Thurman#1

You're welcome. The problem for people on your side is that after seeing that headline people can watch the video which shows Zay open by five yards or more and Tyrod putting the ball in an absolutely horrible position. And if Zay was supposed to run to the pylon then the ball was thrown poorly because the ball was thrown three or four yards inside the pylon. Jones' route was closer to the pylon on the right than Tyrod's throw was to the left of it. You only have to see where Zay is laying on the ground after the play. He's not in line with the pylon, he's well inside of it. You're right, it would have hit him in the bread basket if the bread basket were held far above his head and behind him. With that huge cushion, Tyrod should have thrown the ball to the outside. Which he didn't. The drive you copied there isn't the winning drive. Winning drives are what people have - correctly - noted that Tyrod seems able to provide only extremely rarely. Did the actual final drive, from the Carolina 32 to the Carolina 11, contribute to the win? In one way, it burnt clock and forced Carolina to burn timeouts. But no, it didn't contribute to the points. You could say it made the field goal a bit easier but Hauschka was money this year. He'd have nailed it. The Bills would have gone ahead without the offense running a single play. And yeah a seven point difference there would have made a huge difference in terms of making things much more difficult for Carolina. The Panthers got the ball back with 0:46 left. They still had a pretty decent shot at getting into field goal territory, though the defense - again - proved too good. But if Tyrod and the offense had scored a touchdown, Carolina would have been forced to do the same for the tie. It would have been a huge impact. But the offense couldn't do it. Just weren't good enough. The defense had the crucial last-minute impact. Not the offense. Unlikely to happen till the league year opens and they try to trade him. His roster bonus is due 3/16. That's the key day.

I doubt anybody pays anything like two firsts for the "chance" to sign him for a long-term deal. Without an actual agreement, not even close. And you can bet Cousins would make it clear he wouldn't be signing any agreements, even if down the road with the right team he actually might. But he'd say he wouldn't, and then nobody would give the two firsts.

Yeah, they could consider it, but if I'm Cousins, I make it clear ... do it. I'll sign the tag, take your $34 mill, turn down any trades and spend the season getting in shape and preparing for everything to start next year. I signed the tag the last two years, and I'll do it again. But I won't do it till as late as possible so you won't be able to plan or actually work the trade. "Considering" is the right word. They might think about it, but they won't do it.

Smart. Seems like he's got people skills problems, but he's really good.

The problem is that you can only say that he did his job in two of them by twisting what actually happened. He threw a pass to a wide open receiver - I mean open by five yards - so far behind him that it forced him to have to totally turn his body around in the air to try to make the play. Then you find the one interpretation of that that fits your preconceptions and unsurprisingly go with it. Horrible throw. For those who forget, look how open he is. http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2017091701/2017/REG2/bills@panthers#menu=gameinfo|contentId%3A0ap3000000846523&tab=videos And then you ignore that in the one game of these that they actually did win, the group that brought them the win was the defense. Tied up against the Panthers with less than two minutes left and the Panthers have the ball. Defense forces a turnover and the offense gets the ball inside field goal range. And manages to get ... wait for it ... a field goal. So that final game-winning drive drove all the way from field goal territory to field goal territory. That isn't a real big accomplishment there, it just isn't. They got the ball on the Panthers 32 and drove all the way to the 11, 21 yards all inside field goal range, before kicking a field goal on 4th down. The main purpose of that drive was to drain the Panthers of their timeouts. They didn't have to gain a yard to get into field goal range. That's what is being referred to here as the game-winning drivve.

