Billy Claude

It is Nick Wright following the Skip Bayless model -- not the other way around. At 8M per year, he is not an idiot. He is lacking in any integrity but he knows exactly what he is doing.

It works for him. He reportedly signed a 4 year $32M contract renewal in 2021.

Nice story but not true. Lawrence had an endorsement deal with a crypto app. The signing bonus for the endorsement deal was in crypto. All Lawrence's money from the Jaguars (and probably most of the money from the endorsement) were in USD.

I am surprised about Marino's take on the o-line unless he was comparing it to the start of last season. Ford, Feliciano, Morse, Williams and covid Dawkins is a pretty low bar to clear. If he was comparing it the oline at the end of last year, the only change to the lineup will be Saffold replacing Williams. From what everybody says Saffold should improve the run blocking but not super impressive at pass blocking. He is also 35 years old, and has to take plays off if he gets hit a certain way. As for Quessenberry, I guess he will add flexibility but he will be a improvement as a backup compared to Feliciano? Perhaps Marino is assuming that Spencer Brown and Tommy Doyle making major improvements? Certainly one would expect 2nd year players to get better but it is also risky to assume big jumps. We are also hoping that Bates six games is the real Bates. So I don't see where one can be that confident that the oline will be much better. Perhaps Marino's opinion is based on Kroemer being hired?

When its listed like this, it is really not very much -- especially compared to the effort made to improve the defense. McKenzie, Bates -- I know that they are expected to have a bigger role this season but it is hard to argue you've made your team better by resigning your own guys. Crowder -- a wash or slight improvement over Beasley. OJ Howard -- they say he looks pretty bad right now but hard to not be an improvement on TE2 considering the Bills TE2 situation last year. Safford -- probably a wash compared with Daryl Williams Austin -- 50/50 that he makes the 53. Johnson -- a little extra depth a RB -- most likely will be T.J. Yeldon this year . Shakir -- you are in trouble if you are relying on a 5th rounder to contribute in their rookie year. Cook -- only real improvement that one should have confidence in. Compare this to defense where you signed Von Miller, Settle, Jones, Lawson, Phillips and a first round draft choice it is clear that Beane has been focused on defense this season.

Amazing misuse of statistics to conclude who is "best" at something based on categories with 5 (Davis Mills vs. red-2) and 7 passes (Tua vs. goal-line).

He was definitely pretty bad with the Jets last year. Their OL got a lot better after he got benched after the first Bills' game. Also raised a bit of a stink when he said that Zach Wilson needed to get the ball out quicker. Certainly hope he contributes more than Long, Winters, and Ducasse.

It was not a bad Jets team. The Jets had finished 9-5 in 2008 with Nick Mangini-- exactly the same record as Rex's first year. Mangold was fired because the team went 1-4 over the last five games mainly due to Favre being horrible at the end of the season. They had a great offensive line, Alan Faneca, Nic Mangold Damien Woody and D'Brickshaw Ferguson, Thomas Jones had just finished his 3rd consecutive 1000 yard season and they also had a decent defense in place with Darelle Revis and nose tackle Kris Jenkins. Though certainly Rex got more out of that defense than Mangini did. Rex Ryan got way too much credit for the team Mangini built and for being able to frustrate Belichick for a couple of games.

I would guess that NDAs are pretty common when celebrities celebrities hire people so I really don't think one can make a big deal about it. I don't understand the hotel business though.

I don't think its the people at the bottom who are sleeping in the offices. The Bills have 26 people on their coaching staff this year (21 if you don't coach the strength and conditioning coaches). That's most likely double what it was 30 years ago and I bet the number of head coaches sleeping in the office has changed much.

The number of staff wouldn't make any difference. As long as the head coarch believe spending the extra time (whether a correct assumption or not) will give them an advantage they will do so.

The full PFF article notes that although Allen has one of the lowest check down rates during the last two years (4.6%) -- the rate is twice as high as it was during his first two years (2.3%) when he had lowest check down rate in the league. Their analysis was based on two years of data so Allen's check down rate last year might be higher than 4.6%. So he is adjusting.

