2020 Our Year For Sure

No, he actually does. One of the many reasons I can't wait for the draft is that Bill will officially be wrong, rather than almost definitely being wrong.

I feel almost certain #28 will be an O-lineman. Its the ideal range to take a Guard, teams have been doing it successfully at the end of the first round for years. And with Kelsay on the block, I'm getting more and more confident Ayers is the pick at 11.

Thing is, according to Tim Graham, Peters is.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast/0-7-89/...-in-Philly.html Lori posted it earlier in the thread. To me, that makes it pretty clear that he's getting $53M over 4 seasons. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong. If I am wrong, he must mean that Peters "surpasses" Jake Long in terms of total dollars, which doesn't seem right...we know total dollars don't really mean all that much these days when teams can get out of a deal at any time. I have to think he means Peters surpasses him in average yearly salary, in other words, he's getting over $13M for those 4 years. The Bills never would've even approached those kind of numbers, and when it gets that high up there, I find I'm not quite as pissed off anymore.

This has me a bit confused. If its truly just a 6 year $60M deal, how is he "the highest paid offensive lineman in NFL history," as Mr. Graham has said? Jake Long signed for more than $10M/year. Surely he couldn't have meant total dollars...that means bupkus in today's NFL.

Agreed.

As I understand it, he's playing out the next two years on his current Bills-given contract, then gets $53 million over the next 4 years. So for 4 years, he'll average $13 million. Am I mistaken?

Somebody could clear this up for me maybe...did they really give him 4 years $53M? Thats over $13M a year. The reports were that he wanted around 11.5...

So we should hope that the players we draft with the picks we got for Peters are good, but not too good. I don't even know what I'm rooting for anymore.

I just don't see them taking linemen with their first 3 picks.

Can you make me laugh, please?

What a joke. What an absolute joke. First we botch the paperwork on a deal to get something for Dockery, then we forget that 4 is a higher number than 3. Absolutely ridiculous.

What is the point of drafting good players and hoping they're among the best at their position if we're unwilling to keep them? Why should I hope our next pick is good? So we can trade him for more draft picks?

So we trade Peters and the 11th pick for a player who might someday be Peters?

F-ck this team. Time to take a couple days off from being a Bills fan. See y'all when my anger has subsided a bit.

It depends...are you hypothetically saying that we can give them more games and the team will definitely stay in Buffalo? Or are you just asking if we prefer watching games in Buffalo or Toronto?

Thanks for comin' by and clearing that up, Astro. We'll try not to overreact so drastically the next time somebody makes the tiniest mistake!

To this point, the last true reach I can think of is Mike Nugent to the Jets in the 2nd round.

What?

Good catch! Derrick Harvey was the 8th pick, and he got $23M over 5 years, 17 guaranteed. And Jacksonville traded up into that spot last year, so clearly teams are willing to do it. Which is exactly why I think that if the Jags trade out, we probably won't have a deal available. There's never a whole long line of teams just aching to give you picks to move up. But it sounds like someone in the area of our pick is gonna have a chance to get a deal done, because teams want Sanchez. Really? 'Cause McShay explicitly said the Redskins are looking for a quarterback. Do you know something he doesn't?

I'll take your word for it that they haven't yet put together an overall strategy, but I've gotta think they've got an opinion (or a "grade") on all these players at this point. So assuming you're right, you can still learn something by hearing what Modrak has to say about individual players.

They say that now, but you know when the draft comes along our guy will suddenly be a reach because he was projected to go 5 spots later!

Well you're right Nanker, to an extent. Nobody is gonna trade up...to the top 5-6 spots. But after that the game is on. The contract we gave to McKelvin at #8 last year was very reasonable. Sanchez would get a bit more in that spot being a quarterback, but it would still be far from a deal-breaker. The enormous rookie salaries are a well-documented problem, but thinking it extends past the first handful of picks is a misconception. Something that could put a hitch in things is, as you mention, the package teams have to put together to move up. McShay said that according to the value chart, the Jets would have to give up their 2nd and 4th round picks to go from #17 to #8. Not sure what it would take for them to swap with us, maybe just the 2nd? Either way, that seems like quite a bit for a defensive-minded coach to give up for a quarterback in his first draft. Teams like the Vikings in the low 20s and on down the list would obviously have to pay even more. Thing is, immediately after us, you have the Broncos and Redskins at 12 and 13 who could both be looking for a quarterback. Might be an easy way to pick up an extra pick.

I forgot to add this, but billybob reminded me of another interesting angle McShay brought up. In his mock, he currently has the Raiders at #7 passing on Crabtree to take Maclin, because Maclin better fits the speed reciever mold that Al Davis favors. So that would mean Crabtree would still be on the board at #8, with Maclin gone (and therefore having no chance of dropping to the Jags if they trade down). McShay seemed to think that if this scenario indeed plays out, there's a chance Jacksonville would forego the trade-down and just take Crabtree at #8, who he thought would be tremendous value at that spot. No way to know this, but if SF and GB (numbers 9 and 10) are locked into somebody up in that range and don't want to trade out, we'd have a hot ticket at 11 again.

You're absolutely right, of course. If a team really wants a guy, but he's projected to go about 15-20 picks later...what the hell are they supposed to do? Obviously the trade-down isn't always there. So you stick to your guns, and take your guy, pundits be damned.