Thurman#1

It matters. Teams using different tactics will be affected differently by any change, this one included. Some teams will be less affected, some more. They'll all have to adjust but some will be more able to do so. Any change will give some teams an advantage.

Yes. And he also got his injury insurance earlier.

As usual, they're spinning the figures with extensions. Real money will be somewhere around 7 years $104 mill, which comes out to around $14.8M/ year. Tre if I remember got somewhere around $13.5M ...? But will receive a new contract a year earlier.

Hmm. Their facility is closed till further notice. Not sure how much of an advantage this will be. A bit of one, certainly. Not sure it'll be a major factor, though.

If and only if the defense starts playing much better than it has the past couple of games. Which could easily happen. But is certainly not a sure thing. And it's worth understanding that while Allen has taken a huge leap, part of the reason this offense is doing so very well is that it's functioning totally differently from how it did in the past. And due to no preseason, teams had even less tape than they usually do on units that have made major changes. As teams see more tape, they will better be able to attack our tendencies and weaknesses. Expect them to catch up some. It's not a mistake that QBs are doing historically well early this season, IMO. The lack of a preseason helped. Should be a very interesting year.

Yeah, reaches out with his right hand and Woods kind of runs right through it. Which shoulder was injured again? Oh, yeah, the right one. Gosh, hard to figure what happened there. Yeah, you certainly have.

Refusing to overpay for the other one was the only smart decision. He was certainly not especially effective against the run.

Filling a gap that nobody else was filling. That's nice play design by McVay, and Taron Johnson running into Epenesa and falling down. Not a good look for that whole side, really, but absolutely can't be blamed only on Edmunds, though with the shoulder he couldn't get off the block well at all. McD keeps saying this is about run fits. From this film, he's dead right, though the play was designed to be confusing and to mess up run fits and was successful.

He ... is ... injured. He was obviously favoring his shoulder later in the game. And yet he was not the worst on the field, nor terrible. Certainly not as good as he generally is, but as usual, using hyperbole just makes someone look unreasonable. Both your posts about him because of their exaggerated nature, just look kind of twisted.

Nonsense. Does he occasionally hit the wrong gap, particularly early in a year when there was little offseason work? Yeah. But he's been very very good as he develops through the years... when not injured. Joe points it out and it's there to be seen anyway. The injury obviously had an effect in that game, as anyone would expect. He'll be fine as he recovers physically and the defense plays together.

Do yourself a favor and go look at the snap counts. They're at footballoutsiders.com So, which Seattle defensive linemen last year had the most snaps? Throw in STs snaps and that would be Quinton Jefferson. OK, but take out STs snaps and count only DL reps? Clowney, with 624. Who was #2? Yup, that would be Quinton Jefferson with 602. So Clowney played 57% while Jefferson played 55%. More, Pro Football Reference says he started 12 of the 14 games he played last year with Seattle. I wouldn't call that not being able to "crack the starting lineup". I personally always had doubts about how he'd do as a 1-tech, but as a 3 and especially as a DE, I think he's going to be quite good here.

They didn't miss anything. And I think you're mis-stating what was said about him. That he had a good chance of being the next Locker or Boller? Fair enough. That his ceiling was Mallett? Please. Maybe a guy here or there blew it this badly but the consensus knew that his ceiling was very very high indeed, but questioned the likelihood of reaching that ceiling. He was generally considered a first-rounder even though he was also thought to require two years of development, though some said even more. Guys who need development are less valued, and for good reason. Teams would rather have a guy who will be ready quicker, and it is correctly understood development is hard. Relatively fewer developmental guys become good than guys who require less development. And more, a developmental guy is far more dependent on having an excellent environment. The situation has to be excellent. Allen on the Jets might well have not succeeded. More, there's another problem with development guys, which is that even in good circumstances, plenty of them can't develop. Changing mechanics is hard. Some guys prove unable to make those changes. And there's no way to accurately predict which guys can change and which can't. They actually nailed the Josh Allen evaluation. They said he was a hard worker and a great kid, and they were right. Without that and the terrific environment the Bills provided, he wouldn't have become what he has. There were an awful lot even a fair amount of Cam Newton comps, which appear to have been exactly what this group saw.

