FireChans

That’s a tough question. There’s two ways. If Micah continues to be an All Pro, they could “win” if they hit on 2 ProBowler caliber with those picks that contributed to winning their division+ or going further than the Packers in the next 2-3 years. If Micah flames out as a player and becomes a disaster under his current contract, the Cowboys would only need to avoid having both of their draft picks from being busts. You are right though, it’s hard to “win” a trade when you are giving up all pro level talent. The Vikings had to draft arguably the greatest WR of all time to do it.

Exactly right! So this trade changed nothing in terms of the Packers expectations. But it’s discussed like this monumental do or die inflection point. No. the reason being is that the only reason this trade happened was because the trajectories already existed. The Cowboys are coming off a lost season where they fired their head coach. Their overall talent kinda sucks. While the decision to move off Micah may be disagreed with, I see the logic in selling relatively high when you believe your teams’ ceiling is a WC. The Cowboys semi-reset was coming with or without Micah. So to me, using the franchise trajectory is kinda unfair. I don’t think Micah is a Packer today if the Cowboys were a divisional round team last year.

I just don't agree with this arbitrary framing of this move in particular. We both agree that the Packers have "their guy" at QB and HC for the forseeable future. So they have some sort of window with that pairing, we agree. And because they have them, they have one goal, to win a SB. You say they could have gone a different route and used all the resources in the Micah trade/signing to improve their defense with multiple players. I absolutely agree they could have. What I would ask is how is that different than using all those resources on Micah? If the Packers traded a late first for some mid-tier CB, another late first for a good but not great pass rusher, and spent every cent they gave Micah on 4-5 other defensive players, why would their expectations be any less than competing/winning a Superbowl? It's fundamentally the same thing. Acquiring talent to win a Superbowl. Which is why I disagree vehemently with this dimes vs dollars framing. The Bills standing pat to draft Max Hairston or Greg Rousseau or whoever instead of trading those picks or using their money to sign some big name FA doesn't change our expectations, right? We aren't "just trying to improve," we are still trying to win a Superbowl. The ONLY difference is that there is some increased risk in terms of injury by virtue of it being 1 player vs multiple players. But that's offset, imo, by getting a known commodity in the NFL instead of a lotto ticket. They are using their assets to improve their team, just as we do. All this "all-in" and "mortgage the future" is perpetuated from talking heads who need to lay groundwork for the "Was the Micah trade a failure" talking point 2 years from now.

Full marks across the board. post more

Strong is the future and White is the past. If it’s close, I give it to the rook and let him continue to grow this season.

Yeah just flat out disagree with almost all of this. For whatever reason, trading for a player is looked at like some completely different entity than drafting a player or signing a player. It’s all just player acquisition. If you acquire a great player, it’s great. If you acquire a great player for cheaper than you really should, it’s incredible. Now, are there increased expectations associated with the move Green Bay made? Of course there are. But that’s BECAUSE of the caliber of the player they acquired. Because Micah is one of the best EDGE rushers in the league. There’s a league-wide and fan-wide view on first round picks that they are these priceless assets. Which is really bizarro, when even the FIRST ROUND has like barely above a 50% hit rate. The Packers last 4 first rounders were Eric Morgan, Lukas Van Ness, Quay Walker, and Eric Stokes. You couldn’t trade all 4 of those players for a player on the caliber of Parsons, let alone just 2 of them. Furthermore, I completely disagree that a team with an elite defensive talent is at some inherent disadvantage because they have to pay that player a ton of money. Wouldn’t like 29 teams kill to have a defensive player worth $40M+? Isn’t that the point? The point of having cap space and picks is to be able to get and retain great players. I don’t know how this became so backwards to folks. We aren’t at an inherent disadvantage because we are paying Josh. Because Josh is worth every single cent and then some. The argument against making a Micah Parsons move is “let’s hang onto our late first round picks and cap space so we can hope we can get lucky to get a player as good as Micah Parsons.” It’s ass backwards, respectfully.

