Thurman#1

That isn't true. It's an opinion. And I find it really unconvincing to say a second-year guy is "just kinda bad," producing the way that he did on a team with major flaws at QB and on the OL last year. He was a low- to mid-level #2. (37th in receptions among WRs, 47th in yards among WRs and tied for 13th in TDs among WRs). On a team that was 28th in pass attempts. Agreed that none of that matters now. He absolutely needed to improve more, and needs to continue now. But so does every other rookie, 2nd year guy or 3rd year guy on this team. Except maybe Tre, when it comes to young players, if they don't improve, they start to disappoint.

Thanks for the Cliff notes, I guess. Unfortunately, the Cliff notes are still nutty. You keep going on about how his last games were bad. Again, you ought to go work on trying to convince Beane of that, because he obviously sees better than you do and made it very clear that he disagrees with you. And - again - when he made that statement to the reporters at the PC ... "I think we all can agree that Zay Jones is trending up." - Brandon Beane in the 2018 post-season press conference https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/12/31/18163024/buffalo-bills-end-of-season-press-conference-open-thread-sean-mcdermott-brandon-beane-josh-allen ... there was nothing but head-shakes and agreement. You disagree. That says more about you than it does about Zay. You're seeing this differently from everyone else, dude. And while this could mean you're just way way smarter than anyone on the Bills staff, even though they knew the plays, what the reads were, what the game plans were and what they wanted from Zay, it probably doesn't. I mean, maybe you're way way smarter than them. But that's really really unlikely. When a guy disagrees with everyone, including the people with the most info ... he's usually just wrong. And I get that you'd like to see me stop recycling the same arguments. But you've been recycling the same daft supporting arguments for nearly 60 pages now. If you stop recycling, I'd certainly consider it myself. But you won't. This whole thread has been lovingly tended and maintained by you with the constant repetition of your wacky support. Again, the main idea of the thread - that Zay might get traded - was always quite unlikely but certainly possible. If that had been all you said, I'd never have posted here, beyond maybe a sentence like "could happen but the chances are seriously low". But you followed it with constant nuttiness ... that Zay wasn't getting a great deal better the last half of the year despite the stats, Beane, McDermott and the pundits all disagreeing with you. You actually had to go with the saddest argument of all on that one ... "go watch the games," as if Beane, McDermott and virtually everyone disagreeing with you had been going after marlin in the gulf last fall and had never gotten around to seeing the tape. Absolutely zany and screwy. You've recycled the constant mentions of that pointless Josh Allen fan video labelled drops but actually containing a ton of bad throws and good defensive plays. As if being on a fan video was a good argument about anything. Just silly. You keep recycling the idea that only his games with Josh count, and that therefore you can ignore all Zay's other good games that weren't with Josh. You've pulled this in this post, but literally dozens of times before in the thread. Zay improved a great deal the second half. The fact that Josh was out for some of those good games has nothing to do with Zay. It only makes it wildly clear that you've got an agenda and that if facts don't fit it, you're willing to ignore them. You keep saying "stats don't mean anything, you have to watch the games" when somebody posts good stats ... and then you post bad stats and act as if you've told the whole story. It's a receiver's job to get open, make catches and go for YAC. And to block. And to run as parts of plays. What's NOT a receiver's job is to see a ball thrown to somebody else and go over and steal it. Sometimes, game plans go mostly away from one WR and he can have a good game anyway, getting open but not being thrown to and blocking downfield. You've got an agenda. You're daffily ignoring everything that doesn't fit with it. And it looks like you're going to continue recycling this flaky stuff while expecting me not to continue pointing it out. I'll feel completely free to keep pointing out your recycling. But hey, if you stop with the loony tunes stuff, I'll have nothing to point out ... if your post had been only the last four (very reasonable) paragraphs, I'd have had no real complaints. Instead, the whole top was more wackiness.

You went round the bend so often, I just put my answers above, in red. Oh, and My fingers were getting sore from typing the same obvious thing again and again.So I just introduced green asterisks, (*) and used them the last five or six times the situation came up. Read those as, "No, that's not a fact, it's an opinion by absolutely any standard." And again, "I think we all can agree that Zay Jones is trending up." - Brandon Beane in the 2018 post-season press conference https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/12/31/18163024/buffalo-bills-end-of-season-press-conference-open-thread-sean-mcdermott-brandon-beane-josh-allen The reason he thinks that is because your "facts" about the last few games are actually rather doofy opinions with which Beane and nearly everyone around the team and the league disagree. Wacky, in a word. In the New England game, for example, he played pretty well throughout, getting open but not getting thrown to even when open. The first throw to him on the first drive is a sad case. He's wide open over the middle for 12 yards or so and Allen just stone misses him. In that game he had five catches on 9 targets for 67 yards and a TD. And if Allen had hit him on that play it would've been 6 catches on 10 targets for 80 yards or more and a TD. Your continual insistence that it is a "fact" that it wasn't a good game ... well, it's a bit daft. One might say bonkers.

