Thurman#1

He's accomplished being a damn good quarterback. He's a top ten guy. They get paid. Yeah, I betting he slots in a bit under Mahomes but above everyone else.

Oh, I really like Simms as well. He's bright, interesting, knowledgeable and a good listen. And you're right that he often mentions and talks about groupthink and that most people make up their minds based on it. Which seems to me to be correct. But he also makes it very clear very often that he makes mistakes, that he knows what he has are opinions and not facts. He often says that sometimes he's wrong, that he's not saying he knows he's right, that this is his opinion but what he can say about it is that it's backed up with a lot of hard work watching these guys and a lot of knowledge about what it takes to be a great QB in the NFL. Though he also often says he's very aware that he was not a really talented QB. But his obsession with studying QB play has made him a well-informed evaluator.

Well, yeah, opinion can never be fact. I got that. But what a given person thinks is a fact and an opinion is not even close to that clear, Bill. I mean, come on. When something is stated as a fact, you really do have to be kind of a mind reader to be sure you understand when the guy is only giving his opinion. Maybe you're terrific at that. Maybe you never misunderstand. If so, more power to you, but I apparently have problems. I thought you were stating the opinion above as a fact. And I can promise you there are plenty more like me out there. Again, that's pretty clearly why Simms, a guy giving draft opinions as you are, does so much of this. He's found that there are an awful lot of people like me out there. Again, it's your communication, so do what you want. But I will also do what I want in my communication. Including pointing out that something you said that was stated as a fact is actually an opinion. That won't be separating you out, either. It's something I'm concerned with and do pretty often here, and really I do it generally. I find this to be a cause of a ton of modern problems. You can't turn on a TV talk show without somebody shouting an opinion as if it's a fact. It's what modern public discourse is becoming and I believe it has a lot of awful consequences.

If teams only drafted sure things in the first round they'd probably have drafted three or four guys there over the last twenty years. Manning, Luck, one or two others. A sure thing is NOT the benchmark you look for at any position in the first round, much less QB, a position where you often have to just swallow and take the best chance you have. This year and last year it has been possible to get guys in FA or trades with a real chance to be really good. Historically that has really been true only very rarely. The teams that get shut out there will maximize their chances to get a franchise QB by grabbing one of the top four or five or six guys in this draft. Those guys will go in the first because without a franchise guy your team will be scrabbling for table scraps in the wins column for years.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/rankings/average/center/ Yes, I agree that he likely either takes a pay cut or gets released. More, I said that I disagreed with two things in your post. First you said he would bring a 3rd or 4th in a trade. That seems very unlikely to me. You seemed to me to be saying that he would be easy to trade, partly because of his salary. Again, I just don't think this is so. If you are actually saying that he'd be easy for the Bills to keep (???), I think the problem is that for them $5 mill is a lot to pay this year if they can find a way to pay less, and that Morse doesn't seem to fit the profile of the new line they seem to be building. When we did a lot of pulling, Morse fit that strategy really well. But last year they pulled much less and went towards a power scheme. Morse doesn't fit that profile well. And as for whether I negated your point ... go back and look at that post again. What exactly was your main point? I don't think that you had any clear main point there, myself, so I addressed the specifics of what you said. EDIT: There are now two people who seem to have responded mostly to your trade thoughts.

Beane hasn't showed that he's one of those GMs who wants to re-structure a lot of guys and kick a lot of cans down the road. He wants to be in decent cap shape every year. I suspect he'll write a deal or two or three this year but won't max out everything he could do with re-structures, as some armchair GMs here would like him to. He wants to be solid next year on the cap too. I love that, personally. They said their goal is to be consistently competitive, and if that's your goal, this is smart.

That's one way to spin it. You can just as easily say that they structured a deal to keep him around the final three years of his contract fairly cheap now that the signing bonus is paid, with the ability to cut him easily if he regresses. Plenty of guys on this roster are in the same situation, easy to cut if they regress. Jerry Hughes, for example. Cole Beasley. Matakevich. John Brown. Poyer. There are a bunch more. Several of them will get cut. Several won't. It's how you want to try to structure guys who are getting older, ideally. If their play drops off, or if things fall right, you let 'em go. Doesn't mean that's what they want, though. If he hadn't opted out, they could have cut him this year, but it wouldn't have helped their cap much. They'd only have saved around $1.4M. After the opt-out that's what they'll save if they cut him before the 2022 season.

