BarleyNY

I’d suggest including C Quinn Meinerz of Wisconsin Whitewater.

@NewEra Lots of overlap between the needs of the Browns and Bills this year. Realistically the Bills may need to do a small trade up or two to avoid missing some targets. I am helping out a guy drafting for the Bills on a Browns site and the Browns are consistently taking players we have targeted on that one too.

Man you all picked over the WRs and DBs really well. I’m going with a player I think the Browns like and would be a great fit in another area of need - 1 tech. With the 59th pick in the draft the Cleveland Browns select Alim McNeill, DT, North Carolina State. @CNYfan is on the clock

I’m checking into available players and trade offers. Considering one already

He was a great locker room guy in Cleveland and solid on the field, but he wasn’t living up to his hefty contract. As mentioned, he’s a 3-tech so no real place for him here.

Those defensive stats show YPC going up slightly (probably unchanged from a statistically meaningful standpoint). YPG went down but that’s solely because teams weren’t running the ball as much - 4 or 5 fewer times per game. Looking at the scores of our games it’s pretty obvious why. 4-2 record over the first six games with only one one two score win. 9-1 over the last 10 games with a bunch of blowout wins. Teams had to pass more in those games. That’s all it was.

Or even more concisely, “Scoreboard”

FWIW I googled “tackles per snap” and got this. Edmunds has a tackle per snap rate of 8%, which is 5th on the team. Milano leads with 10%. Adams, Klein and Poyer are ahead of him too. It’s not terrible, but for a MLB it’s not really that good either. Edmunds played 91% of the defensive snaps so he’s a workhorse with a lot of opportunity to accumulate tackles. I don’t see many here saying he’s awful, just that he hasn’t come close to earning the lucrative second contract expected from the team that drafted him 16th overall. He’s got this season to prove himself or I expect the Bills to move on. I really don’t see him being worth $12.7M for his fifth year option either. That would be fully guaranteed and the decision is due by 5/3.

JC Tretter is the President of the NFLPA. Seems like his teammates have his back. Or he is theirs. In any event, that’s 7 teams that have publicly stated what they just did. Expect it to be league wide- and that would include the Bills.

There’s one thing that gives me pause about Lawrence that no one talks about. Dabo was cheating like crazy down there. It showed in the ACC Championship game against ND and in the previous year’s playoff game against Ohio State. In the rematch in the playoffs this season Ohio State kept Clemson from stealing their signs and it was a far different game. Only a cheap shot that injured Fields kept it from getting very lopsided. That really showed on Clemson’s defensive side, but if they’re cheating there then they’re almost certainly cheating on the offensive side too. There’s no way to tell to what extent cheating on that side of the ball was happening or how much it helped Lawrence. He’s a very talented kid, but he didn’t look good in that last game - and judging by his demeanor he really didn’t seem to mind at all (which also kind of bothered me). I am looking forward to seeing how he does in the NFL. He sure looks like a good bet to do very well, but if he looks way over his head then we have our answer to my previous question.

It’s fair to say that the Browns back 7 has question marks, but you’re very much undervaluing Hill and Johnson. Johnson was easily a top 10 and probably top 5 safety last season. Hill has been solid outside at CB but graded out as the best slot CB in the league. Delpit is probably the third safety behind Johnson and Ronnie Harrison, who’s also probably a top 10 safety. When in Nickel it’ll be Denzel Ward at CB1 with CB2 either Greedy, Hill (with 3 safeties) or a player to be found. LB is definitely more of a concern and the defense has to come together, sure. But I can’t believe that they are going to look the same as last season.

