Shaw66

Thanks. Sloppy thinking on me. Most state spending doesn't make money at all. This state spending is done almost at no cost to the state, so it's among the best state spending possible.

I agree. I think when Beane heard that was the price, he said, "thanks for call," and moved on.

I haven't run the numbers, and wouldn't even know how to, but I think this guy is relying on all the studies that show that investing in stadiums don't show a positive return to the state doing the investing. I think in this case, however, a study would show it's not such a bad deal. It now seems clear that if the state didn't put up the money, the Bills would leave Buffalo. That's because the Pegulas were clear that it made no economic sense for them to build a stadium, and the NFL is insisting, consistent with its stadium policies that apply to all teams, that the Bills get a new stadium. Put those two thoughts together, and if the state doesn't contribute to a stadium, the Bills will leave the state. So, the financial comparison is between investing in the stadium and not investing and losing the Bills. An $800 million investment at a 3% return brings in $24 million per year. States generally don't do that kind of analysis in looking at projects - for example, they don't refuse to build a highway for $800 million if they can't get $24 million a year back somehow. Instead, they assume that there are a variety of benefits that make having the highway a good thing for the state. Still, if you look at the economics of it, the state loses a lot of money if the Bills leave. First, there's income tax on the player salaries. On a $120 million cap at, say, 8%, that's $10 million a year. And as the salary cap goes up, that tax revenue. In ten years, if the cap is at $200 million, since more of the salaries will be taxed at higher rates, the state's looking at maybe $20 million a year. All that revenue is gone if the Bills leave. So, just looking at player income tax, the state can expect a decent return on the investment. Front office and coaches' salary probably total another $20 million, which is another couple of million in tax. (Pegulas apparently don't pay NYS income tax.) Then there's sales tax on tickets. Four percent on 60,000 tickets at, say, $100 apiece. That's $240,000 in sales tax per game, times eight games (to be conservative), there's another $2 million. Again, over a 30-year deal, the ticket prices will go up, so the return will increase. But just in year one, hard numbers, there's a $14 million return on the investment. None of that counts the indirect benefits of having games there - the additional income tax paid by game-day personnel, restaurant and hotel income and sales taxes, sales tax on Bills stuff. There's a whole collection of indirect tax revenue that disappears when the Bills disappear. Not to mention the tolls I pay driving through the entire damn state eight games a year! That adds up. Whether this deal will allow the state to recover every nickel it spends, I don't know, but I think it's pretty clear that having a new stadium and keeping the Bills is closer to a break-even deal than this guy is saying, when compared to having no stadium and no football team in Buffalo.

I've wondered for years what Byrd did that keeps him from the recognition he deserves. Did Mrs. Wilson agree to sell to the Pegulas only on the condition that they would not put Byrd on the Wall? I've been baffled how Edgerson got the nod and not Byrd. This isn't quite fair to Edgerson - he was better than this, but Edgerson was something like Byrd's Levi Wallace.

Makes me laugh! First, I'm surprised Gilmore got that much. I don't think Gilmore ever actually did become the best version of himself; he's dependable only so long as his team asks him to play exactly as he wants to play. Excellent talent, but not a game changer. Second, if that's the market, then people should stop expecting to see the Bills sign a recognizable name. I could be wrong, and I often am, but I don't see the Bills spending anything like that for a guy to play #2 corner who's had success in the league. If their philosophy is "we're going all in on 2022," maybe, but I don't think that's the philosophy, at least not to that extent. As I said a few days ago, I think McDermott is more comfortable with Johnson, Neal, Jackson than people realize. I think he's telling Beane to find a couple of fundamentally solid football players, good athletes who are committed to competing and excelling, and he's good to go.

Best Bills games and Best Games the Bills were in are two different lists. My memory is imperfect, but my Best Bills Games list would be 64 Championship 65 Championship Comeback Perfect game I don't know, maybe 51-3. Best Games the Bills were in Dallas Monday night 13 seconds XXV Comeback Perfect game

