Thurman#1

It's a question worth asking. And while being worn out may be a part of it, it's not a majority or even close. And it's not Dareus' loss. The guy was playing less than 25% of snaps early and the defense didn't look worse when he was sitting. It may have had some effect but it's not the major part of things. Marcell wasn't playing all that well this year. IMHO it has a lot to do with teams figuring us out. It's a common thing in the NFL for units to do well for 4 - 8 games and then start to struggle and usually it's because teams have figured out how to counter what they do. In this case, it seems to have a lot to do with the fact that the LBs aren't a talent match for what this defense wants them to do, and teams have figured this out and are attacking it. It also has a bit to do with a line that's fairly tough but only has one real pass rusher, making them much easier to defend. Beyond that, maybe Kyle Williams is finally starting to show his age a bit because even the DL hasn't been as good as we'd hoped. And maybe they really are having problems with run fits as well. It's a new scheme. They're gonna have to bring in guys who are physical and mental fits for McDermott's defense over the next year or two. It does NOT all come back to the offense. This defense is not good.either.

Pretty much everyone knew - based on what we saw in preseason - that Tyrod was the best on the team at least at that time. Many probably hoped Peterman had improved as much as McDermott implied but it was wildly doubted even by folks like me who hope Tyrod isn't here next year. Few were adamant he start Peterman. Plenty thought it pretty likely before the end of the season. As for explaining, not much to explain. We should be valuing long-term results over what happens this year in my opinion and that of plenty of others. I figured Tyrod offered the best chance to win games this year. Again, most did. Can't speak for others but I personally didn't care about this year. It was obvious that we weren't going to compete for a championship this year, pretty much from last season. They tried to middle it by rebuilding but not totally, trying to win in the future and now. And yet each of those two goals hurt the other. Tyrod was the best QB on the roster. We still should've dumped him in my opinion to save cap money and because he isn't ever going to be a franchise guy. Instead we kept him and now we have five wins and may come up with two or three more, which will hurt our chances of getting one of the best QBs in the draft. One of the many differences being Dak is in his second year, not his seventh. I don't know whether Dak is good enough. I seriously hope not. But I believe that we know about Tyrod. Who by the way had a terrific run game beside him all of last year too.

Nonsense. Fitting the scheme is what Belichick demands his players do and if I remember correctly, he's done OK at making the playoffs. Pretty much all the teams with consistent success demand the players fit the scheme. You don't see Tomlin saying "Fellas, just make plays, I'll fit things in around you." In the first year, fitting the scheme does often make it very difficult to make the playoffs. After that, if the coach is a good one and he has a good GM working with him, it can be a recipe for sustained excellence. Not that we can be sure of how McDermott and Beane will do. But you generally can't till you see a few years of results. Not true. RW specifically said you can stay, Wade, if you dump your STs coach. Wade didn't.

People keep repeating this year after year and it's true in very very few cases. Among the absolute top guys who will get a ton of offers of lots of money, yeah. Pretty much everyone else is just worried about finding someone who wants them and will pay as much or more than anyone else. And finding someone to pay isn't really a sure thing. Last year's Browns had one win. And yet they got a pretty solid FA class. Unless you're the Mario Williams of a few years ago or someone like him, FAs just go where they're wanted and paid. Yeah, and we can continue to do it each year as the coaches switch systems and then suck. We oughta try this and go for three or four decades on the playoff-less streak.

Yeah, like no free agents joined the 1-15 total rebuild-driven Browns after last year. Oh, wait, they did. Sure, the Bills won't get any of the high-demand guys but they've made it pretty clear that's not how they'll use free agency anyway. They're from the build the majority of the team through the draft and fill in the gaps with low- and medium-priced free agents school. Which is really the way that the best teams in the NFL year after year, the Pittsburghs, the New Englands, the Green Bays, the Atlantas and yeah the Carolinas treat free agency. For all but the top few guys free agents mostly don't get a ton of money and they end up making decisions mostly around the contract offers.

Overall a fine post, but I do have some disagreements. I don't think they have much of a chance to move up to #2. As it stands, the first two teams in the draft are likely to have extreme needs at QB. If we move up, it will likely be to grab the #3 or #4 QB. My guess is that they will have some of that extra draft capital left over even assuming they go QB in the first. I think you're undervaluing Ducasse. Joe B has ranked him pretty decently in his play by play film analysis. Had him ranked as the best Bill on the field last week. I'm not thrilled with him but the need there isn't as bad as it is at RT and LB and CB. I'm also not as down on Cordy Glenn as you are. He was on the field a lot early in his career. His injury has kept him off the field lately but it seems to be one injury that's taking a lot of time rather than that he's injury-prone by nature. I'm still very hopeful that he could be in our future plans which would leave Dawkins available to maybe fill a hole elsewhere if he proves capable of doing so. Yeah, it'll all need time. And yeah there are a lot of weaknesses on this roster. But IMHO the draft will be better than you're predicting and being in the second year of our systems will help more than most people think.

