thurst44

Then re-sign Deonte Thompson and trade back into first round to pick Alabama safety Deionte Thompson.

Would two late round picks really get them all the way to 1 (oh, and Carr? hmmm, ok, maybe). If they could pull that off and get a pass rusher AND a QB, that would be impressive and I'd be willing to doff my cap to them and admit Gruden's plan might have some logic, although Kyler Murray feels like one hell of a precarious ledge to lay your hat and hopes on.

My other has been mentioned, but for the record: trading up and getting a second great first rounder and still having a pick in every round of 2019 draft. Trading up and getting your potential franchise quarterback and somehow winding up with another first round pick, let alone a mid-first round pick is truly remarkable. If Allen and Edmunds play anywhere near their potential and there were a lot of positive signs this year, this will be legendary.

Frankly, I'm a bit tired of this mentality. They had almost the #1 defense last year, a lot of people at key positions heading towards their prime, and a lot of money to spend in free agency. If they get sign three good o-linemen, trade for Julio, and sign a pass rusher (this is before the draft -- where at worse we gave up a pick), why can't they be a contender this year? Teams make fast jumps all the time in this league. I'd argue that a great WR could help Allen progress. They can pay Julio and still easily have enough cap space to pick up linemen (and probably a few more players), and still have money going forward to extend White, Milano, Edmunds, Allen, etc. if/when the times come.

Agreed on the first part, except on the second part I don't quite have the clarity you do on his endgame (but then he has, what, 8 more years to accomplish it): the Bills would always get grilled pre-Allen with people saying something to the effect: "it's all about QB in the NFL." Does anyone here truly believe that Kyler Murray (or anyone in this draft) is a lock to do well in the NFL? Perhaps trading Carr is all smoke, but if so, why all the bluster and intrigue. Brown makes a lot more sense for the Bills than the Raiders given that the Bills have a QB who is in his second year and may benefit from having a reliable, elite WR for the next two to three years to mask early accuracy issues. This only makes any sense to me if they are keeping Carr -- who has his own question marks (albeit he deserves much better than the way he's apparently being thrown out). As one of the most astute posters on here, your voice gives the idea of an endgame here some credence to me, but I can't see this endgame. Gruden "won" these deals, but not sure it winds up helping him all that much. All that being said, we may never know the true reasons this went down the way it is. I see two other posters in this thread arguing conflicting points, both using speculation as fact. Ultimately, I'm a bit happy he ended up in a spot that feels a bit trainwrecky. I wish neither the Raiders or AB luck, and it's on to FA and maybe (hopefully) kicking the tire on trades for the other supposedly available-for-a-price WRs out there. It would have been nice to win this, and I'm not gonna sour grapes this, AB probably would have helped, but I also don't feel like we lost anything. Beane tried and something fell through.

That's speculation. Let's see how the FA season goes outside of the attempted trade for the player we already knew was kind of a diva (that being said, i was ecstatic when i thought we were going to get him).

This doesn't even pass the basic sniff test of logic. Gilmore, and I guess Dareus to a degree (his comments felt a bit man-scorned), have popped off post being here, but most of these guys were traded and let go (and, for crying out loud, Maclin didn't even play here so he fits the original premise anyway). Your better argument might have been Whitner and a couple others who have been vocal on Twitter, but mostly they were whipping boys and part of me does not blame them. But let's just say that ALL the players you mentioned left Buffalo in a huff and have been bad mouthing their time here, the fact that some people did not like it here does not mean that many others do. But, by all means, self-loathe about the city. I have mixed feelings. I live in NYC. I've thought about coming back to WNY b/c of CoL and sense of community, but ultimately while I'm a Bills fan and lived in Buffalo for many years, NYC is still the home I chose. There are reasons players might not want to come to Buffalo, but you have to admit it's quite the football community, and to suggest that it's crazy to suggest that a lot of players come here and like it seems to be ignoring the evidence. It makes sense, come to Buffalo and do well and you're a God, everyone knows your name. Buffalo has a fanbase that has stuck by their team through 17 years of no playoffs and went crazy when they broke that streak. To players like Eric Wood, Kyle Williams, Jordan Phillips, that atmosphere can clearly be exhilarating.

This is why I suspect it's more than AB simply "refusing" to come. I'd bet if that were the case there would be a blitz of players who love Buffalo trying to change his mind, or Beane would just give it a shot as there's such a long history of players who complain about coming to Buffalo (from Kelly to Shady) who now absolutely love it.

This is closest I've heard to what I agree with. An elite WR around 30 would probably be the best value you're going to get to improve our WR corps and help Allen's development at this point, so I'm bummed about this. I'm also not going to give Brown as much of a pass (while still agreeing wholeheartedly to the first part of that last point about Ben) -- his standing up to Ben is not the problem, but taking oneself out of a game and some of the other stuff is (including IGing "fake news" during this process). Ultimately, this is one player and one incident and the only example of it we know of this off-season. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of the theme of this FA period in Beane's aggressiveness to pursue answers, but not in the outcome. Now, I'm really going to get on with the day.

Ay yi yi. Different standards for different players. Ok, go ahead and wallow in your pointless misery. I'm gonna go on with my day.

Is it better he sequester himself away and be miserable and screaming into the void. This sucks, and this is going to perpetuate that whole "no one wants to come here" notion. AB is apparently a diva...who knew? But if someone wants to find the bright side, why give them a hard time? And "more big names want to go to the Browns"?!?! Based on what?

We've also signed Mario Williams and Micah Hyde in this period. Spencer Long was an outside-of-free-agency signing that teams always do.

Good, dude's probably going to be waaay overpaid as will most of the top FA WRs. Perhaps he takes the next step (and with Luck that may be the tallest of grass for that), but these FA WR are probably not the best investment right now, so not overly upset if we miss out on them.