Great find. It's frustrating. There's more and more good writing out there. It's already too much and now there's more. Of course, the bad and mediocre writing absolutely dwarfs the good stuff, but even so there's too much good stuff out there to read. And now the Players Tribune comes in. Sigh. Anyway, loved this part: "Like … are you one of those people who gets mad because it feels like the Patriots get every call? "Well, regardless of what the Internet says, it’s not because the refs are helping them out. "It’s because people do dumb stuff when they play the Patriots. "I’m telling you, most guys’ intensity meter goes way up when they play against Tom Brady and the Patriots. And when you’re overexcited or just trying too hard to make a play, that’s when you make mistakes. "I want to sack every quarterback I play against. But do I want to sack Tom Brady any more than the other guys? Of course, I do. I like to compete against the best, and let’s face it: Tom Brady’s the G.O.A.T. That’s why when I sack him, it just feels … better. It’s not just another sack. "So if you’re a defensive back, don’t tell me that when the ball’s in the air and you have a beat on it that you’re not out there thinking, Im’ma get me a pick off Tom Brady! "I know that’s what you’re thinking. "And Tom knows that, too. "So what he’ll do is, he’ll try to draw the pass interference penalty. He won’t just put the ball where only his receiver can get it. He’ll put the ball where the DB has to go through the receiver to get it. Because Tom knows how bad the DB wants that pick, and that he’s gonna be overexcited, and he’s gonna go balls to the wall to try to make a big play instead of making the smart play. "And that’s when the flags come out." Not that this will actually end the conspiracy theories. But it should. But the conspiracy guys are too nuts to listen to reason. Anyway, good find.

For the year ahead, looking at cap space makes sense. For two years ahead, it makes much less sense, as different teams will have different numbers of guys under contract for that length of time, and some will have most of their key guys already contracted while others will have very few. Three years out it tells you little or nothing. Look at who's under contract for the Bills (according to Spotrac) for 2020, three years out: Cordy Glenn. We don't know if he'll be on the team MIcah Hyde Jordan Poyer Tre'Davious White Patrick DiMarco Zay Jones Tyrod Taylor (or rather the amortized portion of his signing bonus) If Tyrod is on the team it will be because he has signed a new contract Dion Dawkins Matt Milano Nathan Peterman Tanner Vallejo Conor McDermott Shaq Lawson And that's it. How many of those guys will still be on the team? Who's the RB? The pass rusher? The OL outside of Cordy? Means nothing, though it's an interesting thought. Even two years out is really cloudy. Combining the three years makes it a pretty wacky measurement. The reason the Eagles have so little for the three years simply means they have a lot of their key guys already under contract. We have no idea who our key guys will be.

It'll be hard for me to get very interested this year, as I expect them to trade up and not have picks left for other guys, so I won't worry about it too much this year. It's an interesting question, and not a sure thing that they trade up. But I won't spend much thought on the first outside QB this year.

You may be right. But this year, he was better than 10th. And that's a lot of the reason he's getting the 5th best contract.

Neither of those is a given. Drafting someone higher than the 5th is an excellent guess and bringing in a vet a very good guess, IMHO, but they are not givens. And there's plenty of reason to keep three guys around when none of the guys you have has proven himself. And yeah, roster spots are valuable but let's not pretend we'd have to get rid of Shady or Kyle Williams or something to keep a third QB. Was Reid Ferguson so wildly valuable last year? Or Deon Lacey or Tanner Vallejo? And you DON'T know the second young guy doesn't have the potential of your other draft pick. You think so but you don't know, anymore than Dallas knew Tony Romo had more potential when they kept three guys or any more than St. Louis knew that Kurt Warner had more potential than the other two guys on their roster. When you don't know what you've got ... and we won't ... keeping a third guy is not at all a bad idea if he's still developing. If he hits a ceiling, fine, give him the boot. If they just don't like him that much, great, see ya. If they become convinced that one of the guys they bring in is a sure thing, then yeah, the calculus changes. Right now they can't be sure of anything. Ask the coaches and the players, who have been saying they see it constantly.

As usual, Tyrod handles himself very well in interviews. This is certainly no exception. That's more your opinion than anything he actually said. The next week Philly runs a run-pass option from inside the five and converts it and they're brilliant. It wasn't the call. It was the execution. Nobody would expect OPI. You'd think the worst result would probably be 2nd down at the same LOS. If they'd called a run, it might have ended up a six yard loss or a fumble. I probably would have called a run there, but I don't think it was an awful call. And Tyrod doesn't appear to think so either.

