BarleyNY

Murphy - There’s no way is he going anywhere unless the Bills make a huge splash at DE. Even then they may keep him to fill out their 3 deep DE rotation. He has a sizable roster bonus due early so any moves that would impact him would have to be very quick. I’d be shocked if he wasn’t here in 2020. Kroft - He should be dumped based on limited production expectations and the ridiculous contract the Bills gave him. Also due a roster bonus early and that should get him out of here quickly. Smith - $500k roster bonus due early so a decision should be made quickly on him. He’s a bottom of depth chart blocking TE. We can probably do better or as well replacing him, but there might be some reason to keep him around another season. A decision either way doesn’t really move the needle for me as he’s not making all that much. Yeldon - Cheap contract for a RB. Zero reason to move on from him unless he’s done something to piss off the team. Sweeney - Very cheap contract. No need to move on from him until someone better takes his place. No hurry.

I’d have like to have seen some draws. IIRC the screens weren’t working. But other than that, exactly what should’ve been done? Run plays into the the stacked box? At some point when a defense is taking away the running game and daring you to beat their man coverage you’re going to have to do it. This wasn’t on Daboll. He put the Bills in a position to win that game, but they didn’t execute. That’s on the players. Allen had been in the NFL for a season and a half and the Browns weren’t playing some complex defensive scheme. They weren't even hiding their coverage. Daboll trusted Allen and I credit him for that. Allen just didn’t rise to the occasion. Of course Daboll could’ve gone with a strategy with a much lower chance of working, but what message would that send to the team? Just two possibilities - either he doesn’t know what he’s doing or he doesn’t have confidence in his QB. Ultimately it may have helped Allen, so maybe look at it as some necessary experience for him. That’s because Allen performed a lot better against Houston (at least up until his fumble) When he saw a lot of a very similar scheme. Cam Newton was Allen’s best comparison when he came into the league. One BR writer said it was the closest QB comp he ever saw. Well guess which NFL QB sees the most man coverage, by a good margin? Newton. Allen will see a ton of it too so he’s going to have to learn how to beat it. The good news is that it looks like he is.

Haha! Fair point!

Dorial Green Beckham hasn’t played since the 2016 season. Why would you want to bother? He’s not even playing in the CFL or XFL. Hard pass. In general, I’ve got no problem taking small gambles on potentially big payoffs. They usually don’t work out, but that’s why you draft those players on day 3. Or sign them to an incentive laden contract with low guarantees.

To me the interesting question is: what’s NE going to do while Brady is deciding? Obviously they’re looking for a long term answer at QB regardless of what Brady does, but the possibility of Brady returning would limit who will sign there. No QB who wants a guarantee of starting would do it. It’ll be interesting to watch play out.

Mayfield has better advanced metrics than Allen. DYAR, DVOA and QBR are all in Mayfield’s favor. That’s what PFF uses so it makes sense that they have him in front of Allen. But I’m not sure how Tre doesn’t rate better. I know they said he just missed the cutoff for the top 100, but I don’t see how he didn’t make it comfortably. Perhaps there is something important that they aren’t factoring into their ratings.

Chatter of debatable quality aside, if Burrow is smart then he’ll have his agent working behind the scenes to make sure he’s not a Bengal.

The problems for Baker have been two fold. Organizationally the Browns have been a mess, including front office and coaching. The jury is out on the latest reboot. Secondly, he coasted last offseason and it showed. He’s admitted as much. The Browns do not inspire confidence, but they appear to have a good HC hire in Stefanski and to be aligned as an org for a change. Lots has to go right, but Baker has the ability to be an elite QB. Losing to the Browns shouldn’t have been much of a shock. That defense is built to play man and bring pressure. Bad coaching led to them playing a lot of zone throughout the year, but they sure didn’t against the Bills. Allen has played very well against zone but struggled against man (especially with extra pressure as is often the case) so it makes a lot of sense that things went the way they did. Sometimes the problem with a game is the match up.

I agree with all of that, but it speaks to my point. If the Browns become more competitive with the Steelers I believe the rivalry will come back fully. But at this moment it doesn’t seem to be what it used to be.

