dave mcbride

For those interested in diving deeper: https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/replacement-level/

Really? Do you think Winston is truly that bad? He played reasonably well this season and should be at full health by September. Their talent is pretty decent, although like every team they have some holes.

Smith was 81-63 in Chicago and had Rex Grossman, Chad Hutchison, Kyle Orton, Brian Griese, and Jay Cutler as his QBs. He was fired after a 10-6 season too. Slightly deceiving. He took over a mess of team and then went 2-14 and then 6-10 the next season with a rookie Jameis Winston. Interestingly, Leslie Frazier was his DC in TB. They finished 5th in yards on offense and 10th in yards allowed on defense.

You never know. Given where the Bills drafted last year, you can bet they did their research on him. His "character" was apparently a polarizing issue regarding his future. No one questioned the talent.

Jeremy Fowler on ESPN+. https://heavy.com/sports/new-york-giants/kadarius-toney-trade-rumors-espn/

https://www.nfldraftdiamonds.com/2021/04/kadarius-toney-2/

Injury history, and not just in the pros.

You inspired to me look it up re Jax. I did not realize that James Robinson tore his achilles on Dec 21. Of course Etienne is coming off an ACL tear. I immediately thought a trade of Saquon to Jax made no sense, but perhaps it does given the injury uncertainties they have at the RB position. Still, given that Etienne is a first rounder, that's a lot of money to tie up into the RB position, especially when the two getting paid have major injury histories ... (Robinson is a UDFA going into his third season and is probably dirt cheap, but he of course is coming off an achilles ...)

I do think you can get a top-end interior lineman in round 2. I'm all for that, actually.

He missed a bunch of games in college due to injury: https://www.gainesville.com/story/sports/college/football/2021/04/29/breaking-down-what-florida-gators-receiver-kadarius-toney-provide-next-level/4886034001/

You never know. The Bills unloaded their best offensive player - Watkins - after three seasons. Schoen is a "culture" guy, and there may be stuff about Toney and his team "fit" that we don't know about. Daboll may also think that McKenzie is a better player than him at this point. My basic read on the latter is that Daboll likes him (given the playcalling) and McDermott has issues with him.

There are no clocks in casinos …

Bill, perhaps the main reason the Bills lost to KC was because of physically limited corners who couldn’t keep up with the KC receivers. CB is a more important position than it was 20 years ago. The game has evolved.

There is such a massive shortage of decent CBs in the league that he’s probably worth that number. Watch teams like Washington, Atlanta, and the Jets. Their corners are generally very bad overall. Other teams (Seattle, Detroit, Minnesota, to name three) need help too. Wallace is at least decent and a legit starter.

To echo GunnerBill, Geisicki can’t block and isn’t really a TE.

Not really in terms of a pick spent on projected performance and value.

Last year’s top pick was … Stefon Diggs, who ended up being the leading receiver in the entire league.

The browns did it too in 2016. Uncompetitive through the first 14 games (especially down the stretch) and once they clinched #1 after 14 games, they all of a sudden became competitive in the final two games. As for randomness, I hear you, but I am only arguing for this approach for the first round. The worst team would pick first in rounds 2-7, and football is a sport where those later rounds really matter with regard to producing good players (unlike say the NBA).

It’s like you didn’t even follow that team that year. They never worked to replace Manning with even a moderately decent backup. They knew a generational talent was coming out and rolled with a truly terrible QB. This is actually common knowledge.

Worked out great for the Colts with Luck — multiple playoff appearances and no losing records. The 2010 Panthers are another example—totally non-competitive down the stretch (tons of blowouts) and they end up with Newton.

Give me time and I am quit sure I could find a dozen instances of it for you. How do you think the Colts ended up with Luck?

Tanking happens all of the time. Maybe not this year — largely because there is no top qb or even a consensus number one pick — but there are tons of instances of it.

Because every year tanking becomes a story, and a) it’s boring and b) it involves teams moving away from competing. It’s tedious, bad entertainment, and bad sports. I’ve felt this way for decades. Good sports is about fierce competition, which is why we’re entertained.

No because the league revenues go up. That is what drives it, not teams overpaying.

Simple solution: no weighting, and the bottom seven teams have an equal chance at the number one pick. It won’t solve inequality — some teams are simply going to be better than others, and I think you’r emisunderstanding parity anyway — but if you are the worst team in week 15 and have a 43 percent chance to be drafting in the 5-7 slot, then you might prioritize getting your team to learn how to win rather than resting starters and making weak calls—i.e., tanking. Tanking, which clearly happens, is a bad sporting event. I’d rather watch public access television at 3 am. That’s a good thing, Don’t signal that you’re going to fully reward abject failure. I’ve never disagreed with you more strongly! The current system is terrible. It’s also not going to last, fwiw. I’d bet money on it. I feel like the status quo bias preference is very, very strong in this thread.