Nonsense. Losing in the first two years of a near-complete rebuild says nothing about competence and everything about what happens in a rebuild. The next couple of years and their record in them are going to show what kind of coach/GM combo they are. Nah. Look through history and you'll see a ton of great coaches cutting guys who weren't fitting the culture early. Bill Walsh is a famous example, he was absolutely committed to jettisoning guys who didn't fit the culture, no matter how talented they were. And the way Watkins and Darby have played since shows even better what a good decision it was to trade those two guys for picks that could be used to move up for a QB. And equating unused cap money and wasted cap money shows profound misunderstanding. Unused money can be rolled over and used the next year. Are the Eagles a stupid team? They have more unused money ($25.5 mill). Are the Colts big on wasting money? $44.8 mill. It's plenty smart. Fair enough that they haven't proven themselves yet. In the end, only wins will do that, but they are working in smart ways with great consistency. That's more than we've seen from the Bills FO for decades.

Nope. You keep trying to sell this old dead fish of a narrative, and nobody's buying. It was never true in the first place, as you keep ignoring the fact of the rebuild, the fact that we were in awful cap shape and struggling to bring it under control and the fact that we were desperate to bring in a franchise QB and had to get draft capital to have a chance of doing this. Those all had huge repercussions in terms of dead cap space. You're right that it's not rocket science, but it is far more complicated than you're pretending. A quick example is that a very nice chunk of that dead money was from Eric Wood and Richie Incognito. Aaron Williams' injuries. Dareus' inability to get his ass on the bus. Your self-serving and over-simplistic idea somehow leaves them out and a lot of other factors that don't happen to fit your narrative. They were in horrible cap shape. Really really bad cap shape, and especially so for a team that wasn't winning a lot of games. Beane promised the Pegulas in their job interview that they would get the team into good cap shape by the beginning of the 2019 season. At the same time, they desperately needed a franchise QB, and not having a high draft pick, that essentially meant trading guys off for picks that they could then use to trade up for that franchise QB. Luckily, getting draft capital and clearing up a horrible cap can both be accomplished with the same technique. The basic strategy is rebuilding. You will suck for two years or so and after that you have a chance to improve. The relevant part of the rebuild is that you trade away (or even cut if you can't get anything for 'em) guys who are either costing you a lot of money, are going to do so in the future, or will soon cost a lot to re-sign. You don't do it with all your guys, but ones who don't fit your culture (Dareus), or aren't living up to their draft status or expected contract figures (Watkins) are easy choices. And it gets immediately worse when you are forced to cut guys the way we were And the tough and painful part of the rebuild is that when you're that far behind the eight ball in your cap and have to get in good shape fast, you will have to cut even some guys you would really like to keep. But can't afford. Like Stephon Gilmore and Robert Woods. It's a sad byproduct of being handed a poorly handled cap. Another is that if you want everything off the books as soon as possible, you can trade guys early so the hit all comes that year, or you can trade them late and choose to NOT pass any dead cap on to the next year. This actively transfers money from your next year's cap (2019 and 2020) to this year's cap (2018 in this case), and they did it in most of last year's cuts/trades. It fit the timing of the rebuild and the timing for cleaning up the cap they'd given to the Pegulas.

JMO, but you may change your mind when that number starts approaching. Always liked and respected Buoniconti. A tough-minded guy. RIP.

Again, you continue to support a prediction that was always unlikely but well within possibility with arguments that are on the far side of wacky, far enough out there that Voyager and the Hubble are having trouble confirming sightings. Yeah, he had problems in the first year, (not surprising with being a rookie who missed a lot of camp with an injury) but he simply improved a lot in the second half last year. Pretty much everyone but you and a few Zay haters on these boards acknowledges that. Again, it's not your contention that's so whack-a-doodle. It's the way you've supported it with nutsy stuff. For example: I know. Amazing how that "mythical claim" caught on. Beane's two cents: "I think we all can agree that Zay Jones is trending up." - Brandon Beane in the 2018 post-season press conference https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/12/31/18163024/buffalo-bills-end-of-season-press-conference-open-thread-sean-mcdermott-brandon-beane-josh-allen Golly, I sure wish we didn't have a GM who gets caught up in "mythical claims," and doesn't know "if it really happened or not," and somehow bought into the whole "myth" that Zay got better. He should talk to you about his evaluations about his players, because McDermott is obviously feeding him the wrong info. Coincidentally, you kept referencing this same PC earlier in the thread, didn't you? About how Beane was saying good things about Duke? And yet you somehow forgot to mention him saying this about Zay ... Hmm. Hard to figure how that might have happened.

