Thurman#1

Correct that he had great talent to work with in Jax, and that's a huge part of his success. But in fact, that's a huge part of any successful coach's success. With crap talent you won't succeed. And correct that he probably learned a lot since Buffalo. But does that mean he couldn't have learned the same things sitting in Buffalo? No way to know. The article is aimed at Jets fans, and considers that it was at least reported that Marrone was likely to get the job in NY after he left Buffalo. Nothing really new here for Bills fans, IMHO. Sure, he didn't have the roster in Buffalo that he had in Jax. But except for (hopefully) McDermott, he was the best coach in Buffalo since Wade Phillips and he might have been very successful here if he'd stayed and the roster had become better one way or another.

I don't think so. It's his M.O. He engages if people give him crap, and he does it with great consistency, and in my opinion very well indeed. And engaging consistently isn't a bad strategy on social media, looked at from a corporations POV, like the Buffalo News.

I disagree with that, Bill. It's like the old saying that once you've won some money at the blackjack tables you can take a bunch of risks because you're playing with house money. Which is logically incorrect. Once something is owned by you, it's yours. That's not house money anymore. Your decision process should reflect the fact that it's your money and you can walk away now owning it. Same with those extra picks. They're ours. If we don't use them on a QB they don't disappear, they can be used to fill any position on the team. In fact, we got them by creating holes on this team, particularly at WR, holes that are still there. We have serious needs on this team that could be addressed in the draft but won't be if we use those picks on a QB. As I say, I don't think that's the new regime's method, though, so I expect them to try to get a QB through the draft instead, and to keep their FA spending low.

Being torn's a pretty reasonable response, IMHO. Getting Cousins would be about the only situation other than not believing anyone in this draft will be a franchise guy that would excuse not at least trying to get up to an early position and get one of the surer things. I'd love it, but I don't think he'd sign for that rate or that length of contract, though the rate is maybe pretty reasonable.

I'd love it, personally. I don't think it fits what little we know about the McDermott/Beane axis' way of doing things. They seem to come from the build through the draft and don't bring in very high priced FAs side of the argument. That's a little short-sighted. Heh heh. But it is. Too early to know either way. Some HOFers are obvious by the end of their sixth year. Others aren't. Look at Andrew Luck. It was obvious by the end of his third or fourth year he was a Hall of Famer. Until it wasn't obvious. After six years you wouldn't have known it about Elway, who'd thrown 101 TDs and 96 INTS by then. But Marino looked like an HOFer even earlier.

I'd expect him to be in Minnesota next year. Though I say that without yet having seen the Minny game from this weekend. If I were them, I'd keep him and maybe Bridgewater. If I had to let one go, it would probably be Teddy.

I was around for that, and it wasn't just disagreement that had him leaving. It was rudeness and personal insults. Under the circumstances, it seemed reasonable to me at the time. I'd have left too.

I don't know. Everything he said looks fine to me. Graham is one of the most interesting twitter reads out there, though I say this as a person who spends very little time on twitter. But he's consistently interesting and funny whenever I don end up checking in for some reason.

Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson were his QBs in 2009, Colt McCoy, Jake Delhomee and Seneca Wallace in 2010, Matt Moore was his starter in 2011 with Henne as the backup. And in 2012, Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn again split the games about equally. Not surprised at his lack of success. I'd have to go way further to figure out what kind of plays and offense he was running to come up with a definitive opinion for myself, but those are some bad QBs indeed.

Well, maybe he'll take another, bigger pay cut and be here.

Dalton's playoff appearances were in his first four years in the league. He improved a lot in year five, just as the team around him started to go downhill. But again, no way Cincy lets him go.

OK, they're Nix's offenses too. Happy? Everything, offense, defense, etc. got more Whaleyized as the years passed under his stewardship. But things didn't get better. The reason I included all four is that you said he built a top ten offense and I simply wanted to show we didn't even have one at that time, much less one that Whaley built. Whaley wasn't awful, but his drafts weren't good, the Sammy tradeup was awful and he had major communication issues with both coaches. From what I saw, his pro personnel record was very fine. But he didn't build anything. This wasn't a team on the rise. I like your posts, Klos. I strongly disagree here but I enjoy reading your stuff. See you.

