Shaw66

Diggs, Davis, Kincaid and pick one based on play call, recent performances, etc.

Excellent. That's a great ranking of the QBs in the league.

It's interesting to me how people's statements about Hurts track the early conventional wisdom about him. "Hurts surprised me" in the Super Bowl, and things like that. I feel that way about him to. It's as though based on whatever preliminary view of him was, he can't be as good as he looked last season. For me, I thought he was primarily a runner and an inaccurate guy who probably couldn't get it done in the pocket. All last season I didn't want to give up that view. For me at least, and maybe others, I've got start believing what we all saw last season. Yes, he may have nice talent around him, but - dang! - the guy makes plays, over and over. He makes the runs, he creates, and he delivers the football. I am not a believer in ratings like these, but having seen the Bills offensive line last sign, it's not hard to believe that the Eagles was better. I'll give you that. But line or not, Hurts consistently played high quality winning football. Can he do it again? We'll see.

Got it. The running backs do have a point. But the fact remains, within the NFL they aren't worth as much as they think. Running backs don't win Super Bowls.

Not always. Their value is artificially controlled by the CBA; first round running back gets less than he could if the market were free. When he finally gets to be a free agent, he is past his prime. So he misses the opportunity to get paid his actual value.

George Saimes. Amazing open field tackler (and punt returner).

Well, there has to be a solution somewhere. Somehow, to be fair to them, the running backs need to be able to hit free agency earlier; otherwise, sooner or later they will sue and probably win by arguing that the current CBA is an unlawful restraint on trade. I don't know what the legal rationale is for the league and the current players to restrict the bargaining power of players coming into the league, because ordinarily employers can't do something like that. (This goes back to Curt Flood.) The justification for rookie deals under the CBA is that even though they don't get to negotiate their contracts, they get decent pay, and they get multi-year contracts that assure that they have a guaranteed payday. The rationale for allowing teams to tie up first rounders for five years is (1) pay is good, if not true value for some of the first rounders, and (2) their payday comes with the second contract. It's becoming clear, however, that for many running backs there is no second-contract payday. It's a problem unique to running backs, because their value tends to decline faster than players at any other position. Maybe part of the solution is to allow rookie running backs drafted in the first round to elect a contract without a fifth-year option. Look at Singletary. Better-than-average starting running back on a playoff team, and all he got was a one-year $2.5 million deal. A similarly skilled player at almost any other position gets a multi-year deal. On the other hand, if you look at Latavius Murray's contract history, it's hard to say there isn't a path to good career comp for running backs. Prior to coming to Buffalo, he earned something like $19 million in ten years. He has been a valuable back but not a true star. He was better than Singletary early on, so he got a better second contract. I think the problem really is the occasional first-rounder who can get squeezed out his second-contract payday because of the fifth year option. If he had been a free agent a year ago, he would have gotten a nice deal somewhere, and the Giants would have been forced to pony up or let him go. Or he'd be on his second season of being tagged by the Giants, which would be a fair payday for Barkley. If Barkley gets knocked out with injury this year, his value will be way down next spring.

How many receptions did Kincaid have today?

Or cost of living. But Texas, where he lives, would have saved him a lot. Whatever. I'm glad he came, and as you or someone else said, for most guys, it's the money not the winning.

I didn't say it was just about winning. I said he chose winning over other factors, because from the things he said, of the teams that were after him, the Bills played in the last city he wanted to be in. He said he preferred Texas, LA and Denver. And after tax, the money was better in all those places. He gave up things to pursue winning. That's all I meant to say. As for Judon, I agree, but I think that's only in a vacuum. The Bills consider their longer term plan, and I think the tentative plan is to make Rousseau a star and pay him. (Remember, their mantra is to draft and retain talent.) Von's contract will be largely done, and will not renewed, when Rousseau comes due. Now, you may think that Judon is the better talent (I think he probably is), but also there's no guarantee the Bills would get him. We don't know what the Bills' thought about Rousseau 15 months ago when they got Miller, but I'd bet their thinking was something along these lines.

Oh, for sure, but that's what free markets are about. Someone always overpays in a free market, and someone underpays. That's how market prices are determined. Schoen obviously has learned his lessons. He knows how important Barkley is to the future of his team (less important than Barkley thinks he is), and he has the discipline not to overpay. The only thing going on in all these tweets from running backs is they are demonstrating, as a group, that they misunderstand their own values. Punters don't misunderstand; they negotiate a little here and there, and the very best may even change teams, but they understand that there is a limit to how much their team will pay them.

