Thurman#1

Some catches were easy. Some weren't. He's made some very nice catches while here, as this shows: The Bills also love that he's a terrific pass blocker. I'd like to see Cooke too. All of them, really, but the OL has not been providing opportunities so far this year.

You asked a question. I answered it, as did several others here. And then you revealed your unwillingness to listen to answers. This is a hate thread whose title should be something more like, "Wah, wah, I don't like Zach Moss." Fine, whatever. You want to explain away the facts that don't fit your position. Again, whatever. You won't understand the world as well as people who try to look at all the available information, but that's your privilege.

People who ignore information are genuinely stupid. Particularly when that information that has a very real effect on the question you're looking at. Injuries do. And you have to ignore reality to say that Moss has regressed every year. A guy who is running at a 6.0 YPC pace right now behind an OL that is not blocking the run well is not suffering from regression. You're acting as if your opinion is a fact here. And it's not even a particularly good opinion in this case. He does offer something Singletary doesn't. Power in short yardage situations. The fact you don't see it says more about you than about Moss. You don't like him? Fine, whatever. We all like and dislike different players for different reasons. But that doesn't mean ignoring a lot of things about him makes any sense.

Singletary is a very good back. Not elite, or close. But very solid. The guy has put up 4.7 YPC despite running behind OLs with issues for a lot of his time here. When the OL came around late last year Singletary was able to show himself as the very good back that he is. And you're right about the OL. This is a new scheme and the OL had very little time to gel this preseason with injuries. Joe B. took a look at yards before contact for Bills RBs this year and found they're getting hit very very early. The OL is having problems. Hopefully things will get better as the year proceeds.

He was injured last year. And if you take away the best 10% or so of their runs, nearly every RB will have much worse stats. You don't take away his best run. You look at what he's done. All of it. And the Peterman comparison is genuinely stupid. Moss has already had one good year and now a start of another one.

It's called ignorance that as a coach you have extra information and you use it? Um, no. It's called ignorance if you don't have that information and think you know more than the people who do have it. He's more of a hammer and a short yardage back than Singletary. And three turnovers over three years isn't statistically significant with his volume. They think you're wrong. So do I. And it doesn't really make sense that he hasn't added any contributions. He managed 4.3 YPC as a rookie. That shows a guy who can contribute. So does 78 yards in 13 attempts this year.

By doing well in year one, fighting through an injury last year and by winning the coaches' confidence. The long run yesterday can't have hurt. And the blame yesterday should be spread around. The coaches get their share but most was on flukes, horrendous weather and injuries. The players get some but that happens in situations that abnormal and unhealthy. The coaches get a bit but their share yesterday was not that large.

You're kidding, right? They did prepare, but there just isn't much you can do. Two separate readings of 120 and 123 were recorded on the field that I've seen, 123 on the broadcast and 120 from Dan on BillsPlus. And we were wearing blue and the bench was in the sun.

Yup. Three new OLs including Doyle at guard, where he had never played a snap.

It was just turning from 0:10 to 0:09 when he went down. He got his knee off the ground at 0:08. He ran towards the middle of the field and at 0:05, he threw it to the ref. At 0:04, the ref had it, but he was about halfway between the numbers and the hashes., and the Bills were still moving and couldn't know where to line up since the ball was still in the ref's hand. He moved quickly through a group of players and put it down at 0:01. Just not enough time. Sometimes 0:09 is enough, but McKenzie was way over by the sidelines and had a crowd to get through. Yeah, that was a killer.

Saw on Buffalo Plus that thermometers on the field were reading 120. That's insane!! But yeah, players gotta execute. This was a team loss. Plenty of blame to go around and a bunch of very weird bounces and such besides.

The measurable objective criteria you're most likely referring to are often either small potatoes, mostly old info. Am I wrong? Here's measurable objective criteria, his teams win more than they lose. They've gotten better. And not by a little. And you're right I'm focused on the big picture. That's where everyone should focus, IMO. I wouldn't mind if they got someone in to take over challenges. But that's the old info. He started out doing pretty badly in challenges and he's been fine the last year or two. Um, yeah. And sometimes factoring in the excuses is what gives you the right viewpoint. The Bills shouldn't be saying this, it's not the productive way for the people in the action to look at things. But we're not players, we can look at things realistically. And the injuries and in particular the heat problems had a massive impact on this game, the way the wind did in the first Pats game last year.

Um, yeah, fair enough. Just in your OP you called a bunch of things indefensible that are very defensible, and dug deep into scapegoat territory by blaming McDermott for several things that he's not particularly to blame for. He's far from perfect, as I'm sure he'd tell you. Needs to keep improving as I'm sure he'd agree. But he's one of the best coaches in the league.

The thinking. Knee-jerk, lazy, find the scapegoat and blame him as loud as you can thinking.

Says the man on a day when Belichick used a timeout at 10:00 in the 2nd corner for no tactical reason. Plenty of times TOs are used for great reasons that fans aren't privy to. Sometimes not. Spending a timeout can cause problems down the road. Or not. Plenty of times the problem at hand is as bad or worse than what will come up down the road. McDermott's fine about TOs. Not a big problem of his.

