dave mcbride

LB is generally a position where production comes early. Heck, the best part of Kiko's career was his first 8 games (although to be fair he's been pretty solid for Miami).

What really separates Newton is 4,320 rushing yards and 54 rushing TDs over his career.

If Murphy is healthy and Lulutelei can push that pocket back a bit so that QBs can't step up as easily as they did last year, the sacks for Hughes and Murphy will come. Hughes must have set a record last year for near misses on sack opportunities.

Edmunds is pretty darn fast - 4.54. Milano isn't slow either - 4.67. That's decent for a linebacker. Yeah, what I really meant is that no one looking at the Bills has been discussing the defensive personnel as a unit and noting the pretty major makeover/talent upgrade.

Tommy Maddox actually started the first 2 games of that season. Of course, he also started one other: the final game of the season against ... the Bills.

That's next year's task. Hard to do everything at once!

Agreed. It's what the Steelers did with Roethlisberger, actually. Even though Roethlisberger started in season one, he didn't really throw it that much. In 2004, the Steelers were #1 in defense (both yards and points), 32nd in passing attempts, and first in rushing attempts.

A lot has been made about the team's talent deficiencies going into the offseason, but I think it's now pretty clear that the Bills are a very strong team talent-wise on defense. They did this kind of stealthily, piece by piece. To begin: both starting safeties are really good. Of their two corners, one is terrific (White) and the other -- Davis -- has had some genuinely elite seasons in recent years (he was PFF's #2 CB in 2014) and if healthy, a decidedly better than average corner. They also drafted a guy who can play slot in round 4 and a hybrid safety type who can presumably serve as passable depth. On the front seven, their d-line/edge rotation is actually pretty impressive: Lulutelei, Kyle Williams, Harrison Phillips, Hughes, Murphy, and Shaq Lawson (plus OK depth behind them), and at LB/edge they have Edmunds, Alexander, Milano, and (again) Murphy. Murphy not only had 10 sacks in 2016; he had 55 pressures! That's right: 55. Assuming he's healthy, he's a player. That is a SOLID unit overall. I'd like to see another CB in as competition because I worry about Davis, but I have to presume the Bills did their homework on him. If he's healthy, he's good and not a step down from Gaines. (Still, I'd have liked to have been able to keep Gaines too.) More broadly, it's clear that they're implementing a plan: build the D and get the QB first, and put the offensive pieces in place next. Expect some low scoring battles next season.

Hard to say, but if I'm AZ, I'm not taking the chance to find out.

Not really. Buffalo had competition for the #7 pick up; Arizona apparently did not face competition for the #10 pick. That is because there was competition for Allen, but apparently none for Rosen. Plus the Raiders, who missed out on McGlinchey, knew their guy would be there at 15. Not really. If there is no competitor, would you rather keep your #10 pick and take Miller, or trade down to #15, take Miller, and get an extra 3rd?

This staff really does love them some sons-of-NFL-players (Zay Jones, Trumaine Edmunds, and now Proehl).

Definitely seems like a process guy. As does Edmunds given his family's absolute dedication to football.

Context of play: it was 3rd and 10 and it's not like the bruins had an especially reliable kicker from long distance last year. They were down by 3 late in the game, and he was either trying to throw it out of bounds to save field position or expecting that his receiver at the top would read the blitz and cut off his route at the sticks (which is where he threw it). Either way, it's not as if he did the wrong thing. He got hit, and couldn't get enough oomph into it to get it out, and the receiver didn't adjust. It's not really what people are seeing, though. Rosen was great in that game and had the right idea there. The defense simply made a play, though - the blitzer timed it perfectly.

How is Rosen taking this now-essentially-confirmed news?

That's ridiculous by Gettleman.

Losman had a 31 (“engineer” level threshold) on the Wonderlic, so what you say above is incorrect.

I liked Webb!

This whole thread has turned into stage 5 of the Kubler-Ross model.

That's not the end of the story because he has been sub-mediocre the past few years. In three out of the past five seasons (including last season), he's been below average (with average being 100) in pretty much all of the key categories. He's had some good seasons over his career, yes, but he's not going to get any better and as a simple fact of the matter he's the worst qb in his own division.

I'm pretty confident that the Bills would have given up 12 and 22 in a heartbeat plus a second and a 3rd. They didn't want to give next year's first, as I understand it.

Because Manning could well fall off a cliff this season, and there are any number of examples of rookie qbs coming on strong and performing at an elite level right away: Luck, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson. I'm a big believer in Darnold, and think that he may well be a better QB by the end of this season than Manning. And they'd have him the next dozen years assuming he pans out.

I think that's possible, but I also think they arguably have the worst QB in the division. I don't think Eli is terrible, but I think Smith, Wentz, and Prescott are all better than him right now.

You know, we wouldn't be having this conversation if we hadn't let the Jets beat us out for the #3 pick. It really does all go back to that, and I think Beane got owned. If he had the stones to pull that trade off, we'd all be celebrating over Darnold becoming a Bill. Oh well. As I said above, I'm going to roll with it and hope for the best.

If so, they could have radically improved their o-line via a trade with the Bills and gotten, say, Sony Michel (who I think is really good even though he might not last more than 5 years). Is Barkley really that good? Will he even be as good as Kamara or Hunt were last season? I doubt it, but we shall see. My one caveat relates to Davis Webb. If they really like him, then not drafting a QB is arguably OK. But I've never heard anyone in the new regime talk him up.

Read the comments following the PFT piece!