Thurman#1

You're right, I missed the Titans. Point still stands, though. Seven teams go 9-7 and only two get lucky enough to get in the playoffs. Both of those not particularly good teams were lucky enough to come from the AFC. We were 9-7 in 2014 too but weren't lucky enough to have a weak enough AFC that year. And if you didn't hear anyone saying the Titans were lucky it's probably because nobody in Buffalo gives a crap about Tennessee. They were lucky. Pretty much any team that's 9-7 and makes the playoffs is by definition lucky. They were either in a very weak division or a very weak conference. And it's beside the point that Baltimore was another team not really good enough to make the playoffs and we happened to fulfill the conditions to make the playoffs better than them. If they'd made the playoffs, they'd have been lucky. The Bills weren't lucky to beat the Ravens. They were lucky there wasn't another good team in the weak AFC. Did you even read my post? We weren't just lucky to have a very weak schedule. We also got lucky even within that. Atlanta lost Julio in our game, they're 10-6 and three of their losses come in a row right when they have to play us and one of those losses is to us and another to the Dolphins. We got spectacularly lucky to get them right at their weakest. Same with the Chiefs, exactly, a 10-6 team that we caught during their only a three-game losing streak when they also lost to the Jets and the Giants, and again we get them right at their weakest. It wasn't a little lucky, we got very lucky. But pretty much any team that makes the playoffs at 9-7 is getting lucky.

Of course they did. How many playoff teams this year got in without winning 10 games? One out of twelve. Us. The year before? Two out of twelve, one of which won their division with a 9-7. The year before that? Two out of twelve, both by winning their division, the 9-7 Washington and Texas teams. The year before that, 2014? One out of twelve, the 7-8 Panthers who won a horrible division. I could keep going but in the last four years, two teams have managed to get a wild-card birth without winning ten games. Of course we were lucky, wildly lucky, actually, to be in a weak AFC. And further lucky to have a really really easy schedule and luckier still that when we were scheduled against good teams we ran up against them when they were having losing streaks. We weren't a little lucky, we were very lucky.

He may be crusading. I haven't followed him and have no opinion on that. But he still raises a reasonable question. Yes, there's no way to know the answer. But in fact there's no way to know the answer of any question about the future. Still no reason not to ask questions and discuss. That's what we're here for. The reason people don't like it is that it's a somewhat negative question. The same question phrased positively would have raised not a single eyebrow here. Not one. Is anyone getting angry when people post the stories saying Allen's throwing well in OTAs, or that he's picking things up quickly in the QB room? Is anyone angry when in those threads people get excited and say, "I think we've got a winner here. Anyone agree?" Do we see hordes of people jump on those guys and say, "Hey, cut it out, you and your positive agenda. We haven't seen pads on and it's way too early to pose ludicrous questions like that?" Yes, it's too early to know. Probably will be for the next two or three years minimum. But it's not too early to ask questions.

Enough with the Roethlisberger comparisons here, or rather the 2004 Steelers comparison. The 2004 Steelers were the #1 defense in the league. In yards AND in points. They allowed opposing QBs a cumulative passer rating of 68.0 that year. This allowed them to lead the league -by nearly 80 attempts - in rushes per game while still winning a ton. 618 rushes, while the Broncos were 2nd with 534. Yes, the Steelers did a terrific job with Roethlisberger. But the reason they were able to do so is that the rest of the team was absolutely sensational.

Broken legs for McCarron and Peterman and Tonya Harding acting twitchy? Seriously, shouldn't be any expectations, especially if Allen is starting early. About the only expectations that would be reasonable would be that he would play like a rookie. Wins are a team thing. And it's very very early days. Rather than expectations, hopes would be far more reasonable. I'd hope for slow steadyish improvement.

It's reasonable to ask a question in a situation when you can ask a reasonable question. Plenty on here are asking whether Allen will be good. No reasonable answer possible yet. But people are asking, and for good reason. OP isn't expecting a final answer on whether they messed up. He's raising a reasonable question. People here tend to ask plenty of positive questions and speculate positively all the time. No problem. No angry responses. But if it's a negative question suddenly everybody's furious. It's like the fury at the press when there's a negative article about the Bills and the crickets about them when the article is positive. Same thing with anonymous sources. If they're positive they're believed. If they're negative, Bills fans suddenly refuse to deal with anonymous sources. **** I do of course agree that it's too early for any surety whatsoever on any of this. It's like those people who call bust after three games. But when it's out there, why not talk about it. If it had been positive, nobody would have raised an eyebrow.

