Thurman#1

Could easily be this, I agree. I'm just wondering if anyone knows different. Probably you're right, though. I politely disagree that Alex Smith was ever seen as a bridge QB in either SF or KC. He was there for seven and five years respectively. That's not a bridge QB, but instead a QB they planned to use as a long-term starter but eventually opted out of (and leaving Alex Smith for Kaepernick has been proven a mistake, though it worked out well for them in the long run thanks to the *choke* kindness of Belichick).

We're quite tight against the cap right now. It'll be down to about $10 - $12 mill after they sign all of the rookies (The draft pool rookie cap is slightly above $9 miil) And both the Bills have historically kept $6 -$9 mill available for in-season injury replacements and Beane has said he will do the same thing. There's not much available. And yeah, the OL will be a concern, but an interesting one.

Crap, disbunked: Yes, Taylor's deep threat was good enough to have a 154 yard game and yet he according to you did so while near-crippled Yes, guys who are on injured reserve for a long time but then come off it are generally off it because they're, you know, recovered enough to play. Yes, the same broken foot he was on in the Raiders game, when he blasted past his CB to get wide-open but not seen. Tons of wide-open Tyrod misses that game. Yes, Taylor didn't have a deep threat in 2017, outside Clay, of course.. And almost exactly equalled his long-ball troubles from 2016 when he had Watkins for half the year and Goodwin for 15 games. Yes, losing a deep threat hurt to some degree. Know what hurt worse, though? Tyrod clearly, visibly, not being as good with the deep balls. Yes, I'm sure you do believe it. You believe anything that puts Tyrod in a better light, ridiculous or not.

Yeah, this. The Browns would have had him as a bridge guy on a middling team. The Eagles have him as a backup on a team with real Super Bowl chances this year. Question: Is it possible Foles had some kind of a no-trade clause in his contract? Guys in his situation don't usually get that kind of leverage but is it possible that's the reason Philly asked him?

Yup. 7th in the league is impressive. For the offense. Not for the passing game, that's for sure. But for the offense, yeah, very impressive. #1 in running TDs scored, by a very large margin. #1 in running yards. #27 in passing TDs scored. #30 in passing yards. Not quite so impressive, there. Some might even say crappy. The Bills scored 29 rushing TDs (the Cowboys were 2nd with 24 and the Cards and Falcs tied for 3rd with 20 each ... the Bills running game had a sensational year scoring) and 17 recieving TDs. 29 rushing to 17 passing. And the only other team to score more rushing TDs than passing TDs was ... oh, wait, nobody else did that. The Bills were the only one. So yeah, the scoring numbers were impressive, but for the running game. The passing game's scoring numbers and really all the passing game's other numbers all ranged from below average to bad. Tyrod's 2015 season proved that when teams didn't know how to defend him he was terrific, for the first seven games or so, a QB rating well over 100. But for his remaining seven games that year his QB rating was within a point and a half of his average for the whole three years. After they figured him out, he was slightly below average as a passer on a very consistent basis for the rest of his tenure here.

