PBF81

Oh, any that Bernard was considered a reach in the third by a good many. As I recall, he was a projected 3rd - 5th. But our staff knew better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stopped right there. Sorry, I don't do tantrums.

So you noticed that on most boards he was a 1st or 2nd rounder then, right? Just checking. We will see. Either way, this nonsense about Kirksey, I don't get. Some people simply cannot come to grips with the notion that we're in this situation because of pie-in-the-sky drafting and poor planning otherwise. Again, fortunately, finally McBeane have come to grips, even if they had their hand forced after 6 seasons, with the notion that A, you need to protect your generational franchise QB, and B, that offense, not defense, particularly passing, that wins championships these days.

Good for you! As stated, I anticipate the offense setting franchise records for Passing Yards, Total Yards, Points Scored, and Passing TDs. If that happens, which stiff plays MLB will hopefully be a non-factor for as poor planning as it was to leave us in this position. I will add this, Davlin Cook in the only game he played us in his career, tore us a new one last season. Now he's with Rodgers on a team that held us to 18.5 PPG on average and a max of 20 points. I'm not sure I see that going well for us a week from Monday.

As someone that did a notable amount of post-draft research on Dean, I'm telling you that there's no comparison between Kirksey and Dean. Dean sat behind Edwards who joined Edmunds in Chicago this season. Do your homework boss. Did you watch any of his footage from UGA? Did you read his draft profiles? He'll be above-average in Philly. Right now on a good day, even with Kirksey, we have average, again, on a good day. Kirksey also has a significant injury history, particularly recently. I have no idea why anyone is optimistic about Kirksey other than to replace mediocre with marginally better than mediocre. As well, we should be pleasantly surprised if he plays anywhere close to all 17 games.

I'm starting to like our chances better this season than last.

I question whether anyone doing free streaming somehow would pay for a package anyway. Seems to me that's why they do it to begin with.

It was a very average schedule as SoS goes. In fact, league wide, we ranked in a 4-way tie for the 11th (11th-14th) toughest schedule on paper. We only played three teams during the regular season that finished with 10 or more wins. We started to play Cincy, the fourth, and they were getting the better of us before the game was canceled. We beat KC by 4, the Ravens by 3, and lost to the Vikes by 3 otherwise. Only two of all of the other teams that we played scored more points than they allowed, New England and Detroit, and Detroit pushed the game to the time limit. New England, despite scoring a point-a-game more than they allowed, was not good. Their offense ranked 17th and their D ranked 11th. The schedule was far from brutal. The Jets beat us once as well and allowed us an average of only 18.5, to their 16 PPG in both contests. We maxed out at 317 total yards, 20 points, and 19 1st-Downs against them. Their D hasn't changed much, but their offense has. This season's schedule will be notably tougher. I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of the toughtest handful in the league by season's end. As long as our offense antes up to expectations we'll be fine however. Teams can easily win a Super Bowl with an average D these days.

You're preaching to the choir. Roquan Smith is a far better player however. There's no comparison to Dodson, now or at the time of their respective drafts. Smith was the first LB taken, Edmunds was the second. Dodson went undrafted. If anything, it's a knock on "The Process." If you want a more reasonable comp, watch how Nakobe Dean plays this fall. We could have had him instead of Cook or even traded up slightly to get him instead of Bernard. There's a world of difference between those two players as well, a whole lot more than 6 draft spots.

Yeah, seems a little messed up if that's really how it went down. Despite all of that, the Chiefs have won because of their offense, not their defense, which was only average or so last season, and only somewhat better than average in 2019. IMO they're done for a while. Their WR core is questionable on a good day.

Well, OK, but IMO that's more a knock on Dodson than it is much hope for the MLB position. We shall see. I don't think it's going to make much if any of a difference, especially since he just got here too.

Put that in perspective though. In 2020 we averaged 31.3 PPG with Cody Ford and Brian Winters at the two OG spots; Brown and Beasley as the #2/3 WRs. And Tyler Kroft and Lee Smith as our starting TEs for nearly half the season while Knox was injured. Change your mind? I'm seeing it easily. I'm seeing the best receiving core this franchise has ever had. Even better than Reed, Lofton, McKeller. Allen, our best QB ever. I'd rather have Thurman than any of our RBs, or Jackson, but the league has also changed since then more heavily favoring the passing game, so overall we're more suited to today's game. JM2C If Allen decides to dump off to the short high-percentage outlet guys when Ds bring the heat, we'll be unstoppable.

