Shaw66

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.

Exactly. I agree that it would be fine to say "the Bills desperately needed to do something." That's typical hyperbole that we use all the time, and that usage cues the reader that "desperate" in this context is meant to imply the second of Gunner's definitions. Semantics, for sure, but King gets paid a lot of money to get it right, both his football information and his writing. He got lazy.

That's what I thought the first time I saw that video. I've known guys who could move like that, and I've know guys as big as that, but I've never, never know a guy that big who could move like that. We see it in the skill position players, but those athletic skills aren't so apparent on the line. Still, given the opportunity, these guys show they aren't the average backyard athlete. They're different.

You think it was desperation because you buy the concept of a window. I assume you believe the Bills have a 2-3 year window to win, after which they will have to start rebuilding. McBeane have been very clear that they are not operating the team on that concept. Their intention is to get good and stay good. Have a 12-15 "window" with Allen. They're building a team that they want to win for the next 10-15 years. Getting Diggs was not done because they thought some window might close before a first round pick got good. In fact, if they WERE operating on the window mentality, then the move definitely was NOT desperate. The move was smart team building - trading to picks to get the best players in the window is absolutely the right thing to do. Those late-round picks are useless if the window is now. Beane took Diggs because the chances are he will be better in 2020 than any player the Bills could have drafted, and also because he's young enough that he could be good for another 5-6 years, which isn't bad compared to the 6 or 7 or 8 good years he might get out of a guy he drafts (after that guy doesn't contribute very much his rookie season). Beane doesn't act out of desperation.

Excellent. Thanks. I very much read it with the first definition which, by the way, is the way it's supposed to be read. Words like this may have a primary and a secondary meaning, and when in doubt the writer should assume that people will go with the primary meaning. "Desperate" comes from "despair" and relates to "desperation," both or which imply some kind of emergency or dire situation. The Bills were not in an emergency situation, the team was not about to go down the drain if they didn't find a receiver. The very fact that the draft was full of receivers meant there was no reason for despair. The Bills didn't act out of desperation. Getting Diggs wasn't some last ditch effort to save a sinking ship. All the Bills did was choose among the available receivers.

This kind of a comment demonstrates that King - like many others - is thinking more about writing something that is provocative than is informative. There simply was nothing "desperate" about what Beane did. He had a choice, which was use those picks, combined equal to a #18 pick, to draft one of those rookies, or to take Diggs. If the trade had never happened and the Bills drafted Justin Jefferson, let's say, King wouldn't have called it a "desperate" move, even though the risk is exactly the same. All Beane did was get what he thought was the best receiver available with the draft capital he had. It's just a question of personnel evaluation and making a decision. Some of those decisions work out some don't. King seems to think Beane made the wrong choice, but he doesn't tell us why he thinks that's the case. He doesn't show how the Bills with Jefferson and whomever they might have gotten with the fifth and sixth round picks would have been better than they will be with Diggs. And he doesn't consider what Beane said before the draft, which was that he could consider trading some of his later round picks, because it just isn't likely that guys taken in the later rounds were going to be able to make the roster. That comment was borne out when the Bills used fifth and sixth round picks to take a kicker and a backup QB who has almost no chance of playing this year. Why would the Bills have been better with Jefferson and those picks? It's just a nonsense comment.

I like what you say about Tyrod. That's exactly right. HIs first year he put up really nice numbers, second year not bad, but he always looked one-domensional somehow. I'm not a Dak fan. My eye test tells me he doesn't have the intangibles. He doesn't seem to lead very well. He doesn't improvise well. He throws better than I thought, and he runs nicely, but I don't think he's the full package.

Actually, I wasn't sure. That's what I thought but wasn't sure. I figured it was worth saying in any case. Of course, I seem to think almost anything is worth saying.

Interesting. Thanks.

That's why there's a short list I'd trade for. Not Wilson. He IS a superstar, but I'll take 15 years of Josh instead of six of Wilson. Not Lamar, not Murray. They may or may not become superstar. I like Josh's odds better. Mahomes, yes. Watson, no, but only because I think Watson and Allen are a push, so why switch. I like Burrow a lot, but he hasn't played a down in the NFL. Also is marginal on the Parcells' test: Be a three-year starter - no Be a senior in college - yes Graduate from college - yes Start 30 games - no Win 23 games - yes Post a 2:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio - yes Compete at least 60-percent of passes thrown - yes