BarleyNY

Sadly, that’s probably accurate. On the Bills I see him as a rotational power end with some upside. So he’d be a backup to Rousseau. We’d probably have to take him with one of our late 2nds if we wanted him. So it would depend on the other options available.

Lou Holtz continues to be one of the most arrogant pr**ks I’ve ever seen. This reminds me of years ago when ND joining the Big 10 was brought up. The question was what ND would do if the B10 would give them an ultimatum of join or none of our teams will ever play ND again. His response was that ND would just schedule Hawaii in Hawaii for the last game of ever season and give their team a vacation there. The assumption that Hawaii was just waiting by the phone for that to happen was so disrespectful and arrogant. He hasn’t ever changed. https://www.si.com/college-football/lou-holtz-swipe-ryan-day-attendance-national-championship-ohio-state-notre-dame Lou Holtz twitter quote: “If Notre Dame doesn’t win, it’s because we want to preserve Ryan Day’s job. I was originally going to be at the game in spirit, but now I’ll be dragging my body along as well.”

Would have hated it. Why create confusion? I doubt the Bills would have allowed it anyway. “I got tickets to the Buffalo Bills game for my birthday! Oh, wait, they’re for a July game. ****!”

Yep. An emotional hedge.

I don’t bet very often - and when I do it is rarely on games with a team I am emotionally tied to. I only bet on the Bills once. I’d gotten a free bet at the casino downtown (concert perk) and won a little money with it so I laid it on a parlay for the next Bills game. It was the heat stroke Miami game. I don’t think I hit a single leg.

the Chargers were favored by 2.5 against the Texans.

So the question at hand is which party or parties do you want to see suffer? $92M is left on the table. If Watson is found to have voided his contract he loses that $92M and the Browns and insurer are off the hook for it. If he isn’t found to have voided his deal, then he gets that money from the Browns and insurer. Probably $47.7M from the Browns and $44.3M from the insurer. So who do you dislike more?

Yup. He’s who I was thinking of.

What does that have to do with anything? Vrabel is an experienced, quality coach. His teams never did much in the playoffs, but that was with the likes of Ryan Tannehill at QB. Maye looks like a good one and Wolf is an experienced GM. They now have a possible path to being a good team. I prefer to see them foundering, but looks like they may be competitive soon. Who mentioned scared?

Excellent hire. intellectually, I am interested to see what Vrabel can do with a real quarterback. Emotionally, I am not happy that it’ll be in the AFCE.

For instance, Lamar has 5 teammates that are first or second team All Pros and Allen has none. So that’s a difference.

I thought Allen probably should have won it last season and probably Lamar this. But if they want to give it to Jackson last season and Allen this, then that’s fine too. Jackson has better stats, but Allen is doing it all with a lot less.

https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/nfl/coach-year-odds/ There are the odds. McD fell off recently, but is still 7th. He was higher earlier. I don’t think it’s difficult to make a case that he’s a good coach. But I don’t see any criteria where he is #1 this season.

What’s your rationale for McD being COY? He’s got a top four QB and is a second seed. Seems pretty much what you’d expect. Coaches like Campbell and O’Connell have done more with less. Reid has the AFC 1 seed and best record, tho he lost to McD. Campbell also has a 1 seed. Even coaches like Payton should be in the mix. He’s done very well with what he has had to work with. There’s a number of coaches who can make a case. What’s so special about what McD did this season?

All player salary/compensation recouped from insurance is deducted from the cap the following season. So the cap hit is the same during the given season, but they get the benefit the following one.

Normally a fully guaranteed contract would preclude an injury settlement. But these are not normal times. I actually believe that there is a small chance of a settlement between Watson, the Browns and the insurer. The necessary component is that Watson’s agent would have to be worried that the latest injury could void Watson’s guarantees. Things aren’t there (yet). I can say with confidence that the Browns are very unhappy about Watson not informing them of the injury until his end of season exit interview. He complained of it hurting at that time and the team had their doctors look at it. They determined that he had re-torn it. While him apparently hiding it from the team is very suspicious, it doesn’t mean that they can prove he did it outside of team approved rehab. If the Browns and insurer can get out of paying him, they’ll do it. If Watson can get his money, he’ll take it. But if all parties are worried they might lose or that it’ll take years to resolve, then a settlement could happen.

It will lower the overall cap liability for the team. It was set to be $230M total. It gets lowered by every dollar that Insurance pays off on. Even if the insurer pays the team $44.3 for 2025 on top of the $13.6 for 2024, then the Browns are still on the hook for $172.1M. That ain’t nothing.

Some additional info. This raises the possibility that Watson may have voided his guarantees. That’d get the Browns and insurance carriers off the hook. Incidentally this case they’d cut him a day into the 2025 season with a a post 6/1 designation.

They’ll cut him at the beginning of the 2026 season with a post 6/1 designation. The only way that doesn’t happen is if insurance reimbursement requires that they keep him on the roster/IR/pup for that season. As he will likely pass a physical before the 2026 season, that’s unlikely. But you never know.

The policy will reimburse the Browns up to $44.3M for the 2025 season. At this point it looks like Watson will be out the entire season so they’ll get the whole amount. The $44.3M will be credited to the 2026 cap. This isn’t good news for the Browns, it’s phenomenally great news for them. Incidentally the policy on the 2024 season insured up to $13.9M of his contract. They get that money and cap space back for 2025.

That’s fine, but I think I covered the reason why that qualifier was misleading.

Do either of you understand how poor a catch rate of 57.4% is in the NFL? Also I didn’t see either of you going back to check and see who else threw some balls to Gabe Davis and what that would do to his numbers. Also I don’t see anyone controlling for QB play. Coleman has Josh freaking Allen throwing him the ball. When judging catch percentage against the league, do you really think that is any a huge help vs what most QBs out there are doing for their receivers? Saying that Coleman is young and has time to improve is one thing. Pretending that his performance this season has been good - or even passable - for an NFL WR or 1st round pick pick is something else.

That is 100% false. Catch percentage is Receptions/Targets. Gabe Davis: 2020: 35 receptions on 62 targets for 56.5% 2021: 35/63=55.6% 2022: 48/93=51.6% 2023: 45/81=55.6% Keon Coleman 2024: 29/57=50.9% All data from ESPN

The problem with the diggs situation was that the Bills signed him to a huge contract extension when he had two full seasons left. article on details. It guaranteed him an additional $70M. Teams can’t do that for a player that already forced his way out of one team. This isn’t new information for NFL execs. Similarly Miami tried to make another problem child happy by handing him more money and guarantees. Thus their current problems with Hill.