dave mcbride

Yup.

I hope that's not the case. Claypool has been a problem pretty much everywhere. Well, maybe not Miami, but only because he was a non-entity there.

https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2023/10/12/bears-chase-claypool-explains-what-went-wrong-in-chicago/#:~:text=Whether it was a lack,partner in the Miami Dolphins.

He's been absolutely terrible a couple of years running. Miami took him on this season and he did nothing there. They don't want him.

Ugh. Not a fan of the player. But maybe he's camp fodder. I think he's basically toast.

Well, he was 19 years old at the time and coming off playing for MSU's basketball team in the spring of 2022 (they lost to Duke in the second round of the tournament). Cut him a little slack.

It's fine as long as the team facing them the second week is coming off a bye. That's a very easy solution.

Some good stuff here: https://theathletic.com/5467312/2024/05/03/nfl-draft-afc-best-worst-classes-insider-reaction/, One takeaway from these comments: the consensus seems to be that next year's draft will be significantly deeper than this one's and that trading for 2025 picks is a smart move. Bills: “It looks like they didn’t want a little guy in cold weather — ‘We’re a tough run team now,'” another exec said. “The risk is that Coleman is going to be covered. Those guys are making contested catches, and that is hard to do over and over again unless you are DeAndre Hopkins.” The selection of inside runner Ray Davis in the fourth round could further signal a shift toward being more of a power team. “There is now a big difference in the speed around Patrick Mahomes compared to the speed around Josh Allen,” another exec said. “Buffalo is saying, ‘Josh, it is up to you to raise the level of the skill around you,’ which is great, but we’ll see if he is able to do that.” Broncos: [Re: the Nix pick] “I’m betting on it (succeeding) heavily,” an exec said. “Bo has experience, he has enough arm talent and I think he is going to do what he is coached to do. Sean Payton’s system is optimal for him. Bo is not going to go off-script as much as Russ was going to do. Look, I don’t want him to be successful, but I think he is going to be legit there.” “I’m not a Bo Nix fan, but if anybody can get something out of him, Sean could,” another exec said, voicing concerns about Nix’s accuracy and reaction to the pass rush. “He’ll program that kid to do exactly what he wants every week. It won’t be enough the first year, but Sean will buy a third year to develop the kid and see if he can get him through.” Texans: Unrelated to the Texans, and speaking in general terms, an exec from a team picking inside the top 20 made a comment we regularly hear this time of year. “Call it pick 20 to pick 40, shake them up and throw them out, they are all similar players,” he said. Whether or not that is true, execs agreed the 2025 draft should be deeper than the current one, so that acquiring picks next year carried additional value. Chiefs: “They won the Super Bowl, but they should be blowing dudes out like they used to,” an exec said. “Xavier Worthy will make it easier to do that with the tight end (Travis Kelce) getting older.” “Kansas City is going to light people up with that kid,” an exec said of Worthy. “He’s a little, fast guy, and you think he’s a track guy, but he’s tough, finishes runs, fast, disciplined. He has a nice all-around game.” Raiders: “Bowers is not like Dalton Kincaid where you can create separation in the normal flow of the offense,” an exec said. “You have to move him. He would be ideal in San Francisco or Miami. Whereas Kincaid is special at the top of the route, Bowers is one-cut, catch it, break three tackles and he’s gone. Hopefully, they have a good plan for him because he can do some really unique things with the ball.” Dolphins: The Dolphins reached for their credit card. They traded their 2025 third to Philadelphia for a fourth this year, despite general league thinking that NIL implementation at the college level thinned the current crop after the first couple of rounds. As one exec put it, “If you traded this year’s fourth for next year’s third, that’s a huge win because of the nature of the class.” Jets: “They are in win-now mode, which is why I thought they would go Bowers all the way or any player that would help them win this year,” an exec said. “Instead, they drafted a tackle who might not play for them this year, and might not be well-suited to kick inside and play guard. It certainly is good long-term process, but where they are as an organization, they gotta win this year.”

It's literally available if you have a NYT subscription, which -- whether you like the paper or not -- is the most subscribed-to newspaper in the freaking world: https://www.statista.com/statistics/785919/worldwide-number-of-digital-newspaper-subscribers/. People need to stop complaining about the Athletic's paywall. It is so tired. EDIT: I just saw your subsequent post. Apologies, and welcome aboard!

