HappyDays

Trust me, he was unapologetic behind the scenes too. That's per my usual source. Not that anyone on the team asked him to apologize. But Diggs clearly does not believe his behavior over the past few months was wrong. In his mind it was justified because of his frustration. He said as much in his presser today, it's no big secret. So as far as I can tell the problem is still there under the surface. Diggs is not going to cause any issues right now, he's putting last year behind him. But if he still thinks losing like we did to end last season justifies the way he acted, why should we expect anything different if this season ends in similar fashion? It's not about apologizing. It's about his behavior in the face of adversity.

That's not what I said. I'm saying if our season ends the way the last two did I don't believe it will really be water under the bridge at that point. Diggs is unapologetic about the way he acted in the days and months after our divisional loss. That tells me in his mind his behavior and attitude were warranted. So what has changed?

I think it's water under the bridge if the season goes well. I am not however convinced Diggs will respond well to an extended period of adversity and especially not to another early playoff loss. Nothing he said today makes me feel differently about that worry.

This is encouraging. Not week to week. Day to day. Maybe the genetic freak will do it again.

1) I keep saying I think Kincaid is ready to take over Beasley's role in this offense from day one, but with much more upside and versatility. These (very) early camp reports are keeping that hope alive. 2) Dane Jackson gets first run at CB2. 3) Dodson gets first run at MLB.

Hot take: it wasn't a misfire.

More momentum for Kincaid effectively being our starting slot receiver from day one.

The contract was always dumb, I disagreed with Beane's decision to give him a pay cut instead of releasing him. But kick return isn't that important, less so now with the most recent rule change.

I hate this for Hines, but it means nothing to our season outlook IMO. I came into the offseason thinking Hines had a good chance of being released.

Chiefs might need to make another mid-season trade for a WR. Toney appears to be less durable than Sammy Watkins.

Yeah I suppose that's fair. Instead of making this thread all about me I'll just move on from this line of conversation. All I'll say is one incident does not make a pattern. My experience scared me straight and I never did anything that stupid again. I'll give Addison the benefit of the doubt until he proves otherwise.

If what I'm imagining is correct, Addison speeding alone on an empty stretch of highway with zero traffic in sight, I don't believe that is actively dangerous to the public. Again though I am biased. Dangerous to himself, absolutely.

What Ruggs did was 1000x worse. He was in the Las Vegas city limits and extremely intoxicated. Sounds like Addison was on an empty stretch of highway in the middle of the night taking a joyride. Stupid, yes, but not actively dangerous to the public. Admittedly I am biased. Dumbest mistake I ever made, I was 20 driving back to Buffalo from Cleveland at 1AM with some friends. Not another car in sight on the I-90. I thought it would be funny to go 120 MPH for a minute. Luckily when the sirens flashed on from the turnabout I had slowed down to 100, so one verbal reaming from the trooper and several thousand dollars later I was able to keep my license. Anyways, I think a lot of young men make a similar mistake. I wouldn't assume anything about Addison's character from this incident.

I remember exactly how good Davis was before he was a full time WR2. I'm fact his rookie season to me was his best, and statistically it was his most efficient. My hope was that we would use this offseason to push him back to his preferred role as the 3rd or 4th WR on the depth chart. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

And yet, the NFL wouldn't exist without the Pegulas of the world fronting hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. I know the new way of thought is that the mega-rich aren't worth their income, but the reality is people with the ability to invest that much capital up front are the foundation of any economy. I don't think only a handful of people in the world could perform the job of an NFL owner, but only a handful can afford it. That handful rightly collects the value of their investment. And ultimately the players are doing just fine, at least the smart ones.

There are a number of ways we could have had enough space left over for Hopkins. It is frustrating to see us make the same mistake as last offseason despite even more evidence that Davis is not ready to be a full time WR2. I have trouble envisioning how our offense is going to fare against more talented offenses in the playoffs. I guess if Allen plays at his ceiling for the entire season and everyone that we brought in this offseason meets their expectations we can overcome an inefficient WR2 but it's a lot to ask.

I am almost positive Hines could have been cut with zero dead cap. That was part of the appeal of trading for him last year, we weren't tied to him beyond 2022. Settle I'm sure had a small dead cap hit, although I can't find his previous contract before the restructure listed on Spotrac or Over The Cap. But certainly those two combined with Poyer would have given us all or almost all the cap space we needed to sign Hopkins. Their replacements are mostly already on the roster. Oliver, Ford, Phillips, and maybe bring back Brandin Bryant. Cook, Harris, and Murray is good enough for me. I'm aware that most of the fanbase was excited for his return. Not me though. Safety is the least important position on defense. As Allen's cap hits grow we can't afford such a luxury as an expensive safety tandem. It just isn't that important. Poyer is getting older too. It was time to move on. More succinctly: The drop off from Poyer to Rapp <<< The drop off from Hopkins to Davis. Really it isn't even close especially when you factor in positional value. Why would I bring up a 2022 signing as something they could have foreseen would impact their ability to sign Hopkins in 2023? If that's the standard, Beane's decision making looks even worse in retrospect. But I'm trying to be fair. Yeah I already addressed this... I'm not pinning those losses solely on Davis. I'm saying that his inefficiency was a major cause of those losses and in Hopkins we had an immediate solution to that inefficiency. You're conflating "I think Davis was a fixable problem" with "I think Davis was the only problem." In your world I guess we shouldn't offer any suggestions for improving some aspect of the team because other flaws would still exist. On the subject of efficiency... With Beane failing to upgrade the biggest problem of our offense last year, his free agency spending this year looks very inefficient. It's too bad because overall I liked the signings he made, but I said at the beginning of the offseason that the whole offseason would be a failure if he didn't definitively add a superior #2 target. I have to stand by what I said. Beane can say whatever he wants publicly about how signing Hopkins is out of his hands because of the salary cap situation. The reality is that it was very much in his hands and he let it slip away. Fingers crossed Kincaid meets my wildest expectations as a rookie.

I looked at the Chiefs salary cap table. No you can't. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/cap/ MVS is the only obvious choice but his dead cap hit is almost equivalent to his cap hit, and they signed him last year. I chose Poyer, Hines, and Settle as my Bills examples because they are all players who were seen as reasonable candidates to cut or let walk heading into the offseason. Beane instead chose to bring them all back. With Hines and Settle he unwisely gave them pay cuts instead of cutting them outright and letting them find out for themselves how poor their market would be. Gabe Davis had critical drops in each of the 3 regular season games we lost last year. Miami he dropped a TD, NYJ he dropped a critical 3rd down and dropped the final 4th and forever bomb, Minnesota I admittedly don't remember his drop but he is recorded as having a drop in that game. If any one of those catches is made, we are likely the #1 seed last year even accounting for everything else that went wrong. Of course there were multiple reasons that we lost games last year, but in Hopkins we had a realistic way of immediately fixing one of those problems. Pointing out other flaws on the team last year adds nothing to the conversation. It's possible we can still get to the Super Bowl with Davis as the #2 target, but such a feat hasn't been accomplished in at least the last 6 seasons.