Thanks. Actually, I think it's the same thinking in the sense that he'll move for what he thinks is the right player. You've given a nice little summary on who you think might be the right person. I don't know the draft class at all, so I don't know who sauce is, and it doesn't really matter. Point is Beane will move for the correct corner. I agree. Although it would be surprising, I can imagine that he'd move for a left tackle if he can develop a plan for how to deal with Dawkins - trading him is the obvious choice, and he's already traded a left tackle to move up. It's a great benefit to have a 10- or 12-year starter at left tackle, and I'm still not convinced Dawkins is that guy. Absolutely I can see him dealing to move for what he thinks is a special receiver. Not a safety - too disruptive to the defense to move away from Poyer or Hyde right now, but the Bills will need a solution there in not many years. Hamlin's development may help solve that problem. Maybe a linebacker, if Beane and McDermott share the wisdom of some here that Edmunds just isn't the answer. People can call him McDermott's boy and all, but I think McBeane like Edmunds more than a lot of people here do. I don't know, but the time a decision has to be made about Edmunds is coming, making the decision to move now wouldn't completely surprise me. I could see a move if they see what they think is a right center. Hard to imagine that there'd be a running back they'd go after but hey, they have their view of what this team needs, and the right running back would be an amazing addition to the offense. The problem with a running back is that if he isn't HOF great, you won't want to sign him when his contract is up, and that means burning first-round capital for short-term talent. That's not consistent with their building philosophy.

Whether Bills will trade up and whether Beane is prepared to do are two different questions. Beane WILL trade up if he see a player that he believes is off such value that it's worth using draft capital to do it. (That in part depends on his view of how many rookies actually could make this team.) We know he'll trade up, because we all saw him do it to get Edmunds, and there are a few other examples. When he see what he thinks is real value, he'll go get it. As he says regularly, he'll do whatever he thinks he has to make the team better. I'm at the point where I'm not surprised by anything he does. I mean, I can't predict what he'll do, but when he does it, it's Beane being Beane. I really appreciate the breakdown of potential draft moves up in the original post. It's sort of a menu of what Beane can select from as the draft progresses. What we don't know, of course, is what Beane and McDermott think of these guys in terms of the key elements - team mindset, learner, tireless worker, etc. If they see a guy who's a special athlete AND has the mindset they want, I can see Beane going up two spots, six spots, almost anyplace to around the top 10. Can't see them being willing to give up draft capital necessary to get into the top 10. You only do that for a quarterback. I don't think you do that even you know for an absolute certainty you're getting the next Aaron Donald, because the extra performance you get out of him just isn't worth giving up several valuable picks.

Look, let's back up. This thread started being about who are the best QBs, and most people are talking about that question. That's what I was responding to when I started talking about Watson. From his rookie season, I've looked at Watson as an elite QB in the making. He's an elite thrower (third on the career passer rating list, behind Mahomes and Rodgers), and he's an outstanding runner when compared with the other elite throwers. Russell Wilson, Brees, Prescott, Cousins, Brady, Romo, Young, Manning, Rivers are the next names on the passer rating list, and NONE of them were or are runners anything like Watson. We'll see how he looks after a year and a half and playing once again for a franchise that has questionable management, but he is a special guy. And he runs his team very well. He's good in the huddle, a good leader. In particular to running, I've always liked him as runner. Savvy, good speed, opportunistic. To compare him to Allen, they have comparable speed, Allen has clearly better power, Watson has better change of direction. Allen is surprisingly agile, but he doesn't change direction like Watson does. So, I'll say again, when someone asks me who's the better runner, my opinion is that Watson is a better runner. Maybe I'm wrong, and my view is that they're close enough that I don't see the point in discussing it very long. There are about 25 teams that wish they had someone who can run like those two. And, no, I wasn't thinking of Jackson. Jackson's a better runner than either Watson or Allen, but if I had Lamar Jackson as my starting QB, I'd be looking for a new QB. To utilize his talents, his team has to reshape it's offense in ways that make it less than an optimal offense, and there's no way to fix that. I think five years from people will be talking about Allen and Watson like they talked about Manning and Brady ten years ago, and Jackson will not be in the conversation.

And that is the only point worth talking about. Frankly, I think ten or fifteen years from now, people won't be debating whether he's in the top 5 in the league. They'll be debating whether he's in the top 5 all time. The experts always said he had a high ceiling; they just debated whether he ever could overcome all the flaws they thought they saw. Now it's only question of how hard he's going to hit his head on the ceiling.

Your opinion and mine. I'm okay with it.

I don't know how old this video - it doesn't have his great scramble that won the playoff game against the Bills - but it's tough to deny how well he runs the ball. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=529136024701547

This. Watson is a great runner, better than Allen. He has a great arm, close to Allen. He's probably behind Allen in field generalship. Herbert's close; Burrow is a Joe Montana type but can't match Allen and Watson physically, and he's probably behind Herbert, too.

I haven't seen anything about paper tickets. I think they're history. Next season, one of the options will be tattoing a bar code on your forehead.

I agree with this. And beyond body type and style of play, which is very much like Harrison's, I've been comparing the Allen-Diggs duo to Manning-Harrison. Great thrower with a great receiver, and in both cases, both guys are committed to getting better and better. I remember once, late in the Manning-Harrison years, in it's pregame show a network showed video of Manning and Harrison working on the timing of some quick route - a slant or an out. These were two guys whose Hall of Fame tickets had already been punched, and they were trying to get a little bit better at something they had done thousands of times before. I think we've already seen that Allen and Diggs are like that. Diggs said something about it in his press conference after signing. He said he and Josh still have things to work on, and you can tell that he understands they'll ALWAYS have things to work on.