I have very little sympathy for these guys. They have the wrong perceptions of themselves. Unless and until the news comes out that the owners have a big, secret agreement to set the compensation for all players, I'm going to continue to believe that (except for the draft), it's a free market for teams and players. The players get paid what it's worth to the teams to acquire them. Now, you might argue that the teams value the players incorrectly, but I think that's just not true. The teams have a capped amount of money to spend, and the whole game, from the GM's point of view, is to acquire the collection of talent that is most likely to win within the limits of the cap. Why aren't the punters tweeting madly about how unfair their compensation is? How about the offensive guards? Why do the quarterbacks get those mega-deals? It's all about value over replacement. If you want to be regular contender for the title, you have to have a quarterback, so when you get one, you pay him whatever it takes to keep him. You don't meet your punter's outrageous demands, because whether you have this punter or that punter doesn't really change you chances of making the playoffs all that much. Same for offensive guards. If you have a HOF offensive guard, yeah, you pay him. The rest of them? Well, you always want the best, but it doesn't matter so much which one you have. Great running backs don't correlate with consistent winning the way quarterbacks did. They did once. In the 60s, it was more important to have Jim Brown or Jim Taylor, and you could get away with Milt Plum, Frank Ryan, and Bart Starr (Starr was great, no doubt, but he was a great game manager - he didn't win games like Mahomes and Allen do). No more. Derrick Henry is a truly great running back, but he hasn't made his team a consistent top-five team. Barkley hasn't, either. As great as McCaffrey is, and I'd love to have him, he hasn't done it either. Neither has Ekeler. The era of teams being led consistently to the Super Bowl by running backs ended with Thurman and Emmitt, not because they were greater than the current crop of running backs, but because the game kept changing. And on top of just their pure contribution to winning, you have the injury factor. The league has been offering more and more protection to quarterbacks for a couple of decades. The running backs, who take MORE pounding than QBs ever did, have very little protection. So, a big investment in a running back simple doesn't make a lot of sense, because the chances are you will not have him for very long. When the Bills paid all that money to Allen, it wasn't just because he was worth it for the next few years - it was because by paying him that money, the Bills know they'll have the opportunity to pay him a lot more money a few years from now and keep him through the prime of his career. Barkley's in his prime; Allen isn't. By the time Allen is playing like Brady and Rodgers, Barkley will be retired. Running backs get headlines because the mystique of running backs from 50 years ago continues, even though the game has changed. They also get headlines because the media can't get enough headlines out of QBs and receivers, so they need someone else to write about, and the running backs are the next most visible players on the field. Because they get headlines, the running backs think they're important. They believe their headlines. The GMs know better.

I k now about Von's deal, but when he came it was clear he could have done better in areas where he preferred to live. He got great dough, yes, but he came or the rings. You're the second to tell me I'm wrong about Hill. I'm convinced without more. Thanks.

less than 20% is right.

Just for discussion's sake, I don't think this is true. All offenses are good at some things, not so good at others. The fact that they were #2 in points per drive and not so good in the red zone means that they were very good offensively outside the red zone. It's quite possible for a team just to be better when they're playing in the open field, where they can take advantage of the defense being spread out, but worse when the defense is compact. Zones are compacted in the red zone, and more difficult to attack. The right players to attack a zone from midfield may not be the right players to attack a tight zone in the red zone. Josh's improvisational runs work much better when the defensive backfield gets stretched. A guy like Beasley is an asset in the red zone, but less valuable in the open field. In the red zone, defensive linemen know they probably aren't getting a sack (because the passing game is quick-release in that area), so they can play the run tougher. If you have a mediocre offensive line in the run game, it therefore gets worse in the red zone, because the defense is keying on the run. It just doesn't follow that if the offense is good at midfield, it must be good in the red zone.

Fair enough. I didn't recall that his playoff history was that good. And you're right, at least publicly, he's never seemed to be a true prima donna. Part of my view about him is from his on-field body language - he has an ego that might very well have clashed with Diggs. And I have to think that there's some reason two teams have decided they don't need him. On the other hand, he's an exceptional talent. Outshined Sammy Watkins from the get go, and has one of the best collections of highlight-reel catches of all time. The guy has been phenomenal.

Yeah, I don't disagree. Not everyone chases a ring, and even if they are looking for a ring, the dollars still are important. But some guys are different. Von Miller came to Buffalo, and he could have done better elsewhere. He could have been closer to home, in a friendlier tax environment (which in his case could have been worth a million alone), in a warmer climate, and still on a contender. Chris Paul's contract may not have changed, but he wouldn't agree to go to just any team to be a backup point guard. He's happy to be in Golden State for one reason: a shot at a ring. Brady played for less for several seasons in New England.

You're right. He's going to a team that has a shot. Not a top contender, but if things fall right, he could be happy in January. I can't say there are many great receivers I really like, as people or personalities or teammates. Not OBJ, not DHop, even Diggs rankles me. I admire their great skill, but I always wonder if they make their teams better. DHop had Watson and Murray as QBs, and they didn't win. Lots of reasons, maybe, but he was the answer for neither team. I wish him well, but I'll be surprised if he makes one of those QBs an all-star. OBJ, too. The one success OBJ had was as a role player with the Rams. I like Tyreek Hill. He just goes out and does his job. He knows he's a special talent, but he never seems to make it about Tyreek.