Very true about last season’s back 7. But the Browns have made a lot of improvements already. They’ll get back from IR two players that took zero snaps last season in 2nd round picks Grant Delpit (2020, S) and Greedy Williams (2019, CB). They also signed safety John Johnson III and cornerback Troy Hill. They still need work at LB and could use insurance on the outside for Greedy who has been injured the last two seasons with nerve damage in his shoulder, but that’s about it. Their back 7 is going to look a lot different than last year. As for Mayfield, last year he was in his 3rd system in 3 seasons and had no preseason game or real offseason to prepare. He was horrible early in the year and it looked bad. But by mid season he’d learned it well enough to look like an entirely different player. In fact he was rated the second best QB in the league over the second half of the season. For the season that brought him up to 10th in QBR and 8th in PFF’s rankings. It will be interesting to see how he does in 2021, but if he picks up where he left off then it looks pretty damn good for him.

On a related note my wife is from Central PA. Typically no accent, but get her with a bunch of people from there and it comes back quick.

Agreed. Even taking aside sex the potential for injury is huge.

It’s startling to see how much he gets suckered into the wrong gap. I have no idea why he won’t keep to his responsibilities. The decision on his fifth year option is due next month. I could see the Bills picking it up in hopes of seeing him improve (and I used to support that), but I no longer think they should. You can’t have a MLB that’s this poor at the mental side of the game. We can field a similarly effective MLB for a lot less than what we’d need to pay him. I just don’t see how the Bills can pay him anything close to what’s expected on a second contract for the 16th overall pick.

The Browns have burned through their massive carryover. Prior to the Clowney signing they are are running third on Top 51 cap spending. They should be #1 after Clowney’s numbers come in.

I’ll start with the fact that the current FO and HC of the Browns inherited every one of those players except Clowney. They did extend Hunt and pick up Njoku’s fifth year option, however. But other than Njoku requesting a trade a year ago what have any of those players done since becoming a Brown that would indicate character issues? What’s Clowney ever done in that regard?

Hearing specific breakdown is $4M guaranteed, $4M in per game roster bonuses and $2M in incentives.

You’ve not been following the Browns under Stefanski and Berry then. Beane, McD and the Bills have deserved their accolades. They changed the culture, turned the team around - they and did it quickly. Those same accolades are going to be given to the Browns org this year and next. They made an incredible turnaround in a single year. Year 2 looks to be moving in the same direction as last year. As for Clowney, he’s a perfect schematic fit for them. DE for rushing downs and contain on QBs like Lamar, DT on passing downs with Takk McKinley taking his DE spot. With Myles Garrett on the line there teams will have to decide whom to double team. On a Bills draft note the Browns now have CB2, LB and Speed X WR as their top needs. The Bills needs overlap on the first and last and the Browns pick four spots earlier.

His $8.5M salary is not guaranteed so I think the Iggles are probably keeping him this season. (Either that or they are really screwing him around and I don’t think that’s the case.) They’ve cleared enough space that they don’t have to get rid of him so unless they get something decent for him they’ll probably just sit tight. With his contract situation and coming off a down year I do not see any team making it worth it to the Iggles to trade him. It’s sort of a no man’s land situation.

Because, in general, more picks equals more draft success and keeping the pipeline of quality players on their rookie contracts flowing is how a successful team extends its window. Also draft position impacts future contracts. That’s not to say that a team like the Bills shouldn’t move up and around if it makes sense. But making huge trades to jump way up in the draft is often counter productive.

As am I

I do not want to see Justin Fields on the Patriots

I don’t disagree with your concerns, but I think that’s just asking a lot at pick 30. My comments about the KC game had to do with why we had to game plan that way. If you can’t consistently get pressure on Mahomes with 4 rushers, then you’re stuck scheming like we had to. Take away the intermediate and deep passes and let the run and short passing games kill you slowly. A good pass rush with our front four would have allowed us to play closer to the LOS and more aggressively against the run and short passes. That’s what I’m looking to do and I would take the player that could best help in that regard.

I sent you a PM. Just reply to that. I’m willing to listen to trade possibilities. Also I’m BarleyNY, not BarelyNY as shown on the draft master list. It’s funny because it’s probably more true now than my actual name as I’m still a transplant but no longer a brewer.