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They also list this as one of his weaknesses: "Height can be a detriment in short-yardage, defender can get under his pads to hold the line." Well, no sh*t, as tall as he is!

I didn't want more than 20 questions so I skipped some like Beast Mode and Thurmonator. But Amish Rifle, Meatball and Lunchpail? I flat-out forgot about those!

It's the offseason so a good time for trivia... We all know Romo calls Josh, "The Alien," but how many of these older nicknames from Bills lore do you know? See how many you can answer correctly with both the first and last names. 1. Cookie 2. Earthquake 3. Mini Max 4. Biscuit 5. The Mad Bomber 6. The Magician 7. The Dancing Bear 8. The Condo 9. The Hitman 10. Pooh Bear 11. House 12. Golden Wheels 13. Chroise 14. Captain Checkdown 15. The members of the Bermuda Triangle 16. The members of the Electric Company 17. Spiderman 18. Machine Gun 19. Dr. Sack 20. Pit Bull

How much difference is there between a 3-4 Nose Tackle and a 1-technique in a four-man front? When the OP says, "Nose Tackle," I think he means 1-tech.

In my mind the argument kind of runs like this... I have some heartburn about Brady being crowned the GOAT... When you look back at some past GOAT candidates like Jim Brown and even OJ, they were clearly the very best at their position in their time. There was no debate - they dominated. Like Babe Ruth in baseball. In 1920, when Ruth hit 54 home runs, the next-best guy only hit 19. Brady never dominated any particular season like some other GOAT candidates did. There were always other QBs like Rodgers and Brees who were on the top of the pyramid with Brady. If Brady's the GOAT, it's because (1) he sustained excellence for so long and (2) he's got the rings. And I have problems with both points. The hardware argument always bothers me because football is a team sport. Brady didn't win his rings alone. Even those who say Brady made Belichick, and not the other way around, will probably concede that Brady wouldn't have won as many rings with Rex Ryan as his HC or if the rest of the roster looked like the '84 or '85 Bills. And if the so-good-so-long argument is valid, we'd have to conclude that Emmit Smith is the best RB ever. Yet I personally wouldn't put him in the top five. Plus you do have to wonder, like the OP, if Brady would have played so well for so long if he played during a more manly era. Namath's years of effectiveness were cut short by knee injuries. Theismann's leg was destroyed. Steve Young's career would have been longer if not for concussions. Some for Troy Aikman. If sustained greatness is a criterion to be named the GOAT, Brady has an 'unfair' advantage by playing during a time when the rules treat QBs like princesses.

For all those advocating for a 4-3 defense next season, I have an honest question. One of the things we hear from coaches is that you need to get your best players on the field. At present we only have one good LB. We now seem to have 3 good safeties and, debatably, 3 decent/good CBs. So why would we line up with 3 LBs?

Unless you need a QB, I think GMs should draft BPA in Round 1. Round 1 is your best chance to add an All Pro to your roster. Almost regardless of the position, it's better to draft an All Pro than an average starter or high quality backup at a position of need. If you need a QB, you gotta find a way to get the QB you want. If you don't need a QB, you don't draft one.

I'm trying to understand the OP's suggestion... So with our one 1st round pick, we'll take a QB we don't need instead of someone we do? And then trade him to some unknown team for some unknown quantity we'll figure out later on - instead of taking a known quantity in the draft? That's the idea?

Beane may indeed move up. He's done it before. But I wonder about that approach. Needless to say, the deeper you go to into the draft, the less chance you have of finding an All-Pro. And that's what you need. Jags, even if they earn a starting role, don't win Lombardi's. But does it make more sense to package a bunch of picks to move up and increase the odds that your first rounder is a difference-maker? Or trade back in the draft to get more picks? For example, would you rather have two second round picks or one first round pick? Let's say a guy taken around Pick 10 has a 35% chance of being a All-Pro. If second rounders have a 18% chance of being an All-Pro, you're marginally better going with two second rounders. Forget the trade chart - I'd like to see an analytics guy or gal take a hard look at this. It depends on the details of course but my hunch is that it's better to have a lot of picks than just a few good ones. The more darts you throw at the dartboard, the more likely you are to hit the bullseye. In other words, I hope Beane doesn't trade up. But if he does, I'm praying he's right - even if I am an agnostic Buddhist.

