Brand J

Was this attributed to me? Or the OP? If I could go back and dig up some of my old posts, I was in favor of extending Oliver, always had been, because he had shown an ability to take over games, he just didn’t do it consistently enough. I still remember Dallas on Thanksgiving and a Jets game where he was a one man wrecking ball, single-handedly disrupted drives. I told people years ago if it came down to Edmunds or Oliver I’m picking Oliver 10/10 even if he plays a fraction of the defensive snaps. And if Rousseau blows up, great! He’d be worth the investment, but I’m not extending his current production at a high ticket. He has yet shown that he can take over games like Oliver had shown.

He’ll get the 5th year option, no doubt. But going forward, unless he taps into a consistent ability to disrupt the QB, he walks if his camp believes he should be paid like a great edge defender. $13M/yr would be my value on what he currently brings. $15M/yr if his sacks per season stay relatively the same (5-8) but his amount of pressures greatly increase. He just doesn’t affect the QB often enough - currently - to get into big money discussions. I’ve said he’s a much better run defender than pass rusher. How do I watch him and not think he’s worth $20M/yr? Same way I watched Edmunds for 5 years and didn’t think he should’ve been paid a dime more than Milano at $11-$13M/yr. You let those non-difference makers walk if the price tag gets high, you DONT extend that production with a hefty contract.

So is $20M+/yr for what he brings. That’s even more ridiculous.

Here comes the straw man… I’m extending him based on his value as an edge defender and if that’s north of $13M/yr I’m letting him walk. Great players get substantial contracts commensurate to their value. That’s all I’ve ever said, read my posts again.

He’s an average pass rusher and that’s primarily how edges are judged, not on their ability to hold the point of the attack and play the run. He's still got time to figure it out in that department, but you don’t extend those guys to substantial contracts.

You also don’t get better paying average to above average players $20M/yr. It’s the same reason why I said Edmunds had to walk and had Beane re-signed him I would’ve lost faith in him as a GM. Rousseau isn’t one of the best edge defenders in the league. Well, against the run, sure, but not against the pass and that’s what brings the money. He’s a capable starter at this point, nothing more, nothing less.

My philosophy is simple when it comes to re-signing big ticket players: against the better teams, the ones we have to go through in the playoffs, has the player shown he can impact the game in the biggest moments? Does he usually have any impact on the game at all? If it’s a no, I let him go.

As long as Rousseau’s camp doesn’t expect him to be paid like a top edge defender, then we have no problem. He’s an average to above average starter on the DL, probably not worth more than $13M/yr. Anything north of that I let him walk and take my comp pick. If he showed up in the biggest moments of the biggest games, I’d feel differently.

Football is the ultimate team sport, no doubt, but players are still recognized on an individual level and accolades awarded. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding both players, this is Patrick Mahomes trophy case: 3× Super Bowl champion (LIV, LVII, LVIII) 3× Super Bowl MVP (LIV, LVII, LVIII) 2× NFL Most Valuable Player (2018, 2022) NFL Offensive Player of the Year (2018) 2× First-team All-Pro (2018, 2022) Second-team All-Pro (2020) 6× Pro Bowl (2018–2023) 2× NFL passing touchdowns leader (2018, 2022) NFL passing yards leader (2022) Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year (2020) And this is Allen’s: Second-team All-Pro (2020) 2× Pro Bowl (2020, 2022) Objectively speaking, our guy is not better than theirs. If you want to say he’s at least on par, I still wouldn’t agree, but at least an argument could sort of be made. It just gets tiring reading over and over how “Allen is better than Mahomes” yet has none of the accolades, awards, or trappings of success to prove it.

Can we stop doing this? Pretty please?

I didn’t like the trade up, but of course am glad it worked out. I take a bit of solace in knowing the 4th we gave up probably wouldn’t have amounted to much in his first year (judging by player selections around that pick). The glaring miss was Puka Nacua, but if the Bills wanted him, they could’ve had him in the 5th. In contrast, looking at the player selections in the 2022 draft, the 4th we gave up for Elam could’ve had a chance to be an immediate contributor. There were a number of starters that were selected in the 4th (or later) that year. With every trade up, you’re taking away opportunities for your club to find a gem on a cheap contract. And in most instances, there’s a good chance that whoever you’re trading up for won’t work out better than a player taken later. The math actually says there’s a coin flip chance. Keep those picks, add to them if possible, and get an influx of young, cheap talent in here.

I’ve called you wrong multiple times. I realize you’re a waste of time though and won’t try to educate you any further.

Yeah he’s racist. I didn’t want to believe it before, just thought he was ignorant, but the way he’s twisting everything to paint Black folks as the villains, it’s undeniable. I mean, we’re talking about Tulsa in the 1920s and he’s claiming how Whites were afraid of their lives because of violent Blacks 😂 He also continues to claim “only 5 stores were destroyed,” omitting the fact that Black folks were dragged out of their homes and their houses set on fire. Their ENTIRE section of that city was destroyed! Airplanes dropped bombs on Greenwood for crying out loud. I’m sure he believes Emmitt Till deserved what he got for whistling at a white woman.

