Shaw66

For me, he isn't on the list because there will be nothing surprising if he's cut. It won't be a high-profile cut. Foster was an undrafted free agent, which says something about the talent he brings to the table. He's now competing against established NFL starters (Diggs, Beasley, Brown), drafted rookies (Hodgins and Davis), an entrenched punt and kick returner (Roberts), a useful gadget player (McKenzie), and a guy who's talented merit being drafted but who had off-field issues (Williams). Other than being an effective gunner, it's hard to see how Foster can earn a place on the team. The same analysis applies to Williams, only a little less so. Williams has draftable talent, but he'll have to offer a clearly higher upside than Hodgins and Davis. They both may be possession receivers who could be as valuable as Williams, and Davis apparently has decent deep speed. All Foster has to offer is speed. Of course, if you're coming to the NFL with only thing in your toolkit, speed may be the best thing to bring (hello, Christian Wade). But with Diggs and Brown starting, and with Roberts and McKenzie, Foster's speed alone probably doesn't help him.

Muppy - is Bumbles posting anywhere? Is he here but just not posting? I miss having him lop my head off every once in a while.

I dont know and didn't vote. But I gotta say that's a list of good players, and some of them will have to go. I remember being excited when Gaines came back, and I will be sad to see him go. If he's cut, it means Norman still can play, and if that's true the Bill's have some outstanding corners. I'm a Duke fan but I think he is in trouble, and maybe McKenzie. Versatility may save McKenzie. Gotta figure Johnson stays over Murphy.

This. I dont know about your calf. Not sure why that would be. The inside of pretty much my entire thigh turned all kinds of black and blue for at least a couple of weeks. Listen to you body. It tells you not to run when you think you can. Give it plenty of time.

This is true for pretty much every rookie running back, but you're right, it is the key. He's not a lot more than a gadget player until he can handle the blitz, because until he can handle the blitz, his presence in the lineup reduces the playbook by 30-40%.

Absolutely. He was spectacular last season. As great a run-pass threat as Vick in his prime. If he keeps it up, he's an all-time great, and then it would be an insult to compare him to Bledsoe.

Bledsoe did it for a lot of years at a near HOF level. Lamar has done it for one. Lamar is going to be tested increasingly in the coming couple of seasons, as teams game plan for him and get used to him. Also, defenses will adjust because there's Lamar and Kyler and to a lesser extent Mayfield and probably a few more. End of the day, you have to be a superior leader (which Lamar may be), a superior thrower, and a superior student of the game. Lamar hasn't shown he's there yet.

Not exactly back to back and not all exactly franchise guys, but Staubach, Aikman, Romo, and Prescott is an impressive run.

Yeah, wring choice of words. He was trying to make the point that he is ready to be the leader of the running backs. That's a good, positive point. Especially because he was talking about a Hall of Fame back, his words needed to be more respectful. I've missed talking football, too, but the whole country is waking up to the fact that talking racism is not useless junk. It's about the future of our country.

I think it's lack of awareness. His fumbles happen when he isn't expecting to get hit. I think he'll get better as he is simply more conscious of what's going on around him. For example, my sense is that he doesn't have an unusual fumbling problem in the pocket. I think he's very aware of the risk when he's in the pocket. When he takes off, he stops worrying about ball security. At least that's the way it looks to me. So I think that simply being more aware of what he's doing will be enough to help solve the problem.

Here's what he said about that: "Definitely. I know I can't turn the ball over like that. I'm working on it with my coaches and talking to some of the running backs. I need to be more aware of where I'm holding the ball when I'm running. I need to keep in mind that I can get hit any time. I will be better at this." Actually, I made that up, but really, what do you think he's going to say? "Fumbles happen. I'm not worried about it. In fact, I'm going after the NFL record for fumbles by a QB." By the way, the top 10 in career fumbles includes Brett Favre, John Elway, and Tom Brady. All over 120. Allen has 22 career fumbles.

Bottom line, I hear you and plead guilty. I can criticize anything, just not my own stuff.

Yeah, sports journalism has changed. There was a time when you could pick you Sports Illustrated and read almost any article and get excellent insights into one thing or another. No one has the time to that anymore. There's more information and less insight. However, I gotta say that the quality of the Bill's beat writers is pretty good. They know the team and they analyze things pretty well. Maybe it's just easier to do the job when the team is better.

