Thurman#1

I get that you're tired of it. But it's still true. You edited the quote. He said, "this year was never about winning." Not that winning isn't the most important thing. It doesn't show you're in the wrong business to value long-term consistent winning over the short-term, one season's worth of winning.

Oh, yeah, who can believe he isn't playing Terrelle Pryor at QB instead. Yeah, yeah, he defines his legacy with that choice and his choice of Bojorquez. And his choice of Humber as his original ILB. Oh, yeah, all of these totally define a tenure that is in all likelihood very very far from completion. Totally.

I don't know or much care about any Rosen narrative. Two concussions and a shoulder in college. Once concussion doesn't necessarily mean much. Two in one year, that's a worry. That's about the extent of my interest. And yeah, QBs need to ignore the bad habit and put blinders on. And abused wives and vets with PTSD need to do the same thing, tough it out, show some guts ... you get I'm being sarcastic here, right? The human brain doesn't work that way. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. There's a ton of stuff that goes on well below consciousness. And trauma has an effect, an effect that can't always be controlled. Carr is the classic example not because there are few of them but because he's by far the most obvious example. Carr has two of NFL history's biggest season sack totals. 76 in 2002 and 68 in 2005. Second most-sacked QB in NFL history in terms of sacks/attempt. 10.54%. That's insane, and most of it was on the GM for never really putting an OL in front of the guy. You're wrong about Aaron Rodgers, completely. He started with a very high release point, which is what his college coach, Tedford teaches. It was seen as a major drawback and considered a major reason he fell in the draft. Mike McCarthy, in the QB camps he put Rodgers through starting during the years he didn't start, totally changed his motion to a much more classic one. Rodgers practices and is good at off-platform throws but his motion was greatly improved in his seasons on the bench and it was very likely that it was exactly the fact that he sat on the bench that allowed him to groove that new motion rather than go back to his old one when the rush came if he'd played early. He was much worse in camp his first three years or so. And by the way, your first of several straw men here is the assumption that "broken" implies the problem is always physical beating. It's not. Guys never reaching their potential can happen in a ton of different ways that have nothing to do with physical pain. There are many ways to prevent a guy from reaching his potential. Putting him in the wrong system. Putting him out there to do badly before he understands what's going on around him and thereby putting him in position to fail. And the more developmental a guy is, the easier ruining him can be. Developmental guys need to be developed. Correctly. That's where the word comes from. It's why some guys are called NFL-ready and others are very much not called that. "JA's not shook he won't be," you say. I don't quite know what to say to that, as it's pure wishful thinking! I mean, I hope so too, but while we know he's a tough kid, plenty of tough kids are affected by consistent horrible experiences. You're flinging straw men all around here. What does Vince Young have to do with this argument, unless you think he was ruined. I don't know either way but I think he just wasn't good enough and that he had some mental issues. Tebow doesn't belong in this discussion. Does anyone say he was ruined? Puh-leeze. You argue that "some would say" Russell Wilson has a bad habit in running out of the pocket? Good lord, dude, how desperate are you? Who would say that? Wilson's very good from the pocket. And he can also leave it when the time is right. Nothing wrong with that. And yeah, I said people will be saying that first year ruined him. I perhaps phrased that badly. People will say it, but no, not all the damage to guys who get ruined will happen in the first year. But guys whose first year didn't allow them to set a good foundation for success? Guys greatly hurt by that? Particularly guys identified as developmental who were pushed in early? Yeah, there's a good case to be made for a number of cases like that. And probably many of them involve guys taught early on in their career things like, as you say above ... "sure.. go back to your bad habits if you're trying to win a ball game and the ole pro I-form 7 step drop, stand tall and sling every blitz ain't working, do your thing!" Stupid on every level to say that to a QB. Things will tend not to work for young QBs, based on not understanding the pro game. Telling them to go back to the delivery flaws - such as Allen's bad footwork they're trying to fix to improve his accuracy - that reduce accuracy or the tendency to leave the pocket before you need to and cut down your visibility and run away from and make it impossible to hit many of your receivers on the play, or to run backwards rather than step up in the pocket when it's available, all flaws Allen needs to work on, can eliminate improvement in a crucial area of a young QB's game. The reason bad habits are called "bad habits" is because ... wait for it ... they're bad. Guys going back to old bad habit stymies development and makes the player worse. Sure, I can name some guys who may have been badly affected by poor handling. There can be no proof of this of course, but there can also be no proof it's not true. The NFL believes that it happens. Including Josh Allen by the way, to repeat myself. As for guys who were possibly ruined ... Just off the top of my head, Joey Harrington. Tim Couch for, gulp, Cleveland, and being pummeled consistently and just handled poorly. Plummer was treated badly enough early in his career he finally just junked it all. Jason Campbell was in a horrible situation. Byron Leftwich seemed like he was becoming a pretty good QB but didn't get much in the way of an OL or recievers and they lost faith in him quickly. Really smart guy, Leftwich and tough too, played on a broken leg in college. RGIII, maybe. His athletic ability had them put him out there before he was maybe ready and then he had coach controversies and was maybe protected by his owner from the coaching Shanahan wanted to give him. He's apparently a good guy, but nothing now. There was a time when he looked terrific. Rick Mirer was handled badly, though he was an arrogant and maybe troubled guy. Gannon has said that he wonders what he could have become if he'd had McCarthy as a coach earlier in his career. McCarthy turned him around. It'd be fair to question him but he is a very sensible guy these days and he has some ideas about how he should have been handled. I'm not going deeper. And I don't say there's proof ... either way. How could there be? But are some of these guys likely bad case studies on how to ruin a QB? Yeah.

