GaryPinC

I disagree with you because as a parent of a 7 and 10 year old I have a different perspective. Sports are turning much more into a regimented development, squeezing out the spontaneous street and casual games of years ago. Gordio's post on page 3 also gives a pretty good perspective on what sports is like for kids these days. I'm 43 and when I was a kid neighborhood contests along with recreational league games were the norm. We played a lot of different sports in the neighborhood, 1 maybe 2 in a league. There were also some travel teams but that was about it. Kids sports these days are much more structured with recreational leagues, step up to select or travel teams, and finally pay $1000+/year to have your kid on a club team. Coaching at the rec league generally sucks and the rec leagues have taken the place of the neighborhood contests, just for fun with little pressure to win. Select/travel puts the emphasis to win with better coaching but not quite the commitment of a club team. Club teams pay their coaches and are very rigorous on the kids, not much about fun at this level. Any decent coach at the rec league level generally goes to select or club. Parents shuttle their kids to 1-6 sports and it's very taxing. Parents hire personal coaches (hitting, pitching) or go to sports camps if their kid has an interest. Sports these days is all about having your kids experience them in an organized rec league and develop them up the ladder if they show the interest and ability. Youth sports is becoming a money industry and will only get bigger as many parents such as myself feel that sports help develop kids for real life. There are even track teams and meets for grade school kids! I limit my kids to one sport at a time so they can play 3 different ones in a year, but other parents can be much more demanding. Coaches of travel and club teams all tell the parents that all the high school players came through their system and if you want your kid to play high school/college you'd better sign up. As a parent, it's great to be able to find a large number of organized sports for your child to try. It's also good to know I can find the organizations and expertise to develop my child if they really have an interest/ability in a particular sport. But it is sad that a lot of the spontaneity, curiosity, and bonding that comes from kids teaching each other sports on the street has been mostly lost. But make no mistake: youth sports has become a business that will only keep expanding for now and I highly doubt that pro sports will be dying even in the next 40 years.

I'm with you on this.

Just because it's changing doesn't mean it's going to die. It'll be interesting to see how successful they are with the lawsuit. Here in Ohio, state law says all coaches in any sport now have to be certified in recognizing concussions. Training was a joke but if a kid on your team shows any signs you must remove them, fill out the proper form, and they cannot play the rest of the day and until they get a doctor's note clearing them to play again. My daughter recently had a softball game where a girl got hit just above the eve with a thrown ball. Huge knot, she toughed it out but was a little dizzy and woozy at times during the game. None of the coaches ever considered whether she should be playing. I told the parents they were lucky because if I was coaching she would be out. They listened but didn't care much, all they cared was that their girl was tough, she's also the catcher and took a foul ball off the side of her mask! It's tough to change a mentality, but I don't think the NFL will be as liable as people think. It will come down to when there was enough credible evidence and how did the league handle this? And in a worst case scenario, liability didn't kill the tobacco industry did it?

Too bad they didn't trade him back instead of cutting!

Yea, nowhere near probing enough and you docs don't limit yourselves to one side <cough>.

Let's not forget that the players also agreed to the CBA. Rookie salaries were ballooning upwards and unproven rookies were reaping blind rewards limiting the salary pool for seasoned veterans. Everybody agreed to the system. Byrd has proven his value. For Parker to claim Byrd could or should have been paid more the last couple of seasons is BS. He gets paid now and for the future. That's how the system works. But it's on the Bills' negotiators to deal with Parker's opinions.

Agree completely. Fantastic article. Thanks Tim.

For me, the most intriguing facet of our front office is that if they are successful they have strong ties to this general area and would most likely be here a long time. Though if they muck it up, things could get awkward... The new philosophy/leadership is palpable and great to see. Very refreshing. Go get it done, guys.

Jeez, if that happened all my Browns fans here in Cleve would actually feel better about their situation!

What sense would it make to bring in an GM from outside the organization? We just got a new coaching staff, QB, etc. GM's like to bring in their own guys, I'm sure Whaley is invested in this current personnel.

Agree, kind of what Brandon alludes to in their press conf. Whaley was brought in and has stayed here for a specific reason which will come to fruition very soon.

