dave mcbride

I'm not giving up on him. He has made a lot of great receptions the past three seasons so it's clear he can do it. His issue is consistency. Zay Jones was a pass dropper too. Players do get better and can become more consistent.

Pitching UCL injuries have almost no relation to QBing UCL injuries. It's an entirely different throwing motion and QBs who have had UCL injuries historically have not required surgery. Allen will be fine. https://www.jshoulderelbow.org/article/S1058-2746(10)00246-6/pdf#:~:text=Conclusion-,UCL injuries of the elbow are uncommon injuries in professional,to return to competitive play. Sandy Koufax is the opposite of a comp.

Also: https://russellstreetreport.com/salarycap/nfl-salary-cap-faqs/#:~:text=If a player unexpectedly retires,the “Barry Sanders Rule”. 'If a player unexpectedly retires in his prime, while playing under a long term contract in which the team gave the player a signing bonus, the CBA allows the team to attempt to recoup some of that Signing Bonus. This has become known as the “Barry Sanders Rule”. If the team – usually after an arbitration hearing – is entitled to receive the return of a portion of the player’s Bonus, that amount is credited to the following year’s Salary Cap. To be clear, though, not every retirement causes the return of bonus money. In fact, teams often sign veteran players to contracts with a number of years that they know will not be fully reached. In such cases, the teams never seek the return of bonus money – and likely wouldn’t win in arbitration, anyway. The return of bonus money is only likely to occur when the player essentially retires unexpectedly and without legitimate reason (i.e. injury).' He is 27 and played almost every snap late this season -- i.e., "in his prime." The Bills could absolutely go after the pro-rated portion of the bonus if they wanted, and they'd be within their rights to do so. They'd win.

That is simply too much money to give up. No other profession he embarks upon will give him more than a tiny percentage of that. If he retires, he'll have to return or forego cash. He'll be around for at least another year. From Spotrac: Contract Notes: $36.7M guaranteed at signing (signing bonus + 2020 salary + 2021 salary + 2021 option bonus) 2022 salary injury guaranteed now $4.975M of 2022 salary fully guarantees 3/20/2021 Additional $4.975M of 2022 salary & $6.35M of 2023 salary fully guarantees 3/22/2022 Remaining $2.25M of 2023 salary fully guarantees on 3/18/2023 Injury guaranteed now) 2021 Option Bonus: $7.5M (must be exercised 3/17/21 - 3/21/21) 2022 Roster Bonus: $500,000 (3/20/2022) 2023 Roster Bonus: $1 million (3/19/2023) 2024 Roster Bonus: $1.5 million (5th league day of 2024) 2025 Roster Bonus: $1.5 million (5th league day of 2025) 2022-2025 Per Game Active Bonus: $14,705 ($250,000, 6 LTBE in 2023) Workout Bonus: $300,000 2022-2025 Pro Bowl: $250,000

He is NOT gonna quit because he'd be giving up tens of millions of dollars. He's not that stupid.

Good take. I'll add that White looked pretty bad on Sunday -- PI is becoming an innate reflex for him. He ran a 4.47 coming out of college, but I guarantee that he's at best a low 4.6 now. You can't play CB in the NFL at that speed and be any good. Safety, sure, but not CB. Whether or not he gets his speed back is one of the very biggest issues the Bills will be facing this offseason because they can't cut him given a dead cap hit of nearly $23 million.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the Bills took him over these 1st round d-linemen: Brian Burns (elite), Jeffrey Simmons (elite), and Montez Sweat (averages just over 7 sacks per year over a four-year stretch). He's probably a better player than Rashan Gary, who was also a first rounder, and certainly better than Jerry Tillery and L.J. Collier. Dexter Lawrence had a great year this year, but his first few were just OK. It's kind of a wash with those two because Oliver has certainly had some good moments. If a redraft were held today, the Bills would take either Simmons or Burns, but I also think that if there were an actual re-draft, Burns would go top five.

