Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

It sounded like last year they agreed on some number, maybe not on what was signed today and most of the details, from what I recall reading the hangup was the fully guaranteed part.

It sounded like last year already Ravens and Jackson had agreed on overall numbers, issue was Jackson wanted fully guaranteed and Ravens said no. That was the hold up.

Probably not missing anything. It's just a fact of life that every new deal signed for anybody better than a decent QB in particular sets the bar to a new height. Has the guy with Chargers signed yet? Likely he'll be higher yet.

So you somehow know they haven't tried to extend him or try to trade him? Oliver isn't playing terrible, just not at the leve lof play the #8 overall pick should be at. Are you suggesting the Bills should over pay him and sign him to a long term deal just to not lose him? Unfortunately to date Oliver has followed the same script as Edmund's and hasn't lived up to his draft spot so the Bills either can over pay him based on level of play to get him signed or hope Oliver realizes he's not worth that much and sign for a likely a lower amount that the Bills have offered which rarely ever happens. He'll bet on himself having a big year and if he doesn't he's still likely no worse off than if he were to sign a lower offer from the Bills now. The 3rd option is to try and trade him, but if he's not playing up to his level of play the number of teams willing to take on a $10 mil contract gets real small. I'm sure some team may offer a very low draft pick for him, but you've then created a fairly large hole in your defense for 2023. It's not very likely a 5th or 6th rounder you may get in return will play as well as Oliver in 2023. Overall since the team is in a win now mode, even if they get nothing for him at the end of this season, it's probably the best option.

Anybody but a TE. I'd favor WR in the 1st. I say no to TE for 3 reasons; First they have Dawson, he's a good to a little better than average TE. You want to put a 2nd blocking TE out there for some plays fine, but don't need to use a 1st round pick for that. The Bills don't have a noddle armed QB. Allen can easily throw a 20 yard out, so IMO better to be throwing it to a WR and better to line line up with 3 WR and 1 TE than 2 and 2. On occasion throwing two TE's out there is fine but again don't need to use a 1st round pick for that. Last and most important, IMO TE is the 2nd toughest position to project success in college to the NFL. QB being #1. There were 5 TE's selected prior to Knox in the 3rd round, not one of them is still with the team that drafted them. One is playing in Arena league. It is just too hard to project who will really be good. Kelce and Kittle were both drafted lower than Knox, Gronk was taken in 2nd. So to my point, just too hard to project how great college TE's will turn out in pro's, much harder than other positions it seems and the Kittles, Kelce, and Gronks are just too few and far between. For those wanting a TE in round 1, don't blame Beane in 4 years if the guy bombs out, blame it on desire to take a TE in 1st. Probably safer to pick TE lower.

If they're asking for a 2nd, likely could get it down to a 3rd and maybe throw in a 5th or something. Recall reading a month or 2 back that after some other WR was traded, don't recall who, Cardinals price likely dropped.

Fixed it for you. If they cut him his entire $10 mil is guaranteed so zero saving. Only option is to trade him. Now you need to find a team that thinks he's worth $10 mil or somehow is a better fit in their defense or has a big hole in their D line and feels that's the one thing they need to go deep in playoffs. Which ironically if they trade Oliver, is exactly where the Bills are left with a big hole in the middle of their D line. No one here seems to think he's worth $10 mil so why will other teams. Someone above mentioned the Brock Osweiler trade where Texans sent draft picks along with him to Cleveland. Likely would need to do something like that to get a taker. But the Bills only have 6 picks to start with, if they give some up to get Hopkins, then possibly giving up a pick to dump Oliver, just can't see that happening either. Don't know much about Cardinals defense if they need help at DT and how they are money wise if they could even afford it, but maybe a trade of Oliver, plus a 2nd or 3rd in both 2023 and 2024 for Hopkins may entice Cardinals to agree to it?? If true that Cardinals could potentially cut him, at least this way they are getting more in return. Bills through in extra pick to take on Oliver's salary and Cardinals get a good player, just not a player truly worth $10 mil

To me this is the problem with taking a RB in round 1. This also tell me if the averages are so low for RB, it likely means that even the ones that do make it to a 2nd contract, never play to see the end of it, so no have all this dead cap. Add to that using a 1st round pick on a player that has the shortest career length doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

There's history there with the Lions and gambling, Alex Karras was suspended in 1963 for entire season for gambling.

He also is a rocket scientist. Imagine if the Bills had one of those on their staff! The heights the team could reach.

Yeah the problem is " The word on the street" that he refers to was kind of started by him. So now when it filters back to him it becomes the word!

When Bledsoe arrived, the first half of his 1st season, he was great, then we played NE and he looked very bad. Maybe it was a fluke, butthen played NE 2nd time late in year and Belichick again made him look terrible. After that starting in year 2, teams knew how to defend Bledsoe and never looked all that good after that point. When he came to Buffalo the other team in the running was the Bengals, but Bledsoe preferred Buffalo so he ended up here. The way schedules work out you only play other teams in conference every 3 years except team who ends in same standing position. I recall couple years afterwards looking at the schedules and NE did not play the Bengals for the first 3 years he was in Buffalo. I always wondered though if he had gone to Bengals, would he have looked much better as wouldn't have been subject to Belichick exposing his weaknesses. You can argue other team would have figured it out, but for the first 8 to 10 games in Buffalo, no one else could stop him very much.