Either way, doesn't seem as if he's got very many notables to his play over the years. His stats are unimpressive, particularly for a MLB/ILB. Again, not thinking he's much of an upgrade regardless. I guess we'll find out shortly. IMO it's not going to matter all that much as offense is going to carry the team this season. As the offense goes, so will the team go. As you can see, I have high hopes. Let's hope that they materialize.

My understanding is that Kirksey is an OLB. Why is he an upgrade at MLB? Or are you referring to another LB? Even at MLB, it seems to be a bit of a reach to suggest that he's a significant upgrade.

Expect a much better offense, a notably worse defense, and how good this team actually is on Dorsey/Allen and whether or not they can figure out how to work in those short high-percentage plays to keep the clock and chains moving, and the D off the field as much as possible. My personal anticipation is for a franchise record pass attempts, completions, passing yards, total yards, and passing TDs. Also expecting pushing the top-5 for all-time points scored in NFL history. I envison the team beating its existing franchise 31.3 PPG mark by several PPG. Defense, average at best. Not sure about our record. I can see McD being outcoached at times, whether our offense overcomes that, who knows. He'll have his hands full, and those that he's assigned under him aren't exactly rich in achievements. "Comfort," "familiarity," etc., great, but short on overall achievements nonetheless. Our first game will be key in several ways. I'm thinking we come away with the win, but some are underestimating the Jets too. Their D is incredibly tough particularly their front-7. Our new and improved OL is going to be thrown into the fire. How we respond will be key. (See the first sentence)

It's time for the season. The time for criticizing is the offseason. This notion that people critical of aspects of the team or its play aren't fans is inane. The irony will be in so many of the "optimists" that want to set fire to the stadium, dismantle the team, and burn Pegula in effigy during the game-day threads. ... true story.

As I said before, take 'em off then. Either way, they're not good players, both depth-caliber players, simply because Bernard likely will start, and who in his place, Dodson then, says little that supports our drafts and draft strategy. Same for CB, where Elam/Benford/Jackson are all in the starting slot there. They simply haven't announced a starter in that spot. So benefit of doubt to the team. With a possible development or two, the list is devoid of any impact players to date, and again, with this Draft pending. As I said, take 'em off, what's left at that point, and not that they're impressive. That's the way to look at our draft, not by counting how many depth players make/made the team as draftees, like some do, which is ridiculous.

That will be pivotal. In games vs. the Jets for example, and in key situations generally speaking otherwise, if Dorsey and Allen can discipline themselves to take advantage of quickly developing high-percentage plays, this offense has the potential to be unstoppable. IMO we see a modern version of Air-Coryell, with both Diggs and Davis well over 1,000. I'm expecting us to shatter our franchise record of 31.3 PPG. (2020) Thinking add another 3+ PPG. So in the 550-570 range. At the same time, I also expect our defense to be about the same as it was in 2020 as well, which was ranked 16th in scoring and 14th in yards, possibly somewhat worse. The D won't matter all that much at that point however. As the Italian race car driver in the original Death Race 2000 says before the race begins, he yanks off his rear view mirror and says, "what's behind you makes no difference." If Dorsey can't get that done however, or very close to that, then it's time to look for a new OC.

You seem to have missed most of what was stated. I know you were a fan of his at Wtoming, I think that's impacting your perception here. Allen had not developed the skillset that every QB that's ended up being great in the NFL had coming in. Plain and simple. He developed it, all of it, while in the NFL. It says a tremendous amount about him personally. At the same time, to deny that detracts from his intellectual abilities. The fact is that his sum total of performances against power five competition was Peterman-like in the NFL QBs on worse teams played p5 competition better than he did. That's a fact. I'm on my phone now, but I have it in a spreadsheet somewhere, but I think it was like 1 passing TD to 8 INTs or something like that, on like 4 YPA or thereabouts. It was horrific. Remind me, I'll dig up the analysis and post it tomorrow if you want. It really speaks a whole lot about Allen, incredibly positively that he could do that. Again, I've never known a QB to have done that before. He's the only one. A true outlier and not even rare, but singular exception.

See my post above. QBs are tough. Look at some of the past ones. When Leinart entered the Draft that year, they said that he was one of the most NFL ready QBs to ever come out. Look at how he played, horribly. Personally, if I were a GM I'd steer clear of any PAC-10 QB for the reason that PAC-10 Defenses are soft. It's the only purely offensively oriented power-5 conference in the NCAAs. Then there were QBs like Vince Young, who despite being a moron was physically gifted. Jamarcus Russell. When Winston and Mariota came out everyone was arguing about which should have been first and which should have been second with a split. Having said that, Herbert, Rodgers, and Goff are PAC-10 QBs.

