Thurman#1

Don't know how they draft players in Miami, but one of the main things they look for here is that they've got to be football smart. This is part of the reason why. The reason it works for the Pats is mainly two-fold, they also get football-smart guys and the culture supports the young guys having to work their asses off to get it. If the culture doesn't support it, they'll complain and cause problems. They don't in NE or here.

I've followed them since 1964 and I don't think they've always been leaky, not even since 2002. On and off, IMO, but not all the way through. There have been plenty of years when we found out quite a bit later about various problems like the fact that the players were into drag racing in the Fred Jackson Marcell Dareus years, which didn't come out till Dareus had an accident with a tree and if I remember correctly left the scene. That had been going on for at least a year or two, it came out. It never came out that Sammy was out drinking every night his rookie year, till the last week or so. Was Donahoe behind the firing of Wade Phillips? Had he told Ralph he wanted to hire his own coach? Or did Ralph really fire him because Wade refused to fire his special teams coach? I don't think that's ever been clear, though it's a pretty big deal. Chris Berman obviously had a pipeline into the Bills front office for a while, and it was just as obvious that with the new front office one year, his pipeline had disappeared. Joe B's pre-draft prediction the year they traded up for Sammy was outright uncanny, and he was never all that close again afterwards. Agreed that around the draft this year a fair bit got out, though some of that may just be that these days everyone knows about your visits and the Bills frequent visits to Lenoir-Rhyne weren't difficult to understand. But there were a few apparent leaks beyond that. Hard to tell what's a leak and what's a rumor sometimes these days. Obviously you know far more about what the job entails than I do. Interesting stuff about Berchtold playing both sides.

OK, fair enough. That's not what I think make it or break it means, but I now understand that that's what you meant. But you're saying it's a make it or break it year means it's got to happen this year, right? That they know by the end of this year whether or not he's the undisputed starter? Understanding that, I still think you're dead wrong. The likelihood of them knowing he's locked in the job for the future by the end of this year is very far from 100%. IMO it's lower than it would be that he would make it or break it but still probably somewhere in the area of a 35% - 65% likelihood. Still not sure I understand what you're saying 100%, so I'll just say what I think. We're pretty likely to end the season not knowing if he's the guy for us for the future. We'll likely have a better idea. But I personally doubt it will come anywhere near being sure of him. I could be wrong ... easily ... I know that and that's why I'm not saying I know what's going to happen, just what I think the likelihood is. I hope I'm wrong and that by the end of the year he's proven himself a franchise guy. We'll see. Oh, and from "The Free Dictionary," make it or break it is defined as, "Of, leading to, or causing an outcome that will either be a total success or a total failure." Merriam-Webster has it as, "resulting in either definite success or definite failure." I think you're misusing the phrase a bit. The good season and bad season outcomes you're describing are neither total success nor total failure.

This. I don't listen a ton, but when I do I like them both. I wonder if this helps the Pegulas cut costs a bit. IMO Brown isn't going to be earning as much as Murph.

"They know the jury is still out," yeah, fair enough. "This is a make it or break it year for Josh"? Nah, not even close. The only way he breaks it is with a major regression, and the only way he makes it is with a mammoth and unexpected level of improvement. Probably around a 60 - 80% chance that even with the level of improvement that most here expect they still aren't sure he's a QB here for 10 years barring injury. These things often take time. Not always, but with a guy like Josh it's probably the most likely outcome.

No, no, we hate Barnwell. It must be more Barnwell nonsense. Oh, wait, he said good things about the Bills? Never mind, then.

Yeah? Well, you'd know better than I, but how would the media relations guy know if there was something he didn't know? It's that guy's job to control info that might come out, yeah, and how it comes out if it does, right? But if some guy has a grudge, which seemed to be the case between Whaley and Marrone while they had a brief power struggle, that's the guy who would seem to gain by putting something out there that reflects negatively on the other guy. Well, it sounds like you know a lot about this kind of thing. But what would Berchtold get out of this? And if true (I get that it could be), how come it wasn't a consistent thing through his 30 years there? There were some eras where there were leaks and others where there didn't seem to be.

Thanks for posting this. A nice watch. I do disagree, though, that competitiveness has been missing. They've all been competitive. As cliche as this has become, I think it's the process McDermott and Beane go through. Not "the process," but just simply how they do things. They have a plan and it's a very intelligent one.

Yeah. I don't know, but I doubt it could've been Berchthold, just because I doubt the media relations guy got access to the more interesting, divisive stuff, the secrets. I suspected some of them were Whaley and Marrone going back and forth at each other.