The trick plays weren't the reason McCoy ended up with 13 yards on 12 carries. In fact, 12 of his 13 yards came on the first play from scrimmage, the first Wildcat play. The second Wildcat play made 4 yards for Chris Ivory. The third was McCoy for 1. The fourth was McCoy for -3. On a super-quick look-through, I can't find anymore. So McCoy went 3 for 11 on the Wildcat plays and 8 carries for 1 yard on the non-Wildcat plays. I agree that Zay and Benjamin have really come around and are playing well the last three games or so. And I don't think that it's three games, the Anderson games, is entirely coincidence. I just don't completely buy that the run game has been that successful when they committed to it. Looked to me more like we planned a lot of runs against teams we thought we could run against and kept it up when we had some success. I don't know that, obviously. But that's what it looked like to me. If they fire Daboll after the season, I'm fine with it. If they don't, I think it'd show they don't put the blame on him.

That wasn't Beane saying that. It was me. And it's pretty obvious ... Five years from now people will say either, "Yeah, the Bills destroyed him that year. Should've sat him and brought in some good QB coach," or "That was the year where he got the foundation of what he is today. Great year. We only won three games but in retrospect, what a great year." I have no clue which. It's complete nonsense that only weak QBs get injured. This is the NFL. Plenty of people get injured, strong, weak and in between. And if you don't believe in breaking QBs, then you're avoiding the truth. Pretty much everyone in the league believes it's possible. Hell, Josh Allen said it happens. Blaming David Carr's busting on David Carr shows how deeply caught up in your argument you are. That simply doesn't make sense. This isn't about excuses. It's about how humans brains work. You can have your career destroyed without ever giving in to the yips. Guys who get hammered regularly can learn. But if they're guys with bad habits, bad mechanics, or guys who depended on gimmicks like running that in college worked great but can be countered in the NFL, (developmental guys, generally) they're more likely to go back to what worked in the past, to their first instinct rather than taking the time to develop new muscle memory of the good habit. Got nothing to do with toughness. Last year the three best QBs in the league all had taken their first year on the bench. And not one was a top five pick. This year it's up to the top four in the league with Mahomes. When you look at how few starters sat for their first year, this looks less and less like coincidence.