So did a lot of people. IMO your assessment wasn't off. There was almost no evidence that he could even read defenses in college. You know how difficult it is to become a pro QB when you come in never really having had to, or perhaps simply never having read defenses well. I cannot think of a single QB that got drafted with that as a weakness and become anything better than a backup. My take at that time was that he was a man among boys in college, which he was. Of all of the QBs in the draft that year, including the ones that never got drafted, he had the worst performance against power-5 competition of any of them. At Wyoming, generally speaking, he overcame the fundamentals like that with sheer athleticism, which is why he was so poor the handful of times he played against power-5 teams, because that athletic advantage was heavily mitigated. The one hope that I held out for him was his intellect, which I gave about a 5% chance at the time of sustaining him in the NFL. And by golly, he did it. The kid's incredibly bright, which is obvious in how well spoken and well thought out he is. It's players like Zay Jones, Watkins, Spiller, Oliver that are much easier to accurately predict how good they'll be in the NFL based upon what they did and how they did it in college. QB play also always has a whole bunch of complexities that cannot always be synthesized in an analysis, or let's just say are more difficult to synthesize due to the mental aspect of the play, unlike any other position. Missing on Allen is hardly a knock on someone. He defied the odds, in a major way.

All I know is that unless McD needs 3 all-pro WRs, an all-pro TE, an all-pro RB, and several all-pro OL-men, he has more than enough to out compete any team in the league this season on offense if he and Dorsey can put it all together, part of which includes ensuring that Allen uses his high-percentage short-game much more than he did last season and more like he did with Beasley here. I suspect that will happen, for that very reason, that he did it when Beasley was here but simply didn't have a "Beasley" around last season. We'll see, we first find out in 12 days. GO BILLS!!!

First of all, I don't recall bringing "he" into it. But since you did, consider a few alternate opinions. Was it a tough division during that stretch? Or would you say that it really hasn't been all that competitive? Which other QBs in the division have been very good or better consistently? How much does Allen factor into that? IYO, say Allen was on any number of teams before this one, how would we have been then? You suggesting he'd only be good for a game or two back then? If Allen weren't his QB, how do you see our records? Genius? Anytime a team buys an establshed great player, I'm not sure I'd put that in a genius category. But opinions obviously differ. To me genius would have been drafting Jefferson instead at much lower expense for four seasons. Seems to me he had to sign Diggs because of all the whiffing on getting any great WRs here without buying an established one. JMO however. Again, due to Allen. Only possible because of Allen, nonexistent without him. Why aren't any of the other drafted positions playing at similar levels at their positions? We'll certainly find out if that's the case in his 7th season which starts very soon.

Kincaid is definitely going to be interesting to watch. I can see him being as good as Kelce, which is obviously why they drafted him, or I can see him being patently average. Some of that will obviously depend upon Dorsey, Allen, and even McD. This is going to be a very interesting season. The talent is there on offense to be able to take this team to the Conference Championship and win it, particularly with KC having a serious dearth of receiving talent over there this season. If McD cannot do that, I suspect that there are going to be cracks in the support for "Trust the Process" era.

Depends upon one's perspective. Most of those players appear to be depth caliber to me with only a few exceptions. On D it's Oliver and Rousseau, but neither is much above average. Oliver's great when he's on, but his disappearance acts are concerning and they'll often last several games. I'd put him at above average but not by much. There's quite a bit of hope that Rousseau turns into a much better player too. But after his first few games last season he all but disappeared too. Half of his stats (Sacks, TFLs, QBHits) are in his first five games. After that in his next ten games his stats were below-average. So unless someone uses the lame defense that he was constantly double-teamed thereby opening things up for others nonsense, he was below average after that. He had 0 Sacks, 0 TFLs, and only 1 QBHit in both playoff games. Johnson's good as a nickel, but obviously they don't care for him enough to start at CB. Bernard, Elam ... meh. Bass, he's a kicker. Torrence looks the part as does Kincaid who's not listed as a starter. Cook has yet to prove that he can handle more than 140 touches in college or the NFL. Big season for him. Knox is OK but also inconsistent, and his drop % isn't low. Brown has yet to prove something. Davis is IMO the best draft pick that we have starting with this year's draft class pending. Oddly, that's a minority sentiment.