BarleyNY

That’s fair and I’d like to see Allen and the Bills with more possessions too. But would a riskier and aggressive defense that yields more variance in opposing offenses actually help against the best offenses in the league? It certainly could - especially if utilized correctly. The other top QBs/offenses seem to be able to effectively dink and dunk their way to points too. Those QBs often seem too comfortable doing that so taking them out of that rhythm is important. I think it’s largely a moot point though. McDermott is not wired that way at all. The glaring example is the crapfest that was the Bengals playoff game. Without Miller the Bills had no pass rush, so what was McD’s solution? He half-assed the aggressive defense by blitzing, but still having DBs play 10 yards off the LOS. It didn’t help that the blitzing didn’t really work, but Burrow was going to eat that kind of defense up regardless. McD wants to get pressure with 4 and take explosives away. That’s not a bad overall strategy. Where he could improve is with his change ups to that. We have heard talk of that and, honestly, I haven’t really looked much at it this season. But I will now. I was almost solely focused on how our offense would beat man coverage and blitzes without a viable outside threat. Hopefully Cooper will be that threat. KC is coming up and that’ll be a good one to look at.

Incentivizing offenses to run the ball and limiting explosive pass plays have been an analytics pillars for some time now. Creating turnovers and negative plays are others. It’s pushed most defenses into shell coverages like Cover 2 and 4, which are easier to run on than 1 or 3. They make offenses work their way downfield with runs and short passes. When dinking and running a single negative play or holding penalty can result in an offense punting on that drive. There are some team building things to consider. CBs playing zone are cheaper than those that can play man well. DTs still have to be competent and one that can rush the passer is important. A couple seasons ago the Browns went with cheap, third tier DTs to encourage teams to run on them. That part worked in a way because teams ran on them at will. But it was too much and teams rolled them by running. It also got a bunch of their LBs and DBs injured since the DTs couldn’t slow any OLmen down. They’ve since changed to a counter-culture D that plays a lot of man and blitzes to try to create negative plays and TOs. As for the Bills, I think it’s the smart way to play defense when you have Allen at QB. The defense just needs to keep it close and Allen can be the difference in most games - as long as his supporting cast is good enough to keep defenses honest. There are so many games that are close where Allen makes 2 or 3 plays that few (if any) other QB could make. Those points wind up netting the Bills an extra 7 or 10 points and that changes an L to a W. We are incredibly lucky to have him.

Jerry got robbed. But he can afford it and the Cowboys aren’t winning anything anytime soon anyway.

Teams usually prefer to trade out of the conference if all else is equal. I do not know how much that factored into this trade. The part about Z preferring to go to Detroit comes from someone who speaks with the players and agents. I posted that info about a week ago.

Z wanted to go to Detroit to play against his former team (Vikings). The Browns may not have a QB, but they've got plenty at DE. Z is under contract next season, but was not likely in the Browns plans due to his contract and the other DE talent they have. They sent him where he wanted to go and got something for him. I know they were looking for a 4th. A late 5th and future 6th with a future 7th back equals a very late 4th to very early 5th. The Lions get a good DE and have the option for him to stick around next season while Hutch gets back to form - and they didn't overpay. So a pretty fair trade for both sides.

Bass really needed that. Happy for him and the team. Hope this gives him confidence and puts him on a good path forward.

BB has turned off the teams he’s interviewed with. His insistence on complete control of everything football is one big issue, but there seems to be more than that going on. I don’t think he coaches again.

I’d expect that the Browns are open for business on everyone except a select few players. This last loss effectively ended any outside hope of a playoff run. Reminder that the deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5th at 4 PM.

Trouble usually stems from focusing too closely on short term financial gains at the expense of long term ones. TNF is a great example. Extra revenue from an additional prime time game during the week. But the TNF product is relatively poor and it can cannibalize the viewership of other games. The lower quality of product can also have other negative impacts such as hurting the overall brand. It was a good short term play, but I think the jury is out on whether it is a good longer-term one.

Simile: noun definition: a word or phrase that compares something to something else, using the words like or as.

Greed seems to get every good thing eventually. 18 games. Thursday Night Football. Increasing difficulty in properly refereeing games due to ever increasing judgement calls. Homogenization of offenses and defenses. Invitation of private equity funds into ownership. Partnership with legalized gambling. Sanitation and homogenization of announcers. Prioritization of spectacle over substance. And the crusade for every last nickel from fans, networks and the government subsidies. The product is getting worse and worse overall, but is still buoyed by the stars on the field. I love the game, but it’s getting more and more difficult to watch and enjoy. Side note: The trickle down impact to college football is even more stark. The money got too great and it is now shared with the players (as it should be IMO). But there used to be a great variety of offenses run and I always enjoyed that. I’d try to make a point to watch GA Tech once a year just because they ran the triple option. Now they just run a crappier version of the same offense 95% of college runs. Now it’s about talent acquisition and execution. But the lack of variety has killed my desire to watch a lot of games. It’s simply watching the same thing over and over with varying degrees of quality. I liken it to walking down the cereal aisle and seeing that all of the boxes are now some variant of Frosted Wheats. A great cereal to be sure, but no other option. No Frosted Flakes. No Cinnamon Toast Crunch. No Fruit Loops. No granola. Just FMWs of varying quality and flavors. At some point I’m going to eat a lot less cereal than I used to.

