Thurman#1

Yup, that's my guess. Shiniest toy in the store will always have people standing in the aisles. I see them bringing in a solid #2. Possibly that's Cooper. My guess is it depends on the price. They did really really well last year without anybody great. They should still try to upgrade. The only massive salary cap hit I see them taking is maybe Myles Garrett. And that won't be for running fly routes.

That's certainly one guess, that he would've been fired. No particular validity to it. We'll never know either way, because, you know, if different things had happened, results would have changed and nearly every decision after would have been made differently. Thing is ... they did draft 17. They didn't have to. And while now that looks like an easy decision, at the time it was really really unpopular. Most people would have made a different decision. Beane didn't. He nailed it, and apparently they like Allen from very very early in the process. So your argument here ... if they had not had a good process and not made that incredibly good decision ... yeah, thing is, they did. They've made decision after decision that have put them in contention every single year. Not every team with a great QB can say that or anything like it. And yeah, Beane's never been a scout in terms of going on the road and covering an area. He's been doing player evaluation for most of his career. Same with Howie Roseman. Same with plenty of GMs around the league.

"Getting lucky" is simply your way of spinning a terrific decision. What they did ... they got it right. No particular reason to think that it wasn't just simply good decision-making coming from a good process.

Player's side, he's worth it, or close anyway. Team's side, no thanks. Draft another third-rounder. The new guy will play great behind this terrific OL. Too many other key guys coming due the same year. It's not S.O.P. But it's not uncommon. Nothing especially wrong with it.

People who complain about dead cap endlessly or make comments about "we're paying him and he's not on the team, " ... understand the system perfectly. Or rather people who say we're using a giant chunk of this year's cap and getting absolutely nothing for it because the player is on another team ... they understand perfectly. It's a major handicap. As it was for us last year with the Diggs contract. When you have a huge dead cap hit, ala Diggs, it means you wasted a huge amount of money, and that that money is coming out of the cap in a year when that guy is not even playing on your team. If you do it perfectly, it's still a problem but yes, not as big a problem. It's still a problem even if things went perfectly because many of these long-term contracts have void years, and even if that works out perfectly you're still going to end up having dead cap. It has consequences. Last year, each team received $255.4M in cap space. The Bills only spent $225.25M in cash. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cash/_/year/2025 Why? Why did they spend in cash about $30M less than they received? Well, it's complex and there are a ton of factors but arguably the single main factor was the $31M in dead money that was being taken off the cap for Diggs while he was playing in Houston. And all of the rest of the $75M in dead cap hurt just as much dollar for dollar. More, when you say, "if things go perfectly, it's all fine," ... how often do things go perfectly? Never is the quick answer there. Things might go perfectly on one contract, but on all of them? It doesn't happen, these being human beings on both sides of these contracts. That's why the lowest dead cap total in the league last year was $13M. Nobody's perfect. Absolutely nobody. The more of those contracts you write, the more you will end up paying in dead cap generally. There are advantages and disadvantages. Both need to be looked at realistically.

Doesn't defeat the purpose of the salary cap. It's part of the salary cap. I mean you could say that a "carpool lane" defeats the purpose of the speed limit. You can go faster. It's not fair. Don't worry about it. It's part of the system.

Through most of the season KC's offense wasn't nearly as good as they used to be. Until they absolutely needed to score. Then they did score at a very high rate. No, they aren't as good as they used to be. They were 10th. That's not middle-of-the-pack. Philly pressured them constantly, but Mahomes also just plain had a bad day. In Warner's video you see the first pass of the day and he's not under any pressure but he throws it a bit behind Kelce who can't corral it. How often does that happen?

Definitely a factor. To me it's more about Poyer and Hyde but yeah, Tre too. It's easy to forget but White was both talented and cerebral. Hell of a player in his day. But the Bills biggest weakness has been D-line and in particular the lack of a pass rush. All factors. This year was supposed to be a kind of mini-rebuild. We didn't see it till near the end, and we came a play or two away from beating them anyway. But that was real. It manifested itself in the safeties, the DL and when Rasul regressed, the CBs.

Appreciate it. Very much. I've never been very aware at all on this stuff. You're making me more hopeful.

Don't know these guys well. He's a good'n? Awright, not quite as positive, but still sounds pretty good. Nice to hear. Thanks, Bill.

This!! The comp picks would dull the sting but from all appearances he's a very valuable guy.

Right, and no other teams have made bad picks on a first and two seconds in the last seven years. Um, except all of them, really. Everyone misses. Absolutely everyone. In large numbers. Whereas not all that many teams built mostly around draft picks have put together teams as good as the Bills. Certainly Basham and Ford were just bad picks and it now looks like Elam will turn out that way as well. As Jokeman pointed out the Chiefs have as many awful picks as we do. And if you're going to argue the book isn't written on those guys, well, Skyy Moore was picked in the same draft class as Elam. Elam's crap while Moore hasn't had the book written on him? If you're going to refuse to count Anuike-Uzomah, Suamataia, Wanya Morris or Skyy Moore ...... how about Breeland Speaks, Lucas Niang, Mecole Hardman (a 2nd rounder) or Edwards-Helaire? Everybody screws up. Everybody.

Not believing Beane has the deciding vote on who to draft and when points out a problem with your thought process. He does. McDermott did indeed help bring in Beane. But it's been 100% clear who's got what power and why. Beane controls the roster. They've said it a million times, everyone has agreed and there's never been a whisper otherwise except from folks as far outside as you and I. Does McDermott tell Beane what he needs for his schemes? Yeah, and that almost certainly does affect Beane's thinking on who to draft. But there just isn't a question on whether Beane has autonomy.

