Thurman#1

Is it a one-year contract or a four-year contract? I like Carr, he's smart, but he's reaching here. Too early to say.

If you mean a rookie QB, how well has that worked? The last bunch of rookie QBs have produced very few wins, going back to Russell Wilson who did very well. If you mean a QB on a rookie contract, we haven't lost that chance at all. We've got several more years.

Fair enough, IMHO. Totally agree with you that developing him is the most important thing they'll do (or not do) this year, and most important by a very long margin.

Oh, you think I'm smart? Very kind of you. I wouldn't say I'm all that smart, personally, but whatever you think. And unless you can find somewhere before the last couple of games where McDermott flat-out declared him the starter, than it is very arguable that he changed his mind. I don't know when he first said that, personally, which is why I said it was arguable rather than saying it was factual. But you're getting off-point. All that has to happen for him NOT to be the starter is for McDermott to decide that. And even if he didn't change his mind more than once so far this year, he's a guy who has a history of changing his mind on the starter in just his two years here. It could happen.

That's an utterly stupid argument. Utterly dumb. His first four years his passer rating was 73.4. His career rating is more than ten points higher than that. If he'd had this same stats the rest of his career ... why am I bothering? Stupid argument on the face of it.

There are a lot of ways to improve. Being on the bench and watching is one of them. Probably the four best QBs in the league sat their first years or more, in Rodgers, Mahomes, Brees and Brady.

Or unless the coach changes his mind, which he has already done this year, arguably two or three times. Simple indeed.

Win loss records are team stats, not QB stats. Yes the Giants went 11-5 in Eli's second season. They didn't do it because of Eli. Eli's passer rating that year was 75.9, 26th in the league that year. And he absolutely did NOT go on and have similar stats for the rest of his career. If he had, he wouldn't have had the career he has had or anything close to it. There were still huge arguments about whether Eli would ever be a franchise guy in his fourth year. Then the light came on in the last few games of the season. But thanks for making me go back and look the stats over. You're right, I made a mistake. It was his fourth year, not his fifth that the light came on during. My mistake. Sorry. But in those first four years his total four year passer rating was 73.4. And he absolutely did NOT have similar stats the rest of his career.

Cousins was benched because he was the backup. And because of bad play, which kind of resulted in him staying the backup. I mean, in his first three years his QB ratings were 101.6 his rookie year when RGIII was having that great year and nobody was displacing him. But the next year Griffin was much worse and Cousins was much worse yet with a 58.4. Their third year Cousins again couldn't beat out a beatable Griffin as both had ratings of 86. It was there for the taking and he couldn't take it. And come on, you asked me, "Name me one NFL QB who got in, struggled, was sat and then bounced back to be a franchise guy." All those guys fit that. Now you're throwing in all of these extra little caveats about how he can't be sat because they think he's finished and he can't have someone above him, he can't be established when he gets benched for bad play and so on. Which proves my point exactly. There are a ton of guys who "got in, struggled, were sat and then bounced back to be a franchise guy." It happened for different reasons for many different guys. And yet they bounced back and became franchise guys. It can be done. It has been done many times. It's a legitimate option, a reasonable choice. Not doing that could be a mistake. Or not. I don't know for sure, of course, but it absolutely could be a mistake. If they, you know, start him. If they don't, he's, like, not.

He wasn't an offensive coach. He was the head coach here, and the head coach gets credit for the whole team. I didn't like him quitting but I understood it. He was having a power struggle with Whaley and he was losing. Looking back, it should've been Marrone who won. I don't think he's a terrific coach. Too conservative for me, but he's the best they'd had since Wade. Hopefully McDermott passes him by next year.

Terry Bradshaw. He turned out pretty good, didn't he? Rich Gannon. Alex Smith. Kirk Cousins. Joe Theismann. Kurt Warner. All were benched for performance at some points in their careers and came back. Several were benched early in their careers, same as Allen. Jake Delhomme. Mark Bulger. Was he a franchise guy? I can see arguments that he wasn't, but I think so. Bet I could find some more with not all that much work. You don't have to put him in. He doesn't have to play. There's another very very reasonable option.

