thurst44

Ha, as a kid, I used to wait with bated breath to read its gold standard baseball preview, and would occasionally check the football one too in college, but then I am in my 40s so, yes, I too haven't thought of or bought in over 20 years. But 2nd sounds realistic (particularly given the likely distance between the Pats and Dolphins/Jets).

Wrapping these things together, the hiring recruiter at the job where I was working when EJ was drafted was an FSU grad and about the biggest Seminole supporter you could ever meet (to an absurd degree), also a huge Dolphins fan who was never a jerk about my Bills fandom. His reaction was that "you'll love EJ as a person and really want to root for him" but that he's a long shot to ever be a great QB.

So, you basically just don't like anyone. That does not seem very Irv-like .

I'll go 3 positive as negative is just not my style--I tried to come up with 3 negative to go along with it, and just didn't have the heart. 1. Tremaine Edmunds will be a candidate (and a Kiko-Tre' level obvious candidate) for DROY. 2. Bills will make a pronounced jump in sack total to become top 5 in sacks, with at least one player (Hughes, Murphy, Lorax, Shaq in order of likelihood) in the top 3 for sacks. 3. Zay Jones will show marked improvement, and be near if not over 1000 yards.

I totally ripped Ducasse going into the season, but then when I watched him closely during the season on all-22, thought he was perfectly fine, and while neither my own acumen nor PFF are perfect judges (particularly the former), it''s the best I have to go by. Most people digging in to him now have provided much less proof (just seems like preconceived notions): Here's PFF: https://www.profootballfocus.com/nfl/players/vladimir-ducasse/5586

Well, in fairness, you ARE an imaginary Japanese man created in frustration during the 1974 NHL draft, so that may make it hard to see the future...

Ah, ok. For some reason, I was certain we were still on the hook for his salary plus the signing bonus until we settled this. So, we saved that money when we put him on the "Retired/Reserve" list?

Wouldn't we still have to pay his complete salary if he stayed on the reserve list or officially retired before June 1? Or did that take care of it?

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure he was still being listed with a cap hit until today (along with the dead money). In any case, if Sportrac is right, it looks as if they will have a little over 13m in cap space when they sign Allen and Phillips, but not sure if that's more than it was before the release.

Looks like it does. Sportrac now only lists him as a little more than a 1.1m dead cap hit and it was much more than that last time I checked (i wanna say roughly 5m after restructuring?)

Watson was the only QB I wanted last year, and Allen was the one of the Big 4 I didn't want. That being said, I would not be able to answer this one, and would probably prefer to have a potential top QB and a potential top CB than just the potential top QB (even if that QB has shown something in the NFL already--but even with his spectacular start, it's still only six starts, and a .500 record over those with a team with a ton of talent on paper). However, hindsight is 20/20 and we won't have that for a few years.

Apparently, because I did. And I even forwarded it to fellow Bills fans who I consider friends and to whom I wish no specific harm. I might be a sociopath. Unrealistic: - At one point, Lorenzo Alexander and Sean McDermott literally disappear on the sideline - Tre' White walks THROUGH a defender at one point - Nick O'Leary catches a pass and the announcers fail to mention his grandfather is Jack Nicklaus Realistic: - The announcers mention players on other teams more often than either the Bills or Browns - The announcers' patter is inane - Hyde and White are everywhere - The spirit of a Bills-Browns football match. This is practically unwatchable (and yet i just spent an hour of my life during daytime on a weekday) with so many ridiculous and frustrating moments for each team. The high point may be when the Bills have the ball 4th & 1 near the goal line, get called for a false start, go for it and catch a break when the Browns are called for encroachment, then proceed to commit another false start.

If Carlos Hyde and Devonta Freeman are on the list, Shady will certainly make it. Plus, they usually make a point of saying if a player is the only representative of a team on the list.

I have faith that he doesn't (or at least I sure hope not)

FWIW, I'm pretty sure this is the same guy who predicted them 2-14 awhile back in his "bold predictions" column. It's possible, but I'd say it's not much more possible than 14-2. It's an extreme. They've only been 2-14 twice since I've been following them, and never in the drought, and this team does not seem like a particular dropoff from last year (the defense could be MUCH better...and was very good in more than half the games, including the playoff game). If Allen starts and has an even bigger learning curve than we expect or McCarron turns out to be awful, and the defense plays more like it did in the three-game disaster or in either Patriots game, perhaps they could go 2-14, but it doesn't seem very likely. And it was that weird thing that seems to happen where national pundits seem to try to top each other with how bad they say the Bills will be.

Fwiw, when another diva ex-Dallas wide receiver signed with the Bills, our QB situation was Ryan Fitzpatrick (who the prior season avg'd 146.5 ypg) and a post-meltdown Trent Edwards. I'm not saying this should happen or is likely to happen, and this is clearly the wispiest of rumors, but we never truly know what's going on in players' heads. One could argue that if Dez does reasonably well in a spot where the QB situation is felt to be subpar, his stock will still go up. Look at the WR signings this off-season; you did not need to put up amazing stats to get top dollar. Heck, 16m/yr went to a guy most people here believe has a world of talent, but has one 1000 yard season and had barely 1000 yards in the last two years combined. If Dez goes to Buffalo, he'll look humbled, and if he behaves and he's any semblance of past Dez, suitors will inflate his stats (b/c Buffalo) and see a one-time superstar who's still just 30. However, it would indeed seem a bit of a strange signing for McD & Beane. The only logic I could see is if they feel it could help their playoff run in this rebuilding year without impacting their future by committing them to any more cap space in 2019.

