Thurman#1

People don't often let go guys they think are #1 WRs. So yeah, I'm not expecting someone to be playing like one next year. But if we draft one early, we might get lucky and have him become one in 2 or 3 years. I wouldn't find that so impossible.

Progress. It really is that simple and that imprecise. Progress.

Your post says less about Cousins than it does about you. It says that you don't know enough to know when to wait. 'Cause after one year we don't know if the Vikes will ever have much success with Cousins. Maybe they won't. But maybe they will. And it says you don't fully understand what causes team success. Because while a QB is indeed the most important player on a team by far, every guy is important and even a very good QB doesn't win alone. Winning is a team thing. The Vikes are 30th in running. 30th. Tied for 21st in yards per carry, tied for 27th in rushing TDs and tied for 11th in fumbles. On defense they were still pretty good but not the monsters they were last year. If they'd had last year's D, they'd likely be in the playoffs. They haven't been able to be successful throwing long, as the Skins were often able to do with Cousins. They'll have to figure out why that is and work on it in the offseason. But 30 TDs put them 10th in the league while 10 INTs had them tied for 10th-lowest in INTs, with New England. Cousins was taking care of the ball while still being effective in moving it and scoring. The Vikes passing offense was good this year. Not great, but it was the first year and they could easily be more successful as a team next year. This wasn't all on Cousins, not even most of it. Of course, it's not all off him either. He gets his share of the blame. But not all of it. They may have overpaid him. That's what it takes these days, unfortunately. But if they get a title during that contract, it'll have been worth every penny.

In the last four games, which are 26.66% of the 15 games we've played, Zay has caught 29.9% of his yardage (167 of 559 yards) and 60% of his TDs (3 of 5). How is that "virtually disappeared from Bills offence"? It's increasing his production. Oh, and I don't know where Gilmore was every play or anything like that. But I do know Stephon was covering Zay on the incompletion in the first drive of the 3rd quarter, the incompletion at 11:00 in the 4th, and the completion at 4:37 in the 4th.

Your observations there are subjective. More to the point, he's a second year guy coming from a small school. He was likely to require time. Turns out he did. He started very slow this year due to the injury but has performed quite a bit better after getting healthy. I didn't claim that he was going to be a #1 or anything. But the stats show he's already producing at a rate that makes him a #2. With poor and very inconsistent QB passing play and not much of a run game to take the pressure off the pass game.The lack of talent on this offence holds all offensive performance down. So the answer to your question is this, Scott ... In what world does Zay look like he'll prove to be good value at that spot? In this world. As his QB play gets better, as he learns and improves, there's a good chance it will happen in this very world. Great value? I didn't say that.

Receivers can only catch the ball when their QB throws it to them. The Bills are fifth in the league in percentage of runs per offensive play. They want to run. They throw more when they're behind, that's the kind of team they are. The Bills threw 103 passes in first quarters, 115 in 2nd quarters, 107 in 3rd quarters and 145 in 4th quarters. If you're on the Bills this year and you're a receiver and they throw to you a lot, you're most likely going to have a lot of your catches late in the game.

The fact that you have to go back to his college days proves how poor your point is. College ceases to matter once you're on an NFL roster. Zay's stats - in the NFL - do show he's a #2.

Yup. It's his second year and he's been thrown to by four different QBs, none of who are very good at this point. He's the best WR on the team and thus gets more focus from the defences. He's still developing and will likely continue to get better. Yup, 52nd among WRs in yardage, 44th in receptions, tied for 26th in TDs. He's a #2 right now, though not one of the better #2s. But again, he's a 2nd year man with issues at QB and OL. He'll almost certainly improve.

Nonsense. There's almost always someone better you could have picked. Picks aren't judged as to whether you got the best possible guy in hindsight. They're judged by whether you got good value. Looks like Zay will turn out to be good value at that spot.

I have little faith in your ability to scout offense if you think that anyone can already know that St. Brown has #1 ability. The guy has 328 yards and zero touchdowns while being thrown to by Rodgers. And it's not like he's being kept out of the lineup by great guys ahead of him. He's behind Davante Adams and ... the #2 receiver in yards is Valdez-Scantling, another rookie. You also don't know that Ray Ray won't be good. Like St. Brown he's a rookie. In neither case do the teams know what they have and in neither case are the odds very high for a long career, much less becoming a #1.

Hunh? #2 guys ARE starters. Do you mean #2 guys are getting paid like #1s? If that's what you mean, I'd disagree. There are only 13 guys getting paid over $13 mill a year average. And most of them are #1s or look to get there soon, though Sammy Watkins and Jarvis Landry are in there and I think both of them are overpaid. Agree with the rest of your post, though.