Thanks. Nice to hear someone agree with that perception. It's not that Beane wouldn't do something now, but there's no urgency. If someone they really like is interested, he'll certainly be open to talking. Just like, on a smaller scale, he did with Miller. I mean, Miller wasn't in his off-season plans, but as it became clear that he would be interested in coming, Beane began to reformulate his off-season building plans to make a deal with Miller possible. In the same way now, if a corner who looks like a good solution starts to sound like he's ready to come to Buffalo, Beane may move. It's just that he knows he can wait, so the deal has to be the right deal. There's another point that I keep coming back to as I think about what they'll do at corner, and that is the process. I don't know for sure, because I don't have any inside information, but I would bet that McDermott is much more comfortable going into the season with White, Jackson, Johnson, and Neal (backed up by whomever else they have or acquire) than we all think. People here (and I'll admit to having the same thoughts) that Jackson isn't good enough, and that Neal is a scrub, but that's pretty much what was said around here for the past couple of seasons when Wallace "wasn't good enough" and Jackson was "a scrub." This is a team defense that asks good athletes to play within the system, and if they do that the defense has more success than we expect. I keep saying it, but it keeps being true - it's what Belichick did for years. His defensive backfield was good for two decades, and it was done with good but not great DBs, with an occasional star thrown in. (Belichick cared more about having a true shut-down corner than McDermott does, and he had a really good safety most of the time, but he never was afraid to throw in the young guys who had been developing in his system.) So, I'd guess that Beane isn't panicking about the corner, because McDermott is saying "I'm good if I go into the season with what I have, plus a couple of developmental guys. If you get me a really good guy who fits, in free agency or the top of the draft, great, but I'm okay." McDermott is okay because his process has been at work for several years now, and his process works just as he said it would. I would guess, for example, that Dane Jackson is a much better cornerback than people on this board understand. He's better not because he's a better physical talent than we think - he isn't and never will be a White or a Gilmore, but he's better because he has two years into a system that asks him to do those things he's physically able to do, a system that has been taught to him by Hyde and Poyer and White and Wallace. (Wallace, of course, came up the same way.) People here complained about Beane and McDermott when they tore everything down and took big cap hits in their second year. People here argued that the team could have been rebuilt without the blood letting, and there were plenty of reasons why what they said made sense. But Beane and McDermott kept saying that the team had to be built the right way to have long-term success, and that the housecleaning was necessary to build the right way. What I'm saying about the corners who are currently on the roster is an example of what Beane and McDermott were talking about. You can't fill your roster with guys taken in the first three rounds of the draft - you don't have enough picks or enough cap room to live that way. You have to get good play out of late-round picks and undrafted free agents. Taron Johnson in the fourth round, Jackson in the seventh, and Wallace undrafted. McDermott's system is designed to raise the level of play of guys like that so that the team can be a winner. Beane and McDermott trust the process, and it seems like it works.

Nice story. Thanks. He makes me proud to be a Terp.

Yes, I too kept wondering what was it about Diggs that Minnesota missed. It would have gone down as one of the dumbest trades ever if the Vikings hadn't discovered gold in Justin Jefferson.

You know, Fido, this stuff some of you guys understand and write is just good. Like this. I've thought about but never really focused on how the CBA affects team building, and this distinction you raise is a good way to look at it: The draft is supposed to be about building for the future, but the CBA and cap make it about cost control, too. Beane's job is balancing talent, cost, the current roster, and the future roster all the time, but the draft is now a critical piece on the cost control side. I've quoted Whaley before. He said once that the cap allows you to have six high-paid players, and in his view it was three on offense (QB, LT, and someone else) and three on defense (edge, corner, and someone else). Beane's sort of done that Allen, Dawkins, and Diggs, Miller, White, and maybe Poyer/Hyde, with Edmunds and Oliver waiting in the wings. What you say about getting a good rookie wideout is true - talent to pair with Diggs, stability over the next four or five years, plus cost control at the position. When it's time to make a decision about that guy's second contract, it will be an appropriate time to decide whether to move on from Diggs. However, it's equally true about a first-round corner. A stud corner to pair with White gives the defense stability over the next several years, and when his rookie deal is up, it will be time to decide what to do with White. (I've wondered whether White move to safety at some point.) So, I'm not sure that any of that tips the scales either way, although the chances of getting a WR who plays immediately are better than getting a rookie corner you can count on. Beane's job is to make the best decision he can, based on need and talent he sees that may be available, and once that decision is made, he has to move on to the next decision. For example, he certainly had thoughts and plans about where he was going this spring, but those thoughts and plans took a turn when it became apparent that he could add Miller. In particular, Miller's availability may have changed his plans about a veteran corner. The Chiefs had plans, too, and those plans changed when they came to realize that spending on Hill didn't make sense. On top of all of that, Beane needs to leave himself enough wiggle room so that he can make in-season moves. He never wants to be in the position in October when McDermott comes to him and a says. "I need a _____," and Beane has to say, "sorry, I've spent every nickel and I can't help you anymore. You'll have to go the rest of the way with what you have." Point is, it's a complex and fascinating dynamic problem. This forum, including me, is lucky to have some guys here (including you) who are good at thinking along with Beane as the problem plays out.