You say, "he went 10-4 in games he started and finished," and that simply isn't true. The Buffalo Bills are the ones who did that. I believe that if you go back and take a look, you'll see there were 10 other players on the field with Josh pretty much every single play. Wins and losses simply isn't a QB stat. It's a team stat. And as for those two wins where he didn't finish the game, in one he was 13 for 28 for 153 yards and 0TDs and 3 INTs. He was not without responsibility for that Pats game loss, concussion or not. His passer rating that game was 24.0, and no, that's not a misprint. No, it wasn't all on him, far from it. That Pats defense was nothing less than terrific. But he deserved his share of the blame. Very true that stats need context. But this last year the reason Josh's stats weren't very good is mostly that Josh wasn't playing as well at QB as he'd have wished. People wanting to give Allen excuses keep desperately bringing up the drop rate, without pointing out the context there. The context there being that some of the reason he had a lot of drops was that he sometimes throws without touch, putting too much smoke on passes that should have been thrown with touch. The young Elway had the same problem, and also had receivers who dropped a lot and got suddenly better when Elway's touch improved as he got older and smarter. And yeah, even if you kid yourself that Josh had no responsibility for any of the drops and put it all on the receivers ... so you go correct downwards to average drops that would raise his accuracy to above 60%. But again, if you did that, you'd still find that Allen had the 29th best completion percentage in the league among QBs with more than 100 throws. It's not like his completion percentage has suddenly become good if you make that adjustment. Just a bit less bad. But what you're calling context somehow all casts positive light on Allen. What a coincidence, that of all your context, none of it has any negative value. What you're doing is spinning things. Which is fine, but it's clear that what you're calling context is actually one-sided, an attempt to frame things as well as possible for Allen. How come you ask about TD %, but then when you turn to INTs you ask not about INT % but instead who had the most? That's a blatant attempt to twist the facts. Josh had a somewhat higher TD% but threw fewer TDs, 20 to 24. Still good for Josh, with a higher percentage. As for INTs, Allen threw one more INT than Brady, but Brady's INT % was a ton better, Josh's 2.0 was pretty good but Brady's 1.3 was terrific. I'm not clear who had a higher on-target percentage. Where is that stat found? But I do know that as for YPA, Allen''s was fractionally above Brady's, 6.7 to 6.6. But Brady's Adjusted YPA was 0.2 higher than his YPA, at 6.8, while Allen's was the same, both 6.7. Another bit of context is that the Bills had better receivers than the Pats last year, and that the Brady had only two fewer drops registered by his pass catchers than the Bills. Context when well-applied, should work both ways. It should be noted that Allen's vastly more dangerous with his feet as a weapon, but that Brady's still sensational at moving within the pocket. That Brady was probably hurt by his receivers more than Allen. That Allen may get better but that he is immensely accurate sometimes but can't find consistency in that. That Brady had 27 sacks and lost 185 yards while Allen had 38 sacks losting 237 yards despite throwing more than 25% fewer passes. That Allen had huge problems with deep balls despite being decent at them in his rookie year, which leads me personally to think he's going to get better there. That Allen had games where he looked like a franchise QB but also had games where he looked genuinely bad. That Allen played better in the 4th quarter, which is good but leads you to wonder why he wasn't better earlier. That Allen without question improved a lot year to year.

It's not essentially Vitamin C. It's got a bunch of different supplements. No, that stuff hasn't been proven in scientific studies. But doing so would be very difficult, if not impossible. How are you going to eliminate other variables? Particularly as how can you figure out whether or not an immune system has become stronger? Supplements may well work. Some of them if not all of them. It's certainly also possible that none of them have the slightest effect. But because it may be true doesn't mean it can just be assumed to be so. This is the quote I like on the subject, " 'There is no alternative medicine,' the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association wrote last year. 'There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking.' " Not all alternative medicine is snake oil. Certainly some of it is. But it wasn't long ago that conventional medicine was sure that acupuncture, fish oil, ginseng and meditation had no benefits. Turns out not to be true, all of them have some now-proven benefits, though it's equally true that some claim they all have benefits beyond what's been proven, and those people could easily be wrong. Or right. I hate Brady, but not enough to assume that he's willing to lie to make himself a few thousand sales that might bring in a $20 profit each. He most likely believes in the stuff. And some of it might even be correct.