I agree but got responses stating, no it was Whaleys draft. McD even had a press conference stating Whaley did all the work so that proves it. But my take is take that with a grain of salt as talk is cheap! There was a post a month or 2 ago showing that in the past 4 to 5 years the Bills used as many draft picks on offensive players as defense. I do think the OP's thinking in some cases was a bit flawed, but still showed not a huge difference in number of players selected.

I think that's a good way to put it; "Whaley's scouting department that did the work and set up their draft board". But after that think McD had much more to do with it.

Hyde and Poyer weren't draft picks. In spite of some of the conspiracy theories around, Beane had nothing to do with the 2017 draft. But also don't believe it was Whaley's call either on whom to select. Sure McD publicly stated Whaley ran the the draft and free agency. But that could very easily mean Whaley did all the selections, but only after McD told him whom he wanted. Maybe WRT free agents, Whaley handled the financial side of it and took care of the negotiations. But he was effectively reporting to McD.

Agree I wouldn't give Whaley credit for White, but if you were giving him credit for that pick, would think then Milano also should be under Whaley as he'd rank in his top 5. When you remove Beane's pick of Allen, you really need to recognize that he gave up draft picks in order to move up. Without Allen Beane would have had some higher picks, even if only half of them were highly rated players, likely his grade would have been higher. Does this formula somehow take into account he traded a 1st round pick for Diggs, again depriving himself of maybe another good player. Bottom line IMO to be fair, you need to look at his actual number and not remove Allen from the equation as that pick factored in other ways top his total score.

I am somewhat optimistic on his return only because of the fact that until he had the surgery, no one knew he had a torn ACL. Makes me wonder if it wasn't as bad as some are

One of things I'd read in an article was that McD stated he didn't want to draft a QB in 2017 as he hadn't had time to study them enough. Until Jan 2017 4 months prior to the draft he didn't know he'd even be a head coach and all his focus to that point was on the defensive side with Carolina. Yes that still gave him 4 months to study things, but likely those 4 months were spend putting together a staff, etc. Likely many things a brand new HC needed to do. Also if he had drafted Mahomes or someone else, he'd be going off the scouting reports of a group of people he likely knew little about and off the scouting reports of a team that hadn't done that great and had drafted M Darious and gave up alot to move up in the draft for Watkins. Would you have wanted to put much faith in them?

Even without Hopkins, not sure WR is a bigger hole right now overall than MLB unless as some comments have been made they plan to play with Rapp and Johnson both on the field and just on LB, Milano. Yes they can make the numbers work out if they want to. But it's a question of how much they want kick down the road for a player who last season was suspended BTW so has to be some concern as to if he'll be a repeat offender. Add to that they've already kicked a number of other contracts down the road too. But you lead with they shouldn't have signed all these other mid tier players, but as BillsFan stated, they had 24 FA so need to sign someone. Adding instead 24 FA rookies or even half than number isn't going to make this team better overall as taking on the Hopkins contract even close to the existing numbers likely would require that. Plus we also don't know what KC is actually asking. Can't recall who it was, but 4 or 5 weeks ago, maybe it was even before free agency started some other WR was traded and the comment was based on that, the Cardinals price also will go down. But maybe the Cardinals don't see it that way.

I'd be against a TE in 1st round for two reasons First they have Knox as TE1. Playing 2 TE's makes more sense when you have a noodle armed QB who can't easily beat the defense when throwing 15 to 20 yard passes. Allen can do that so overall think the team is better when playing with 3 WR's. You want a 2nd TE for blocking purposes who is still a threat to catch a pass, that's fine, but don't need to use a 1st round draft pick for that. Second reason is IMO of all the positions on the football field TE is the toughest to predict who will actually become a good or great player. There were believe 5 TE's all drafted before Dawson Knox, not one of them is still with the team that drafted him, one is in the Arena League. Kelce was drafted in 3rd round, Kittle 5th round, Gronk 2nd round. Seems like using a 1st round pick on a TE is a huge risk.

Are you kidding? It was all over Reddit.

Yes, this was the article I saw it in.

Can't recall where I read it, but Kim's daughter commented the other day that she's doing better.

Higher needs at MLB and WR. At this point, barring injury not likely a lineman would even be starting so maybe they trade down and get an extra 2nd round pick, then ok, but even then, safety would probably still rank as a higher need.

Brady did it for so much longer period of time. Granted the rule changes made it easier for him to last. I can recall Montana also having some bad games in the playoffs in years they didn't make it to the SB. There was no free agency back then, Montana won all those years with more of the same roster and star players around him. Brady won with complete roster turnover though out the years and probably with a handful of exceptions less superstar talent around him .