dave mcbride

You are wildly wrong about baseball's popularity: https://www.thesportsbank.net/business/nfl-vs-mlb-detailed-look-at-popularity-levels-of-both-sports/. Sure, the NFL is king by a long ways, but baseball is a LOT more popular than basketball and hockey. And as for TV ratings, comparing the two is silly even though the NFL is obviously king. Baseball's bread and butter is 30 local deals, not the national contracts with the networks. If you lived in Boston, NY, LA, or St. Louis, you'd realize how culturally resonant baseball is with the average person. The Yankees, for instance, are the most popular team in NY State, and by a fair amount. The Giants are third. https://giantswire.usatoday.com/2016/04/05/new-york-giants-top-buffalo-bills-new-york-jets-as-most-popular-team-in-the-state/

Probably hanging out on the Sloop John B in the Caribbean somewhere.

He was 81-63 in Chicago with a hodgepodge of mediocre QBs. He took over a bad TB team, went 2-14 in year one, drafted Winston, and then went 6-10, finishing 5th in yards and 10th in yards allowed. Then he gets fired and goes to Illinois, a historically bad program that has always struggled at recruiting. They tend to have one good year out of every five or six years, and the program he took over was in bad shape. It remained in bad shape because of recruiting and recruiting alone. But you don't have to recruit in the NFL.

That can get you to 9-8/10-7. There are far worse jobs in the NFL (Washington, Miami, Houston, Jets, ...). The Saints organization drafts pretty well and the team still has some excellent players. As for Winston, he had a rating of 103 over 7 games. Not too shabby.

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?