IMHO the problem wasn't not telling everyone we were rebuilding. It was not doing a full rebuild. They tried to middle it and that resulted in getting enough wins against teams that now look bad that they might have a hard time getting a good QB in the draft next year. He should have jettisoned Tyrod before the season even understanding that all other options were worse in terms of winning this year. He should've brought in somebody like McCown or Fitz or Foles to QB this year and saved a bunch of money. Then they should've let Kyle Williams go and traded McCoy. I think he told everyone pretty clearly what they were doing. But they tried to do both things, working on the short and long terms both at the same time. Which meant they had problems in both the short and long term. Benjamin might help this year but he is likely to be here a long time. That was a move that might well turn out to be a terrific move long term. You couldn't say that if they'd given up a lot for him, but he was a bargain.

Sometimes that's true. Plenty of other times Tyrod's unwillingness to throw on time has created problems for the offensive line. And he's not being ripped for running too often. He's being ripped for sometimes running when he doesn't have to, and for being part of the problem (yeah, the OL is certainly not without blame!!!!) in creating those situations when he has to take off by not getting rid of the ball.

Yeah. There were some good points but also a number of misreadings of what's going on that seemed almost bizarre. He claims that they're not behind Tyrod as shown by the fact that they're not changing their system in ways that would most help a guy with a style like his. And then further down he says that McDermott seems to be a system over personnel kind of guy. Exactly. McDermott wants a guy who will play in his system. He gave Tyrod a chance to do that. He said from his first press conferences that a QB in his system must be able to throw successfully from the pocket. And now people are complaining that McDermott won't run tons of plays that go to Tyrod's strengths by putting him outside the pocket. The problem isn't that they're not behind Tyrod. It's that as they've made clear, they're looking for a certain kind of QB, and Tyrod this year when given a chance to show he is that kind of a QB hasn't done so. And I've said it just as long. I'll never understand the Tyrod fanboy love. He's slightly below average at the pass game and this is what tends to happen to QBs who are slightly below average at the pass game. They get a season or two, maybe even three if they're very lucky to improve, and after that, the team is looking for someone else. He had one **** game against the Saints ... on top of an inconsistent and fairly unproductive season in the pass game. There are no pitchforks out. Those are binoculars and hoes (the garden implement) to start to till and sift the earth for someone better. Find someone who will eventually fit the system and the process. I want the Bills valuing long-term development over short-term wins. I wish Tyrod the absolute best of luck. But I don't expect him to have a long career as a starter.

PFF said, "Taylor also showed that he could succeed in an offense that wasn’t built around his unique skillset." Really? Wow. I would not call that success, I really wouldn't. A 6.6 YPA? An offense that's 30th in yards and 19th in points? As always, Tyrod has been very successful at not throwing INTs, but that's about where his success has ended. He's been consistently inconsistent and guys who play like that tend to become unemployed or backups sooner rather than later. PFF said, "When the defense was playing well, the team was winning games." The word they used was "well." But when this team was winning games the defense was playing out of it's mind terrific. You don't give the credit for those wins to the offense and QB who were being pretty unproductive. I certainly agree that Tyrod is now and has been the Bills best option to win games this season. But they ought to be looking for a better option and doing it like their hair is on fire. And I have stopped caring about this season. They aren't going to be good this year. I wish they had done a complete rebuild before the season.

There's a very reasonable argument that the Dareus move was a bad trade. But there's little to no argument that Dareus' loss is what tipped the defense over to awful. Dareus was playing I believe less than 25% of snaps. And the defense didn't look very different when he was on the sidelines. What's happened is that people have figured out how to attack this defense. They've figured out that the LBs are an exploitable weakness and how to do it. And that the CBs outside of maybe White are also just not good enough. As for Dennison, it's not fair to ask when his last great QB was. Have any of the QBs he was handling looked better pre- or post-Dennison? He didn't have good raw materials. I don't know how good he is or isn't, but with a good QB, his scheme might look a lot better. The question is whether we can get him a good QB. Well, actually, that's not the question, that's one of many questions.