You convinced me. Tyrod saying "We'll see what happens" two months before the decision was made was actually huge. It wasn't that the Bills simply didn't think a year of Tyrod Taylor was worth paying more than $30 mill guaranteed!! No, no. It was that he said, "We'll see what happens," two months before that made the difference. How could I not have seen this? Probably Whaley taped that answer and played it over and over to himself to retain his nerve in case Tyrod had stayed strong and forced them to pay the $30 mill guaranteed. Good lord. Must be nice to live in the land of fairy dust and moonbeams.

Did you really? Wow. I had a hard time getting myself cranked up to watch the games. I'm jealous of you in a way. I don't think winning is fun. I didn't have fun nine times this year and seven times the year before and eight times the year before that. Only two teams in NFL history have gone without wins. Winning isn't much, IMHO. Really, nothing less than competing for a championship would do anything more than give me minor fun. I saw this team get to the Super Bowl four consecutive times. And lose. Watching a very mediocre team go 9-7 did very very little for me this year. It ain't $18 mill he would count against our cap if we kept him for 2018. It's $23.6 mill. If he's on the roster for all of 2018 and then is gone, he'll count $18 mill against the 2018 cap and then $5.6 mill against the 2019 cap. $23.6 mill total for one year of Tyrod. When they've said that they need a QB who can throw from the pocket.

Gee, thanks for pointing that out. I'd thought it was a fact till you said that. Brilliant. But you're right, it's an opinion ... Like it's an opinion that Aaron Rodgers is better than Blake Bortles. No real way to prove it actually factual. Everyone knows it, but yeah, strictly speaking an opinion. Some stupid answer in a press conference two months before the negotiations come to a head have something on the order of a 0.01% chance of having any real effect on negotiations, particularly when the answer given is only an evasion anyway. So yeah, an opinion. But also pretty much the only sensible opinion. Of course it didn't hurt Tyrod's position two months beforehand to say essentially, "We'll see what happens." But if anyone is an expert on skipping on to the next subject and never commenting when he was wrong, it's you. I've been wrong a bunch of times. I admit it. I've done so many times on both boards over the years.

Yeah, you can win balanced. Can you win titles balanced? The record says it happens but unless you've got a QB who really gets respect in the pass game, it happens very infrequently. Went back and looked at the Tolbert play. It was 2nd down, not third down. 2nd and goal at the 18. And taking up a DB with Mike Tolbert is great, assuming it works out that way. On that play McCourty covered him and the Pats had nobody deep at safety. You're right that they certainly aren't likely to be in base at that time, but still might have one or two athletic LBs on the field and might still feel uncomfortable making the decision with little time to consider it, to put an LB out wide. It might produce a better matchup elsewhere. Again, not thrilled with the play. But if it had been executed differently it might have made it a shorter more achievable 3rd down play. In this case, Gilmore was on Benjamin with no deep help anywhere and he had to go back and around Tolbert. There was something there, though not deep. Tyrod didn't look at anything but Tolbert. The two guys on the other side were also mildly open with no clear options on deep routes. Putting Tolbert out there didn't hurt. The Pats had no deep safety. Going to Tolbert on the play doesn't seem to have been the best choice, though it should have been caught. But it would have given them maybe a third and goal on the twelve or so or maybe a bit better if they'd gone to someone else.

Yeah, I understand why you used Army. And what I will point out again is that that simply does not happen in the NFL, not since, what, the '30s? "Typically" more balanced? Try "absolutely without exception a great deal more balanced." I'm not sure what else was out there on the Tolbert play either. But unless we know Tyrod had been told not to look at other options, some of the blame goes to execution. Maybe a lot and maybe a little. As I say, I don't love Dennison. But I also suspect that an awful lot of the problem was execution. And I'm not against Tolbert being lined up outside. What kind of matchups does it bring about? Was a DB on Tolbert? Did that create a bad matchup elsewhere? Bad play as run, certainly, but maybe not a bad play as drawn up.

