Beck Water

Beane does seem overenthralled by smurfs who can be neutralized with physical corner play in the big games where the refs allow holding.

So who that is still available in FA do you want at WR and on OL? I was intrigued by Parris Campbell, but I see the Giants just signed him, damn their eyes (I think we're putting our faith in the Pocket Rocket, Harty, anyway)

If we trade Oliver, we need to sign 2 3TDT. He's our only starting-caliber 3TDT under contract currently, Jordan Phillips being a FA with a battered wing.

6'2" 253 Hasn't he scarcely played though?

It might be worth pointing out that "Stallion" Ike Boettger was playing ahead of Bates before he got injured.

I don't think this is worth a thread, but Great story. I'm glad to know this guy is still in the league getting paid - on a team with a good DL too.

Keenum signed with the Texans for 2 years, $6.25M, $4M guaranteed. Cap hit this season $2.8M. Unclear if we offered him that, and he preferred to go south. Brissett signed with the Commanders for 1 year, $8M. Too rich for a backup QB with the Bills current cap situation. I was kinda thinking he might be an elephant

see above, reportedly in B'lo hammering it out

Sure, but Lavonte re-upped with the Bucs

Fundamentally, I'll put it up front - I don't disagree. I thought so last season, and so far this season I still think so. It does have to be said that the Bills OL is probably better than what KC went into the 2020 Superbowl with and what the Bengals had in 2021. And, the Bills thought they did an OL reboot in 2019 after they sucked big gobs in 2018. The problem is that their efforts/expenditures haven't borne the desired results. Cody Ford in the 2nd to play RT - Bzzzzt. Signed Quinton Spain in 2019 - played LG well enough that they gave him a good contract, and he turned into a mouthy turnstile in 2020. Moved Cody Ford to G and signed Daryl Williams to play RT in 2020, Williams looked good so they gave him a good contract and he showed up in 2021 sufficiently "lost in space" that they moved him to G and threw 3rd round pick Spencer Brown into the fire where he promptly injured his back, requiring off season surgery. So it's not so much that they haven't tried to make investments, both in draft picks (2019 2nd and 2021 3rd) and in FA signed (Morse, Williams) but that they haven't gotten enough ROI. Overall though, the bottom line is that they aren't doing enough. Also, I haven't sat down and done the grind of draft pick values and FA signing values, but my impression is that the OL is still the "red headed stepchild" relative to the DL and defense. It seems as though on DL, when they haven't gotten the desired ROI, they simply throw more resources at it.

When you're Right, You're Right. when you got two guys like ScottLaw and yours truly agreeing with ya, You're Right.

I think there might be two issues here that you're mixing? Beasley was the master of diagnosing zone coverage and choosing a short to intermediate option route that would dissect it. Josh would throw to where he expected Beasley to be based on his own diagnosis, and trust him to be there and catch it (or at least prevent a pick). It's very clear that Josh did not trust McKenzie in the same way, and Shakir - ah nope. So those plays fell out of the Bills playbook. Josh has always (including with Beasley here) had issues taking the checkdown. These are paradoxically some of the throws that are hardest for him to make, so he tends to make a throw the receiver can't catch in stride but must go down or jump for, limiting YAC. But he also seems to hate like hell to make a quick decision to take a checkdown when he might be able to scramble around and find some chunk plays downfield. As a result, there are plays where an open checkdown receiver is all alone and getting no attention whatsoever from the D - but by the time Josh decides nothing else is doing, the vultures have closed, also limiting YAC.

Is this a known and legit practice? If it sounds unusual - it wouldn't surprise me if the NFL office sends it back to them and says "you can't do that"

Roster bonus is usually a big piece of the terms, since it's guaranteed and since the team can divide it up rather than taking it on the cap. I guess it could still fall through, then, if the terms are really that much in flux.

Interesting. But the Buffalo Bills announced the re-signing as "agree to terms with Pro Bowl safety Jordan Poyer on two-year deal". The Bills are typically close-mouthed about announcing a deal until it's pretty well nailed down. What does "agree to terms" mean if the numbers are still being worked out?

This makes zero sense. If the guy is upset with the HC, they need to "work it out as men", as the popular NFL player saying goes. And whether or not Waller was upset with the coach, he married a woman who is playing for a Las Vegas sports team, you'd think he'd want to stay there. But that was a horrible deal from the Raiders perspective. If it was made because Waller got mad at McDaniel and he retaliated, all the worse.