I made my wife watch it a few minutes ago and she’s ready to buy his jersey! (Sidenote: RG III is awesome and I feel like a dupe for falling for Danny Snyder’s character assassination campaign against him.)

He’s literally UNDERAGE! Fessin’ up would ID him as a scofflaw. He doesn’t like soup!

As someone who is soup-skeptical (although I don't hate it), I fully approve of KC's opinion on the matter! Relatedly, here's a passage from a legal historian's book that I published a few years back: 'Despite his efforts to present himself as a man of the people, Nixon mistrusted the public and preferred secrecy to sunshine. Aspiring to become royalty, he went so far as to outfit White House security as elaborately as Buckingham Palace guards. Like LBJ, he saw the press, eastern elites and the “Georgetown crowd” as enemies. Like Johnson, too, he proved dogged in his persistence: Nixon was someone who courted his future wife by driving her to dates with other men. But in contrast to his predecessor, the new President was solitary. So uncomfortable did the Republican become at state dinners that he pressed aides to cut them down to 58 minutes. (As part of his effort, he banished the soup course on the theory that “men don’t really like soup.”)'

This is comic gold.

Opelousas, Louisiana, Coleman's hometown, has a population of 16K but it has produced Devery Henderson, Ceedee Lamb, and now Coleman over the past couple of decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opelousas,_Louisiana As for food, Paul Prudhomme is from there! Also, Clifton Chenier, maybe the most famous zydeco musician ever. Surprised KC doesn't like gumbo, but maybe he's sick of it.

Dalton Kincaid begs to differ So much of this is dependent on who the qb is who is throwing to you. I’d love to see the split between MSU and FSU. Travis was FSU’s best qb by far, but that doesn’t mean he was/is actually good.

This is a really great interview - very informative. Thanks for posting.

Good points but professional coaching can do a lot for a smart player. The Bills are very good at developing secondary players. Yeah, I was thinking about that w/regard to Elam. Maybe the light goes on finally this season. It'd be an Eric Moulds-like trajectory. Both were/are very talented physically and maybe (like Moulds) Elam just needs time to adjust to the pro game.

A good comp: the 2018 Pats (who had a very productive offense). They had no one over 850 and five guys over 530 yards plus a couple of guys near 300: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/2018.htm

Josh wanted Dalton Kincaid too. He's a smart QB so I'm not opposed to deferring to him.

I was responding to a debate about Brady specifically.

It is my understanding that 12 carries for 72 yards and two TDs should be factored into any evaluation. He was great in that game. Also, bringing up the defense is irrelevant because it's not the subject of the discussion. Regardless, leaving out the most important games because of some arbitrary threshold doesn't really make sense.

I think it might be more the fact that they were 1980s QBs and it's time to transition to more recent ones. Simms is 68 and Esiason is 63. The Fox team is bad but their schtick is a bit more backslap-y and less analytical, which is why it continues to roll. Jimmy and Terry are also more akin to football folk heroes in a way that Boomer and Simms clearly aren't.

If you're going to evaluate the Bills offense under Brady and not include the two playoff games, you're doing it wrong, simply put. They HAVE to be included for the simple reason that they're the most important games! And they're against playoff teams! Allen had 7 total TDs and zero turnovers in those two games and the Bills averaged 368 yards and 27.5 points yards despite the kicker missing 3 FGs.

I think this is doubtful because just like last year, when they took Kincaid, they took the guy that Josh Allen specifically identified as the one he wanted. They are clearly listening to Allen, and given Kincaid's performance last year and his obvious ability, they're probably wise to do so. Totally. If he loved him, he would absolutely have taken him at 24. I think they were looking o-line all the way.

Brady struck me as a very good OC last year--leagues beyond Dorsey in terms of game-to-game adaptation and what I call responsible creativity. I think we may have a really good one. He was great at LSU and had a terrible roster in Carolina. Plus he trained under Sean Payton, who annoys me but who is also an amazing offensive coach. I mean, just look at this roster in 2021, the year he was fired: DJ Moore and nothing else. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/car/2021.htm Note that after he was fired on December 5, they went 0-5 the rest of the way. It's kinda like the mirror image of what happened to the Bills after they fired Dorsey and handed the keys to Brady. In his final game as coordinator for Carolina, the corpse of Cam Newton was 5-21 for 92 yards and two INTs before being replaced by PJ Walker. And the coordinator takes the fall. Sheesh. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202111280mia.htm