Stats do indeed describe the past, not the future. So does the eye test. So does every possible form of intelligent looking at data and projection. Predictions, forecasting, foretelling, prognostications and intelligent guesswork ... all of them share the problem that they can't look into the future and see what will happen before they predict it. So yeah, stats have the problem that they can only look at the past ... but they share that with every known form of data gathering. It's not a problem of stats, so much as a problem with the physics that prevent us from managing to travel in time. You can guess about the future. That's actually all you can do about the future. You can make your guesswork as intelligent as possible, and that will absolutely mean looking at the past, including stats, trends, etc. DVOA has proven itself as a good way of predicting. There is no perfect way of predicting and DVOA doesn't pretend to be one. And as Hapless pointed out, DVOA doesn't work as well early in the season (nor does any method of predicting, by the way), but it still has some predictive value from looking at preseason DVOA, which includes the last few games of the previous year, as they do. Put more specifically, it's their other stat, DAVE, which they use early in the season that has significant predictive value early. Like DVOA (and everything else), it's less predictive early than late. But it still has some value. DVOA absolutely is a meaningful statistic, more meaningful than most. But it's far from perfect, and they're totally up front about that. The fact that they're willing to look back at times when DVOA has predicted more poorly reflects well on the openness of their minds and their unwillingness to be blinded by confirmation bias.

"Because Allen is playing so well, it feels like this is the best Buffalo start to the season in quite a long time. It's not. It's really not. Buffalo started 3-0 just one year ago! But it's more than that: Buffalo has made a habit of doing this for years now. For the last decade, no team in the NFL has made a habit of starting strong and then stalling out quite like the Buffalo Bills. This is the seventh season in the last ten where the Bills started the season either 3-0 or 2-1." Hunh. I did not have that sense at all. Very interesting. Thanks for posting it, Coach Tuesday. Interesting and thoughtful.

Blandino doesn't work for the NFL. He used to , but he's now media. Why wouldn't a member of the media think first about which media market is more important? This is about as far from showing the NFL is fixed as you can get. EDIT: Ah, I see you're about half-kidding. Sorry.

Can't see it happening, but yeah, it makes total sense. Instead, though, money will rule as it does pretty much every time at the league level.

Not entirely buying that thesis. Yeah the players you mention are terrific. Playmakers? Yeah. Wreaking havoc? Yeah. But if you compare Tremaine Edmunds with Luke Kuechly, their tackle numbers are much the same, forced fumbles, INTs, sacks ... all pretty similar. No, we don't have any major stars. Yes, we do have some terrific players who go far beyond good. That Carolina defense Kuechle was on was much like this D, a scheme-based group that played together very well and didn't have many weak spots. It'd be great if we could come up with a superstar. And if we become an excellent team this year, likely some of our guys will become very famous and generally accepted as difference makers, including particularly Oliver, Edmunds, Tre (who already is pretty accepted as an absolute premiere corner and could probably be used to attack your argument) and Milano being the best candidates. Hopefully they bring in new guys in trades and drafts and FA down the road, but this appears to be a very good personnel group on defense right now, though they haven't played great the last two games. IMO, losing Star really did have a real effect on the run defense. It's not a mistake that McDermott always brings in a guy like Star for his D; it appears to be something he feels is necessary for his scheme. Hopefully with more film, McDermott can do some planning and improve things from their current level. My guess is that he will do so. Yes, agreed, and nicely put.