Fair enough, you've done your homework, and I didn't understand that before. But I would argue that first, we were well behind in a fair amount of first halfs. And that we're spending a lot of time in long-yardage situations which will move things towards the pass. And that teams are tending to load up against the run and that has allowed teams to throttle our run game to the point where we're only managing 3.7 YPC. We have to have some success passing to loosen up things for the run. When they're stuffing the box, you have to make them pay for that a bit, even if it's only completing short little passes. And we finally did have a bit of success passing, getting a bit better with Anderson and being downright OK against the Pats. But the Pats game is a solid example. 19 runs (for 46 yards) and 26 passes (for 313 yards). But if you look at situations, our hand was forced a lot. 1st drive: 3 runs, 3 passes. But the last two passes came on 2nd and nine (flea flicker) and then 3rd and nine. 2nd drive: 2 runs, 3 passes. But the last two passes came on 2nd and 13 and 3rd and 13. 3rd drive: 1 run, 2 passes. But the 3rd down pass came on 3rd and nine. 4th drive: 4 runs, 5 passes. The first pass for a 1st down came on 3rd and six after two runs gained a total of four. And on the final 3rd and eight they ran it to Shady. For a gain of two. That was the first half for the Bills. 10 runs and 13 passes, but several of those passes situationally almost had to be passes. And yet they did cross things up with Shady on the 3rd and eight to go against tendencies.

Did Mahomes need time on the field in his rookie year? Brees, Rodgers or Brady in their first years? Time off the field can be just as useful and in many ways more so. You can learn just as much about the defense while concentrating on basics and mechanics that need to be grooved. Young guys in trouble on the field tend to return to old habits under pressure. Young guys on the bench can take the time to work on creating new habits. Did you see the Matt Nagy article? "Nagy was the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator last season. His primary function was putting Smith and the rest of Kansas City’s offense in the best position to succeed each week. But along the way, Nagy also was involved in bringing along Mahomes. "The Chiefs planned for Mahomes to be a spectator as a rookie. The Bills entered this season with a similar plan for Allen, but were forced to start him five games after Peterman’s disastrous season-opening performance at Baltimore. Since injuring his elbow in his fifth start, Allen has missed two games and is expected to be out again this week – and possibly longer. The circumstance has created an opportunity for Allen to be a student, a role Mahomes fully embraced. And the results have been incredible, with his off-the-charts production pushing the Chiefs to a 7-1 record. “ 'Off the field, and I’m going back to last year, we had him on a pretty good regimen in regards to coming in and teaching him how to be a professional,' Nagy said. 'How do you watch tape? What time do you come in in the morning? What do you do on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? So you teach them, first, how to be a pro and understand that it's football, 24-7. Number two, you're taking care of your body. And then you're out in practice (taking everything in) as a backup quarterback as a rookie.' “ 'There were times last year, when Alex was running the first team offense, when you watched the video from up in the sky, you can see Patrick 30 yards behind the line of scrimmage doing the exact footwork drops that Alex is doing, just doing it by himself behind the play. He's getting the footwork and the timing, and he’s visually going through calling the play and all that.' “ 'Those are the little things that you can do to help yourself out when you're not getting those live reps in practice. He did that and that's a credit to Patrick and those guys for really having the ambition to do that. And then you take it to this year, Patrick has some talent around him that knows the system, too, so that helps him, which is great. Coach (Andy) Reid’s done an awesome job with all those guys.' ” https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/31/buffalo-bills-josh-allen-patrick-mahomes-kansas-city-chiefs-mitch-trubisky-chicago-bears-matt-nagy-sean-mcdermott/ In any case, excellent job with the OP. Thanks for writing it.

Yeah, the whole season revolves around one player. Josh Allen. This season from the instant he was drafted became about nothing but how well he develops. Winning don't enter into it. Five years from now people will say either, "Yeah, the Bills destroyed him that year. Should've sat him and brought in some good QB coach," or "That was the year where he got the foundation of what he is today. Great year. We only won three games but what a great year." Nothing else matters. Certainly none of the pissing and moaning that always accompanies the horrible early years of a rebuild.