That rumor has not been substantiated. That I've seen anyways. If it has, I'd love to update my knowledge of the situation, so if you can link to a reliable source, please do. And we're not screwed on that. We've got Star to play at the very least for this year, which is what they wanted when they signed the contract. And last year showed we needed him. If he (or any player) shows up not ready to play then it's worth worrying about. Till then a guy we wanted to come back is coming back.

Centers at $7M really do grow on trees. Only 12 centers are on contracts for more than $11M average per year, and one of those 12 is Mitch Morse, who averages $11, though. And it's hard to get much for a guy most other teams think you're likely to cut anyway. Especially this year. IMO you're over-estimating his value. Of course if they decide to cut him they'll look to trade him instead. I think we'll see they won't get what you believe.

It's really not that clear. The Pats had been defending him really well as the 2nd half went on. Belichick brought in their heavy package for that play, and in that package they'd been able to handle Marshawn well.

My first reaction was ... no way. But the more I think about it the more I wonder. If and only if he's willing to come quite cheap to protect against another mental breakdown, I can see it. He's the kind of guy they're looking for in terms of playing style, a power guy. From what little I heard he's still playing well. If I'm wrong about that, let me know. But I can imagine it. I'd guess the odds are against it, but who knows. Ah! Well, fair enough then.

Win - loss record is not absolute as far as telling how successful a football team is? I guess I stand corrected. I'm with you in nuance being all around us. I'd argue there are some absolutes too. Absolute zero, for instance. Pi. Granted, these can be disproven with one experiment according to scientific method principles, but they are effectively absolutes. There are more. And while it's not an absolute scientific fact that, for example, Tom Brady is better than JP Losman, it'd be difficult to find anyone who thinks otherwise.

It is indeed absolute. But wins are absolutely NOT a QB stat. They are a team stat. They tell you how well the team played. QB effectiveness can simply not be judged based on whether the field goal kicker misses a 30 yard kick or whether an LB on his team makes a brilliant INT and runs it back for a pick six. That's the kind of thing that has huge impact on wins and losses. And says absolutely nothing about how good your QB is. And as for Marino's playoff losses to the Bills, which one had stats that would make you think he played pretty well? The loss in 1990? 23 for 49, 46.94% completions, 323 yards, 3 TDs, 2 INTs, passer rating of 72.1 The loss in 1992? 22 for 45, 48.89% completions, 268 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs, passer rating of 56.5 Those were the only two times during the Bills Super Bowl years that they played Miami in the playoffs. Yeah, QB stats were quite a bit lower in those days, but even by those standards, neither of those Marino games looks any better in the stats than he actually played. Marino played the Bills in the playoffs two more times. And had one solidly decent statistical game out of all four. The loss in 1995? 33 for 64, 51.56% completions, 422 yards, 2 TDs, 3 INTs, passer rating of 63.4 The win in 1998? 23 for 34, 67.65% completions, 235 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, passer rating of 84.8