Yeah, I don't blame him. If he's looking at $30 million from one team and $10 million from another, that's a lot of money to leave on the table because he wants to win. Just saying that if he managed his previous earnings wisely, he COULD have done it if he wanted to. McBeane want guys with a certain mindset, and that mindset is not "where's the money?" I'd guess that the more DHop showed in negotiations he was about the money, the less the Bills were interested. It probably was a short negotiation.

I can see from Hopkins point of view. The top teams weren't offering nearly the same money. And I don't get the idea that the Bills could have gotten him with an incentive-laden contract. What's the incentive? 1200 yard season? If I'm DHop, I see them throwing a lot of balls to Diggs and Kincaid; I can get to 1200 a lot easier in Tennessee. Bottom line, the Bills didn't see DHop as the silver bullet they needed, contrary to the views of many around here. Nice move for Tennessee. At least it's an effort to recover from letting a high quality receiver leave, and it gives them a high-quality guy to pair with Henry. With that combo, Tennessee might surprise people, but probably not.

In his career he earned $47 million. After taxes, that's probably $30 million. If he lived on $1 million a year (and that's a lot of money to spend in a year), he'd have $20 million banked. Over the last ten years, that would have grown into $25 million. Okay, so if he had been smart with his money, he'd have $25 million in the bank. Say he bought a house for his mom and some other, so call it $20 million. On $20 million, he can take 4% a year more or less forever, so that means he can have annual income of $800,000 a year forever. Forever. He can live pretty nicely on $800,000 a year. Point is, if he really wanted to, he could have joined whatever team he wanted.

It's an interesting point to me, because it supports what I've been saying about Allen. Who ran the offenses for the Patriots and the Saints? Two of the best game managers of all time, Brady and Brees. Why were they great game managers? Because both were content to take what the game gave them. They knew every time they got a completion for positive yardage, it was a win for the offense, so they took the highest percentage throw every time. Often, the highest percentage throw was to the backs. The point is how many more yards or how many more points can be generated by throwing to the backs. The point is minimizing incompletions, interceptions, and negative plays. All-time career completion percentage list: Burrow is 1, Brees is 2, Mahomes is 10, Brady is 21, Josh is 37. Completing passes wins football games. Well, I agree whole-heartedly with your last sentence, but that doesn't mean that talking about improving the team's performance is irrelevant. Whether O'Cyrus Torrence can start and play effectively can have a lot to do with whether the Bills win a Super Bowl, and talking about it is something that may interest fans here. What you're saying is, I think, unlike you and more like others who come into a thread and declare that the discussion is a waste of time. If you think it's a waste of time, isn't the better solution to move on to another thread than to tell the rest of us we shouldn't talk about it?

Well, reluctant as I may be to quote 808, what are we supposed to talk about? I mean, is every Bills fan supposed to kneel at the feet of the great Deek and acknowledge that the one and only subject worth talking about is whether McDermott and his staff can do a better job motivating their players? That's it? It's not worth talking about whether McGovern will start and be an upgrade, not worth talking about when Miller might return, not worth talking about whether Cook can come through as a quality number 1 back? It's all about McDermott's pregame speech?

Well, um, sheer exhaustion. I'm not trying to be funny here, but how do you know this? Frankly, I think you're largely right, but this is a fan forum where people discuss the Bills. Pretty much anyone who watched them last season knows that they could play better than they did, so where's the harm in talking about what they might do to get better?

Thanks for this. The "we need x percent of this" and "we need a #2 who gets y yards per game" arguments tend be made by all of us amateurs who look at a stat that seems out of line and then conclude that by the fixing that stat things somehow are going to be different. Your original points were the right ones. The Bills already have one of the most productive offenses in the league, in yards and in points, and it's unreasonable to expect that there's going to be some massive improvement in one stat or another. If all things remain the same except the Bills get DHop and he goes for 1400 yards in place of Davis's 800, well, sure, that's better, but even that would be only a marginal improvement. The point was made in a different way by Dawkins when he told Cowherd that the media, including Cowher, somehow seem to think that just because the Bills have Allen and Diggs they should be winning every game by 20. The league just doesn't work that way. No team, with very few exceptions, dominates the league, week after week. Which leads to the conclusion you just said - the improved performance the Bills need cannot be measured in statistics. Well, the red zone numbers offer at least a suggestion of the problem, which seems to be that the Bills aren't as effective finishers as they need to be to be a great team. They need to finish better in the red zone, they need to finish games better, and they need to finish the season (i.e, the postseason) better. They have to learn to seal the deal, as they say. That's not Davis having a higher reception/target ratio, and it's not increasing the percentage of targets for the running backs. It's getting into the right play in a given situation and executing it. I wrote earlier in favor of more targets for the running backs, not because I want the percentage, but because in certain situations Allen seems to go after the high-risk, high-reward play when he should be taking the low risk play. I think the offense has to be more disciplined in that way to make the Bills better finishers.