I've found the premium where you can make trades also worth it. The GM stuff understandably has some bugs and you can't do player trades, but they are very responsive to any feedback, and it's still a lot of fun to do an off-season and gives you a feel for how much money we are actually working with this off-season. If we can convince players to come to Buffalo, even if we overpay, the money goes a long way.

Yeah, something tells me they are not going to incur a 12.5m dead cap hit so they can get rid of someone who's causing no problems we know of when the Bills improved in the areas he was supposed to improve. He was definitely overpaid (and that by design), but the defense played well with him and cutting him helps them not at all.

Judicious does not mean never paying out for large contracts. If they feel that Williams or James (both of whom are just getting into their prime) is worth a larger portion of their salary cap, they will feel it worth it to make Allen's progress quicker (and to win games). DeMarcus Lawrence is a pass rusher in his prime. When we have such a large amount of salary cap, and it's quite possible one more pass rusher could elevate this defense to elite (and up the play of Hughes, Lawson, etc.), it might just be judicious to use a sizable portion on that and on a couple spots on the line. Honestly, I'm not sure which way Beane is going to go. He's unpredictable. He's cleared a ton of cap space, but also shown he's not above overspending if he thinks it fits their vision. For whatever you think of the Star signing it (1) shows he's willing to spend money where he deems it necessary and (2) can be argued successful since even if his play and playing time seemed sub-standard, the defense did improve significantly and in one very specific area that Star was intended to address (qbs stepping up and making short passes, often to the tight end). That may have been coincidence, but...

If Buffalo Rumblings is correct about his price, sure. He's showed extended flashes of promise (unfortunately has been a disaster more often), but as many have said here, maybe with a new coach, and it's insurance if we bust on all of our FA OL.

I'm all but positive they will make an all-out blitz for linemen on Day 1 and that's where we will be willing to "judiciously" overspend (if we're not aggressive, chances are we'll just get another Ducasse and Mills). Part of me thinks this is the opposite of the way they're going to go, but part of me can see this as a logical move. One strategy which has been floating around in my mind: it's a given that protecting Allen and having a line that gives him a chance to succeed is paramount. What I'd love to see them do is use a decent amount of the salary cap space to attempt to sign 3 out of whoever they see as the 6 best linemen regardless of age (provided they realistically have a couple years left in them), ideally to 2 or 3 year contracts, maybe add one younger one (i.e. Daryl Williams, Matt Paradis) to have a veteran line (with Dawkins) going for the next couple years. Meanwhile, use the 2nd to mid-rounds of the draft to target future linemen, and have them work together on same side of line on second team, same with Teller if he does not prove himself ready to start (and try to get Dawkins to take at least a few reps a week with second team maybe to get a rhythm (but i'm not a coach, so that could be not worth as much as i think). Have a vet line to protect Allen for the next couple years and try to put together a future line with chemistry (well, as much as you can given roster constraint

They're 4, 5, and 7...and you mean the rounds we got Taron Johnson and Matt Milano in the last few years? The 5th round where we got our best player for the last decade?

I did not open b/c I was just not in the mood, but I presumed that it was more in the vein of "let's root for them so Brady and Belichick retire." Was it not?!

That pig in that poke may have turned out to be a top cornerback AND a quarterback who is just as good as Mahomes. We don't know yet, so to chalk it up as a loss is premature. Ditto on the Joe T. -- I'm still haunted by it. That I even saw it is crazy b/c at the time i was a kid who watched very little football, but my aunt chose the 'Skins as her secondary team (she was loyal to Bills til the end) and probably that's why it was on.

I'm somewhat close to agreeing with your overall premise, but that whole "Rex's kid was his college roommate" thing is not really fair as it, with ample snark, implies he was ridiculously overdrafted, when in truth, unless the prognosticators were waaaaay off base compared to the scouts here, he actually came off the board late. I remember watching that draft from early on in the night; it took place in Chicago, who held the 11th pick, and the announcers noted the fans were chanting for him, so he wasn't exactly a mystery or even a dark horse. Awhile back, when I was getting a bit annoyed at this revisionism, I looked back at about a dozen mock drafts and the lowest he went in any of them was 19. I definitely would have reservations about them picking up his option, but could also see them doing it as McD seems to have taken to him and they might feel as it's worth the risk considering all the cap space, and worst case scenario he's off the books in 2021. That said, his value would seem to be more vs. the run and in containment, while, if he hits his peak, being an overall Lorax-style pain in the neck for an opposing offense. Adding an above average pass rusher might take this defense from above average to elite, and pass rushers might be the best value in both the FA open market and first round to boot.

Probably will be

The Bills Run D was 29th in 2017 and 16th in 2018, giving up 10 fewer yards per game. They were also solid in most games (under 100 in half), but were so terrible in three that's all many of us remember. Even if you don't like that level of improvement, it's debatable that he was solely brought in to "improve our run defense" -- more often, I heard the justification was that we were getting murdered in the short pass game because QBs could step up into the middle and outlet a quick pass to the tight end. To that end, I'm pretty sure we allowed the fewest yards to tight ends this year. Is the scarcity of snaps concerning? Sure. However, given that this defense improved from 26th to 2nd and we have a plethora of cap space to address offensive issues (and he's not the reason we didn't have wide receivers this year), I trust their moves for now on the defensive side of the ball.

Colts are a cool, forward-looking choice as they may take the reins from the Pats as the power team considering they already are a SB contender and have a ton of draft picks and cap space. This year, I'm kinda rooting for 'em. Luck is a fellow nerd who just happens to be an amazingly talented QB, and hard to go against Frank Reich, but I know that will change after a span of dominance.