Fine, Burress was a #1 in the playoffs, but not a #1. Agreed that pointing to Megatron and a few of the others and saying that they didn't win titles and therefore you don't need one isn't good logic. Very much agreed. But you can win without an elite WR. Having one sure doesn't hurt, though, except in the salary cap if he's not on his first contract.

"... put up 1600 on consistent basis," that's your qualification? Come on, man, there have only been 20 1600 yard seasons in the history of the NFL. Megatron had two. Antonio Brown had two. Marvin Harrison and Torry Holt also. Those four are the only players to ever have more than one 1600 yard season, and nobody has had more than two. And you want it done on a consistent basis? Jeez, dude, nobody has ever done it consistently. Oh, and no, Hines Ward was absolutely not a raw young prospect when the Steelers won their most recent title. They won it in 2005, which was Ward's eighth season, when he was in his prime. And while I hope you're right that we can find a Jennings, he had 1265 yards (4th in the league) and 12 TDs (T-2nd) and tallied 16.6 YPC (4th among guys with 50 or more catches) that year. It will not be easy. He was terrific and absolutely a #1.

I think you're right about this in terms of free agency. I wouldn't be shocked, though, if they draft a WR very high in hopes he could become a #1. He's pointing specifically at teams that won Super Bowls, not teams that came close, and I think that's something worth looking at. The 2015 Broncos had Demaryius Thomas. I'd argue he was a #1 that year and for several years. The 2011 Giants had Victor Cruz putting up 1536 yards, 2nd in the league after Megatron, and averaging a monster 18.7 YPR. he didn't last, but at that point he was a #1. And the same year, Nicks was not that far away, though not a #1 I think. The 2010 Pack had Jennings putting up the 4th best yardage and tying for 2nd in TDs. The 2008 Steelers. Hines Ward? Mmmmm. Not sure, really. On the bubble, probably. The 2007 Giants. Plaxico Burress? Tied for 4th in TDs that year but nah. The 2006 Colts. Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne may both have been #1s at that point, both going over 1300 yards but Harrison was 2nd in yardage, 2nd in TDs. He was absolutely a #1. Can't be bothered going further back but there are some #1s on Super Bowl winning teams, though there are also plenty of teams that won without them. Demaryius, Cruz, Jennings and Harrison, at least, qualify.

You're right, we don't have an elite defense. We also don't have a good defense. They're considerably better than that. They're very good. 4th to 6th or 7th, probably. Around in there. And they're young and getting younger. But yeah, you're right they've got a ways to go to be considered elite. They need a bit more of a pass rush from the other side for one thing.

Nah. Joe B has him as 7th best on the team last week. And while you've clearly got an iron in the fire, Joe doesn't. I didn't see a great game from him, but most of NE's running success came to the outside, trying to run away from Lotulelei and Edmunds. He also had that deflection that was almost a turnover. https://www.wkbw.com/sports/bills/joe-b-buffalo-bills-all-22-review-week-16-vs-new-england-patriots Belichick is always positive, but where he's specific in his praise he's generally right on target, and he said he saw a lot of improvement in Edmunds as the season went along. He's still young and green but he's improving.

This this this this this!!!! Exactly. But don't be racist, Teef. These remarks about Poles are not acceptable in polite company.

I see him being inaccurate, I'm afraid. Fairly consistently. A lot of good throws and then some bad ones. And yeah, throwing deeper passes can make an impact, but in PFF's breakdown they adjusted for depth and found he was consistently inaccurate at all levels. But maybe it'll be corrected. He got more accurate during the process leading up to the draft as he worked with Palmer and cleaned up his mechanics. Then as often happens when you're playing and not sitting, his mechanics seemed to me to come unwound again. I think his footwork has degraded, and that it wouldn't have happened if he'd sat this year as Mahomes did. Hopefully he can clean it up again and this time get it set into muscle memory before the season starts. I'm cheering for him to do so. Yeah, nicely put.

IMHO, it is. It is indeed wishful thinking ... at this point. We've had a number of guys look momentarily promising. Let's hope Allen is different. There's a pretty decent chance, I think. But it's too early to know. He has to do an awful lot of developing, and plenty of people who look like they can manage it never do.

