Thurman#1

In the article it said if two minorities from your team get those promotions, you get three 3rds. Nothing said beyond that.

No it isn't. What the Bills did there was an amazing achievement. It was absolutely not "relatively meaningless." Those were four great years and a great period in franchise history. Yeah, clearly it could have been better, but what they accomplished was still fantastic. And clearly the SB losses didn't have anything to do with whether or not they had rested players in the last week of the regular season. They came into the playoffs all four years ferocious and ready. If only they'd had a Ted Washington type at NT, they'd have racked up an SB win or two.

Your first sentence is dead on. You can't assume the Steelers will lose even while not playing their best. Same with us, though. And the importance of being as healthy and rested as possible for the whole playoffs trumps home field for what will almost certainly be one extra game ... assuming we even win the first playoff game. The focus should be on winning all of them, not worrying where game two will be played. Particularly as we already beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh.

Sure home field matters. But much less than going into the playoffs with few key injuries and not banged up. Sit 'em.

OK. Personally, my bet on the odds of going TE in the 1st or 2nd round next year, when we seem very unlikely to be able to fill many holes in FA due to our bad cap situation ... roughly 5%. And I have the urge now that I've typed that to lower it. Disclaimer: I'm not Beane, obviously. But that's my guess. While I agree with your overall sentiment here, there are definitely a bunch who fit in between elite and mediocre and are somewhere in the good to very good range. Who would the elite guys be? Kelce and Kittle, certainly. Waller, maybe? Those three? Guys like Gesicki, Hockenson, Fant, Hunter Henry, Hurst, Goedert, Engram, Hooper, the aging Gronk and probably a few more ... they aren't mediocre. But your point stands, I think. How would a GM feel having spent a 1st rounder and gotten a guy like most of these in my second group? IMO there are two or three who you might be pretty happy with, especially if your pick was in the 20s or 30s. Not more, though. How about the 2nd round? Would all of these guys look like good picks in the 2nd? Several more, probably, but I personally wouldn't trade a 2nd for many of them, even if they were coming in on rookie contracts that lasted four more years. On a team that's going to have a few holes and three guys already on the roster that they would love to re-sign but might well not be able to get all three with the cap the way it is, I don't see them picking a TE early. Maybe another shot at a guy like Knox himself, in the mid-rounds? Yeah, I could definitely see that. We'll see.

Yup. That's what you said. But don't feel bad. People say stupid things all the time. It's a human thing.

Good guess.

IMO it's less that they're fine coming here and more that they figure they'd rather come here with a healthy and relatively rested team than play anywhere with an exhausted team that has possibly suffered a crucial injury or two. Playing everyone this game simply doesn't offer a good risk/reward ratio. Same for us, IMO.

Rest 'em. Maybe a series or two, but basically, rest 'em. As for rhythm, were they out of rhythm after the bye?

Yup. Saw this earlier elsewhere. I love that the Pats reporters noticed this. The Bills just had no fear. Agree with TH3 above that it probably wasn't called, just a reaction play, but it still applies. No fear. We constantly hear that McDermott always plays conservative, that he won't take risks. This shows it. When it's smart, he'll take risks. And Lorax tweeted they've been practicing that play all of last year, waiting. Love it.

I can't answer for him, but I think the main thing they use for MVP is how well a guy plays compared to other candidates that same year. Just the stats: Mahomes 66.3% completions, 4740 yards, 38 TDs to 6 INTs and 108.2 passer rating Rodgers 70.3% completions, 4059 yards, 44 DTs to 5 INTs and 119.4 passer rating. Again, Allen's playing at an elite level right now, but this year has produced a lot of insane offensive statistics. It's not fair to compare this year's stats with other years without accounting for that.

I think you're seriously misusing the word "every" in your headline. This isn't "every QB MVP stat for the lst 10 years." Not even close. It's some stats, the stats that make up passer rating and a few running stats thrown in. As for comparisons, they aren't really fair. QB stats and offensive stats generally are way up this year what with nobody in the stands and defenses not having the offseason to prepare. Still, a hell of a year for Josh. Rodgers' stats are clearly better, though, and probably Mahomes too. But again, an absolutely terrific year for Josh. Oh, and what does this question mean? "Compare and tell me what years Josh is better this year compared to that year?" Hunh?