Could you just quick link to where I implied it was gospel? I'll wait. Yup. Exactly. Once again the smell of steaming horseshit off one of your posts. I didn't treat it as gospel. I treated it as evidence. Which it is. And since evidence is a thing which you have absolutely none of here, you continue with the loser's argument ... you have no evidence so you throw doubt on the other guy's evidence in a completely non-specific way. It might be a lie. Nothing from the media can be believed. The usual loser's horseshit people with no evidence throw out.

Unfortunately, we can't assume that. It would be much better if it turns out that way. But the Giants didn't know for sure about Eli till near the end of his fifth season. The Chargers thought so little of Drew Brees at the end of his third season that they drafted his replacement. Sometimes you know by the end of the second year. Other times ... you don't. With a Marino, you know. With an Alex Smith you don't. God, yes, Bill. Thank you. Exactly this!!! From your mouth to God's ear!! Wait, what? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! This doesn't need to be Josh Allen's job until it's clear he is or is not the guy. This job should belong to whoever ... will most improve the long-term chances of Josh's success. And there's no reason why sitting on the bench might not help him if he's not ready. Some guys need to sit. It's not completely clear if he's one of those, but to me he sure looks like it.

It's been a staple of self-improvement and business study for many years. I started a journal around 35 years ago and wrote some of my favorite quotes on the cover over the two and a half years it took me to fill it. So it was a bit more than 30 years ago I found and wrote down this quote: "Joy in the work, faith in the process." It's just something to reinforce things for people, as rewards don't come at the same time and in the same quantities as you put in work. When you go on an exercise program and put in two weeks of hard work, you'll look at your lifting results and in the mirror and you'll have made zero progress, or that's what it looks like, anyway. But you don't quit. You have faith in the process. And if you hang in there and if your program is good, you'll start to see results. But there will be plateaus, there will be sudden gains, you will be frustrated. So you have faith in the process and you hang in there. None of which guarantees success in an process as complicated as this one. But it's the way to proceed.

Yup. I asked for where I quoted Belichick. You finally figured out that I didn't. But there's no "Oops, sorry, made a mistake there." Instead it's a guy with zero sources casting doubt on a guy with one source. You got nothing. And yet won't admit it. Clearly, 'nuff said here.

Speaking of revisionist history, you just used some of it right there. Where did I say that Whaley drafted Manuel? I said he loved Manuel. Which he did. He made it clear from his impassioned rant hours later explaining the pick with his "he's got 'the it factor'" speech and followed that up for years with his unqualified support for the guy. Yes, Nix pulled the trigger. But Nix also established a QB committee before that draft to concentrate on which QB they should draft, and put Whaley in charge of it. And they went on about how everyone was in agreement. So yeah, Whaley loved him some Manuel. And he doubled down on that every time he was asked. He had a chance to back off after Nix left. He never did. Remember him pissing off Marrone by trading away Cassel so they'd have to make Manuel the backup?

I see. I "said something about what someone said about what Belichick said," according to you, right? Fine. It should be right in this thread. So quote it and tell which post I referenced something Belichick said. As you so consistently do, you've completely misread something I said, and the went off to rave irrelevantly. I mentioned something he did, hiring Daboll twice and promoting him. So, let's see it ... the quotation from my post where I say Belichick said something. Unless you can manage to finally respond to something I said, I clearly don't need to actually bother responding.