He was the DPOY again last season. It’s not close to what he’s worth. So the Browns would laugh and hang up.

That’s not close to enough to get Garrett. And Elam is worth nothing in trade.

If the sauce is delicious, the the defense must be malicious. But please no. Not everything needs a nickname. And this one seems forced.

There will be plenty of cap space next season once the team makes some obvious moves - restructures, cuts and a reworked deal or two. The real wildcard will be what happens with Allen’s contract. I think Benford stays. Douglas walks. He’s still productive for us, but he’s nearing the end.

Part of the trade value for Cooper was his contract.

Never is a long time. We are talking huge sums of money here. Once the owners get a taste, they’ll be looking for more. Then the ownership rules will be relaxed.

Exactly. No degree of difficulty consideration. Which makes Allen’s 2023 grade that much more impressive.

They did have him graded as the #1 QB last season and in their “Elite” category pre-season. PFF’s scores are often problematic though. They rate players on a scale against what they’re asked to do. Players like Allen always get graded more severely than ones that are asked to do less (Cousins, Geno Smith, Dak, etc.).

Very different experience here. Went once and was very, very disappointed in the food and whole experience. Honestly, Wegman’s or Dash’s is a step up IMO - and I rarely eat their sushi. At Wind they use delivery robots, which doesn’t work well. We watched two other tables take food of ours (and other tables) off of it. That didn’t help. Very limited raw menu with very small fish portions compared to the rice. And that’s a big problem because their rule is that all of the rice must be eaten or you get charged an additional fee. The whole experience seemed very “low rent” to me. You will never get the kind of sushi quality and experience in WNY that you can find on the West Coast, but some places are better than others. My go to is Fuji Grill on Maple and N Forest. NOT the one on Transit. As good of fish quality as you’ll get in this part of the country and some great appetizers and rolls. I recommend the yellowtail poppers, torched scallops and tuna tapas for apps. That along with a sashimi deluxe and couple rolls (Fireball, Fish Finder, French Cake, Fuji, etc.) is a great meal to have with friends.

It just boils down to what the Bills brass think of the chances of Milano being a productive and healthy player moving forward and - their appraisal of Williams. As of now WLB needs a better player than Williams and one they can count on being healthy more than Milano has been. If they think that Williams will continue to improve, then it’s reasonable to go with him. If Milano reworks his contract and they want to roll with him, then that’s reasonable too. But it also makes a lot of sense to acquire a difference making player that’s young and healthy to do the job.

I agree that the likely course is Milano taking a paycut (with incentives added to compensate him fully if he stays healthy). But people here should know that if Diggs can get cut with $31M in dead cap, then cutting Milano is also a realistic possibility.

This is true. I look at it this way: - Cash: Looking at future cash payouts to players is the appropriate way to compare two players. The 2024 hit would be negligible and then Wu has cash payouts of $5.25M* in 2025 and then $12.5M each in 2026 and 2027 at while Milano has ‘25 & ‘26 at $10M each. So we’d have Wu for 3 years at almost the exact the same AAV as Milano. - Cap: The accounting of cash paid and due is something that has to work too. In this case Wu’s contract is structured to kick cap hits down the road as far as possible. By my calculations he’d only have a $2.68M cap hit in 2025. If the Bills cut Milano they’d lose about $1.13M in cap space due to $17.25 M in dead cap. They could push some of that out with a post 6/1 designation. But the thing to remember about dead cap like this - it’s a sunk cost. The cap would be okay in this case though. - Trade: You gotta give up something of value to get something of value. So I’m not opposed to giving up a decent pick. I just haven’t settled on how much I’d give up. * I misread his contract details prior to my last post. I thought all three years were at $12.5M, but 2025 is $5.25M. The Browns contracts are tough to decipher but cash payouts are at the bottom of OTC’s player pages and that helps.

I honestly don’t think the Browns will trade JOK. It wouldn’t be smart. But the numbers are not bad. Vet min plus some per game active roster bonuses this year, then $12.5M in each of the next 3 years. Not much more than what Milano is due. And, yeah, he’d be great on the Bills.

I think the Bills only do something like this if they’ve decided to move on from Milano. He’ll be 31 before next season starts, only played in 5 games in 2023 and may not play in any this season. He's been one of my favorite Bills, but it’s tough to justify paying him $10M next season. Maybe he reworks his deal to stay, but I think the correct (albeit difficult) decision is to find his replacement.