I just found it hard to read and, as I said, overly dependent on stats. I don't feel enlightened by all those numbers. Interesting that the article didn't stimulate any interesting discussion. All the article did was get people focused on fumbles. A review of the 2019 season comes down to Josh's fumbles? Stats do that.

Well, that's an interesting read, but the piece suffers from stats overload. Stats are an interesting way to look at what happened, but they aren't necessarily a good diagnostic tool. The fact that a team or player was 24th in the league in one category or another doesn't necessarily tell us what needs to change or improve. Still, it's an interesting overall look at the team.

Yeah, I just looked. He led the team in receptions among all the tight ends on the roster. He was the primary tight end target. And, yes, they had DK Metcalf and someone else at wideout. They just didn't throw to the tight ends much.

Actually, I thought the reports were that he played a lot at Ole Miss but they didn't throw much to him. I agree about the drops. It's odd to be excited about a guy who dropped the ball as often as he did. Either he's going to continue dropping the ball like that, in which case his career will be short, or he's going to become a consistent receiver, in which case he'll be a serious weapon at tight end. He won't be in between - with his physique he has to be a pass-catching tight end. I except dramatic improvement from him this year. I think he's going to hurt opponents regularly. I chalk his drops up to rookie inexperience. He looked to me like he never settled down, like he played all season with the rookie jitters. Missing OTAs and other precamp training will hurt, however. He needed time to settle into the job, and the spring workouts would have helped.

I love Fitz. Fitz is good. Just not good enough. For me, the killer game was losing to the Giants in New Jersey. Twice on the same out route, Fitz underthrew Stevie and got picked. Cost the Bills the game. He just couldn't make the throw.

Fair enough. I can agree with that. Washington is the poster child for mismanagement. They've been remarkably bad for some time, and the trail of bad decisions is unparalleled in recent years. When that happens, you have to look at the top of the organization. A good owner should be able to figure out who has a plan that makes sense, and then invest in it. Much as I loved Mr. Wilson, that was his problem. He was abysmal at getting the right guy.

There were plenty of reports that he was unhappy. For two consecutive years, after he had very good seasons, his team said to him, "well, we aren't so sure." You really think Cousins was anxious to sign up for more of the same?

You're just trying to score points here. What Bill said was that they've mismanaged the position, and he's correct. Paying Cousins the first time around was a better choice than tagging him. Tagging him a second time was a bad choice. Signing Smith was a mistake. Haskins doesn't look like a success. Put all that together and you've got some really bad management of the position. They would have been better off not tagging Cousins the first time and drafting QBs until they found one. That's exactly the position they are in now, and they've wasted multiple years and millions of dollars.

He was pissed off that Washington wouldn't give him the contract he wanted. Yes, he gladly accepted the tag, because the money was good and he'd be the starter. Then it happened a second time. At that point, I believe Cousins was pissed because Washington showed no confidence in him. By then, I'm pretty sure he wanted to go elsewhere, because Washington had made it clear what they thought of him.

That's a nice read, Stu. Thanks.

You miss the point. It's completely appropriate in this case to attack the messenger, because he failed completely to offer any intelligent thought on the subject. His discussion about wideouts essentially assumes that some wideout (and King doesn't suggest which one of many that wideout would be) available at 22 will be better than Diggs. There is no basis whatsoever for that assumption. It also essentially assumes that with the late round picks they gave up the Bills would have gotten players who make the roster and would be valuable contributors to the team. There is pretty much no basis for that assumption, either. Had he given some reason, any reason, for his conclusion, I'd have no problem. He doesn't. If he believes what you believe, that the risk of Diggs being a diva makes the move riskier than a draft pick, I'd disagree but I could respect the fact that he has some basis for his opinion. The complaints here about King are warranted and not unfair. He seems to have succumbed to the problem that afflicts many journalists, which is that their industry requires them to produce content in such volumes that the quality suffers. King decided he wanted to be a rockstar, wanted to be an expert video talking head, rather than be the guy at the front of SI's Monday Morning Quarterback. His choice hasn't worked out all that well for him. I think Colin Cowherd made the same mistake.

Right. A lot's been said about the Hopkins trade. One reason the trade compensation for him was so low was the size and term of his contract. Hopkins is going to cost a lot of money soon. The other thing, which I think has only been hinted at, is that I think Hopkins isn't exactly a team guy. I know that sounds funny when said in comparison to Diggs, but I think people are going to see that Hopkins has a me-first passion, while Diggs actually has a win-at-any cost passion. That is, Hopkins is a more successful version of Sammy Watkins, and it's interesting that they came out of the same program.