DCOrange

Really, with the cap declining this offseason, you could say this about most of the teams in the NFL. It's a great offseason to be a team with cap space.

Gronk already said he'd either retire or return to Tampa and last night he said he'll be back in Tampa. He's not going anywhere else.

The Breeland one is arguable, both whether the contact was incidental tripping or if the ball was catchable, but I think it was a pretty reasonable call to make at the time. The other two are legitimate penalties. Ward is literally hugging Evans and with Mathieu, it's either a 5 yard penalty and Tampa scores from the 5 yard line or interference and they score from the 1.

The defense was the better side last night, but no individual player had as much of an impact or put up the numbers that Brady did. I don't know how anyone could really single out Shaq or White. They were good, no doubt, but were they really any better than Vita Vea, Winfield, Lavonte David, etc? I don't know. They couldn't just give the SB MVP to the entire team, but that's really what was deserved. Brady was nearly flawless last night and finished with good numbers despite taking their foot off the gas the last quarter of the game. In a game where nobody really had standout numbers, that was enough.

This absolutely is not true. David is a free agent (though he'll almost certainly be back in Tampa), but White is in Tampa for at least 3 more years if not more. Fournette is a free agent but he was legitimately bad all year. No doubt he came up with some big runs in the playoffs though, but his issues were still on display too. One of Brady's INTs against Green Bay was entirely on Fournette; he's a terrible pass protector for a RB. He also had many runs during this playoff run where it basically just looked like a lucky version of Trent Richardson. He'd stare directly at huge holes and instead run square into the defense before regaining his balance and bouncing it outside for big chunks of yardage. Fournette isn't a good RB and would not be an upgrade over our current guys IMO, but he can be productive if the OLine gets as much push as this one does. He is undoubtedly a better athlete than Singletary/Moss, but he's not the guy we need. Ronald Jones was legitimately good this year, but he's another year away from free agency.

There’s no single reason Tampa won. They played very well in every single facet. Defense had an all time good performance (maybe not as good as the previous Bucs Super Bowl but it’s among the best), the passing game was extremely efficient, and the run game was very good. Was it a better defensive performance than the offensive performance? Yeah, but it was pretty much a perfect game of football for that team last night.

Also, Jameis is absolutely capable of putting together great performances. It’s just that he’s equally likely to be a turnover machine. It’s certainly possible that Jameis would have sucked enough to keep KC in the game but it’s equally likely he would have led Tampa to a blowout win just like Brady did.

A friend of mine was asking how big it was that he was returning against Green Bay and I tried to explain to him that he was playing like one of the best DTs in the league already. Their GM still gets ***** on all the time for taking the K in the 2nd round (which is indefensible even if their history of kickers is laughably bad), but he’s really done an excellent job in the draft. Vea, Wirfs, White, Davis, Winfield, Godwin, all studs. Cant remember if he’s also the one that took Ali Marpet but he is too. They have some old players like Brady and JPP, but this is a young and extremely talented team and they have the cap space to keep all their talent too.

Hurts’ running ability is obviously a big factor in it, especially with the Eagles OLine where a guy like Foles will be a sitting duck. But it’s also drastically different offensive schemes and supporting casts. The Bears were super conservative giving Foles and Trubisky as easy of throws as possible, whereas Hurts was asked to throw it down the field a lot and to throw it to guys that can’t create separation or catch the ball.

Hurts was better last year and is potentially the future of the team.

Foles sucks and there’s no way in hell they can sell starting him over Hurts to the fan base there.

I would imagine he'd serve as the backup to Jalen Hurts (assuming they don't draft a QB in the first round).

I think a 4.55 would be a good time for him actually. A 4.45 would likely require a friendly timer.

Not sure if anyone pointed it out and it doesn’t matter much anyways, but the blurb you’re referring to is from Rotoworld which puts everything in the context of fantasy. They were just providing fantasy analysis based on Joe’s assertion that Brown is gone.

Would be awesome to see him return to San Fran, which just so happens to be the most RB friendly system in the league.