#4 in points allowed, #4 in yardage and top ten in sacks ... so you're saying that Whaley built the 2014 defense that racked up those stats, right? He's right, that is indeed bull ****. That defense was overwhelmingly built during Nix's tenure as GM. Whaley became GM on May 16th, 2013. So the starters on that excellent defense brought in during Whaley's tenure were: Preston Brown Brought in under Nix: Brandon Spikes, Jerry Hughes, Dareus, Bradham, Stephon Gilmore, nickel CB Robey-Coleman, Aaron Williams, Da'Norris Searcy Brought in before Nix: Kyle Williams, Leodis McKelvin Whaley may well have had some influence on some of Nix's picks, but it's impossible to know if or how much or even if Nix was overruling him sometimes. Saying Whaley "built" that defense is indeed ridiculous. He also didn't even have, much less "build" a top ten offense. Offenses under Whaley's tenure were ranked: 2013: 19th 2014: 26th 2015: 13th 2016: 16th

Agreed. The Dareus and Lynch trades were very alike. We didn't get enough back. And neither guy was playing anywhere near the top of his game for quite a while before the trade was made, which greatly lowered their values. Both had major problems off the field too. Both were trades that could have been avoided by the guys in question just playing well. Both played themselves off the roster, both forced the team to le them go for poor value. Both were let go partly because of contract situations. Quick note: Here are Marshawn's yearly YPA figures. Guess which came in the last two years in Buffalo: 2007: 4.0 2008: 4.1 2009: 3.8 2010: 3.6 2011: 4.2 2012: 5.0 2013: 4.2 2014: 4.7 2015: 3.8 2017: 4.3 Hard to figure at what point a team might have traded the guy for very little value, hunh? Interestingly, in 2009 and 2010, Freddy Jackson 4.5 and 4.2 YPC behind the Bills OL. Hmmmmm.

The word "big" wasn't used. And if Beane said, "I'm a Carolina fan," IMHO it would be a very minor story. I strongly agree with you that Doug Marrone left this team better off than it was when he got here. Marrone opted out, which hurt a lot of people and left a bad taste, but the team was stronger. He led them to the same record, 9-7, that has gotten such overwhelmingly good reviews this year. But then they switched systems yet again. The Sammy tradeup - not the pick but the tradeup - and the inability to bring in a QB killed Whaley. Not fighting against the Ryan selection too. And also his ending up having problems getting along with both of the coaches hired on his watch.

Heh heh heh. Absolutely. Who wouldn't trade a first round pick for the 12th best player in the league, a guy who was apparently better than Matt Stafford, Jared Goff, Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr, according to this list. We might get a 1st and a 3rd. Hey, Tyrod was better than Goff, maybe the Rams would trade Goff for Tyrod!! Tyrod, Woods and Sammy together again!! Have to say, I really like PFF's OL grades a lot.

No, we're not angry at Hotrod for disappearing in a first round playoff game. We're not angry at him at all. We're disappointed in him for playing like Hotrod with great consistency for three years. Dalton's better. Quite a bit better. Cincy isn't getting rid of him. I'm curious, though, how did Dalton screw up in the playoffs five years in a row when he only appeared in the playoffs in four years? In any case, he hasn't done well in the playoffs. How much of that is because of him? Some. And some of that is because those were his first four years in the league. He appeared to have gotten quite a bit better in his fifth year, just as the team got a lot worse around him. And how much was due to the fact that in his rookie year, the playoff team, the Texans, had the 2nd best defense in the league, and they played against the 7th the next year, the 10th the next year and the 11th the next year. Certainly that doesn't excuse bad play, but it helps to understand that he was a young player against good defenses. In any case, he's a better QB now than he was then. If you don't believe that, you shouldn't worry. Cincy isn't letting him go.

They aren't trading Dalton and if they did they'd get a lot more than Glenn.

I'm not gonna argue whether the Pats have cheated. I think they have. But it's beside the point. Brady is truly great. And i agree that Giselle might've been right that year. That was a year they made the Super Bowl. And yeah, it's harder without great WRs. And most teams that win SBs are great teams, with great personnel guys, so they tend to have at least one good WR. But good QBs sometimes have some times without good WRs and many can do quite well. Look at Carson Palmer in 2009. He had Chad Johnson on the downslope and nobody else particularly good. Still played pretty well and got the Bengals to 10-6. Look at Drew Brees. He's made decent WRs look good his whole career. Look at Matt Stafford the year after Megatron left. And as you yourself said, Russell Wilson has done pretty well with pretty decent guys. Look at Flacco the year they won the SB. No receiver got more than 921 yards that year. Boldin was good but a possession receiver by that point, though I guess there's a good argument to be made for Boldin. That's who I can come up with after a few minutes thought. I'm sure there are others.

