FireChans
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Posts posted by FireChans
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11 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:
He doesn't have much leverage. Shakir and Bernard were also non premium positions but they took the offer Beane gave them because it protected against that sort of thing. There's no doubt in my mind that Beane valued him around $8m a year and pry isn't going to budge much. If he goes this year without a contract extension he's betting on himself. I'm not going to feel bad for him if he has a major injury because he had a chance to sign the extension that Beane offered him.
He's not trying to go this year without a contract extension though.
He's trying to get the best possible contract extension. As he should.
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31 minutes ago, Paup 1995MVP said:
Generational Wealth? Wth are you all talking about? This guy is in his mid 20's. Why on earth should he support the rest of his family anyways? Unless they are disabled, they should all get off their asses and go work for a living. He wants to help his Mom out some, that's nice. But I bet she would probably be early to mid 50's at this point at most. She can work too. Its not his families money. Its James Cook's money.
I have a successful business which I have run for 30 years. I sure as hell was not supporting my parents or brothers from it. My brothers were both successful in their fields. As were my parents. I helped my mom some when she had a tax problem when getting divorced years ago. But other than that, we all took care of our own selves as adults. Like I am sure most of you on here do.
Now with when it comes to our kids, yes we all need to take care of our own. And making a good living in whatever you do helps with that.
But I don't think Brandon Beane cares about James Cook's generational wealth one way or another. His one responsibility is putting a competitive team on the field every single year.
Is this meant to be deeply ironic?
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12 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:
Disagree with this completely, what youre trying to say about offense.
But agree with your prior post about "making clutch" plays is key.
2022: defense was a sieve. Offense played horrible, many attribute to Josh night before
2023: defense severely undermanned, again a sieve. Bass chokes on a makeable FG- Josh got greedy and offense choked away a chance at the end
2024: defense was garbage after Benford went down, for 1st half. Defense did enough to win 2nd half, but offense blew multiple chances.
If anything, LY was the only season the offense didnt play up to snuff when it would have mattered. The defense has been downright awful the past 3 playoff losses- when we need to consistently put up 30+ to win, thats a DEFENSE issue.
But to your recent point about "clutch plays". We saw a couple this past Chiefs game--- Jordan Phillips of all people with a crucial sack, and James Cook with an unbelievable effort to score on 4th and goal, or we likely wouldve been trailing by alot more. Those would've been enough, but defense and offense were equally to blame IMO for 2024 loss- slow starts by both units.
Josh made more mistakes in that KC loss, than he did prior 4 games combined. We shouldn't need him to be superman every game though --- how many bad reads/throws did he miss? We had guys open/checkdowns there- Samuel on crossing routes for big gains, but Brady also went to the QB sneak well way too much after KC showed a knack of stopping it.
Point being, both sides played bad at times- I'd say offense more worse than their norm. But we cant have our defense give up 30+ to a team that hasn't put up nearly that level of production in recent games. Just shows what the Eagles, with good talent, could actually do defensively. Its called we had a MAJOR talent deficiency on that side of the ball- Rasul, Elam, Hamlin - that was a secondary that played ALOT of snaps and we expect to win with them? Not to mention a DL, whose best 2nd best pass rusher was Von Miller and needed to count on the likes of Jordan Phillips for clutch plays
The thing about "clutch" plays, is that they all benefit from the result.
For example:
If Bass connects on the FG in 2023 or the Bills score a TD and stifle the Chiefs, not only is the offense clutch for their contribution, but the defense is clutch for saving the game with the Poyer punch out.
If Josh scores the go-ahead TD last year, the Bills defense looks clutch for that massive stop late to give the offense the ball back with a chance to win it.
So, when you look at it from that perspective, those are two "clutch" defensive moments that ended up not being clutch because the offense didn't hold up on their end.
Now of course, you play this game with 13 seconds and the opposite is true. The offense looked clutch, and the defense failed them, twice.
Unfortunately, when you have knocked on the door as much as we have, there are going to be a million things we can point to. Reid having McD's number, the offense failing in clutch time, the defense failing in clutch time, the whole team not showing up to play for the 2020 AFCCG or the 2022 Bengals loss.
But history is written by the victors. If the defense holds on in 2021, or the offense scores go-ahead points in 2023 and 2024 and the Bills may be the clutch "never say die" dynasty team of the era.
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1 hour ago, Ballsy said:
Cook has already earned $4.6M. Playing this season on the existing contract earns him another $5.4M. He will have earned $10M before age 26. If you assume that between his agent and the tax man, he only nets half of that ($5M), he could have multi-generational wealth even if retired at the end of this upcoming season. If he controls his spending...
The problem with that is that his salary is largely non-guaranteed for 2025.
So if James Cook has an unfortunate jet ski accident, the Bills waive him with a non-football injury, and he walks away with $4.6M in earnings, closer to 2M after taxes/agents, and generational wealth is gone.
