BarleyNY

There has already been a huge shift in the attitudes of the fans. Excitement and belief that last year was our year has turned to disappointment and concern. Even if everyone hasn’t made that pivot, most seem to have. I don’t know how badly the Bills would have to perform in 2023 for McDermott and Beane to lose their jobs, but that’s now a conversation. Fans aren’t even considering the possibilities that Florio and Simms are. What if we miss the playoffs? What if that happens because the OL is largely ignored again and some lineman who shouldn’t even be on the field blows an assignment and gets Allen injured? A lot depends on how this off-season, season and playoffs pan out.

FA is for need, the draft is for long term team building. Teams that draft for need do so at their own peril.

While it could’ve been stated more civilly, @Dopey is 100% correct. Jackson would’ve been risking upwards of 9 figures by playing. Any sane agent or advisor would have told him to sit. Certainly there are always people who do not act rationally because of emotion or other reasons, but in this case those would have been rare exceptions. The Ravens knew that the scenario they found themselves in was a possibility and they still didn’t think Lamar was worth what he was asking. Sometimes when both sides make business decisions it plays out like this.

It seemed like the Texans and league didn’t want him playing that season either.

No pouting. The Texans were not going to put Watson on the field in 2021. Him sitting but getting fully paid for the season was a negotiated settlement between him and the Texans - and blessed by the league. He wanted to play, but not for the Texans.

Yeah. I don’t blame Lamar for wanting to get all he can and I don’t blame the Ravens for not giving him what he’s asking for.

If this is Lamar’s strategy to get out of the AFC and onto an NFC team, then color me impressed. He’ll get paid and be a top QB in his conference. As for an AFC GM taking the chance on trading for him, there’s always a few who need a QB and know they’ll get fired soon if the team doesn’t take a step forward. If it doesn’t work someone else will have to clean up the mess anyway.

I love his telescope.

He doesn’t have to. He just has to wait until right before the first game to sign the tag. The Ravens have a new OC and are going to implement a new offense. He won’t be there to learn the new offense or work with the rest of the offensive players getting it down. That would be a huge setback for the season. I think it’ll be a tag and trade situation.

I agree that some team will pay him, but I fully expect the exclusive franchise tag. The Ravens would be foolish (read: stupid) to invite a team like the Giants (26th pick) or any of the QB needy teams picking between 13 and 20 to pay him. The Giants could waltz up and sign him to a 5 year, $235M fully guaranteed contract. Then what do the Ravens do? They either have to assume that contract or take pick 26 and another (probably late) first round pick in 2024. Oh, and they’d also have to find a QB. They can’t let something like that happen.

Again, both. They’ve spent more draft capital and more in FA than the Bills. Your list is a bit misleading. For example, you describe Thuney’s contract and Morse’s the same way, but they aren’t close to the same. And let’s not get stuck on KC. How about the Bengals versus the Bills where investment on the offense is concerned? Sure, they’ve done better with their picks, but they’ve also invested a lot more too. It’s both.

Both. Plus probably some issues with player development.

The cap consequences of trading Diggs makes it virtually impossible. Spotrac link If traded, his cap charges would go from a hit of $20.3M to a dead cap hit of $37.6M. So by trading him we’d lose $17.3M in cap space AND we’d have to replace him.

I’m not going to argue that Beane has drafted as well as he could have or that I don’t want to see better from him. I agree with you on that. But he has done a pretty average job compared to the league. Still, if you want to win a championship average isn’t good enough. As for KC, did you miss last off-season where they recognized their deficiencies on the OL and totally revamped it? Then they won the SB. The draft isn’t the only way to address needs. They also have the best QB in the league and that covers up a lot of deficiencies. We’ve got a QB that’s close and it does as well. I know both got injured last season, but I think about what the season that could’ve been if Allen had better protection and didn’t have to deal with the UCL injury.

That makes zero sense (but, hey, why start now?). No suit was filed against the Bills, nor would any attorney worth their salt think that was even a possibility. That is ridiculous.

It’s in line with the rest of the league. Spotrac FA list by team. You can change that to any team and hit “update”. Between 20-30 FAs is typical. Most teams like to churn the bottom of their rosters.