He was maybe my favorite football writer. A very sad day. "Super Bowl XXVIII will go down in history as a blowout, because that's what a 30–13 score looks like when you read it in the record book five or 10 years later. But the score won't come close to telling the story. The Buffalo Bills, short-enders for the fourth straight year, had the Dallas Cowboys on the ropes on Sunday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, and they let them escape. "The Bills have now lost two Super Bowls that they should have won, the first and fourth in this series of consecutive defeats, and have lost the other two most convincingly. Sunday's defeat was the most disheartening because the Cowboys were a struggling team in the first half; Dallas was ready to be put away. The Cowboys' quarterback, Troy Aikman, seven days removed from a severe concussion, was having difficulties. Emmitt Smith's favorite running play, the lead draw, was getting stuffed. Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly was picking Dallas apart with his short, meticulous passes, and the Cowboy defense was on the field far too long—41 snaps in the first half—against the Bills' no-huddle offense, which literally takes your breath away." https://www.si.com/vault/1994/02/07/130416/the-fumble-dallas-bashed-buffalo-in-their-super-bowl-rematch-as-miscues-made-the-bills-four-time-losers

How's Keenum working out for Denver? As for the other two, it seemed pretty obvious to me that they didn't want either guy because you have to run a different offense to maximize them, as neither can run a passing game out of the pocket. And rebuilding teams don't want to have to change the offense. Even in a horrible season like this one at least the team is learning the system so that next year when they upgrade the offensive personnel I see why people might want to ask those questions, but I think the answers are pretty obvious. Now, if Keenum was kicking butt in Denver, the Broncos would look like geniuses and the Bills like eejits for that Keenum decision. Yeah, Keenum's been better than anyone we have but he hasn't been that good and Denver has a lot better talent around Keenum than we have on offense. IMHO Wawrow has an interesting point. If you think that's the narrative on this major problem, more questions should be asked right now, and also in the past. My understanding is that McCarron's diagnosis of a hairline collarbone was later found to have been mistaken. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/report-bills-aj-mccarron-didnt-fracture-collarbone-expected-to-return-to-practice-soon/ But yeah, he was outplayed. Looking back, they should have kept him anyway, but Carucci reported that they were worried that he had problems with being the third-stringer and they thought he might let his dissatisfaction show. What they have is surely a major mess, but I understand letting him go if they thought he was going to cause problems in the locker room. Yeah, this is a good point, I think. Bringing in Anderson or Barkley earlier would have been playing it safe and smart.

I'm glad that you want that. I wish it for you if it's your wish. But that's not what Daboll has done. If he really had sucked, he wouldn't have been hired at Alabama. Or New England. He just wouldn't have. Offensive success is based on many many different factors. One of them is the OC and the play-calling. Another is the quality of the offensive roster and the QB in particular. Bad rosters can hamstring good OCs. And vice-versa. But Belichick and Saban are two of the canniest strategists in football. And both hired Daboll. Open your mind to the possibility that a lot of the offensive failure of those teams may have been due to the fact that he was working with truly awful QBs and rosters. Including the one here. If Wood and Incognito had been here, maybe we could have seen a bit better offense. But they're gone and the line is having problems, as is the QBs and the WRs. It isn't hard for teams to figure out where they should place their resources to stop the Bills when the one good position group on the offense is the RBs. If Daboll isn't here next season, we'll know McDermott agrees with you. That could happen, easily. But it might not. We'll have to see.

Yeah, it must be the game plan. It certainly couldn't be because when a team is losing by a lot they have to pass a whole lot to catch up, could it? And we've - you know - been behind by a lot ... a lot. Couldn't be that, could it? Or that on plays like 3rd and 11 a pass is more likely to get a first down then a run and that we've seen a lot of situations like 3rd and 11 this year? Or that teams are laughing at our pass game and loading the box making it very diff Oh, wait, it could. So it is indeed not a coincidence that the ratio is different between wins and losses. But you're confusing cause and effect. Teams that suffer big losses pretty much always are slanted towards far more passing than running. You need far more evidence to make this point.

