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Fair point, OP. I haven't had as much time to dive into the draft stuff this year as I normally do so I'm not as up to date on the prospects as others might be. Year after year though, we usually see a "consensus" top ten rankings but almost every year there's a team that drafts a kid that most people thought would've gone later. One of the bigger surprises I can recall was Tyson Alualu going third overall in 2010. Or maybe Donte frickin' Whitner going eighth overall in 2006, yeesh. Last year was actually a pleasant surprise when they drafted Edmunds, I didn't expect them to jump back into the first round after all the moving and shaking they did to position themselves for Allen. If I recall, Beane said that wasn't the plan but they couldn't believe Edmunds was still there so they had to go for it. Are there any prospects this year that they feel this way about? We'll find out soon enough. I'm gonna have to follow along on my phone since I'll be in line for the 10 PM Thursday night showing of Endgame. It was a tough call, draft or Endgame but for some reason the IMAX on Transit had either Thursday 10 PM or any other day with only one showing at 11 AM. /ramble Buddy "I'll be nappin' when free agency starts" Nix.

It'd have to be a "can't miss" type of player for them to move up at all, I think. Maybe if Quinnen Williams is still hanging around after the fifth or sixth pick they might try to jump up a few spots. If anything, I think they'd stay at 9, take their guy and then jump back into the first round somewhere between picks 22-32 and draft another player who they had ranked super high on their board.

I'm not saying I wouldn't mind seeing them on Sunday night, but six Sunday night games? I think the NFL knows they need more variety than that.

Clearly they are the toast of the town. Just have them play exclusively on Sunday nights. I get that there's hype for Cleveland but as usual, the media is gonna beat that drum until I wanna puke at the sight of "Browns orange." I sincerely hope all the monstrous egos on that team clash and they implode.

That 11/24 game vs. Cleveland was debunked as fake. It came from a "leaked" Browns schedule which had something like six primetime games on it.

I don't know if they'd take him at 9, maybe in a trade down but who knows. I still think they're gonna go DL.

I saw some pretty gnarly hits on Cam that definitely should've been called. I forget who they were playing but this one stands out to me, he was in the midst of being tackled, where, like, no more help was needed, but a defender came barreling in and decked him with his shoulder right under the facemask. Cam got up livid and there was no flag. In fact I think he later said he was told to settle down or they'd throw a flag on him for delay of game.

I was confused for a minute when I saw Tyree. It made me think of David Tyree, and then I was like, "That dude's gotta be 40 by now..." then I remembered it's the UB QB.

It's cool to see these guys having fun. I think I'll always have a soft spot for Fitz. All around good dude, really always gives it everything he has. I wanna hate Darnold cause he's a Jet but he seems like a nice kid. And of course we're all on the Allen train.

I still can't see how they don't go DL with this class. Just seems to make sense but who knows at this point. Smokescreen season. They could be leaking info on certain players they "like" and hope that other teams drafting behind them might wanna jump up. Only two weeks to go. Do I dare check my phone for updates during my evening showing of Endgame??

I wouldn't say it's my favorite play but it's one I seem to remember a lot because it was the first time I'd seen it. 1990 season, MNF against the Raiders, Nate Odomes stripped Tim Brown and took it in for a TD. I was a kid and didn't know you could do that, haha. A lot of others I recall have already been mentioned.

As they say, it's smokescreen season... they might know of a team slotted after them that is high on Williams so they could be leaking info saying they have their eye on him to see if any teams bite for a trade up. I still think they're going DL.

Welp, a lot of the prospect rankings and hype we see ends up being media driven. For instance, we've been hearing for months how good Dwayne Haskins might be, before Murray declared, he was viewed as the first QB off the board. Recently, it's been said that the hype on Haskins was a result of the media and he may not be the second or even third QB taken. The same thing happens with other prospects and maybe that happened with Oliver. He was seen as a top 3-5 pick based on his sophomore season, during his junior year, guys like Quinnen Williams, Josh Allen, etc. began to emerge. I mean, really all it takes is one big-time season in college to end up on the NFL's radar. So, I don't really see Oliver's slight decline on the board as a result of a spat with a coach or him missing a bowl game, more just some other players had better seasons and are ranked a bit higher. As for what types of players we want on a team, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Teams are gonna do what they're gonna do. I think McBeane have done a great job at creating culture and identifying the types of traits they want in their players. But, again, talent wins out over all, hence their interest in Antonio Brown. Dude is a major pain in the rump but teams will deal with his BS because he produces on the field. And I think college teammates understand why players essentially leave the team in preparation for the draft. Like I said, these dudes only get one shot at being drafted and for most of them it's a lifelong goal to play in the NFL so they're going to do whatever it takes to get drafted as highly as possible, even if that means departing from their teammates. If I'm on a team with a player who could be a first round pick, I'm rooting for that guy to achieve his dreams at the highest possible level. Yeah, I also would like to have him help the team win but again, business is business and I'd simply see that type of thing as a business decision. No big deal to me. I understand it seems to be a bigger deal to you and that's fine, it can certainly be a gamble to bring in a guy with some attitude or character concerns, but they're all a gamble. Even "surefire day one starters/probably career All-Pros" are a gamble (who remembers Aaron Curry??). You just never know.

I don't think loyalty really exists in business and football is a business. Teams really don't have loyalty to their players as we see year after year longtime vets getting cut from teams they've played for for years, so why would any player have that type of loyalty? Sure, every now and then you get guys who wanna play for one team their whole career or whatever, but that's not the norm. The way I see it, if the teams don't have an issue with it, then why should I bother? Bosa and Oliver are judged on their talent first and foremost and as it is today, their talent gets them taken in the top 10 picks. Regardless if they chose to sit out. Just how it is.

