Thurman#1

Did not catch that! That's pretty funny!

What that shows is that there's a coach out there - specifically an ex-coach - who doesn't like McDermott. None of the rest of the media gets any sense that that's what the people currently think. (Look at the Buffalo Plus posting on youtube today, as one example.) Could it be more than that? Sure, but outside Dunne' sources, where is the rest of it? There have been a few guys through the years who wanted out. Quinton Spain, for instance. But what we have also seen a ton of is people leaving for more money and greener pastures ... and then coming back a few years later wishing they hadn't left and appreciating being here even more than they had. Phillips. Beasley. Shaq, John Brown. It's not all that short a list and they've proved they're not blowing smoke by coming back.

Nope, not happy with ceilinged out. But there's absolutely zero reason to believe that's where McDermott is. Just as easily he could be approaching his best days.

You're not really using these numbers the way he talked about it. The cap is anything but a myth, and Tompsett helps make that clear. The specifics of those numbers are expressed much better this way: "This top bucket of 'absolute-must-dos,' I think all of these are going to happen. They immediately get us from $29M in the hole to $19M in cap space. We even debated that a good chunk of these preferred/likely ones are probably going to happen, and [if all of them were done] that gets us to $45M." - Tompsett Again, he says a good chunk of them are going to happen. If all of them happened, it'd put us at $45M but that's unlikely. Instead, "a good chunk of them" could happen. "I think a lot of that is going to happen." Meaning those won't likely get us to $45M but maybe somewhere close. "And then down here there's another $28M floating around in things that I'd prefer not to do, but they absolutely can do." He talks about his purpose here, saying "Hopefully this shows you that there's a lot of options out there and fans should not be anxious about it looking like $29M over the cap. We're going to be just fine. It's all depending on which one of these they want to do." So, using the $72M as anything but a theoretically possible milestone is a bit disingenuous. He isn't even saying they'll get to $56M. $45M is the number he's talking about getting near. After that there are bunch of options, options he doesn't really like. Some of which may happen, but maybe not. As an example, he talks about the option of getting rid of Poyer and saving around $6M, but then says that replacing him would probably cost more than the money you save by cutting him. There's a lot of that here, particularly further down the list. Make some of these moves and you then leave a hole you have to fill, which will then cost money. Just getting to $44M, for instance, you'd then have to replace Sam Martin and Siran Neil and would have around 35 guys on the roster, having lost guys like DaQuan Jones, Leonard Floyd, Poona Ford, Dane Jackson, Taylor Rapp, Latavius Murray, Micah Hyde and a bunch more. The cap is very very real. It's flexible within limits. But real. And restrictive.

That ain't McD. It's the Buffalo Bills who are blowing late leads. And plenty of those decisions you're calling bad aren't necessarily. They could easily have produced the best possible outcomes. He deserves his share of the blame. Blaming him entirely says more about you than it does about him. Folks like you want to give all the credit for the good stuff to Allen and the players and put all the blame for the bad stuff on Sean. Doing that absolutely destroys claims to logic and neutrality of point of view. It's not clear thinking.

We wouldn't save money cutting Knox next year. $20M in dead cap. We pay him about $10M in salary and bonus next year but about $9M of that is already guaranteed, from what I believe I see from a quick look at Spotrac. 2025 is the first year when we could legit think of cutting him without serious cap consequences. I think you're right that we now have kind of a problem because we have enough good pass catchers that it will be a bit tricky to use them all. A good problem to have, IMO. I think we'll probably play around and see how things go with two TE formations under Coach Brady and go from there with what we find out.

From league average, we're a bit off, yes, fair enough. But Dallas is a contender. Miami too. Philly too. SF. Seattle. Minnesota was too before Cousins went down. Hell, those are the majority of the contenders and several of the top tier, and all either are very close or spend more on defense. It's not as wildly unusual as you are suggesting.

