Thurman#1

Not buying the whole "when they committed to the run, they ran well" thing. It was just the other way around ... when they ran well they committed to the run. When their efforts to run didn't work, they didn't try so much. Before and after that one drive they tried run plays and more than half their runs were two yards and under. They had very little success with the run game, and that's why they stayed away from it. The proof is precisely that one drive, the fourth series in the second quarter. The first run was successful. So they quickly went back to it. They had success, and so they stuck with it. It wasn't like they weren't running well in that drive but they stuck with it and things started to turn around. They were running well and so they kept running. Pretty much the rest of the game till the Ravens went into prevent at the end, the run game was being absolutely stifled. They tried running. They simply didn't have any success. Most likely either the Ravens changed the defense a bit right there and the Bills noticed it and had success running, or the Bills tried an offensive wrinkle that made it easier to run. In any case, the Ravens adapted after that drive.

Yeah, it was a hopeful game at the time, I felt. IMO, hell yeah we want Devin Singletary catching down the field passes, anytime. I think he had problems last year with nervousness. His drops looked to me like he took his eye off the ball early. It's something that he can do much better at as the game slows for him and he feels more at home, I think. He's a terrific weapon in the open field. McKenzie not quite so much, but he's not bad. Just not as good as what are now our top three. I've never bought the "We need more size" thing. Not when I watched the Ravens game and not now. It's not a bad thing at all, but it's not a necessity either. Our top three guys are going to get a lot of separation and that's just as good as size. And the OC didn't ignore the blitzes, there just wasn't much they could do. The run game wasn't working, this group hasn't done well with screens. The play calling didn't seem to me to be the problem. It just looked like the Ravens D was better than the Bills O. And yeah, Moss seems like he will really be an upgrade on Gore. I'm looking forward to see how the OL does with a year of experience together. My guess is there'll be significant improvement. We'll see, I guess.

Most likely? Oliver. Ford. Harrison Phillips. The leap between first and second years is often the biggest, and because of the injury Phillips is in a way going into his second year. That's my best guess. Most seem to be answering who they want to improve most. I don't really think that's as interesting a question, as what we want doesn't influence anything much and also because many if not most people will just answer the most important positions.

Not at all. If he'd been being paid $15 or $16 mill, yeah, but $5.5 mill was probably a bargain for what he brought. He was one of the best backups in the league at that point. Wasn't his fault he wasn't sitting on the bench behind someone better.

Um, people are still dying of COVID. As in football games, it ain't over till it's over. As with most pandemics, there's likely to be a second wave and we really don't know how big that will be. Thank goodness for social distancing. There have been massive failures in how this was handled. But what was done still seems so has drastically cut down the numbers we would have seen. Not cut nearly as much as could have been, but still a major difference was made.

You're confusing the government with elected officials. Why would you trust the government? You shouldn't unless they listen to the medical experts. Good elected officials, of either party, will listen to the medical experts and act accordingly.

By this ridiculous logic, Marv Levy apparently screamed he was not head coach material when he fired his STs coordinator and his DC after his first year as HC. Apparently Pete Carroll also screamed he was no head coach, replacing OC, DC and STs coordinator in his first year.

Best guess is same as last year, Feliciano and Ford/Nsekhe. If Ford is still out there by the end of the year, IMO it will mean he's taken a real step up.

The NFL really is not all about who you know. That's ridiculous on the face of it. Does who you know come into it? Absolutely. But we haven't seen many horrible coaches get a lot of opportunities. We see guys doing a pretty decent job get plenty and we see plenty of those prove that at the next level they may be horrible. No, I did not poll all the players, coaches or front office personnel. You might want to settle down in front of a dictionary and look up the words "consensus" and the word "most," both of which I used. Oh, maybe "widely considered," too, as I look back. Is it "after three years" now? Have I missed a year somewhere? No? Got it. OK, then here's something you've missed. Nobody knows the future. That would include you, by the way. And me too, I hasten to say. What happens at the end of next year will depend extremely heavily on what happens during the intervening time. You're kidding yourself if you think that there aren't plenty of circumstances where they could feel that the offense didn't improve much and it wasn't primarily Daboll's fault. Just as a quick example, if Diggs and Allen miss the season with injuries they might easily feel that though the offense didn't improve much it wasn't Daboll's fault. There are plenty of other scenarios where they might feel that way. Like it or not it simply doesn't make sense pretending you know now what will happen based on imaginary future results. What they'll do is much more complex than checking the date and the stats from a website and saying, "Welp, it's the day after the season ends, and as I check, the offence isn't in the top half ... Daboll's gone." It just is a ton more complex, and thank goodness for that. This FO is a group that grinds. I absolutely love that about them, they grind, and they do it with intelligence, with an understanding of context, and with a plan. And what it comes down to is simple to put into words but will be arrived at with a lot of grinding ... they'll look at whether he is doing a good enough job under the circumstances and whether they can improve more with someone else. And you're dead on with Dennison, but that's an argument on my side, not yours. Dennison was fired after a year. Daboll is still here after two years. Clearly they thought Dennison was not doing the job, and that Daboll is.