I don't think the conventional wisdom was that they "The Bills would probably be a better squad than the '19-'20 Bills, but still finish with a worse record than the 10-6 record the '19-'20 team had." To find the conventional wisdom at that time, you have to switch your "would" for the far more common - at the time - "could". The general idea was that the schedule was much tougher. Most people predicted 9-7 or 10-6. It wasn't by any means the consensus that they wouldn't win 10. 11-6: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nfl/article/afc-east-2020-nfl-preview-year-bills-overtake-patriots/ 9/11 Vegas over/under is 9, he predicts 10-7 (I know, WTH? Maybe a typo.): https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-nfl-ny-state-wire-buffalo-bills-football-572431fcd07f8e04535f34b72e5a5de6 9-7: https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-bills-season-preview-2020 9-7: https://www.si.com/nfl/bills/news/buffalo-bills-season-preview-2020 Skurski 10-6: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/2020-season-outlook-how-will-bills-fare-as-hunted-vs-hunter/article_9b6a90ac-f148-11ea-bd3d-b31d540e8e05.html Gaughan 10-6, Jason Wolf 11-5, Rachel Lenzi 10-6, Milt Northrop 9-7: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/news-sports-writers-project-the-buffalo-bills-record/article_f0d61204-ee24-11ea-a88d-636d6541ace5.html John Murphy 11 or 12 wins, "maybe that's more hope than prediction": https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/john-murphy-views-highly-anticipated-bills-season-as-a-challenge-due-to-covid-19-impact/article_46ceadf0-f03d-11ea-9559-43bcd343b145.html (A Maddy Glab article compiling many predictions) USA Today 10-6, Bleacher Report 10-6, Howard Simon 12-4, Sporting News Vinnie Iyer 11-5, CBS 9-7, Pro Football Network 10-6, Marcel Louis-Jacques 12-4, Touchdown Wire 11-5, Fox Sports' Nick Wright 8-8: https://www.buffalobills.com/news/what-they-re-saying-8-record-predictions-for-buffalo-s-2020-regular-season I got that from cruising the TBD archive and finding every article I could find with a prediction in the last couple of days before the season, then doing a google search as well and putting the first three I could find, and stopping with the Maddy Glab compilation article. We did hear that sentence you used a lot in the offseason, but people weren't saying they would get 9 wins, just that with the much tougher schedule it was possible for the Bills to significantly improve and yet only manage nine wins despite that improvement. If you average these all out they're predicting fractionally above 10 wins.

Seeing you mention Bob Quinn sent me off on a quick fact-finding trip. Wasn't he director of Pro Personnel his last four years there? That's what I can find with only a very quick look, though. I see Caserio was director of Player Personnel from 2008 to 2020, he wouldn't seem to be responsible for things changing abruptly four or five years ago. But yeah, some guys are better assistants than leaders. And some guys need certain kinds of work environments to be at their best, and perhaps that type of environment was not to be found in Detroit - which seems possible with what a tire fire they've been for so long. Or perhaps the scouts in New England were better than the Detroit scouts. A GM without good scouts is not going to look good. Oh, well, it's beyond me. And interesting that in the years they didn't have 1 round picks they didn't do very well with their 2nds. I have always thought Wilson was under-rated, right from his first year there. He indeed covers up lots of problems, always has, to me. If they're even half-smart they'd better find a way to make him happy and keep him.

Yup. She comes from a teaching background and came up with this stuff in experiments on kids. But it was a case of a universal phenomena showing up in one group, kids. I use this on my kid all the time. Dweck advises you to never say stuff like, "You're so smart." Or "you're really good at that." Because then you're complimenting their talent and when they reach a situation where they fail they think, "Oh, I'm doomed, I'm not talented enough. Whereas if you compliment them by saying, "Oh, you worked so hard," or, "Oh, you tried a new way there, didn't you? That's great, you're really trying to think in new ways. That's really good," then if they fail they think, "Well, if I keep working and trying new ways, I'll eventually get it. I constantly remind myself to be doing this with my 5 year-old. Dweck has a good TED talk where she tells about this far better than I can. And all in under 10 minutes.

Part of that - by no means all of it, but part of it - relates to the fact that in those last ten drafts they've only made six first round picks. They have traded them away, and generally done pretty well on the trades. But yeah, they're an interesting example. And yeah, the Pats drafted so well for so many years, and then the wheels fell off lately. I so wonder what happened. Did they lose a draft guy or two, like an assistant GM at that point, or a director of scouting? I haven't kept track closely enough, but it's a remarkable turnaround.

Hadn't seen your original post. Interesting stuff. Both of these fit very well with what I've seen on the field. I'd have guessed a bit further down but not much. Thanks.