Major problems with this post. First, I didn't have a list of seven. I listed Diggs and Kincaid also, making nine. Six out of nine isn't bad at all, especially when two out of the three who are gone are good players, just either a bad fit here or let go for cap reasons. Only Ford was a really bad pick of the nine. And we can probably say the same about Basham on defense. And the same or worse about nearly every team out there if you go back five years. Second, I didn't say anything about whether they were good picks. He claimed we weren't using top end resources on offense. I pointed out that that is at best questionable. If you have a point, go make it. But don't reply to one of my posts and then ignore my actual point. Oh, and Brown now is starting to look like a very solid pick indeed, no matter what some rather clueless folks want to say about a guy who was dealing with a serious back injury. And this is his third season, not his fourth. If they were complaining about his Brown's "past three seasons," that would include his last year at Northern Iowa.

Stefon Diggs came from a 1st round pick, plus a few extras. Same with Kincaid. Torrence is a high pick, as is Cook. Brown, Moss, Ford, Singletary, Knox, all top three round picks from the last five years. That's 2/5 1sts, 3/5 2nds and 4/6 3rds. On offense. $97M this year on offensive spending and $103M on defensive, according to Spotrac. Top end investment has not really leaned all that far towards defense. It may seem that way, but that's confirmation bias.

The ol' "Everything good is from Beane and everything bad is from McDermott trick", eh Chief?

Burned out? Nope. Heh heh. Nice!

To repeat, I said top 5, not top 7. And that absolutely is the point. So many on here whine on and on about the criticism and the lack of respect and the hatred and on and on. Most of that is nonsense. He's ranked top 5 everywhere. He gets a ton of respect. And of course he gets criticism. He's an NFL quarterback. It's part of the deal. Particularly for an NFL QB leading the league in INTs. It's part of the Josh Allen package. Of course it's going to be mentioned. But again, top five status from about everyone.

Does he really not get the credit? Or is that just the paranoia of Bills fans? Are there a lot of lists out there of the top five QBs that don't have Allen in there? I googled "Top 10 QB list 2023". I later wanted some more recent ones so I re-adjusted for recency. Out of the first ten I opened how many would you guess had Allen outside of the top five? That would be zero. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2023-nfl-qb-power-rankings-lamar-jackson-aaron-rodgers-both-crack-top-10-in-first-rundown-of-all-32-starters/ https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/2023-top-10-nfl-quarterbacks-ranking-the-best-qbs-after-patrick-mahomes https://www.nfl.com/news/top-10-quarterbacks-entering-the-2023-nfl-season https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/05/30/top-10-quarterbacks-qbs-ranked-right-now#gid=ci02c08dc2e000262e&pid=10 https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/insider/story/_/id/37919975/ranking-nfl-top-10-quarterbacks-2023-execs-coaches-scouts-make-their-picks-best-passers https://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/insider/story/_/id/37919975/ranking-nfl-top-10-quarterbacks-2023-execs-coaches-scouts-make-their-picks-best-passers https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-quarterback-rankings-2023-qbs-best-worst/yxvqewdhatrxu7qwajhb89vp https://www.insider.com/nfl-2023-season-starting-quarterbacks-ranked-complete-list-2023-9 https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2023-nfl-week-12-qb-power-rankings-ravens-lamar-jackson-rises-to-no-1-broncos-russell-wilson-also-jumps/ https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-qb-index-week-10-2023-nfl-season They're right to point out the INTs. It's part of who he is. Pretty much all of them also point out his running, which is also part of who he is. It really would be better if he threw less. At least two games and arguably three, Allen was a large part of why we lost, and I'm sure he'd agree 100% with that. He also won us some games, no question. But inconsistency is held against QBs, and for good reason. Of course, there are always going to be a few folks who over-react. This is the internet, after all. It's part of the deal. But most recognize that he's a great QB. Only the wingnuts don't really. He doesn't get a lot of hate, he just doesn't. But yeah, they do throw his weaknesses in with the rest of his traits.

