Sierra Foothills

Found On Road Dead... Fix Or Repair Daily... and of course the ever popular "They circled the problem." Actually my 2013 F-150 with over 200K miles is a STUD and my Chevy pickup was a piece of crap. The founder of Buffalo Wild Wings believed in treating his employees well. Unlike most of the corporacrats Welter didn't want to exploit his workers and felt that they were just as important as his customers, his executives, and the shareholders... a view not held by most executives in big business. Does this mean he's... phat? Rock climbers are measured by a body ratio known as the "Ape Index." It's the number derived from dividing wingspan by height. The famous rock climber Alex Honnold, immortalized in the documentary "Free Solo" has an ape index of 1.04 which is a minimum value for most world class rock climbers. 3rd round LB Dorian Williams is 73" tall and has a 80.5" wingspan giving him an ape index of 1.10 Poona Ford is 71" tall and has an 80.25" wingspan giving him an ape index of 1.13 You can see in the video how Ford consistently uses his wingspan to keep at arms length and shed blockers... and of course he has that very low center of gravity which makes him difficult to move. Interestingly the only criticism of Melvin Ingram as an NFL prospect was that he was short-armed: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/05/12/melvin-ingram-thinks-the-questions-about-his-arm-length-are-silly/ Another player who was discounted because many thought he wasn't a "long enough" athlete was the great pass rusher Elvis Dumervill who stood only 5'11" tall. This didn't stop him from compiling 105 career sacks. The fact that his arms were 32.75" and his wingspan 78" (giving him an ape index of almost 1.10) was virtually overlooked causing him to slide into the 4th round despite his dominating collegiate career. In many sports, having long arms and a big wingspan is an advantage... and more than makes up for "being short."

I would agree that you would expect someone who is the GM of an NFL team to be well-spoken. After all, you're near the pinnacle of a profession. But Beane is a bit more polished than most. There are plenty of GMs who came up through scouting and are just gruff football guys like Steve Keim and Joe Douglas. Totally agree. I didn't think he would be able to fill so many needs this offseason, especially with only 6 draft picks and a light wallet but I feel like this has been a really strong offseason for Beane.

Not only that. His 40 time might not be an accurate reflection of his speed.

That is Mac-Atrue!

Geez BV. This team has been 62-35 under McDermott and made the playoffs 5 out of 6 years. In the last 3 years they're 37-12. That's better than a .750 winning percentage. After the 17 year drought I'm really enjoying this era.

Great stuff Chandler! I had to watch it twice... heaping doses of HOFers Jim Taylor and Forrest Gregg. The tackle blocking way downfield on that epic Jim Taylor run at 2:40 was Bob Skoronski whose grandson was just picked 11th overall by the Tennessee Titans. The Lombardi Mythology is a huge reason I'm an NFL fan today. Thank you.

Then why don't you marry him?

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3Uqks1YxWxpVJGY9VOTaTEGwyJxYIRvi

Davis was also battling a thumb injury during the second half of the season.

A very good player. One year due to an injury to one of our tackles (Demetrus Bell or Erik Pears or one of those stiffs) Levitre started a few games at tackle and it was clear he was the best tackle on the team. He later signed that nice fat free agent contract with Tennessee.

Fair enough. I'll say barring injury he makes the opening day roster.

Okay. It's just odd saying that he's "the odd man out" when he's not even on the roster.. If you said "he's not returning" that would make more sense to me. Whatever. I understand.

In your first post you said "I don't see him making the final roster." I said that he's going to get "regular season playing time" with the Bills. If you don't think he's going to make the final roster this is a pretty easy bet for you to make. BTW I'm not interested in parsing words if that's the direction your heading towards.

Yes, but in years past they weren't collecting players to replace him with... as they are this offseason.

Disagree. He wasn't used this way but Murray is a guy who could line up deep and take the toss and attack the line of scrimmage vertically. 100%. Even at his age he's a lot faster that Singletary and when Murray gets into the open field he gallops. Watching him play last year he has a plenty left in the tank IMO. And he gives the Bills a style of runner that they haven't had. Yeah, they love Murray. It harkens back to the earlier days of the McBeane era where they wanted to have one veteran leader in every position group. Taiwan Jones is a free agent. It seems like either Sherfield, Shorter, or Shaver will take his spot. All 3 have strong track records as gunners. But, Yeldon has not played since 2020 so it's hard to blame the Bills for his non-use. Let me know if you'd like to make a wager that Murray gets regular season playing time with the Bills. Correct. Compared to Knox maybe. How about compared to Beasley or McKenzie? How about compare to Shakir or Diggs? You understand what I'm saying.

As was ALREADY stated upthread, Murray has missed a total of 10 games in 9 NFL seasons as a running back. Good question. What do you think the odds are?

He's consistently had juice. He's a 9 year vet with eight straight seasons of at least 500 yards. Only once has he averaged less than 4.0 per carry. He has power and speed and doesn't fumble the ball. I've always maintained that McDermott (from his comments) is a neanderthal football coach at heart. We pass because we have Josh Allen but McDermott would love to be able to play smash mouth football. I'm getting visions of Ottis Anderson running against us in Super Bowl XXV. This fires me up. Downhill, punishing... excellent vision. It's been about 10 years so people forget that Murray ran a sub 4.4 forty at the combine. This is a big, physical, durable, dependable, running back who can still outrun linebackers. Also he's averaged 10.5 yards per reception... a part of his game that's been underutilized. The Bills can go jumbo with the 2 TE set and teams will be overplaying the run when Murray's in the game.

Also, very few linebackers can overcome poor play by the d-line in front of them. In order for most LBs to have success, they need to be protected from blockers. In the present day linebackers have never been smaller and offensive linemen have never been larger. Regarding LB size, it used to be Chuck Bednarik, Sam Huff, Ray Nietschke, Dick Butkus, Willie Lanier, Tommy Nobis, ad infinitum were as big as the o-linemen who were blocking them. That was back when Lombardi's "Run to Daylight" was the blueprint for NFL success. In today's pass-crazy NFL, Tremaine Edmunds is an outlyer as was Ray Lewis. It's rare to see a 250 lb LB anymore.

It's fair to say that much of what the Bills do defensively is done with Kansas City in mind... more so than Cinci I think.

And then we drafted Nathan Peterman...

I didn't say Mayock was a good talent evaluator. I said I felt sorry for him because what happened with the Raiders is IMO more a reflection of Jon Gruden. I believe this because he was hired by Gruden. As @Kirby Jackson already pointed out, Mahomes was a late riser. I don't recall there being much surprise that he was taken. Maybe I'm wrong but I remember thinking that I'd be good if the Bills took him at #10.

In fairness, Schneider's had some really good drafts too. The last thing I want to do is re-start the Campbell debate. I just want to point out that the two players considered the biggest reaches of round one of this year's draft were taken by the same team. Bruce Irvin was taken 15th overall and has played 12 years in the league including last year. He has 54 career sacks and a Super Bowl win. No All-Pro or Pro Bowls. I feel he was misused both in college and in the pros. I always felt that Janikowski should have been a Buffalo Bill. Mahomes was taken 10th overall. Mitchell Trubisky was taken 2nd and DeShaun Watson 12th. They were the only QBs in that draft considered to be 1st rounders. Being that it was 2017, we had by then reached the point in history where the top rated QBs were not going to slide far. I feel bad for Mayock because there's no question in my mind that it was Gruden pulling the strings.

It may be that they're waiting to sign a bunch to make a single announcement. I think I remember something like that in the past. "Rumblin' Bumblin' Stumblin!!!"