Probably been pointed out already how wrong that is, but here are the specific, with their non-lineman first rounders named: 2024 CB Quinyon Mitchell, no lineman till the 3rd 2021 DeVonta Smith, no lineman till the 2nd 2020 Jalen Reagor, no lineman till their second 4th round pick 2018 No first rounder. first pick was Dallas Goedert, no lineman till the 4th 2016 Carson Wentz. Their second pick, the #79 was a lineman. Named GM in 2010, he hasn't had the buck stop with him the whole time, but he certainly has been the defacto GM since 2016. So, no. only four of the last nine years have they pick lineman. That's 44.4%. And since linemen are nine of the 22 positions (40.9%) they've gone DL about as often as you'd expect if they just picked without thinking about position at all, almost if they just took the BPA. Now, does he value and prioritize the lines? Hell, yeah. But a lot of the reason that their Dline is so good is that some of the best guys were early draft picks, guys who never got close to Buffalo. Philly has gone up and down with the win totals and that allowed them to draft much higher much more recently. 2023 #9 Jalen Carter 2022 #13 Jordan Davis Those are two of their three highest picks since 2016 when Howie gained unquestioned control (2021 #10 De Vonta Smith). Two out of the three highest picks on lineman. That's a lot of the reason their DL particularly looks so very very good. We haven't seen high picks since Josh started being a Josh. They drafted Carter, Davis and DeVonta besides way before we were sniffing the podium Our last high pick was Eddie Oliver, a lineman.

Go all in, meaning you are essentially destroying your future? No, they absolutely shouldn't. They'll be in Super Bowl contention for a decade. Giving up years would be nuts. Should they maybe pick up Garrett? It looks doable without destroying the cap. They'd have a tough time with the cap in future years. But it might easily be worth it. He's that good.

This'n.

Anyway, sorry to drag things back into the past. I can't see the Raiders letting him go or the Bills paying what it would take, myself. Love the guy. Great player. I'd love to see him here but seems a really small possibility to me. Hope you're all right and I'm wrong.

What great sack artists has this scheme neutered? I must've missed all the great players leaving and becoming so much better elsewhere. Rotation is what the NFL does these days. It's not a Buffalo thing. Chris Jones played 68% of snaps last year and 71% this year. Karlaftis 69% and 76% this year. Welcome to the NFL. This argument ended like ten years ago.

He wasn't a great fit, but there wasn't a good fit, not with that deeply flawed front office. The roster was bad. Those were the years when Trent Edwards looked good for a brief shining instant. The Derrick Dockery period. The era they fought and fought over the decision about whether to pay Jason Peters the amount the Ravens gave him three hours after they acquired him. The times they went Donte Whitner over Ngata. The days when they moved Langston Walker to LDE. The days when they felt they needed a tall receiver so they picked James Hardy at #41 while DeSean Jackson went at #49 and Calais Campbell at #50. A bad bad time, and I don't think any really good coach would have been successful, or interested in joining for that matter.

Very sorry to hear this.

Our defense allowed 21.3 PPG in the playoffs this year. 22 PPG last year. 29.0 PPG in 2022. 26.0 the year before and 21.6 in 2020. So you clearly aren't referencing McDermott. Oh, wait, you don't actually mean to "playoff opponents," right? You mean you want to throw out all good games and only count the playoff one playoff opponent who has done best against us, right? Well, statistically, throwing out all the good games and only counting the worst is totally misleading and unfair, but let's go with it, OK? In that case we should get rid of McDermott, and the Chiefs should get rid of Reid, since his defense has also allowed 28 plus points to playoff opponents. Which opponents? Um, us.

Probably not impossible. But spectacularly rare. There are a few guys who do what you're suggesting Higgins might want to do, take a major discount to go to a new team with a Super Bowl shot and a good environment. Very few, but they do exist. But almost without exception, those guys are guys on their third or fourth contract, who've banked a ton on their first few. So far, Higgins has earned, before taxes, about $8.6M. He'll get another $21M this year on the 5th year agreement, but this is again before taxes. Guys like Higgins don't do things like that. Pretty much without exception. If the Bills didn't like what they got from your Player B in that first year, think they'd sign him on an extension anyway? I don't. And I think the players are very aware that that's what Beane's job is, to do what's in the Bills best interest. IMO it's not going to happen. If we get Garrett, that'll be it for big names.

DE. Specifically Garrett. Without a doubt. We scored enough all year and even against KC. And we could probably have scored more if Kincaid just makes that catch, which he does nine times out of ten. What we don't have is a pass rush that hurries Mahomes. That's always been what we didn't have, except maybe for Von before the injury.

This is my guess, unless we draft and develop one. In any case, game-planning the offense for a team with a #1 is easier, not harder. I'm not sure the 2023 Diggs is a true #1, and I think it's very arguable that Cooper never was. Still, OP has an interesting observation there. Worth mentioning, I think. Cooper has spent much of his career as a top 20 WR, but "true #1" is questionable. I think they're going to bring in a WR, maybe someone on the general level of an Emmanuel Sanders or a John Brown. And maybe draft someone in the top two or three rounds as well. Yup, this also seems very reasonable to me.

I'm kind of surprised they gave it to him. But I absolutely think he deserved it. Terrific season. Lamar had one too, but Josh's was better.