Before coming to the Bills, Jerry averaged only 1.7 sacks per year. I'm not sure why you left that out. But, yeah, it's a little weird that Jerry only got 2 sacks in his last season with the Bills and then 9 his first year with Houston. Maybe we did misuse him. Maybe we're misusing Ed Oliver, too. He's very fast and athletic. But he's smallish and maybe a bit weak. There might be a better way to leverage his strengths. But I'm not sure how much McD will introduce because I think this was his defense - not Frazier's - all along. Maybe the departure of Edmunds and the addition of Rapp will result in some new wrinkles. I'm not thinking the DL will be much different.

I agree about the hubris. Fans have a lot of it when they think they can run a draft better than a team of NFL professionals. But I'm open-minded to being proven wrong. So I challenge you to set up a thread during a draft. We'll all chime in with our votes when Beane is on the clock. Then, as time goes by, we can compare our consensus picks versus Beane's actual picks. Personally, I think it's unimaginable that bunch of fans will outperform a team of professionals who were chosen for their personnel jobs because of their expertise. Scouts who study film, watch games live, talk to players, talk to coaches, even hire detectives in some cases... living, sleeping, breathing college football all year long.

I wish the salary cap only applied to the other 31 teams.

Beane is just making use of a psychological phenomenon known as the "Pygmalion Effect." In layman's terms, the Pygmalion Effect says that if you treat people like winners, they tend to become winners. If you treat them like losers, they tend to become losers. The Pygmalion Effect has shown to be true in the classroom, in business, and in the military. I don't know if it's been studied in sports but I assume it holds there. If Beane doesn't specifically know about the term, "Pygmalion Effect," I'm sure he knows the concept through experience. A lot of coaches grasp this intuitively and use it to their advantage. No matter the truth of the matter, I personally wouldn't want Beane to come out and say: "Brown, Oliver and Davis were all huge disappointments for us. We tried to replace them during free agency but unfortunately nothing worked out. So this year we're just going to do our best to work around their crappy play again." Public negativity doesn't build up the team or the individual. It tears them down.

With some trades, Bean pulls this off: Bijan Robinson Darnell Wright

There have been a couple times in my life when I saw a player get injured so bad that I thought it would end of their career (e.g. Joe Theismann, Kevin Everett). But I only witnessed one athletic performance so horrifically bad that I thought it would be career ending. Yet, somehow, it wasn't.

I'm going to disagree even though I agree. It does bother me that Beane tries to build the OL with jags. I think this is where Beane's head is at: It's a passing league. That's why McD runs a 4-2-5 defense. Both Beane and McD have embraced the current and future state of the NFL. For Beane, the prioritization of passing means he'll spend a bucketload of money on QB, WR, DE and DB. If there were no salary cap, I'm sure he'd spend a ton on an OL too. But with the reality of cap limitations, he tries to economize on the OL with cap-friendly jags. I can only guess that Beane thinks we can overcome our JAG OL with good coaching and scheming. But if that was the plan, it's a flawed one. Nonetheless, a GM who produces 4 consecutive 10+ winning seasons is, in fact, good at his job. Either that, or his Head Coach is a freaking genius.

I wouldn't call the Bills talent evaluation "questionable at best." The Bills have won 10+ games four consecutive years - a feat the franchise has accomplished only once before in its long history. Apparently Beane isn't fielding JUCO kids out there. And you can't discount Allen - Beane maneuvered and got the guy he wanted. He deserves credit for that. With an above average W-L record, the evidence indicates the Bills are above-average in talent evaluation and acquisition. You say they think Brown is good enough to be a starter on a Super Bowl team. I'm guessing you are not a board-certified mind-reader. What GMs and HCs say in public and what they think in private are two very different things. I personally have no idea of what they actually think of Brown. Clearly, Beane has made some mistakes - as all GMs do (I agree he's neglected the OL). And just as clearly, he hasn't been good enough (yet?) to build a SB-caliber roster. But suggesting that he'd be working for LL Beane now if not for Josh is a nice play on words but tremendously overblown. Beane is good at his job. The only question is he good enough?