He has a little bit of leverage now, which he is using, because his financial future is far from guaranteed.
He should do whatever he can to get the most money possible, because it is what we would all do in his position.
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4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
Another "cancerous malcontent"?
Terry has played good soldier for 6 years in Washington. We just need 1.
JMO, but i would rather have McLaurin + Cook in 2025, then McLaurin in 2026 and beyond than just Cook in 2025 and beyond. I'm willing to trade at least a second rounder to do so.
It's time to stop building for the future.
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42 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
Go get him and give him Cook's money please.
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1 hour ago, NewEra said:
The other people who got to flash receipts are those that said we didn’t have enough pass rush and said that our defense would inevitably lead to our downfall if we didn’t win a SB.
WR wasn’t the main reason we didn’t win a Super Bowl.
Man. After 8 years, the pass rush is never good enough to win a Superbowl and the receiving options aren't good enough to win a Superbowl. Brutal.
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1 hour ago, sunshynman said:
Peyton didn't hang out with Brady because Brady is a dick. Who cares if they go golfing together. It may have happened back in the day, and no one reported it on it, because its dumb. Shouldn't matter what they do in their free time, as long as, they come to work when it matters.
Not sure that's true on Peyton and Brady.
Peyton admitted (long after he retired) that him and Brady had secret work outs together.
That was in 2009. They kept it a secret, but by that time, both had MVPs and both had Super Bowl wins.
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1 hour ago, BarleyNY said:
Also if you’re looking for Joshua Palmer, he’s in the middle cluster just to the left of and slightly below Mack Hollins. At least we paid Palmer over twice what Hollins got tho.
Thank you.
I always sucked at Where's Waldo
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32 minutes ago, MJS said:
I think we're getting off topic. I never claimed that Sanders was small or couldn't play the run. I stated that the Bills have targeted penetration and pass rush ability at the DT spot. Fans have been clamoring for a big, run stuffing nose tackle type player for awhile. The Bills have shown over and over that they don't care about that. They want a certain type of defenisve tackle and they continue to bring in guys of that type.
The scheme itself is designed to stop the pass, not the run. Of they stop the run, great, but if they give up some rushing yards, they are fine with that if they are able to limit passing production, big passing plays, force long drives, and get some turnovers.
Are we sure they just don't want another tub of goo after getting burned by Star?
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to be fair to @Gugny, there was something that rubbed me the wrong way about Josh being buddy-buddy with Pat Mahomes in that one offseason golfing and doing TV stuff when Mahomes at that point had multiple MVPs and SB's and we had made one AFCCG appearance.
Peyton and Brady didn't get chummy until long after they both had multiple trophies in their cases and it did make me wonder about his competitive drive and habits.
However, after Josh's MVP and imo the best season of his career with a weaker supporting cast, I feel like complaining about his work ethic is a little over the top.
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14 hours ago, NoSaint said:
because he signed those terms
He did.
James Cook should do what's best for James Cook. If that means holding out to the last possible second to secure financial salvation for at least 2 generations of his family, so be it and good for him.
13 hours ago, MJS said:They get fined for missing mandatory time and they lose an accrued season if they hold out for enough games.
Like I said, terminating it early is, in fact, fulfilling the contract because the contracts allow for that.
the contract allows for skipping camp/mandatory activities, just with penalties.
Honor is as honor does.
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16 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:
So you weren't interested in parsing it further.........but then you parse it further and finish with 20-0hyperbole. Only way we know @Alphadawg7 hasn't hijacked your account is there was no ✌️at the end.
Like I said, a lot of non-Bills fans(and some Bills fans) thought the Bills were poised to take a step back after losing Diggs, Davis, Morse and basically all of their captains. I couldn't care less if the Lions win or not. But as a fan I'd love to have just earned the #1 seed(something the McBills have never done) despite all the adversity they had and then to have difference makers like Aidan Hutchinson coming back after a lost season and Jameson Williams playing for a contract etc.. That and arguably the most favorable schedule of any NFL contender.
We will see if the coordinator losses undermine what should be an otherwise improved team by default. Not having any of the top 4 QB's in the NFL in your conference certainly helps.
I think there's a higher chance the Lions miss the playoffs than make it past the divisional round, honestly. I definitely don't think they are gonna win their division. The difference with the Bills is that they had a QB who could play his best ball with maybe the worst team he has had around him since his rookie year. Jared Goff is good, but he is not a "succeeds despite surrounding adversity" type QB.
The 2023 Eagles are a classic example of brain-drain and loss of both OC and DC that derailed an otherwise pretty talented roster, and they barely .
That and the Lions flying in the face of positional value when they took guys like Gibbs and Campbell in the first. Those short-term moves can come back to bite you.
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4 minutes ago, eee1776 said:
How about someone being honorable enough to play out the contract he signed.