What's ludicrous is you assuming that you know all the pain entailed after he'd already been sitting and healing for half the season while I don't. Neither of us does. What both of us should know is that Watkins was effective enough despite whatever pain he had that when the throws were good he was able to get open and make some nice long catches. Look at the beautiful play he made on that long ball in the Jags game, his first game back. Sweet. He was effective but he didn't get a lot of good balls thrown his way. He was good enough that when he got good balls thrown to him he had a 154 yard game against the Dolphins. That's very good. Again, it was wildly obvious simply from watching the games that Tyrod simply wasn't throwing long balls anywhere near as well in 2016 and 2017 as he had in 2015. He missed open recievers, a lot of them. The naked eye made it obvious at the time and the stats only confirmed the already visible. He simply wasn't throwing the long balls as well anymore. I always remember the 3rd and 24 against the Raiders in the 2nd quarter with 7:34 on the clock. Goodwin's all alone on the left side, and Tyrod waits and beautifully runs away from the rush and slips out to the left. The coverage is pretty good and around 38 yards downfield Goodwin cuts off the route and heads directly back down the sideline a couple of yards ahead of his coverage guy. Nobody close to Tyrod, who sees Goodwin and throws to him, bouncing the ball around eight yards in front of Goodwin. If completed it's a first down on a third and 24 play. Not even close. Now if that were the only play, hey, everybody has a few bad throws. But in terms of long balls in 2016 and 2017, Tyrod had a lot more than a few. I had a few moments so after watching and wincing at that play again I looked at the rest of the Raiders game. Like the other horrible miss to a wide-open Goodwin 25 yards downfield with 2:34 in the 2nd. Or the awful one at 12:42 in the third when Sammy absolutely flies by his man on the right, wide open, nobody able to catch him, he's waving his arm for a long ball. Tyrod never looks to that side of the field, unfortunately but the play could still work as Goodwin beats his CB and correctly slows down around 15 - 20 yards downfield because the safety is deep. He falls open on the sideline. Tyrod still has the ball cocked, not throwing it. O"Leary, believe it or not beats his man on a go route and is open down the middle going into the end zone 38 yards downfield and slowly heading left. Intermediate left and long middle open and Tyrod goes long to the left as if he's throwing it away. Thing is, there was no way Goodwin could've gotten open long. Two great options, one for a long TD and he throws it to nobody. Or 4th quarter 13:36, when he overthrew Christian twenty yards out alone and with nobody behind him around 25 more yards, open for what would probably have been a forty or fifty yard gain. Or 4:25 in the 4th when he overthrows a wide-open Sammy for what would've been a 28 yard touchdown. What was his longest completion? Around 16 yards? Sure wasn't because of a lack of opportunity. God, it's depressing looking at it again. I shouldn't have started this. Too obvious anyway.

It wasn't that they hadn't even considered Allen. The article says, "When the Jets dealt up to the No. 3 spot in the draft in March, they'd identified three quarterbacks - Darnold, Mayfield, and UCLA's Josh Rosen - they were good with." They might well have considered Allen. What the article says there is that they'd decided he wouldn't have been in the mix at pick #3. But yeah, I share your nervousness. I'd have been nervous whichever guy we picked, though. I won't believe we have a franchise QB till we see it, personally. I'd have been less nervous with any of the other three. But I'm 100% sure that Beane knows more about scouting than I do. I hope he's right and I'm wrong.

Yup, this should've been the headline for Bills fans. When asked about the Jets trade, Beane said the Bills hadn't come close to finishing their work on the QBs. The Jets suspected they might get a discount by getting a jump, and they were right. The article says, "Mccagnan had a scout live at just about every USC, UCLA, Oklahoma and Wyoming game - the feeling is they're ahead of others in assessing the class. The hope is that readiness to pull the trigger before the market is fully developed could lead to a reasonable deal." Smart. They outmaneuvered us. Hopefully it'll turn out fine for us anyway. There's a decent chance of that. But that trade turned out to be the difference between getting our second choice and our third choice. It's possible that Allen might have been our second choice anyway. I personally doubt it. McBeane haven't revealed anything about how they'd ranked the Big Four, with the obvious exception that we know for sure they ranked Allen over Rosen. No, did you read the article? The Jets did a great job getting ahead simply by personally scouting just about every single game the big 4 played. They didn't have to wait for game tapes. They spent extra money and resources on getting all their info early, and it got them a major time advantage. Most teams, the Bills included, don't rush. They go to some games and get the tapes for the rest and prioritize the schedule on everyone pretty much the same. That's why everyone tends to be on the same schedule. The Jets cleverly shortcut that arrangement, which allowed them to make that trade with great forethought. Doesn't mean they made the right decision, or that Allen won't be great. But it was smart and it gave the Jets a competitive advantage.

He would be happy no matter how poorly McCarron plays because he thinks how well McCarron plays is highly unimportant. As do I. What's important is how well Allen is developed. Poor play by a guy who has no future with the club (if he plays poorly) is of very little importance, and yeah, keeping him out there anyway might well lead to the best long-term results for the Bills. Again, it ain't low standards. It's different priorities and different expectations about what will bring the best results down the road.