Happy, you're a great poster. Consistently so. But there's no way you, a guy with no access whatsoever, can reasonably say that "But there's no way 20 senior analysts (rough estimate using their numbers) are comprehensively reviewing every single grade submitted by their graders." You simply don't know that. Saying that 20 guys can't comprehensively review 32 games in 20 hours (assuming the 1:00 game scores are posted at 10:00 a.m., for example) it just doesn't make any sense. Of course they could. As for the All-22 film, here are some questions I don't know the answers to. Do you? Do they have early access? Do they have their own film? Do they put guys up in the stands to film? Do they post all scores the next morning ... or only some? Assuming they don't have access before the NFL makes their own film available, do they go back and change things based on the All-22 when it becomes available? They say they use All-22 as part of their scores, as I quoted above. Are you calling them liars, with no evidence whatsoever? Doesn't make sense, Happy. As for the link asking for applicants for "analyst" positions, what's wrong with hiring interns with the promise that if they're successful they might get paid work down the road? This is extremely common for corporate America. Not all hiring is done this way, obviously, but you aren't showing that PFF does all their hiring that way either, just that they may be hiring some interns who may get paid work down the line if they do a good job. This is how internships work and internships are commonplace throughout America. And your assumption that those interns' work will be what makes up the scores ("their grades are done by unpaid interns," you said) doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I was amazed when you said that, and went to check. I don't know, man, it doesn't appear to be true. Here's what they say: https://www.pff.com/grades "WHO IS DOING THE GRADING? "PFF employs over 600 full or part-time analysts, but less than 10% of analysts are trained to the level that they can grade plays. Only the top two to three percent of analysts are on the team of “senior analysts” in charge of finalizing each grade after review. Our graders have been training for months, and sometimes years, in order to learn, understand and show mastery of our process that includes our 300-page training manual and video playbook. We have analysts from all walks of life, including former players, coaches and scouts. We don’t care if you played. Each grade is reviewed at least once, and usually multiple times, using every camera angle available, including All-22 coaches’ tape." Doesn't mean their grades will be perfect, by any means, but what you said doesn't seem to be true. Although the "convoluted manual" part appears to be right on the money. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, though, IMO. It's a good question as to what they did without the footage when the broadcast broke down. Someone should ask them.

I think the reason you haven't heard is because we don't know.

Yeah, their video was dumb. And yeah, two of them tried to praise him and indicate that they were wrong without saying it. It was dumb. But I already gave you credit for the two of them. You win on those two guys. But you didn't say there were two guys who were sticking with their narratives. You said there were "many," and then you doubled down on that. That's why I challenged you to show us ten. But you haven't managed to find even one more. Where's #3 out of these "many"? Your best option would be saying somethig like, "OK, I was wildly exaggerating. There aren't many. There are basically two. I certainly shouldn't have doubled down on "many." But it pissed me off." Everyone would understand. But yeah, barring that, your next-best option is probably what you did here ... walk away with your fingers in your ears saying, "I'm not listening." Honestly, good luck to you, hope you enjoy the season and that your next foray here turns out better. I was a fan back in '72 myself. Rooted for them to lose the last game of the year so they could draft OJ, and it was awesome seeing them start to use him after Knox came back. Have a great season.

Again, the phrase "bad passer" is pointed towards Wentz, who he excoriates for two paragraphs. I'll put it all up, in context below, for those of you who haven't read this very positive look at Allen yet. And no, Fits is absolutely NOT his main comp here. He's there because he first mentions that out of the list of 18 most had tremendous success over the course of the season. It wouldn't be fair to just leave at that point. It makes sense to also look at what happened to the four who had the least success. And that list of four includes Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott and Fitzy twice. But at no point does he "compare" Fitz to Josh. He only lists those four years (out of 18) where teams ended up with less than 10 wins, in chronological order, which put Dak closest to Allen on the page, but he doesn't compare any of those four to Allen. He's only looking at the list of 18 and what happened to each. He's literally saying that truly bad QBs don't play the way Allen has - that only 18 people ever have - and that the absolute worst of those people was Fitz. But most of the people were folks like Mahomes, Peyton, Brady, Carson Palmer, Brees, Rodgers, etc. He's not saying Josh equates to Fitz. He's saying that Allen is now on that list and that that is one very good list. Here's the continuation, three paragraphs in a row, but put it all in context. There are two more paragraphs eveiscerating Wentz at the end but I left them off. It's quite clear that he's using Wentz as his bad example and Allen as the opposite. Which is what it says in the tweet: "Buffalo's Josh Allen has been stunningly good this season. Philadelphia's Carson Wentz has been shockingly bad. We put their ..." Here it is in context: "So no, the Bills' berth in the playoffs this year is not etched in stone, especially not with the Patriots showing they're not going anywhere anytime soon. But Allen likely isn't going anywhere either. The worst veteran on this list is Fitzpatrick, a member in good standing of the NFL's middle class of starting quarterbacks. Truly bad passers simply don't play like Allen has in the past two weeks. "Instead, they play more like Carson Wentz. Wentz, like Allen, played college football at a small school, North Dakota State. Unlike Allen, he had great numbers in college, and our QBase projections were cautiously optimistic. Wentz's career got off to a fine start -- he ranked 27th in DYAR as a rookie, then eighth in 2017 despite missing the final three games of the season. He also missed the postseason, and if you're reading this, you know the Eagles went on to win the Super Bowl without him. Ever since, Wentz's career has been on a steady, declining slope. He ranked 14th in DYAR in 2018 (in part because he missed five games) and 17th in 2019. His DVOA ranks in those seasons followed a similar pattern, moving from 27th as a rookie to sixth, to 13th, to 20th last year. "So far in 2020, Wentz has been worse than ever. He leads the NFL with four interceptions. He also leads the NFL with eight sacks (tied with Houston's Deshaun Watson). As our quarterbacks page shows, he is last in the league in DVOA, QBR, and passing DYAR. He's also last with a combined -337 passing and rushing DYAR. In the last 12 years of Quick Reads data, no quarterback has been worse after Week 2." The article is extremely positive, and there are plenty more out there. You see MVP and Allen in the same sentence with fair frequency. People are being extremely positive on Allen, and for good reason.

