Beck Water

That isn't quite true. UDFA have a minimum salary of $750,000 if they stay on the roster They can be paid a variable bonus, but each team has a total pool from which they can pay bonuses. So while they can use that entire pool on one player if they choose, the entire amount is rather small "Franchises only have a certain total amount of money that they can pull from to use for signing bonuses for UDFAs. The number is determined based on the team’s total budgeted allotment for rookies, and last year ranged between $160,000 and $200,000, depending on the team. Teams can give as much or as little of their pool to a single player, but they only have the budgeted allotment." https://dknetwork.draftkings.com/2023/4/29/23703444/udfa-salaries-how-much-money-do-undrafted-free-agents-make-nfl-salaries-2023-draft The last player drafted in the 7th round will get a signing bonus of $93k. While in theory, teams could sign an UDFA and give him more signing bonus, in practice, that usually doesn't happen.

Wellllllll.....a couple of things One is, as the author points out, the people who have cred on the line in a good draft (those inside NFL buildings) evaluate talent differently than the media pundits. So that's not to say that teams agree with him there are only 150 draftable guys ( that's typically about halfway through the 5th round - the Bills drafted Shorter with pick 150 last season. Some may think 125, some may think 250. Two is, for different teams, they aren't going to be the same 150 guys. So chances are good at pick 160 and 163, there are still going to be guys the Bills are interested in drafting. The overwhelming reason I roll my eyes is that last season, 485 undrafted players made NFL rosters. That's an average of 15 players per team. Some of these players, of course, are veterans who may have kicked around the league on practice squads before making a roster. But the Bills signed 7 just last season. Two of them are still around on the Practice Squad, while our 2 7th round picks were cut and are gone.

You know that would be a drop-off of 5-10 TD, about 800 yds and 100 receptions for Josh Allen and the Bills, right?

If it's desired to merge this into page 170 of the Diggs traded for picks thread, feel free I just thought this was interesting. I won't give my spin on it. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/dion-dawkins-admits-bills-trading-stefon-diggs-was-a-blind-haymaker-but-ot-backs-buffalos-decision/

Hold up here. The "problem" story line has been around for more than a year. It started at the end of 2022 when Diggs was observed / heard saying stuff on the sideline, culminating in the Bills playoff loss to Cincy where Diggs (who was 4 of 10 for 35 yds in that game) was observed gesturing and yelling at Josh. Then there's the storming out of the locker room. Then there's the mandatory minicamp drama after being a no-show at voluntary OTAs. Then storming out again after this year's loss. There have been stories of stuff Diggs pulled off the field drifting around here and there. This isn't new. This didn't all emerge post-trade. I'm not telling you what to think - you can call those narratives "embarrassing" if you like. I'm just telling you more than one thing can be true. It can be true that Diggs is one of the hardest workers on the team and goes hard every snap of every game (or at least, every snap that involves him potentially getting the ball and when he doesn't take himself out). It can also be true that behind the scenes, in the locker room, he was a 'problem' for the team at times. It can also be true that in terms of objective metrics the Bills collect (GPS data etc) Diggs was falling off a bit - not getting open as much, not showing as much burst or speed.

Fair enough, I'm not methodical and assiduous in following all players social media. What else?

I think it's a LAMP-y way of saying "Hey! My Wife is 4 years NED from cancer today, YIPPEE-KAI-YEA!" Congrats on the divorce AND on the 5 years!

Oh, now THAT'S serious. Throw your pregnant girlfriend around 'like a ragdoll', punch her in the face, repeatedly punch her in the stomach, and choke her? "Tyreek Hill, you're going to be a Kansas City Chief!" Allegedly break your son's arm? "This is our year, just catch the ball and run fast, fella." Leave a bar, get in your car, drive 50 miles over the speed limit, cause a multi-vehicle pile-up and injuries, leave the scene, and get charged with 8 felonies - No Big Deal. Leave your Chiefs team playbook in the wrecked car? CUT THE BASTARD!

Oh, I don't know, do you think, as @NoHuddleKelly12 said elsewhere, "the Order of Little Sisters of the Poor showed up to start at Linebacker for the Bills against KC in the playoffs" might have some impact on the results? I don't think AJ Klein, Tyrel Dodson (with one wing), and Dane Jackson, not to mention injured Rasul Douglas, exactly scared KC's offense. We'll never quite be able to do the experiment, but it's a fact that KC had the #6 offense in the league on points, #5 on yards, Tyreek Hill (1083 yds), Travis Kelce (1038 yds), and Kareem Hunt (1327 rush yards) in 2017 while Pat Mahomes was sitting on the bench to "watch and learn" how Alex Smith prepared and played each week. And the same supporting cast was there for his rookie year.

