was facing a scout team in the 1st half. Four drives with exactly zero resistance. Mahomes felt bad and gave us the ball for free on one of those drives, which was nice of him. Our offense on the other hand was scratching and clawing for every yard and TD. Oh well. Last year is last year. Hopefully all the investments and coaching additions we made on that side of the ball this offseason make a difference. I expect KC's offense to get back on track this year with the addition of Josh Simmons and Rashee Rice after his suspension ends.

Turns out it's to the PS:

Good point. The Bills defense carried them to the Super Bowl is a more accurate statement.