You're cracking me up here. So now scoffing at MVP talk, prefaced by the fact that it's only talk, is somehow a way of clinging to old narratives? Puh-leeze!! And yeah, the old "I'm not going to scour the internet" bit. The last refuge of a man without the slightest bit of evidence. If "many," (you said it again, though it's getting kind of sad) people had said it, you wouldn't have to "scour the internet." It would have been posted repeatedly on these forums by other people with their panties in a bunch the way the PFF stuff and the other video above were posted and referenced again and again. You could just copy them over here. If it were there, it wouldn't be tough to find. Problem for your argument is it's not there. You did post names. You didn't post their words. Not that I expect you to. Because at this point we both know there's nothing there. Two people say bad things and somehow to you folks, that's "many."

Did you notice that the phrase "not truly bad passer" is proceeded by a negative? He's saying that Wentz is playing like a truly bad passer. And that nobody should be able to say that Allen is. What part of this is the slightest bit negative? The part where he says that like the Patriots, Allen isn't going away? You do get that that's a very positive thing to say, right? Or the part where after two games he says he's not willing to say the Bills playoff spot is etched in stone? After two games, that's very reasonable, but again, he is saying that of the short list of 18 who started two games that well (guys like Russell Wilson, Carson Palmer, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers and Mahomes) a huge majority of them have gone to the playoffs, but not all, so you can't write it in stone. Again, this is a wildly positive look at Allen. And again, it came before the Rams game, when they'd played two pretty bad defenses. Yet he was saying that Allen looked like he wasn't going away anytime soon even though in the past they'd been extremely negative on him.

Dude, your last sentence says an awful lot more about your than it does about the guy who wrote the article, Schatz. That article is wildly, overwhelmingly positive about Josh Allen. It says he is kicking butt this year and that based on their historical data, Allen isn't likely to fade away. He says that out of the 18 QBs who had the 18 best two game starts since 2009, nearly all had excellent years, thirteen of the teams won a dozen or more games. It does say bad things about Carson Wentz. But not about Josh Allen. And it was written after the Miami game, when we'd played two fairly weak teams, before we played L.A. and Josh did so well. Sorry, Schatz isn't even slightly negative here. He does say that in the past they'd been wildly negative. But makes it very clear he's not saying that anymore. In fact he says that history says that most guys with starts like this have terrific seasons, and you can't help but notice that his list of 18 QBs is filled mostly with the best in football. So, when you say, "there exist an inordinate amount of paid professionals," ... if by that you mean the two airheads from that video above (Bomani and Dominique or whoever they are) and PFF which has put him as the 6th best passing QB and the 8th best overall (including the three fumbles in his running performance) ... then yeah inordinate for you. But since the word "inordinate" means unusually or disproportionately large, you will likely be the only person who thinks two guys out of the entire internet is "inordinate." Well, you and maybe the OP. I'm off to bed.