Billl

That’s true, but does it work both ways? I mean it’s just as true to say that Josh should be stronger because he’s bigger. Josh is agile for a guy his size, and Patrick is strong for a guy his size. You can make a case for either of them. The statement made was that Josh is inarguably the better athlete, and I’m saying that you can make a case for either of them. The case for Mahomes is that he’s better at football than Josh and he’s good enough at baseball to have been drafted out of HS. They’re both elite athletes in their own ways.

I was replying to a post that said Allen was inarguably a better athlete than Mahomes. Now you’re saying you don’t care about athleticism that isn’t directly related to football. That’s your right, but it’s sort of a weird take.

I think Mahomes has better acceleration and lateral agility. Allen is maybe stronger, but I’m not sure that’s true. Josh is 12 pounds heavier and 3 inches taller, so he’s not as thick. I’ve seen both drag defenders, though Mahomes definitely picks his spots more carefully than Allen does. If you look at what PM does in the playoffs running the ball, you get a better idea of what he’s capable of when he really needs it. He’s got 4 rushing TDs in 7 games vs Josh’s 1 in 4 games. The run against the Titans in last year’s AFCCG was an all time great QB run. Josh is much more of a freight train once he gets going. He’s also a tremendous athlete. I just don’t know how you can say that he’s inarguably a better athlete than Patrick is when PM was good enough to play professional baseball as well as football. They’re just very different types of players. It’s going to be fun watching them but heads over the next decade plus. I’d much rather argue about Mahomes vs Allen than whether my team should trade picks for a guy like Wentz or Darnold.

Josh is inarguably more athletic than the guy who’s been drafted in both the MLB and NFL drafts? Mahomes played shortstop and pitcher with a 95 MPH fastball in HS. Did I miss Allen getting drafted by the NBA or something? Josh is a hell of an athlete, but so is Patrick.

That would be a terrible pick. (Because I want him in Kansas City.)

Forgot about that. Either way, the stopwatch is going to have a big impact on Harris’s draft stock, IMO.

He may have more to lose/gain at the combine than anyone. If he can run a 4.45, he’s going mid to late first round. If he’s 4.55, he could fall. The Bills need speed on both sides of the ball, but particularly on offense. The AFCCG highlighted that. For all the complaining about coaching and play calling, the difference in the game is that one team had burners and the other didn’t. Kelce was killing Edmunds and even White all day over the middle, but Frazier couldn’t do much to help because Hill and Hardman (even without Watkins) were hitting them for massive plays when they got loose. If you watch the “behind the game” videos, the Bills players weren’t talking about Kelce killing them. They were marveling at how damned fast Hill is. You can’t teach speed, and the only way to counter it is to ‘cheat’ by trying to anticipate routes, shading one direction, etc. When that fails, you wind up over pursuing, and it’s off to the races. Buffalo has nobody like that on offense, particularly when Brown is out. McKenzie is fast, but he’s more of a gadget guy. If I’m Beane, I’m drafting speed. Outside of Diggs, he’s brought in a lot of slow players. Beasley, Moss, Singletary, Davis are all slow. Go get some dudes who can make teams pay for mistakes with 6 points instead of 15 yards.

Harris is a better prospect than either of those guys.

I was a heavy bettor on the Bills last year. Now I want them to win as many games as possible as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of the Chiefs. I like the team, and you fans deserve a title.

Mahomes, Jones, and Kelce are all locked up long term. Hill has 2 more seasons on his deal, but he’s not going anywhere. Who’s leaving?

For those saying he should have been more aggressive in the championship round, what are some examples of when he should have pressed it? The FG at the end of the first half seems to be the obvious opportunity. What else should he have done?

That’d be a hell of a secondary. Still think Wallace would be worth retaining even if Beane added Rhodes if you can get him for $3mm AAV or so.

I find it interesting that you could watch Kelce catch 13 passes on 15 targets for 118 yards and 2 TDs and come away thinking that Dawson Knox, a guy who had 24 catches on 44 targets for 288 yards an 3 TDs on the SEASON (not to mention 2 lost fumbles and a dropped pass that caused an INT) is an adequate weapon for Allen. I find it interesting that you watched the fastest player in the league catch 9 passes on 11 targets for 172 yards in that same game and came away thinking that Gabe Davis, a possession receiver who ran a 4.54 and had 0 catches on 3 targets is a viable weapon as a Z receiver. I find it interesting that you watched another track star in Mecole Hardman break off a 50 yard run and catch a TD from the slot in that same game and came away thinking that Cole Beasley, a 32 year old possession receiver coming off a broken leg is a viable weapon in the slot. It’s not that I think all these guys suck, but none of them are viable second options, especially for a team that relies so heavily on the passing attack. You’ve got Diggs who is awesome and then a bunch of slow footed guys in Singletary, Moss, Knox, Beasley, and Davis. I think a pass catcher with speed is the biggest off-season need. If Josh is the franchise, how are you going to run him out there with one great skill player and nothing else?

I see Pittsburgh, Green Bay, and Kansas City (in that order) as the most likely candidates. I would put Tampa and Buffalo in the next grouping with maybe a few other teams like Miami and Los Angeles.

Beane needs to draft and/or sign 2 WRs or a pass catching TE. Hard to count on a 32 year old Beasley coming back from a broken leg, and Brown seems unlikely to be retained. Diggs is great, but he can’t be the only playmaker on offense, especially with a mediocre at best running game. I expect Buffalo to be a contender next year, but there’s going to be significant roster turnover needed.

