dave mcbride

I’m old enough to remember when paul poszluzny was considered injury prone by bills fans. Then he went to Jax and played for a decade while only missing 8 or so games. NFL injuries are random and capricious. there is absolutely a zero percent chance russell wilson plays for the pats next season. Ze-Ro. It’s an implausible scenario.

No, wilson is not an option. He is going number 2 overall. And I sincerely doubt watson ends up in NE given Kraft’s own “happy endings” issues. That seems completely implausible to me, and anyway watson is going to probably be suspended.

Ask your niner friend fans about the team’s record with him and without him.

They aren’t plausible, so I don’t factor them in. JG is their best option at this point, particularly given BB’s age.

The Pats are a great organization with a good roster now. With Garappolo, they are a 10-12 win team and represent a real threat. They won 7 last season with a joke of a roster. I totally disagree with you about his game.

Garappolo is a legit good player. The mocking on this site is entering know-nothing territory. The last thing I want to see is him playing for NE next season.

AFL founder Lamar Hunt said that the origin of the Chargers name came from the charge card business, which was an innovation in the 50s/early 1960s. Barron Hilton (son of Conrad Hilton), the first owner, had just started the Carte Blanche charge card business. Hilton denied it, but the legend is a powerful one. Anyway, it appears that the Spanos family may have taken the team name a little too much to heart! (Another interesting aside: Trump reportedly loathed Barron Hilton with a passion (both were in the real estate and hotel business), yet his son is named Barron. Go figure.)

He had more than one good season. You have to factor him in as a kick returner when judging him. He was an amazing returner for the Vikings. Talent-wise, he was absolutely elite even if the numbers weren't there. A lot of those fake jet sweeps to him opened up big plays for others too given that he was so dangerous on that play. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HarvPe00.htm

I do think he starts out by stressing that what is effectively your position dominates the nfl, and for good reason. He then shifts to contrarians arguing otherwise, and frankly i was more interested in their views because the conventional wisdom—which I agree with—is old hat at this point. He could have done something with the interesting argument that you should only keep rbs for their first four years by adding that, as you say, there’s an opportunity cost with this approach (i.e., drafting an o-lineman in the first instead who might be be a steady 10-year contributor for you).

Um, Sammy produced pretty darn well in a Roman offense with Tyrod throwing the ball - in 13 games in 2015, he had 1047 yards, 17.9 ypc, and 9 tds. His one elite season was under greg roman with tyrod throwing the ball.

Did you see the Mark Gaughan column? Good piece. https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/first-round-running-back-for-bills-what-history-and-analytics-say-about-the-idea/article_aa5d29a6-8e3e-11eb-97a7-5775771608b4.html That’s what the Gaughan column today focuses on.

I like Tyrod, but Jackson is 10 times better than Tyrod. And as I said above, homogeneity sucks. The NFL's problem is that everyone runs a version of the same offense -- except for a couple of teams, most conspicuously the Ravens. I sincerely love the fact that there's a team not running a generic pro-style offense that's actually effective. To reiterate, sameness is boring.

One qualifying factor is that in 2019, 9 of their 14 wins were blowouts. In 2020, 8 of their 11 wins were blowouts. Point is, when they win, they tend to win big. That definitely reduces the number of pass attempts. I do realize they throw it less than other teams as a matter of policy, so I'm not discounting that. Totally agree with this. I love the fact that the Ravens win in an entirely different way than other teams. Homogeneity sucks.

We shall see. I am in agreement with you about Tua, although I think the most serious problem for him is the hip injury, which clearly impacted his play last year (as film analysis showed). I have no idea whether it'll be 100 percent again.

He didn't "blow" in his final year at USC. He had a moderately decent second NFL season too. To be sure, the numbers/production overall aren't great so far. But he's only 23. I'd reserve judgment. He has real talent.

Not according to this article. I'm just saying that the cap won't go up that much in the next couple of years. That's all.