There are a lot of reasons why an athlete would delete their social media or limit it or unfollow this or that. It's an inference that the message is "publicly show displeasure for their team" Diggs did more than 'unfollow'.

That's to my mind the biggest issue with the media and social media these days. It's really become an exemplar of the Lao Tzu dictum "He who knows, does not speak, and he who speaks does not know." You would think that the hamster wheel would turn and the cluebird would drop a clue on Florio "here I am, a former Brown shoes Lawyer who talks for a living, telling an actual former NFL QB who started games and ran a huddle gave press conferences and sat on the sideline and lived in the locker room with teammates, AND who is the son of a successful NFL QB who won 2 Superbowls, how and when a current NFL QB ought to handle himself with a troublesome WR - WAIT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?" Florio doubles down on Josh Allen the next day with Myles Simmons when Simms wasn't around

I actually did the math, and Chris Simms would have been born just before his Dad Phil Simms 2nd year with the Giants. So he would have been in his peak formative years, between 5 yrs and 13 yrs, when his Dad was QB'ing the Giants to winning seasons, playoffs, 2 Superbowls and then surely the focus of his Dad's attention when he was a young QB in HS and college. So it's not just that Chris Simms has his own minor career in the NFL, he was around a winning lockerroom and two Superbowl teams. He knows what it takes, and what the QB can or shouldn't do on the sidelines, in the press conference, and in the locker room.

Simms was really riled up. You can watch his facial expression when Florio shuts him up and talks over him to blather on about how Josh never called Diggs on anything (Simms, who has been in the Bills locker room as a journalist and knows a lot of guys, admits he does not know; Florio "infers"). You could just tell Simms was piping-hot angry and trying to figure out how he could express himself in "airable" terms.

He's not "pulling a Diggs".

The difference is, Rapp played hard (maybe too hard) for the Bills last season - he filled a role they have every reason to think he can fill this season. And of course, his guaranteed money is spread across the 3 seasons he's signed for, so if the Bills decide they want to keep him he's "locked in" at a very reasonable rate. La'el Collins on the other hand started last season on PUP and spent the rest on a practice squad; he hasn't played a snap since he tore his ACL and MCL at the end of 2022. He needs to prove he can suit up and play. It's not that Beane doesn't make mistakes - he does - and one can question whether McDermott and Beane's overall team building philosophy is correct. But contrary to what some here believe, they didn't build a team that has gone to the playoffs the last 5 years and the AFC Championship once, by being totally foolish.

Yes. Yes, he does. He really thinks that. Tim Graham recently said that he asked Gabe Davis whether they worked out with Josh last off-season and Gabe Davis said "yes, the cameras just aren't there any more". *rummage* *rummage* here: There's also the stuff on The Quarterback Room podcast with Kyle Allen and Jordan Palmer where they were talking about being impressed with Shakir last off season; they also said Kincaid "is out here now" Kincaid said something during last season about throwing with Josh in the off-season. So yeah, there's hints and pieces that they're working together off-season, at least some of them (Graham said in another tweet "I didn't take attendance") In the end people are gonna believe what they want to believe. Now, what Mahomes does is different: Whereas the Bills are going to have all the players show up in Orchard Park on Monday for Phase I OTAs, the KC Chiefs will have a "virtual Phase I OTA". During that virtual phase I OTA, the receivers will be in Texas with Mahomes, staying in various hotels, throwing and catching on different fields (grass, turf etc). This is during a phase of OTAs where teams who have in-person OTA are limited to workouts and can't throw and catch for 2 weeks. I think it's a way of circumventing the NFLPA's rules for permitted team activities during different phases of OTA, but the NFL hasn't said anything so apparently it flies.

Meh, Off Season social media drama. Wake me up when something significant happens, like someone tweets that he's not critical to Brock Purdy and Aiyuk tweets back "You Sure?"

No. He'll be given a chance to compete, but he would have to wow everyone or (avert) there would have to be an injury. He's not just a "camp body" as some suggested, though, because they did fully guarantee $1.5M salary + signing bonus - suggesting they are considering him as a backup they would want to keep.

Greg Tompsett should 100% know better than this. Always wait for the numbers, and now they're here https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/lael-collins-17403/ $1.75M, of which $1.5M ($1.21M salary plus $290k signing bonus) is fully guaranteed. He has per-game roster bonuses and workout bonuses, but that "up to" must be plenty of incentives. No, he's not the new starting LG or new starting anything. And now we know.

Thank you very much, this is exactly the high-level summary I was looking for.