So your take on why the riots started is simply because “black men shot and killed 10 white men.” That’s laughable. I don’t know you personally, but your bias is obviously skewed. Let’s forget that those white men (as usual during those times) were the aggressors towards the blacks. The crux of the matter is that whites weren’t happy with black prosperity during that time and were looking for a reason to take down that little section of Tulsa. When the Black boy was accused - with little to no evidence - of raping a white girl in an elevator I believe it was, the white mob got what they were looking for - a reason to annihilate that town. That’s why some here are calling you racist because you’re spewing bias as facts.

Where’d you get your information from? After reading your take on the Tulsa race riots you lost all credibility. How did it really begin? Here you go: Quite a different depiction of how the riots started, no?

It’s not about hurting anyone’s feelings. If that demographic took those illegal guns, then infiltrated white communities and started killing those people at a rate they kill their own color, I do think there would be an immediate response. Three inner cities with strict gun laws Chicago, DC, and Baltimore, are bordered by states with lax gun laws - Indiana and Virginia. It’s not tough for these kids to get their hands on a weapon. If you say, “the government hasn’t done anything about mass shooters, what makes you believe they’d do something in that situation?” Compare the numbers. As of 2016, roughly 75 people die each year from mass shootings. The government has made it clear through that the 2nd amendment is more important than that amount of lives lost. It’s a cost they’re willing to pay. But if those inner-city kids started shooting up white communities? I’m pretty certain they wouldn’t accept those thousands of lives lost every year. They’d have to do something about firearms, 2nd Amendment be damned.

Firstly, I applaud you for being open and willing to listen. Whenever race is brought up on these boards it’s often met with roll eye emojis from individuals who don’t care or are unwilling to hear the other side. The pervasive attitude is, “slavery was almost 150 years ago, that has nothing to do with the people of today.” Which of course is incredibly short-sighted. I also sympathize with how you’re viewed by those of another color, when you’ve had absolutely nothing to do with the horrors of the past. After all, your great grandparents may have immigrated much later, or maybe were from the north and had zero connection to it, but alas, skin color is what we first use to judge. When I read the bolded, I saw a poster who wasn’t too informed with the efforts these communities put forth to curb the violence. Chicago for example, arguably the worst of the offending cities, has a number of outreach programs in place to educate youths and lessen gun violence - you can google for proof - but how well are those initiatives working? The complaints I see from program organizers is that other skin colors don’t concern themselves with what’s happening in the hood, which makes their job more difficult. A ridiculous amount of youths are killed every year, but that doesn’t make national news. Mass shooters on the other hand… I told a story about my experience as a black man - getting racially profiled in Staten Island many times - and got a bunch of roll eyes on my post. As if I was embellishing my experience or lying about it. I’m not a defender of black criminals in any way, I think they’re idiots who need to be locked up, but I can also recognize they’re a product of their environment. Environments that communities ARE trying to change, but to little or no avail. I liken these programs to learning Spanish in a classroom setting, but then going home and speaking English, never getting to practice with those around them. That’s probably a crude way to describe the efforts, but I think it has some merit. Everyone needs to be all in to make real change happen, total immersion, but I feel like that’s an unrealistic ask so the cycle continues.

“Sins of past is not an excuse to endlessly continue this cycle.” Sins of the past is exactly why so many Black people are stuck in this cycle. The second bolded point touches on this. You’re talking about centuries of oppression, where a certain race wasn’t even allowed to read and write. The vast majority were free laborers and didn’t own anything. They didn’t have money. When they were granted 40 acres of property (and later a mule), President Andrew Johnson rescinded Field Order 15 and gave that land back to the slave owners. Reparations of any kind were never given, it was determined that Black folks should simply be happy being free. https://www.history.com/news/40-acres-mule-promise Stopping violent crimes in an inner city starts with parents, true, but when those parents are a product of the same faulty upbringing, how can the cycle be broken? Having access to better education would be my first vote, which would then open a gateway for purpose in many of those youths. But you can’t get that in an impoverished ghetto, so the cycle continues. The only way out of it is an unrealistic option, which would be to take every kid born into that situation - starting now - and immediately transport them to an environment more conducive to success. One with better parents, schools, and an absence of gun culture.

I’m in favor of dismembering something at the start of their time, making life more uncomfortable for ”lifers” in some way. They used to take a hand if you got caught stealing, take something from these idiots and force them to live that way. The worst I can think of is eyes or hearing. Death is an easy way out, I think living uncomfortable is worse.

If I had a direct line to Wilks, I would’ve told him to tell his players to watch out for the Mahomes keeper on the crucial 4th down in OT. Since it had gained so much yardage earlier in the game, I had a sneaky suspicion they’d go back to it. Turns out I would’ve got that one right and 9ers would’ve won the Lombardi.

Selfishly, I wish he didn’t love golf almost as much as he loves football. Time spent practicing that sport would be spent elsewhere and some of that “elsewhere” would trickle down to his number one sport in some way or another.

I think Van Demark has looked very promising every time he’s been on the field and for a cap strapped team he’ll soon be starting at one of the spots, but he’s a better LT than RT.

Mahomes was puffing his chest out saying (paraphrasing) “they changed the OT rules because of us, now we used that change to win again. What are they going to change next?” Guess he has the right to be cocky.

And like all QBs Josh has missed some wide open players. It isn’t “everybody else but Allen” like I’ve seen on this board.

Man, rewatching that last two minutes, there were plenty of opportunities to send the Chiefs home and prevent their back to back titles. Game of inches, whether it’s a foot that gets stepped on, a missed read, a throw just off the mark, we had our chances like always.