Thurman#1

I haven't written the season off, but I wish I could. The best outcome this season would have been two or three wins and a terrific draft spot, IMHO. With fundamental improvements going on under the surface. And, "no hope"? There's always hope for next year. More so than usual if you like what you see with McDermott, which I do.

More on that stat. Someone said earlier something about how the score at the end of a game was closer than seven points so the QB had a chance at a GWD/4QCB. But that ain't necessarily so. There are many ways to come to scores with a difference of less than seven points. For example, let's say we're looking at Tyrod. Many ways we could come to a score that ends w/ the Bills down by seven. 1) The Bills were down by 15 with 2 minutes left and Tyrod led a terrific drive and got the 2 point conversion with 15 seconds left, but the onside kick failed. Did he have a chance? 2) The Bills were up by 22 in the 4th and Brady and the Pats stormed back, scoring 4 TDs including a 2 point, and the Bills offense was utterly skunked in the 4th quarter. Much much less impressive. 3) The Bills D held the Jets offense late in the 4th, and up by nine the Jets have a 4th and 27 on their own three yard-line with 25 seconds left in the game. The punter takes the snap and runs out of the end zone for a safety, running around enough that now there's only 18 seconds left, and the free kick is a terrific one and the returner is tackled on the Bills 24 with 7 seconds left. It's a seven point margin. Can Tyrod be blamed for not scoring there? This stat is an absolute quagmire. And yet except for Rodgers being far far far too low, the rankings it produces are actually pretty decent.

Why would you bother looking up my history? Honestly, maybe you should think about me a little - maybe a lot - less. Having gotten that out of the way, the honest answer is that some weeks I'm busy and some weeks I'm not so much. It's that simple.

Possibly that is because you are looking at a stat that is designed with a gigantic flaw. For example, if a QB comes out in his first game and lays a 50-burger on the other team, going into the fourth quarter up by 37, guess how that dumb stat looks at it ... He's 0 for 1. Because he didn't get a 4th quarter comeback or a game-winning drive. It's an extremely poor stat even for looking at what it's trying to look at. The very least you would do to begin to fix it is to take all the wins that weren't 4th Quarter Comebacks (4QCs) or Game-Winning Drives (GWDs) out of the denominator. Wins should absolutely NOT be counted against the QB in this. Oh, and right now you know the game where Rodgers was injured in the first half? It's counted against him in this stat, even though the Pack was up by 14, I think when he went out and then lost behind Hundley and Rodgers didn't see a snap in the 4th quarter. Any game the QB starts is counted as a game he might've had a 4QC or GWD. Again, just poorly designed. Right now the way it's calculated is this ((4QC + GWD) / GSQB) where GSQB is Games Started by that QB. The very beginning of a fix would be to switch it to something more like this: (4QC + GWD)) ----------------------------------------------------- ( GSQB - (TWGSQB - (4QB + GWD)) ) - GQBDP4Q where TWGSQB is Team Wins in Games Started by that QB and GQBDP4Q is Games when that QB Didn't Play the 4th Quarter (And yeah, I know the names of the variables are clunky and stupid. Hopefully they get the point across, though.) And that's only a start. How should games where the team lost by 30? Or lost by eight when they had a last drive? Or lost by 14 but had two drives that were stopped at the end without the other team scoring? I could go on and on. It's a dumb stat generally. But at the absolute least you need to get team wins that weren't 4th quarter comeback or Game-Winning Drives out of that denominator, and starts where the QB didn't play in the 4th quarter too.