Correct. But that’s a conflation. drafting/acquiring Josh Allen wasn’t the failure. It was obviously a great success. It would be a failure of the other folks involved. “All-in move” is just a term for media and fans to throw around. How many fans or media members can name the 3 last first round picks by the Packers? Its meaningless. Their franchise isn’t going to fold if they don’t win a Super Bowl. The one certainty in the NFL is that you always get more picks. It’s just like how folks predicted the Rams were going to usher in 10 years of darkness when they were trading first rounders for talent. Meanwhile, here they are making the playoffs all the time again. Yes. Trading for an elite pass rusher in his prime to pair with an elite QB in his prime is objectively ALWAYS a good move. If the Bills traded for Parsons, would it have been a good trade? Yes. If the Bills managed to not win a Super Bowl with such a move, would that be a failure of the BILLS? Yes. Would it be a failure of a trade? No.

Jack Campbell is 6’5 246. Edmunds was around there too. You simply can’t live in the NFL anymore if you can’t cover. Those old Panthers teams had their fair share of smaller LB’s. Thomas Davis was an excellent coverage off ball LB and he was in that same size category as Bernard. He was drafted in the first round in 2005. Our very own Shaq Thompson, a first round pick in 2015, also fit that mold. 2 down players have gone the way of the dodo just like big 2 down 1Ts. You can still be a big hulking MLB, you just can’t be a zero in coverage.

Yes. Of course they can. If your only measure of success is winning a Super Bowl, then drafting Bruce Smith wasn’t a success. The Bills should’ve traded that pick for more picks. They could’ve gotten a haul. After all, they didn’t win a Super Bowl, right? For a more recent example, was the Bills trading a first for Diggs a failure? I mean sure, he helped take our offense and our QB into elite status, and he posted the best 4 year stretch by a WR in team history, but we didn’t win the Super Bowl. It’s a failure for Green Bay only if they don’t contend for a championship during Micah’s prime, or if Micah somehow just becomes a terrible player. Otherwise, it’s the exact move that good teams should always make to try to maximize their chance of winning a ring.

An absolutely absurd premise from start to finish. woof

May as well trade Josh then. If he blows out his knee, we are cooked. Let’s get rid of him.

Are the Packers still looking crippled after beating 2 of the best offenses on their schedule?

Disagree hard. Milano, while awesome, had has his fair share of wash out games against the run. So has Bernard. And for Williams it’s like his calling card. I think it was the perfect storm of messing up run fits and the safeties knowing if Henry gets to the second level, they have to try to stop him. Rapp took like the worst tentative angle against Henry in that second or third long run down the left sideline because imo he was overthinking.

To me, McD had an elite 2017 offseason. Found 4 cornerstone defensive players. Had some great defenses. Now 8 years later. Half gone, the other half shells of themselves. And the defense kinda sucks. Is this a lesser version of the Seahawks being nasty because they acquired the whole LoB at the same time, and then when they all got old, their defenses fell apart? Was their DC some secret genius or did he just have great players?

I’m basically one more bad defensive season away from calling McD a “Hyde, Poyer, White” merchant.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/about/qb-rating.htm

You don't beat Lamar by spying him. You beat Lamar accepting that he is going to beat you with his legs sometimes and you try to stop the run on early downs.

We’ll see. Josh’s passing totals have dropped significantly with Brady at OC. He missed that 4200 average by about 500 yards last year. I think the odds that none of them get 1000 are pretty high and the odds that Palmer has 1000 to be approaching 0.

Caleb to Shane Waldron after the game

????? Is this based on Josh throwing for 400 every week?

Do nothing. if Prater keeps it up, cut Bass. There is no reason to stick with Bass’ highly paid brand of mediocrity. Does it matter if he kicks well here? Are you convinced phones would be ringing off the hook if Bass was an FA? I’m not.

I don’t think there’s any meaningful update, but I also don’t think it’s some mystery. Much like it wasn’t a mystery why Kaiir Elam was always a healthy scratch. the team doesn’t see their value being active.

Hard to disagree with your list. The Ravens aren’t dissimilar to the Bills despite being “better.” They have no game changing pass rusher and no game changing receiving threat. So despite having mild to moderate improvements basically everywhere else, and a mild at best difference in QB (Lamar and Josh are both amazing but I think Josh takes the edge), it doesn’t really matter. The important positions remain important for a reason.

He was wrong, wasn’t he? They basically held the Bills offense in check for 3Q’s, and changed what they were doing and our offense exploded.

He played very well, but this thread was the first thing I thought of when he got rolled to the dirt by that Ravens DB