hondo in seattle

I remember more or less the same thing. I thought it was a sore shoulder, though. He did have some kind of minor/recovering injury at the combine.

My thoughts on the draft are a little different. I don't care how many starters we get. Every team has 22 starters. Counting starters doesn't mean anything. Counting good starters does. For me, drafting one Pro Bowler is a decent draft. Drafting two is a very good draft. Drafting three would be amazing. Every team has a bunch a JAGs and a few difference makers. It's the impact players who determine a team's success. So I'd rather draft for impact than for position.

I get he's getting older but when you only one legit offensive weapon, you don't trade it away.

Moving back might get you a difference maker because it gives you more picks - more chances to win the draft lottery.

I guess it depends on your definition of "sucks." When you've lived through Gary Marangi, Dan Manucci, Joe Dufek, and Bruce Mathison, Tyrod doesn't seem that bad. He's not a franchise QB of course. But franchise QBs are rare and hard to find. If Beane doesn't get one, Tyrod may very well start under center again. And if he does, I'll root for him wholeheartedly.

Here's an article he wrote about his two careers: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/le-docteur-laurent-duvernay-tardif-kansas-city-chiefs/ He definitely has a bit of ego. Impressive, nonetheless. A Canadian once told me McGill is the Harvard of Canada. Maybe a little hyperbole there but it is an excellent school.

Maybe it's my imagination but it seems to me that the Bills have done several 1 year deals in recent history and I was wondering why. Is this a new trend in the NFL? #3 would explain it.

As far as football is concerned, you want "football character" in a QB. He doesn't need to be a choir boy on his own time. But he does need certain character traits when he's practicing and playing. Here are some of the questions a scout might ask regarding football character... * Is he coachable? Does he listen to his coaches and correct his mistakes? * Does he show up to meetings on time? Does he take assignments seriously? * Does he study film? Does he commit himself to understanding what's on tape? * Does he study the playbook until he masters it? * Does he practice hard? * Does he play hard? Is he willing to give his all to his teammates? * Does he lead by example? Does he take his role as a team leader seriously? * Does he persevere when things get tough?

I once heard Ron Wolf talk about his draft philosophy for building a winning team. He said we wanted two Pro Bowl quality players every draft. He didn't care what rounds he got them. Maybe the Round 1 and 2 picks were busts but the Round 4 and 5 picks were perennial PBers. That's a great draft. Getting one Pro Bowler was okay - but less than what was hoped for. Getting starters didn't matter a lot to him. Every team has starters. Super Bowl teams have Pro Bowlers. Using this standard as a guideline, Marv wasn't successful as a GM.

Marv believed in a collaborative approach which can work great when you have talented people on your staff. But Marv clearly didn't have enough talented scouts on his staff. Thus the more-miss-than-hit record as a GM.

I think all NFL talent evaluators know not to pick a QB high in the draft just because the club needs a QB. But sometimes they talk themselves into it anyway. They feel stress - the stress from within themselves, the stress from management, the stress from fans and media. GMs without franchise QBs know they've got to find one and that can make them a little more optimistic about a QB's upside and less cynical about his flaws than they ought to be. Many fans are thinking we've got to get a top QB in the draft. If Beane thinks this way, the possibility of a bad pick doubles, triples. We've got to hope Beane remains dispassionate and level-headed in his first draft.

I really don't think our current FO and HC have a much different view toward QBs than most FOs and HCs. Everyone who works in the NFL knows it's a QB driven league. It's no great insight. And it doesn't surprise me that the Bills are calling around. It's called 'due diligence.' The Bills want to have a sense of what it would cost to dance with prospective trade partners. What we don't know is what price the Bills might be willing to pay for any of this year's quarterbacks. Or whether the teams in the top 5 or 10 might be willing to trade down. Allbright's tweet effectively tells us nothing. It'll be an interesting draft - one that's sure to sorely disappoint some fans. Indeed.

It's kind of a vain hope but my hope is that the teams at the top of the draft don't evaluate the QBs the same way the Bills scouts do. And it turns out the Bills are right. In other words, I'm hoping the QB that Beane is targeting either drops to us or drops low enough that we can get him without pulling a 'full Ditka'. I'm a Bills fan, after all. I'm always full of unreasonable hope.

Lots of sportswriters write a lot about nothing. There's always something to talk about, even when there isn't.

We have the 6th most draft capital according to one evaluation of the draft value chart. (See BN)

It's good to see Poyer get some love after his Pro Bowl snub. I agree, Shady's too low. Interesting that they have Tre as the top ranked Bill. Whaley got that pick right!

I hate to say this considering (1) it's cliche, and (2) he was a failure as a human - but OJ was maybe the most dominant player I've ever seen. Back in the 1970s, football was about the run. Teams wanted franchise RBs back then the way teams want franchise QBs today. Defenses were geared to stop the run. And in that environment, OJ gained 2,003 yards when the next best guy only gained 1,144. OJ just about doubled the rushing total of the #5 leading rusher in 1973 (HOFer Larry Csonka, 1003). The #5 guy on the passing yardage list this past season was Big Ben with 4,251 yards. Imagine Brady threw for 8,000+ yards instead of 4,577. That's how dominant OJ was in '73.

I've had the impression his resume was previously considered a little too thin. He's only been a coach since 2008; only an OC since 2014. And he's only been an OC for offensive head coaches and has never run his own offense.

Somewhere I read that this is the insight that the Pats have gleaned from analytics.

There's a lot of hope that we somehow upgrade the QB position. But most of the informed speculation out there says we won't draft one of the top QBs exactly because we don't have enough ammunition. That's why there's been so much guesswork about what FA or trade-available QB we'll go after.

This year's Pro Bowl QBs: AFC Tom Brady 6th rd Ben Roethlisberter 1st rd (Pick 11) Philip Rivers 1st rd (Pick 4) Alex Smith 1st rd (Pick 1) Derek Carr 2nd rd NFC Carson Wentz 1st rd (Pick 2) Russell Wilson 3rd rd Drew Brees 2nd rd Jared Goff 1st rd (Pick 1) On average, a Pro Bowl QB is drafted in the 2nd round. Nearly half (4 of 9) of Pro Bowl QBs were drafted with one of the first five picks of the draft. 5 of 9 Pro Bowl QBs were drafted in the first round.

We get four picks in the first two rounds. Good personnel guys can do a lot with that. But you're right: we don't have the draft position to land a top notch QB. And if we do trade up to nab a QB, it'll be at the cost of a lot of that 'draft capital.' And we have so many positional needs, any package to get up into the top 5 will mean we'll have several unplugged roster holes after the draft.

I celebrated when the Eagles won but I take no joy in another fan's suffering.

In the era of the quarterback, you have to do deals like this. Franchise QBs are hard to find, but in his 49er starts Jimmy sure looked like a good one. If you dork around with QBs, you become the Buffalo Bills of the past 17 years. You can never know for sure, but the signs are that Garoppolo is a good one. At this point the 49ers have to go all in and hope for the best. Better to pay the man at the beginning of his ascendancy than sign a big priced FA at his peak moving toward his decline.

Like thousands of other people, I've been in situations where the honorable thing to do wasn't aligned with the best thing to do for my career. Like thousands of others, I chose the honorable thing. Specifically, I've turned down bigger/more generous offers out of loyalty to the people I gathered onto my team. I suspect many of McDaniel's critics have done the same. He made commitments to people. Then he selfishly broke those commitments. This is bad.