Hey Scott, sorry this took so long. I'm really busy lately and for whatever reason, my home computer won't work on this site. I get a notification that I'm banned while at my office computer, as you can see, everything is fine. I've emailed them twice about this in the last few weeks and got nothing in return. In a way it's good. Keeps me focused on what's important while at home. Anyway, here are the combined stats for the first two weeks, for the deep middle third, based on your numbers. As you can see, any QB ranking of activity in this area would be sky high, as any completion would be 20 yards minimum and there are 7 TDs and 2 INTs. You asked if I wanted any other info. If you can get yards on the pass plays, I'd love it, but that's an awful lot of work and I'll totally understand if you can't. I don't think I can, due to time restrictions. I'll read ahead to see if you started another thread or anything. Here are the rankings: Attempts to the Deep Middle Rankings Tie-1st) Brady 5 Tie-1st) Wentz 5 3rd) Palmer 4 (1 TD, 1 INT) 4th) Kizer 3 Tie-5th) Cousins 2 Tie-5th) Roethlisberger 2 (1 INT) Tie-7th) Rodgers 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Goff 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Stafford 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Ryan 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Smith 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Brees 1 Tie-7th) Newton 1 Tie-7th) Wilson 1 Tie-7th) Tolzien 1 Tie-7th) Manning 1 Tie-7th) Cutler 1 (missing week1) Tie-7th) Dalton 1 Tie-27th and last) Wentz 1 Tie-19th and last) Tyrod 0 Tie-19th and last) Rivers 0 Tie-19th and last) Siemian 0 Tie-19th and last) Prescott 0 Tie-19th and last) Hoyer 0 Tie-19th and last) Carr 0 Tie-19th and last) Mariota 0 Tie-19th and last) Bortles 0 Tie-19th and last) Watson 0 Tie-19th and last) Flacco 0 Tie-19th and last) Glennon 0 Tie-19th and last) McCown 0 Tie-19th and last) Winston 0 (missing week 1) Tie-19th and last) Keenum (didn’t play week 1) Completions to the deep middle rankings Tie-1st) Kizer 2 Tie-1st) Palmer 2 Tie-1st) Brady 2 Tie-4th) Brees 1 Tie-4th) Newton 1 Tie-4th) Rodgers 1 Tie-4th) Goff 1 Tie-4th) Tolzien 1 Tie-4th) Stafford 1 Tie-4th) Ryan 1 Tie-4th) Smith 1 Tie-4th) Cutler 1 Tie-4th) Dalton 1 Tie-4th) Manning 1 Tie-4th) Wentz 1 Tie-16th) Tyrod (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Rivers (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Siemian (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Prescott (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Hoyer (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Carr (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Mariota (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Bortles (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Watson (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Flacco (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Glennon (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) McCown (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Keenum (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-16th) Winston (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-30th and last) Wilson 0 Tie-30th and last) Cousins 0 Tie-30th and last) Roethlisberger 0 Completion to the deep middle third (1st and 2nd week combined) 17/32 NFL TD/INT ratio to the deep middle third (1st and 2nd week combined: 7/2 Tyrod Attempts to the deep middle: After the first week: Tied for 16th and last with 0 After the second week: Tied for 19th and last with 0 Completions to the deep middle: Tied for 12th with 0 after the first week Tied for 16th with 0 after the second week

Thing about the D is that there's no "Transplant Defense Fan" out there yelling about how good they are in spite of what we see. Nobody's disagreeing with you that they weren't just bad they were awful. Unless I missed someone in this thread.

Just don't buy that. It wasn't a team quitting, it was a team having their asses handed to them by a much better team.

A QB controversy isn't a particularly desireable outcome. But it's no less desireable than not having any franchise QB. When McDermott was asked what a QB needed to do he said he needed to be able to work from the pocket. I know it won't happen as long as Brady is there, but would Belichick worry about a QB controversy? We already know the answer from the Brady - Bledsoe situation. Tough, confident coaches just see that as another situation to handle. They don't avoid gathering helpful information because it might possibly create a problem down the road that the coach could handle anyway. If there is any doubt in McDermott's mind about Tyrod he likely would figure you can pretty much get in 13 or 14 games nearly all of what you could get in 16. Of course, if what they're seeing in practice from Peterman tells them he's not ready, it's all academic.But if that's what they were seeing, I don't think they'd have put him in last week. Far from certain they stay in contention, I'd guess, even in this weak AFC. I think the Raiders are primed for a run and the Bills are likely to lose more than you seem to expect. We'll see, though.

Yes, but starts isn't how this stat should be looked at. If the Pack goes into the 4th quarter up by 30, is that a negative in any way for Rodgers? The percentage to look at should be 4th quarter comebacks divided by 4th quarter comeback chances. I don't know whether anyone has done that work anywhere but going in way ahead is a Pack trademark and should in no way be held against Rodgers. Or Tyrod, though it's a lot rarer in his case. Or any QB. Dividing by starts is only muddying the waters, it's not relevant how many starts the guy has had. We don't have a franchise QB. We have that in common with probably half of the league.

Yeah, I don't see him every succeeding as a pocket guy, so I agree that he won't be their near-term guy either. But I think they wanted to give him a chance. They pretty much have, and for all but the crazed fanboys and the ones still hoping he'll change, the results are pretty much in. As coach, McDermott wants to win every game with a record like 5-2 and every 5-4. My guess is that soon we won't be a team with a chance anymore, and McDermott the personnel guy who works with the GM will start to take over and we'll start to see decisions being made with a different focus.

