Billl

He’s on the last year of his contract. There’s nothing to restructure. They’d have to give him a long term extension in order to free up money in 2024, and it would be massive.

These aren’t three identical products though. A better (but still terrible) analogy in a similar vein would be that you’re choosing from three paintings at an estate sale. They all look equally nice to you, but the best art dealer in the world is offering you $20 to cut in front of you in line because he thinks one of them is a Picasso. Even if you don’t know which one that is, you’re probably better off declining the $20 and hoping to get lucky. You can’t tell them apart, but you can be pretty sure that if there is an actual masterpiece in the bunch, it’s going to be gone after that art dealer makes his selection. And oh by the way, three more guys got to cut in front of you as well. At this point, you’re hoping that you either get lucky and all of the guys who cut the line make bad choices or that you get really lucky and every painting at the sale turns out to be worth millions. It’s just a bad strategy.

There’s no “maybe” about it. It was 100% his thought process. That isn’t the question. The question is whether or not that’s a good strategy, so the debate starts there. Is it smart to move up from the fourth round to the third round at the expense of letting Kansas City, Dallas, Baltimore, and San Francisco jump in front of you in the first round? I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb when I say that those are 4 of the absolute best front offices in terms of identifying talent in the draft. That being the case, it seems foolish to settle for whomever was left after those teams picked especially given the fact that Kansas City clearly had a strong opinion, and you knew they were targeting a WR. Personally, I don’t see the upside (moving from a 4th round pick to a third round pick) as being worth the potential downside of handing the team whose dynasty was built via swapping picks to move ahead of Buffalo in the draft. Part of me wonders if this was a response to how the 2023 draft went down when Buffalo traded up from 27 to 25 and took Kincaid. It almost feels like they looked back at that and came away thinking they’d have been better served standing pat or even trading back slightly and taking LaPorta if Kincaid didn’t make it to them.

You really need to just stop with this nonsense. Your WR1 is the guy that is the most common first option in the passing game. If that is a player who lines up out wide, they’ll typically have the other team’s best CB lined up against him if that CB travels. If he plays in the slot, the opposing team has CBs dedicated to certain sides of the field, plays zone, etc., then you’ll commonly see them help by shading a Safety or LB his way. Don’t believe me? Try googling “what is a WR1 in the NFL” and see how far you have to scroll until you find something that agrees with you. I’d suggest blocking out the rest of your evening first.

If the season goes poorly, don’t you think they’ve earned the right to tear it down and try again?

Favre is the closest comparison IMO for Allen. He’s considered an all time great because he won 3 consecutive MVPs (and only 1 Lombardi, BTW). He was also runner up twice and finished 3rd and 4th (15 years after he won his first MVP). In absolute terms, Josh may be better than Favre, but you 100% have to take the era into consideration. There was a long stretch during which he was unquestionably the best player in the league by a wide margin. That matters in the GOAT discussion.

WR1 is a label, not a position. Larry Fitzgerald was a slot receiver for half of his career after Arians arrived in 2013. John Brown didn’t magically become their WR1 when move was made. It was still Fitz.

Before the draft, I thought the team’s biggest needs were WR and Edge in that order. After the draft, their biggest needs were Edge and WR in that order.

Stefon Diggs dropped a ball, so that means Josh beats no responsibility for throwing a terrible pass that would have been an easy pick 6 had it not been knocked away from Sneed by McDuffie. It also wasn’t Josh’s fault for fumbling on the next play, and of course it wasn’t Josh’s fault that he missed an open receiver in the end zone after failing to step into a wide open pocket because every LT in the league should be expected to stonewall Chris Jones 1 on 1. There is zero chance you grade Mahomes on the same curve.

Hollywood Brown seems like the obvious pick there. I don’t see him setting the world on fire, but I think he can deliver somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 yards and 6 TDs. Worthy should be good for 600 yards and 5 TDs or so which would put him right around what Mecole Hardman produced as a rookie. Watson is what he is, a guy who does the little things well but doesn’t provide much in the way of tangible production. I don’t see that ever changing. Theoretically, Rice’s production on a per game basis should increase by roughly the same amount that Kelce’s tapers off. The rest of the WRs are bums, so anything they produce is just gravy. It’s still not deep, but Brown and Worthy should be serious upgrades over MVS and Richie James.

Didn’t Leonard Floyd have 10.5 last year?

Kansas City gained 65 yards via defensive holding calls in 2023, just ahead of Tennessee and Carolina who were obviously also favored by the officials.

I remember when I told my son about Santa Claus not being real. He was like “I’ve known that for years. I just didn’t tell you that because I had so much fun every winter talking to you about it and pretending it was real.” I imagine it’s how kids in WNY feel about the Bills ever winning a Super Bowl.

Yeah, look at all those calls Kansas City got.

