colin

looking at the rams of last season, the bills of last season, the rams now, and the bills now, the thing that stands out to me the most is the most basic and fundamental issue -- the lines. the bills lines on both O and D coming into this season are way better than they were coming into last season. brown as a raw rookie displaced our RT (although largely to remove our horrible RG play) and we had trash guard play for most of the season (obviously we've signed guys and let guys walk) and on the DL we were hoping phillips would catch fire, star would find his heart again, and our raw rookies would improve while our old guys would hang on at end. shak and jordan imo are upgrades to the guys we let go, they have performed for this team and this regime before, groot and basham (and maybe aj, im not big on him) will be better than they were last year, and most of all von miller comes in and bring some actual juice to the DL. once white is back healthy and our round 1 CB2 gets his legs under him, the top to bottom talent on this team has far fewer holes in it than it did last season. i expect to win every game (i know we won't but i expect to)

being a bills fan for so long i still kinda jump at the chance to indulge in some media adulation of our team, but listening to the bloated boomer bloviating from Peter King makes me want to mute every instance of sports media and just watch games in silence. the dull, boring, and self assured mediocrity of PK really hammers home how awful television was before wide spread internet entertainment, and how much i don't miss it.

i get he lost the plot a little bit, but he's young and high strung so i wouldn't be too worried about that. I think his biggest issue is he runs a lot and has to hold the ball sometimes because he's boxed in and can't see over his lineman, and that's going to get him hurt and he's small. him being unable to play while being hurt is going to mess his team up more than immaturity. lamar jackson is a much more interesting situation, because lamar has a great attitude and has played at a very high level, but he lacks traditional qb skills (much more so than murray or cam newton who were mentioned in this thread). without a very particular team built around him, lamar doesn't impact the game as well, but without a talent like lamar, a ravens built team doesn't win as much (unless it is a rogers or allen type star who can just transcend). the ravens are simply going to have to pay him, but he'd be bid much less away than murray watson, rogers, or allen would be.

key point in all of this here: cap expansion makes the cap (not cash) cost of players much lower if you pay upfront and pro rate, or even back load contracts (that was popular back in the original days of the cap, but not as popular now). on the other point: it's all about when a player falls off due to age/wear and tear, or if there are locker room or other kind of considerations that make you want to move on. If you have a young buck coming up on a rookie contract who is not quite yet as good as who he is replacing, you might accelerate the young guy's career and let the older guy walk if it's a big contract year, just because you don't want older guy on a contract w pro ration (so moving on from him will zap your cap) when he's not the best guy/starter for that position once the younger guy accends. you also have locker room and "ethics" (tbh, i think 90% of nfl teams view getting caught as the ethical issue, not the act itself) reasons why you might want to move on from someone. those reasons make it important to really evaluate who you throw the giant potentially back breaking contracts at. this last paragraph above, i think that's where the Rams are tops and have beaten out teams like new orleans who love to throw cash over cap around: the rams hand balloon contracts to players who continue to perform. Goff was a miss, but he got the to a super bowl so over the life of his term w the team, i think that's a net positive. they blew massive draft picks for the QB and top corner, but in their model they see both of those guys as legit game changers who make players around them better, and obv that's totally true w donald. KC has done great too w a few ultra super stars and an army of jags around them, but them moving on from hill says something, either they were less than certain on him from an off the field perspective, or they just think he will start slowing down in the middle of the huge contract, and that it would hamstring them trying to sign other players later on.

i think lamar has a unique value to the ravens, which is not matched for any other team (baring a total rebuild of the team to suit him, kinda like how people talked about tebow, or IMO the goat running qb of the modern era, kordel stewart). The ravens, thus, have a bigger bid for lamar than any other team at the moment, but they could retool (they'd have to if the coach got fired) and go a different direction if they wanted. i think the solution is in the middle, with the ravens paying him a big contract but with less guaranteed, or simply with more outs than the other mega contracts. the upside of lamar/roman offense is it lets you get to a level of scoring and ball control with less vol and less expensive high flying talent at WR. by having a bigger burlier team you have an advantage because smaller faster guys get tired and get slower, but big guys stay the same size (to me, this is what the pats did better than anyone for about 17 years). the downside is you can only level so much diverse talent because the formations, the substitutions and all of that just take so much time to practice and so long to roll out. i remember what the 2 min offence looked like under roman, and it wasn't pretty. i think about 10 years back lamar woulda been a monster and potential champ (similar to how sf looked w roman as oc) but to me the trend towards high flying passing and less d might be an issue (meaning the advantage of a lamar lead O is you spend less on O, bully and beat people up w running and misdirection, and invest in a sick D). assuming tannyhill doesn't show further improvement, if tenn signed lamar i'd be rally nervous about playing them in the playoffs, but other than that i can't think of another team who could use him like the ravens.

im not interested (much) in the personal lives or takes of nfl people, but i am interested in how they work together and create a dynamic, which ultimately leads to wins and losses IMO. this kind of gossip to me is actually sports info, and richard noggins take (no idea what his relationship w these people is, but i buy it and i like it!) gives me some color. i will say, i listened to that podcast blurb at that link, and people raising their voices, talking over each other, and most of all more than one person speaking at once just ruins a broadcast. i think this is what keeps jocks and athletes from having bigger podcast empires, they sort of need to be cool or dominant, and just don't focus on putting out a product vs having what at the time to them is an exciting convo.