Is there anyone on the roster that predates this regime? Lawson got drafted the prior year (2016) but left and came back. Our LS is also a 2016 addition. That it. Always a lot of turnover on NFL teams.

The deep pockets thing is awfully weak. Araiza got a $216k signing bonus. Not really much to go after after taxes. And as for his salary, the allegations torpedoed that. Not to mention that teams knew about it before the draft and it could’ve kept him from being drafted (or even signed) at all. As for the Bills, drafting him obviously was a mistake. Not sure what they were thinking, but it was only a sixth round pick and a bad look by the team. It was not a huge misstep by any means, but a mistake nonetheless.

Sure. I don’t know that that’s a fair benchmark, but I get what you’re saying. For all the investment in it we should see a more dominant defense, especially in the playoffs. I also think in today’s NFL that, in general, ROI is better on offense than defense. A truly dominant pass rusher is probably an exception, but beyond that O>D.

I have a couple thoughts on that. There’s more to building a team than hitting on a reasonable percentage of draft picks. Not that the Bills haven’t developed into a top team. They have. They just haven’t won it all. As for the picks, the issue is more the forest than any single tree IMO. Over six drafts this team has used 5 of 7 first round picks on defense. The only monster FA contract was also on defense. The only offensive use was the Allen pick and the Diggs trade. If you look at the rosters of other top teams I don’t think you’ll find them skewed in that direction. Here’s a good link for that. So I think the lack of resources used on offense is a big issue. As for the cap, we are at a point where we have a budget. Everything is a choice of this or that, not yes or no. But we aren’t in cap hell or anything. There are obvious places to clear space and we’ll be able to fill out our roster with lower tier FAs. We could make at least one moderate or big FA signing too. That big one depends on whether the re-sign Edmunds. More money to spend if we make some other moves too. Again, this or that. I wish there were some great FA WRs coming on the market. It would be easy to say we should spend on one instead of Edmunds. My biggest issue with re-signing him is that it would be yet more resources spent on that side of the ball. It might not happen in one season, but I think investing in the offense is the way to success in the postseason. Solidifying the OL and finding another offensive playmaker (who we will use) should be jobs 1 & 2 this off-season IMO.

Addison won’t be available so I went JSN, who’s got a chance to make it to us.

I’ve looked at a lot of different analyses of draft performance. Here is a three part one that does a decent job. Harvard has put out some good stuff on it too. I think casual fans expect far too much success from draft picks. Just look at the optimism on this board for late round picks. The statistics do not bear that out at all. I think this regime has been in the average range as far as pick usage. Let’s look at their first round picks. According to the analysis linked above first round picks’ performance is: - 30% Players who perform well enough to get their second contract with the team that drafted them. These are almost always premium contracts. - 50% Players who sign their second contract with another team. These are usually lesser contracts. - 20% Players who bust and are out of the league. - Early picks have a better success rate than later ones. Looking at the Bills first round pick usage they got: - Tre White, elite CB in top 30% group - Josh Allen, elite QB in top 30% group - Tre Edmunds, arguably in the top 30% and definitely in the 50% group - Oliver, probably in the 50% group. Good player who didn’t live up to his top 10 draft slot. - Trade for Diggs, certainly a talent well worth that pick. You can discount it somewhat due to the extra contract expense. Still, excellent value. - Rousseau - TBD, but I think he’s already safely in the 50% group. He could wind up in the top 30% group tho. - Elam - TBD. That performance is much better than league average. I think if I ran through the second round we’d come back to Earth because the Bills have definitely underperformed there. After that I think we’d be pretty average since league wide performance falls off every round. Obviously coaching and development play a part too, but that’s where my head is at.

I think the Giants brass and ownership are smart enough to avoid tying themselves to Jones long term.

That’s not even a good straw man. Please try to do better than that. I don’t want them to put themselves in a position where they have to draft for need. And I want them to stop pouring most of their resources into the defense. I thought that was clear. Because being 2 deep in the DL has been more important to this team than building the first string OL or drafting the BPA.

I look at it similarly, but I think that recently it is more that they’re filling needs and looking for cost control. That often comes at the expense of taking the best prospects available (at a position that isn’t a big need) or taking chances on players with bigger upsides.That gets you Basham over Humphrey because you have Morse.