Sucked. Past tense. Chances are he still does, but guys change, develop, regress ...

We absolutely stick with him. Why wouldn't you, unless three or four guys beat him out, and that won't happen next year. Beyond that, do we address the position if the draft leaves us a good option? Yeah, sure, maybe. If the BPA is TE, OK. I doubt it'll be top three rounds, though. Too many other more pressing needs.

You say the excuses will run rampant. That's one guess. It could certainly happen that way. Let's worry about such insignificant things when they happen. Or perhaps never. I'm not even sure what your point is. Your third paragraph is more or less unintelligible. I guess what I'd mainly say is, "Um, what?"

Yup, agreed. I still worry a bit about being run on, but the way we're scoring nobody can run much past about halfway through the 2nd quarter. They've pulled it together brilliantly and it reflects extremely well on Frazier.

No reason to care. And if Allen started and only threw a handful of passes, was taken out and we lost, Allen wouldn't be credited with the loss. Losses are team stats, always. That's why the real name of that stat is NOT "QB wins," or anything like it. The real name of that stat is, "TEAM record in games started by this QB (regular season)," my capital and bolds. Tua is a baby compared to RJ, much less Flutie. Johnson had three years on the bench in Jax, including only 35 passes thrown, before he even got here. Tua is a child. He doesn't fit either guy in that comparison. Maybe he will in a year or two.

Gee, what a surprise, you haven't found a link yet, hunh? And then you disappear? What a shock. Thing is, if there isn't a link, how come you posted with such confidence that Mayock loved JaMarcus and then doubled down, saying Mayock's (correct) summary of his position was revisionist history? Still waiting. If you find some links saying that he loved JaMarcus (not his arm or his pro day, but the whole package) I'll be here.

Now, this makes some sense, but honestly, I don't think winning MVP is going to cost all that much more than being in the top five of the MVP discussion two or three years in a row. But I hear you.

Right, if he can't play, he can't play. Thing is, he can. And does. The Pro Bowl only authenticates the obvious. Yes, he wasn't very good earlier this season when he was injured and the whole defense wasn't working together. But he's obviously a great deal better now, as he was last year. People want to see a skull-crusher at MLB, but that's not his game, nor is it what McDermott's main requirement of whoever plays that position in his defense. And yeah, people say that Edmunds is young a lot. They also say look both ways before you cross and others, wear a mask for instance. A lot of times when people say stuff a lot, it's because it makes total and complete sense.

Didn't make much sense before, and even less now. They're both fine players, we need 'em both. It might be economically impossible to keep Milano. I'm sure they will try like hell to bring him back, but they might not manage. When they have to bring Edmunds back there'll be much more money available. Shouldn't be as hard.

I corrected you myself, then when I saw my post was on page four I immediately deleted it without even checking ... figured somebody must have said something by now. Your original post is on page 1, the spot where all the people new to the thread are deposited. Might want to put in an "EDIT: I see I was wrong about that. Oops." or something like that in the post. Or not. Whatever.

Andy Reid, among others, does fine with it. It happens. I'd rather see Daboll here, obviously, and I'm not convinced yet that he'll be a great head coach. No way to know, really, he'll certainly have a lot to prove, but it could work.

Yeah, if you don't have your computer plugged in, I can see there might be problems. But for computers with sense it computes just fine. If you're saying you don't understand my point, OK. I'll try to explain further. What would someone with sense say if you said that the team having the DPOY had won the Super Bowl only ten times over the years? He'd say, yeah, that sounds about right, for two things with no direct connection, in a 32 team league, you'd say it was well within what chance would say would happen. You'd guess that generally both the Super Bowl winner and the team with the DPOY year are likely to be pretty good. 20%? Fairly common. Not particularly worthy of notice. Having the DPOY, the OPOY, or the MVP on your team would have zero effect on your odds of winning or losing the SB, beyond meaning your team is probably pretty good.

Yes. For cross-matching two stats, each of which allows only one team out of 32, it's common. You're correlating two stats, one of which is an individual achievement and one a team achievement. A match is essentially a lot of luck. Nearly always, an MVP candidate will be on a playoff team. But winning a bunch of games in the playoffs needs luck and a lot more components than the play of one guy.