BullBuchanan

We're not talking about him. His talent and production are not and have never been in question.

No it didn't. We may have done well as an average, but we have been giving up clutch plays on long downs for the prior two years. Hail Murray? 13 seconds? It's been especially bad this year though. Any time it's 3rd/4th and long I'm taking the Bills opponent to pick it up.

I haven't seen the team tackle well since McD/Frazier got here, but they've been especially bad this year.

Did you watch the game tonight? The dude got clowned.

Because Milano makes infinitely more plays than Edmunds does. He plays every snap like he's shot out of a cannon, so his misses are easier to overlook. We know that over the course of a game, and especially over the course of a season it's going to even out because he never stops impact making plays. The problem with Edmunds is that he's never offset his flaws by any sort of playmaking ability. He either does nothing or gets abused. We were gashed up the middle all night tonight and his inability to shed a block or read the RB is not an insignificant reason why that is. I'm not interested in an MLB who gets abused on a constant basis like he does. We could sign Deion Jones next year for half his salary to do the same thing.

You just described Preston Brown. I see you're far too biased and set in your opinion to be reasoned with. I'd replace him with Trenton Simpson who is an athletic freak just like Edmunds but a lot more dynamic. He can actually cover slot receivers, light up running backs and sack the quarterback. Will you admit you were wrong about Edmunds if he doesnt? Why does everyone who supports him say he's a leader? What has he done to show that he has any leadership qualities at all?

Why would I care about how long it's taken him to get good? Because he's had 4 awful seasons and one good one. He's the center of a defense that repeatedly falls apart in crunch time. I think the player he is is much closer to that player he's been the first 61 games of his career and not the last 10. I don't want to see our staff reward his one-year wonder play with a long term contract and be saddled with a middle linebacker that can't hit, can't tackle, can't shed a block, can't rush the passer, can't play the football, can't cover a TE, and most of all who I can't count on to make 1 play to win a game. A rodeo clown? Yes. A rodeo clown. When all of his flaws are laid bare, as they have been in this thread, people defer to the fact that he's a deterrent in the middle of the field. That he some how causes QBs to not make plays just by virtue of being present. To me, that's saying that he's playing the role of a rodeo clown. He's absolutely no threat to the bull, but maybe he can distract him long enough to protect another player from getting burned. If true (i haven't seen much data to suggest it is) it's a noble endeavor, but not worthy of an "elite" moniker or top LB money. I'm not looking to rip anyone for being an overachiever. I love overachievers - Freddie, Stevie, Kyle, George Wilson, Ryan Bates, Jim Leonhard, Jon DiGiorgio, MATT MILANO etc. Overachievers are people that weren't supposed to be any good, but carved out a role for themselves based on determination and effort. Soemtimes that role is niche and in the case of Kyle and Milano they became elite stars. That's to be commended. I rip underachievers - players like Edmunds that have all world ability and don't put in the work to reach their potential. There is nothing about Edmunds 6'5" 250lb 4.54 body that prevents him from laying a jarring hit on anyone. The reason he can't shed a block, intercept a pass, force a fumble or sack the quarterback isn't because he doesn't possess the physical attributes to do so, it's because he doesn't have the technique to do so. In my eyes that's either a lack of effort/practice or a lack of football IQ. Regarding Beasley - again please try to hold off on the ballwashing. I never said he was a bad football player (though he was objectively bad in 2021). His first couple of years here the hype around him was far far overblown. He was a competent player with solid strengths and significant weaknesses. He was a valuable asset, but some in Bills fandom crowned him the best slot wr in the league. That statement was just as ridiculous then as a statement about Edmunds being top 10 now. Who cares about his comps around the league? You do apparently, because this entire discussion is based off your statement he's a top 10 player. If you said we was a top 20 player, we aren't having this discussion. I don't need to "deal" with Edmunds being good. I want nothing more than for it to be true. I just don't see it happening. Finding a great MLB is tough, and it would be best if we had one on the roster. I watched him last week fail to wrap up Carter in the flat because he tried to tackle him around the shoulders and he bounced right off him. He's been int he NFL 5 years and he still has ***** tackling form. He still can't shed a block, but thankfully the massive improvement on the DL has prevented him from having to worry about it. He still can't catch a football. There's a reason he's playing on his 5th year without a contract extension on a team in win-now mode.