Scott, yeah it absolutely did need to be all or nothing. Rebuild or don't. And if you don't rebuild, you reload and work for getting as good as you can as quickly as you can. "Why would they continue to suck with those players on the roster"? Are you really asking that? You need to ask why a team that went 7-9 would suck when keeping the same personnel? Good grief, Charlie Brown! Because when they had those players they sucked. The coaching wasn't good but a lot of the reason they sucked is because they didn't do a good job with personnel. They had a below-average passing offence and that was going to continue. That a team whose most expensive defensive contract belonged to Dareus, a guy who averaged 7.25 sacks a year before signing that contract and has eight sacks in the almost four years since signing the contract. Dareus looked like a guy you could build around, a really good run stopper who could rush the passer and has since developed into a really good run stopper being paid $16 mill a year. Outside of the guys the Bills kept, like Hughes and Kyle Williams, there simply wasn't a ton of quality on that roster. The guys traded away and cut have mostly not done all that well, though Woods and Gilmore are two real exceptions. They weren't a good roster, they were a decent roster. An overpaid decent roster. And if you're going to tell me what I'm "acting like," get it right. I'm not "acting as if the only way for them to get [a QB] was to do what they did." There were a million ways to get a QB. Keep Tyrod for instance. Or bring Fitz back. So cut the crap, I'm not acting as if they had no choices. I'm pointing out that this was by far the most likely way they had when looking ahead. They had the #22 draft pick and they got up to #7 by trading away assets Glenn and Watkins and their 2018 #2, which is the kind of thing rebuilding teams do. Without trading those two, they don't get from #22 to #7 without trading the 2018 #22 and almost certainly the 2019 1st and a bunch more, probably the 2nd in one of those years. Which would then leave their reload draft virtually toothless and they would again be in cap trouble next year so they couldn't count on bringing in talent that way either. A terrific blueprint for a longer continuation of Buffalo mediocrity on into the future. And you can kid yourself that we don't know what they were thinking, but we do. They hired guys who were promising a major salary cap slashing to get it in shape by the end of this year. Within weeks of seeing how McDermott worked they hoisted him up and over Whaley, the one guy left that they still trusted at that point. They love these two, despite the promises of pain. They have a history of understanding and tolerating rebuilds with the Sabres. After the rebuild is over, you'd better start to show results. But they understand rebuilding. After this one is over, the pressure will then be on.

Yeah, if I'd said or implied that, you'd really have a point. I find it immensely hard to imagine the mental gyrations you must have gone through to imagine or pretend that's what I meant. What I meant is that if it's NOT a new GM, it's NOT a rebuild. A GM who's been somewhere a while saying "Well, clearly I've been so awful at my job that we need to rebuild" doesn't deserve to have a job. Rebuilding is a new GM's prerogative. Philly and the Rams did not have a reasonable choice to rebuild. They were at a different point in their life cycle. They had better rosters and they also were in good cap shape, unlike the Bills. Then they both got lucky with being able to trade up to #1 and #2. They reloaded and got lucky with QBs. The Bills wouldn't have been able to do that from #22 without the draft capital that they were able to put together specifically because they were in a rebuild and traded away guys who wouldn't fit and that they couldn't afford. Reloading wouldn't have worked for the Bills. The Bills were in desperate need of a rebuild. Well, you can see "7-9 isn't good enough" and "READ", "We are more talented than that," but it would show far more about you and what you're desperate to believe than it would about Terry. It could just as easily "READ" anything from "having seen Rex for two years I don't think he'll ever be good enough" to "he's been bringing in talent that hasn't showed itself on the field as good decisions" to "the guy has looked like a clown and then gone 7-9, why would I keep him around." The only mention of "talent" there is in your own head. Your "READ"ing it that way is pure confirmation bias, seeing what you believe rather than what's actually there, a symptom of the desperate desire to believe that Terry is saying what you want him to say, when he doesn't even appear to be addressing the same issue. Ryan came in promising a successful reload - he didn't need no stinking rebuild - he'd win with what he had. And then he went 7-9. And to repeat for the eight millionth time something that should not need to be said even once, there's no such thing as an NFL tank. They don't make sense in the context of football. Tank is a hockey and basketball word. In football, there are rebuilds. And I'm not a rebuilder either. I'm a football fan capable of seeing a rebuild and identifying it - correctly - as what it is, a rebuild.

