DCOrange

Man, remember the reports that Rudolph was next up on our list of the QBs McBeane wanted if we missed out on Allen? I do. I was petrified that would end up being what we ended up with.

I still remember a thread from maybe a month ago when @John from Riverside was laughing at me for suggesting Lamar was even a 2nd tier MVP candidate. Well, Vegas now gives him an 80% chance of winning the award. He's proven both of us wrong I guess.

He kinda was though. Certainly far better than Tebow.

Will definitely be interesting to see how it plays out. Barnwell's theory is that they won't be able to find a taker for Johnson and they like Edmonds enough and are already paying Johnson a ton so they'll just roll with those two and maybe a draft prospect.

Guessing he still transfers but that's not anything I'm gathering from any sources, just my guess.

I voted 23-25, but thinking about it more, I think he's probably more around the 18-22 range right now.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28121690/all-nfl-running-backs-get-paid-2020-why-recent-deals-look-disasters As always, a good read from Barnwell on a topic that definitely has not at all been beaten to death: the value of RBs. TLDR: Melvin Gordon: franchise tag, especially if the Chargers let Rivers walk. Derrick Henry: re-signed due to Titans valuing him more than other teams would. Kenyan Drake: likely to hit free agency and sign as the lesser role in a timeshare Jordan Howard: likely to hit free agency and sign a very small deal (he suggests 1 year $2 million) Christian McCaffrey: long-term extension, maybe highest paid RB in the league Leonard Fournette: Jags pick up his 5th year option, though Barnwell thinks they should be very hesitant about it Dalvin Cook: likely to be re-signed, though Barnwell thinks they should let him walk Alvin Kamara: long-term extension around 4 years $60 million Marlon Mack: long-term extension around 4 years $30 million Aaron Jones: Potential for another Gordon/LeVeon type of situation James Connor: should let him play out his contract and re-evaluate Chris Carson: Let him play out his contract Joe Mixon: Let him play out his contract before likely re-signing him Tarik Cohen: -shrugs- Kareem Hunt, Austin Ekeler, and Matt Breida: likely re-signed to short-term deals Devonta Freeman, Dion Lewis, and Jerick McKinnon: likely cap casualties in the offseason

Their defense has become good since acquiring Peters. Before that, they were around 20th in the league while the Ravens offense has been #1 or #2 from the beginning of the year to now, and that is undoubtedly primarily because of Lamar's skills. The Bills' offense on the other hand has held the team back.

Isaiah’s dad interviewed with someone. Long story short, he said he (father) liked Syracuse and Kentucky and that Isaiah liked Alabama and Kentucky. That doesn’t sound good at all.

I can't remember a more tight-lipped recruitment than this one. I know at least as of a few days ago, our coaching staff thought we were in a good position for him, but it's been radio silent ever since, and my other connections say they haven't heard anything in weeks. I don't really know what to think. I'm assuming he isn't coming here just to not get my hopes up, but if I were the optimistic type: Nate Oats made some public comments the other day that seemed to imply his 2020 recruiting efforts were all for naught and that 2021 was the bigger priority. He also recently went to visit at least one other big man prospect, which could mean he doesn't think Isaiah is going there. It seems like we usually know well in advance when Kentucky is expecting a commitment and that obviously isn't the case here. They too have been focusing on other big men (but then again, it's Kentucky...they try to get as many guys as humanly possible every year). I also keep coming back to the fact that we had basically given up on Isaiah and then he reached out to us to express that he was very interested in coming here. I think we have a better chance than the media is giving us credit for (which is a 0% chance), but again, I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll continue to assume he isn't coming here until I hear otherwise.

I always take games like Sidibe and Dolezaj's today with a grain of salt. Not sure some of the finishes they had today don't get pinned to the backboard against ACC competition, but it was definitely a promising development. Sidibe continues to look much, much healthier than he has the past couple years and he was a pretty productive player (albeit in limited minutes) before the injuries originally crept in. Hopefully he continues to play well moving forwards. Girard hasn't even shot the ball very well so far, especially relative to expectations, but his ball-handling looks legitimately above average, and on this team, that makes him the clear best ball-handler. And since he's such a threat off the ball, his presence as point guard allows the ball to move a lot more rather than sticking to guys' hands. Boeheim and Hughes showed off much more well-rounded games than they get credit for last night too.

As someone that watches almost all Bucs games, this has probably been his best season to date. Simply put, he's been pretty much terrible each season of his career. The belief was that he just wasn't a good fit for the zone defense that Tampa used his first few years and that using him as more of a press corner the way he succeeded in college would turn his game around, hence picking up his option. Instead, he's continued to be bad.

Chargers say how are you?

They've been decimated by injuries and have probably the worst offensive line in the NFL.

I'm rooting for a tie or Raiders loss in terms of the Bills playoff chances. Though I must admit it makes me happy seeing Gruden have success after the way he's been trashed so much.

For me, my skills probably peaked in high school (just because I was going into school an hour or two early to train with my coach as well as school and AAU practices after school). I shot roughly 50% from 3 in high school. That definitely dropped off in college, but I became a lot more aggressive once I got to college which I think made me a much better player despite my shooting dropping off a little bit. Realistically I'm hoping for an NIT birth and I don't think we can take that for granted.

I think in time this team will prove to be a good shooting team, but there's so many other issues with it. I just happened to be a very good shooter in my own right so I do think I could hang with the lesser shooters on our team. The ball-handling part is more about how poor our ball-handlers are than anything else haha. FWIW, I'm still in my mid-20s and I do realistically think I could have walked on at Syracuse if I had wanted to. I played against a couple of our recent players when we were in high school (note: none of our good players) and I held my own pretty well back then.

? I'm honestly pretty convinced that if you gave me a couple weeks to dedicate to training again, I would be a better ball-handler than most of the people on our team and could at least hold my own shooting-wise (not with Boeheim and Girard, but I'm confident I could shoot as well as guys like Carey and Guerrier).

Well that was a very very bad not good game.

I'm not expecting a win tonight, but with the amount of shooting we have this year, we should end up surprising a couple teams on nights where we just get hot; maybe this will be one of those. Certainly a major test for the development of Jalen Carey right away which I'm happy to see (though I've been hearing he's looked pretty rough in practices, but fingers crossed it comes together in live action). It'll be available on WatchESPN.

My guess is that there's probably too much pride both from San Diego and from the Chargers for them to make up now.

The 4% is weighted based on win probability for the remaining games. Yes, we're only one game behind New England right now, but the Sagarin team ratings that the projection is based off of has New England as the 2nd best team in the NFL and Buffalo as the 22nd best team. Long story short, they don't think Buffalo has pretty much any chance of closing the gap.

What does Wembley have to do with this?

I don't know how to tell you this, but London is one city.

Picking only the games I'm pretty much entirely certain about (ex: any game against the Jets, Bengals, and Dolphins), I come away with a 61% chance of making the playoffs with the Broncos and Steelers games being the two left. Splitting those games results in roughly a 60% chance. Win both and we're in. Lose both and we're almost certainly out.