Kirby Jackson

It wasn’t a problem until it was (kind of like the defense). Their offense was bottled up vs. the Ravens at 4.6 yards per play. Turnovers saved them. They were outgained 5.8 yards per play to 5.5 yards per play vs. the Chiefs. You aren’t trading for McLaurin to beat the Jags 54-10 instead of 47-10. You’re trading for him to get over the hump in the playoffs. Giving Josh more weapons is more important than anything. He’s the reason you’ll win, not adding rotational defensive linemen.

He’s making a fraction of his market value. The same goes for Hendrickson. I left my job in June because I thought I was making about 80% of my market value. McLaurin is making maybe 65% of his. We need to stop pretending “quality of team” is a lead factor on a player’s decision making in 2025. It is A factor but nowhere near as big of a factor as guaranteed money and total contract. People long for yesteryear when guys wanted to play for a winner. Sure a guy may play for a winner for $1M instead of a loser for $1.1M but when you’re talking about $22M vs. $33M that’s WAY more of a factor. Can we all agree to not begrudge guys for wanting to make market value? That’s what every single one of us does. I’m not getting my hopes up but if I’m Beane, I already have an offer on the table (with room to add more if a trade is possible). It would be the old Mario Williams “don’t let him leave the building” approach. I just don’t think that he’s going anywhere.

My thought is like $33M but they can make it work pretty easily as Greg illustrated. If they made that move, an undefeated season and Super Bowl is on the table. They’d be ridiculous.

Teams don’t really have “main strengths” anymore. There is too much data and development. There are some exceptions like Navy Football but, for the most part, teams need to be diverse in 2025. The level of data, scouting and prep, compared to the 1970’s (or whatever), is probably a 1000% increase (or more). You can’t be predictable, or one-dimensional, and win. I think that the Eagles have an elite rushing game. I think that the Bengals defense was abysmal. If the Eagles ran, at a rate similar to Navy, against the Bengals, the Bengals stop them pretty easily.

The Moss thing really bothered me because they used the 74th pick the year prior on a RB (who was fine and actually better). It didn’t make sense at the time and makes less sense in hindsight. I cringed but remembered that the Panthers used 1sts in 2006 AND 2008 on RBs. Not sure why you wouldn’t just add a late round guy or cheap FA as the 2nd guy?

A 3rd round pick on a plodding RB with slow feet. Who would have thought that this guy would become a journeyman? 🙄

I haven’t looked but I’d venture a guess that it’s no worse than any other position. I just eyeballed the last 5 years and almost all of them have been good (picks 20-32). DB on the other hand 😬😬. I don’t have the energy to go through each position and chart it but at first glance it looks to me like a mix of stars, good starters and a couple of “guys.” I don’t see any guys that don’t belong in the league (like Lewis Cine for example). So basically the floor would be a guy similar to Samuel or Palmer.

Not to be nitpicky but I HATE this argument. This holds true for every single position. In fact, I’d venture to say WR success early, especially lately, is a higher hit percentage than most other positions. For every Josh Allen there is a Trey Lance. For every Joe Burrow there is a Mac Jones. For every Aidan Hutchinson there is a Jermaine Johnson. For every Penei Sewell there is an Alex Leatherwood. I posted it earlier in the thread but basically 23 of the top 25 WRs in football were drafted in the top 3 rounds. Their average draft position was 41. I’ll bet that’s as high of a percentage of elite talent as any position outside of QB. You can’t be scared of missing because it’s tough to find elite talent later and the top guys don’t go to FA anymore.

This was posted today from Bill Barnwell. Found it kind of interesting. Obviously it is a hypothetical but a fun read: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45824150/nfl-trade-tiers-2025-players-worth-first-round-pick-all-32-teams-contract-value

Just wanted to say that I love your thread title. 🤣🤣🤣 Well done!! 👏🏼👏🏼

The why is what we are all trying to figure out. It’s just what they believe I guess. It’s certainly commission not omission. His peers, that have elite QBs, take a different strategy. My issue is that the landscape has changed A LOT in the last decade. No position has risen as a percentage of cap like WR (I don’t even factor in QB). When they were doing it, WRs were nowhere near as valuable. RBs were more valuable. I think @BillsVet hit on an interesting point about trusting themselves to swing on these high end WRs. I’d like to see them continue trying like the Chiefs/Ravens have done. I’m of the belief that if, big if, the Bills are ever going to win it’s because of Josh Allen, not because of getting incrementally better on defense. Sure, that helps but I believe supercharging Josh Allen should be the top priority. The Bills built him a top 5 OL last year and it was widely considered the best year of his career. The Bills would have been 14-3 if they needed to be. That was with a bad defense. If they did the same with WR they could be otherworldly. For me, I like guys like Landon Jackson and Deone Walker. I think that they’ll be valuable rotational players. I would have rather seen a swing on a guy like Kyle Williams or Dont’e Thornton.

I don’t want to speak for Gunner but that was the Carolina way. That’s how they built those Cam Newton teams. Spend lots on the DL, RB and very little on WR. It’s just what they believe in.

For sure. You’re going to have to be backfilling. The WRs that move now are the role players. Elijah Moore, Gabe Davis, Josh Palmer and Curtis Samuel are the types of WRs that hit FA. If you do this right, you draft your number 1 and eventually pay him. You hope that those 3rd or 4th round guys end up like Gabe where you can pay them the rookie deal for 4 years of production and replace him with the next pick instead of the $16M(ish) in cap space that they currently have for Samuel, Moore and Palmer this year. If they were one guy (which basically they are one position plus depth) it would be the 3rd largest cap hit on the team. It’s more than Ceedee Lamb and Justin Jefferson’s cap numbers on this season.