Kirby Jackson

What I’m saying is that they don’t have “tough decisions ahead.” They managed to make them all already and are in great shape. If the Bills are able to retain their core like Dallas did we should build a statue for Beane. They’ve done EXACTLY what we hope we will be able to do in 2 or 3 years. Vander Esch is the last “must sign” guy out there and he’s still there for 2 more years assuming they exercise his option. I know it’s fun to hate on the Cowboys but we really should be envious of the way that they navigated this. If they continue to draft as they have they will be good for a while. God willing the Bills will be able to retain: Josh, Diggs, Tre, Edmunds, Dawkins, Milano, Singletary, Oliver and whomever else develops into a young core piece. That’s basically what Dallas has been able to do over the last couple of years.

They are actually fine. Dak is pretty much their last core player that hasn’t signed their second contract. They have actually down a fantastic job of cap management.

Yep, he was the first NFL player to really do it. He took the 1-year deals. There was certainly some risk but it worked perfectly. NBA players started doing it about a decade ago and it was brilliant. They would take these shorter deals with a player option as protection. If things got sideways or the guy got hurt he could opt in. The NFL players take on significantly more risk in that the contracts aren’t guaranteed. These QBs are still willing to risk it to take shorter deals to get that extra bite at the apple. I’m betting that Mahomes does the same. In the old days though guys wanted that 6-year Sam Bradford contract. Now they’d rather sign multiple contracts in a 6-year span as the cap continues to increase.

The contract is what it is. They all are. The next QB always gets more than the previous. I have no issue with the number and Dak probably doesn’t either. It’s the years. You are going to see more and more QBs looking for 4 years. Mahomes will be having the same battle if the Chiefs want 5.

He wants a 4-year deal. I don’t blame him. If they can make year 5 a “player option” I bet he’d jump at it. With the way that the cap grows (although COVID may slow it) he will be a bargain in a few years. He wants one more crack at FA. Like in everything the NFL guys are starting to follow the NBA guy’s lead. Get shorter deals and be a FA multiple times.

FWIW, I ordered 3 more on Amazon today and they are supposed to come tomorrow.

That’s crazy because in those same weeks Singletary averaged 4.8 YPC behind the same line in the same scheme. He was basically getting double what Gore was.

I think this is kind of where I am. It would not be surprising at all to see the Bills having a top end running game. Right now there are some unknowns which is why they rank where they do. They’d be higher now if you factored in Josh too (which you really should in 2020). To me that is like analyzing pass catchers without including TEs or backs. I guess that it’s fine to analyze WRs alone too but it’s only a part of the story.

The Bills will climb a lot this year I suspect. Gore being scored an 80 while Singletary is a 79 is laughable. Gore is about a 65 at this point based on that scale.

I specifically used the bolded because I think that’s why it doesn’t go both ways. That’s a total assumption on my part but it feels right. When it goes the other way there is something to the “she was in danger” that just doesn’t feel the same way when it involves a man. Maybe that’s wrong but that’s how I view it.

That is part of the reason that Gunner and I were giving the Cowboys credit . Outside of the draft picks, Gallup and Vander Esch all of the Cowboys core is on at least their 2nd contract. The Chiefs are about to have to make decisions because Mahomes is ready for his extension. I trust Beane to navigate that but the Bills clearly haven’t gotten to that point yet.

I know that both Bandit and I (and others here) heard some things this year that were true that weren’t being reported. I’m referring mostly to the draft though. The Bills tried to trade up for Devin Duvernay. The Bills were taking Dugger if he was available. Those are real “leaks” that in the past few years wouldn’t have gotten as widespread as they were. Both of those things are true. I didn’t hear much in FA outside of the stuff you are mentioning. That was as much connecting dots though as info. That doesn’t mean that people here weren’t hearing it though. If Bandit says that he was hearing that we should 100% believe it because it’s true.

I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. They did a really nice job with it and the Bills seemed to have drafted good guys.

