GG

For starters, your math is a bit off, a whale FA (Clowney) will cost $20 mil. But even if they land a $15 mill player, the total cap spend on DEs would be about $45 mil (assuming you bring Shaq back at $10 mil). Secondly, listen to the GM's words about the cap. He goes out of his way to talk about long term roster and cap management, because the two go hand in hand. Just because they have loads of space this year doesn't mean they will max out the cap. He wants max cap flexibility for future years to extend or resign the youngsters. You can see that logic working with Star. They had plenty of cap space to keep his contract, but everyone realized that he's not playing up to his cap value. Same rationale will apply to Murphy if they add new DEs. If Murphy is demoted to a rotational piece on the line, his contract sticks out like a sore thumb for a guy on the last year of his deal, and with Bam Johnson waiting in the wings. I'm never cavalier about spending other people's money. The decisive factor for Murphy will be what Beane can do in the first week of FA.

If you check the salaries & caps of the Eagles' 4 DEs in 2017, they are nowhere near +$50 million total that Bills would be facing this year if they land a marquee FA. Chris Long is the closest comp to Murphy, and he signed a very team friendly FA deal in '17.

If the above scenario works out, Murphy will be the #4 DE on the roster. You do not pay your #4 DE $10 million, especially when you are trying to figure out if Bam Johnson can rise to the next level.

I'll keep harping on this until March 23 (Murphy's bonus time). If Bills somehow end up with a marquee DE in week 1 of FA, and can bring Shaq back at $10 mil or less, Murphy is as good as gone. You don't waste $10 mill cap space on a declining DE who'll be in 30% of snaps.

Incognito. It's the episode right below Beane's.

As an aside, the podcast with Richie is also a decent listen.

When you lose NYT... "Doubts Linger as Democrats Vote: ‘I Don’t Think We Have a Perfect Candidate’ Many Super Tuesday voters across the nation made last-minute decisions, sometimes on the way to the polls. Even afterward, some weren’t sure they had chosen correctly."

The party conducted a live experiment of electability in the last month, and decided that Biden was the least offensive of the bad bunch.

In all honesty, do you believe that Joe gets even close to these numbers if Pete and Amy weren't strong-armed to get out? That's a pretty big shift in the odds from Saturday.

Isn’t that Astro’s chart?

You really need to do a better job of learning the statistics of the points you’re debating. Having a higher number of minorities getting into college was a relative non-factor in the runaway costs. That’s because you have a far lower number of minority students attending college than whites (assuming that by minorities you are referring to black & Hispanics, and not East Asians or South Asians). College enrollment has been growing, and a lot of that growth has been met with the rise of 2-yr programs and online college programs. In usual circumstances, when you see a rise in demand by students, but a rather fixed supply of college seats, you’d expect some price inflation, but definitely not at the same levels that’s occurred since the ‘80s. That’s because the government created a distorted financial aid and loan market that holds everyone else accountable for the rising costs, except colleges. Do you honestly think that college costs would rise so much if the colleges were the ones who were extending the loans to their students, and have to take on the repayment risk? Highly doubtful. Same concept applies to healthcare. Pharma gets beaten because it’s easy to quantify the cost of the drugs that are prescribed. And they are high. A big reason for the high cost is that US consumers subsidize the rest of the world, who get the discounts off the US payers’ back. Bernie rails about the high cost of prescription drugs, but has no real plan to reign them in, other than yelling at them. Trump on the other hand was the first President who’s introducing most favored nations clauses into drug pricing, which should equalize the drug costs across nations. Yet, that still a sliver of total health costs. A $1k/year prescription is high, but far worth it if it keeps someone out of a hospital, where a daily bill can easily run up to $3k/day.

Former LABilzfan went straight to the ending of the post I was going to write, but if you do a true analysis of the change in the purchasing power of Americans, you will see how greater government intervention affects the value of goods people buy. The fastest rising costs over the last 4 decades have been housing, education and healthcare, far outpacing inflation. All other costs have risen at inflation or less. It’s difficult to compare previous generations to current one, because priorities are vastly different, which in many cases results in much worse financial position for the younger folks.

Biden VA Bernie VT

You know who else remade his party, even before Reagan? Stalin.

Wouldn't you say that's a pretty important factor that differentiates good GMs from bad?

Unfortunately they publicly said they want to keep both Campbell and Yannick.

May, 12th? Huh

If the Bills are to play in Mexico, why are you addressing the board in Italian?

If it's Biden, it will be Camp …. You Know What Its Name Is.

Definitely a good listen, especially when they go back and discuss the '17 and '18 seasons.

Not sure I follow the math. I believe that the cost for the 5th year option was going to be above $10 million and for one season only. I think his AAV will be less than that, and for a longer term.

It's March 3rd

That wasn't the translation. It was, do as I say, not as I do. He's reinforcing the adage that different rules should apply to high profile people.

I think the point people are trying to make is that Botts should not be the person who should architect the rebuild. The evidence surely backs his critics. The cap dilemma is a false hope, because he won't have enough cap room to build a contending team through free agency only. He may swing for one top tier FA, if one is even available, but the rest of the new Sabres have to be fillers on $1mil-$2mil contracts. What gives everyone agita about the situation is that in three years, Botts is basically batting 0% in getting quality contributions from the low-mid tier offensive guys that he's brought in or extended. What makes you confident that in year 4, the light will turn on?

Good thing we don't need to worry about any fowl-borne illnesses in China.