I'm with you on this. Also the way he used his blockers on scrambles. Kid does seem to have a real feel/vision for the game

FWIW: Here is an article discussing the statistics and rationale for Chip Kelly going for it on fourth down at Oregon: http://articles.philly.com/2013-03-27/sports/38043609_1_de-anthony-thomas-desean-jackson-s-wide-receiver "Punt 4th down? Hell, yeah In case you were wondering, Chip Kelly does plan on carrying a punter on his 53-man roster. Might not have a fullback, but he'll have a punter. Those rumors that he always went for it on fourth down at Oregon are slightly exaggerated. The Ducks went for it on fourth down 31 times last season (and converted 20 of them). That total was only 10th among the NCAA's 120 Football Bowl Subdivision members. During Kelly's four seasons as Oregon's head coach, the Ducks averaged just 2.2 fourth-down attempts per game. They finished tied for 17th in the FBS in fourth-down attempts in 2009 (22), second in '10 (34) and fifth in '11 (31). In the Brooks Brothers NFL, usually only bad teams go for it on fourth down. Last year, only four teams had more than 18 fourth-down tries: 2-14 Jacksonville (26), 5-11 Arizona (24), 7-8-1 St. Louis (24) and your 4-12 Eagles (24). Asked about his reputation as a fourth-down gambler last week, Kelly said: "I think there's fallacy and reality. I don't think very often we went for it on fourth down on our side of the field. It would be once or twice a season, depending on the situation." He pointed out that the leg strength of his kicker often factors into fourth-down decisions. "If you don't have a guy that can kick a long field goal, what are you going to do when the ball is on the 37-yard line?" he said. "Will you kick a 52-yarder or are you going to punt it? If [the punt] goes into the end zone, you have a net of 17 yards. Or do you go for it because you have a good defense and you're not averse to putting them on the field on the 37-yard line?" Kelly didn't have a kicker with a big leg at Oregon. In his four seasons as head coach, the team's longest field goal was 43 yards. The last 3 years, the Ducks were just 5-for-14 on field goal attempts from 40-plus yards." Doesn't sound so radical.

Well, good. We're in the same boat of confusion. Ok, I hear what you're saying. Can we agree that the score from the opponents 15 would be factored into the EP (in some way) at the 9? It is, by the author's own definition, the "next" score. From reading the author's articles, he needs the EP value at each yardline for establishing the validity of punting vs going for it vs field goal. Compare the EP values of a net 37 yard punt vs EP value at the first down mark relative to EP at your current position. And I assume he uses "next" score to lend some weight to the team winning the field position battle. Having the ball inside your 10 means if you fail to move the ball the other team will more likely score in their next possession or two. But your team will also have another possession and once the next score occurs do you attribute it to each and every failed drive both teams had? This gets at my point for the quality of the study. I think his own generic definition of "next points" speaks to the crappy quality of his research. He could easily establish and validate statistical criteria for which drives "next" scores are valid. For instance, he should be able to establish that if your field position on your next drive changes by more than 20 yds compared to previous, attributing "next" score would only be valid on the new field position. This would be easy to establish, explain and include in the article. But he doesn't.

Thanks, good thought. Maybe I am wrong. My understanding is that expected points at any given yardline is based on data of who scores "next" If the Offense, it's positive. If the defense gets it and scores it's negative. EP is the average of all 'next' score values at any given yard line. It's not necessary the average points scored on the current possession because possession could be exchanged several times before the 'next' score. I interpret this to say that he uses next score (by either side) to determine the EP and that yardline. The underlined portion led me to believe that even if no one scores on that possession he would attribute the very next score to that original yard line. Let me know what you think. Actually my point is that it isn't a very good study and I don't think his data makes a strong enough case for a coach to really trust it. I don't see any error bars associated with this study. The author processed a lot of numerical data which has error associated with it. When he says that EP is 0.3, 0.4 but going for it has an EP of 1.2 which he feels is clearly better we don't know that without error and statistical analysis. The error could easily be so great that there is no difference in any of those three numbers. Maybe his results/conclusions would hold up but the study is really weak imo.

No, he explained in a relative way what he did. For example, he did not mention borrowing the 3rd down data until responding to a comment below the article. If you have a link to where his actual study is it would be a great help if you would provide it. A peer reviewed statistical publication would be fantastic. I took a quick look but couldn't find it. You are correct, he did not explicitly say "you should always go for it" so my apologies for misspeaking. His graph, however, does recommend going for it inside your own 20 with fourth and 1, quite often fourth and two. "He makes it clear that decisions will (and should) frequently vary depending upon the score of the game and the amount of time remaining." So maybe go for it, unless a coach in a game situation doesn't think it's wise. Fantastic stuff. Without his actual study (only him presenting graphs in an article on his website) he (or I) may be mischaracterizing the conclusions. This I do know: You don't just throw out half a football game because you think the time during the game is inappropriate. You prove it with statistical significance not a subjective, unproven statement. Common sense hypotheses or arguments need to be statistically justified to produce a strong research paper. How about how he chooses to define "expected points"?: "EP is the average potential points a team can expect given a certain situation. The most common example is the potential point value of a 1st down at each yard line on the field. EP is the average of all 'next' score values at any given yard line. It's not necessary the average points scored on the current possession because possession could be exchanged several times before the 'next' score. EP is positive when the offense will usually score next, and negative if the defense will usually score next." So if the Bills get the ball at their nine, punt, the other team fumbles or has a bunch of penalties and we end up getting the ball at their 15 and punch in the touch down, by Brian's definition those points apply to when the Bills started at their own 9. Is that really valid? Or is it more a function of starting at opponents 15? If it is not valid at the Bills 9 yard line then the expected point value would become more negative on the 9 and skew his fourth down recommendations. I don't know the answers. All I am pointing out is the dogma level is running huge on this right now. I think most any intelligent football fan suspects that coaches are too conservative on certain fourth downs and Brian certainly does a great job of subjectively pandering to that school of thought. I would like to see his methodologies and be wrong about the subjectivity part. But researchers who use methodical, statistically proven criteria for selecting data and defining parameters don't typically fall back on subjective justifications . They clearly state their proof.