I've pretty much always thought they'd a vet corner - I've just been saying that I thought they'd probably wait until after the draft. This move makes me wonder if something isn't coming soon, since there really seems to be little point in doing this restructure now. I agree, however, that they will bring in a vet. McDermott's defense is complex, and they don't want to go into the season with corners whose total experience is White (when he's ready) plus Jackson and Neal. Maybe Johnson is a candidate to play out there, but that just changes the hole to fill from corner to the nickel corner, and in some ways that's a tougher hole to fill. They've brought in Davis and Norman and Gaines in recent years, for the same purpose. None worked out. This time, the need is clearer, and I think the Bills will bring in a veteran whose bust probability is lower than those guys.

Beane knows who he likes and what he's willing to pay. If he can make a deal, he will, but he's shown he's content to wait. He knows there's always another opportunity around the corner. As I said earlier, I think he's waiting. He knows the corners he likes in the draft, he knows where they are on his board, and he will deal to go after one he likes. A wide out would be nice, but a first round corner who can start from day one really bolsters the lineup. By November or December McDermott would have that guy on one side, with experience, and White on the other, with Miller and Oliver and Rousseau chasing the quarterback. That's some serious stuff.

I haven't seen a lot of Diggs being interviewed. I just watched the video of his press conference. A lot of the quotes from the press conference are posted in the preceding pages. He is one together guy. Talk about comfortable in his own skin. Man. Listen to him talk about the feeling on this team. He just keeps saying "family." And he's not saying it because that's the mantra - he feels it. He loves being loved by his coaches and his teammates. He talked about how they (the front office) keep bringing in the right guys. He said they did it with him, they did it with Miller. He essentially said everyone fits. He said he doesn't want to call plays, but players see things that the coaches don't always see, and on this team the coaches listen. He said he might give the coaches five routes his likes for a game, and they'll give him three of them. He likes that. He's really mature. Intense, but at ease. Quite a guy.

Thanks. That's what I get for thinking I know what I'm talking about. They need $8 million to sign the rookies, according to Spotrac, but every one who makes the top 51 will displace someone. Overdorf's job is safe for another day!

My sense has been it's the opposite. Everyone's looking for corners, and the cheap, talented corners are in the draft. Rather than getting into a bidding war for a veteran, GMs are now inclined to see what falls to them in the draft, and I think they know that all the other GMs are thinking the same way. They also know that once the draft happens, the demand for corners is going to drop (because teams will have taken one or two in the draft), so the competition to sign the veterans will drop, and the therefore the price will drop. I say this because there always seem to be some quality name veterans looking for jobs in May and June. Sure, something may break now, and Beane will be ready, but I think the market for free agents remains pricey until after the draft every year, and there just doesn't seem to be much reason to pay high prices for a veteran corner when you can draft the help you need and fill in with cheaper veteran corners in a month.

I have plenty of sympathy for Blacks, but from a practical point of view, this is a lot of baloney. I mean, each of these guys may have been discriminated against, but proving it with the kind of stuff they're alleging doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wilks was 3-13 in one year as head coach of the Cardinals. Lots of guys have been one and done after going 3-13. He blames his failure on the GM. And to say if he'd been the head coach and Kyler Murray, he would have succeeded too, is total speculation. So is that he wanted to draft Josh Allen. It's all just speculation. And to complain that you got the interview strictly because of the Rooney Rule, and you weren't a serious candidate because they already had someone in mind, well, that happens often too. The Rooney Rule doesn't require the team to hire a Black candidate, and it doesn't give a Black candidate a free ride to head coaching job just because the Black candidate thinks he was a better choice. The rule is designed as much as anything to give Black candidates the opportunity to develop interview skills in a very selective market. Most guys don't get hired in the first head-coaching interview. There seems to be very little evidence of racial discrimination. "I didn't get hired" is not evidence.