I suppose it matters a bit but not all that much. When you want a free agent, you offer him the best contract and 90% of the time you get him. Only when the contracts are almost exactly the same does stuff like this play into FA decisions. Look at the Browns getting guys like Zeitler and Tretter and Britt last season. The Bills aren't likely to be trying to pick up any top-ranked FAs, guys who will have a ton of choices. When you examine the Panthers record on FAs, you don't see them going after the expensive high-demand guys. I'd expect McDermott and Beane to continue that kind of conservative use of the FA market. They've said they're going to build primarily through the draft. They'll fill in with lower- and mid-level guys but those guys are mostly looking for good contracts. Of course he should continue the process. That's what he was hired for. The first year of a new coach's term when he comes into a mediocre team and switches schemes was always likely to be pretty bad. I just wish they'd done a total rebuild and let Tyrod and Kyle Williams go before the season.

Mills isn't a very good player. If it's the play at 0:58 as you said, Bosa simply gets a faster start and beats him. Guys don't not play because they don't like the QB, not guys in Mills' situation. Mills is fighting for a spot on this roster or any other next year and he knows it. Not playing would be a form of throwing away his career. This is just a case of a terrific player completely outplaying a below average player. Happens all the time to great players, which is a large part of what makes them great. And it seems to have been true. He wasn't playing well here even when he played. He just wasn't. Is it that he didn't fit the system or that he just wasn't trying very hard? Hard to say, but he wasn't. And how terrific will he look in Jax if he gets caught with more fake marijuana and misses a season? Marcell is a wildly talented guy but he seems to play hard when he feels like it and is a suspension risk constantly. Sometimes awful trades are awfully awfully necessary. Sometimes they're the best of a bunch of bad options. This appears to me to have been one of those times.

I just don't feel there was much of an opportunity lost. Seemed to me like they had the opportunity to go 8-8 or maybe 9-7 and even if they made the playoffs be ejected efficiently the minute they played a decent team. That's not a huge missed opportunity, IMHO. I saw the four Super Bowls. It's hard for me to get excited over a one-and-done playoff appearance. I want them to be a consistently good team, a team that has a shot at competing for a championship most years. Less than a legitimate chance at a title doesn't mean much to me. I don't think this was a golden opportunity. More like maybe aluminum. If they actually get good in the next two or three years, however they do it and with whatever QB, this won't be talked about for decades. It'll be forgotten quickly.

Smart in terms of avoiding turnovers. Not smart in terms of producing yards. He's got a YPA of 6.6. That's 29th in the league. He appears to be absolutely unwilling to take a risk even when it's called for. Don't remember the exact numbers, but those two checkdowns on third and more than ten yards in this last game, one when we were down 30-3 ... those weren't smart plays.

Top ten in scoring in 2016. But below average in QB play in both years. It was our running game that got us top ten. Wouldn't have been enough to get us to be consistently competing for a Lombardi, which is their stated goal. And more, they've said that what they need in a QB is a guy who can play well from the pocket. Tyrod isn't that guy. And I think he was talking about Tyrod's results, not what the running game did. Oh, and we weren't top ten in scoring in '15. We were 12th. And we were 13th and 16th in yards those two years, which is a far better way to isolate offensive performance from STs and defense.

Speed matters, but worth remembering that other factors affect how little/much time you have to throw. For example, speed of decision-making and speed of release. I'd argue that decision-making speed is the most important of the three. Peterman appears to be very good at that, though it's very early days.

Agreed, Shaw, this is the question with Peterman. Or anyway, the most obvious question that we yet have any information about beyond the obvious ... a lack of experience at NFL level. I think he needs to go to a QB coach during the offseason. Increasing your arm strength is possible. It doesn't seem to be common, but it's been done, generally through coaching on the fundamentals of the throwing motion. Both Aaron Rodgers and Brady have improved their arm strength. But not everybody does. I'm hoping he can and does. But my guess is that we're going to be drafting a QB early next year if we can possibly get early enough to get a guy we like.

Great article. Thanks for posting it. I love this quote: "Consider this: Buffalo currently leads the NFL in turnover differential at +11 through nine games. And, incredibly, they have a point differential in the red (-12). "It cannot be overstated just how atrocious you have to be to pick up an extra possession per game and still get outscored on the season. Over the previous 20 seasons, 41 teams have posted a turnover differential of +1 per game or better over the course of a season. If rabid squirrels gnawed off both your hands, you’d still have enough fingers to count how many of those 41 teams had a negative point differential that season (and you know damn well that not a jury in the world would convict those squirrels)." I am very much a King fan, but that wasn't King, it was Garry Gramling.