James Cook plays bad or gets hurt playing basketball and the team can get out of the contract they signed with next to no penalty.
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18 minutes ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:
Really can't complain about what the offense did last year, but if I was going to tinker:
- more deep shots
- less reliance on Josh's legs for short yardage
- better/more trick plays (the one vs Ravens in the regular season was probably the low point of the year for the offense)
Our defensive philosophy works great in the regular season, especially against bad QBs. However, it routinely gets exposed by good QBs, particularly in the playoffs
- No more bend but don't break. The goal should be to force a turnover or a 3 and out on every possession. I can live with giving up more long TDs if we're getting our offense an extra couple possessions per game
- I never want to see our DBs giving 10+yard cushions unless it's an absolute blowout win
The offensive and defensive philosophies were married in 2024.
The goal was to run the ball. shorten the game (on both sides) and have Josh and co orchestrate more long drives than the opponents could.
I think this is the way that McD wants the team to play.
Now, with all the new hirings, do I think they are expanding their bag of tricks for high-leverage moments? Absolutely.
But make no mistake. We are not going to turn into a high-risk high-reward defense, or offense for that matter. It is the antithesis of what McD wants.
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1 minute ago, Jauronimo said:
I thought he was late in his deal but I see that he had multiple years remaining. I'm reasonably sure they could have gotten a 5th had they waited until the offseason. Here we are 8 years later still trying to stop the run.
Honestly, I just had the thought the other day that if Dareus had put together a Fletcher Cox-type career, the whole trajectory of the McDermott era looks different. Hard to believe he could've been as good at 31 or 32 as he was at 24, but he could've been a plus starter for a LONG time, and helped solve a lot of defensive problems.
That's really the goal of having one of those high draft picks. Getting a guy for 10+ years who is still a difference maker more often than not while the team shifts around them. Fletcher Cox played for 4 HC's and went to SB's with 2 of them in Philly land.
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1 hour ago, Jauronimo said:
The Dareus trade pissed me off. We were 4-2 and looking ok, surprisingly. The defense immediately started getting gashed including 300 rushing yards conceded to the Saints. And we netted a 6th, conditional 5th round pick. Keep him for the season and let him walk.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/2017.htm
You can easily spot the where in the schedule we traded Dareus by looking at rushing yards against. Its amazing the drought ended in a year where Peterman started 2 games and the roster was gutted.
Dareus was already paid, he wasn't a "let walk" candidate IIRC.
Plus, he was notorious for being a little bit of a locker room goofball.
It wouldn't surprise me if he started rubbing McD/Beane the wrong way off the field and they just wanted him out.
20 hours ago, Chris from Rochester said:Doug Whaley's greatest draft pick. Seriously though, good for him, solid career. Best wishes
Honestly, yes, right?
It may not be even particularly close.
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22 hours ago, corta765 said:
A lot was made during the schedule release that Dallas is on primetime too much and more so they are not good enough to deserve the attention. There is no doubt that the team is overexposed which is intentional because of Jerry Jones. The dude may be annoying as hell, but he is brand wizard which I do respect him for. With that said I love seeing Dallas with egg on their face so I take a certain satisfaction in their primetime losses (Ayooo 2019 Bills baby!).This did get me thinking though how has Dallas done comparatively over the last decade and are they really overrated or just ringlessly successful. Welp I spent at least 11 minutes and got the following to discuss:
Over the past decade Dallas has...
-Won four division crowns
-Made the playoffs six of the ten years.
-Three of their playoff losses were in the divisional round including 2016 which Dallas was the 1 seed only to be upset by Rodgers and the Pack last second on a FG
-Overall record of 93-71 good enough for a 56% win rate
-.500 or better in seven of ten seasons
-In 2020 and 2024 Dak was hurt. In 2020 when Dak got hurt for the season their offense was averaging 26.9 ppg, last year Dak never was fully healthy
-They have had star players over that time including Dak, Zeke, Micah Parsons, Cede Lamb, Dez Bryant, Amari Cooper, DeMarcus Lawrence etc..
Of the 32 NFL teams only the following have won more division crowns:
KC, Buffalo, New England, Minnesota, & Houston
And the following teams have won four division crowns:
Baltimore, Green Bay, LA Rams, Philly, & Tampa
The following teams have six or more playoffs appearances:
KC, Buffalo, Baltimore, Green Bay, LA Rams, New England, Pittsburgh, Philly, & Seattle
(Dallas & Seattle are the only two teams of the ten with six playoffs appearances or more to not have made a title game in the last decade.)
