Thurman#1

Far far too early to know.

IMO, running is just the half of it. You've got to do both well, and mix them unpredictably. The Pats are damn good at stopping the run when they know it's coming.

It's not likely to matter anyway. They've made their goals clear. Those goals are not "getting as good as possible this year and maximizing our chances." They are building a team that can compete at the highest level consistently. That would just not likely include bringing in a guy who's approaching the end of his career and will cost a ton. The guy is 31 and he'll be expensive. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cincinnati-bengals/a.j.-green-7719/# I wouldn't be surprised either way, if he gets traded or not. But I'd be quite surprised if he's traded to Buffalo. I'd expect WR to be one of their priorities again in the offseason.

Yeah, but that's nothing. I read on this board that he's going to be in the running for league MVP this year.

The change in personnel is not likely to be that significant at all. Whether improvement happens will come down to how much or how little Josh Allen keeps improving. Oh, and how well and when the O-line gels.

Yes, crow chomping is called for. Being close ... is being wrong. The reason so many, me included, told him he was very wrong was exactly that he predicted it would happen so early. I certainly didn't believe it would happen early in the season either. I was wrong about that. But if the original prediction had been that he would be traded in the first half of the season, I'd have disagreed much much less strongly. Probably one post, "it's unlikely," and gone. Having said that, who cares at this late date. He was wrong, but this thread didn't need to be necro-bumped.

No. The end. Not even a decent debate. And yet still people ask it every year.

I always did. Arena rock sucks. But now I don't like the guy himself, and yeah, that has lasted.

Again, points allowed is NOT a stat which isolates the defense. It's probably 30% offense and special teams. If Gore fumbles the opponent recovers on the Bills one and the defense holds and the opponent kicks an FG, "Points Allowed" says the defense allowed 3 points, when that couldn't be farther from the truth. If Allen throws a pick six, "Points Allowed" says the defense allowed seven points, which again could not be further from the truth. As you pointed out, the punt blocked for TD and the INTs that gave good field position were major factors in a lot of points that the Buffalo Bills have allowed. Is this defense for real? Yeah, absolutely. But Points Allowed is more of a team stat. Yards Allowed is the stat which best isolates defensive performance. According to yards allowed (and any stat after five games is going to suffer from not enough data and schedule bias) we're 3rd best. Yeah, we're damn good on defense.

It's more of a reflection of how QB stats have trended up consistently for a long long time, particularly total yards. Allen's tied for 18th in the NFL in yards. We've had guys in that area plenty of times over the years. We've also had guys with stats in the area of 26 TDs and 22 INTs. Which is not a good ratio. Though not so awful for a 2nd year guy. Fitzy has a year when he went 24 and 23 in Buffalo, for instance.

We aren't being ignored. At 4-1, people are watching.

Disagree. He hasn't played all that well, but his blocking has been absolutely excellent, and that doesn't happen without fire and passion. But he and Allen just don't appear to have established a good connection, for whatever reason.

I did jump on him, and this is correct. Alpha was wrong. You only get props if you're right.

Agreed we're still benefitting from a weak schedule, but this rebuild shows every sign of working, and working ahead of schedule.

Fairly surprising, as he was the #3, a starter. But if they did it there was a reason. I (loudly) guessed that if he was gone it would be after the season. I was wrong about that. I think the timing is surprising, but I really did guess wrong about the outcome here. Good luck to him except when he plays the Bills.

Hunh? "Not abnormally high"? He's ranked 32nd out of 38 in terms of time taken. That is absolutely abnormally high. Yes, Prescott is the same, but that makes Prescott abnormally high as well. It's a tough stat to understand, because a guy can be taking a long time for good reason or for bad reasons. But with Josh's poor rates on long passes this year, I'd argue he isn't holding the ball and sprinting for good reason. And again, McDermott keeps harping on taking what the defense is giving him, which is basically shorter routes where the ball comes out quicker. In a game or two he's done that well this year, but not consistently.

Which is what the eyeball test will do if your QB holds the ball too long. It's apparently not for nothing that McDermott keeps saying Josh has to take what the defenses give him. TheNextGenStats look at how well the linemen hold their blocks for the first 2.5 seconds.

You're right, elite defenses don't allow 3 30+ point games. Except Chicago last year. And the Jaguars each of the last three years. Actually, some elite defenses do. First because points do not isolate defenses, as they can be scored and hugely effected by offenses and STs. Scoring is a team stat. It's probably 70% defense, but plenty of the other facets leak through and affect points. Yards is the stat that isolates defensive performance far better. And second because even elite defenses can and generally do have a bad game or two. Elite defenses are elite. But it isn't easy to put it into one sentence so easily. There's always an exception or many.

Because the process. We are taking a shot. It's called building through using the process. They've made it wildly constantly clear that their goal is building a consistently competitive team. Not taking shots in random years.

Basically it comes largely as an urge to throw as much blame as humanly possible away from Josh Allen. People think that if he's not to blame maybe it'll somehow make him become a franchise QB. Scapegoating satisfies many deep human needs and Zay has been scapegoated since very early on, for good reason that first year, not quite so much afterwards. It also has to do with Zay's draft spot. Nor were people thrilled about the hotel window incident or missing most of two training camps with injury.

I wouldn't have been thrilled, but yeah, it looked like that would be acceptable. The first half of this schedule had always looked easy. It's the second half that looks like a serious grind.

Agreed on Roethlisberger and Losman. Too cheap to trade up. But it's more than boo-boo foot that has kept Watkin around the 50th most productive WR in the league over his time as a pro. Even on the Rams and Bills when healthy, very average production. You're right that the injuries have been the major issue, but far from the only one. And yeah, he's on pace for about 1400 yards this season. But you could also say that based on his last three games he's on a pace for 890. Or you could say that in his first year he was on a pace for 1200 yards after a couple of games. On the Rams he was on a pace for over 1000 through three games. Sammy has a history of one or two games a year where he dominates, and then disappearing for much of the year. Still far too early to say whether this year will be different, but 198, 49, 64 and 54 isn't exactly bucking that trend. And with hindsight maybe Mahomes should have been grabbed, but knowing that the next year was widely considered a great year for QBs, with a GM who'd gone all in on EJ Manuel, when the buck stops with a head coach who was in his first year on a new team who feels he'd been too busy getting his whole system put in place to put in enough time in study on a young guy who was widely considered to have a high upside but to be a very risky pick ... sorry, passing makes a ton of sense to me under those circumstances.

That is like, not much. But at $14.4 mill per year, since bringing in expensive FAs isn't really the process, we know this is a wildly unlikely possibility. If they're unhappy with Zay by the end of the year, you can bet they'll try to replace him in the draft or with a low- to mid-priced FA or trade

Wait, you mean some QBs perform differently from others? Deep.

If your main point was that he didn't want to play for the Bills, then your main point is wrong. That has absolutely never been indicated in any way, and he even said he was really surprised to be traded. Did he say that he expected to play the next two years for the Bills and be traded? Yeah ... because the Bills had made it clear they wouldn't pay the money he was going to get ... and did get with the Eagles. All the Bills had to do was pay, and he would have been thrilled to stay here. Everyone has always said that. There's no way to know how Bruce would have done at LDE. You get a TE over there chipping and double-teaming you much more than at RDE, and the QB can better see you coming. No way to know. Bruce was a better speed rusher. White was a better power rusher, and a better all-around DE. RDE has different difficulties, as you see more TEs and you also see tackles who might be less nifty but are more powerful. But there is a very strong argument to be had that if you want more sacks you should rush around the right-hand side. Look at the list of top sack artists. The huge majority played over there.