Thurman#1

If you really think so, read this: https://buffalonews.com/2015/11/21/torell-troup-one-pick-ahead-of-gronk/ In no way was he anywhere near the worst. And it was his devotion to duty and to doing his best that led to the injury. Excerpt: "Through the 2011 lockout, Troup trained with a vengeance. He reported to training camp at a chiseled 319 pounds, eager to break out. Practices began at St. John Fisher and the kid who had 23 tackles and no sacks the year prior was dominant for stretches. “Honestly, I was killing the offensive line,” Troup said. “Eric Wood, I’m good friends with him, but they couldn’t handle me.” One day in the lunchroom, head coach Chan Gailey and General Manager Buddy Nix couldn’t contain their excitement. The two asked Troup to sit down with them and told this bull in a china shop they had no clue what he did over the offseason, but, wow, were they ecstatic to see this all transfer to game day. Their words added more fuel to Troup’s fire. His tear continued. Teammates today still remember Troup’s raw strength. “Low center of gravity,” guard Kraig Urbik said. “Super strong. Legs were very thick. Strong dude – he was tough to move for sure.” “He was a strong dude,” Wood said. “Big, powerful guy,” added veteran Kyle Williams. “He’s probably not your pass rusher, but a guy who could stack things up at the line and make plays at the line of scrimmage and do some good things there.” Reached by phone, Nix instantly remembers this camp well. “Those big guys are hard to find! Especially him,” Nix said. “He had some movement ability and was really a strong anchor guy.” As Nix recalls, the Bills were shifting to a 3-4 scheme when they took Troup and needed a nose to take on double teams. He doesn’t remember teams being scared off by Gronkowski’s injury history, but the Arizona tight end was the one with the shoddy Carfax report. Back surgery sidelined him his entire final season at Arizona. Troup? He missed a few games due to a knee scope as a freshman but was healthy in totaling 52 tackles (12.5 for loss) as a junior and 35 tackles (five for loss) as a senior. Then, without warning, his world started to crumble down. In a one-on-one pass rushing drill against Wood, Troup used a head bob to freeze the center. He smacked Wood with his right arm and Troup’s hand snapped, breaking the bone underneath his right knuckle. Initially, Troup thought he jammed the finger. By the time he reached the trainers he said his hand looked like a baseball glove. Troup missed one week of practice, wrapped the paw in a club and was prepared to punctuate his knockout summer in the preseason finale against Detroit. To this day, he cannot pinpoint the play, the moment, but during this game he fractured his lower back. “I played all through the game doped up,” he said, “so I couldn’t feel it.” On Wednesday, it felt like he pulled both hamstrings. He received an epidural. Tests later revealed the fracture. A disc in his back was slipping and pushing against nerves, causing burning and numbness down his legs. Troup sat out the first three weeks of the season and returned. “It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘I should have sat my ass down,’ ” Troup said. “But I was young. I was stupid. And it cost me my career.” ‘They wanted me to play’ In New England, there was a revolution. Gronkowski became Tom Brady’s No. 1 target, torching secondaries for 1,327 yards and 17 touchdowns en route to the Super Bowl. Back in Buffalo, there was only misery. Pain. Buffalo’s 5-2 start bled to a 6-10 finish as Troup eked by day to day. Teammates told him to stop playing. Coaches, he said, instructed him to play. His routine was simple. Pain pills for practice: Troup took usually took 7.5 or 9.5 mg of Percocet or a different medication. Toradol for game day: He used this magic potion to completely numb his body in the trenches. Despite serious side effects, players have treated this drug like Popeye’s spinach since the mid-1990s. Misuse can lead to kidney failure, liver damage and gastrointestinal bleeding. In a recent lawsuit, former NFL players claimed Toradol’s blood-thinning effects also worsen the effects of concussions. But Troup needed to play. He took the 1.5-inch, 22-gauge needle injection and suited up for six games. In addition to this, he took muscle relaxers. “They doped me up so much I couldn’t feel anything,” Troup said. “Now that I look back at it, I don’t really understand why I played. We weren’t having a great season. But like I said, if somebody told me to play … I didn’t know better. If somebody told me to play with my head cracked, I would’ve played.”

