Thurman#1

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.

Pretty wacky.

This early, one guess is as good as another. Will there be injuries? Will the line gel? Who knows. My guess would be be they'll be significantly better than this guy thinks. But whatever.

Yeah, I like Kelso a lot. Wood is smart, though. Maybe he'll be as good.

Agreed. It so often takes far too long. And even after replays they seem to make mistakes.

Nonsense. If anything the problem has simply been that he didn't have enough resources and that WR was one of the positions to suffer because of that. It's too early - duh - to judge any of the WRs who we've brought in this offseason. So you can only look at performance ... but, and this is crucial ... factoring in what we gave up for him. For a guy getting paid $500 K or $600K, nearly any productivity is success. SUCCESSES: Robert Foster, Isaiah McKenzie ($555K), Deonte Thompson (min.), Brandon Tate (good returns, minimal receptions for minimal investment), Andre Holmes (a bit of production for minimal investment) FAILURES: Kelvin Benjamin MEH: Taiwan Jones (minimal production for minimum investment), Terrelle Pryor (no production, cost them $74K ... not $740K, only $74K), Jeremy Kerley (7 yards, no signing bonus, no guarantee, released after one game) TOO EARLY TO JUDGE: Zay Jones (trending significantly up, but still too early to judge) INJURED, COULDN'T BE JUDGED: Jordan Matthews (on a cheap rookie contract, but couldn't play, Philly paid him more last year than we did the year before) That isn't a record of a GM making bad calls on WRs. Kelvin Benjamin was their one bad call. Other than that, it's a list of Zay (not a Beane pick and too early to judge), Mathews, who was injured, and a regime with no money to spend throwing guys on minimum salary at a problem they couldn't afford to address. And for that kind of commitment they actually had several guys who gave them good production for the pay they received. This year they've finally put a bit of money into WRs. We'll finally see how they are at picking WRs when they're willing to do more than take fliers at minimum.

Puh-leeze. Like the Bills haven't been doing the exact same thing, very well, since probably the '70s when PR started to become a science? Yes, Beane is good at PR. But the Bills PR department has been good for a long time, though they had less to work with sometimes, for example in the Gregg Williams air horn days and with Rex in the prime of his ridiculousness. And you're right that they have made mistakes. It's just that their good moves have greatly outnumbered them. Which is something new. Oh, and that's nonsense that Marrone was a rebuild. Obvious nonsense. The rebuild came under Gailey. Marrone was reloading, as was Rex. And reloads have a massive structural advantage over rebuilds in the first couple of years. Rebuilds look terrible the first couple of years, it's the nature of the beast. Of course Rex and Marrone had better records. If that continues the next couple of years, it will indeed be a horrible sign, but so far it's S.O.P. for rebuilds. If anything they have done a ton better with Ws than rebuilds usually do. Actions do indeed speak louder than words. Which is the real reason this new regime is a breath of fresh air. They're doing things the smart way, consistently. It's so different from Bills as usual. Do they still have to prove themselves? Absolutely. But a regime that understands best practices and uses them is not the usual thing for this franchise. You're dead right, though, that we'll have to see from results. But this is the most hopeful I've been since Wade.

That may have been your narrative. It was not "just about everyone's." But it was also a lot of people's narrative as each of our coaches have gone for the last couple of decades. We're so so so very close. We don't need no stinking rebuild. Just a reload and a few tweaks. And it's been wrong every time. Sure they could have reloaded. Not likely to have worked very well, though. Acting as if a reload would have been a one-year sure thing is absolutely ridiculous. We weren't all that close. And we were in horrible cap shape, which would have hamstrung any attempt at anything.

Yeah, you're wrong about that. Again, they were in crappy cap shape. And if you would have kept them in crappy cap shape if you were GM, that's fine. I find it hard to care even enough to send up a short prayer you're not the GM. It's too obvious why you're not. Not acquiring Kelvin Benjamin is supposed to save us all the money to get us out of cap trouble? Um, he was on a rookie contract. He cost us a bit over $1 mill while he was here. Keeping Watkins would have cost us a ton, as would the rest of your moves. You'd have had us right back in the cap crap and unable to do with the OL what Beane has. Which is fine. But it also points out why nobody's paying you to make football decisions. Yeah, I got your point. You're right they could have kept Woods. At the cost of being in worse cap shape. You're wrong that the cap stuff was overblown. Again, Beane told the Pegulas at his interview that they were in crappy cap shape and that they were going to have to suffer, and promised that he would get them in excellent cap shape by the start of this season. The Pegulas were right with them, and it is one of the reasons they hired him. If they hadn't liked that idea, they'd have hired someone else, someone with views closer to yours. But they didn't. So you may not be down with the whole five year plan. But the Pegulas were very down with the understanding that the first two years were going to suck, and that the whole thing would take time.

But wait, Prisco sucks. Oh, wait, he said something good about the Bills, so today he's a genius. IMO a reasonable prediction, maybe a bit on the high side but well within possibility if things continue as well as they seem to have so far. If Brady's still here next season I don't agree with the 2020 prediction, but possible. I'd like to think that by 2020 they'll be competitive with the Pats, at least. I doubt that'll be necessary. When Brady goes, the Pats would still be good with Belichick, but not the way they are now.

No. Strangely enough, there are indications that more than one person writes for CBS Sports. :- )