Agreed that the game isn't played on the stat sheet. It's played on the field. By 22 players. Plus special teams. And sure, there are plenty of guys who inspire the team to play better. Look at Ray Lewis. Doesn't matter. Giving a QB a win-loss record is as dumb as giving Ray Lewis one. As for the team playing different when a new QB comes in, a lot of times that's because the defense has planned for the first guy. Or the second guy's skillset is a better one for attacking that particular defense. But did Flutie make the team better in Week 15 when Johnson started and went 1 for 3 and then Flutie replaced him and the Bills offense scored 10 points and they lost and Johnson got the loss in that stupid stat? Or game 13 in 2000 when Johnson went 6 for 18 for 44 yards. But the team plays better when Flutie came in, so how come when Flutie did in fact come in during that game he went 2 for 9 for 31 yards? The team must have been playing better, right? Sorry, it just doesn't make sense. It's a team game. Teams are what win and lose. I enjoy reading your stuff even You're a good poster. I enjoy reading your stuff even even when I disagree with you. But on this subject, there's no winning. If you want to talk about this more, feel free, but I'm out of here. The point is made, and it's correct. It's a team game. Losses and wins are team results, not individual results. It's a stupid stat and a stupid idea. Period.

Matt Cassel didn't look like Tom Brady that year, he just didn't. Go look at the stats. He looked like what he was, a guy good enough to lead a team that had gone 16-0 the year before to an 11-5 record against a slate of opponents with a historically bad cumulative win-loss record. That was a terrifically easy schedule for the Pats that year. Plenty of players have gone from the Pats to other teams to perform very well. Wilfork, Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel, Chandler Jones, Sheard, Jamie Collins, Revis for a year or two. Receivers not so much. Terry Glenn was good after but I can't think of a single other one of all the WRs who went elsewhere. Brady IS a QB who has made average to poorish wide receiver groups to sensational success. Again, I'm not the one who brought up Brady. You did.

He asked, I believe, for guys with as much upside as Alex Smith. Several of those guys you list don't have Tyrod's upside, much less Smith's. Osweiler? Barkley? Clemens? Derek Anderson? Please. And I don't see any as being as good as Alex Smith, except maybe a healthy Bradford. Maybe. Better than Tyrod? Yeah, some of them. Cheaper, yeah. As much upside as Alex Smith? Please.

I think you've got a reasonable argument here, but IMHO the difference between Tyrod and Smith isn't as marginal as you're making it out to be. Look at completion percentages and YPA, two good stats to look at because they tend to show risk-taking (longer YPAs show more risk-taking) and efficiency (shorter YPAs tend to produce higher completion percentages). And I'll leave out Smith this year. Tyrod's last three years and Smith's last three before this year. Smith's Completion Percentages: 2016: 67.1% (6th), 2015: 65.3% (11th), 65.3% (12th) Tyrod's Completion Percentages: 2017: 62.6% (18th), 2016: 61.7% (21st), 2015: 63.7% (18th) Smith's YPAs: 2016: 7.2 yards (tied for 17th), 2015: 7.4 yards(15th). 2014: 7.0 yards (tied for 27th) Tyrod's YPAs: 2017: 6.7 yards (27th), 2016: 6.9 yards (26th), 2015: 8.0 yards (5th) What you see is that Smith consistently has significantly higher completion percentages and also significantly higher YPAs. Tyrod's first year YPA was terrific, but he couldn't maintain it, his deep ball accuracy for some reason dropped a lot after that first year. And again, this leaves out Smith's terrific year this year.

There's no possible way to tell if this is true beyond going through play by play. I'm sure you're not going to do that anymore than anyone else is. IMHO you're remembering what you want to remember, a very human characteristic, it's confirmation bias, something we're all very subject to. Yeah, so many variables here. We can all agree that the wide receivers weren't very good this year, I think, but the stat this thread is about has so many variables. Would short passes tend to have smaller separations? Tyrod threw shorter than most QBs. Man vs. zone. Whether the QB held the ball longer, how the routes affected things ... there's just a million variables that make it a stat that's not particularly informative as far as coming to definitive conclusions on what it means.

The data isn't actually spread out over the entirety of two years. It's mostly in his first year. To be precise, ten games in his first year, 2015, when teams hadn't figured out well how to play him yet, and only five games in that second year, 2016. And those five games in that second year, 2016, were against middling to poorish pass defenses. The 9th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 29th ranked passing defenses overall by yards, and when ranked by defensive passer rating the 13th, 14th, 17th, 30th and 31st ranked.