Nice post. Thanks. Worth noting that the McCarron trade now looks like a bit of a mistake, although you could also say that maybe the mistake was not bringing in Anderson the minute the McCarron trade was made. And also that the last couple of years they were also on a desperate mission to cut salaries and get the cap in shape. This year the cap looks good rather than terrible. It's less urgent on cap grounds to cut/trade guys if you think they might still be good depth than it was last year when we were still working our way out of the horrible cap situation they'd been left in by previous management. If there's anyone they can spare that could draw a pick in value, I could see it happen. McCoy is the obvious guess. Lawson, maybe, if one or two of the younger guys takes a step up? When I read your post, I thought OL immediately, but as I look at the roster, I think the guys that they brought in as proven FAs are likely to be needed as depth. I don't think anyone trades us for Ducasse or Bodine if they want one of them. A 7th, maybe, for Bodine, and a 6th or 7th for Ducasse? Could we get that? Both of them look likely to be cut, so would teams trade? We're doing well at CB but that's a position that often sees injuries. I'm not sure beyond McCoy and Lawson. Worth remembering also that a lot of the reason they brought in so many trade picks the past couple of years was to be sure they had the ammo to move up and take a QB. I like GMs who play the draft thoughtfully. Bringing in extra picks is just good smart strategy. Anyway, good post.

Nothing Frazier said there implies unquestioned. Incumbent? Yes. Current? Yes. Favorite? Yeah, maybe. Unquestioned? How can you say that when he says "it's always about competition and yadda yadda yadda," or "we'll see how things go." Did Frazier say more, and you accidentally left it out? If not, he's the starter for now, subject to how things go.

My feeling is that Oliver is an upgrade over the aging Kyle in run defense. Check out the draft evaluations on him for run defense. He was generally rated higher in that part of his game. As a younger player, Kyle was much the same way, but he'd lost a bit last year. We'll see. As always, the less your offense scores, the more runs your defense will generally see. It'll be an interesting season.

You may not hate the guy but many of your posts here have been a lot more personal and frankly wacky than you're trying to appear here. Quick example: Apparently, the guy can't do anything. You've gone way out into the wackzone with the "You can't count this play because I would rather you didn't even though it happened" nonsense that is one of the first calling cards of people with an unbalanced stance on any issue. Your idea that he didn't get better in the second half - repeated again and again along with a number of plays that we should pretend didn't happen - has also been pretty bizarre. If you'd really only said what you refer to in your post here, it would have been a somewhat improbable but unwacky stance. But you've gone well beyond that, and that's what has been wacky. It sure has looked like you're not pulling for him, though obviously nobody but you can speak to that.

That's just nonsense. I credit you for being consistent, but that's about all. He played quite well the last two games, getting open even when he wasn't thrown to. He improved a lot the second half of the season after missing a lot of his offseason work in both of his first two years. That was seen by nearly everyone, certainly including the FO. You wanna ignore it, that's fine, but the people who know what they were expecting from him were happy. He did earn his criticism, particularly in the first half of the year. In the second half there just wasn't much criticism except from you and a few others on these boards. Yeah, fair enough that he got owned by Slay, an elite CB but in the other games he was very solid. As for others who got owned by Slay the last couple of years you'd have to count Stefon Diggs, Mike Evans (2 catches for 25 yards) and Julio Jones among others. If getting taken out of the game by Slay means you aren't good, just about nobody in the league covered by him would be considered good. Hell, Antonio Brown was thrown to a way above average 15 times against Slay in 2017 and had a below average day of it in spite of all those targets, and his one big catch, a 30-yarder came when Slay was elsewhere. Beckham had four catches for 36 yards against Slay in 2017.

I grant you he only threw 25 passes last year, but I think it's fair to say EJ probably wouldn't have beaten Matt Barkley's passer rating last year of 117.4.

It wasn't even his second year when the dropoff came. Go back and take a look at his first year's progression. His first seven games he was on fire as teams didn't know how to play him. Then they got film on him and in the NE game, Belichick schemed up a way to limit him ... basically keep him in the pocket, don't let him run and don't worry too much about his passing game. He only played 14 games that first season and if you look at his second half, the final seven games, his stats dropped to almost exactly what we would see from him over the rest of his Buffalo career. In those seven games his passer rating was within a couple of points of his career passer rating. Same with YPA completion percentage, everything, really.

Please. A few (very few), may have said that, particularly folks still having Kool-Aid still in their systems from picking Allen. What 95% of us actually had as a narrative was that cutting Tyrod despite the fact that he was likely to be - THAT YEAR - the best on the roster made total sense due to Tyrod's ridiculous cap hit of $16 mill and the fact that we weren't going to have a good year anyway in 2018. Cutting Tyrod was the way to go in the context of the rebuild. And again, there are always folks with rose-colored glasses riveted to their craniums, but last year for the sane among us was always likely to be a pretty bad year, not to be worried about as part of the rebuild.