Yes, I do understand this is a results based business, Scott. Scott, you do understand that absolutely nobody with a brain looks at those results without context? Or do you not? Because I've just said so about three times in a row and you have ignored it each time. And yet it is without the slightest doubt absolutely true. If they did look at results without context, the Niners would have fired Bill Walsh after his first two years when his results were very poor. They didn't because they looked at the context, which in that case was that Walsh had rebuilt and was working with a quarterback who was young and developing. Sound familiar? And again, "you don't get 4 years to install an offense if your first 3 years demonstrate lackluster results" is wrong for exactly the same reason. It ... depends ... on ... the ... context. You will get that 4th year sometimes. Other times you will not. A management group with a clue will look at both results and context and will come to a nuanced conclusion depending on what they think. What they will not do is exactly what you say they will. "Let's see, three years, bad stats ... well, we don't have to look any further or think any harder, this guy's out." Any management that makes decisions that poorly is a group that no coach should want to work under anyway. And Beane and McDermott are very clearly not thinkers who work that simplistically. And, no, Daboll is not on the hot seat because a guy named Scott on the internet thinks so. Believe that if you will, but outside Oz that won't make it true. I mean, in a sense pretty much every coach in the league is, and in that sense, sure, you're right. They clearly have confidence in him and think he's doing a good job. We know that because he's still here and still has the job after two years of working with him and watching every day. He's not on the hot seat. But will he like all of them have his performance evaluated carefully at the end of the year as they go over everything? Yeah, of course. And if they don't like his performance, will he be gone? Without a doubt. Will they check the internet to see what that guy named Scott thinks? I'm sure both of us know that's highly highly unlikely, and I'm quite sure they don't check my opinions either, or any of ours. And as things stand, does the context he's operating in appear quite a bit better than it has been so far, and will that be taken into account? Yeah, of course. The difference is that you don't like the job he's doing, which again is fine. Nothing wrong with having an opinion. But they do like the job he's doing. They do.

OK, I guess there's nothing forcing you to count the interview the Giants asked for but were denied by the Bills. It still exists in reality, though. I'll try to remember to use "be offered interviews" rather than "get" them. As far as indicating what the league-wide opinion on you is, though, it's pretty much the same thing. And that he was offered those interviews when he's coaching a team so early in their life cycle, and an offense that's far more coming together or finding it's feet than already producing at a high level again shows the way that the league sees Daboll. That's who. The consensus on him around the league is he's doing a good job, given what he's had. The offense has to improve? Well, you're right, of course it does, but if they don't ... it is at this point far too early to know what the reason for that will be or whether Daboll will be considered to be a major part of the problem. It certainly could happen that way. Or - especially if Allen improves significantly - they could easily improve a ton and Daboll could be considered one of the main reasons.

Rebuild. Young developmental QB who is seriously improving but has a long way to go. Offensive roster that was a distant second priority in 2018. There is indeed a reason that some fans question Daboll as OC. They mostly don't get it. They don't see that context matters. A lot. Does he still have something to prove? Sure. But there's a reason that he's getting those interviews.

Except here. And as has been pointed out a billion times before, he's been in horrible situations in his previous NFL OC positions. Terrible QBs and front offices that were sinking ships. There's a reason that around the league Daboll is seen as an up-and-comer, and that he got interviews in the off-season. He's widely considered to be doing a fine job here. Yes, a few fans here complain, but that's nearly always true. Yes, it really is. Results matter, but so does context. And the context here is that he's been here through a rebuild, and that particularly in his first year this regime was putting almost no resources into the offense outside of Allen himself. And he was supposed to get a year off. Again, he's gotten a head coaching interview and the Bills denied the Giants the chance to interview him for OC. You don't think he's doing a good job. Fine. Most of the NFL does, though.

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.