Apparently, that's not going to happen in 2022 and 2023. Maybe in 2024 though. From Peter King: Three points to make: In 2020, a year when the owners lost about $4 billion due to COVID-related issues, players made 100 percent of their scheduled compensation. NBA players had their pay cut by 25 percent to finish the 2019-20 season; MLB players played a shortened 60-game schedule and made a pro-rated 37 percent of their scheduled pay. And when the total revenue of the league went down by $4 billion, obviously the cap, which is based on current revenues for the upcoming season, would go down accordingly. The league and players reached an agreement to spread the cap losses over three years. So the 2021 cap figure fell from the projected $198 million to $182.5 million, with the caps in 2022 and 2023 absorbing the rest of the lows from the COVID season. There’s nothing sinister about it. If you take in $4 billion less than projected, it’s going to impact the cap, and instead of taking the hit all in one season and pushing the cap down to $155 million for 2021, the compromise of spreading the losses over three years was reached. 2. I think I won’t be surprised if there’s an element in the 2022 cap that allows teams to use a future year or years as a “bank” to borrow from. Because there’s no way the cap’s going to skyrocket next year, and I doubt in 2023 either. My guess is it goes up $8 million, maybe, next year, and then $12 million in 2023. If I’m right, by 2023 lots of teams that pushed bigger 2021 deals than they could afford will need room desperately. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/03/22/nfl-free-agency-tv-deal-fmia-peter-king/

That was thrown outside of the red zone.

Yeah, and these things are cyclical. I'd bet a lot of money that FSU becomes a power again at some point in the not so distant future. Same thing with Miami. Even in their down years they always have some excellent prospects. If I'm a top prospect and I think I'll play at FSU and sit on the bench at Clemson, I'm going to FSU and not thinking twice. They finished ranked 8th as recently as the 2016 season.

My point is that Diggs can be that guy, but the Vikings treated him just like they treated Percy Harvin - get the ball in his hands a high percentage of the time and let him use his top end speed with the ball in his hands to blow past people. It leads to 10-ypc averages, just like it did for Harvin despite the fact that Harvin was clearly one of the fastest players with pads on in the entire league. Christ, Tyreek Hill had a 9.7 ypc average on 61 catches (73.5 percent catch rate) in 2016, and that low number wasn't because he wasn't fast. In 2019, the Vikings went in a different direction given the offensive design and their use of Thelen, and Diggs did a lot more X receiver stuff. Point is, he's fully capable of being the speed guy, but because he's so good at everything he's going to get a lot of quick hitters to move the chains with ease. Anyway, he is fast. His game speed with the ball in his hands proves it. Don't knock 17.9 as a one-off either; Tyreek Hill has never averaged that in his career. It's a sensational number. All good, but no one can adjust to Allen's 60 mph flat-trajectory bombs if they're a little off target, even Robert Foster (who didn't catch a single one in 2019). Bob Hayes couldn't have adjusted. Just looked this up: Foster had an unbelievably low 16.7 percent catch rate in 2019!

There are a lot of extra point plays in a 35-28 game. That's nine alone, plus there also another 11 kickoffs (9 scores plus the 2 half openers).

See my other post about Diggs' speed. The idea that he lacks top-end speed is one of the great myths of this board at the moment.

I think a lot of people look at Diggs’ combine 40 time and think that he isn’t fast enough. I personally think that’s ridiculous given that he is always one of the fastest players on an actual football field and gets behind guys routinely. I mean, the guy averaged 17.9 ypc on 63 catches (with a long only of 66, so the stats aren’t skewed) in 2019. And in fact, in 2016, he had the fastest measured time in the league with the ball in his hands: https://247sports.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/Article/Stefon-Diggs-fastest-player-in-NFL-Minnesota-Vikings-48715901/. Point is, he is a LOT faster than you are giving him credit for.

I don’t think @BADOLBILZ ever said Sanders was “redundant.” Basically, having both on the field at the same time creates massive matchup problems for opponents. Assuming for a second Sanders doesn’t decline, he’s a better player for the Bills next season than Samuel would be simply because he is likely to be very productive and a significantly better route runner than Samuels. Long term is a different issue, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

C’mon. Of those 20 percent of ST plays, more than half (kickoff touchbacks on both sides of the ball, xps on both sides of the ball, gimme fgs on both sides of the ball) have outcomes that are basically predetermined before the snap. If there is a missed kick on the xp or short fg, that’s pretty much all on the kicker and the matakeviches of the world have zero effect on the outcome. I am not saying ST is unimportant at all, but let’s not exaggerate.