IMHO it's impossible to know. The word I would use is "necessary." Not that it was necessary that week. But we have to know what we have with Peterman. We do know what we have with Tyrod and in the long term he simply isn't enough.

This isn't a tank, disguised or not. There's no such thing in football. And the one thing you can say about this administration is that they don't disguise things. They're open. They've openly said is that their main goal is building a team that can consistently compete for a title but at the same time they're trying to win this year. Their actions back this up exactly. It's also quite clear that if there is a conflict and they must choose either long-term or short-term, they choose long-term. Which is a very very good thing. Again, the Bills could go to the playoffs with eight wins this year in this poor playoff field. They could still easily pull that off. Throw out the four division leaders and the next two best teams are the Titans with six wins, the Bills with five, and then everybody else has four wins or less. They could still easily be a playoff team this year. I'm sure we're in agreement that even if they make the playoffs they won't go anywhere, but you can bet McDermott would work his ass off to try to put them in position to win. But they don't have the personnel. He has certainly NOT been underpaid here. His contract makes him the 20th highest paid QB in the league in terms of average money and he was higher last year. And he's generally considered between maybe 20th and 22nd best in the league. And they didn't force him to do squat. He could've left if he'd wanted. Agreed that we don't know yet how this move will turn out, but IMHO it had to be done for a team whose priority is building to be a consistent winner.

It didn't take this long. Teams figured it out around halfway through his first year. It's not that easy to do. Tyrod is quick and evasive. Good defenses can do it, bad teams have trouble. Vic's right that they might have made the playoffs. Still might. The AFC is so bad this year someone might make them with an 8-8 record. And then be ejected the minute they face a good team. I doubt the theory because I don't think the new management would feel compelled to do anything they didn't want to do. Even if they made the playoffs if they wanted to get rid of Tyrod, they would have done it, I think. But it's not an impossible theory. Thought-provoking. Take a look at the standings in the AFC. Only six teams are NOT below .500.

That's crazy, alright. How much good did it do us to get crazy over Rivers the least couple of years.

It's not my thread. I'm not the OP. And I'm absolutely not suggesting that win now is their highest priority. Nor should it be. They've said from instant one that their priority is building a program that can consistently compete for titles. Which is what their priority should be. They've also said that they'll try to win this year. You said "turning in your card." That means quit. Walk off the course. Don't finish. It's a stupid comparison. Are they going to forfeit their remaining games? We don't even know for sure Peterman won't perform better than Tyrod. Again, their main philosophy has these key words, as I said in my first post. "''Build.' 'Consistently.' Those are the key words. Words that aren't in there? 'Playoffs.' Reaching the playoffs as a fodder team in a poor conference isn't a terrible thing. But it doesn't mean a whole lot either." I stand by that. If they reach the playoffs this year it won't mean much of anything to me because they shouldn't be taken seriously as a title contender. They aren't good enough. I suppose if Peterman has a first year like Marino we might be a contender but I don't expect that to happen. That doesn't mean you care absolutely nothing about what happens this year. But it does mean that you prioritize titles and competing for them consistently. And I'm not saying losing now guarantees winning later. Or anything close to it. I'm saying something that shouldn't be news to anybody, that building an excellent, consistent organization from a consistently poor to mediocre one takes time, and that even though it takes time that it's precisely what should be priority number one for this team. Even if they'd kept Sammy and Dareus and all the rest, they weren't winning a title this year. Not even close.

Depends. None if you're Gibran Hamdan. Don't recall him catching on elsewhere and turning into a franchise guy. More than three seasons including 28 starts if you're Drew Brees, who looked bad enough for that period of time that the team paid a lot of draft capital to trade for Philip Rivers. Poor Rivers. The Bills almost certainly don't expect to come to an absolute conclusion in the rest of the season that will completely eliminate all doubt either way about Peterman. They want to get an idea. And as for your examples, it isn't as simple as you're saying. Something happened to Trent Edwards, whether it was a concussion or more likely just being infected with fear. He regressed. Hadn't been such a checkdown artist early. Look at his YPA. 6.1 and then 7.2, which is really pretty decent. than the regression to an awful 6.4, which was the best he ever did for the rest of his career, excepting his final year when he threw two passes. Same with Losman. Looks bad early. Shows major improvement and looks like he might possibly be good. And then they change the offensive system on him to the precision possession game, a system which totally goes away from his strengths, calculated to forcibly expose his weaknesses. He regressed. Again, his stats show a passer rating of 84.9 in 2006 and then a drop to 76.9% which he also never bested again except his last season with 10 attempts. No way to know if either guy would ever have been good enough under better circumstances, but it's possible.