Very true. You are set up to be to be somewhat less wrong than anyone who thought he'd be cut.

Beane answered a lot of your questions in the PC after those trades. He wasn't actively trying to trade either guy. The teams called him, he didn't call them. If a team offers good value, he feels he has to consider it. And he made it very very clear that he absolutely considered signability and salary cap concerns as a major factor. I'd disagree with those who say Beane has been non-committal about Shady. IMO they've been very positive about him. They've said he's the number one, they've said they want him here. They've said they think he's got a lot left. They're not going to say anyone's untouchable, because you never know what value will be offered. He says he doesn't even like the word "untouchable." There are a few guys who are in practical terms untouchable because we're going to value them higher than anyone would give for them. Shady isn't one of those guys but I think they fully expect him to be here this year ... subject to competition and to the fact that nearly anyone's available if the offer's good enough.

Sorry, man, no. Poor analysis. When you are looking at scoring defense, drives on which a team scores count far far more than any other drive. Seven points is about 2% of the total points scored against you, though one drive is way way less than 1% of the drives faced. Scoring drives count more. But when you are looking at yards, every drive counts the same as every other. Yeah, one drive might start on the opponent's 10. The next might start on the Bills one, 99 yards away. Since each drive counts the same, it's only the average that matters. Yeah, some drives start closer, but other start farther away. Only the average matters, and the average for every team is close. The Bills defensive average was to start on their own 31.36 yard line. The league average was to start three yards further away, on the 28.28 yard line. Again, a crappy turnover-laden offense has very little impact on defensive yards. A ton on points, and very little on yards. If anything it has a bad effect on defensive performance, as the Bills faced the 2nd most drives of any NFL defense last year, due to that crappy offense.

Just the opposite. A crappy turnover-laden offense makes it harder for a defense to put up good stats, not easier. The defense will face shorter field behind them and more drives if the offense is bad. A better offense makes it easier on defensive stats, holding the ball and giving the D better field position and fewer drives to defend. There is a bit of an exception if your offense runs a hurryup as we did in the SB days. But the Bills weren't as bad as you remember in those days. They were up and down even facing more drives than most teams and teams throwing more because they were further behind. 1990 8th 1991 27th 1992 12th 1993 27th IMO we were somewhere between probably 3rd and 6th best on D last year, probably 4th or 5th. Which is damn good.

#1 in scoring defense would be terrific, but that's a whole-team stat, not one that isolates the defense well. Field position at the start of opponent drives is a massive factor in scoring defense, not to mention that if Allen throws a pick-six somehow that counts against the defense in scoring defense. It's a whole-team stat. Yards per drive is probably the best stat that isolates the defense. I'd put YPG and turnovers at the top, and sacks after that.

Oh, jeez, yes.

I may be overreacting. Probably am, and should've just shut up. Misleading thread titles just irritate me. I'll let go of it now. Sorry, all.

Yeah, I'm sure that's the way it happened. Out of nowhere the reporter said, "By the way, did you think the Pats were going to trade up for you in the draft?" Poor guy was trapped. But more, in the modern world, there's nothing wrong with being Crash Davis and giving out non-answers. If you don't want to answer, it's what you should do, and everyone will understand. "The Pats? Golly, who am I to guess at what they were going to do? I'm just happy I'm with the Cleveland Browns, the greatest franchise in the National Football League." He'd have been showered with love for that answer.

Parrino's tweet: "Who does Brandon Beane think is the model when it comes to choosing to run?" Your headline: "Many think Beane believes Allen should model his game after Cam Newton ... but he hints it's actually Russell Wilson." Misses the target if you're saying you took the headline from the tweet. Not a huge deal by any means but it does misrepresent what was said.

Really? Was it the reporter who wrote that title? At newspapers, the reporters don't write the titles. And since nothing in the article says what the title does, I'd bet the same is true here ... that some editor somewhere looking for more hits jazzed up the headline by overpromising what was in the article. So what Beane actually said was nothing more than that Beane wants Allen to do a better job of balancing the run and the pass, and that one example of a guy who did that was Wilson. So, your title, "Many think Beane believes Allen should model his game after cam Newton ... but he hints it's actually Russell Wilson," has nothing in it of anything Beane actually said or implied. That headline is half your own mention of Cam and half a headline written by we know not who ... and nothing Beane actually said or implied. What the reporter actually says in the article is simply that he used Wilson as an example. Your headline doesn't represent at all what the reporter was saying or what Beane said. I know it's the offseason but jeez.