The only recent hires I can think of who were never OC or DC are three who just got fired, Joe Judge, David Culley, and Brian Flores. Judge was special teams coordinator for the Pats, Culley was assistant head coach for the Ravens, and Flores called defensive plays for the Pats but never had the DC title. It is more accurate to say there has been a lot of recent hires with very limited OC or DC experience. For example, Zac Taylor was only interim OC for 5 games for the Dolphins before he was hired as head coach for the Bengals although he was OC for a year at the University of Cincinnati. There's a lot of recent hires who only had one year experience as coordinator.

A team golf format (sort of like Ryder cup but with 6 holes instead of 18 and trash talking encouraged) for those who golf and some other sport (cornhole, bowling, Madden, softball?) for those who don't. A few weeks after the Super Bowl -- will definitely get good ratings.

The more optimistic Jets fans are basing their hope on Wilson's against the Bucs and the fact he had no interceptions in his last five games. They disregard the Bills game because all their receivers were injured and the Bills had the number one defense.

Yeah, Joe Douglas appears to be trying to copy the Beane playbook with the big advantage that they didn't need to give up any additional assets to get a QB.

You couldn't design a better way to mess up a player's development than the way the Dolphins have treated Tua. 1. Coming off major injury. 2. New OC every year. 3. You couldn't design a more effective way to kill a young QBs confidence than the way Flores handled Tua his rookie year. 4. A coach that obviously has zero confidence in you. 5. Constant rumors that the team is trying to replace you. I'm not saying he's would have been great with better development but the way Flores treated him certainly didn't help.

His main issues last year were skipping swing passes, holding the ball for too long, and turning 5 yards losses into 15 yard sacks. Not sure how getting more muscular helps those things.

The games are already too long. No need to lengthen them even more.

It is a legitimate question though difficult to demonstrate with a small sample size and based on the pats playoff game, perhaps he figured it out. You should have realized that you will get flamed even if you even hint at an area where Josh Allen is not absolutely the greatest. Luckily, Allen does not feel the same way. Every off season, Allen identifies areas where he can improve and works on it. As an example, most of the people on the board blame the Bills bad yards-after-catch on Daboll's play-calling and receivers not having enough speed or breaking tackles. Allen however, takes some of the blame himself and says ball placement is one of the things he will work on this summer. Allen's ability to be willing to be self-critical in a constructive manner is one of the main things that I find remarkable about him.

So according to Lewan, nobody in the know pays any attention to the the PFF ratings, yet some players are willing to kick in 50K to get higher ratings. Is there a contradiction there?

For some weird reason the screenshot shows the middle of the list, not the top of the list. If you go to the actual tweet you will see that Dallas and New England are 12 and 13th respectively. The highest were Seattle 29,446 and then Denver at 27,398 both of which are going to Europe. In general, all the teams above Dallas are either playing internationally or on the west coast, i.e., LA Chargers.

I would add the Giants also.