Yup, the guy, Joe Marino from Draft Network, having done a lot of analysis on Daboll's offense, says he likes a lot of what he sees. https://wgr550.radio.com/media/audio-channel/10-31-joe-marino-draft-network-schopp-bulldog Thanks to FadingPain's thread for the link. Around 1:38 is the bit about Daboll. Marino: "What I really like about Brian Daboll's offense is that it schemes a lot of throws for Josh Allen or whoever his quarterback is. And they can use a lot of different formations, use a lot of personnel packages, but run a lot of similar route concepts out of them that create space to make throws and so ... you've seen a lot of that earlier in the season with some of the wheel routes that they were doing and a lot of different route combinations that are designed to create that space. So we've talked a lot about the Bills supporting cast and how they don't necessarily have great receivers that are going to create that separation, but when you can use leverage and use route combinations to find that space, you just need a quarterback to read it and rip it. It creates some easy throws. That's one of the things that I like about it. And then you saw this past weekend in the New England game - and it was really an indication that you know Buffalo knows where it is on offense, with using all the different formations and packages, the Wildcat and all those different variations. It really speaks to just that Buffalo is undermanned. It's not a fair fight when Buffalo takes the field offensively, but I do think that Brian Daboll does his best to get the most out of his talent. And I just don't know that anyone else would do a better job with this personnel." There's more but that's a good introduction to it. It's really hard to separate bad planning from bad execution sometimes. And this offense does not have a lot of talent to work with. I've got no problem if they part ways with Daboll after the season. But I wouldn't be surprised or have any problems with it if they keep him. They know a lot more about what plays were called, what defenses they should be called against, and whether it was a bad plan or the players not managing to execute. It's a literal glitch in the Human OS to want to quickly find a scapegoat and attach blame. Feels better. What works better, though, is careful grinding analysis of the problem and cold dispassionate decision-making.

It really did turn out to be a bad sequence of events. But looking at McCarron's work in Cincy, you wouldn't figure he'd be the #3 guy in this competition. #1 or #2, surely. But that's not the way it turned out. And they still might have kept him but Carucci wrote that they were concerned that McCarron was discontented and might have caused problems in the locker room. When I heard this, it made a ton more sense to me. They didn't expect to trade McCarron, but felt they had to. If that's true the whole thing makes a lot more sense. They did leave themselves in a bad position and Anderson is a stopgap who'd have made a ton more sense if he'd been brought in during the offseason. I'm not sure how you anticipate McCarron being trouble in the locker room, though. I don't think he ever caused any problems in Cincy.

Yes, that's how much it turned out to cost to get Allen. But obviously they didn't know how much it would cost before it happened. It might easily have cost more. They brought in a ton of draft capital and a lot of the reason must have been that they felt they desperately needed to come out of this draft with one of the top three or four QBs. Yeah, they didn't have to spend too too much. But they might have. If they ended up with extra capital left over, no problem. But if they didn't have enough, that would have been a huge problem. Veterans aren't more important than rookies just because they're veterans. Plenty of veterans don't work out or retire suddenly ala Boldin, or don't fit the system ala Darby (and yeah, you can say McDermott could've made him fit, but I think McDermott is a much better judge of that than you). And Darby isn't playing well for the Eagles this year, but could easily pull it together. Two DLs instead of Lotulelei ... isn't what McDermott wanted. He probably could've worked with it but Lotulelei is what the system called for. There's plenty of reason to say that McDermott may not know how to build an offense. He's still got a ton to prove there. But as for a defense, he's a lot better at that than you are, and he's shown it. If he wanted Star at $10 mill a year, it's probably because Star made his defense better by a pretty fair amount. Do your version of that rebuild and we have more offensive talent and a lot less defensive talent. No Star, no Edmunds and a CB in Darby who might be expensive next year when our current CBs are doing a great job and are cheap for another two or three years. Where's the advantage in having a bit better offense and a worse defense? The net gain is about zero and it costs more now and especially in the future. And it's just not true that losing cultures happen when you lose a lot. If that were true, Bill Walsh's teams would have developed a losing culture in his first two years when they won two and then six games. And the great Barry Switzer having inherited a Cowboys team that had won two Super Bowls in a row and himself winning one two years down the line since they won so much would have kept a winning culture. And they were pretty awful pretty quick after that If cultures worked like that, losing teams would never ever turn it around and winning teams would never ever start to lose. Cultures are much more complex than that, and many of football's greatest dynasties came from rebuilds where they were absolutely awful for a couple of years or more.