As it turned out the Bills ended up with a guy that became DPOY and were frustrated that they couldn’t land a guy who isn’t on a roster. Sometimes the best deals are the ones that you couldn’t get done. That ended up being a really good draft that produced a few potential HOFers (Keuchley, Gilmore, Chandler Jones, Andrew Luck, Fletcher Cox, Bobby Wagner, Kelechi Osemele, and Russell Wilson). Imagine looking back if we ended up with Barron after giving up whatever the cost would have been? Gross

It really was a little uncharacteristic. That makes it harder to blame on the work environment too. At least with the draft you can default to “with people all over the place it’s tough to keep everything silent.” That wasn’t the case during FA.

I know people never want to hear or believe this but Russ Brandon didn’t make football decisions at any point. Modrak, Guy, Nix and Whaley made the football decisions throughout his tenure. He was acting as the de facto owner. He was absolutely aware of what was going on and in some cases probably had to sign off but more from a budgetary situation. He wasn’t saying “don’t sign this guy sign that guy.” The football people made all of the football decisions and he authorized the spend. He played the role of owner. The point being if people had an issue with the way that the organization was, that’s where he takes the blame. It’s similar to the mass-dysfunction going on with the Sabres right now. When there is a lot wrong the owner takes the blame. However, if you did not like the player’s on the team, it is the fault of whoever was responsible for them. Russ held a title, as did Marv Levy, and NEITHER of them made football decisions. It was a leadership title. The 4 men mentioned above built the rosters between Donahoe and the current regime. With all of that being said there were a lot of talkers in that era. That falls to the man in charge - RB.

It isn’t right. You can’t just take advantage of someone because you want to and they appear capable of defending themselves. If this was the NFL player doing it to the woman on the plane it would be the lead on the news. This, along with teachers having relations with little boys, are the rare double-standard that men face. We usually get the benefit of these double standard but in these cases we end up as the victims.

Saw this on Instagram and it got me thinking about the ideal group. I actually think Simms did a pretty good job but it’s no fun to just agree so I’ll go different. Thought we should throw it out to the group to get your thoughts. I’ll say: - QBs - Chiefs - WRs - Bucs - RBs - Browns - TEs - 49ers - OL - Saints - DL - Chargers - LBs - Steelers - DBs - Ravens

If it’s not them I have no idea ???

John Kidd?

Rick bootin Tuten?

That’s fair. At the end of the day no one knows what’s next. Dallas Is basically doing the same thing that the Saints have done for a decade plus. They kept everyone that they felt that they had to. Their top players stay for years. Now, I feel like Dallas has more elite players than the Saints but the Saints top end guys (and coaching) are better. The Saints have always been a contender but have only played in 1 Super Bowl ever. I suppose the Cowboys could be better or worse over the next decade but think that they will largely continue to follow that model. You can add Lawrence to that as well. He has a $14M savings after 2021 I think. They have done a really nice job managing it (Cooper deal aside).

That’s a pretty cool story!! Teams certainly use the media to spread their narratives. I think that it’s almost happened so much at this point that it works the other way. If I see someone on NFL Network talking about a team’s interest in something in particular that’s because the team or agent wanted it out there. The stuff that you hear less is often closer to the truth at this point (is the Bills were taking Dugger if he was available). So much of it is just about how easy it is to communicate now. Someone says something to one of their buddies and he tells his 5 closest friends, who tell their 5 closest friends and so on. The key and most important thing in the chain is how close to the original source your information is. There are certain things that I can say that I've heard with a great deal of certainty. As an example, it is 100% fact that the Bills were trying to trade up for Mark Barron and got “stuck” with Stephon Gilmore.

The thing is that Dallas has already retained their young guys (depending on where Dak’s hit ends up). Only Vander Esch is up in the next few years of their “core” guys I think. Candidly I just glanced at their future situation but they are past the “Falcons point” where they have to cut guys. Dallas’ pivotal guys are there for multiple years and have been complemented by great drafting.

There were multiple. It appeared that most of the leaks had closed but this draft there were as many leaks as back then. Don’t really know if it was the virtual setting that had people more open or just a comfort level. At any rate, every team has leaks and it’s different people at different times. One of the things that people don’t necessarily grasp is that it isn’t JUST Beane that knows the plan. There are a lot of people involved in building the board and the decision making process. Buffalo is a small town and things spread but the truth is New Orleans is no different.