It's not amazing to me. Interesting, but there are too many biases. Inside your own 20 @ 4th and 1 or 2 you should always go for it?!?! And how many times has this happened in the first and third quarters in the 9 seasons the author uses for his dataset? In addressing post-article 4 comments the author states that the conversion rates for third and fourth down appear to be similar and that for situations like 4th and 10 from a given yard line when there's not "enough" 4th down data he used the third down conversion rate instead. He never reveals how much of his data is based on third down conversion rates. He never in any way statistically justifies throwing out 2nd and 4th quarter data, where possibly a larger % of fourth down conversion attempts actually occur. When you've got an author admitting he's fudged together his data it's really difficult to say how strong that data actually is. I would guess that with 9 football seasons to analyze, his n of fourth down attempts at each yard mark is mostly very small and/or he borrowed a lot of third down conversion data.

Yea, if Gronk were smart he'd get it removed and treat before trying another plate. I don't work with human patients but healing is usually compromised in the infected area though not sure if that's the same for bone. If the bacteria worked their way down the screws it's in the bone, too. I feel sorry for him trying to push this. Hope it works out like they are planning.

I hear ya, it is amazing watching him accelerate to home in on the ball. Especially for a guy who really wasn't blessed with a lot of top-end speed. It'll be fun to follow him and see how he develops. And Nix/coaches are on the line because using a second round pick means they feel he can be developed through his weaknesses. He's 238 lbs now, hope he hits training camp @ just over 250. And I hope the weight's added to legs and core!

Took a look at the links you provided and the stanford game. I see the similarities between Conlan and Kiko but I think Conlan was far more of an impact hitter but had overall less range than Kiko. Both have a nose for the ball and really zero in on it quickly and Kiko is a very good cover backer too. The only opinion I'd have to disagree with you on is that he appears to stack and shed well. If Kiko has room to get around a lineman or the lineman is lazy and doesn't drive into him Kiko does shed well, but most plays where a lineman locks in on him he gets stood up, run over or moved out of the way. On short yardage plays he was useless unless he could find a space to fit through which didn't happen very often. When it comes to trying to stack a blocker he plays much lighter than his weight IMO. Kiko seems to rely on slipping around and between people. That's ok but it'll be interesting to see how he fares at the bigger, faster NFL level. Certainly he has a lot of talent, I'd like to see him coached up to meet the point of attack better and out-leverage 2nd level linemen. I find myself hoping he puts on 15 pounds or so and worry how his injury history will factor in...

I believe Kiper gave us a poor grade on the draft primarily because of his doubts about Manuel's ability. Manuel was drafted well before the rest of his QB class, a class that has been panned in the press as being of poor quality. If he is a bust for us, most would conclude we reached too much to get him and should have taken ________ at that draft position. I am happy with what the Bills did and arguing about opinions seems useless. Great stuff SJBF, thanks for sharing all of this. Hopefully coaches can refine Kiko's techniques and prolong his career.

Thanks for posting, just more proof that considering everyone knew what the Bills were going to do they probably played the selection of Manuel about as well as you could. Arguably a bit of a reach but had to get him. If EJ doesn't pan out I still respect their methods.

A year or two ago there was a great article discussing Doug Whaley including his work with the steelers and his place in the Bills organization. I came away believing that Doug was a good pro scout with the steelers and would have been unprepared to become a GM even though he was an "up and coming candidate". I think Doug is happy being groomed into the position and that is why he's staying put. I think Buddy stays this year and at least through the draft next year, though I can see Doug taking a leadership role in the draft next year. We'll see, it's all speculation but I think Buddy will not be shy about letting us know when Doug takes the lead on things.

Just a shame he can't get it done in the NFL

How about renaming the title of the thread to "brief impression about our new staff from a current syracuse player" I fail to see any real insight here Insight: noun: 1. The capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing