Billl

You think someone is giving up a first round pick for the right to pay Edmunds $13,000,000? Beane will be lucky if he can find anyone to take him without throwing in a pick as part of a salary dump.

Those are some elite whites. Fromm would have loved them.

This has Rooney Rule written all over it.

Dodson is the OLB. He took on the block and forced the run back to the middle where he should have had a MLB waiting. Joke’s on him though. That MLB was hopelessly lost running ever further out of position. Dodson is the OLB. He took on the block and forced the run back to the middle where he should have had a MLB waiting. Joke’s on him though. That MLB was hopelessly lost running ever further out of position. Dodson is the OLB. He took on the block and forced the run back to the middle where he should have had a MLB waiting. Joke’s on him though. That MLB was hopelessly lost running ever further out of position.

Are Diggs and Bass in the club? Is Knox in the club? Obviously Breida is in the club.

WTF? Dodson was the only person on the field who didn’t blow their assignment. Epenesa ran himself out of the play completely giving up the edge. Dodson took on the FB and forced the play into Edmunds’s gap. Edmunds ran clear past his gap. Milano took a terrible angle, and then the Safety (Hyde IIRC) was nowhere to be found. It looked like a Chinese fire drill. It’s possible that Epenesa was supposed to dive to the inside and Hyde was going to back fill the edge. That would have been fine had Edmunds not hit the wrong gap. The more I think about it, this seems the most likely explanation.

How much more should they have passed? They called something like 35 pass plays and 22 runs in a windstorm. When you count the sacks and scrambles it wound up being 30 passes, 25 runs, and 2 sacks. The notion around here that the run/pass balance was out of whack is a complete fabrication.

Yes. I mean exactly that. 2 years of drafts and you’re highlighting a Kicker, a WR with 19 catches this season, and two guys who look good. These are all nice pieces, but the only player on the list who has even played half the snaps on either side of the ball is Rousseau at 51%. I like Groot and Brown a lot, but you can’t keep getting nothing out of high picks like Ford, Epenesa and Basham. You don’t need stars with every day 2 pick, but if you aren’t getting serviceable starters or at the very least heavy rotational pieces then you wind up with serious roster issues. You’re seeing signs of it now, and I think next year is going to be eye opening if some of these guys don’t start figuring it out quickly.

You’re really conflating other teams’ investments with Beane’s investments. Allen cost (essentially) the 21st pick, Corey Glenn, and 2 second round picks. Diggs cost a 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th round pick plus his contract. That first was used for Justin Jefferson IIRC. If you call Diggs a 5th round investment, then you should call Trubisky the second overall pick.

I think you’re missing the elephant in the room. The team is getting next to nothing out of the past 2 draft classes. If some of these guys don’t start performing then next year could get really ugly. Beane did a great job drafting Allen, trading for Diggs, and signing a few team friendly extensions. He’s really struggled finding value in the draft since the Allen pick, though.

In your opinion, did McDaniels call better plays than Daboll, or did the Patriots simply execute better?

Oliver is interesting. If he had been taken in the 4th round, I think he would be viewed as slightly better than JAG. I’m really curious to see what he ends up signing for. I wonder if Beane will have the stones to let him walk if he demands top of the market. He took Edmunds and Oliver in the top half of the first in consecutive years, and not giving either of them a second contract would be a tough pill to swallow.

It’s probably too early to say for sure if that’s the case, but so far he hasn’t had any issues for a few years. He was looked at as a late first to mid second round prospect otherwise. Honestly, I think every team just took him off their draft boards, Kansas City included. By the time the end of the sixth round came, I think the Chiefs somehow noticed that he hadn’t been taken by anyone. It makes sense that everyone just assumed that SOMEONE would take him in maybe the third or fourth, so that’s the only explanation I can think of for how a top 3 Guard was still sitting there to be taken at 226. Honestly, there are a lot of GMs who should be getting dragged for letting him fall that far. You just can’t let a guy with that much ability fall that far. Hell, Buffalo had 3 6th round picks and took 2 guys who can barely get on the field for special teams snaps and one who was cut over a guy who was so good that he pretty much took over the starting job day 1 of training camp. I know the near unanimous reaction on the Chiefs board when he was picked was disbelief that he was still available.

What do you think Edmunds and Oliver will get in their next deals?