Again, no. The Eagles and Rams had had the same GM for years. They weren't in a rebuild, dude, they just weren't. They were building. The Eagles team that won the SB had the the two tackles and the center from the 2015 team you're talking about, Agholor was there, Celek, Ertz, and a lot of the best players on that defense ... Fletcher Cox, Graham, Kendricks, Jenkins. And they were lucky enough to get the Browns to trade back and get Wentz. And they were both in pretty decent cap shape, whereas the Bills were in a horrible situation. And the cap shape makes all the difference. The Bills had to get rid of a lot of players they'd rather have kept and a ton who were decent players but overpaid besides. The Eagles and Rams were not screwed by the cap in the same way. Epstein was able to spend a ton on extensions the past few years because they weren't in cap hell. They're under cap pressure now but winning a Super Bowl makes that look OK. Whereas Whaley's brilliant strategy of spending as if we were in a Super Bowl window when we weren't good enough to get eight wins screwed us but good. Same with the Rams ... they were in good cap shape but now, in a window, have gone all in. Whereas we were already all in on that awful team. And the Rams didn't flip the script in a year. They built. They simply continued to build. In 2016 they already had a lot of this year's team on their roster. Including Aaron Donald, who they say is pretty decent. I hear Gurley's OK too, isn't he? Barron, Brockers, Littleton, Longacre, Hill, Joyner. That's most of the defence. Gurley, Saffold, Havenstein. And they were far luckier than the Bills at acquiring a QB with there being a team willing to trade out of the #1 spot. Happily for them, Goff got better, a whole ton better in his second year. More power to them for picking the right QB and developing him. But that is a team that has been building under the same GM for a while and a team that also got lucky with a 4-12 record in the outgoing coach's last year when he lost the locker room getting them good high picks in that next draft. And you can pretend the Bills were talented, but that's what it is. Wishing and hoping. That Bills team managed seven wins for a reason. We weren't far more talented than the Eagles at all. The Eagles had won 10 games the year before, with Bradford at QB. When had we last won 10 games? I'm not interested in arguing the Mahomes trade. It now looks great for the Chiefs but it could easily turn out to be just as good for the Bills when they get out of the early part of this rebuild ... assuming Allen works out. I'm not convinced he will but he's clearly got a chance. Would Mahomes be as good in Buffalo? At best an open question. And Beane wasn't here to make that call. McDermott isn't a personnel guy and certainly isn't an offensive personnel guy. His GM and scouting staff were the guys who wanted EJ Manuel. Why would McBeane trust them ... even if they did want Mahomes, and there's no evidence they did ... remember how Whaley was the one on the phone to Andy Reid for that trade? Did we hear anything indicating Dougie had a problem with it? And um, we "routed the Rams" that year? That's pretty strong language for 30-19, for a game that was tied well into the 3rd quarter. What we did, we beat them. And we also beat the Vikes and Titans this year. Does that prove we're a more talented team than them? Ridiculous. The Bills weren't talent equals to the Chiefs, but just better coached. That's nonsense. The Chiefs had an NFL-standard QB in Alex Smith. But here's what consistently better talent there than here looks like: Pro Bowlers ... 2017: Chiefs 7, Bills 6 2016: Chiefs 6, Bills 4, 2015: Chiefs 4, Bills 3, 2014: Chiefs 10, Bills 4 2013: Chiefs 6, Bills 3 2012: Chiefs 2, Bills 0 2011: Chiefs 6, Bills 1 Yes, the Bills did it their way. And yeah, it is very likely the most efficient way to go from sub-mediocre talent, no QB and a horrible cap situation to being an excellent team. Neither of those other teams was bringing in a new GM. Both of them were in much better cap shape. Both got teams to trade them the top two picks in the draft, whereas there appears to be zero indication the Bills could have managed getting into the top three this year, at least after the Jets traded up to three in a very nice move, unfortunately. We couldn't have taken the same route. We weren't getting either of the top three spots, particularly not from pick #22. The Rams and Eagles were simply in much better condition, quite a bit farther along in their schedule. I'm not arguing that McDermott and Beane have shown themselves to be great. Far from it. The jury is still out. They still have a ton to prove. But blaming them for rebuilding makes no sense. They were in awful shape for any other course of action and not that great a shape for a rebuild either, with the crappy cap situation and coming off a seven win season rather than an awful year that would have given them a high draft pick to start with. They weren't in good shape for any course of action with that cap situation. But their best option considering their desperation for a QB was a rebuild. And rebuilds (near-complete ones like this one had to be, anyway) suck. They involve at least a couple of years of losing and awfulness. It's what they are.

