BullBuchanan

You've never seen Brandon Beane in sweats? Of all the things you could single out Whaley for, that's what you pick? Generally speaking, he was an extremely sharp dresser during his time here.

Not even close to the same thing, but don't let that get in the way of some good hyperbole.

He's one of my favorite players, but I think this is right. A first round rookie costs you less than $3M against the cap and they get considerably cheaper the later you draft them. Gabe Davis carries a $1m cap hit the next two years. Maybe we get to keep Diggs, but it means that the WRs behind him are forever a revolving door. Alternatively, maybe you get to keep davis for 1/3-1/2 of what you pay diggs and you get to have a couple of those guys plus rookies.

He engages that pulling guard like he's trying to block him and Fournette blows right by him. I feel like that's exactly the kind of thing that represents who he is as a player. The other thing he does here is he has to change his angle multiple times in a play because he isn't actually as fast as he thinks he is. What a brutal watch this whole thing was.

I'm in a similar boat. At this point, there's almost nothing Edmunds can do to redeem the wasted investment in him. if he goes out there and kills it this year, he'll want to be paid like a top LB, despite giving us nothing the first four years when he was on a controlled deal. Now, we pay him based off limited performance and we have to guess if everything clicked for him or if he just had a good year? No thanks. I thought Phillips was the same way, and I get an uneasy feeling about Oliver for the same reason. Showing up on year 3 is way better than year 5 though.

Even if that's true, which I don't believe it is, you understand that it doesn't matter right? If we use him in a way that makes him perform poorly, or he performs poorly strictly on merit, it's undeniable that MLB performance is a problem for this team. If you aren't going to dump Frazier (they aren't), then you have to find a player that can do what Frazier is asking him to do. It has to be extremely clear over Edmunds' career that he's incapable of doing that. He's barely even flashed any potential and he's had 4 full seasons to show us what he can do. It's time to move on.

Because there are better players out there like Bobby Wagner who we could replace him with and use the pick to draft his replacement.

Is it? It looks like we'll have plenty of cap to work with next year and as other teams have shown, you can make the cap do what you need it to.

What about the other half that hates him because he processes the game slowly, plays soft, can't shed blocks, can't cover, isn't an effective pass rusher and can't come up with a play when all the chips are down? On the other hand, he is only [insert current age here], and he's super athletic, so...

I don't really understand the nuance of why, but I had heard we'd recoup something like $6.5M had we traded him. I think it's interesting that we didn't sell him to a team with a ton of cap.

We could always use upgrades, but those needs are near the bottom in terms of priority. Any WR we bring in is (best case) fighting for a #3 spot. more than likely they're roll with the top 3 they have and let Hodgins, Stevenson and some day 3 rookies fight it out for #4//5. our #2 TE will probably be some league journeyman, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them prioritize a pass catching back who can return kicks and punts as well. The ST portion is probably the biggest need.

we've had plenty of poor DL signings, but Addison is frequently thrown under the bus here and I just find it weird. Especially so given how hard Hughes dropped off from when he was getting 10 sacks a year back in 2014.

Diggs was a good player on a favorable contract. I give Beane all the credit in the world for that one. Of course his cap is way up now, but we had an out if he didn't work out. Andrews may have been a UDFA, but he's still making half of what Morse does. when you pay a guy like Megatron or Donald, does it really matter or not if you drafted them? Maybe they're more willing to pay on a bad team, but if you're giving them market rate, how is it actually helping you?

There will be plenty of new Jake Fromms to choose from this year who will make rookie minimum. There's no need to go get one that has pee stains on him. I say this as someone who loved drafting him.

The toughest part is I don't blame Beane for his drafts here. Counting on drafting elite players is pretty impossible. How often is the best player in a draft taken #1? once every 10 years or so? And that's arguably the easiest spot because the only one impacting your selection is you. The bust rate for 1rst round players is incredibly high and it only gets worse from there. The worst part about the draft is when you do actually hit, you often can't afford to keep the player you struck gold on. The best case scenario is that you get a player that outplays his contract for 3 years, and if you have a couple of them doing that, you may be able to make a deep run. By the time year 3 of their deal comes around though, you're either dealing with a big money extension or a holdout. I would much rather deal those 1rst round picks for proven talent on favorable contracts, go out and spend the money on the players that have proven they can play, and then use the draft to keep your depth chart cost controlled, so you aren't making a guy that sees 40% of your team's snaps the 13th highest cap hit on the team. Aside from that, I believe it's important to find players who play above their contracts. The Patriots have been doing this for years. David Andrews has made $15M over his 7 years in the league. Over the same 7 years, Mitch Morse has made $38.5M. I would want to retire as a Bill if I were him too.

I don't get the hate for Addison. He still had 7 sacks this year and was a 9-11 sack per year guy when we signed him.

In 4 years and 41 draft picks, it's happened once so far. Twice if you want to count Wyatt Teller. Personally, I'd prefer to forget that one.

Maybe the most accurate description of Beane I've ever read.

There are better fits.

This is a win for us. Beane just got a free pass to make a better move.

The money we're giving this guy is insane. He's making more than Phillips got.

it wasn't that long ago that Jason Verrett was being talked about as a top corner in the league, but it was 3 season-ending injuries ago. I'd take a cheap flier though.

The folks who think we lost the SB because we lost to the Chiefs are making wayyy too many assumptions. It's pretty disrespectful to a Bengals team that beat the Chiefs, who beat us, to think we would have walked all over them. It's even more disrespectful to a Rams team, who beat the Bengals, who beat the Chiefs, who beat us, to say the same. We weren't that close to winning the SB this year - at least not in any way that didn't require 2 ghost victories in addition to the Chiefs game. Our loss to the Chiefs is undoubtedly because we had less difference makers. How could it not be? The game didn't need to come down to a single play. With better players on the defensive side of the ball we could have stopped them any number of times, but we didn't. We didn't have those players, so instead it came down to the smallest of margins. If we played that game 100 times, we definitely win some, but I don't think we're beating them over 50% of the time. They can simply do things we can't, as could the Bengals, as could the Rams. Now, the Bengals holes were too great for them to overcome, but they still made it a 3 point game with a roster that wasn't anywhere near as complete. Regarding "why don't the best teams win it every year", see my next post about the Pats dynasty.

This is bizarre. I was more than happy to let him walk at projected rate, but for $4M/per I would have been ok with him being the first guy off the bench. Maybe we didn't offer him anything.