Thurman#1

I appreciate yours as well. Your post with examples of wins with low pass ratings was a great example of a really interesting post. By the way, I have great memories of NC. A buddy of mine was going to Duke Med School when I was working in DC quite a while ago, and I used to go down often. A really nice place. I still remember going out for a midnight run one completely deserted night in downtown Durham around 2:00 a.m. A cop was sitting next to the road waiting for speeders and he opened the window and waved me over. I got a bit nervous, but he says, "Hey, you're going at a pretty good pace. I used the gun on you and you clocked nine miles an hour." And he showed me the speed gun, with "09" on it. Cracked me up. It just seemed the people were so nice there.

You want to argue that Allen "was actually a significantly better " passer than Allen in the first Pats game? That's not an "actual" thing. In fact, it's an opinion that just doesn't make much sense. Mac in that game was asked by his coach to throw only three passes. He completed two of them. The other was perfectly on target but Dane Jackson raked it out the WR's hands. There is no particular reason to think that Allen proved himself "significantly better" in that first Pats game than Jones did. Allen did pretty decently under the conditions to come out at 15/30 with a TD. But he simply wasn't very efficient overall. Mac did quite well in that game in terms of what he was asked by his coach to do in the passing game. In their careers, of course, Allen's a ton better than Mac has shown himself to be. But in that game, Mac did just fine. As for your comparison of Allen's one game with Peterman's one game, that doesn't work. You ask if Allen's and Peterman's games were of similar quality and the answer is absolutely yes. They were both really bad games. Lowest one or two percent. Passer rating shows that just fine. People remember that Peterman had five INTs, as they should, but they forget that one hit DiMarco right in the hands and he tapped it up into the air like a volleyball player setting someone up for a spike. And that one of the other INTs was the result of him being hit as he threw. Both were really bad games. "Better passer for most of the game?" That's your argument? Sure, you take out the bad passes out and he passed pretty well, but when you're assessing a game you don't ignore part of it, the good part or the bad part. And yeah, I replied to you. Thing is, I actually read your post before replying. I have grave doubts that you had read mine at the time when you replied to me. Again, I said that "small differences in passer rating, say the difference between an 85 and a 95, are not significant." Responding to that, you said, "In the Bills' first game with the Pats*, Mac & Cheese had an 84.0 passer rating. Josh had a passer rating of 75.0. So, we should assume that Mac & Cheese was the better QB that day? He threw the ball a grand total of three times for 19 yards, and zero TDs. That 84.0 is a pretty silly number without context." The context was that I'd said that small differences weren't significant and gave an example of a 10% difference as an example. You then gave an example of a 9% difference. You either didn't read it or totally missed the point. You're clearly a bright guy, so I honestly didn't think you had missed the point. In your defense, your latest post, this one, does address the original point. The original reply gives an example gives zero evidence of having done so. Game-size samples of passer rating are easily compared. Reasonable to say that the smaller sample size means the game numbers are less precise than season numbers which tend to have much larger sample size. But less subtle differences such as the difference between a dreadful game, a mediocre game, a good game and a terrific game are easily pointed out by passer rating just as they are by observation.

Fair enough. I said above I thought it was 90:10 a play to Beasley and that one reason was that Diggs was so well-covered. Allen says he wanted to give Diggs a chance. So now, knowing that he was going to Diggs, I think it was a really bad choice to throw that one. It's a shame. Thanks for the correction. You're obviously right, and I was clearly wrong.

It's not that simple, IMO. We have to do a lot well in the playoffs. Would we win a game if we never saw the red zone? Wouldn't have a single red zone failure. But yeah, it's been a problem. Not in every game, though. In Jax we only had one red zone failure. The 12 penalties for 118 yards was as much to blame for our failure that day., and the 2 INTs the fumble we lost.

Agreed. Extra bucks in exchange for extra chances of injury and extra wear and tear on the players. No thanks, but the ship has sailed.

Yeah, five games for Star. Well, ten actually, but who's counting? Not everyone. Star had been having a really good season early. Covid and whatever is happening now have raised major questions, about availability and health moving forward. Hard to say whether Covid affected him or what's going on. But yeah, Oliver's been our best, definitely.

Phillip, who appears to finally have recovered from his injury problems, is absolutely a solid 1T. Above average the past month, month and a half. Star might be here next year, but might not. If he's not, yeah, they could easily draft a guy. Assuming he'd be mostly a two-down guy, you could get a good one later. Ed's been improving consistently all year and really since we got him. He's really good. Chances of picking up his 5th year option at this point - short of horrendous injury or something - approaches 100%.

It makes total sense. Teams have plenty of chances to evaluate player game smarts. Plenty. Interviews give you a much better individualized view anyway.