Those two really did the best they could with that argument. No way, of course. Not happening but their badness this year is due to a weakish roster.

Yup, those were the three I thought of too, and none of them are scatbacks. Ricky Williams also played pretty well into his early 30s. Marcus Allen also went late but IMHO he would't have lasted as long these days against today's more athletic defenders. None are huge guys either, but although they're reasonably close to Shady in size, they are more power-based runners than he is. Ricky Williams also played pretty well into his early 30s. Marcus Allen also went late but IMHO he would't have lasted as long these days against today's more athletic defenders. Franco Harris had a 1000 yard season at age 32. Hush, as I research, I didn't realise Riggins played till he was so old. He was still smashing people into his mid-thirties. He didn't average 4.0 during his last five years, but at age 34 and 35 he was getting a ton of carries and putting up a ton of yards. 24 TDs as a 34 year old. Dorsett lasted a while but his last three years were not that impressive. Walter Payton played well till around 32. IMHO there aren't a lot of folks on that list from recent history and not that many scatbacks at all for good reason. Maybe McCoy can be the first, but it tends to be guys with more power in their game who last. Does power stay with you longer than pure explosion?

Would've been $13.924 mill. Top ten picks get the transition tender Is that substantially lower than $16 mill or just a bit lower? $14 mill for a guy who had averaged around 800 yards a year in his first three years and around 700 a year in his first four years (assuming he hit the same level with in 2017 with Tyrod throwing to him as he did with Goff throwing to him). Does a team trying desperately to clear cap make that commitment? Particularly when they also want to put together enough draft capital to be able to get their franchise guy in a QB-rich draft? Obviously not.

I get off knowing what the owners were thinking the same way I get off knowing that when the barometer suddenly drops and dark cumulonimbus clouds roll in and I hear thunder and see lightning and the forecast is for a storm and rain starts to fall that I know a storm is coming. You have links saying this isn't a rebuild year? Great, let's see 'em. Not links using the word "tank," though. They've said they're not tanking but tanking is not the same as rebuilding. There is no such thing in football as tanking, really, it's a hockey and basketball word. But fine, let's see these links saying it's not a rebuild. Of course the Pegulas want a winning NFL team. Duh!! But they hired a coach who committed to a rebuild. It wasn't a surprise. The coaches were on record during the job interview as saying that their goal was a long-term goal ... to become a team that could consistently be competitive for a championship ... not a short-term goal. They were also on record in the job interview as saying they knew the cap was in horrible shape and they would get it in great shape by the end of this season. When a coach and GM say that in an interview you either prepare for a rebuild, including a season or two of horribleness ... or you hire someone else who will reload. The Pegulas hired McDermott and Beane. You may not have known this year would be horrible. The Pegulas did, as did nearly every pundit out there. They want a winning team. They understood that the winning would not come early. And if the defense doesn't look really good in your eyes ... wow, my bad. Why am I spending time talking to you? My fault. You want to kid yourself that McDermott is gone, that's your right.

Doubt it.