Yeah, and it totally makes sense to judge a draft class and how well a rebuild is going in eight games. Take the 1989 Cowboys draft of Troy Aikman, Mark Stepnoski, Daryl Johnston and Tony Tolbert. Most people consider that a terrific draft and crucial to Dallas' rebuild. But your excellent method here reveals it to be a terrible draft for a rebuild. In their first eight games: Aikman ... hurt and out and in the first four games had gone 37 for of 85 for 515 yards, 1 TD and 6 INTs, for a YPA of 6.05 and a passer rating of 38.1. Steve Wisniewski ... not a single snap for the Cowboys ... sure, 8 Pro Bowls and he made the 1990s all-decade team but not a single snap for the Cowboys in the first eight games Stepnoski ... zero starts Daryl Johnston ... zero starts, 7 carries for 9 yards, and 53 yards in receptions. Rhondy Weston ... who? Tony Tolbert ... zero starts, zero sacks, or forced or recovered fumbles or INTs or really anything particular Keith Jennings ... zero starts Willis Crockett ... zero starts Jeff Roth ... who? Kevin Peterson ... who Charvez Foger ... hunh? Tim Jackson ... nope Rod Carter ... unh uh Randy Shannon ... no starts Scott Ankrom ... no starts, and who? Not only that, but they lost all eight of those games. Clearly, using your method we've proved that that was a bad draft and that the Cowboys rebuild was doomed to fail. Without a doubt, you've unearthed a terrific useful tool here.

Fine, if you believe as he said that a coach's #1 need is to motivate, then as I said, hire a cheerleader and loft the Lombardi. And yes, players are motivated because they're pros. But maybe you're different. Maybe if you had a job that paid $3 or $4 mill a year and your alternative was an office job that - maybe - paid $40K, you'd be really really unmotivated. Probably you'd just screw around and do nothing even knowing that your performance was video'd and made available to all 32 possible employers. Knowing that the average career in this highly paid field was less than three years, yeah, that would make sense. And sure, Beane can be judged. But only in a preliminary way. Judge him only on the moves he's made and understand that there's never been a complete rebuild that didn't suck in the second year. Every time I say that people run to give me tons of examples, but their examples are all either reloads or rebuilds that are three or four or five years old. Second years of rebuilds suck and anyone who thinks he can come up with a conclusive judgment of a GM based on the first and second year of a rebuild just doesn't get it. I did notice that the rest of your post was in English. So it has that going for it. But is not understandable to any real degree, IMHO.

Suddenness. Quick change of direction. Route-running. Pushing off in a way that won't get called. It all fits in. Plenty of it can be coached, but certainly not all of it.

He really has just NOT proved to be a bad judge of offensive personnel. How come you folks making this argument keep forgetting to mention Dion Dawkins? Why is that? Couldn't be because he disproves it pretty completely, could it? And that you don't want people to think about him for just that reason, could it? Excepting Dawkins ... Kelvin Benjamin has started to look pretty solid the last three games or so. Same with Zay Jones. Corey Coleman cost them a bit of money, but it doesn't appear to have been an issue of offensive skill, as reported by Mary Kat Cabot, " The Bills didn't like Coleman's attitude from the time he arrived, a source told cleveland.com, and it never got much better. He also still struggled to run full speed because of his tight hamstrings." https://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2018/09/bills_cut_corey_coleman_less_t.html Any argument that has to pretend that guys like Mike Tolbert and Jerome Kerley were anything more than extremely low-budget fill-ins is one pathetic argument. What it shows is exactly that it's hard to find examples of areas where they spent significant amounts of resources (money or high draft picks) on the offense that aren't showing signs of being successful (Dawkins and Zay). Boldin? Good lord, are you reaching much to blame his retirement on the coaches when bringing him in cost absolutely nothing? Ducasse has outperformed his contract too. Yeah, after that it's hard to find examples, exactly because they clearly prioritized the defense. Next year it's a good guess that this team led by a coach from a defensive background who now has a defense playing quite well will spend a lot of resources on the offense.

And yet more of empty denials with almost zero football content whatsoever.