I don't know if just any schmuck off the street could have OCed this team to a top five offensive finish. Some schmucks maybe, not just anyone. I was actually impressed with Dorsey at the beginning of the season. I had a lot of doubts about the offense: new OC, new OL coach, new #2 wideout, new slot receiver, mediocre RBs, bad OL. There was a lot to worry about. Yet for about half the season, we made the art of scoring look as easy as Bob Ross painting a landscape. I was starting to think our new OC was some kind of a genius, working around a weak offensive line as well as he was. And then Allen hurt his elbow and it seemed like Dorsey went into a funk too. Play-calling became predictable. Receivers weren't getting separation because defenses knew what we were doing. Touchdowns became hard to get. But I've heard OCs say they learn a lot in Year One and often come back better in Year Two. Fingers crossed; this happens for Dorsey. And it would be great if he had more and better weapons to work with - like DHop. But I don't if we can afford that. So I'd like to see him make better use of some of the weapons that were underutized last year like Hines and Cook. Hines had 63 receptions in 2020, just 5 last year - his career low. Why wouldn't we make use of a dynamic playmaker like that? It's puzzling.

Yikes, I'd completely forgotten about Specter! I had to go back and read his draft profile on NFL.com and was not excited to see that "range" was listed under weaknesses (though, at the same time, it was called "average"). LBs need to be rangy in McD's D. Strengths Instinctive and in position most of the time. Plays with excellent fundamentals. Rapid-fire diagnosis and reaction to play movement. Leverages his scrape with speed alterations in his slides. Quickness to flow and contain the outside run. Comes to balance and tackles with double leg wrap-ups. Former safety with smooth drops and weaves in zone. Target awareness allows for tighter squeeze of the route. Weaknesses Lean through his lower half. Won't be a disruptive defender. Gets jostled around by box traffic. Lacks ideal length/strength to stack and shed the block. Needs to become more comfortable playing downhill. Below-average tackler when it's not in front of him. Range in coverage is very average. Lacks twitch to burst and disrupt at the catch point. Spector's RAS score (9.12) is actually higher than Bernard's (8.85).

Yeah. McD's defense is designed the stop the pass first and the run second. That's why we mostly run a 4-2-5 defense. And that's why the MLB isn't a thumper. We called Edmunds a Middle Linebacker but that's a misnomer. There is no LB in the middle of a 4-2. Edmunds was a big, rangy coverage LB, not an old school Dick Butkus type. As much as he was unappreciated by many Bills fans, he'll be hard to replace. He's not cast from the same mold but I'd still like to see Klein signed just to have someone in that spot.

Where can we buy the Beane bobblehead?

That song is best forgotten.

I'm not sure he's a one-year rental. I think it's more like a one-year tryout.

PFF sometimes divides safeties like this: Coverage Free, Match Strong, Box Slot. They rank safeties in each category. But there's a fourth category they use: "All Around." Here's how they ranked the All Around safeties prior to last season: They went on to say: "Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer each fit into this category for the Buffalo Bills and together may form the best safety duo in the league. Each can line up anywhere they are needed within the scheme and playing next to one another is clearly a force multiplier for their success. Buffalo runs a scheme that puts them in position to succeed, but they take advantage of it extremely well on their own." With Hyde and Poyer showing some fragility, it makes sense to get another safety. Rapp seems like another All Around guy. He can play - and has played - Free, Strong, and Box in his career. If he needs to fill in for Hyde or Poyer, we don't need to change our defense nor do we become more predictable. www.pff.com/news/nfl-safety-rankings-tiers-2022

McD likes versatile safeties. Both Hyde and Power can play strong or weak. That makes it easier to disguise the defense. When either is off the field, our D becomes more predictable. Rapp isn't exactly in the Hyde or Poyer mold, but he is versatile.