That's not low standards. It's a different idea about how the best results will be obtained.

Then I guess you don't know what to tell me. What you've got there is a justification. Watkins played in eight games. He was healthy enough to get 154 yards in one. And yet he wasn't productive overall in long balls. It's a justification. Again, Goodwin played in 15 games, Clay played in 15 and was open long. Tyrod simply wasn't hitting the long balls the way he had been in 2015. You said that the new regime getting rid of Watkins and Woods destroyed his long ball stats. Not true. They were pretty much the same in 2016 as they were in 2017. Bad. And what showed up in the stats was easily visible to the naked eye. Overthrow after overthrow. Yet again, I hope he solves the problem and does well with the Browns. He's a good guy.

I'll listen later, when I have time and can give a more informed opinion. But the answer's right there in the question and on the boards. He's talked himself into Josh Allen because that's what a certain kind of Bills fan does. They talk themselves into whoever wears the Buffalo jersey. We've seen it thousands of times since the draft. People went from "you can't pick Allen because you need a guy who can make an impact in the first year and Allen is a guy who will need one or probably even two years to sit and learn," to "Allen doesn't need time to sit and learn, he's fine." It doesn't make sense. But it's what a certain kind of fan does. And a large amount of the Bills fanbase is that kind of fan. Not that any other teams fans are better, I don't think they are. People tend to believe what they want to be true.

The very easy schedule, and the lucky way that even when we played the few good teams we caught them in slumps. And that we never beat ourselves under this regime, something that always happened in past years.

He doesn't say "Be faithful to the process." It's trust. Trust the process. He's talking about religion. But I don't think he's ever said others need to have faith in God. He's just talking about his values. I mean, do you think he'd exclude a good player who'd applied for emancipation from his parents? Or divorced? He's just saying that football should only be behind your very few most important priorities. If it's Faith, Family, Sizzurp, Game of Thrones on high-def TV, chicks, booze, lawn darts and football, you're not the kind of guy they want.

Peterman isn't awful. He was awful, briefly. And then a decent rookie backup. Who apparently they love and think is improving. Way. It's certainly unlikely, barring injury, but way. Agree with you about the Denver analogy. That seems a solid guess to me. Agree also that we are likely to see turnovers go up a bit. But maybe passing game production too. I'm a bit more hopeful about McCarron than most on here seem to be. A bad prediction doesn't destroy credibility. If it did, nobody would have any. We all make bad predictions reasonably often, being human and all. It certainly was a bad prediction, though.

Rosen isn't entitled. He's an injury risk and has his own mind and interests and won't shut up easily. Some coaches wouldn't deal with that, but McD doesn't seem to have a problem with it. IMO if the Cards had traded to 7 and taken Allen we would've traded to 10 and taken Rosen.

No, I don't. He had Watkins for the first half of the year in 2016 and he wasn't completing a lot of long balls. Goodwin started 9 games and played in 15. In 2015 when you saw Tyrod throw long you thought he was going to complete it. After the first few games of 2016 seeing him miss a lot - an awful lot - of open guys, when you saw him go long I just felt nervous. Tyrod wasn't as good at long balls, it really was pretty clear. Tyrod didn't throw a lot of highly contested balls. It was a problem with him. When he went long there was almost always someone open. And yet he completed a much lower percentage after his first year, and it was visible that he simply wasn't doing it as well. As I say, I hope he gets that back. He's a good guy, a hard worker, a guy you hope succeeds.

Hey look, typical conservative response. See how that works? Either side can say "typical." And it means nothing beyond that someone is angry. Folks, mellow out. The facts will out. What you're arguing about here is still a very very incomplete story.

You're right that the OC will be right on McCarron's hip during the season if he's the starter. Luckily, Allen has two functional legs and freedom of movement and can plant himself right on the OC's other hip. And a lot of the coaching given a starter is less about how to play QB well than about how to specifically run this particular game plan and attack this particular defense. Which isn't a bad thing for a rookie to hear and try to process but it also shouldn't be the only thing he focuses on. Developmental guys need to work on more global QB skills like mechanics, dropbacks, how to watch film, how defenses work to stop offenses, how to get along with teammates, how to be a leader and so on ... rather than specifically how to defeat the Baltimore Ravens defense using the specific packages put together by the OC that day, which is what the starter tends to be spending all his time on. It isn't a waste to coach AJ. It's not like they send Allen to a basement somewhere while they do so.