It wasn't fans on boards saying this. "The game plan was to make [Tyrod] a quarterback," is what the Ravens said after holding the Bills offense to seven points in 2016. And we heard it from several other teams. It may be a cliche at this point, but so is "Look both ways before you cross the street." Some cliches are cliches because they're dead on target. And this is one Oh, and find us somewhere where teams said they wanted to make Aaron Rodgers be a quarterback. Please. They may try strategies like trying to keep Rodgers in the pocket, but making Aaron Rodgers a QB is not something you'll hear a team claim was their game plan. Oh, and that's more nonsense about Belichick. His defensive and offensive schemes are both complicated and multi-faceted. It's why they make a point of bringing in guys who are football smart. They have to be. Agreed that having Brady is huge but their defense has been a major part of their success over the years and a lot of that is scheme over talent. And you may have something there in your last paragraph about throwing guys open. After all, if your first read is Deonte Thompson covered by Jalen Ramsey, you're likely doing a poor job figuring out what reads to make.

Not even close to first. We hear it every year all through the off-season. And the first was a month or two ago from some other benign nut. Every year the Pats are over and the Bills have arrived till the season starts. But it is indeed more than confidence. It's well past that into wackiness.

Glad he's gone. Not surprised he looks amazing. This is the season of "He looks amazing." And having said that, the absolute best of luck to Tyrod. He gave us his best.

Fair enough. So Brady is bad. Four picks in his sixth game. I get you. It really was a bad game, yeah. But a bad, even horrible game or series of games as a rookie (or even a 2nd year guy playing his first games like Brady) doesn't mean your career will be awful. The people who say that one bad game as a rookie or even several bad games as a rookie mean you suck are simply wrong. Some guys who play badly as a rookie suck. Others turn it around. Good question. Whyncha call up McDermott and ask. Probably it's just something he's overlooked. Can't be he knows more than we do, certainly.

While I agree with some of this, I just wanted to point out that it is NOT unprecedented to see completion percentage improve by almost 10%. Brett Favre 1987 Southern Mississippi 40.7% Brett Favre 1988 Southern Mississippi 55.8% Brett Favre 1989 Southern Mississippi 54.1% Brett Favre 1990 Southern Mississippi 54.5% (college totals 52.4%) Brett Favre 1991 Atlanta Falcons 4 attempts the whole year Brett Favre 1992 Green Bay Packers 64.1% on 471 attempts and a career total of 62% Interesting to note that Favre sat for a year before his major improvement occurred.

How many of those QBs selected in the first round who played the first week were the third QBs selected that year? How many went outside the top two or three? And how many of them were widely considered before the draft as developmental guys who would need a year or even two to be ready? General odds aren't particularly general. And then a smart team has to think about this ... should we do what the majority of teams have done in the past? Is that a good reason to do something, that most teams seem to do it that way? Second, should we flat-out pretend that all first round QBs are alike? Or should we take into account the obviously huge factor that many on the boards want to forget about when in the first round guys went, among many other kinds of individual differences? Third, should we totally ignore what has separated successful and unsuccessful QB development as so many want to do, the way that Transplant is doing in this post? "... over the last ten years 76.5% of the QBs drafted in the top 10 started week one," says Transplant. Desperately spinning the fact that that's only 16 guys total, and that of that 16, 12 of the 16 guys (75%) went in the top three, not just the top ten. In fact, 10 of those 16 guys went in the top two, not just the top three. And that all of those guys, every one of the 16, was either the first QB chosen that year or was the #2 pick after another QB had been chosen #1. Whereas Allen was chosen #7, the third QB chosen. Allen doesn't compare to the situations of guys like that. In fact, here are all of the other QBs chosen in the top ten but not the top three during Transplant's chosen time-frame .... Tannehill Jake Locker Blaine Gabbert Mark Sanchez. Should we try to model ourselves after how teams developed those four? Tannehill and Sanchez started Game #1. Gabbert played in Game #2 and started #3. Locker played in five games, significant time in the 10th, 13th and 14th game. I say YES!!! These are the guys you want to use as models. Develop our guy the way that Tannehill, Locker, Gabbert and Sanchez were developed. What could go wrong? Just so folks know, I'm reasonably hopeful about Allen. Love his story and his work ethic beyond his obvious tools. But he's very unlikely to be well-served by playing early.

Tough tough question. Let's look at things objectively. Hmmm. What has changed? Answer: Absolutely nothing except the emotional status of the fans. Wow, well, clearly that's a good reason to imagine that the odds on Allen playing have gone up.

"Fact is Kaepernick is better than Peterman and McCarron," you say. You seem to be having major confusion between facts and opinions. What you have there is an opinion, and not a particularly solid one. We don't know yet who Peterman and McCarron are. Nobody does. Nor are the odds what you say they are. Call Vegas and try to get odds on a proposition bet that Kaep will have a better career than Allen. Think you'll get even odds? And yeah, if whoever we have at QB - likely McCarron or Peterman - manages to run up a YPA this year equal to the whopping 6.8 Kaep posted in his last year, there will indeed be disappointment. Not to mention 186.8 YPG, also not a figure to inspire jealousy. Yes, Kaepernick didn't throw dangerous balls so he kept his INTs down, but also his throws generally, and also his yards, his yards per attempt and his productivity overall. Hard to imagine that situation in Buffalo, but what do you think the Bills might do if they had a QB like that, a guy who also racked up a ton of sacks even if he could run? Hmmm. Hard to say what they would do in a case like that.

If McCarron posts those stats it would be a disappointment, with only the INTs stat looking good. Is Kelvin Benjamin still broken? Is he on another team? Or did you misunderstand why they brought him in, which was not just for one year. The Bills spent $1.1 mill on Jordan Matthews, who was apparently more seriously injured than he or the Bills had hoped. But $1.1 mill was a very small risk. Beane has been OK with his offensive player evaluations so far. He just hasn't spent much on the offense in F.A.. Which isn't his way anyway.

Rosen "slid" to #10, while QBs were being picked right and left. People weren't saying at #5 ... where's Rosen going? Where's he going to fall? It was still "Where will Rosen and Allen go?" Rodgers slide to #24 after the only QB picked before him went #1. There isn't much in common there. Teams that wanted QBs ahead of #10 were mostly picking other ones this last year. Whereas with Rodgers the teams that wanted QBs were going with other positions. That and with this group teams traded up to get one of the top four QBs, to #7 and #10 specifically. Nobody traded up to get Rodgers.

Quick point for you and what seems like half the board at various times ... an opinion with which you disagree is NOT a "fallacy."

Except not. Chances of Beane being gone after the 2019 season are probably around 10 - 20% max. Two years is not going to be enough to know about Allen. After two years as a guy who was always seen as developmental, he's likely to still be having problems even if he eventually works out very well indeed. Most people before the draft said he was going to need a couple of years of development. 2021? Yeah, if Allen's not successful by then and they haven't lucked into someone else ... fair enough, having picked a bust high in the first drastically raises your chances of ending up as maybe director of East Coast scouting on some other team. But two years after picking Kyle Boller in the first in 2003 - he became GM in 2002 - Ozzie Newsome wasn't gone, was he? Two years after picking Byron Leftwich at #7 (where have I heard that number before?) James Harris wasn't in the unemployment line. Took five years. And plenty more examples where those came from.

I disagree 1000%. Staking your career on ONE draft pick can easily be the best and smartest move at the time. It might well have been the correct move this year. Assuming, for example, that Darnold and Mayfield work out and Allen and Rosen don't, and that Beane had the QBs rated, say Darnold - Mayfield - major dropoff - Allen - Rosen ... spending all our draft capital for this year and maybe some from next as well in a move up for Darnold or Mayfield would have been the smart play. It would have left us without a potential terrific MLB but with a great QB. That's a lot better than without a potential franchise QB but with a great MLB. We'll see. I still have plenty of hope for Allen after a year or so of development. Safer, yeah. But safer but unsuccessful means squat. This was the year to get an excellent QB. Not just some QB. And maybe he did. But if he didn't, it will look bad in retrospect.

Hit or miss on Allen, it's WAY WAY WAY too early to say. So far, I am a major fan, but we simply don't have enough info yet.

This.

The Bills were desperate to clear room on the salary cap, as Beane had flat-out promised the Pegulas to clear up by 2019 the serious cap problems Whaley left?

Nothing whatsoever wrong with this. Sammy doesn't have an attitude problem of any kind. A bit of social media awkwardness, but that's about all the problems he's got beyond how well he plays or doesn't. That linked story is from the Rams POV. Which is why they manufacture a bit of Rams-centric bitchiness. First, the Rams story is a response not to a public press conference but a different story from USA Today. That story doesn't even tell what question he was answering. So they could have asked, for all anyone knows, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chiefs/2018/06/11/chiefs-sammy-watkins-value-contract-statistics-andy-reid-kansas-city/691041002/ Here's the quote these Rams whiners are so upset about: "I just made the playoffs one time, and I want to have a successful career. And the only way to do that is to get with a good coach and a good team, so I definitely looked at the players and the quarterback," Watkins, who spent 2017 with the Rams after being traded by Buffalo last summer, told USA TODAY Sports at last week's OTAs. "I got a young quarterback who might play 15 or 20 years and be great. I didn’t want to be with an older quarterback. I came here to be with a young guy that I can grow with. I’m young, he’s really young. It’s a young team in general.” That's it. That's what he said. Guy must be on crack. Sigh. This is outrage porn, finding no offense to be taken so you make some up. Watkins never said that the Rams were included in the group he was choosing from. In fact, he almost certainly wasn't. As the Rams press says (far down) in the story, the Rams weren't willing to pay what the Chiefs were. Watkins was almost certainly talking about the group of teams that gave him the small group of offers he was actually making his final choice from. Which didn't include the Rams. If they'd wanted to be included in his deliberations, they could have ponied up. They didn't. Their choice. But don't then get all bitchy about being left out. God, is this ever a mountain out of a molehill. Hell, there's not even a molehill there.

Under some situations, not very low. If you're studying and holding down a fulltime job and bringing up a kid, maybe it's reasonable. But these players generally have tutoring, guidance in which courses to pick, someone calling to get 'em out of bed in the morning ... they're (not always, there are exceptions, but generally) pretty well supported by a staff that's used to handholding guys with limited academic skills though the system. See that show called Last Chance U. on Netflix about a JUCO for guys who've had problems? Fascinating. Some academic ineligibility comes from not being able to make it to class in the morning consistently. On the other hand, some comes from stuff like dyslexia. It's a spectrum. I wonder where on the spectrum this guy's problems fall? The coach's recommendation looked very convincing to me, though. Generally, the bad thing about supplemental draft guy is that something has caused them to be swept out of the system. That's not generally a good thing. It has to be factored in. Look at Josh Gordon. Spectacular talent. Pretty much of a train wreck personally. The good thing if a guy can live up to his potential is that you're arbitraging the pick a bit. There's a reason that in the draft value pick charts in the 2018 draft, a 2018 2nd rounder is worth a 2019 1st. Next year's pick is worth less to many to most teams that are desperate, because they don't like to give away a pick now and not get a guy till the next year. This is the opposite. You're getting a guy this year and not having to give up the pick until next year's draft. It can represent a bargain. But really it comes down to the guy.

The Pegulas agreed with Beane that the first two years would be spent cleaning up the horrible salary cap situation. Beane promised to take care of that. Bringing in a high-ticket guy this year is very very unlikely. They've had to strip the roster to get the cap under control. They are probably not going to then start to undo that progress. Next year they'll have a ton of space, though. For one thing, they generally keep more than $4 mill available for injuries. Both the Bills and Panthers when Beane and McDermott were there tend to keep at least $7 to $8 mill. Second, Allen hasn't signed yet, and they project him to be around $3.8 mill against the cap this year. So that will come off when he signs. Looks like you're right that Wood's dead money is already accounted for in these numbers. But that leaves somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 to $5 mill available, and they're likely to want to fill in with some cheaper pickups in camp or when other teams cut guys to get down to the 53. And that's not counting what ColoradoBills pointed out above about the roughly $2 mill for the practice squad and the move from 51 to 53.

He quit, decided himself to take the buyout. You're way overreacting with the wanting a guaranteed gig stuff. And that anger you saw, I would strongly argue, was as much your own perception as what Sully wrote. Sully was a grump and a crank, but he'd be the first to notice when they played well - which they tended to do for only short periods of time. I say this as someone with respect for you and your writing, but you are a die-hard Bills fan and IMO don't tend to react well when people are negative about the Bills, even when the team deserves it. That's the way it has looked to me, but feel free to disagree with me there. Am I wrong? Sully found plenty of joy in the Bills here and there, mostly when they played well. Which simply hasn't been often or consistently in a very very long time. As I've pointed out before, during the year Trent had that terrific start, when the Bills were 5-2, Sully wrote a column about how if things continued this way, Gailey would be a front-runner for Coach of the Year. When the Bills played well, Sully said so. But they have been a mediocre team for years and years. A guy who is paid to write a column on a team playing like that should point it out.

"Gleason and Sullivan ranked among the best-read writers for the paper’s website each week, based on metrics that DiCesare could access." ... and ... “'Times are tough for newspapers, but they kept that band together for a long time,' said an anonymous Buffalo News contributor, who also noted that morale at the outlet has taken a hit. 'Pound for pound, that was one of the best staffs in the country. But you’ve got to remember, many of the departures in the sports department weren’t forced. The News did not want to lose Bucky, Sully, Vogl and Tim. But they looked at how things were going, and decided it was an easy time to jump ship.'” Maybe some were sick of it, but obviously plenty weren't. Sounds like a lot of this comes down to the difference between the Buffalo News and the BN Blitz. Sully's comment on suddenly writing for the BN Blitz was really on-point. “We’re running a Bills site now,” said Sullivan. “It’s not a newspaper we’re talking about. It’s an online product specifically geared toward the Bills, which by its very nature becomes a more of a fan site.” That's perceptive and highlights a major issue I hadn't really thought of in the context of the BN Blitz. Buffalo Bills fans don't necessarily want balanced coverage. They tend to want much more positively-slanted coverage. They're team fans. Whereas newspaper readers and sports fans in general would expect balanced coverage, as it's what's been given and valued historically. BN Blitz readers paid money each month for basically nothing but Bills content. They self-selected as people who wanted more positivity about their Bills. Balance isn't what they were looking for. It's an interesting article. Good to know what went on. Seems like the News didn't handle this well, but in fairness, this industry is sailing into uncharted waters. You can't expect everything to go as smoothly as you'd hope.

This is a dullard's argument. I was pointing out that the first few games of a rookie's career can be awful without it proving he will be awful. Simply that. As expected of you, yet again, your first instinct is to throw up the straw man argument and pretend I was saying something I simply didn't say. Typical. I wasn't leaping anywhere. Wasn't even comparing the two as anyone reading the post without a massive ax to grind would have noticed. I was comparing their first four games. Nothing more. And I was comparing them because ... they're comparable. But since you started the comparisons, OK. You point out that Manning was the "1st overall pick with both physical and mental talent regarded as the most can't-miss prospect in a decade..." So ... what, that's supposed to mean it's OK? Makes it more forgiveable that he was a can't miss #1 overall pick while Peterman came out of Pittsburgh? It doesn't. They were both rookies extremely early in their careers making rookie mistakes. Thanks for making my point for me, that even some guys with much higher expectations look awful in their first four games. And as for how horrible the Colts were, it was their defense that was awful. Their offense was actually OK despite Manning's ending the season with 26 TDs and 28 INTs and a 71.2 passer rating. The Colts were the 12th ranked offense in the league, actually. 12th in yards and 19th in scoring, which is slightly better than the 2017 Bills offense managed. In Peyton's rookie year, the Colts had Marshall Faulk and Marvin Harrison. And Manning still struggled badly. I was pointing out that the first three to four games of a rookie's career often means dick. And I did so successfully, which wasn't difficult because it should be obvious to anyone. But if you must go there and directly compare their first games, fine, let's do it. You claim that I pointed out that Manning had a game where he threw 1 TD and 3 INT. But as I clearly pointed out, it was a great deal worse than that for Peyton. Peterman's first four games: 2 TDs and 5 INTs Manning's first four games: 3 TDs and 11 INTs Rookies often suck in their early rookie appearances. Sometimes because they'll never be good enough. But anyone assuming that early suckage proves the guy will never make it is simply making a dumb mistake. Sometimes guys suck as rookies because playing in the NFL, especially at QB, is really really hard and they need time to learn. And sure, I'll be anxious if Peterman starts. Did I say anywhere I'd be filled with total confidence? Anxious but a bit excited. Same with the other two. We haven't got a proven solid QB. Haven't had one since Bledsoe. Why wouldn't anyone be nervous no matter who starts at QB this year? If Peterman starts it'll be because he won the competition against a guy who's at least been solid when he had his chance in Cincy. So yeah, excited too.

That wasn't Tyrod struggling with three and outs and then improving. That was the offense of the Buffalo Bills, including both the extremely good run game and the poor passing game.

That's right, the team was over .500 when he started. Not Tyrod. The team. Again, wins is a team stat, not a QB stat. The correct name of the stat is "TEAM wins in games started by this QB (Regular Season)". Tyrod is slightly below average in terms of NFL starters. Definitely in the top 32 QBs around, but not high enough that anyone is going to want to make him a long-term solution at starter unless he improves a lot in the passing game.