That is correct, which is unusual for someone who started such a lazy and ridiculous thread. McDermott being good is what makes McDermott being good. It's more complex than that, of course, and I expressed it as it's own logical fallacy. But the point is true. The reason people say in overwhelming numbers that McDermott is good is that he does good things for the team, things good coaches do. In far larger numbers than the bad things he does. No coach is perfect. McDermott is one of the best in the league. I haven't been here after the game till just now, so many people have already probably said this and things like it. But down the road this game will almost surely be seen as this year's version of the first Pats game last year when the conditions had a far out-sized effect on the game and made it a bizarre outlier.

This is a dumb thread. Coaching wasn't the problem.

Neither was the slightest bit of a problem. The problems happened on the field with the heat and the cramping, the injuries and the missed opportunities. Dorsey was in the coaches box, probably feeling the cameras would be elsewhere. Who cares?

Nonsense that this was "completely ignored." We drafted Jaquan Johnson in the 6th. And Damar Hamlin in the 6th I mean, maybe we could have thrown a bit more into it. I mean, they could have drafted a 5th rounder instead of a 6th. A 5th rounder like Micah Hyde, maybe. Or a 7th rounder like Poyer. You don't like these new guys. Fair enough. But they didn't ignore the position. They just appear to have a very different view than you do about how good the backups are. We'll see who's right as the youngsters start to get some experience.

What are you talking about? He didn't mention a thing about who would replace him. Yes, of course he said it "will hit [the Bills] a bit harder than most." Because he's one of our best and most important players not to mention best leaders and most liked, this will indeed be tough on them. Where in the world is the big problem with that? Not to mention that as was noted, this is an injury with an uncertain recovery like the one that forced Aaron Williams into very early retirement.

Massive is really overstating it. The 40 times are quite different. But a lot of their other numbers are not that different. Micah Broad jump 10'01" Jaquan Broad jump 10'01" Micah Vertical Jump 33 3/8 Jaquan Vertical Jump 33 3/4 Micah 40 yard dash 10 yard split 1.65 (ET) and 1.59 (HH) Jaquan 40 yard dash 10 yard split 1.63 (ET) and 1.57 (HH) Micah 40 yard dash 20 yard split 2.70 (ET) and 2.55 (HH) Jaquan 40 yard dash 20 yard split 2.69 (ET) and 2.59 (HH) Micah 20 yard shuttle 4.20 Jaquan 20 yard shuttle 4.18 Micah 225 Bench Press Reps: 12 Jaquan 225 Bench Press Reps: 18 Micah 3-cone 6.78 Combine and 6.67 Pro day Jaquan 3-cone 7.20 Pro day https://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php?PlayerId=1003103&DraftYear=2019 https://draftscout.com/dsprofile.php?PlayerId=94008&DraftYear=2013 Again, "massive" is really an overstatement.

Because he's one of their better players. Because it's a season ender. Because he's arguably one of the most important ... say seven players on this team. Why wouldn't it hit hard?

Less like asking your dog to sing. More like putting your dog onto a giant checkerboard where 55% of the squares say YES and 45% say NO and waiting for him to poo about 70 times and asking the owner whether he'd like to bet his kid's college scholarship money on only two or three of those events and you can't predict in advance which one of those events he'll be betting on, the first, the twenty-third or the 67th. It's too opaque. Sounds very good at first, but unless you know which ones of those events will be important and which won't, you'd like to make sure that you don't take the riskier choice. A wildly obvious example: your team scores on the last play of the game to tie. Are you going to go for two, knowing that taking that choice every time over the course of the season will be extremely likely to raise the number of total points you'll score over the course of the season? Or would you go for two with no time left and down by one? Again, doing this every time over the course of the season means you're virtually guaranteed to raise the number of overall points you'll score. It depends on the circumstances each individual time, and at the beginning of games you haven't a clue which points you might miss might be wildly unimportant or completely irrelevant to your win percentage.

The problem is that assuming that you manage over 50% of them, you've maximized expected points over the season. But NOT worked towards maximizing wins within the same period. The problem with this is that by going for two consistently and racking up three or four, hell, say eight extra points per season you may (or may not) lose a game or two as a result. In exchange for the overall extra points, you give up on the extremely predictable nature of those points. Say we played last season over again with the exact same results, except that we went for two and got five extra points, how many extra wins would that have brought us? The correct answer is that there's no way of knowing. Say we got one extra point in eight games, none of which were anywhere near close. We got eight extra points and zero extra wins. Then we get two fewer points in one game, scoring four TDs, going one out of four in two point conversions and losing the game 28 - 27? We got six extra points on the season and lost an extra game as a result. Extra points over the course of a season don't mean much. What matters is extra or fewer points in close games. You don't know in which games those points will be absolutely crucial.

And as Joe B pointed out this week, it was a lot more the fault of the line than the RBs when we have had running problems this year. Not surprising, really, considering how little time they had working together this offseason and camp. Lots of injuries and problems and they had very little continuity. If it the line starts to gel this year, it is likely to take some time.