This. Who cares. Guys trash talk. Diggs certainly does.

Oliver was playing pretty darn well until the pectoral injury. After that, he fell off a cliff. It's hard to play DT with one good arm.

Doesn’t matter. He just signed with the Pats.

Oh well.

Creative former Patriots offensive coach for a very successful offense who also did a two-year stint at Alabama, where his offense was criticized for being ever-so-slightly underwhelming relative to the year before he arrived. Sound familiar? I doubt it will happen because I expect McDermott to give Dorsey a pass. But I am throwing it out there given the noise that the Pats may go after him and because I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by Dorsey despite the #2 ranking. As Joe B says in his Athletic article, the window ain’t gonna be open long and McDermott got rid of Dennison after one season. If I’m O’Brien and were presented with the option, working with Josh Allen would be a far more attractive proposition than working with Mac Jones. (Also, small point: like Daboll, who has an engineering degree from the U of Rochester, O’Brien is presumably a book-smart guy given that he graduated from Brown.) To reiterate, I strongly doubt this happens given McDermott’s history with assistants (excepting Dennison, who was actually terrible) and the excuse making that’s currently going on inside the organization regarding this season’s outcome.

I am not advocating firing McDermott, btw. He is, after all, the only one of 12 who is a defensive coach who got to a championship game in the last 3 years. But the trend seems to be pretty clear to me.

I am bullish on Shakir.

I am certainly not advocating getting criminals; I’m only pointing out that the teams that beat us in the postseason seem to be ok with harboring a few of them if the talent is there. More broadly, there are a LOT of crazy people in the NFL. The Jimmy Johnson Cowboys teams were loaded with them. And let’s face it — you have to be a little crazy to play in the NFL given the extreme violence. We all want guys who are able to turn it off at 4:15 pm on a Sunday, but that’s not realistic for a lot of players. It’s a sport that rewards a violent bent.

True, but to be fair that is a throw Josh makes regularly in that sort of situation (it’s what makes him so elite). Of course, that’s no excuse for Saffold, who dramatically increased the difficulty of the throw through his play.

You need some of it, though, and the fact of the matter is that in the postseason, the Bills have LOST to the teams featuring D’Andre Hopkins, Frank Clark, Tyreek Hill, Chris Jones, and Joe Mixon. All elite teams have guys like Diggs irrespective of position. It’s also worth mentioning that he was open a LOT yesterday despite being bracketed and Josh missed him repeatedly (ie, the first series of the game). Give me him any day of the week over the “emotionally exhausted” millionaires who needed a family day on Saturday.

The Bills have an overabundance of kumbaya vibes on the squad now and I for one want someone with some aggro juice who trash talks and absolutely hates losing. The Bills need MORE players like him. Love it or hate it, that sort of attitude is a winning one in the NFL.

Um, the Eagles spent a huge amount of draft capital on their two main wideouts.

Since the 2020 season, 11 of the 12 teams that made the championship game have had offensive coaches and for just this year and last year, it's been 8 out of 8. The only defensive coach to make it was McDermott, and his team was curb-stomped by Andy Reid. Including this year and going back to 2019, 8 out of 8 SB coaches will have been offensive coaches. I'm not saying that a coach has to be an offensive guy -- Belichick!! -- but there does seem to be a pretty clear trendline.

I have zero problem with Diggs' reaction. He's elite and our coaching staff couldn't figure out a way to get him more involved. I'd be frustrated too. And he had a lot of inaccurate throws directed at him. Simply put, he wants to win. Probably more importantly, I want more guys who aren't "emotionally exhausted" in a divisional round playoff game and who are all about amping up the intensity in the postseason.

Williams had one pretty good season, got paid, and then mailed it in with first class postage.

Hyde missed nearly the entire season and Poyer was a shell of himself by the end.

Great player, but his last year in Carolina was 2013 and he had slowed down a little by then. His best season was 2005, although he was still elite in 2011 (Cam’s rookie year). I think Gunnar is referring to the post-Smith years.