So what would Mahomes have to do in order to surpass Allen in your opinion? Win an MVP (individual regular season award)? He did that in his first year as a starter. Win a Super Bowl (team achievement)? He did that in his second season. Win a Super Bowl MVP (individual award)? He did that in his second season. Win a second MVP? He did that in his fifth season. Win a second Super Bowl? He did that in his fifth season. Win a second Super Bowl MVP? He did that in his fifth season. Win a third Super Bowl? He did that in his sixth season. Win a third Super Bowl MVP? He did that in his sixth season. How many individual accomplishments during the regular season and the post season does he need to add to all of his regular season team accomplishments and postseason team accomplishments in order to equal whatever it is you think Allen has achieved in terms of individual and team success? Seriously, set the bar. Mahomes has 2 regular season MVPs, 3 Super Bowl MVPs, and 3 rings. Josh has 0, 0, and 0. What would Patrick need to do in order to change your mind. It seems to me that the only thing would be to swap the arrowhead on his helmet for a bison.

“Gifted”. Butker missed two kicks in the 0:13 game. It didn’t matter Tyreek dropped a perfect deep pass on the first drive of the game and then Hardman fumbled a punt inside his own 5 yard line in the AFFCG against the Bills. It didn’t matter. Hardman fumbled through the end zone from the 1 yard line in last year’s divisional. It didn’t matter. You’re proving my point that Josh has had just as much luck, good and bad, as Mahomes. Why don’t you mention all of the dropped passes and punts against the Texans in 2019 that led to a 24-0 deficit a week after Josh and the Bills went from leading 16-0 to losing 22-19? Drops happen. Fumbles happen. Missed kicks happen. You’re still allowed to win games even when everything doesn’t go perfectly.

Good post. Not sure I agree that the Dolphins have a best case scenario of 13 wins while the Ravens’ is only 12, but it’s a very fair analysis overall.

Your “evidence” consists of only listing things that Mahomes has going for him and things that Allen has going against him. If Mahomes hadn’t come back in the 0:13 game and driven down the field for a game winning TD in OT, people could talk about how he left the field with the lead and his defense lost the game in spite of his multiple come from behind drives in the 4th quarter. Nobody talks about that because he pulled off the greatest comeback in NFL history. If Mahomes had lost to the Bengals in the 2022 playoffs, people could talk about how he played on one leg and was throwing passes to special teams players because all of his WRs were injured. Nobody talks about that because he still won and went on to win the Super Bowl. If Mahomes had lost to the Bills last year, people could talk about how Hardman fumbled through the end zone in the 4th quarter and cost them the game. It doesn’t matter because the Bills led 24-20 at the end of the 3rd quarter, had 3 possessions in the 4th quarter, and couldn’t score. Andy Reid didn’t make Josh miss that throw to Shakir, the playoff drought didn’t hold the Bills to 10 points against the Bengals, and Kelvin Benjamin had nothing to do with Mahomes scoring 38 points over a 6 possession span in the 2020 AFCCG. When you win, they’re obstacles. When you lose, they’re excuses.

I just watched a different angle of that play, and it didn’t actually go through Sauce’s hands. It was just out of his reach, just an absolute piss rod of a throw. There’s no more than a handful of QBs in the league who can make that throw at all and zero who can make it often enough for it to be considered a route won by the WR. Shakir gets credit for the run afterwards, but he gets about 1% of the credit for the completion. The rest goes to Josh for hitting a throw with a ridiculously high degree of difficulty.

I’m not ignoring anything. Your entire plan is to offer a contract that he’s not going to accept. I mean sure, maybe he’s had so many concussions that he’s brain dead enough to accept a proposal that would get his agent black-balled…I won’t ignore the .000001% chance that he agrees to your deal and you win GMOTY for your ability to swindle your QB into accepting a terrible deal. Your turn. What do you do if, for whatever reason, Tua decides to make a smart financial decision and refuses your offer? You trotting Mike White out there?

It absolutely counts. I credited him for the catch and the RAC. My point is that’s not an example of a WR beating a #1 CB. It was an example of Josh throwing an absolute laser through a keyhole. The same thing happened multiple times in the divisional game. They’re great plays when you only see your team’s highlights. The problem is all the times they wind up on the other team’s highlight reels. Josh is one of a very small number of QBs with the talent to jam that ball in there, but even then it’s a low percentage play. A #1 WR’s job is to make the QB’s life easier by getting open and giving him a reasonable window so that he doesn’t have to make a HOF level throw.

I understand your point. It’s not particularly complex. There is simply zero chance that Tua signs that deal, so what is your plan B? Tua will have a job in 2025 if he sits out in 2024. You (the Dolphins GM) will not. That team is built to win now. They aren’t in a position to reset and try again 4 years from now with a young QB they draft in 2025 or 2026. You’re staring down the barrel of signing Ryan Tannehill or trading a pick to the Chiefs for Carson Wentz and hitching your career to their ability to get you to the playoffs.

Shakir was absolutely blanketed, and the ball went right through Sauce’s hands. Credit to Shakir for catching and housing it, but that’s a pick more often than a completion.

Can you point to any examples of a GM taking this route and winning? This does happen every year, and it “gets worked out” when the GM pays the QB. The closest a GM has ever come to taking your approach and sticking to his guns was Cousins in Washington. How’d that end for Bruce Allen?

So your plan is to be the first GM ever to “win” in a situation like this. That doesn’t sound like much of a plan to me. Last year around this time, people were calling Lamar stupid. Now he’s the reigning MVP with a bank account to match. What Josh and Patrick make doesn’t matter because they aren’t available. Your choice is to pay Tua a market contract or play some scrub and lose your job if the team sucks. Meanwhile, there will be GMs lined up to sign Tua. He’s got all the leverage.