I did not notice the 2nd response. As I noted in the previous message, my main issue was with the statement that " I laugh inwardly every time I read a post about how Beane will keep draft picks who shouldn’t be on the team only because he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong." Cody Ford has been given three years. A 5th round draft choice that starts 7 games his rookie year is not a bust. A 2nd round draft choice that starts 7 games his first 3 years is a bust. (I know he has started more than 7 games -- I am just referring to your statement.) You are obsessed with this ego thing. Its Beane's job to get the most value out of all our assets. Whether its using a draft asset to pick a player or trading a player for draft picks or other players. What on earth does that have to do with his ego? I am only referring to ego because of the statement "I laugh inwardly every time I read a post about how Beane will keep draft picks who shouldn’t be on the team only because he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong." Obviously anyone in Beane's position has to have massive egos. Otherwise he would be unable to do his job. Ok, this here is just a narrative you have created, not at all what the coaching staff felt. Teller wasn't better than all 3 of them by the end of the season. You just saying that doesn't make it true. You seem to have this notion that Teller was playing great, but Beane decided to trade him because it boosted his ego to get more than he invested in Teller back in trade. Beane is here to win SB's, not make ego moves. Not a chance he trades Teller if he was playing better than our other guys. Sorry, but his is just a narrative you created to support your opinion, but its completely contradictory to the front offices decisions and opinions. Maybe the coaching staff did not feel that way, however, the Cleveland Browns certainly did -- they gave up more than the Bills used to draft him. Also many people on the board felt that he was doing a very promising job. First off, he volunteered the info, he wasn't grilled on it. He literally owned the mistake (instead of trying to blanket some excuses to make it look like it wasn't really a bad call at the time) and identified the key factor in what he did wrong and how he will correct that moving forward. His number 1 mistake was not giving him enough time, and said he wouldn't make that mistake again. And Cody Ford was not even mentioned. But you look at that logic with Ford, and it makes sense why some fans are still up in arms about Ford and puzzled why he is still here. First off, he wasn't a total bust, there were some times especially early where he looked like he had some promise. He has also struggled a lot too, but he has also switched positions from college to the Pros which a lot of people over look. The only reason I mention Cody Ford was the the aforementioned statement about the inward laughing (at least I believe) was clearly in reference to either Cody Ford or Edmunds. I just don't feel that trading a 5th rounder has anything to do with either case. I am not making a statement Beane is keeping these guys because of ego -- I am just saying that the Teller trade says nothing about this. This over exaggerated response of yours above that I bolded is just silly. Literally no one has even remotely suggested that, nor has anything Beane said or done remotely suggested that. Its just another over the top statement thats unnecessary here. In fact, what I and just about everyone I have seen discuss Ford have said that this is probably his last chance and his most important camp of his career. Its reasonable that they are interested to see if Kromer (widely considered one of the best OL coaches in the game, if not the best) and a different blocking scheme can help Ford get back on track. But make no mistake, his job security is long gone, and he is going to have to earn his roster spot if he wants to stick around. This I agree with. There is no GM in history that is a GM god. No one bats .1000 in the draft of personnel decisions. Widely considered one of the best all time, and often the best GM all time, Bill Walsh traded up to get JJ Stokes in the first and called him the next Jerry Rice. He also said Jim Drunkenmiller had Joe Montana potential. Beane is already considered amongst the league bests right now, and many (myself included) see him as the top GM in the NFL right now. And that will only get more widespread and cemented when we hoist the Lombardi Trophy for the first time. That was my point was that he is not "GM god" but many people on this board seem to behave like he is. After every draft everyone is able to convince themselves that every pick is a good pick. Do I know, of course not. I think Beane is a very good GM. Is he the best? in my opinion, not yet, but that is just my opinion, I certainly hope that he becomes so.

My primary response was to the statement "I laugh inwardly every time I read a post about how Beane will keep draft picks who shouldn’t be on the team only because he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong." I just don't see how trading a 5th round draft pick who was trending upwards has anything to do with Beane possibly being too loyal to his high round draft choices. The only connection between Wyatt Teller and Cody Ford are that they are offensive linemen. On Beane admitting when he makes mistakes; I was probably over-zealous in my comment -- I agree that Beane tends to admit his mistakes more than most GMs will. It is just for the specific case of Wyatt Teller, the mistake is so obvious that admitting it really doesn't amount to mucj. On your last point regarding Beane vs. Polian. I think Beane has done a very good job, the statement that he is the best Bills' GM since Polian was meant to be a compliment, though perhaps now that I think of it, a fairly low bar. Beane might get there eventually but I will have to disagree that his record at the present exceeds that of Bill Polian who is in the Hall of Fame. As for it being a simpler time, I don't see how that is relevant -- Polian had to be better than a vast majority of the other GMs unless you want to make a big deal out it being 31 other GMs now instead of 27 then. I hope that eventually, I can agree with you that Beane is better than Polian, but as of right now, we will just have to disagree.