I agree with most of your post, but politely disagree about that Chargers game. Yeah, the offense is in for a massive amount of the blame. But the defense didn't look good at all either. San Diego scored 54 points, but two of those TDs were a TD return of a Peterman INT and a TD return of a Tyrod fumble. The defense can’t be held responsible for those in any way. That leaves 40 points. Here are what the Chargers drives looked like: 1st – starts at Bills 31, held to an FG. Three plays, three yards. That’s a defensive success. 2nd 9:02 in the 1st Q – starts at Chargers 25. 45 yard drive and FG. 3rd 1:09 in the 1st Q – starts at Buf 45. TD. Terrific field position but they allowed a TD 4th 12:43 in the 2nd Q – starts at Buf 15. TD. The offense gets the lions share of the blame, but the defense didn’t hold them to a FG. 5th 9:09 in the 2nd – starts at Chargers 24. 66 yard drive and a field goal. You like that they didn’t allow the TD, but that’s a long drive. 6th 3:46 in the 2nd Q – starts at Chargers 43. 57 yard TD drive. 7th 0:35 in the 2nd Q – starts at Chargers 46. 33 yard drive. Kicked a FG with two seconds left on a 2nd and 10 at the 21. 8th 15:00 in the 3rd Q – starts at Chargers 25. 65 yard drive. FG on 4th and 10 at the 10 yard line. 9th 7:34 in the 3rd Q – starts at Chargers 22. 6 play drive and their first punt 10th 13:51 in the 4th Q – starts at Chargers 42. 9 play 58 yard drive and TD. 11th 4:49 in the 4th Q – starts at Buf 47. Two runs and a pass 3-and-out. 12th 2:46 in the 4th Q – starts at Chargers 40. First down on the second play and then three kneel-downs to end the game. The first Chargers punt came on the 9th drive, at 7:34 in the 3rd. Yeah, I'm sure fatigue might have been a part of the problem and bad field position was a major factor. But the defense just didn't look good at all.

He's not jumping the gun anymore than any of the people telling us good things about Allen are jumping the gun. If he told us the comparison is over, then yeah, just stupid. Asking the question is reasonable. Same as it was reasonable to ask the question during the draft.

This. Rosen was always considered more first-day-ready. Myself, I like Arizona, so I hope both guys work out. But Allen is likely to need more time and more development. I desperately hope that Allen in years two and three and onwards becomes a terrific QB. As long as that happens, anything else will be gravy.

Heh heh. Nice one.

I didn't say or imply that he was 100% healed. I just pointed out the - wildly - obvious ... that if he hadn't been ready to play at this point, they wouldn't have bothered reactivating him. As for the rest of your post, it misses the point. It's a fact that he had some burst when he came back in 2016. He showed it. Examples include the Oakland game and the 154-yard Miami game, but those weren't the only examples. But since you keep ignoring my main point, again and again not responding to it, I'll make it a bit larger this time ... Regardless of Sammy's health ... Tyrod's deep ball throwing was a ton worse in 2016 and 2017 than it had been in 2015. It was visibly obvious. And the stats bore out what anyone could see anyway.

I'm not as hopeful as you are, but maybe you're right. It'd definitely be great if you are. Looked to me like our defense puzzled people for a while and got lucky but that the turnovers dropping around midseason was a sign that either our lucky streak was over or that teams had a better bead on what the defense was doing. Having said that, I do really like the defensive backfield. And last year's defense was better than they ranked, I thought. They had a three-game streak of awfulness that was so epic that it bent the averages for the rest of the year when they played decently.

Yeah, apparently so. Did he fire his agent by twitter before this? Did he claim football was physically killing him before this? He's clearly gone off the rails the past few months, maybe since the racist taunts in the playoff game from a guy who appears not to be a racist. There may have been some other times he did so that we don't know about ... but this one has been so very public it seems unlikely that if it had happened before we wouldn't have gotten a whiff of it. So yeah, likely he's been good for three years. Having problems now, though.

Asses ask people if they're from the government when they pick up a phone after the ass threw a dumbbell at him? It's more than just being an ass, though that may be true as well. Did you see the video of the guy he had the confrontation with? He was really convincing. Richie's got issues. He appears to have had some problems back as far as his tweets this year and firing his agent by twitter.

Poor guy. Sounds like he is experiencing some kind of breakdown. Hope he gets some help. He couldn't have functioned with that kind of problem in a work environment, but plenty of problems go up and down. I wish him the best.

I agree they look like they have a good foundation. I don't expect real greatness this year, but they look like they have the beginnings of a pretty tough group, though the pass rush looks questionable. They'll have to manufacture one somehow. I'm less hopeful than most here about Murphy's likely sack totals. Hopefully I'm too pessimistic here. 20 INTs? This year? Last year the top three were the Ravens (22), the Jags (21) and the Saints (20). And while I like our defensive backfield a lot, I don't see us a top three D at INTs. Teams with that kind of production generally pressure the QB well or get teams behind and playing catchup. I don't see this as being that kind of a team this year. And 12 to 15 recoveries would either mean we were one of the top few teams at causing fumbles (which we did last year) or been lucky at recovering a higher than normal number of those fumbles. Possible. I'd hope we're just above average. Guess we'll see.

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.