OK, now if you want to find criticism of Josh Allen, Florio of PFT just rips his leadership to shreds. This seems like as good a place as any to put this. My jaw dropped. Wait, wait, hear me out here. Prior context, About 9:30 in: Simms: "Everything I know from some people in the league there ....this was a mutual parting of ways. That much I do kinda know. Both sides were done with each other. Now, to your point......Buffalo is obviously so annoyed and couldn't deal with it any more, that they were willing to give away a #1 receiver for next year's 2025 2nd round pick and take a $31M cap charge? That needs to be in blinking lights. That tells you how sick they were of Stefon Diggs. [Simms goes on about this for a while. Note that Joe Buscaglia, who is very in to cold hard facts of cap and trade value, thinks the Bills got a fair or even a good deal for an almost-31 yr old WR] Florio: "Well, it's their (the Bills) own fault, it's their own fault. They knew what they were getting. They knew they were getting a guy, who if you don't handle him a certain way he's not going to be happy. And he has a way of pressing YOUR buttons, until you get to a point of 'FINE, let's move ON! And at the end of the day, he got what he wanted." Simms: "I don't know how you can say it's their fault though. I don't know how you can say that." Florio: "Because they knew what they were getting, they knew that they were getting a guy who potentially was going to Wear Them Out." Simms: "I don't know how you can say that. By all due accounts, the Bills did everything they could, Josh Allen, the team itself, to make it work for Stefon Diggs. Nobody has had the ball thrown to them more in the last 4 seasons, than Stefon Diggs. I mean, they made him the guy, just feed him everything, all the time. Yeah, you know what you're getting into there, and hopefully Houston lucks out and gets a different Stefon Diggs who realizes 'wait, I'm not a top-5 or top 10 talent any more, I am getting up there in age a little bit, and if I keep having these antics, nobody's gonna want me any more. I would hope that helps him and his approach to things." [Yes and no, Simms. Stefon Diggs is in no way not acknowledging he's not a top-5 or 10 talent any more. And he was a great teammate his first 2 years in Buffalo, so sure, he'll be good in Houston for a single year. Count on it.] Florio at 12:30 in: "Antics is the key word. You're acknowledging there are things about Stefon Diggs that need to change. So, what a team can do is either come up with a plan for changing him and implement it effectively, or get to a point where they say 'we can't take him any more'. So the Bills, knowing or should have known, they're getting a guy you have to tread a little lightly with, and it's going to get difficult. What is our plan for when it gets difficult? What is our plan to coax him to mature into something else than what he's been? Where he WILL rush out of the locker room without talking to reporters? Where he WILL gesture in the face of Josh Allen on the sideline during a 27-10 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals" Simms: "Those are the things where I'm gonna blame Stefon Diggs a little bit there. I mean, just looking at it from outside, the year was great, all of a sudden he's mad in a playoff game because he didn't get the ball enough [Fact: 4 receptions on 10 targets, led the Bills in targets by a lot] and then the offseason became a disaster...I don't know the details or the fighting or the conversations that went on there and I'm not trying to act like I do" Florio: "Hang on. We've talked about this before. You know what Josh Allen needs to do in that moment [when Diggs is yelling at him on the sideline]? He needs to throw off his vest, he needs to stand up, he needs to grab Stefon Diggs, and they need to go have a conversation, and he needs to tell Stefon Diggs what's what. [yells over Simms, tells anecdote about Warren Moon going to Cris Carter, "you pull that ***** again and I'm never going to throw you the ball again as long as I'm the quarterback of this team, do you got it?"] I love Josh Allen, you love Josh Allen, you call him 'Boy Blue'. Sometimes I think he goes through life as an overgrown boy and doesn't really embrace what it means to be the Quarterback of the Team and I think that's what a lot of this is, Chris; I think this is Josh Allen being positioned, as he enters the back half of his prime, he's still in his prime, I think this is the Bills recognizing they have to put guys around Josh Allen that he's COMFORTABLE leading. Because I think he's a big part of this. And maybe nobody could properly get through to Stefon Diggs. But I think that relationship was too much of Diggs doing whatever he wanted, saying whatever he wanted, and Josh Allen never calling him on it. Not knowing how to do it. Not wanting to do it. 'Cuz it's awkward. A lot of people don't like confrontation. Simms: "No, and this is a guy that likes it [I think he means, Diggs likes confrontation] and if he [Allen] did that on the sideline, he [Diggs] would blow it up and make it worse and it would be a bigger spectacle. And I think Josh Allen is smart enough to say 'you know what, if I go do what Mike Florio says right now, everyone's going to go crazy on this subject, and people are going to be saying Josh Allen can't handle his team and all that, Josh Allen is losing his cool at the end of a playoff game, hey, you can't lead your team. That's just TALK, MIke, that's not really the reality of that way." Florio: "Chris, Chris, Chris. You can get him in the locker room and do it there" Simms: " You don't know that he hasn't. You don't know that" Florio: "I guarantee you he hasn't. I guarantee you. I guarantee you that never happened." Simms: "Come On, Mike" (disgusted) Florio: "We've never seen any hint. We've never seen Josh Allen talk about it. Josh Allen always has his back. There's never been a hint of any effort, or any frustration, or any attempt by Josh Allen to take over that relationship. That relationship was dominated by Stefon Diggs. As long as Diggs got what he wanted eveyrthing was fine, and Josh Allen never pushed back against that disrespect that we've seen from time to time" Simms: "You're ...you're" Florio: "I'm making inferences based upon what we've seen" Simms: "I know, and I'm just telling you, nobody ought to call out a player at a post game press conference" (said while Florio is talking over him and won't let him get a word in edgewise) If he did that, you'd say he's a Bad Leader. You're putting him in a no-win situation. Who comes into a press conference and says that stuff?" Florio: "Aaron Rodgers says it." Simms: "When? As a team thing? He never calls someone out..he says cryptically coded stuff. That's not a cool way to do it either, and YOU AGREE WITH THAT. And that's why he's out of Green Bay, 'cuz everybody was sick of it. Stop. Stop!" Florio: "Ok, you talk. I won't talk until the break. You take it over." Simms: "Be a baby" Florio: "I'm not being a baby" Simms: "You are being a ***** baby" Florio: "Let me talk" Simms: "You talked a LOT. Get out of here. Shut up, ya baby." Florio: "OK. See, this is what Josh Allen should do. (Laughs) I feel like, at the heart of this, there was a failure to manage Stefon Diggs." Simms: "Sure." Florio: "Whether it was Josh Allen not managing it the way Tom Brady would have, the way Peyton Manning would have..." Simms: "Tom Brady couldn't handle Antonio Brown...couldn't handle it" Florio: "Well...well...he wasn't there long enough Simms: "WHAT? They were living together! They were living together! I mean, *****, Holy Crap! It's just not always fixable with these guys." So if y'all want an example of the craziness of Media Criticism, There You Go. Here we have Mike Florio, who has never been in an NFL locker room as a player, led an NFL huddle, or appeared in a post-game press conference - I don't even think he spends much time interacting with players or visiting locker rooms as a member of the press - criticizing Josh Allen for being an 'overgrown boy who doesn't really embrace what it means to be the Quarterback of his team' (essentially, for not leading), for not calling Diggs out in front of the public on the sideline, for not calling him out in a press conference, for not privately in the locker room reining him in. And we have Chris Simms, who started 16 games for 2 different teams, played for 3 teams, and has actually done all of those things as well as been a coaching assistant on a 4th team, who has to basically talk over Florio because Florio won't let him get a word in edgewise to point out that the things Florio suggests would have major pitfalls and that Florio really doesn't know what Josh has or hasn't done behind closed doors. My jaw dropped and I'm shaking my head at how BLATANTLY SILLY this was. Yeah, Simms wasn't a great QB, but he understands actual locker room and player to player dynamics, he's been there. He understands the unwritten rules about what QB can or can't do. It was nuts.