I just rewatched the game, and Mahomes keyed on Edmunds the entire game. If his first movement was to drop back into coverage, Mahomes threw underneath him. If he stepped up, Mahomes threw behind him. When he was in the right spot, Mahomes moved him to the wrong spot with his eyes or a subtle pump fake. It’s pretty clear that Kansas City saw on film that Edmunds could be manipulated and exploited that advantage all day long. Frazier tried mixing it up a few times, but that only made things worse. They called a blitz on the first play if the second half, and Hill broke off a long catch and run. They tried pressing Hill with Johnson and helping Edmunds, and Kelce ran a clear out that Hill exploited and took for a 71 yard catch and run. They manned White on him, and it looked like my 8 year old trying to guard my 14 year old. Buffalo couldn’t get any pressure with their front 4, and there’s no workable game plan for slowing down Kansas City that doesn’t involve whipping them up front.

In the 3 years with Nagy, the Bears are 28-24 with a +122 point differential. In Fox’s 3 seasons, they were 14-34 with a -238 differential. I don’t know that Nagy is great, but it’s hard for me to understand how a pathetic coach was handed a team that had just bungled a draft and made them respectable. Put Watson or Mahomes on that team instead of Trubisky, and things look very different.

I’ll admit, I had no idea where you were going with the Antiques Roadshow thing, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t turn into a solid analogy. Also well said.

Edmunds made a great play in the second (I think) quarter blowing up a WR screen to Hardman. It was a second and 1 play, and it was set up so well that I thought it might be a house call, but Edmunds dodged the block and stopped the play for a 2 yard gain. It reminded me of the sweep Allen ran against the Texans last season.

Nobody’s giving up one first rounder for Carr let alone two. The guy is just good enough to not get a top draft pick but not good enough to make the playoffs.

Nobody here seemed to think Andy Reid won that trade. Quite the opposite, in fact.

How is it not sustainable? Yeah, there are a bunch of stars earning big contracts, but there are also a lot of key contributors making next to nothing. Chris Jones is an elite DE/DT making $21mm a year. L’Jarius Sneed is an elite CB making $1mm a year. Combined, that’s what two JAGs would make. Mathieu makes big money at Safety, but Thornhill, Breeland, and Ward make $7mm combined. Clark and Hitchens make $30mm between them, but the rest of the front 7 excluding Clark are on rookie deals. Mahomes, Kelce, and Hill have big contracts, but all are them are underpaid relative to their market value. The rest of the players on offense make relatively modest salaries. When 6 rookies either start or are heavy rotational players, it’s easy to pay star players. Tell the Matt Milanos of the world to be sure to write when they get to their new town. There’s no need to sharpen your pencil for players that don’t move the betting lines.

He’s not Kelce nor Hill, but he had more receiving yards in the postseason than anyone else. He had 14 receptions on 18 targets for an average of 16 yards every time they threw him the ball. At that pace, he’d have had 1,536 yards over a full season. That’s exactly 1 more than Diggs had this year. Hardly “WR2 stats”.

I figure starting players average around $8,000,000 per season. Obviously some are going to take up more than that, so you’ve got to offset that somewhere. The two main ways to do so are to draft players who can start while on their rookie contracts and by identifying less important positions that can be filled with a revolving door of cheap JAGs. Milano filled the role of starting OLB on a cheap rookie contract. Now that his contract is up, he no longer fills that need. IMO, 4-3 OLBs are about as unimportant a position as you’re going to find, so you may as well use it to offset a bigger contract elsewhere unless you have a true game wrecker. MM is a quality player, but I don’t think anyone sees him as a game wrecker. Let him go and find someone cheap to replace him then use that money to lock up your stars. If you don’t have enough stars to spend all that money on then go find some because that’s an issue that isn’t going to be solved by Matt Milano. Now is when Beane needs to earn his money. It’s great that he was able to find his QB when he had a ton of high picks to burn. It’s great that he found his WR when he had multiple high picks and salary cap space to spend. A competent GM should be able to get good players when they’ve got tremendous resources, but those days are over. It’s time to find a superstar late in the first round and another one on day 3. Find a couple more guys who can start in year one and a couple more who can compete to start in year two. Those guys are out there every year. You just need a GM who can find them and coaches who can coach around soft spots. If your scheme doesn’t work unless you’ve got a high dollar 4-3 OLB, then you need a new coach/coordinator.

Wow. Would have thought that the fact you got caught using a game where KC rested its starters would’ve humbled you a touch, but you decided to double down instead. I literally referenced having both starting WRs and the LT out like they did in the Colts game. Did that stop you? Nope. You went on some childish rant about how I didn’t read nor address your points. (Spoiler alert...I did). You continue to reference games where major pieces of the team were out with injuries as blueprints to follow as if opposing coaches can somehow devise a strategy around praying for injuries. The 4 games you referenced: Colts: Both starting WRs and LT were out. 13 points Texans: One starting WR and LT were out. Still scored 24 Packers: Starting LT and STARTING QB were out. Still scored 24 Chargers: Literally played backups the entire game. Still scored 21 So you’re basically talking about 2 games in the past 3 seasons that Mahomes played and Kansas City still scored 24 points in one of them without their LT and both starting WRs. Fabulous insight, thanks.