He's going into the 5th year option year, where he'll get about $11M. Maybe he's worth it, but that would be hard for the Bills to fit. They could sure use him. I'm a bit worried about his mental health issues. Are they real? Are they temporary? Whatever he's going through, they'd need a real degree of certainty to make a move like this in a year when they've got limited resources. I doubt it, but it would be interesting.

If it's seriously windy, I take Allen over any other QB out there. Maybe Mahomes also, I guess.

I know. Nothing but crap players on this defense that is #1 by a large margin in terms of yards allowed, #2 in terms of points allowed, and #3 in defensive DVOA, which is adjusted for quality of opponents. They really just need to blow up this defense because the players suck so bad. It's a shame indeed that apologists, who could also be called people who talk sense to wackazoids, are needed. But the bottom line is that for whatever reason a group of total nutballs have latched onto Edmunds as their whipping boy. It makes no sense, but that's the reason that sensible opinions are needed. He's a very good player. Not elite, but very good. The Bills love him. It's why they took up his 5th year option. It's why he's captain. But yeah, this group of frothing fans aren't worried about making sense. These fans are looking for a guy with a specific style, which Edmunds does not have.

Allen had 3 INTs. Baker had two, and the one on the final drive was completely on the receiver. Allen put the ball in jeopardy more than Mayfield did. They both had bad passing games. I'd argue Baker's game was less bad, and he was under a ton more pressure than Allen was. You can guess that Allen might have had half as many sacks. But it's a guess. Yes, passer rating doesn't look at runs. That's a strength just as much as a weakness. You're right, I think, that no stats holistically capture the true level of play. Nothing does, really. It's impossible to separate the situation, the opponent, the pressure, and everything else. Nothing can, including viewer perceptions. Perceptions have large subjective components, which is why you get people arguing that this year Josh is better than he was last year, which appears nuts to most viewers. It's too complex a system. Stats do a very good job, but certainly not perfect. Isolating any one factor in the wildly complex game of football is very difficult.

Yeah. And there's a pretty good chance someone will pay big money for him. We won't have much under the cap, and what we have will need to be used at probably IOL, DL and maybe TE and WR.

... and nearly everyone else as well.

You're very welcome on the explanation. This is the situation as Allen let the ball go. Nobody was closer to the line than Beasley, nor were they going to be. This photo comes at the instant Allen let the ball go. I wanted to include the whole photo, but using Snipping Tool to import the photo, I kept getting messages saying the download was too big until I reduced the size of the window and also left out a lot of the rest of the photo. Beasley's open. Diggs on the left is making little pitty pitty steps trying to change direction and get going fast without slipping, having just slipped once on this play already. He's really well-covered, and the defender is moving right at about the same speed. Just spent another seven minutes cutting the damn photo smaller and smaller trying to make the KB limit. Take a look and tell me if you think the guy who blocked it could have come within two feet of it if Allen had been throwing to the back of the end zone. If he really wanted to hit Diggs at the angle he'd thrown at, he'd have to loft it to give him time, and the guy who deflected it couldn't have come close. Allen was throwing into a 3 on 5 situation there, and he only had Beasley open for an instant as 45 ran towards the play with Moss. 'Nuff said on that, I think. As for the rest, passer rating rates the passing performance. It doesn't relate to running performance. And I would argue that if you only had film from the Bills-Falcons game and were only rating passing performance, your talent evaluator would have major questions he would want answered before he would say that he wanted that guy as his QB. Even if he looked at both the running and passing games, he'd probably say, "Well, good game, but is a guy in his fourth year in the league who passes like that going to have a sustainable career, even if he does run that well?" Needless to say, Allen is a terrific QB. I'm not nutty enough to argue otherwise. But I don't think his passing performance in this game was good, and I would further argue that the Bills running 33 plays the rest of the game (though really only 30, since the last three were kneeldowns), and out of those 30 throwing only 5 passes makes it pretty clear that they also were aware that Allen was anything but sharp in the passing game. Their ratio before that third pick was wildly different, 21 passes to 16 rushes. After the third pick, 25 (plus three kneeldowns) runs and 5 passes, even though we were behind by a point when we changed that strategy.

I certainly understand why you aren't going to play that game. You wouldn't find games with passer ratings that awful that are good passing performances. And no, I didn't expect you to scan stat lines. You'd be looking for a chimera. I expected you to concede the point. When a guy has a passer rating that awful, you won't find good passing games. Which is exactly my point. As for your point about Mac and Josh having ratings of 84.0 and 75.0 ... did you actually read my post? Apparently not. You might want to try that before you answer a post next time. I specifically said, "small differences in passer rating, say the difference between an 85 and a 95, are not signficant" in one game samples. Your pointing out a difference of 9 points when I specifically gave an example of 10 points not being significant shows you either didn't read it or totally missed the point. I went on to say that vast differences like the one between Allen's 17 and Ryan's 84.0 are massively significant even in one game samples. When you talk about running, you are again missing the point. Passer rating has zero running component. It looks only at the passing game. That's why it is called passer rating rather than quarterback rating. Agreed that Allen ran far better than Ryan. His passing, though, was much much less effective. Ryan had zero INTs and Allen had three. The Bills played a lot better, but there's a reason that the Bills essentially stopped passing after the 3rd INT. Allen was having a bad passing game.

