Thurman#1

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.

The wide receivers are absolutely partly responsible for the pure numbers of passes he threw into close coverage. Absolutely. But as for his percentage of accurate throws there, not so much. Agreed. He shows promise but still has a long way to go. Exactly. I'm still quite hopeful about his future, myself.

https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/27/buffalo-bills-pro-football-focus-josh-allen-accuracy/ Some excerpts: "At PFF, one of our advanced metrics of tracking quarterback play is called adjusted completion percentage, which accounts for drops, throwaways, spikes, batted passes and throws where the QB is hit on his release. Allen ranks last among qualified QBs with a 62.1 adjusted completion percentage, and when he’s under pressure, his adjusted completion percentage plummets to 45.2 percent (he’s the only QB at less than 57.0 percent in terms of adjusted completion percentage under pressure)." "He’s struggled with his accuracy when targeting players who are in tight coverage: His 39.0 adjusted completion percentage on throws to receivers who are either in tight coverage, have a defender closing in on them or have just a step of separation on their coverage defender also ranks last. "In relative terms, he’s also been one of the least efficient QBs when it comes to hitting the target when the receiver is either open or wide open, with his 85.0 adjusted completion percentage on those throws ranking 38th. His accuracy struggles don’t really favor any specific depth of the field either, they’ve persisted all over. Allen ranks 32ndamong QBs with an 82.1 adjusted completion percentage on throws traveling no more than nine yards in the air; he ranks 37thwith a 52.9 adjusted completion percentage on throws traveling between 10 and 19 yards in the air; and he ranks 32nd with a 32.4 adjusted completion percentage on throws traveling 20 or more yards in the air. "In addition to adjusted completion percentage, one of our more advanced quarterback statistics at PFF involved a process in which we chart every throw for accuracy, allowing us to further break down a QBs ball placement beyond completion percentage to see who’s placing the ball accurately – hitting receivers in stride, leading them away from defenders – compared to passers who are getting catchable balls to their playmakers – making a receiver reach back across his body to catch a ball, taking away YAC opportunities – and those who are throwing uncatchable balls. "When we break down the throws from those 39 qualified QBs, Allen ranks 37th with 53.9 percent of his passes falling into the accurate bucket (the NFL average is 61.9 percent)." It should be noted they also loved his running and his downfield aggressiveness, as well as his arm strength and athleticism. Also had a McDermott quote expressing satisfaction with how he's developing. https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/24/buffalo-bills-josh-allen-quarterback-new-england-patriots/ Also a good article from Kubiak on how well he did against Belichick's defences. Kubiak's been consistently positive in saying that Josh is learning, a good thing to stress when dealing with a rookie's performance, and says it continued against the Pats.

He was incredibly average as a first and second-year player. That's extremely good. The Vikes let him go because of the injury.

It's a good question, though all you'll get are guesses, positive, negative and maybe a few more realistic ones. I did some research a few years back on successful rebuilds. Plenty of rebuilds are not successful, and so far we just don't know which will be the case here. But I looked at successful rebuilds going back 30 years or so and basically found that the lion's share of successful rebuilds took four years or more. The average was around 4.3 years if I remember correctly. Very few became obviously successful in three years. Bill Walsh was one of those glorious exceptions, though, winning an SB in his third year after 2-14 and 6-10 seasons. So it is theoretically possible, but unlikely. And the ones that did become really good teams in their third year tended to have brought in their QB before their first year. I know people don't want to hear this, but even with some real improvement next year, becoming a top ten team just isn't very likely so early.

Not buying that. It's been a rebuild since McDermott got here. But not a complete rebuild, you're right in that sense. They have avoided doing that, both years. But they have been rebuilding for two years. It took them two years to shed the cap problems they had but in 2017 they lost more than Watkins, Darby and Dareus. Robert Woods, Stephon Gilmore, Marquise Goodwin, Zach Brown and Robey-Coleman leap to mind, on top of Dareus, Watkins and Darby. That's the start of a cap-cleaning rebuild.

No, we have rebuilt twice in that 20 years, the Donahoe rebuild and the Nix rebuild. Both went forward without getting us a franchise QB. Both were failures, but all the other years have been reloading and reloading and "we can get there with Tyrod, we don't need to rebuild" repeated reloads. We have been consistently mediocre and worse for 20 years, but it has not been a 20 year rebuild.

No reason whatsoever to think so. why would he feel it necessary to go all in this year? He's made it clear from minute one that his main goals are long-term. His goal is to turn the team into one that challenges for a championship every year. And that it would take time. It's still extremely early in Beane's tenure. GMs take longer to evaluate than coaches. Beane'll be here a while. Probably three more seasons at a minimum unless the team absolutely self-destructs. There's no reason to think they will do so. Fair enough that this may be his only chance to be a GM. Of course, he might have more, he's a very young guy, but it's certainly possible this could be his last if he doesn't do well. But he's not going to give up the team's long-term good for next year. Partly because he is likely to be around for the next few years and will be judged much more on years when he's had three or four drafts and we can see how he puts together a team. 2018 wasn't about learning and seeing what you have. It was about rebuilding. The Pegulas know rebuilding, as we can see from the Sabres this year. They know that some rebuilds work and that others don't, but that the most important thing about a rebuild is coming out of it with a QB who shows the possibility of being a real franchise guy. Allen so far looks like he has that possibility. If they don't show any improvement, McDermott might well be on the hot seat for 2020. I expect improvement, myself. They had a ton of holes this year. Next year they'll have far fewer.

Kid yourself if you must, but this year was always going to be a bad one. Some fans like you felt we "were supposed to improve on last year," but nearly everyone else knew that in rebuilds you generally decline before you make progress. And whether you or any other fan feels he gets another year or not matters very little. It's what the Pegulas think and they love the guy. If there's any progress at all he's very likely to see a fourth year at least.

This might come as a shock, but some players don't reach free agency because they sign second contracts with the team that drafted them. If that happens here, getting him young will absolutely have made him a better draft prospect. True, but they are also not what McDermott needs to run his defense. Kuechly is an example of what McDermott is looking for, and he is not a "decent run stuffing MLB with ADEQUATE coverage skills."

How come you didn't mind when he spun the Detroit game positively, saying in that game he thought Josh looked like a QB who could beat people from the pocket? But then have big problems with me when I "qualify" things? Oh, yeah, things that are good about the Bills are OK, but things that aren't entirely positive must be attacked as having qualifiers. And Belichick feasts on rookie QBs.

Yeah, good luck with all of that. Yes, he's progressing. And that's great. But the team he's beaten from the pocket scored 13 points due to missing a field goal and an extra point. With luck in a year or two all of this excitement will be warranted.