dave mcbride

Bennett is arguably the most underrated player of the past decade. He is one of the primary reasons why Seattle's defense is so great, pro bowl appearances or no. I personally like Andre Reed a lot as a player, but I also think that Bills fans overrate him greatly. He was a very good but not great player.

Excellent post re the ex-Pats. Richard Seymour played pretty well for a terrible Raiders team too (2 pro bowl selections), and Lawyer Milloy had a bunch of good seasons (including for the Bills!).

None of this is laissez faire capitalism. The appeles to apples comparisons are to mlb and the nba, not some mythical free market. Yet it is a far bigger business. I don't disagree with your take, btw; most of the guys in the nfl would play in the nba if given a choice. But football, both college and pro, is a much bigger business. It's what people actually like to watch (people like porn too!). Incidentally, this piece about mlb players' declining share of revenue over time is worth your time and relevant to the discussion: http://deadspin.com/mlb-has-a-big-money-problem-1742117953 .

Couple of observations after reading this thread: 26CB and Kirby are doing the lord's work here, and my god are people suscepitible to misinterpreting a Watkins comment (which was totally right, btw) because they're invested in sports as some sort of morality play, with Joe Sixpack making $45k a year invoked as a foil to all the overpaid athletes out there. Do people get this worked up about Led Zeppelin's or Leonardo Di Caprio's earnings? It's all entertainment in the end, and in entertaimment, the stars get paid.

No it wasn't -- the reason i hadn't seen it was because it was buried on p. 2. It has no commentary either -- just one quick and non-substantive response. Thread nazis are the worst (not that 26cb is one).

Agreed. And at least the Bills didn't overspend. I also thought the passage on Julio Jones was interesting given the Sammy situation.

What did you think of it? You didn't opine.

Bills nugget: Lorenzo Alexander was resigned at a low price because he had, in baseball terms, a suspiciously high BABIP (batting average on balls in play). He got 12.5 sacks, but didn't get to the qb much beyond those 13 times. The view is that he can't reproduce those numbers given his low number of hurries. http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/27/nfl-analytics-what-nfl-teams-use-pff-stats-llc-tendencies-player-tracking-injuries-chip-kelly

Good stuff, OP. Thanks.

Re point 4 --measuring how supportive fans are online doesn't factor in fan team sites (non social media). The Pats' sites flat out suck (there is nothing out there even 10 percent as atrong as this site), so I imagine that the only recourse Pats fans have to resort to blathering on FB, twitter, or instagram more than the usual fan.

I thought it was funny, more or less. And anyone who doesn't think that the Brady dildo thing should be in the annals of Buffalo sports fandom ... well, I don't know what to say. It was definitely crude and lowbrow, but inspired nonetheless.

But the hand size!

http://buffalonews.com/1999/08/30/louds-latest-effort-speaks-volumes/ 'A year ago, Kamil Loud was one of the great stories of the Bills' training camp. He was a seventh-round draft pick from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo who made big play after big play on the practice field and in preseason games to secure a spot on the final 53-man roster. This summer, however, Loud had been mostly forgotten. ... Loud even found himself taking a backseat to another long-shot story -- rookie free agent Jeremy McDaniel. But that all changed Saturday night in Cincinnati. Loud soared back into the forefront of the Bills' preseason with a game-high four receptions for 75 yards and two touchdowns in a 30-3 victory over the Bengals. "He had a great camp last year and really made some people's heads turn," said Johnson, who connected with Loud for a 6-yard score that gave the Bills a 20-3 lead in the third quarter. "And this year we got Peerless, so he's kind of moved to the back. Now he's kind of coming back out and showing what he can do." Loud showed the Bills more than blazing speed and the ability to get open for a catch. The TD from Johnson came on the series after he caught a 35-yard pass and suffered an injury to his left ankle while being tackled from behind by safety Cory Hall at the Cincinnati 7.'

More on hand size - Watkis has 9 5/8" hands, which is above average. Average is 9 1/3".

Good find, but ... Trump hands! "Holmes is a unique talent at 64 and 210 pounds. His 6.69 three-cone time at the 2011 combine is exactly what Odell Beckham Jr. clocked at the combine three years later despite weighing 12 pounds less and being five inches shorter. Holmes has 4.51 speed. Robert Woods ran a 4.51 in his 40-yard dash at the 2013 combine. To get a gauge on his explosiveness capabilities, Holmes broad jump of 130 was only two inches shorter than Marquise Goodwins. Lastly, Holmes vertical of 35 was the same as the 510, 199-pound Golden Tates. Strangely, Holmes has 8 5/8 hands, which places him in the 8th percentile among receivers at the combine since 1999." Also, this piece on hand size is pretty darn interesting: https://www.numberfire.com/nfl/news/7794/do-small-hands-doom-a-wide-receiver-in-the-nfl

Not sure this has been posted, but it apparently came down to Ravens v Eagles. The Bills weren't in the running: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/06/12/report-maclins-decision-came-down-to-ravens-eagles/

He won't be able to use his starting lawyer though ...

I agree.

I don't have the time to read 22 pages, but has anyone discussed why a good organization - KC - may have cut him? I have heard that he has a chronic bum ankle, and that the ankle problem may never go away.

Yup.

Not to be a jerk, but the level of analysis in this thread is depressing - a lot of "this is what I see" and "the qb has x wins" sorts of takes. This board was always a million times better than the BBMB, and I fear that it's sinking. Kirby, Yolo, etc. do a great job of reeling it back in, but my god, the know-nothing hot takers appear to be out in force now. Everyone: pro-football-reference.com is your friend. Scroll down to advanced qb stats. 100 is average. Wilson lead the NFL in 2015 with 131. He has never been below 100. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WilsRu00.htm Also, for the critics out there: I suggest doing a deep dive into the talent level on the seahawks' o-line the last two seasons. Seriously.

This should have ende the thread.

Not really true. The line was actually good from 2012-2014. Injuries and departures killed them afterward. Trading Max Unger for Jimmy Graham after the 2014 season was definitely a mixed result. Sweezy, McQuistan, and Okung are all gone too. They were all decent to solid players, and Unger was (and is) really good.

Their offensive line talent the last two seasons has been TERRIBLE. It pretty much explains everything.

This all may be true, but it's a dumb way to look at things (not you; the Seahawks defensive players if they actually think this way). The Seahawks o-line over the last two seasons has been among the 2 or 3 worst in the league, and it's not because of a lack of effort. It's because the talent is incredibly poor. The defense has good talent. Demanding excellence from no-talent players is a fool's errand. Wilson is an amazing player who makes that offense look competent despite such terrible talent in front of him.