No. The idea is stupid. Why risk hundreds of billions to win a few tens or hundreds of millions? It simply doesn't make sense. It'd be killing the golden goose. Is it possible one guy somewhere is venal and stupid enough to try? Yeah. Sure. But the whole thing? Absolutely not. It simply makes no sense whatsoever.

Landry. He was in his 12th year coaching Dallas when he won his first SB. And Cowher as you said. Those are two terrific coaches, by the way. Oh, and by the way, "I know Cowher both won and lost with Pittsburg, but [justification, excuse, justification, excuse] only shows how you want this argument to fall. You can always find a justification for excluding a guy if that's your previous prejudice. But doing so only shows what you want rather than having any real logical force. There are two: Landry and Cowher. More, the problem is that the question, when stated that way, automatically acts to exclude guys who proved very very capable of winning Super Bowls. Tom Coughlin is a good example. Eight years of coaching at Jax and not winning one, though he had some great rosters. Without a year off, he went to the Giants and won one in his fourth year. Did he become a different coach? Nah. Things just came together for him. He was good enough to win in Jax but it's hard to get things to come together sometimes. So, how many coaches were fired at some point because the team thought they'd never win a Super Bowl, but that turned out to be wrong? Several. Belichick. George Allen. Vermeil. Pete Carroll. Dungy. Kubiak. Reid. That's a squatload.

Yeah, and the proof that McDermott is the main reason is that ... um ...it's that ... well, many people don't like him.

Yes, true. And also already in the report. No plans now is what the two main sources said, and Graham himself says, "Although additional calamities may befall McDermott over the next month and a half and alter the organization's plans, four sources familiar with Terry Pegula's thinking ..."

"35 consecutive regular season games of losing by one score or less," you say? Your meaning there is really unclear, but whatever you're trying to say there, it doesn't apply to McDermott. McDermott's had a lot of big wins that were far more than one-score games, even just this year. And we've also won a couple of one-score games just this year, the Giants, and the Bucs. It is true, though, that McDermott is a bit below .500 in one-score games. We ought to look around for a guy with a good record in one-score games. Hey, Adam Gase went 27-12 in one-score games. He's obviously a fantastic coach! Let's bring him in! I bet he's available!!!! Are you serious? Why would someone with Pegula's ear publicly tell anyone what he's confidentially saying? He'd get fired. Unless he spoke as a confidential source. That's how journalism works. How much junk The Athletic puts out that turn out wrong the next day? Not much at all. No journalism is perfect, like the rest of human endeavor. But the Athletic is a good outlet. Graham is trustworthy, has a ton of solid sources around the league, and has four sources for this story. This is trustworthy. More, it was predictable, it's how Terry works that if you do a damn good job for a long time he won't be quick to let you go. It's how good ownership should work.

Nonsense. If people were fascinated by whatever they see flashing on TV, beer commercials would be bigger than football. The reason people are interested in INTs is that they are huge in terms of whether a team wins or loses. Turnover ratios are It's "behind the curtain in your posts and the posts of the other folks like you who want to ignore it. TDs per game aren't nearly as big because a rushing TD is as good as a passing TD. A QB can have zero TDs and still have a great game and the offense can still be extremely productive. INTs are turnovers. Sorry, the two are not even close. A high TDs per game is generally good, but a low one doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. INTs can and often do turn games around. That's why people focus on them. As for good in some categories and bad in others? Yeah. That's why a balanced view is best. And yet unless reminded you only talk about the good ones. You make fun of people who try to look at both the bad and the good. You've got just as much tunnel vision as the folks who think only of INTs. One isn't much. If he only had one, that'd be very little. But his figure isn't "one." It's one more than the second-worst guy in the league. That's a lot, which is why nobody else has equalled it. You have to look also at how productive he is, (very productive) but having the most turnovers is a very bad thing.

Ouch! That hurt, Teef. Really isn't. It might. Very possible. And they could make it with a 4-1 record, though it becomes wildly dependent on the results of other teams.