It ain't an indictment of Beane and McDermott. It's what happens in the second year of a rebuild. It's just a shame Allen didn't get the year to sit and learn that they obviously planned for him to have. Agreed that not giving him a vet mentor from early in the offseason was a bad move. My feeling is that they thought McCarron would serve. But they should have brought in someone who had more experience than McCarron. That's a really fair criticism. But a poor surrounding roster is just what happens this early in a rebuild. You're right, he's not going to suddenly get it. If he gets it ... and he easily might ... it will be a long drawn-out process. That process might hit a tipping point making it looks "sudden." But it'll actually be the result of a long continual process. If it happens. As for who is delusional ... that would be anyone who thinks they know the future of Josh Allen, positive or negative. It's possible to guess right. But what you're doing there is guessing, and confusing opinion and fact. You should know.

Nope. You've made it extremely clear that you don't get this, but our biggest need is time. When you're in the second year of a rebuild, you're going to suck. We've got an LT, a good one. And Watkins has been paid for potential his entire career. Sammy is the 6th highest paid WR in the league by average salary, and yet being thrown to by probably the hottest QB in the league he's managed to put together 456 yards (31st in the league) and three TDs (a 24-way tie for 34th in the league, which puts him in the top 55 in the league!!! Wow!!!) in eight games. That's about as far from a bargain as you can get. If we had Sammy, the big result would be that we would be in considerably worse cap shape and would suck ever so slightly and marginally less. I'd love to have Woods, but teams fighting their way out of cap trouble are going to have to cut guys they'd rather keep. That's life in the NFL. I'm sure that someone, perhaps Freud or Einstein, could find some meaning in this. I can't. Belichick hasn't reloaded since Cleveland (why would you with Brady and a record of terrific seasons) and doesn't have hubris. I guess he's fine, though. So, there's that to what you say. Dude, first, you weren't on the subject. You tossed off a stupid remark about opinions and conjecture and Kool-Aid, having nothing to do with Daboll or even football. Not an ounce of actual content and certainly nothing about Daboll. Do I think Daboll is the right coach for Allen? Don't know. Nobody out here does, really. The guys who do are in the meeting rooms. They have a far better idea of whether it's bad play-calling or play-calling that would have worked with decent execution. I get the feeling that he has to go, though. Knee-jerk searches for scapegoats feel much better than just buttoning it up and going through the inevitable pain of rebuild. Conjecture? Um, yeah. You too. Anyone making a guess at the future is using conjecture. And no, Pete Carroll reloaded. What he did is absolutely nothing like a complete rebuild.

Of course it's real hope for the Bills. You don't have to be competitive this year if you're building in the manner that has the highest chance of being successful. And they are. They've at least showed they're canny. I don't even agree that we're not competitive. We've beaten two good teams this year and the Pats game was still competitive late. Good? No. Fair enough. But yeah, there's real hope with that defense moving forward and the terrific cap shape we're in starting next year.

Can't even come up with one word of factual or logical support for your position, hunh? Which I understand. There really isn't much to be said for it, but not one word? The meaning of that is pretty clear.

I agree he's in the top 32, but not the top 20. The problem with him is that you can't run an ordinary offense and expect success. Like Tyrod you have to put him in a certain kind of offense to maximize him. If your team is at the beginning of it's cycle and is trying to input one kind of offense, you don't want to bring in Kaep and then have to change things up and stop the learning process for what will be your system for - you hope - the next five years or more. As for Garoppolo vs. Kaep, come on. The thing that made that performance amazing for Garoppolo is that he had thrown 63 previous NFL passes. And no, their stats weren't all that comparable. Garoppolo was throwing for 8.76 YPA (1st in the NFL), in other words, he was putting the ball down the field and making a lot of yards. Whereas Kaepernick threw for 6.49 YPA, a bit lower down than 1st, at 27th among QBs. He was throwing a lot of checkdowns. Kaepernick replaced the 1-4 Gabbert and went 1-10. You can't blame him for those losses, it wasn't a good team. But Garoppolo replaced a 1-4 Beathard and an 0-6 Hoyer and went 5-0. Sorry, but those two seasons were anything but comparable.