Buffalo was the pick before Kansas City, so they could have trumped any pick/trade the Chiefs made. It’s interesting to compare what that would have looked like. 1st round pick was traded to the Ravens for LT Orlando Brown Jr. He’s 24 and a 2x Pro Bowler who is a mauler in the running game. IMO he’d be a perfect fit in Buffalo. Kansas City also got a second round pick in return and gave up a 3rd round pick. 2nd round pick from Baltimore was used on MLB Nick Bolton who was a day 1 starter. He’s been great against the run but needs work against the pass. 2nd round pick C Creed Humphrey has been arguably the best Center in the league since day 1 and has played every snap. 6th round pick RG Trey Smith was a day 1 starter and has been excellent. (4th round pick was a developmental DE who hasn’t done much. 5th round was a TE who has played limited but increasing snaps. Other 5th round pick was a WR is on the practice squad.) Basically Beane could have rebuilt the O-line and added a LB who would have allowed them to play a base 4-3 while moving Edmunds to the WLB that he’s more suited for IMO. Obviously it’s way too early to make a final judgement, but it is interesting to see how two teams in very similar situations went about spending their draft assets.

Who on this roster will still be on the team in 2023? There are a LOT of tough decisions to be made with guys due for second and third contracts.

How so? His guy made a FG. McDermott’s didn’t.

The more times I watch this, the more chaos I notice. It’s like every defensive player intentionally ran the wrong way without any regard for where the guy with the ball was. Epenesa, Edmunds, Milano, and Hyde all just sorta ran in random directions. Dodson is the only one who did his job. He took on the FB and forced Harris into what should have been a clean gap for Edmunds. Then all hell broke loose.

It’s about more than that, though. This should have been the easiest game of his career from an assignment perspective. He didn’t have to worry about coverage. He didn’t have to worry about misdirection plays or getting wiped out by pulling linemen. He had one responsibility. Fill your gap. FWIW, I don’t think he was terrible, but he was far from perfect on a day where a more cerebral player could have been perfect. This wasn’t Rodgers up there calling audibles. It wasn’t Mahomes throwing no look passes or Brady making instant reads with pinpoint accuracy. Hell, it wasn’t even the Colts with an elite line and RB. It was Mac Jones handing the ball to his backs over and over and over. It was an ugly rock fight which is what any good MLB should want. Kuechly may have made 20 tackles in a game like that, but BB would never use that game plan against someone like him.

If you want to convince yourself that the officials cheated you out of the game, that’s your right. No objective observer is going to agree, though. Vinovich and his crew are the best in the NFL. They called a good game, but if either team got the benefit more than the other, it was the Bills.

I think he’s a Will in a 4-3. Let him start on one side of the field so that he can see the whole play in front of him and chase dudes down. Don’t force him to make quick decisions when it’s clear he doesn’t have great instincts. You don’t need a great athlete at MLB. You need someone who can recognize a play and has a good first step.

It’s an excellent question that leads into another. If you’re going to only play 2 LBers in your base defense, can you afford to have one of them blow assignments regularly in hopes that his splash plays make up for it? To me, that’s an obvious no. If you’ve only got one LB in the correct position, smart teams will eat you alive. In the AFCCG, Mahomes ate him alive. If Edmunds was out of position, he’d hit Kelce. When he was in position, Pat just moved him with his eyes…and then hit Kelce anyway. There’s a reason he has so many defenders. He’s a talented guy, but he’s a really bad fit for this scheme.

Exactly. The Patriots player was in better position for the ball and he was looking back at it. Knox was trying to fight through him, but both players have a right to go for the ball. The defender doesn’t have to get out of his way as long as his his head is turned.

None have been dominant all year, but if the season is a horse race you can see a few teams who got off to a slow start that have begun to make their charge. We’ll see what happens when teams go to the whip in the final quarter of the season, but it sure looks like there will be some familiar faces looking to pull away at the end.

To expand on this, where are the impact players on rookie contracts? This team has an old roster from a contract standpoint, and I don’t see a true difference maker on the roster that Beane drafted other than Allen (and Beane will never get to make another top 10 pick). Oliver, Edmunds, White (not Beane’s pick), etc. are going to start getting really expensive, and I don’t anticipate getting much from them next year. They’re on the books for something like $36,000,000 in 2022. Beane has got to start getting production out of the draft or he’s going to find himself with one hell of an ugly roster. He’s basically got next year to figure it out because in 2023 Josh’s cap hit will be quadruple what it is today. IMO, he needs to use next season going all in with guys like Epenesa, Basham, Groot, etc. just to see what he’s got. If it turns out there isn’t much there, he’s looking at a tear down. You can’t just sit around for 3 years hoping young players figure it out just in time to get a big second contract.