Contested catches: John Brown, Jets game 1st Q 9:06 Brown, Cincy 1st quarter 9:21 Brown, against Gilmore, 4th quarter 14:20 Brown, against Washington pushes the CB away, 1st quarter 3:00 Brown, against the Steelers, 4th quarter 9:59 That's just a quick look through one receiver's work. Yeah, none of our guys were specialists in this, it's not what they're best at, but nonetheless they make them sometimes, doing a good job. I suspect you're thinking of only one kind of contested catch, only the kind where there's no separation and it's a leap contest where the highest guy wins. Brown didn't have any pure leap contests, but did a great job of pushing off some guys who were right on him and going up and also just out-battling guys for several others.

Not so much, IMO. Much more about being built to stop the pass rather than the run due to being in a division filled with deadly passing attacks, the Fins in particular. And because of that our DL in particular was built small through the middle. How many 3-4 defences - then or ever - have we seen with the nose tackle, Jeff Wright for us, being 274 pounds? That's the main problem with us being soft against the run against power rush teams, which is what we faced in those Super Bowls.

I'm no expert, so this isn't an argument, it's a question. If you have to be found guilty of the DWI or DUI, how come PJ Williams, arrested for driving drunk and careless driving in New Orleans on 1/23/2019, pleaded down to "reckless driving" and was suspended for three games. Same question for Kareem Jackson arrested on 9/19/2019 for DUI in Denver pleaded down to one count of driving while alcohol impaired and was suspended for two games? Or Willie Snead, arrested for DUI on 6/11/2017 given a diversion program and counseling and suspended three games https://www.tsn.ca/broncos-safety-kareem-jackson-suspended-final-2-games-by-nfl-1.1414738 https://www.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/arrests/ https://www.nola.com/sports/saints/article_0929b8ac-17a2-5eef-bdc2-28c32cf39cb4.html

Nonsense. Star hasn't been middling and still isn't. He's still the same very fine space eater he's always been, the guy McD knew him to be and hired him to be. Fair enough that since the injury Murphy mostly hasn't been as good as they hoped. But he's also been improving and near the end of the year was playing pretty damn well, four sacks in the last five games and then two more in the playoff game, 15 of his 36 tackles in the last five games and 4 of his 9 tackles for loss in the last five games.

Yes, this offense has been poor overall. But no, it's really not fair to question their judgment there as yet. Just the opposite ... this is a front office that has brilliantly handled a near-complete rebuild and a simultaneous salary cap situation repair in a very short time. The reason the offense hasn't been good during their rebuild certainly isn't that they didn't have a fast RB. It's that for the first year they built the D and spent very few resources on the O, and the second year the line and WR/TE group were both sub-par, allowing teams to pack the box. And that's not even beginning to mention our QB situation those three years. As I said earlier, it's fair enough that you preferred someone else. Everybody has their own preferences, though I never looked much at McFarlane as it seemed very likely to me that he wasn't the type they'd be looking for. I was hoping for Dillon, myself, but apparently I wasn't the only one to like him, though I'm not sure I second-round liked him. But it's very clear they feel they need a hammer, not a speed merchant, and it's been obvious for a while that that's the institutional priority. Their FA moves these past three years have made that very clear.

Fair enough that they don't have a super-fast home-run threat at WR. Seems obvious by now they don't think that's a necessity, but they do think having a vertical pounder really is. They've had one guy like that every year McDermott's been here. Tolbert, Ivory, Gore. They want a hammer here. Beane said as much pre-draft when commenting on Yeldon and why he didn't get more carries behind Gore. They feel they need one. And since they've never had a home-run guy it's at this point pretty obvious they feel that's not a need, though they might at some point be happy if they could bring one in if the circumstances are right.

I didn't remember him dropping much, so I looked back and I don't think it happened that way. In his pre-combine big board Matt Miller had him #85, Kevin Hanson had him #88. Kiper had him the #5 RB (had Akers #8). DraftScout had him in the third from early. I don't think the combine affected him much. #85 and #88 would be just about exactly where the Bills had him, most likely, as he was their BPA at the time. I think teams saw what we see, that he was no 4.4 guy but that on the field he wasn't a 4.65 guy either. The thigh tweak news came out the same day as he ran the 40 at the combine and I think teams believed him. I think he went just about where he was always going to go. Does look like a nice pickup, though. In those pictures with Josh and Barkley and the group in California, his thighs are absolute tree trunks. He's a strong-looking dude, and the tape shows he played like one. EDIT: I see this has already been talked about. Never mind.

Yeah, it happened that way at a lot of houses, it looked to me. And yeah, that's where I think it came from. Interviews within the hour showed he was happy.

Really nice article by Gaughan. One quick quote that made me think: "It shows that the Bills need to create more space on offense and get the ball to players more often in the open field. Players who get the ball in space – whether it’s a deep ball, or a slant pass to a receiver or an accurate throw to a running back in the flat – tend to move faster."