How does the Glennon deal look now? If they had it to do over again, would they bring in someone cheaper like McCown or Fitz? I think they would. The Bradford deal is a bit better but he was injured again and they might easily let him go figuring it's just too much for what he's likely to be. I agree with you that I think Tyrod's going to get a good deal more than $5 mill a year somewhere. But I'd guess that you're overestimating a bit. My guess is more like $8 - $12 mill per year for two or three year. Guess we'll see. I think you used the wrong verb tense there. When you say, "It has been considered one of the best values in football," you should have used the simple past, not the present perfect. There was a time when some people thought that. That time was exclusively in the past. The fact that nobody thinks that way anymore should be wildly obvious from the fact that he was forced to re-negotiate and take $10 mill less. And is now being asked about it again. And is unlikely to be here even though nobody argues he's the best QB on the roster right now. In any case, if he plays next year and then leaves, it will cost the Bills $23.6 mill on the cap, $18 mill on the 2018 cap and $5.6 mill on the 2019 cap. For one year of Tyrod Taylor. That isn't one of the best values in football, it just isn't.

Don't be sorry for having a bizarre opinion, dude. That's your problem, not ours. We're sorry for you on that. He didn't make a mistake there and he didn't lose any leverage. The Bills didn't think he was worth keeping at that salary. If he hadn't taken the cut he'd have been elsewhere. What he said then had no effect, any more than what he said this year did. Both were reasonable answers. Both opinions about a difficult-to-predict future. Neither had or will have much effect on his contract situation.

Yeah, of course I changed the scenario. You made your point with your scenario and I'm making my point with mine. Which is that you actually make 7 yards more often passing than running. Passes make more yards on average than runs do. Even if Tyrod is your QB. Compare his YPA to his YPR. And I'm also thinking particularly of one play by Tyrod, in one of his best games as a Bill, the 2016 Seahawks game. 1:17 left in the 4th, Bills down by six, first and 10. Tyrod back to pass, leaves the pocket early goes right, holds the ball, holds the ball, run, gets out of bounds for an eight yard gain. Great play!!! Eight yard gain on first and ten. Except that the next three plays lose yardage and the Bills turn the ball over on downs. And except that on that first and ten play the coaches film showed a guy wide open in the end zone, I mean, unguarded and open by close to ten yards, who Tyrod doesn't see and pulls it down and runs. The game was there to be won on a pass. Tyrod didn't see it. Ran the ball on what looked like a good play but was actually a back-breaker. On the Tolbert play, was that the only read? Was he even the first option? Had Tyrod been told to ignore his other options? I didn't like that Tolbert play either but different things could have happened. Great example, Army. Where's the modern NFL counterpart of that?

Most expensive draft smokescreen in history!!

A lot of times when reporters "know" the answer, the answer they get is actually different. It makes sense to ask the question. But I can see we're close on this issue. If the guy does give the expected answer it does seem like a waste of time. It's 3rd and 6 and a QB doesn't see a guy who's open for a ten yard pass downfield and instead puts up a nice run of 5 yards. It's not stupid. Yeah, runs count. But if you can't consistently pass, being able to run as a QB doesn't mean much. Sooner and not later you're going to be replaced. I'm no huge fan of Dennison, but the play people always talk about was the R-P option play that turned into a pass into the end zone and an interference penalty. People talk about what a horrible call it was. And then they talk about what a brilliant call it was to call the R-P option play for Foles that he turns into a passing TD. An awful lot of your success as a play caller depends on the execution of your players. Again, I didn't love Dennison or anything, but I also don't think he was as obviously terrible as some think. He didn't carry this team. Didn't carry them anywhere. He was their QB. Nobody can take that away, but the offense wasn't good and what carrying the offense did do was mostly done by the running game.

Well, let's agree to disagree. I think it could happen, but my guess is someone without a QB is going to give him more, as a bridge or with hope in their heart.

That's possible. But do you really think he'll be paid less than $5 mill next year as The Dude said? I think the odds are far against it.

That is a good point. But if he'd wanted he could have avoided the question. "I don't want to talk about the dollars right now," or "That's all in the future." Whatever. Instead he said no. Seems probable to me that he meant it. I think you're going to be shocked.

That's ridiculous. It's a reporter's job. And it was Tyrod's best chance to stay. It'll cost the Bills $23 mill to keep him for this one year of play. $18 mill on the 2018 cap and $5.6 mill dead money on the 2019 cap even while he's playing for someone else. It's an issue, and a major one. Give Tyrod the chance to say "No" if that's how he feels.