I thought there were 8 felony charges?

I don't know that KC will dump him. Why would they dump him? Rice will be sued by the drivers that were injured in the crash no matter what. A civil lawsuit has a lower standard of proof 'more likely than not', and they have all kinds of evidence.

To this point - Rice's season graphs out as the inverse of Diggs. First 8 games, he averaged 45 YPG which would project to 722 yds over 16 games. Second 8 games, he averaged 72 YPG which would project to 1154 YPG. That would slot him in as #14 for receiving yards, right behind....Stefon Diggs Playoffs the argument gets a bit more tenuous. First game, 8 of 12 for 130 yds, and a TD, great game. Second game, 4 of 4 for 47 yds, almost 12 Y/R, solid. AFCCG and Superbowl, bunch of short catches so yea! he caught everything but he also fumbled twice, and it was luck those weren't recovered by the opponent. I think the whole season counts, but it's fact that Rice was trending up as the season went on, and looks promising to become a #1 WR for KC - if his legal troubles don't derail him.

I don't know what to tell you. Golf is his hobby and he's a talented amateur. He agreed to do a round near his home with a YouTuber, that means he agreed to be videod, because that's a YouTuber's "Jam". Football is his profession. Bills Mafia would be all over any workout videos with a microscope and a nit picker - "I didn't see Curtis Samuel, was he there? Josh missed on that out route, he needs to get back in the lab. How could Shakir drop that?" Bills Mafia would be scrutinizing the background to learn where they are to show up and watch. If it's just them lifting, then it would be comments on what he's lifting or how his body looks. Being filmed at your hobby and being filmed at your profession, different. No shambles.