Billy Claude

True, although the Wentz trade was pretty inexplicable even at the time.

Baker is a better QB than Wentz or Darnold who also were in bad contract situations. The Browns messed up incredibly badly if they end up with a 7th rounder for Mayfield when Wentz and Darnold went for seconds.

I think the Trent Murphy signing must be up there. It was only for about half the guaranteed money but at least you got a useful player with Star while Murphy was injured half the time and pretty much worthless the rest (except for the one playoff grame). I know everyone hates PFF but at the time they rated the Murphy and Star signings as the worse FA signings of that year and they may have been right.

Ok. I checked and there was speculation from the press that the Brown were deciding on Mayfield vs. Allen after they did the last minute shift from Darnold. So it appears I misremembered. ALthough one of the Browns VPs came out after the draft and said he had Allen ranked 5th https://www.bardown.com/browns-executive-explains-what-changed-from-not-being-able-to-change-his-mind-on-darnold-as-pick-1.1072699

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Before the draft it was always all the stories were the Browns were going to pick Darnold with a sudden shift to Mayfield about two weeks before the draft. I don't remember a peep about the Browns thinking about Allen. Theses stories happen with every missed pick - like Flores wanted Herbert or Pegula wanted Mahomes. The only one I believe is that the Cardinals wanted Allen instead of Rosen because those stories came out immediately after the draft.

It seems like everybody defending the move is focusing on the block punt against the Steelers and forgetting how bad Haack was the rest of the time.

Do we not remember the two 20 yard shanks against the Jets? That was the only thing that kept them in the game. His best games were average, his average games were bad.

I don't understand how it is legal for an gambling company to report him to the NFL. I assume if I go to Florida, make a bet on the app and they won't be reported to my employer. Is there something in the CBA that the players have to sign off on?

The important thing for the NFL is not the ratings per se but rather the change in ratings. How much did the ratings increase in Cincinnati vs. in Los Angeles? I assume the ratings in Cincinnati are always high and I wouldn't be surprise if the % increase in LA in Cincinnati. Also, as someone has already pointed out, in raw numbers, a 1% increase in the LA area is worth about the same as a 5% increase in Cincinnati area.

I agreed that this doesn't help Flores' lawsuit but it would certainly hurt Ross and it was definitely a move nobody understood at the time.

In Flores first year he called an all out blitz against the Steelers on a 3rd and 20 at midfield with 20 sec left in the first half. A lot people said that was proof that Flores was tanking. Maybe he got paid for it too.

They definitely could do worse, he has actual head coaching experience, but its not an accident that the Texans last two hires had zero interest from any other team. I don't think they (nor Lovie Smith) expects this to last more than a couple of years.

Caretaker hire set up to fail. He gets a nice bump in pay and and a few guaranteed years on his contract for after he gets fired to pad his retirement. The Texans get the league office off their back about minority hires. Maybe Smith agrees to hire McCown as an assistant coach. A win/win for both sides.

I may be wrong but I believe the quote was by a former player (I am not even sure it was a Bill) about defensive coordinators in general, not Frazier in particular.

Absolutely. I firmly believe they waited until the very last minute to pick up Edmund's and Allen's options in the hopes of trading him or getting his replacement in the draft. They waited on Allen's so it wouldn't be so obvious what they were hoping to do. Give that, Edmund played a lot better this year than in 2020.

At least we won't have to worry about the "NFL is fixing games to get Brady Belichick in the Super Bowl" conspiracy theories anymore.

I do not assume someone is a hater just they say something slightly less than laudatory about the Bills (I like Chris Collinsworth). However, Nick Wright is clearly trying to be Skip Bayless Jr. He is purely an act and deserves zero respect.

I think it was mainly there was too much pushback that they were going to hire someone with no coaching experience given a lot of more qualified minority candidates. Also, they might still have been hoping that they could still get Watson back on board. There was also quite a bit of speculation that they wanted Culley to make McCown the offensive coordinator and then have Culley politely step aside in two years. Obviously, that did not happen -- I don't if that was because the stories simply not true or possibly McCown turned them down.

On the jetsnation board regarding Fitz at the game: That Fitz is a secret member of the Bills mafia explains a lot about that game in 2015.

On the Pats message board that non-call was cited as evidence that the NFL wanted the Bills were going to win the game.

I have nothing against him showing angry runs - that's fun. It's the bit where he pretends he's about to have a heart attack every week that I find extremely cringeworthy and clearly fake.

He needs to get fire his son. Has there ever been a good outcome when a coach put their kid/brother on the staff?

Absolutely agree. Obviously, I am in the minority here, but the Angry Run stuff was good for about half a year but now it's just a schtick an extremely tired schtick at that. Just because he says nice things about the Bills doesn't mean everyone has to think he is entertaining.

These stories were pretty much around during and after the hiring process. At the time, it was believed that they really wanted Josh McCown to be head coach but the bad optics of hiring their buddy with zero coaching experience over more qualified minority candidates was just too much to overcome. After that, there were stories floating they were going to force the new coach to hire McCown as their OC and then have the new coach groom McCown to take over. https://www.si.com/nfl/texans/news/texans-breaking-qb-mccown-released-is-he-houstons-next-coach