LBs are the weakest part of the defense, but if Edmunds has a quick NFL learning curve, Lorax plays like he did in 2016 and playoff game (admittedly a big "if" at 35), Milano continues to improve, Humber is ok as a 4th, they might not be a liability. I'd still love them to pick up another player and there's a few decent LBs out there.

Not necessarily. He looked very solid in the last few games and great in the playoff game, so I think calling it a "problem" is an exaggeration, but at 35, yes, it should be a concern.

I grew up a Bills fan in NYC (my family is from Buffalo) and was a vocal enough fan that most sports fans in my high school knew it. We drafted Seals my freshman year, and my classmate Kenyatta, a huge NFL fan--Steelers fan if memory serves, talked to me for an entire Spanish class about how we had got the steal of the draft with Leon Seals, so from that point, while he had a decent run with the Bills, he could never live up to the hype in my mind for Dr. Sack.

No, first off, it's not a whiff, because no one can see what happens in year three. Let's let it play out instead of blaming him for a bad year that hasn't happened yet. No matter how you spin it, that third season has NOT happened yet. If he's stopping the run (as is his skill set), and gets six sacks, and we have a top 10 defense, I would consider picking up his option. Or...see if we can sign him to an extension. In any case, that would be 4 years with him, but that's not the point. Finally, I wasn't saying he was a top 20 pick, but that he was evaluated as a top 20 talent. I may have misread your post a bit though (as low ceiling, low floor), so apologize for that. However, people here often imply he was a pick that was with foresight an obvious bad pick, when as you say, he was a safe pick, and based on expectations of where he was to be drafted, it's understandable that we might want to take a guy who was rated much higher than the pick we were at. Right now, I just don't get the rush to be rid of this guy. He was expected by some to be drafted top 10 for a reason, and he's going into season 3. If McD's plan works, an edge rusher that's great at stopping the run and gets 5+ sacks could be ideal (and would not be "just a guy").

Again, no, at least not according to scouts, analysts or draftniks. This wasn't a Rex and Whaley reach, and I don't know why people seem to NEED that narrative. He was a top 20 prospect universally who so far has not busted, but has not panned out. And at times he has even done what was expected (see nfl.com scouting report below) to do well, set the edge against the run. It's year two, and he''s been injured. I'm excited to see what Hughes, Shaq, Murphy, and Yarbrough are able to do in the second year of McDermott's defense, especially if Star works out the way they plan (which is an if) and takes away the QBs outs and staunches the runs up the middle. http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/profiles/shaq-lawson?id=2555252 https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/04/04/nfl-draft-scouting-report-shaq-lawson-clemson

With your name, I'm not sure you're not a joke account, but I've seen this nonsense suggested way too much, with people acting like he was a reach. While he may yet turn out to be a bust (he's been there just two years, injured almost a year of that, hasn't played nearly as poorly as some people claim when healthy, just not great), he was one of the top prospects coming out of college. Chicago fans were chanting his name before the draft (they picked at 11), and below are just the first 6 mock drafts from April 2016 I could find. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000655072/article/2016-sevenround-nfl-mock-draft-round-1 (Shaq at 8) http://walterfootball.com/draft2016.php (Shaq at 11) https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/04/27/nfl-mock-draft-first-round-expert-picks (Shaq at 11, 9, 19, 19) If he stays healthy, the addition of Star (and the rotational addition of Phillips if he's good out of the box, which could also help Kyle) could allow him to reach his potential. Cutting him would be asinine as it would result in a huge cap hit (8m in dead money according to Sportrac). A trade (after 6/1) would save money, but not much, and we'd be selling low. He's never given any indication he's anything but a good locker room guy nor any hint of malcontent, so I'd rather have him in what could be a very good DE rotation if it works out, to complement what could be a very good DT rotation if that works out.

I'm the optimist (as usual) who went with 7. The offensive talent is certainly meh right now (although our RBs pull us out of the gutter, and Dawkins is strong, Benjamin and the TEs have talent and if Logan Thomas ever comes together), but I truly believe we are rolling very deep on defense. The 26th ranking was very misleading as they were dominant in more games than they were bad, but in that three-game stretch, everything was near-historically bad, and that tanked our defensive ratings.

I ageree, but that attitude is just absurd (but then so is grading drafts instantly). Frankly, I don't love the Allen pick, and if that was the only choice, or even the only first round choice, they made, I'd get giving them a C or lower; however, they also picked up the top linebacker in the draft, with a top ten grade from pretty much everyone, at 16, and a guy sometimes mocked in the 1st round at the end of the 3rd round. Ok, I get that it is "all about the QB," but by that logic, why grade anyone, because they should have taken a QB.

Edmunds might be a game-changer for a decade, and the idea they got him while also swinging for the fences on their franchise QB, Allen, but I'm respecting it as a gutsy move made while mitigating the damage (no first rounders or future picks given up) and am ready for him to hopefully prove me and others wrong. Taron Johnson felt like a bit of a reach during a run on defensive backs. However, he does seem to have some high upside makes him an interesting option for nickel. Edmunds. Phillips will be in rotation. Teller has a good shot at guard. If Teller beats out the competition (whatever you think of our current players) at one of the guard slots, that's a good sign for us. Going into 2017, he was one of the best guard prospects out there. If he figures out what went wrong, he could be a huge late fifth-round steal. Or he could be Cyril Richardson. If anyone, probably Ray-Ray and/or Austin. Ideally, no. Very! However Allen works out, they may have got the best MLB in years, a potential pro-bowl DT, an intriguing guard prospect, Siran Neal has some promise at safety or even LB, and they brought in a few very interesting UDFA in de Beer, Wallace (Alabama football walk on?!?!), Foster, and Boettger.