at that price i would not choose love, cant afford it

speaking of small sample size trends, it is encouraging how the higher pressure games keep getting a sort of switched on manic josh, but that energy is getting more and more focussed. first playoff game, josh did some great things early but really had the sugar high thing going on (vs houston). second was vs indy, he avoided mistakes and put together some insane drives before the d finally got a stop. baltimore was kinda forgettable w the wind, but he soldiered on pretty well in what i would call a more gutsy day than vs indy. kc he fought hard, but the whole team really fell off hard. vs NE this playoffs he was a robot built only for touchdown drives. vs kc this year he showed a level of power and focus that was kinda shocking at times. we only lost that game due to a perfect storm of player blunders, calls not going in, horrible d strategy, and losing a coinflip. i think in the playoffs this upcoming season we are going to see allen do things that shouldn't be done, and the whole team is gonna ride that lighting.

you might be onto something here, but i don't think it is like the rb market, but more like the OT/LT market. remember how for a few years after the blind side came out some real reach LTs were picked like top 5 consistently? they were such "safe" picks that everyone took em, paid huge contracts, and let them walk or even cut them shortly after

i wasn't born greek, but my wife is and we go to a greek church and are pretty active in the community. if i see some of the alterboys with their zoomer perms rocking KC Karlafitis jerseys im going to scowl at them and make them stand uncomfortably straight when i get the chance. they will have NO IDEA what they are doing wrong.

they really made a mistake removing the wonderlic.

now that he's on KC, you must see him as your enemy. That Greek kid from Purdue went to KC late in the first. I had hopes for him to do well before, now i can't stand the sight of him!

That's an interesting take, seems plausible to me (but i know very little). Why do you think McDuff is a better fit for KC vs Elam for Buff, if ya don't mind me picking your brain. tx

he's really being his own agent?

im confused as to why they made the trade for the so few slots move. im sure there is a reason, i just can't figure it out. based on what is happening here, i think we draft a safety in 2nd or 3rd, and for some reason i think from the big 10. i keep whining that we have a schematic issue w our d, and that our stats are sort of better than our play on d (certainly with respect to how we perform in big games vs tough teams), but it's pretty clear our FO values D above all else except QB. the resources dropped into DL and D overall on this team over the past 3 years, when our D was good to start with kinda shows me how they are running this thing. i expect us to be more aggressive on D next season, perhaps by a big amount.

so many of these linemen have insane talent but are just like giant fat lazy drunk bears. there should be some kind of cookie avoiding wonderlick to test to see if these guy will balloon up. holti ngata, vince wilfork, or this guy or a mike williams. gotta roll the dice, would be nice to know if you are drafting a thicc champion or a sloppy guts grump on his way to a bust off career and an early heart attack.

loool, i love hearing pitlovers spaz out and say "it's the owners, not the breed!!". like, what if i kept a lion, could i be a good and loving owner and just not every worry that my fur baby wouldn't hurt a fly? well, the difference between a lion and a dog is only it's genes, which is the difference between a pit and a lab. i see this kind of trash all over and it's absolutely disgusting! lol

i think there is some truth to the criticism that josh doesn't always get the ball out "on time", but to me that's as much of a scheme/system issue as it is on individual players. watching sf you really see how the ball just pops out on a beat, but if a single solitary thing went wrong in the process up to that point the play looks like a soup sandwich: just spilling all over the joint. im hoping w kromer back and some more emphasis on the protections and run game that instead of just having josh go be super man all the time, we kinda run the O with more easy plays.

i think you can come up w a great team just using former bills. 11x bruce (or cornelious) on D 11x jason peters on O bear front w 6 bruce's on the line, disguising where the rush is coming from. jason peters on O means you can block up anyone obv. i think both of these guys are such freaks that they could gain or lose some size and be more impactful at other positions. bruce could get down to like 225-230 to play DB. peters was a TE, if he could diet down to around 250, he could be RB, qb ( assuming he can throw, if not not a big deal) and so on. he'd really just have to get small enough to play rb, two or three rb sized peters behind 8-9 full sized peters would be kinda funny since no one touches anyone until some big blocks are laid and a convoy is in motion. if this could be done right it would make for a funny breaking madden type thing.

i think we get a corner in the 1st or 2nd (and maybe later in the draft if we like one) and him and dane start while trey recovers. after trey recovers, it's trey and dane, until it's painfully obvious the rookie is better (which is what mcd always does, err on the side of the vet starting).

chip is the only bit i'd be excited for in the nfl. the rest are totally fine for another league, needs to be different than the nfl.

good data, i kinda think you only have to spend really top picks on qbs (because everyone needs one so overpaying isn't that bad) and pass rushers (because you need a crazy combo of skill and insane attributes). im a bit less sure, but i think the same might apply to CBs too.

isn't trading away edmunds an issue w the cap?

im guessing we put more resources into huge RAS guys this year. that's been a theme w beene, and it seems to be accelerating. the wr and that lb mentioned on this thread, there are a couple of safeties who score huge on the RAS, all could be need positions.

so, i'm presuming dk metcalf was just behind this guy on the total athletic index score (i could be wrong). How is this guy getting talked about in the 1st and dk fell to the second? and we missed him for fatty fat fat ford! im guessing the issue there is that metcalf obv shoulda been higher, not that this watson kid should be much lower. looking at the top 4 ranked athletic guys, they were all super producers. Matt jones is the exception, but if i recall correctly, he was a drug addict who couldn't hack being a pro athlete. he still went from qb to wr and made some shocking one handed catches for TDs for the short time he played.