To your point, here's his QB each year you refer to: 32nd (2009) - Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn 29th (2009) - Colt McCoy, 35 year-old Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace 22nd (2010) - Matt Moore and Chad Henne 24th (2011) - Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn 31st (2018) - Nate Peterman, Derek Anderson, Matt Barkley and Josh Allen I know nobody here wants to hear it. After all, the OC is always the easiest scapegoat around. But the reason Daboll's still respected around the league, still getting mentioned for head coaching jobs, still getting employed by Belichick and Saban, and still getting this shot at OCing here in Buffalo is simple ... people recognize he's been handicapped by personnel at every stop. They see him doing as good a job as is reasonably possible with the personnel given him. This was always going to be a pretty terrible offense unless Allen somehow made monster jumps upwards and played like Marino or Roethlisberger as a rookie. He hasn't. But why do I bother? It's much easier and more fun to grab a pitchfork and a torch, join the mob and run screaming towards the castle.

I know plenty here in Buffalo don't see it, but around the league he's seen as having done a very good job this year with poor personnel. And that's what I see too. My guess is that he won't get a head coaching job this year but if the offense improves next year as I expect it will, he might easily get one next year.

Yeah, it ends up in McKenzie's hands more often when we throw to him? I guess a bit more. McKenzie has 18 receptions for 30 targets, 60%, while Jones has 50 catches for 93 targets, 53.7%. That's probably statistically significant, though 30 targets for McKenzie is very little to be sure of how much we know. Not a very big difference, though, particularly when Jones is producing 11.7 YPC and McKenzie only 9.9 YPC. They're running different routes, getting different coverages. McKenzie is running an awful lot of little three yard and four yard quick routes. This game - the Lions - is a pretty good example of that. In the first drive, three passes to McKenzie, two where he takes two steps and cuts and one where he takes a step back and catches a WR quick hitter. Three more targets that I found, two into zone coverage where he quickly found a hole in the coverage and stopped and Allen quickly found him while the defense closed and hit him from behind after the catch and only one into man-to-man where it wasn't a quick hitter well in front of a CB who'd been playing off. You'll make a lot more catches on easier routes like that. Zay was getting man-to-man coverage from Darius Slay most of the day and on I believe all of his targets, and it wasn't a bunch of quick hitters the way it was to McKenzie. Jones is their #1 and teams work harder to defend him than McKenzie and a good example is that Pro Bowler and elite CB Darius Slay was on Jones nearly all day long that day. Your argument that the PI play was catchable is at absolute best very questionable. I just looked at that in slo-mo and Slay had his hand completely around Jones, used that to pull Jones right to him, which trapped his left hand completely out of the play. Zay was going towards that with only one hand available to make that catch and a guy wrapped around him. There's a reason that was called defensive PI (a success for the receiver, by the way). Making that catch would have been a Beckhamesque kind of feat. Jones is still a work-in-progress. He absolutely does need to get better. But he continues improving and shows signs of having a good future. Against the Pats he went 5 catches for 9 targets, producing 67 yards and a TD, while McKenzie managed one catch on eight targets for eight yards.

I'm no expert, but I've gotten a lot of good material in a lot of different places. One thing I've enjoyed several times over the years is this book: https://www.amazon.com/New-Thinking-Mans-Guide-Football/dp/0671602764 The New Thinking Man's Guide to Football by Paul Zimmerman. It's from 1987, so some of it is outdated but most of the basics of football don't change much. Dr. Z knew his stuff and was a hell of a writer.

I believe he may be being told that, but not by McDermott and Beane. Even if you think that's the way it's going to go, why decrease your options early?

Dude, did you not notice that this writeup is extremely positive about how Lotulelei did against the Patriots? Here's the summary of the article which you yourself linked to: "Summary "To be clear, the above isn’t presented to make the case that Star Lotulelei is playing at an All-Pro level. He is however, playing at a high enough level where the New England Patriots appear to have focused a great deal of attention in avoiding him and accounting for him when that wasn’t possible—and he still made some plays. "The data in the table below comes courtesy of Pro Football Reference. There’s a lot to unpack, but the main point for Star is the last row (light blue). The middle section of the field is the area that he would be the main force in locking down. The Patriots were far less successful running up the middle, and Star Lotulelei is a big reason why." Folks, if you're going to comment, read the article. This whole thread has been a massive proof of confirmation bias, starting from the original poster. The OP doesn't like Lotulelei, so he assumes the article must be negative, perceives it as negative and then goes out to tell everybody about the negative article he found. Then a bunch of people who don't like Lotulelei jump on board, most probably not reading the article because after all they know it will just confirm their biases, and post as if the article supports their stances. The only problem is that the article is very positive about Lotulelei's play. You don't need to watch the Cover 1 film. Just watch the breakdowns from the link in this thread. He's double teamed virtually every time and they were running away from him most of the time anyway. He's doing his job very well.