Yeah, they were vets, but solid? Brees sat on the bench behind the "really solid vet" Doug Flutie in a a season when Flutie was tearing the league up to the tune of 56.4% completions, 15 TDs and 18 INTs, a 6.6 YPA and a QB Rating of 72.0. How is that solid, or anything but crappy, really. And while I liked Drew Bledsoe overall, he wasn't having success or being "really solid" in Brady's rookie year. 58.8% completions, 17 TDs and 13 INTs, a terrible 6.2 YPA and a 77.3 QB rating. So that's not just not true. But more, even if it had been completely true, it would still have been beside the point. By far the most important thing that will happen at the Ralph this year is Josh Allen's improvement or lack thereof. San Diego won five games that year. Flutie was a place-holder, an absolute footnote to the fact that the building blocks were starting to fall in place behind Brees' facemask. Same with New England who also won five games in Brady's first year. The fact that they had decent QB play that year means nothing to New England fans then or now. They were building for the future and that was by far the most important thing that went on that year is that building, what was happening inside Brady's head and the heads of a bunch of other players figuring out how Belichick's system was supposed to be run. Yeah, they had vet QBs. We have one too. And in the long run the veterans play meant nothing. What meant something was what was happening inside the minds of Brees and Brady. Rodgers certainly did have solid vet play ahead of him. Which again was far less important in Green Bay than what was happening inside Aaron Rodgers. Same here. Unless McCarron is better than we all think - not impossible - he's likely to be what Flutie and Bledsoe were in those years. Which will mean pretty much nothing to how quickly Allen learns. How good the QBs ahead of a young guy are don't mean much to his development unless it means he starts playing early. Which if it's too early might be a very bad thing.

Yes, I pointed specifically to the success of probably the three best QBs in football. To repeat, probably the three best QBs in football started by taking a year on the bench. Yeah, some guys have started right away and done pretty well. There are also a ton of guys you didn't mentiion who started right away and did ****ty. Most of those guys who started and did well - unlike Josh Allen - were not thought of as developmental guys before they were drafted. At most they were thought of as guys who might possibly need to sit, but that far understates what the consensus was on Allen. And plenty of Bills fans on here were arguing that we shouldn't pick Allen specifically because he'd need to spend a year or two on the bench. Now that he's ours most of those same posters have decided that that need has conveniently disappeared. Different guys have different needs. If a guy doesn't need development, fine, play him. But the point is that it's pretty much near-unanimous among non-Bills fans that Allen does need development and a lot of it. You're right that sitting QBs hasn't been done much lately. But that's not a good reason it shouldn't be. It's not presumptuous to assume that sitting him is far and away the most likely way to maximize the guy. If anything it was the consensus before the draft. And yeah, now the consensus has changed in Buffalo where people want to open and drink their Christmas present bottle of wine at 7:00 a.m. on the 25th regardless that some wines really really need aging and that our vintage is widely considered to be one of those. That impatience should be completely ignored.

Sorry, Scott, but that's really not true. The Bills were absolutely terrific at deep passing plays when Tyrod came aboard. I have to agree with you there. But that stopped extremely abruptly after the first year. They were not good at long balls in 2016 and a pretty fair amount of that can be laid right at Tyrod's feet. He threw poorly a bunch of open long balls that year, balls he'd have hit the year before. It wasn't the new regime's fault they couldn't do it anymore last year. The long ball had already been absent in 2016. 2015 21-30 yards, 13/34, 38.2%, 339 yards, 9.97 YPA, QB Rating of 90.6 31-40 yards, 8/21, 38.1%, 314 yards, 14.95 YPA, QB rating of 105.7 41+ yards, 7/14, 50%, 360 yards, 25.71 YPA and 135.4 QB rating Total yards on passes of 21 yards or more, 1,013 yards, on 69 attempts 2016 21-30 yards, 9/28, 32.1%, 228 yards, 8.14 YPA, QB rating of 35.1 31-40 yards 3/17, 17.6%, 168 yards, 9.88 YPA, QB rating of 83.3 41+ yards 4/8, 50%, 237 yards, 29.63 YPA, QB rating of 135.4 Total yards on passes of 21 yards or more, 633 yards on 53 attempts It really is a pretty reasonable argument that after teams caught on to Tyrod he had big problems with longer balls after that first year. I hope Tyrod starts throwing long balls well once again, personally. He'll have a shot at doing so, I think.

