Thurman#1

You say they ought to tell what they see and the implications. They did. You got irritated. The reporters see pretty clearly that the implications of what they see ... include Bills fans going nuts with their expectations. It's no coincidence that all this fan irritation comes when the media says something fans see as negative about the Bills. You never see threads going "Damn those reporters and their moronic opinions ... for example, here's one by Hank Hacksworth predicting that this front office is making smart decisions and moving the team in the right direction." Plenty of reporters have said stuff like that at various times. Somehow no fans get hacked off at those articles.

Well, fine, if the whole reason you're a fan is to be unrealistic, go do your thing. But you should know from long bitter experience that those who told you to pump the brakes on your unrealism have been right time after time after time after time. Unrealism is an excellent way to be consistently wrong. If you have no problem with that, and with the crash at the end of the season, that's your business. And those Super Bowl seasons came in four years when it was not unrealistic to make that call at all. They weren't coming off a six-win season. They'd gone 12-4 in '88. They'd fallen off the year later but by the end of the year Kelly was again healthy and they'd talked about stopping bickering. The preseason take on the '90 Bills was that if they really had stopped bickering they had a tremendous amount of potential. They were a good team, a team that had been in the playoffs two years in a row, a QB going into his fifth year, and Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett. In the last three years they were consistently in the top eight or so teams before the season. In the first year probably top 12 or so. I'm glad you went to the SBs. But this year isn't like 1990. It's not unrealistic every year. It really is this year, though. So you feel it's your self-appointed duty to tell me why I'm wrong. Equally nice. As I've said, if you want to be unrealistic, that's your choice. But don't feel it's everyone's duty not to tell you you're sipping Kool-Aid, though most do it in nicer ways.

You, personally may not need it. Their duty isn't to tell you what you, personally need to hear. They have a larger audience. And plenty of Bills fans are dreaming 10- 11- 12 and 13-win dreams for this season and thinking it's not just possible but that that's the way it looks. You must see a thousand things a day that you then ignore, as we all do, the ads we have to suffer through and try to ignore, on bus stop benches and billboards and T-shirts , the pop-ups. The high-end fashion stores which if you like me you walk past without registering. The homeless guys who want to tell you how to save money, the overweight people who want to spend hours telling you about their diets that really work, the bad husbands that want to teach everyone how to treat women ... don't you find there's a tsunami of things you totally ignore every single day, hell, every hour? If you don't like it, just make this another thing to ignore. Nah, you're misunderstanding them. Nobody, including those reporters, are trying to take away your hopes. They're trying to anchor expectations to reality. There's a vast difference. They aren't saying we aren't getting nine wins. Or even 12. Just that the odds on that last one are really really ... really really high, and for good reason. We're a 6 win team with an OL that's never had one player play next to each other and a bunch of FAs and new draft picks. There's a reason that the over-under started at 6.5 and has now gone up to 7. It's not 10 for good reason. Though taking the upper right now might make a ton of sense.

$11 million base this year and $12 next. $500K roster bonus each year. And $31,250 bonus for each game played. Norman is a good player. But this isn't how they're building this team.

Tetris!!! Seriously. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tetris-shown-to-lessen-ptsd-and-flashbacks/?redirect=1 Keep your phone/computer nearby and play very soon after the heartbreaking losses that bring on your symptoms.

Lynn has indeed earned respect. But he got a team with a terrific QB, a team with a solid base ... at bottom a team that needed a reload. Not a rebuild. Whereas McDermott went through a rebuild. Judging a coach on how many wins he gets in the first couple of years of a rebuild says a lot more about the guy judging than it does the coach. Teams in a near-total rebuild like this one can't reasonably be judged on wins. Rebuilds don't win much the first two years. Comparing wins and thinking it means something is like comparing height between a 6 year old and an 14 year old. You don't learn anything worth knowing about how tall either one is going to be at full growth. Thinking that the 14 year old is taller means something just shows you don't get it. Same with judging a coach in a rebuild on how many wins he gets the first two years. Much respect to Lynn, though. He's done a fine job.

There's another choice. Yeah, you can be a skeptic. Or you can be a pie-eyed Kool-Aid drinker. Or you can withhold judgment. Be hopeful but know there's a lot still to prove. This is the best perspective if you want to see how things are likely to be rather than seeing things the things that confirm your prejudices.

It's not a huge deal, especially for a guy who's been in the same system for years. He hasn't. It's a new system for him and a new QB. Not a very big deal, but it will slow up adjustments and learning. It's who Beckham is, from the way he comports himself. You get a lot of good things when you bring him in, but some bad things come with the package.

Daboll will always be asked to play within the team concept, as any OC is, really. Beyond that, he was in control last year and will continue to be.

Yup. He's gone because of his salary. Not because he wasn't the best TE on the roster. If he were here he still would be. Hopefully some of the younger guys will quickly become better than he was. Hasn't happened yet, though.