On the contrary. He's done really really well. A few mistakes of course, as everyone does, but overall he's been smart and efficient with a QB on a really high second contract. Way way way too early to say the Bills aren't going anywhere next year. Just about exactly one year too early. At this point next season, we'll know. Not much before. We don't even know whether we make the playoffs this year, much less next. And while nobody can know how deep the reload will cut, we can know with absolute certainty they aren't going to rebuild.

"Bleak" is overstating it. But yeah, we'll be constricted. Those expecting $20M - $25M signings are drinking the Kool-Aid.

When people want to ignore them and pooh-pooh them, yeah, I do. I want people to look at things in a balanced, reasonable way. I also point out that he had a terrific game, in the same post, if I remember correctly. Stop telling people to ignore what's behind the curtain and they'll stop being fascinated by it.

Did that INT give the Eagles the win? It led directly to seven Eagles points. So, kinda. At that point in the game neither team could stop the other and they were going back and forth between Buffalo up by 10 and Buffalo up by 3. Buffalo up by 3 with the ball and the INT happens. Not only does Buffalo lose the possession but the Eagles get the ball on the Bills 24 yard line, put up seven and take the lead for the first time since the 1st quarter. You're kidding yourself if you don't think that was a huge turning point. Not the only turning point, there were a bunch. But that was a huge moment. Instead of going back and forth between Bills by 10 and Bills by 3, now the lead is switching back and forth. That defensive failure you're referring to didn't switch things at all, really. They'd been going back and forth from up 3 to up 10 since it was 17-7. That was more of the same. The Bills got the ball back and had been marching up and down the field for a while. Then Josh throws the INT. It was absolutely a big big turning point. It should be pointed out that even with that included Allen had a terrific game. But without that, they probably win. But you could say the same for several other turning points, Cook's drop of a TD catch, the two failures of FGs ... In the end, you're greatly overstating the case here. He's neither "wrong" nor "deeply dishonest." There is no wrong or right here. The two of you have a reasonable disagreement and both of you are spinning like a centrifuge. Equally, for some folks, INTs are just OK and should be ignored because he's a good player. Nothing but ignoring the INTs and considering them completely acceptable is in any way reasonable.

Not everything, hell, not even this evidence suggests that Dorsey was a major issue for this. It just doesn't. Hi first very significant rise in percentage, a jump of 0.6 percent, happened under Daboll. Between Daboll's third and fourth years, Allen went from 7th best in the league at 1.6% to 18th best. Again, under Daboll, a major drop. If Dorsey were the problem, his first year, when he took over from Daboll would see a major jump. But that's not what happened. He only got 0.2% worse. The difference between Dorsey's first and second years would not be significant if Dorsey were the main part of the problem. But in fact he went up 0.5%. What all this tells us is that the ups and downs do NOT correlate well at all with the difference between Daboll and Dorsey. It tells us that it's likely something else. There's likely some effect from the OC, absolutely. But the biggest changes happened between two years when Daboll was coordinator and then again between two years when Dorsey was. Something else is at play. Perhaps several things. I have a guess, myself. Remember early in his career, when in the offseason Josh would go to work on improving one aspect of his game that needed work? Remember? One year it was deep ball accuracy, which improved greatly the next year. The year before that it was mechanics and footwork and using the turn of his torso to generate force. After that it was touch and accuracy on short passes, which also greatly improved. Remember that? What did he work on the last couple of offseasons? We didn't hear much of anything. In his interview with that Dallas podcast he said this offseason he's just relaxing, getting healthy. Whisky was mentioned. This was the best way for him, he said. The switch in girlfriends was not really mentioned, but dating a movie star isn't concentrating on touch and accuracy on short passes. Josh didn't used to get out-worked. These days, he is. Again, the difference between Daboll's last year and Dorsey's first was statistically pretty much insignificant. 2.3% and 2.5%. If that were where the problem was, that's where we'd see the effects hit. We don't.