Nick Foles didn't win a Super Bowl. The Philadelphia Eagles did ... and if they'd had Foles as their starter through the season they almost certainly would not be holding the trophy. 80% Carson Wentz, 20% Foles, that was the recipe. Philly couldn't have gotten much luckier on the timing of that injury to Wentz. They got Phil Simms-Jeff Hostetler lucky. It's the perfect way to maximize what you get from the second-stringer. Have the starter, Wentz, go 11-2 and get the team in great position to have home-field advantage. Then have three really easy games for your second-stringer, against a 3-13 team, a 6-10 team and a 9-7 team and they go ... surpriiiiiiiiiiiise ... 2-1. Then have home-field advantage thanks mostly to how well the team did with Wentz in charge, so you can have two weeks to put in a very different game plan for the rest of the season to maximize your sub's abilities and minimize what defenses have seen on tape of what you're running. They almost certainly don't win a title last year without Wentz behind center for those first 13 games. And yeah, the Jags with Bortles at QB got to the championship game. Did they get to the Super Bowl? Did they win it? Exactly, and a lot of the reason for that is because their offense just wasn't good enough despite a terrific running game. Fair enough that you shouldn't say that with Tyrod you have no shot. The Ravens won with Dilfer. You don't have no shot. You have a microscopic shot. And you want more than that. But that's no reason not to play Tyrod a lot, maybe even all season this year. The Browns aren't winning a championship this year. They haven't got the roster. What their goal should be is raising the odds that Mayfield can become a franchise QB, and there's a terrific argument that he can do that as well or better from the bench in his rookie year.

Benoit's a smart guy but he's wrong here. Jackson has seen how Mayfield has handled the playbook and Benoit hasn't. Jackson knows what verbiage, playbook, responsibilities, route trees and progressions Mayfield used in college an awful lot better than Benoit does. Jackson knows how well the OL is likely to be better than Benoit. He's spent more time with Mayfield. He simply has more data to make the decision with. Having said that, I think Hue is bloviating when he says it won't change. It might. It'll depend on how things go with the two. Of course they expect Mayfield to be the guy, but they may well have a plan to sit him for a fair amount of time. He'll get his chance, but when that chance will be is Hue's decision.

It was a very thoughtful and interesting article. But really really off the point and it deeply confuses opinions and facts. He says, "Now, here I am in early May making the case that Allen likely gives this team the best chance to win." Maybe he does give the team the best chance to win. Maybe not, but maybe. Who cares? Or more specifically, whoever cares shouldn't. What is going to be important next season is maximizing Josh Allen's development. And that will likely best be done on the bench. What will not be important pretty much from January onwards is the difference between winning five games and seven games, for example. It just won't matter in the long run. This team isn't going to win a Super Bowl this year. They simply don't have the roster for it. So once you know that the question should become, "What can we do to make that day, the day we win a Super Bowl, come sooner?" That should be by far the main priority. The article misses that. And that is huge. The article also seriously confuses fact and opinion. He says, "Allen is just better than the other two guys – he just is." And that's nonsense. You could say his ceiling is higher than the others. That's pretty much a fact. But right here right now he's better? That is an opinion, plain and simple, and a very questionable opinion at that. Having said that, I love what 26CornerBlitz is posting. The breakdowns in that article were interesting and he's posted several things that were really good reads or watches. Thanks, 26CornerBlitz.