PBF81

Well, it's possible that the coaches underachieved with him as well. I was big on him when they took him because of his skills, but knew he wasn't the best fit in our system outright. I didn't think it would be a big deal either, but I was incredibly disappointed in his play last season. I was expecting much more from him after watching some of his highlights at UF in the bigger games. His Jr. (final) season wasn't his best there, at least not IMO, I thought that his Soph season was a little bit better. nonetheless. The bonus is that he did leave early and is still only 22. We seem to draft a lot of young players. McCreary taken after him may have been a better pick. Hindsight. Devon Lloyd IMO would have filled a bigger and more pressing need, he was the best ILB available.

It doesn't hurt to not have that favored expectation shadowing us.

This is also why it's puzzling to draft a cover corner to play zone when that cover corner has little to no history of playing zone, and when it certainly isn't his strength.

Thanks. I am. I'll look silly if he starts.

BTW, you're going to look pretty ridiculous if Klein does get cut. Just sayin'.

Thanks, yeah, agree with you and all's well. Appreciate the confirmation.

It made me think of walking through a field where thousands of geese had just flown off after inhabting the place for 24 hours.

Yeah, I don't think so either. But Marlowe's a FS type, right? Hamlin plays more SS. He backed up Poyer last year when Poyer was out.

Hamlin plays SS behind Poyer and Rapp tho, no? Marlowe's a FS.

Rapp, who's without question better, and Marlowe.

Differ as you may. Talking down to me when I have graduate level academic credentials in the very discipline that you want to "educate me on," while ignoring the same principles on your end, starting off the entire nonsense by saying that I'm adorable hardly supports some notion that you were merely being freindly. So try again. Think what you want on this topic, I get it, a LB that's done nothing except for provide leadership and purely intangibles at the age of 32 and hardly ever starting, is an average LB. I understand now. Anything else?

Agree I see an issue abrew at MLB however. There isn't a prototypical MLB on our team. It sounds as if the official narrative now is that we don't need a prototypical MLB and that "faster, attacking" D will be the answer. But as Beck Water and I have covered, McD builds and operates his D, whether as HC or DC notwithstanding, to function as an entire unit, a "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" kinda thing. Which is all fine and dandy on paper, but you still need the talent to pull it off. This season is going to shed a whole lotta light on a bunch of things. Should be an interesting one.

Since you're into logic, I'll oblige your statement here. Also, not really appreciating your condescending approach here, nonetheless, I'll respond more civilly. For reference purposes, here's the statement that I posted that you reacted to; To which your response was; a guy playing in the nfl for 10 consecutive seasons is below average? So go ahead and apply some of that logic into explaining that every player that plays 10 years in the NFL is even average today? I'll even throw up an example of players of similar age and position, explain to me how Kevin-Pierre Louis is average in his 10th season in the league? Or Josh Bynes? Nick Belore? Devon Kinnard? There are more, but that's enough to address your question. Answer that and you'll have your answer. So you're getting this heated over the notion that he's not below-average, but patently average, but no more? OK, got it. Seems a bit emotional to me, but I get it. My statement is predicated that a LB with a well below-average number of snaps, and a percentage that had diminished drastically from the prior season, and one with essentially no sacks, no FFs, no TFL, and one meaningless INT in over 500 defensive snaps is no more than average. Obviously you seem to think that such a "contribution" is average. That would at least explain the difference in our outlook, would it not Mr. Logic? I think you'd better warm up a little bit more. Of course, and earning him a 47.7 piss-poor player rating at PFF last season. How could I be so blind. LOL The only load being shared is yours. It's obvious what you had to bare to share it. And yes, I agree, so why the hostility and condescension in your post to me then? LOL, right. If I can cool down. Talk about being adorable. Getting back to your logic lesson, I'd absolutely love to hear how his play at Wisconsin defines much of anything related to today. I also think I'm starting to get a better grasp of the issues that plague you, ... Klein played at Iowa St., not Wisconsin, ... not even in Green Bay in the NFL. LOL On to the rest of your logic lesson then ... Facts are a beautiful thing. Sure. Will you be here all week then?

Well, OK, I'm sure if you wanted a response to that. But in a 10-year career he has no particular accolades of any kind. No Pro-Bowls, not even as an alternate. One-time Player-of-the-Week in 10 seasons, that's it. To me that doesn't suggest even consistently average.

Yes, since we are talking who's starting at MLB, yes, that's exactly what I mean. I thought I said as a starter, if not, my bad, I typically make that distinction. Klein's never been an above-average starter, much less recently. Average, possibly on a good day kinda thing. We can argue average vs. slightly above-average, but that's a waste of time as it pertains to today, now. As I posted, in over 500 of his most recent defensive snaps he hasn't logged a Sack, a TFL, a FF, and has had a mere 1 INT, and that was with a minute left vs. Newton/Carolina in blowout win. That pretty much defines below-average. Four or five years ago he may have been an average LB on defense, but that's it. I don't care about the other teams in the NFL. That metric will be skewed depending upon the particular LB situation for each team. IMO it's irrelevant to us. Ergo, I cannot answer that w/o more data that is not readily available. I touched on that above. I envision him being cut, largely because he's on the wane, into his back-9 at 32. Someone said that he'd be on the practice squad, but I'm not sure that if he is cut he's eligible. I don't think he would be. I wouldn't be shocked if he made it, but I also suspect that it would be as a 3rd-stringer or STs contributor more than as a LB. Did you look at how he was utilized last season on D? He had almost all of his defensive snaps in a single game, vs. Detroit. He only played 10 games but nonetheless. He had two more games with 15 snaps, not even 25% of the defensive plays in either game. In 7 other games he got 3 defensive snaps, all in one game. That's pretty much it for all intents and purposes. His average number of snaps per game on defense diminished by over half last season. That trend is likely to continue, not reverse itself. His overall percentage of Defensive snaps diminished from 25.7% to 8.2%. The trend for him is not upwards. LOL Milano and Floyd are shoe-ins to make the 53. So is recent draftee Williams. IMO so is last year's 3rd-rounder Bernard. So is Dodson IMO. Klein has the smallest dead-cap hit of any LB besides Spector and it's only marginal, $100k vs. $78k. IMO Klein's in camp to help the others transition, as an educationa/developmental tool. I would not be surprised that if he does get cut, if he's not offered a coaching position by McD who's been around Klein for 7 of Klein's 10 seasons in the league, with his time in NO wedged in between his time in Carolina and here. McD obviously likes the guy. He might be a great coach.

This topic has some complexities to it, so we need to stay focused on one particular aspect of the discussion. I think that we're getting away from the original point that I made that you took issue with. Here's what I wrote that you took issue with; As stated, our "efforts" over his first five drafts after getting Allen include a revolving door of journeymen OL-men, a 2nd-round pick, and a late 3rd-round pick in five drafts. Cincy drafted a C in the mid-1st in '18, a Jonah Williams 11th overall in '19, and an OT in the 2nd in '21. Your next part touches on that so I'll comment further there. On that we agree entirely. We also agree on the aforementioned above this, that it doesn't matter where a player is drafted if he's good. I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning two things, how many players were drafted to accomplish that, and how effectively were they drafted. Our history is not good as I listed it in a prior post. The methodology is what I would question, and that's more than a simple summary of what you said above. A friend of mine in a professional circle once criticized a heralded coach that had a pattern of trading his 1st-round picks for more picks in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, thereby employing a strategy of getting more good but not great picks. (as they are pervasively typically defined) As we discussed briefly already, everyone knows that it's more likely to get a great player in round 1 than in round 2, in round 2 than in round 3, etc. That's common sense that no one would argue with. Do you know which active coach I'm referring to? So we're really talking about two things then, both hinged on the approach. First, how many resources are put into it, and secondly, whether or not those resources are accomplishing the task at hand. That's true for any unit or side of the ball. In our case, we're talking about the OL. Again, your next part touches on the continuation so I'll comment further there. Here's the thing, we all know that to date our OL has been inadequate. That's pretty much the party-line even here. My entire comments on this thread began with someone challenging my statement that Beane hasn't been original in general in his approach to team building. I realize that's a broad statement and easy to pick apart, but the crux of it remains and a part of that also implies having done it successfully, which again, IMO is common sense as many coaches and GMs try "original" things resulting in cataclysmic failures, but that's hardly to be applauded. So the underlying assumption is that it's done successfully. I sarcastically commented that the one area where our approach (aka Beane, although it wasn't my intention to get into a lengthy discussion about Beane at this point in the season) was that we were original in that we were relying on low draft picks and journeymen 1-2 year free-agent signees to protect Allen and pave the way for our running game, both of which by majority opinion here and everywhere have been problematic. I will at this time even add to that our efforts in procurring WRs other than Diggs. Both of those things would support our generational franchise QB, but neither has been done optimally to say the least. Sans Diggs we'd be much worse. But my focus in on the Drafts and the results there, but even if we incorporate the free-agents, it's still far from optimal results. Consider all of the WRs we've brought in that haven't excelled. That's something that I'd like to see the data on before arguing that. I'm sure there's a few such studies out there, if you find 'em and link 'em I'll read 'em and we can discuss further. Otherwise it's a lengthy exercise, but before challenging that, I'd ask you how you define "At the bottom where we've been drafting, ..." If you mean the 6th and 7th rounds, I couldn't disagree more. The odds are far less than 30% of drafting an above-average player in round 6 or 7. That much I know from having read past analyses. Off hand, 50% sounds in the ballpark for 1st-rounders. I'm also one that often challenges whether a player rated for round 1 should actually be there rather than in rounds 2 or 3. So I get it. Where the rubber meets the road in this exchange is in whether or not, methodology aside, we've properly and optimally built an OL. We haven't had an above-average OL in the past three seasons and then some. The only free-agent OL-man that we've signed is who you mentioned, Morse, and that was five years ago now. The rest of our efforts have done anything but achieve the goal that we agree upon. Some have been OK, but collectively we've never had an above-average much less top-10 OL, when we should, in order to protect Allen and enhance the running game toward that end. We agree there. Still, the efforts fell short. The only free-agent WRs that we brought in that have been above-average were Diggs and Beasley in his role as a slot WR. Sanders, McKenzie, Kumerow, Brown, Roberts, Foster, Benjamin, Holmes, none of which were above-average, most below-average. So we can argue the MO, but we cannot really argue the results apart from Diggs & Beasley, which isn't a very big effort as a whole, particularly since Beasley's gone. Ironically I'm one of Davis' biggest apologists and IMO he's be one of our "best-value" draft picks under Beane if not the best. We can argue Allen, but his status as a 7th overall mitigates that aspect of it. I agree with that to an extent, and that extent has to do with talent evaluation by Beane & Co. No need to discuss, but we're constantly hearing about how Beane & Co., and McD, know the players better than we do and how "we can't know," etc., but then those players fail to meet the standards that we're lectured they're going to meet here when they drafted or signed. That list is extensive. But that then also falls back to my underlying premise, and without getting into a conversation about Beane, "culture," etc., the fact remains that in terms of OL and WR, and to a lesser extent TE, we could have done worlds better over the past five seasons. Otherwise we wouldn't have a majority opinion with endless discussions that we have no true #2 WR and that our OL is inadequate. This applies to our drafts as well. If anyone's going to insist that our staff knew that Doyle (5th), Tenuta (6th), or Jack Anderson (7th) were the solutions, then it would help that they were the solutions, which they weren't and aren't. In fact, Ford (2nd) wasn't a solution. Brown, the only other OL draft pick on Beane & Co.'s watch, has this season to validate that he is, and it two seasons he hasn't been either. Here's the thing, they've spent a ton of resources on our DL and DBs. Not all have hit, few if any have matched the value of their draft-pick spots, but shouldn't we have been putting similar resources into protecting our generational talent and franchise QB, around whom the entirety of our, both fans and coaching staff, success hinges? I say yes. In five drafts now prior to this year's, we've drafted: 6 DLs: 2 in the 1st round, 2 in 2nd round, 1 in the 3rd round, and 1 in the 7th round 4 LBs: 1 in the 2nd round, 1 in the 3rd round 8 DBs: 1 in round 1st, 1 in the 4th, 1 in the 5th, 4 in the 6th, 1 in the 7th 6 OL: 1 in the 2nd, 1 in the 3rd, 2 in the 5th, 1 each in the 6th & 7th 2 TEs; 1 in the late 3rd, 1 in the 7th 6 WRs: 1 in the 4th, 1 in the 5th, 3 in the 6th, 1 in the7th 3 RBs: 1 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd Only 22 of our 38 picks, not including Araiza, are on the roster now, with several of those to be cut soon. Otherwise, of 38 picks ... 5 DL were in the 1st-3rd rounds, DLs have been about 16% of our draft picks Both (only 2) LBs were in the 1st-3rd rounds, LBs 11% 1 DB was in the 1st, DBs 21% 2 OL in the 1st-3rd, OLs 16% 1 TE in the 3rd, TEs 5% 0 WRs in the 1st-3rd, WRs 16% 3 RBs in the 1st-3rd, RBs 8% Of the starting spots only, here are the percentages of starters out of 22 assuming 3 LBs in a base 4-3: DL: 18% Day 1 draft resource allocated - 2, Day 2 - 3 more LB: 14% Day 1 - 1, day 2 - 1 DB: 18% Day 1 - 1, day 2 - 0 OL: 23% Day 1 - 0, day 2 - 2 WR (3): 14% Day 1 - 0, day 2 - 0 TE (1): 4.5% Day 1 - 0, day 2 - 1 RB (1): 4.5% Day 1 - 0, day 2 - 3 Of our 14 picks in rounds 1-3 by "selection" order, not including Allen, and irrespective of year, here's the breakdown: 9th: Oliver 16th: Edmunds 23rd: Elam 30th: Rousseau ---------------- 38th: Ford 54th: Epenesa 61st: Basham 63rd: Cook ---------------- 74th: Singletary 86th: Moss 89th: Bernard 93rd: Brown 96th: Phillips 96th: Knox So to "help Allen" and protect him, we spent 2 picks on day 2, none on day 1, for OL or WRs. Back to my original point, that is original, I'm not sure I see too many other GM/Coach tandems putting so little high draft capital into their franchise QB, much less generational talent QBs, which most don't have. Obviously having Poyer, Hyde, and White for 6 seasons has eliminated the need for top resources there and we've typically had one of the best secondaries in the game if not the best once or more often. I did, and I truly appreciate the very civil and respectful exchange of ideas here. Thanks!! None of us are going to agree completely and there are a barrage of differing opinions, but at the end of the day we all want the same thing, a Lombardi, and the streets of Buffalo and Erie County will be insane once it happens with all of us being jubilant! BTW, I think that we've covered it. LOL We aren't going to agree on everything and if we did where would the fun in the discusssion be.