That may have been true on college tape but he tested very well at the combine

it took him 5 seasons to get to average-above average. Saying he's top 10 is laughable. You either don't watch any games that don't involve Buffalo or have a completely biased perspective. It's blatantly disrespectful to actual top 10 players to say he's anywhere near that list. Milano's on the outside edge of it and he's far superior to Edmunds. People are grossly overcompensating for Edmunds having a single season that is far better than any season he's ever had (in a contract year of course), and even still what has he done in that season? 1 sack, 5 TFL, 0 Int, 0 fumbles, 4 pass deflections. There's only so much a being a rodeo clown standing in the middle of a backfield is worth. Just say he's played great this season and I won't fight you on it. Why isn't that enough? Some people have to ballwash every player around here like they have no competition in the league, when it's nowhere close to true. People did the same thing a couple years ago calling Beasley the #1 slot receiver in the NFL and that turned out rather predictably. There are a lot of talented players in this league, a small number of them are elite.

Expected Value is a thing and in this case is the answer to your confusion. They can both be great on any day, but Mahomes is great far more often. He's also bad less often.

No, I'm not. I'm laser focused on the fact that he is a superior QB to Josh Allen at this point in his career and it isn't particularly close. Allen can match him on any given day, but over their career it's Mahomes by a mile. I would trade Allen for Mahomes, no questions asked. You're missing the bigger picture. The results aren't why Mahomes is better, they're supporting evidence for why. There isn't a stat that exists or an achievement that he's made that can credibly say that Allen is better than Mahomes right now.

I'm stoked to watch him whiff on backs at the LOS, get dragged 5 yards downfield and make zero plays on the ball in those underneath patterns.

It's not a slight. It's a simple collection of undebateable facts. Mahomes has reached heights Allen has not and has done so at an extremely consistent level. I'm not interested in theoretical arguments about who should have won games - that's not the way competition works. Winning matters and it's usually not luck at the highest levels. The fact that Mahomes has taken his team to that level every year should cement that point. If he retired today he'd be a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Dane knows what he's supposed to be doing all the time. That's valued more highly in Mc'ds system over talent. See James Cook who missed a blovking assignment on the Diggs screen and then was put on the bench most or all the rest of the game. It seems they either draft a lot of dummies, or they aren't very effective at teaching young players the scheme.

i.e. We'd like to upgrade over Jackson, but no one has been able to do so yet.

I didn't say it was perfect and actually mentioned that unions are very fallible due to the humans that make them up. My point about "quality representation" was that they got a real union to back them, not a fly by night organization looking to exploit them.

This is true of every player to ever play the game, including Brady, the GOAT. Correction: Otto Graham went to the championship every year he was in the league and won 7/10.

They certainly face an uphill battle, but it's always a good thing to try to disrupt monopolies. They are owned as part of a joint venture with Fox Sports (now owned by Disney), so they have extremely deep pockets if they want to disrupt the status quo. We could be looking at another LIV Golf situation that come sin and completely upends the sport. Probably not, but there's a realistic chance. I'd rather make $5k per week for 2 months. So would all the players who have bills to pay, which is why they and their union pushed for the changes they did. Working for nothing gambling on a payday at the end as your recommendation seems the opposite of a "sustainable model for success". It's only sustainable for the employers who don't have to pay compensation.

I'm full on the Josh train, but if you wouldn't trade him for a guy that's taken his team to the AFC championship every year he's played along with back to back SB appearances including a SB win and a SB MVP, I'm not sure how objective that can be. They're highly likely to be in that position again for a 5th straight year.

Their absence is also why we had tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. For those who forgot their history or never learned it in the first place: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

The same reason anyone cares about any other non top-tier team like the Buffalo Bisons or the Rochester Americans - accessibility and because they like the sport. People here in Texas intensely follow High School football. Grown ass adults with no children attending the school. It's pretty weird if you ask me, but they do it. A better question is why wouldn't someone watch it? It's undeniably going to be comprised of better talent than college ball, so they have at least one advantage there. Another advantage is that they are setting up shop in cities with very severe income disparities and offering cheap tickets that will allow working class families to take their families out for an even of entertainment that would be impossible to do so with NFL prices. We went to a lot of Bisons and Bandits games when i was a kid and it was very economical. I probably only went to a handful of Bills games though.

100% false. The ability to have representation is an objective good for workers. By default owners will always have outsized leverage over employees, and that leverage will almost always cause employees to settle for sub-standard compensation (as the USFL players had previously). That doesn't mean that every implementation of a union is good, it is made up of fallible people after all, but that's true of anything. Ask the NFL players if they want to get rid of their union. I'm guessing you wouldn't find a lot of support for that given how effective they've been at creating one of the more equitable employer->employee bargaining agreements in our country. The reason many people leave Erie county (including myself) is the lack of high paying jobs which are rarely, if ever, supported by unions like those in tech, finance, consulting, etc.

I wonder if there's any chance Shakir gets McKenzie's reps this week. He should, but I'm guessing not. Outside of that, I'd say Poyer gets an INT, Milano causes a fumble and Groot gets a big sack.

He's been excellent. Admittedly I thought they paid him a bit too much at the time, but he's been one of our most consistent players on the DL and I'm glad he's here.