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Looking all of this over Dallas has been a top 10 team in the league for the last decade, its the non-surprisingly playoffs where any real success has eluded them. Tampa has a SB and four division crowns, but was not a good franchise until Brady arrived in 2020. By comparison Dallas was a more consistent yearly winner both in record and division crowns. Seattle has been more of a wildcard team in this time as their last division crown was 2020 and before that 2016. Five of the Cowboys playoff losses were one score losses which they had their chances in and for one reason or another couldn't breakthrough. The 49ers have 5 primetime games this year and over the last decade have been a far lessor regular season team with only four playoff appearances in that time. But the 49ers have made two Super Bowls and three NFC title games during that stretch again absolving them of similar criticism. The coverage of the Cowboys given the brand and market certainly can feel overblown and probably is to some extent, but the brass numbers paint a pretty successful franchise that networks can count on for solid games year in year out which is part of why they are included so frequently. Truthfully if you think it is annoying now, had Dallas broken through during this time and made a SB it would probably be even worse (if that is even possible). At the same time Dallas run and inability to breakthrough does beg the question have they wasted a major window and if they fade will the coverage still be the same. Again for you all to decide haha
Dallas had one of the best draft records for about 10 years running.
From 2013 - 2023, of the players they drafted
13 AP seasons
44 Pro Bowl seasons
And they had 2 losing records during that span.
For comparison, the Bills over the same stretch had:
2 AP seasons
19 Pro Bowl seasons
Dallas gets a lot of grief on here because they tend to get exposed in the playoffs and are talked about in media circles like they are in the Super Bowl every year. But they have been an objectively good team for quite a while.
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He won't be there.
Dalvin held out the offseason.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29283874/vikings-rb-dalvin-cook-hold-reasonable-deal-source-says
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1 minute ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:
I would say there's flaws in the argument that they are SO much worse than everyone else - main one being quality of competition.
Do you think the Bills have faced the hardest playoff schedule out of all of those other teams?
If that's the case, why is the offense the second best in offensive improvement in the postseason?
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54 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:
No the value of an All Pro is absolutely position dependent. Centers have help on both sides and often spend the most important downs blocking air.
And physically at least, Tate Ratledge is an upgrade on Ragnow. When you pick an interior offensive lineman in round 2 like that you are thinking he is going to be a stud. It's not like they have Colin Brown taking over at center. Maybe you thought the Eagles would miss Kelce too but they didn't. Jergens was just fine. I know the outside opinion was that losing Mitch Morse last offseason was huge but he was easily upgraded upon.
Yeah Morse was felt to be a loss because McGovern hadn't played C since college. Obviously, he played better than Morse, so it wasn't a big deal.
The Eagles success on tush push would argue they did miss Kelce a bit, despite Jergens being quite good.
Ultimately, I'm not very interested in parsing this further. I'm not arguing the loss of Frank Ragnow is the difference between the Lions winning the Super Bowl and finishing last in the division. They just lost another very good player in an offseason where they've lost a lot of other pieces. Maybe it won't matter and they'll go 20-0.
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5 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:
What did i say that was factually not close? That every defense in the league has better metrics when they play bad teams? Because that was the crux of the argument. The pass rushing example is just a reinforcement stats are padded against lousy competition.
EPA doesn't factor in quality of competition, just whether points were added or lost based off of the performance of the defense - and this reflects that. If the EPA is higher than it should be based on an easier schedule or just generally padding stats against bad teams, the difference between playoff performance and non-playoff performance is greater. If players are injured down the stretch, it would also likely reflect a greater difference between non-playoff and playoff.
What conclusion do you draw from @Mikie2times graph?
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4 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:
Maybe but they have a more favorable schedule this season. It's set up for them to get to the SB in much the same way the Bills schedule is. Their division is tougher but the Lions schedule has the greatest rest advantage in the league. It comes down to whether Campbell got the coordinator hires right and if they can stay healthier. Losing a center is no big deal. Just gotta' find a different body to block air on 3rd and long.
an All-Pro is an All-Pro and his loss will be felt. Especially with skittish Jared coming out to play and how screen/misdirection heavy the Lions offense has historically been.
Now, they may get away from that stuff without Ben Johnson. I don't think losing Ragnow is the same as losing Johnson, but it is more evidence that they are getting eroded piece by piece imo.
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3 minutes ago, Captain Hindsight said:
Last year was their best shot
Nah, with hindsight, it was the chokejob vs the Niners in the NFCCG in 2023. Up 24-7 at half to lose 34-31.
Last year they got riddled by injuries and lost their best defensive player for the season. They got blasted in the divisional round.
Now, everyone is a year older, they lose all of their coordinators, their All-Pro C retires.
Windows close fast in the NFL. Especially when you have a good QB instead of a great one. Look at the Niners, same deal. Talent erosion is impossible to stop over 2-3 seasons.
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Mini-Camp: A James Cook Barometer
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
I don't know. If it was a non-rookie scale contract, I think they could but I think the rookie deals have some kind of language/structure about guarantee%.
I'm also not sure the Bills have the space to add a bunch of meaningful incentives.