No, McDermott didn't say that. " You know when you just look at the stats and you mention the number seven, if you pull up the tape, you watch the tape and talk about sacks versus affecting the quarterback, everyone wants the sack numbers. But just as important at times is how many times you affect the quarterback. Whether it’s getting him off the spot, his vision or his arm in a way the ball comes out. There were a number of those in over the past couple years since I’ve been around Jerry and you know we value pass rushers and the ability to affect the quarterback with the front four. He was a big piece of that last year and our goal and Jerry’s goal as well is to grow, improve and evolve and you got to be able to get there with your front four." ... and about whether sacks are overrated ... "You never want to take credit away from where credit is due. You look at the great sack artists over the years like as football fans we all watch [Mark] Gastineau and [Lawrence] Taylor who, you know, guys who had the numbers, so I’d never want to take anything away from them. But just when you study the game of how you win games, you have to affect the quarterback. I think a lot of interceptions and incompletions come from just getting the quarterback moved off his spot. Like I’ve said affecting his vision, affecting the way the trajectory of the ball is and his arm. I don’t think it’s overrated because it’s important that you can sack the quarterback but at the end of the day at a minimum you have to be able to affect the quarterback in some way shape or form. " https://buffalonews.com/2019/05/21/what-they-said-sean-mcdermott-josh-allen-jerry-hughes-at-bills-otas/ He certainly did NOT say it was more important than sacks.

Yes, he was a gunslinger. And yes that meant he threw INTs sometimes. But not all that many as people seem to imply. But an awful lot of the fact that he threw more INTs than anyone else was because he had more attempts than anyone else. Quick quiz: In all of football history, how many other QBs have thrown even HALF as many passes as Favre threw? HALF or more? Answer: Only 25 other QBs in all of NFL history threw for HALF as many attempts as Favre. How about 3/4 as many? How many guys threw that many? Only five other guys, and two of them are brothers. Brees, P. Manning, Brady, Marino and E. Manning. That has a lot to do with Favre being the INTs leader.

True, but a lot of that has to do with how many passes Favre threw. Favre's INT percentage wasn't low but it wasn't all that high either. 3.3%. Jim Kelly's was higher, for instance. Derek Anderson's too.

Got it. And I disagree, thinking that's overoptimistic. As I said, we'll see.

Overall you're right that it's poor offenses, though Dallas was #2 and Seattle #8 last year. I'd argue that the context is important but not that important. Sacks greatly reduce the chances of a first down, generally, even on first down. They are key plays. And the reasons poor offenses have a lot of them are many and varied but the largest reason is probably that poor offenses wind up in a lot of obvious passing situations. That doesn't mean sacks don't hurt. Even if it's 3rd and 8 or 3rd and 10, a completion could easily convert and keep the drive moving. A sack is a death knell for most drives. Agreed that Brady handles blitzes extremely well, but much less so when he can't easily predict when they're coming. Teams that blitz a lot are predictable. Teams that blitz unpredictably can make life hell for QBs. Even Brady.

It's all important, but pass D more so. Because the passing offense is more productive and the rules have been torqued to make it easier. 2018 Top ten run defenses by total yards: Bears, Saints, Texans, Ravens, Cowboys, Steelers, Eagles, Colts, Chargers, Lions. And that stat is affected by the fact that many teams with good offenses get ahead and force the other teams to play catch-up which generally means running less. A better look at how good the run defense is is Average Yard Per Carry. 2018 Top ten run defenses by Average Yards Per Carry: Texans, Saints, Ravens, Bears, Cowboys, Colts, Vikings, 9ers, Bills, Steelers It's all important. The more everything complements each other, the better. You're right that it's total D that matters. But if you're going to choose one, it's pretty obvious which would be better to emphasize.

I think you're a bit overoptimistic here. Which is what the tendency of the serious team fan is. A team that consistently competes? Yeah, I think starting in 2020 we're going to see that. A golden age ... a cult ... everybody's the perfect guy? Yeah, I don't think so. But it would be lovely. Not impossible, I think. I love the direction they're headed, in any case. It just seems that most of the moves they make are good and all of them are at least thoughtful and smart. That's a wonderful thing to see from this team. It's been a long time. I have many more doubts about Allen than you. I think you look at his upside as Cam Newton. Who has a terrific upside himself, as he showed, but has had accuracy problems. I like Allen's head better than Cam's so maybe we see a bit more consistency, but IMO you're overoptimistic there. We'll see.

Not sure about us, but I think it's more likely the Jets will be playing to avoid a losing season with the win.

He's saying that QBASE gave Allen a 20.7% chance of being worth 500 - 1500 yards total over replacement value when considered over years 3 - 5. That would mean that over those three years, years 3 - 5 of his career, he would be worth between 166.6 yards per year and 500 yards per year. Which would put him between 15th best and 25th best if you look at last year's DYAR stats (Fitz, Winston, Flacco, Trubisky, Dalton, Stafford, Carr, E. Manning, Newton, Mullens were 15th to 25th last year) . That is his idea of an average starter, and if Allen's doing that by the time he's in his fifth year, Bills fans most likely wouldn't be happy. And QBASE only gives him a 21.8% chance to be that good. And saying that QBASE (not me, I'm just doing my best to explain what I think QBASE says here) gives him an 11.5% chance of being upper tier, which would give him 1500 - 2500 yards over replacement value over those three years, which would put him between 500 and 833.3 yards per season, which would be 9th to 14th (Rodgers, Watson, Wilson, Mayfield, Cousins, Wentz, a much more respectable group). And a 5.2 % chance of being "elite" which means 833.3 + yards above replacement, which last year was eight very good players.