So in your opinion Klein's an above-average LB then. OK. Noted. I'd be curious on what basis, other than non-performance related measures such as the above that you based your opinion on. That's something we can discuss. Out of curiosity, did the comment on his age prompt any thoughts in your rush to opine?

I'll get to the rest of your post in a bit, busy now. But no, I meant I would make the same or similar statement contrarily. 🙂 I'll catch up to this in a bit ...

My thoughts as well. Klein's a 32 year-old below average LB. No significant cap hit and hasn't done much of anything in his most recent appearances. Does he qualify for the practice squad though?

Like Arians, who's hardly in the Hall of Fame discussion.

Agree At 32 he may be the best option there, but he ain't gettin' any faster and 4.5 of those sacks and one of the two FFs were clumped up in three games in 2020, he hasn't had a sack or FF since in over 500 defensive snaps. Last season he had 86 defensive snaps (not sure at which LB position, presumably MLB), to Dodson's 220 and Bernard's 110.

I think it got worse once Anheuser-Busch bought it.

Well, let's see, if Sparano can play essentially the same exact schedule with Chad Pennington at QB, an average-at-best Ronnie Brown at RB, and Ted Ginn Jr. and Greg Camarillo as his top offensive playmakers, featuring the league's 21st ranked Scoring Offense and 9th ranked Scoring Defense, and log the same exact record as Belichick did with Cassel at QB who was no worse than Pennington, Sammy Morris, Randy Moss and Wes Welker, both in their primes, while featuring the league's 8th ranked Scoring Offense and 8th ranked Scoring Defense, yeah, I'd say that it does make a world of sense. In essence, what you're saying is that Pennington, Brown, Ginn, and Camarillo > Cassel, Morris, Moss, and Welker. Even if they were equal, Sparano had the better record and edged out the tiebreaker. OK. I dare ya to put that out there in NFL circles for a poll and see what it shakes loose. I think we're finished here. Your take is delusional. LOL Really, believe what you want, which is clearly the case, but there's nothing more to discuss on this.

I also think that we're going to find out that in a more appropriate and traditional role, that Edmunds will be much better than he was here as well. He'll be a MLB in a traditional 4-3, IMO he's going to be one of the top LBs by season's end merely by virtue of that change, raising questions as to our approach here.

I appreciate the time you took to put all that in writing. I did read it. Let's just defer to the above, I would say the same. LOL And no hard feelings, it's just a discussion ... GO BILLS!!!! However, I would add that if your take on our approach over the past five seasons, implicitly if not directly, made sense, then his latter round picks after rounds 2 and 3 (Ford and Brown) and discounting this year's draft which has yet to take the field, would have performed to some relevant level, which they most certainly have not, as even you say. We both know, to your arguments, that the better players are typically going to be found the higher the round, at all positions. That's not debatable. The odds go down dramatically for finding talent in the later rounds, where Beane has found very little but depth, and frankly, nothing much above average for depth there either. We do not have to discuss it, I'm simply pointing out that we haven't even tried to use top resources for OL, not even in free agency until this season with McGovern, who's good but hardly Will Wolford or Jim Ritcher. Out of 39 draft picks on Beane's watch, not counting this year's draft, we've selected 6 OL-men. Ford and Brown, one bust and one quite possibly on the way to be pending this season. Otherwise, Teller, whom he traded away, not a good look in the context of this conversation there. 7th-rounder Anderson from '21, already gone, 6th-rounder Tenuta, from last year's draft, already gone, and 5th-rounder Doyle from '21 likely gone this season. That's all we've spent on 5 positions, or 5 of 22 (23%) of the starting players, is 15% of our draft picks, with 2/3 of them (4 of the 6) having been in the mid-5th or later, and none of them starting except for Brown who's as close to being relegated to backup as he is to becoming an above-average starter at RT. I'm not sure how that supports your position though. I realize that there's a lot of overlap in our points, which is agreement, but again, when you have Allen, and he's clearly lacking protection season in and season out for several years, and your solution is 1-2 year journeyman free-agents and 2nd and late 3rd-round OL-men picked otherwise, with never a 1st-rounder in 6 years of drafting, it does suggest things. I hope that Torrence really is the road-grader that everyone says he is. Can't wait for the pads to go on to find out. Same for Kincaid, I really hope that he's "our Kelce." Anyway, I think we've skinned this cat pretty well. Thanks for the civil and respectful response!! Go BILLS!!!!