Mathematically, you're right. If he completed only two more of his already attempted passes per game, that would fulfil the requirement. Thing is ... in the real world, he did not complete those two passes per game. It's only if you go to fantasyland and start pretending that he completed those passes. And you're quite right that 58.8% isn't very far from 60%. That's true. It also isn't very far from 57.6%. Equally far, actually. Should we start spinning fantasies about how close he is to that too, if only things were different, which they aren't? He did what he did. Talking about what he didn't do is irrelevant. Because he didn't do it. And the fact that his percentage was higher when he had faced bad defenses and then went down when he faced better ones doesn't imply that he was better than his stats. That's how stats work. You can't look at only the ones you like and take out the rest and think what you are left with means anything. If you try to figure out how good the passing defenses Allen and the Bills faced last year, you might look at how they ranked in defensive passer rating. Our opponents averaged out pretty close to average, 15.93th best in the league. The fact that a lot of the tougher ones came at the end of the year is beside the point. It only shows that the easier ones mostly came early. The two pretty much balance each other out.

26 and 17.84 to be more precise. https://scores.nbcsports.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?type=Receiving&range=NFL&rank=232 http://hosted.stats.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?type=Receiving&range=NFL&rank=232 The difference there is not 11 drops, it's 8.16 drops above average. If we subtract those 8.16 from Allen and then use that corrected figure to put him in the NFL rankings for completion percentage, that would put him at 31st in the league among guys with 100 or more receptions. And again, part of the reason he had more drops is that he is still throwing too many short passes without touch.

This kind of logic, "If he had 2 more completions per game, that would give him 303 completions ..." always cracks me up. Essentially what it says is that if you changed his stats, they'd be different. Yeah, fair enough, but with zero logical force. Sure if you changed things they'd be different. But they aren't different. They're what they are. If you changed every other QB's stats, they'd be different too. And yes, Brees had even fewer yards than Allen this year. Think that might be because he missed more than five games with an injury? In any case, Brees' yards per attempt, a much better gauge of how long the passes you're throwing are than total yardage, are significantly higher than Allen's, 7.9 YPA (10th in the league) vs. Allen's 6.7 YPA (27th). And yes, drops have an effect. But you also have to factor in what caused the drops. Some of Allen's were caused by throwing short passes much too hard without touch. Plenty were on the receiver, but when you have the problem Allen does with not yet having incorporated enough touch into his game, the drops will go up. There are all kinds of different figures for drops, because which incompletions are drops is pretty subjective. But let's pretend that the QB has no effect on this stat and just look at the numbers. The Bills had 26 drops last year according to most sites. The NFL average was 18. That's a difference of eight passes, half a drop per game over the average. Allen went 271 for 461 last year. Change that to give him the same number of attempts and eight more completions and his completion percentage would go up just over 1.5%. That would put him 31st in the league in completion percentage, without adjusting any other QB's stats. That's not a significant improvement when compared to other QB completion percentages. Not that completion percentage is an especially great indicator of accuracy. But it's the one you used, so I pointed out the flaws in the numbers that you used. He isn't especially accurate. He throws dimes one moment and misses badly the next. He's inconsistent. He can improve, and he seemed to improve some last year. But it's likely to be a problem down the line to some extent. Perhaps he can improve other facets of his game to make up for this problem. That seems reasonably possible to me.

400 points would be nice, but that's a team measure, not a QB stat.

You're right, but it's equally true that if you don't have a QB within the top 10 or so in the league, your chances of winning a championship are miniscule. The majority go to teams with QBs in the top five but there are plenty more that go to guys who aren't. Wentz wasn't top five. Wilson is now but he wasn't when the Seahawks won. Eli was definitely playing at a top ten level during both championships. In the first one, he wasn't anywhere close to that for most of the season and he saw the light come on in the last two or three weeks. Top ten but not top five. Roethlisberger's never been a top five guy, always just barely outside that. Simms. There are a few teams who've won championships without top ten QBs. But to do that you generally need a defense that is one of the best not just of that season but of all time. Only then can you generally win one with a QB like Dilfer or McMahon. Around 10% of all SBs are won this way, and out of all the thousands of teams that don't have a top ten QB, the odds on being one of those winners are just tiny. The difference between 10 and 15 isn't that great, you're correct. But that difference seems to make all the difference. As for the original question, I'm not really interested in that kind of guesswork. I'd rather hope that my hopes are more than hopefulness without guessing either way. But that's me.