Nick Bosa played three games last season, got injured (could've returned) but chose to sit out the rest of his final season at Ohio State to prepare for the draft. Did he milk it too? Should he be avoided as well? Guys that know they're gonna get drafted high will sometimes decide to prep themselves for that as opposed to playing out their last games in college. The jacket thing with Oliver was way overblown. Disagreements happen. The coach was out of line as well. NFL teams really don't have an issue with players deciding to not play as a means to avoid injury so they can maintain their draft projection, which, you know, they only ever get one shot at. An injury can mean the difference between being drafted in round one or round four and losing out on millions. I think Oliver will be fine and I wouldn't mind seeing him get drafted here.

I like that he's two for two in his Cinderella picks, having picked Jacksonville in 2017 and Chicago last season. I hope he goes three for three with the Bills.

Really great piece. Ty is super talented, always turns out good stuff. The hang up with this article though, is that it's a lot of "he said this, and then they said that" type of stuff. You have guys like Jennings and Finley who are like, "Rodgers was a baby" while you have Ryan Grant saying, "He's a perfectionist and that's part of what makes him great." And now, some of the players mentioned in the story (but who did not contribute a quote) have spoken out. John Kuhn tweeted earlier that he was never aware of his coach missing any meetings for a massage nor was he ever thrown under the bus by his QB. So... while I'm sure there is merit to all the things that were said, like anything, there are multiple sides to each story. Everyone quoted is speaking from their own perspective with their own feelings mixed in with it. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle and I wonder if we'll see some more players who were around during this whole situation speak up. Either way, definitely a good read and it's really hard to dispute that Rodgers doesn't have a super fragile ego. Even before this piece came out, he's always been seen as a guy who doesn't lead well and a guy who seems to cut out anyone who isn't marching to the beat of his drum. McCarthy on the other hand, has gotta be clueless if he thinks it was his schemes that caused all the success. Seems like both guys probably just needed to swallow their pride some, hash it out and move forward. But they're both too stubborn and arrogant to do that and therefore the whole team suffered. Ted Thompson and Mark Murphy sure seem like they could share in the blame as well. Both guys were in authoritative positions but never intervened. I understand most executives wanna let their HC's run the show when it comes to matters directly related to the team but sometimes you gotta go step in. It'll be interesting to see how things play out.

I'd say whoever said this just isn't very informed on what they're doing at OBD. They also aren't considering this season when talking about not having the OL for Allen to have time to allow routes to develop. That was last season, for sure. We're not sure how it's going to pan out this year but if I had to bet, I'd say they're going to improve. They signed two high quality OL starters in Morse and Spain, and Spain will likely help Dawkins get back to form. Nsekhe is probably penciled in on the right side and then you have a bunch of guys competing for the RG spot. That might be the only question mark along the OL right now after earlier this off-season where everyone was like, "Dawkins is about the only OL worth keeping." Beasley helps Allen in that he's such a precise route runner. Brown opens things up down the field. There's clearly a plan. I dunno, maybe this exec thought the Bills had other areas they needed to fix and they didn't so he fails to see a plan. Again, though, I feel like whoever said this just kinda glossed over everything Beane has put together so far this off-season.

They look like an arena league team. The monochrome without a lot of other color accents makes it look pretty bland. And the font they chose for the numbers, yeesh.

IMO, seems like a lot of fancy terminology to say the kid has a flukey throwing motion which could cause him issues down the line. Rivers has a weird throwing motion... Peyton Manning had real choppy mechanics and never threw the tightest spiral. Guys succeed for all kinds of different reasons. Murray seems like he has that stuff that could lead to him being successful. If I'm a GM my main concern with him would be how's he gonna hold up getting knocked around by guys twice his size.

I usually dig seeing new uniforms, but these look like they were made for an arena league team. Yeesh.

Definitely too early to tell but I think (hope) they improve. I think they can. McDermott has gotten quite a bit out of not-so-great rosters but hopefully with a better OL and some better weapons for Allen, they'll take the next step. At best, I'll say 10, *maybe* 11 wins, if the defense can play just as well as last year and if the offense can put up at least 20-24 points a game, I can see 10-11 wins. At worst, 7-9.

I think the logic here with all the one-year deals on veteran OL is that they wanna bring in some prospects (probably mid-late round guys) and have them learn from the vets for a year. We've heard Beane and other GMs/coaches talk about it before: it's just taking longer and longer to coach up college OL to the NFL game based on the offensive systems run in the NCAA. Lot of these OL don't even put their hand in the dirt most of the time. And they just aren't ready to go as soon as teams would like. So, why not sign a buncha vets, let them compete for starting gigs and let your depth/prospects learn the ropes and then compete next year for starting gigs.

Ugh, just the worst. I get that the league has stretched it out like they have in order to keep the game relevant/talked about during the off-season but we don't need 3 months of speculation and scouting reports and yaddah yaddah yah. Teams typically have their boards set by February. They might make a few minor adjustments here and there, based on the Combine and player meetings but for the most part, they're set and ready to roll early in the year. I'd be for it going down in the first weekend of April, bump it up by 3-4 weeks at least. We'll see, I guess. Seems like the league is listening when enough teams speak up on the changes they wanna see.

I'm down for that. It does seem like they'll use some of those extra picks as ammo to move around given how many FA's they've signed. Only a few more weeks until we find out. I hope more coaches/GMs speak up like Harbaugh did about doing the draft sooner because this long-arse wait sucks.