“I am not a Josh Allen believer. I just think the accuracy is not there. One thing we did see is scrambling. It’s a bonus absolutely, but sometimes you have to stand in the pocket. And he’s just not accurate.” https://716sportspost.com/2019/01/28/more-outsiders-continue-josh-allen-narrative/ "The lessons of history can at least help us figure out how much of a risk each quarterback prospect will be. That's the point of Football Outsiders' Quarterback-Adjusted-Stats-and-Experience (QBASE) projection system. It looks at college performance, experience and expected draft position (to incorporate scouting information that college stats will miss). To allow some time for development, QBASE projects a quarterback's efficiency (passing only) in Years 3-5 of his career, according to Football Outsiders' defense-adjusted yards above replacement (DYAR) metric. 50,000 simulations produce a range of potential outcomes for each prospect, with players drafted later generally having a larger range of possibilities. QBASE favors quarterbacks expected to go high in the draft who also have a relatively long résumé of college success according to the stats. Those stats include completion percentage, yards per attempt and team passing efficiency. These numbers are adjusted both for the quality of the defenses that a prospect had to face as well as the quality of his offensive teammates. QBASE is meant to only be used on players chosen in the top 100 picks; after that, the judgment of scouts becomes even more important, and statistics become even less predictive. It's important not to overestimate the importance of a small difference in the QBASE projections. Most of this year's top quarterbacks are grouped together in the middle of the scale. It's a bit of a surprise that Sam Darnold came out with a lower QBASE rating than some of the other top prospects -- Josh Rosen, for example. But if I were the analytics director for an NFL franchise, I would feel no need to disagree with a scouting director who placed Darnold ahead of Rosen. However, there is one top prospect who QBASE clearly likes ahead of all the others, and one top prospect whose statistical profile is a gigantic red flag. We explain both projections below, along with the QBASE projections for six other top quarterbacks based on Scouts Inc. rankings for the 2018 draft." [ Shouldn't surprise anyone that it's Allen who is the 'gigantic red flag,' or that it loved Mayfield. ] http://www.espn.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/22870189/2018-nfl-draft-projecting-booms-busts-top-quarterback-prospects These are old explanations of Schatz's feelings about Allen. But he says he hasn't changed. That's the kind of thing he bases those opinions on. Doesn't mean he'll be right. Or wrong. It's just an opinion with something to back it up. But there are plenty of opinions backed up one way or another that are positive and plenty that are negative. By the way, I found that last story through a google search which came up with an old TBD thread based around Schatz's post. Had some classic anti-Allen pre-draft Bills fan takes on it. TransplantBillsFan has one where he mentions Darnold, Rosen, Jackson and Mayfield, mentioning that he liked Mayfield best, but continuing, "Those 4 QBs are the QBs I'm most excited about! And honestly I'll even be fine if we traded up a couple spots for Jackson. It's seriously baffling me that Allen has somehow been thrust unanimously in front of Jackson." But he's far from the only one. Lots of Allen dislike on that thread.

Yes, Donald is the exception not the rule. But there have been others, such as Ratliff and Randle. Yeah, you have to be very very athletic and very strong to do it. But Oliver is. Yeah, he'll have to prove it. But there's a reason he went in the top ten. He's got a good chance.

Yeah, thing is ... before Aaron Donald proved himself in the NFL ... they said the same things they're now saying about Oliver. Nobody's saying Oliver has proven himself in the NFL. What they are saying is that it has been proven - flat-out proven in several cases such as Randle, Donald and Ratliff - smaller guys who are very athletic can play Interior DL in the NFL and do very very well indeed. So the guys pretending to know that Oliver will get dominated because of his size are not even coming close to proving their cases.

By no means did that Pettine defence suck. They were 10th in the league, in their first (and only) year in that new scheme. They were headed in the right direction. 4th best defensive DVOA in the league that year. Sacks are very important. They're not overrated at all, IMO. But yeah, you can be good without getting them, especially if you're getting steady pressure.

If those stats are the ones I think you mean, they were highly justified and selected for their negative look. Brand new year? Agreed. Gotta win your spot? Agreed. But his trajectory right now is upward. IMO he'll make it and it won't be all that close. But if he levels out and doesn't improve at all, he could be gone. I'd say that's true of everyone on the roster but the two FA pickups this year, though. Yes, that would be concerning. But he did not only show up then. Yes, he's started slow. That was a major concern for Eric Moulds too, who started a lot slower than Zay did. Again, Zay this year has already outperformed Moulds' first two yeras combined. Plenty of receivers start slow their first year or two. But it was a good sign that Zay improved quite a bit as last season went on.

The process. Which I don't believe would include any of them.