Nice post. Thoughtful. Hadn't really considered the scheme change in that way.

I've only watched the first one on the All-22. Should have been thrown away or thrown better. Probably away. The second one - without careful watching - appears to have been unavoidable. The third - again without seeing the All-22 - should have been thrown differently, perhaps to a check down. He had to know he was being spied, and that the guy was in perfect position to make that play. Yes, the leap was just perfect, but NFL players are capable of making beautiful athletic plays in situations like that. He was only 4 - 5 yards in front of Josh, he was in just the right position.

Tipped doesn't mean the QB is free of blame.

I haven't seen Allen say anything about it. But I'd put it at 90:10 that he's throwing to Beasley, for several reasons. Diggs was a good 15 yards from the corner of the end zone and having just stopped and run backwards to get behind the CB covering him, he hadn't gotten anywhere near speed yet. Diggs fell down about halfway across the "S" in Bills, gets up, takes a step or two inwards, turns around, goes towards the back of the end zone and starts to turn towards the outside. But when Allen throws, Diggs is still about halfway across the "S," still getting started. When the ball got there he was going to still be about 12 yards away from the sideline, significantly further to the inside than Beasley would have been. More, Diggs was much further away. If it had been to him, Allen would have had to throw it well over the guy who tipped it. Beasley, closer and smaller, had to have the ball thrown lower, which is why it got tipped. Most of all, Diggs was really well-covered. The guy was in front of him and Diggs was against the back line and didn't have even half a step on him. If he did throw to Diggs, it was a horrible decision. Ignored? Not at all. Far from it. Agreed that since a game is a smaller sample size that small differences in passer rating, say the difference between an 85 and a 95, are not signficant. But big differences? Totally valid in a one-game sample size. Don't believe me? Find me one game where any NFL QB had passer rating within say 30 points of 17 - Allen's rating for the game - and can be said to have had a good game. Huge differences, like the difference between 17.0 (Josh's rating) and 84.9 (Ryan's rating for this game), are very persuasive and convincing indeed as to a major differfence in quality of play.

It sounded strange to me, but I wasn't sure myself. Went back to check it. And if I had a nickel for every time I needed to correct myself here... See you on the boards.

Cutting Feliciano, Star, Beasley and Klein wouldn't save us that much at all. (And IMO we're not cutting Klein.) Leaving Klein out, we'd save around $10M - $11M. And then you have to replace them with other players, which will cost money. Extending Edmunds and Diggs could save some more, but Beane has made it clear that while he'll kick a few cans down the road, he's not going to kick all of them. Then you have to throw in the dead money that will come from Sanders (unless you keep him and pay him more), the cost of replacing or re-signing Hughes, Levi Wallace, Obada, Harrison Phillips, Breida, Ryan Bates, McKenzie, Siran Neal, etc. They absolutely can NOT "do whatever they want." They'll get through, and they won't need to leave massive holes or anything. But they are going to be significantly limited.

Scott, why did you leave out the last two third down attempts? The two from late in the 4th quarter? 11) 3rd & 1 at BUF 35 (3:21 - 4th) J.Allen up the middle to BUF 37 for 2 yards (G.Jarrett). BUF-R.Bates was injured during the play. 12) 3rd & 12 at BUF 46 (0:39 - 4th) J.Allen kneels to BUF 45 for -1 yards. There were 12 third down attempts. There were two fourth down attempts, one of which was converted and one of which was a no play. Neither of those affected the number of third down attempts. There were 12. You can see all 12 of them, plus the 2 4th down attempts, in my post on Page 2 of this thread. Twelve 3rd down attempts. And that's how many were listed in the official stats for the game, 7 for 12. https://www.espn.com/nfl/matchup?gameId=401326569

Yeah, "all great offenses"? No. The Bills are a great passing offense, for one thing. First, as Bill said, we've got a guy who can do that in Davis. And another in Knox. Diggs is really good at high-pointing as well. And yes, a guy who can separate vertically is not a bad thing to have. But having instead guys who can separate horizontally by getting separation is every bit as good. And we have those guys. All great offenses have at least one guy who can go up for it? The Chiefs have been probably the single most dangerous team through the air over the last few years. Their WRs aren't especially taller than ours. Height sure isn't a bad thing, but it's not a necessity. There are other ways to create space for your QB than vertically.

It should be left out. It's essentially pure luck. How many fumbles you drop can be said to be on you. How many are recovered by which guys in which jerseys is basically pure luck. He had nine fumbles last year and eight this year. Pretty much exactly the same. The fact that he was a bit luckier this year about who picked them up doesn't say much about his performance. Either way.