HappyDays

Mahomes had two players that were among the best at their position on his offense (Kelce and Humphrey), and a top 2 play caller. Allen had one player like that and a rookie play caller. Is it so much to ask for the help given to Allen to be at least equivalent to the help given to Mahomes?

This guy is a Twitter troll, he makes up crap like this all the time. It's his brand of "comedy."

It seems like the best chance for us to get Hopkins is for him to go unsigned long enough that he realizes he isn't going to get the contract he wants. It feels like a slim chance at this point though, unfortunately.

I agree Scott, but I have felt all along that Beane could mange to sign one of the last remaining edge rushers AND Hopkins if he executed all of the necessary restructures. Floyd doesn't change that calculation for me. I am assuming that like anyone signed this late in the offseason his cap number will be reasonably low. In other words I don't believe that signing Floyd prevents us from signing Hopkins. Getting another legit edge rusher in the room was 100% necessary IMO. I think Kincaid will have an immediate impact. Don't think of him as a TE. Think of him as Cole Beasley plus. He played in a pro offense at Utah and will be 24 when the season starts. I don't expect much of a ramp up period. Plus Allen specifically wanted him. I am confident he will look to throw him the ball.

This is a great move. Floyd was one of about 5 edge rushers still available that I desperately wanted the Bills to sign. It was going to be a glaring need until Von is fully recovered. I think right now Basham is competing with Shane Ray for the last roster spot. I won't be surprised if Basham is traded for a late day three pick in August.

I don't want to get too stuck in the weeds on his contract value relative to other players at his position. The bigger concern in my mind is that this represents another major investment in a DL player that is not dominant. Von Miller is the only investment they've made so far there where you can say his level of play justified the investment amount, unpredictable ACL tear notwithstanding. Rousseau is the only other one I still have hope will meet the standard of his investment. A top 10 pick on Oliver, 2nd round picks on Epenesa and Basham, to go along with the myriad of overpriced signings Beane has made in free agency. On the whole the handling of the entire DL has been poor and it's left us with much less capital to use on supporting Allen. Signing Oliver to a big extension perpetuates this issue. Beane clearly understands that the DL is extremely important but he has to learn that just throwing resources at the problem isn't going to fix it. A pattern of bad investments there has finally caught up to us on other areas of the team.

His hand size and arm length are both in the 11th percentile for his position. It is a legitimate concern. When you're trying to take down guys like Mahomes and Jackson and Hurts it isn't enough to just get into the pocket, you have to get your hands on them and bring them down or at least slow them enough until help arrives. If Oliver is always just a disruptor but never a finisher it will be hard to justify this contract IMO.

From Joe Buscaglia's article:

Just because a player is the 12th best player at his position in the league (which is debatable IMO) doesn't mean you have to pay him that way. We let Edmunds walk for similar reasons. This devotes even more future cap space to the DL after a tremendous over-investment in that group over the past few years, which gives us less flexibility to pay game changing players around Allen. I can't find any logic for this extension. It is totally unnecessary IMO and in fact it may lead to Oliver not playing to his best level this year because he has no incentive to push himself to be greater.

Yeah I thought letting him play out a contract year was the best possible outcome. This is a head scratcher for me. It feels like Beane panicked after Lawrence and Simmons signed their deals and wanted to make sure Oliver got done before Quinnen Williams. I feel that Oliver does not have the natural desire to be one of the greatest at his position so I would have left his incentive on the table. If we're doing this as a means to clear up cap space to afford Hopkins this year then I can get behind on it. But even in that scenario this extension will give us less cap space to offer Hopkins in 2024.

I'll add the usual disclaimer that we need to see what the actual contract numbers look like. The initial numbers are always agent driven. I would guess his cap number this year will be reduced.

I am genuinely shocked by this.

I've never seen the fire from Oliver that you see from the top tier players. Aaron Donald isn't just an athletic specimen, he is known to have an almost psychotic workout routine even in the offseason. For some guys the NFL season ends in February. For Donald it never stops. That's how a guy with his size became an all time great. I don't think Oliver is a total slacker like Dareus turned into, but he also hasn't fully committed himself to being great. Hopefully this being a contract year will incentivize him to give it his all, and then I don't care what sort of effort he gives in 2024 and beyond because it won't be with us.

I don't know how likely it is. I know it is possible and I would like us to do it. I would take Hopkins on the team over Ed Oliver. That's how far I would be willing to go because in recent history the teams that make it to the Super Bowl have a much better #2 weapon than Gabe Davis. I would do whatever it takes to make sure we have that baseline fulfilled. Maybe Kincaid explodes onto the scene as a rookie. Maybe Cook becomes a true pass catching weapon. If neither of these things happen and we have another disappointing playoff exit because of inconsistent WR play, Beane will have to answer for that. I entered the offseason saying that the success of this offseason depended on him finding an upgrade to Davis. As of now he has not done that. I feel that we're entering the season with the same question marks in the WR group as last year, just with the added hope of Kincaid becoming a pass catching weapon.

He still has not gotten the offer he wants which means we still have a chance. If some team like Houston offers him $40 million for two years, so be it. But that has not been the case. I believe we CAN give him the best offer if Beane is willing to make the necessary moves.

Every single player goes for the most money every single time. We didn't sign Von Miller just out of the goodness of his heart. I don't know, I wish Beane would just find a way to close the deal. Play hardball as long as possible, I'm fine with that obviously, but ultimately we need someone to upgrade Davis as WR2 and insure us in case Diggs or Davis get injured. I worry that at the end of the year we'll look back and see that one game we lost that would have earned us the #1 seed and there will be a critical Davis drop in that game. That's been the exact outcome in each of the past two seasons.

Beane does this every year. He works out players he has no intention of signing now, so that he can circle back in a "break glass in case of emergency" situation. If Davis suddenly sprains his ankle in October and Shorter isn't ready to play we can sign Preston Williams to the PS and call him up the maximum number of times while Davis recovers. It's just contingency work, it doesn't mean anything about Deandre Hopkins or anyone on the team.

Those higher ranked coaches are going to have their job for at least as long as Allen is our QB. So if McDermott can't topple them in the playoffs, isn't that one more reason to move on from him and try for somebody that can go further? By the way I'm not saying McDermott should be fired now but I agree with Ross when he says this is a big year for him. If we lose a couple stupid regular season games and just miss the #1 seed and then get bounced in the divisional round again, you don't think that is a reason to think McDermott isn't the guy?

The level of play can also be reflective of the coaching. Nobody on the team looked prepared for anything Cincy did on either side of the ball. If the team is completely unprepared how is that not on the coaches? Ross talks about this game on the podcast. He says Burrow was getting the ball out in 2 seconds while Allen was patting the ball forever and he attributes this to coaching. I don't need to make excuses. The Bengals came in with a banged up OL and designed a game plan around it. They designed a game plan to account for the snow. What was our game plan on either side of the ball? I couldn't tell you.

It isn't clickbait. He admits that after hearing the arguments he might put McDermott ahead of Staley. For the rest of them he says he is ranking them based on what they did with the roster they had. He thinks most coaches would have more than just one AFCCG appearance and no Super Bowl appearance to their name with 5 years of Josh Allen. I don't think that is an out of line statement. To me it seems obviously true.