I'd be pretty surprised if we get more speed at WR. Diggs, Beasley, and Davis will all almost certainly be back. I'm kinda hoping neither Brown or McKenzie return, but in that event, it's hard to imagine that their replacements would be faster than they already are, and even if they are, they probably won't have as large a role as a healthy Brown as the Bills give Davis more chances. I do expect TE and OLine to be priorities on the offensive side though as well as the front 7 defensively.

He's a solid starter, is super young, and has great athletic traits. I definitely do not view him as a pro bowl caliber player yet (yes, I know he's made a couple of them but I don't think they were deserved). Milano is the better player of the two IMO. Having said that, it seems like Beane ultimately has to choose between the two of them and I expect him to choose Edmunds both due to what they already invested in him as well as his age and athletic traits. It makes me nervous because I expect Edmunds will be paid like he's a top 5 linebacker and if he doesn't improve, that's really poor value during a time that we need to be careful with our money. To some of the other points in this thread: as a Bills/Bucs fan, I would say White is significantly better than Edmunds. That isn't really a knock on Edmunds...White is just really good already and still improving. The Bucs have IMO the best LB duo in the league with him and David (who's in the conversation for #1 LB in the league). Re: playing Edmunds outside, I do wish we'd at least situationally use him that way. He had some nice flashes of being an edge rusher in college and he definitely has the athletic traits to be able to contribute there as well. We don't really have the LBs behind him to be able to play him that way though (and I imagine that is by design).

I have a hard time believing this report is accurate. Just seems too good to be true IMO.

Depending on the quality of the picks and the starters, that feels light. I think most teams would be all over that. If for example, for the Jets, that means #2 pick, a future 1st, 2 future 2nds, Tarell Basham, and Folorunso Fatukasi, they'd probably say yes in a heartbeat. If the defensive players are Quinnen Williams and Marcus Maye instead, maybe not. Or if it's a team like Washington offering #19 and a future 1st, the 2nds, one of their DTs, and one other defensive player (obviously not Chase Young), I think they'd do it a heartbeat and be thankful Houston came down from the original reported asking price.

I think a 2nd is much too high as well. I don't think it would necessarily take a mega-deal but obviously depends on the player (and probably the team that acquires him). I think it's possible at this stage of his career that if traded to a contender, he'd restructure his deal to spread the money out for 2 or 3 years instead of just 1 and make it like a 2/$20 or 3/$30 kinda thing instead of just a 1/$17. Obviously we don't know that for sure, but like I said, if all it costs is a late 4th, I'm in. He's probably better than any of the options in free agency and I think I'd rather pay his 1/$17 mil than giving someone like Ngakoue a 4/$60-80 mil deal anyways. I think Watt would open things up for Oliver in a way that maybe none of the other options out there would. Watt is double-teamed at a higher percentage than any other player in the league and that's even with Houston still having Whitney Mercilus lined up on the other side of the line. I think he'd do wonders for Oliver provided he makes it through the season healthy.

I would happily trade a 4th for Watt and could be convinced to maybe offer more than that. The Athletic is saying Houston is aiming for a 2nd + maybe a later pick for him.

I disagree, but I understand most NFL front offices won't view it that way.

Theoretically Carolina could have offered Teddy. Doesn't sound like they did though. If they truly view Goff as the difference between the #8 pick in the draft and future late 1sts, Detroit hired the wrong people. Likewise if their new GM is banking on the Rams having injuries derail their next two years to make the value close. They had the #8 pick there for the taking. It would pretty much take a worst case scenario for the Rams picks to ultimately equal that (if you discount them for being future picks like NFL teams do). Edit: I'm not even saying it's necessarily wrong to take a worse offer to leave on good terms with one of their best ever players. But that's the way it should be framed if journalists are being honest about it.

An interesting wrinkle to this that nobody seems to be talking about: Detroit’s GM turned down a better offer from Carolina (a top 10 pick) to do his old team a favor (he was just hired away from the Rams a few weeks ago). Maybe he ultimately just wanted to do Stafford a solid and was okay with the Rams package but it’s clearly worse than the #8 overall pick in this years draft. This was not a case of Detroit getting the best value they could for their asset and it just so happened to benefit the GM’s old bosses.

Poor OLine, poor RBs, and poor defenses. Other than that though, he was set up well for success.