Nice! Heh heh. Yeah. I really don't watch the NBA anymore. Haven't consistently in decades, really. Do they have coed dancers? If they do, that's pretty much proof this is fine. Other than a smidge of prurient interest, which won't disappear as long as there are some beautiful women in the group - pretty much a 100% probability - I've never had a lot of interest in NFL cheerleaders. This is just fine. Wildly unimportant, but just fine. Smart for the WFT. They need to repair their atmosphere and this is a good small step. As for the rest of the league, whatever. It's not in any way a problem or worth much comment, IMO. I think I already spent too many words on this.

Not sure about Trai, but Edmunds made his pro bowls by being very good, despite the fact that some here don't seem to realize it. No, he's certainly not elite, but he's among the small group of guys in the AFC who would be considered good enough to get that recognition when he's healthy and in a defense that has guys understanding and doing their jobs. “Are there more plays out there? Probably so, but he makes the Pro Bowl. I think that's legit. I think he's respected by his peers. I think sometimes in your own fan base or your own house, sometimes you can be more critical of your own than seeing how they compare across the league.” - Brandon Beane Yup. https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/bills-offseason-questions-is-it-guaranteed-that-tremaine-edmunds-option-will-be-picked-up/article_71f18538-7d38-11eb-afd2-9be536c83833.html

Yeah, I like him too. May not even leave Cincy, but if he does, I hope they're in on him.

Replacement value stats wouldn't show whether or not RBs are dime a dozen. They would only compare RBs to RBs, not RBs to WRs or other positions. The point about RBs isn't that some aren't a lot better than others. They are. The point is that RB these days is a lower impact position, and that only the very best ala Chubb have much of an effect on the team as a whole. And FireChans, you might want to correct "Vale" to "Value" in your first sentence for those unfamiliar with this stuff.

A hurry absolutely carries the value it always does. A hurry forces a QB to do something he doesn't want to do, whether it is to move from his spot or to throw early, force him into the arms of another player or whatever. Hughes is still getting the job done. Unlikely to be a candidate for a cut. We need more pass rush, not less.

Fair enough that you disagree. You're claiming the freedom to communicate unclearly, and nobody can take that away from you. To communicate clearly and well should - I personally believe - be the goal in any public communication. Message board or not. If someone wants to be understood correctly, he should speak clearly. But some people have other priorities, and that's their prerogative. And no, you don't have to say "I believe" or "in my opinion" before every opinion, to be clear. I pointed out four easy alternatives and there are surely hundreds if not tens of thousands of ways to point out you're expressing an opinion. But if you don't mind being misunderstood easily and often, who am I to challenge your priorities? Hell, I'm just a guy on the internet. On the other hand, I have the right to say something along the lines of "What you have there is an opinion, it is certainly not a fact," if you state an opinion as a fact. I'm not a mind-reader, just a text-reader. Even if your intention is to give your opinion, if I can't understand that from the writing, I'm gonna react to what you wrote, just as I do for everyone. I just do my best to understand the words on the page or the screen, myself. I think that's what most people do, they assume what someone wrote is what they meant. I don't think of myself as bright enough to elicit unexpressed meaning from text. Worth pointing out, though, that Simms spends a great deal of time and care pointing out that what he says is opinion. 01:30 "Zach Wilson is clearly the number one quarterback in the draft for me." 04:00 "To me, he is the clear-cut number one quarterback in this draft. I love Trevor Lawrence, there's a lot I like. But I think Zack Wilson and him, there's a separation there, for my money and what I see and what I've evaluated." He even prefaces the whole thing with a similar statement, "What I'm evaluating here is what I see on the field. Yeah, I hear rumors and all that kind of stuff, OK? But all I can do is see what I see on the field and use my knowledge that way, and that's really what my rankings are all about." That was only the first four minutes. He goes on like that constantly, in pretty much every podcast. Why? I think it's because through long experience he's found out that, people misunderstand him. They hear it as, "I know this, 'cause I'm just that smart." He's been faced with that misunderstanding often enough that he knows if he wants to be correctly understood he's got to say this.

The oldest pitch in the world. "We have more money than just about anyone else."