To me it seems like Dalton would be a great pickup for a team drafting a QB early. A one year deal where he can improve his stock for a better deal next season while the team he plays for gets to sit their future QB for up to a full season.

I also expect the Bills to spend this offseason. It’s smart of them to be quiet about it too. No upside to putting it out there that they’ll be big spenders. That would lead to unrealistic expectations by the fans and, ultimately, disappointment. One point of clarification though. Minimum spending limits are calculated on CASH distributed, not cap accounting. That makes hitting the minimum a lot easier to achieve.

Breaking a relationships boundaries is obviously serious, but it’s important to know what those are when making judgements. I’ve always said that Tiger’s big mistake was that he chose to cheat on and lie to his wife. He was rich and famous enough that finding a great woman who was fine with an open marriage would’ve been easy. Instead he screwed his kids’ mom over. It wouldn’t surprise me if Baker did what he’s accused of here. There is no real proof of it though. Just an accusation from a woman who sent Baker a bunch of pics and was blocked at some point. I don’t even see a snap from him to her. No text or call records. Nothing so far.

Browns fans (I am also one as I was born and raised in Cleveland) probably would call the Steelers their rival, but the Steelers fans would probably disagree. The Browns haven’t been competitive with the Steelers in forever so it’s faded from the Steelers end. I’ve heard many say that the “real Browns are in Baltimore” and that’s their real rival. Historical rivalries have value, but new rivalries will take hold when two divisional teams are fighting it out for the title regularly. On a personal note, I’d like the Bills to develop a strong rivalry with another team. The rivalry with the Dolphins has always seemed pretty weak to me. Growing up I remember what it used to be like with the Browns and Steelers. I’d like that same intensity for the Bills’ rivalry too.

Some rivals would be moved out of their division and some new ones would develop. But I don’t think that’s a big deal. The only real rivalry in the AFCN is Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The Patriots have dominated the AFCE for so long I don’t see a real rivalry at this time. By getting more divisions populated by geographically close teams we would see more rivalries develop. We’d also see fans travel to more games in other divisional cities. That would help sell out and fill stadiums more often since fans would have easier access. Fans of teams doing well would more easily fill the stadiums of divisional opponents that weren’t.

I still have an Eric’s shirt from like 20 years ago!

That sounds fantastic

I made my preferred changes in bold above. I like your general idea, but think this makes more sense geographically. I left Cincy and Indy in their current divisions, but would be open to flipping them

He was a good boy

Sure he can. He seems like the kind of guy who’ll do it too. I’m just pointing out the gravity of the situation if/when it happens.

Opened at 8.5. I could see some slight upward movement if they go nuts in FA. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sportsbettingdime.com/amp/news/nfl/opening-win-total-odds-all-nfl-teams-2020-chiefs-highest/

He’s made about $71M in the NFL. Plus whatever advertisement money he made. That doesn’t include anything he gets from his lawsuits against the Pats/Raiders. I’m not saying that he won’t blow through it all, but it’s going to take real effort. Even after taxes that’s a lot of money. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/antonio-brown-6702/cash-earnings/

Since teams offset salaries of fired coaches that find new jobs, wouldn’t this just all resolve itself if Dennison found a similar job with another organization? Oh, right.....

I’ll see if I can get that from him. He also writes for a Browns site and I’ve seen what he’s written about fits there. But the Browns will likely be running a scheme that utilizes a lot of zone blocking. That’s a bit different from the Bills although we also need somewhat nimble OL because they all need to be able to pull.

I know the guy who did the article (Sobo) a little bit. He was just having some fun with possibilities that make some sense for each team. FWIW he is a big fan of how the Bills FO attacked the interior OL last off-season. He is a former lineman and is always a good person to get opinions on everything OL and DL.

Man the Jest are a train wreck. Not sure why anyone would work or play there. The exceptions would be for them to ridiculously overpay for someone like they did CJ Mosley or give someone a job at a much higher level than they warrant, like they did with Adam Gase.