Well, now, that's different. We can all see from her social media feeds what her opinions are, and since she chooses to make them public, it's fair game for people to agree with them, or to describe them as you do above, or to disagree with them. But it's standard procedure around the world to attack the sexual morality of a woman or her body parts instead of her expressed views For example It's quite routinely done as a way of ridiculing and diminishing the woman, or intimidating her. I know little about Bush, other than that she's married to Poyer, she's a mother, she started a natural skin care company and she's visited sick kids in hospitals. So I have no idea what her other talents and actions are, when she's not on social media. I defer to your superior personal knowledge of her. Again, I defer to your superior knowledge of what Bush contributes to the world when she's not posting butt pics, and opinions you find stupid. But the point - which does apply to your mother, sisters, and daughters whether you like it or not - is that I'm sure you wouldn't like it if someone was smearing them as immoral and repeatedly unfaithful, especially if used as a tactic against views they might express that someone dislikes. And that's quite common. I'm outta here now.

Non sequitor. Yes, you're correct, Rachel can dish it out but cannot take it (on social media) but what has that to do with the topic at hand.

Well, they lost out on Tik-Tok Boy, they have to sign someone.

Scientific knowledge is as scientific knowledge does. There are plenty of people who have scientific degrees who choose to work outside the field of science. There are also plenty of people who work in science and engineering fields who, unfortunately, aren't very good scientists. "Familiar" doesn't mean "Utilizing correctly" I've read the publicly available link at their site. Know what it lacks? Information about the details of the actual grading rubric being utilized that would enable an independent, reasonably competent practitioner to reproduce the grades, much less the empirical-sounding "adjustment made to the “raw” grades to adjust for what the player is “expected” to earn given his situation on the field". That's the part that's critical if you want to claim something is "absolutely scientifically valid". You have to be willing to open the books and let someone look under the hood and Just look at the little graphic you put in. "Awful throw that should be intercepted" "Eli Manning's Incredible Game Winning Throw". It reeks of subjectivity. It totally lacks any objective criteria for distinguishing between the two that someone could utilize to reproduce the grade, much less any objective criteria for assessing whether the grade is accurately predictive of player contribution. That doesn't mean PFF grades aren't useful - obviously tons of fans who are in to fantasy football or podcasts etc find them meaningful and pay for them. But useful or not isn't what we're discussing here. We're discussing your claim that PFF's grades are "absolutely scientifically valid". You haven't presented a thing to support that contention. You didn't post their model methodology. You posted a link to a high-level general description of what they're trying to do and how they do it. It's equivalent to me saying "active pharmaceutical ingredients are produced by carefully following a validated manufacturing process under cGMP and occasionally adjusting for individual manufacturing circumstances by using data to support a standard FDA deviation reporting process". Good luck cooking that stuff! As for the first - if PFF's hypothesis isn't that a player's past performance is reflective of what they're capable of contributing and predictive of their future results, what exact purpose do you believe their grades serve? For what purpose do you believe they are marketing them? Never mind. I'm out of here. I knew from your past performance that the likelihood of an actual discussion was negligible, and you're true to type. You can go off and thump your chest and claim you won if it suits you.

Dang! Who called this in the backup QB thread? They should take a bow. I wanted someone like Jacoby Brissett, but when I saw the contract he got I backed out of the room and shut the door very quietly

That's a really good question. So reportedly (for example, per Taron Johnson who covered Beasley and who covered them both in practice), the thing that Crowder had was that Beasley-like ability to get on the same page with Allen as far as how they read the defense post-snap and to find the gaps or seams in zone coverage whereas McKenzie's thing was "speed, mostly". Allen is on record saying that McKenzie is really really good at getting open against man, but the Bills don't see all that much man coverage (I'm sure someone here knows the % man we faced last season). McKenzie is on record as saying he can get open against zone, but evidently he and Allen either aren't on the same page or Allen doesn't trust him to read it the same way or their timing was off or something. Shakir to my eyes was not reading zone correctly most of the season - he would throw up his "mail flag" when I'd look and say "oh, no, dangerous throw" (this is just what I saw, I didn't see his every snap). I haven't seen enough of Hardy to even know where he played - I would assume lining up in the slot, because he seems very small to be able to get a free release off the line - much less how he fared against zone vs man coverage. In his best year, 2021, the Saints were being QB'd by Siemian, Winston, and Taysom Hill and their WR corps did not inspire a lot of fear, I think, so I'm guessing he faced a lot of man, but it's only a guess.

I like a chap with a positive outlook!

That sounds like a "you" problem Because "vague comments" and insinuations that something is ongoing and happens a lot are just so much nicer than past misbehavior that the people involved have themselves acknowledged and moved on from 5 years ago.