Carolina is in their window. We haven't reached ours yet. Carolina probably thinks that if things fall right they could make a Super Bowl this year. We aren't close. We should be teaching people our system this year. This early in the process that's how it goes. Not changing the system to go from maybe 7-9 to 8-8.

The reason he's unemployed is that he retired. He writes part-time and that's what he wants to do.

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable take. Thing is, before the season, asked what a QB had to do in his system, McDermott said he had to throw successfully from the pocket. IMHO they've been giving Tyrod a shot at being the long-term guy, the guy who can throw from the pocket. You may well be right that for Tyrod's success they need to stop doing that so much. But if that's true, it may mean that he can't be McDermott's guy long-term. Thoughtful post, Happy. IMHO there's a major difference between Ryan and McDermott other than the fact that the defense Ryan took over was terrific while the offense McDermott inherited was pretty decent. And that difference is that Ryan promised he could turn it all around the first year, where McDermott has just talked process and winning in the long term. That's huge, IMHO.

If winning this year was your number one focus, idiotic indeed. I think they came up against problems with Dareus that made them believe he simply couldn't be part of this team, that he wasn't buying in and that showing the others what happens if you have that problem was more important than this year's success. I've got no problem with the move whatsoever, though I wish they could've gotten more for him. His contract and attitude must've made that difficult.

Peterman looked good. Yeah, the defense was soft, but it was against Taylor for the last quarter and a half too. At least Peterman got it down the field. But if I were a coach looking for wins, I'd keep Taylor as the starter too. For now. It was relatively easy for Peterman against a defense that practiced combating Tyrod's tendencies and not Peterman's Yet another defense saying in the postgame interviews that they made Tyrod play QB. And with Peterman's style, that's probably not an effective defensive strategy. But he did look better. Thanks for the review, Shaw.

And I like data, too. I'll be interested to see how it all turns out, and I'm wondering if I'll have some time to do some more in-depth work / research to check up on things like yards and such. Dunno, I'm pretty busy lately, but I'll see. As for the missing QBs, I see. The site didn't have charts for those teams, yeah? Lemme see ... Miami, Minny and Tampa Bay. As for the intermediate middle third, though, I'll disagree with you till I see some proof. I understand you don't have time to prove the case. Neither do I. But just as it looks to you like there's no problem, looks to me like there is. I know for sure there was a problem there his first year as I went through every single pass of every single game. And while I'm willing to be persuaded, an opposing unbacked up opinion doesn't persuade me (just as I apparently don't persuade you, even with the data from his first year. Fair enough.)

This is an excellent idea. I will follow along and compile your results into rankings as you do each week. Attempts to the Deep Middle Rankings 1st) Brady 4 2nd) Wentz 3 Tie-3rd) Cousins 2 Tie-3rd) Palmer 2 (1 INT) Tie-3rd) Roethlisberger 2 (1 INT) Tie-3rd) Kizer 2 Tie-7th) Brees 1 Tie-7th) Newton 1 Tie-7th) Wilson 1 Tie-7th) Rodgers 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Goff 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Tolzien 1 Tie-7th) Stafford 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Ryan 1 (1 TD) Tie-7th) Smith 1 (1 TD) Tie-16th and last) Tyrod 0 Tie-16th and last) Rivers 0 Tie-16th and last) Siemian 0 Tie-16th and last) Manning 0 Tie-16th and last) Prescott 0 Tie-16th and last) Hoyer 0 Tie-16th and last) Carr 0 Tie-16th and last) Mariota 0 Tie-16th and last) Bortles 0 Tie-16th and last) Watson 0 Tie-16th and last) Dalton 0 Tie-16th and last) Flacco 0 Tie-16th and last) Glennon 0 Tie-16th and last) McCown 0 (and three missing teams, Miami, Minny and Tampa Bay) Completions to the deep middle rankings Tie-1st) Brees 1 Tie-1st) Newton 1 Tie-1st) Rodgers 1 Tie-1st) Goff 1 Tie-1st) Tolzien 1 Tie-1st) Palmer 1 Tie-1st) Stafford 1 Tie-1st) Kizer 1 Tie-1st) Ryan 1 Tie-1st) Brady 1 Tie-1st) Smith 1 Tie-12th) Tyrod (0, but on 0 attempts) Tie-12th) Rivers Tie-12th) Siemian Tie-12th) Manning Tie-12th) Prescott Tie-12th) Hoyer Tie-12th) Carr Tie-12th) Mariota Tie-12th) Bortles Tie-12th) Watson Tie-12th) Dalton Tie-12th) Flacco Tie-12th) Glennon Tie-12th) McCown Tie-12th) Wilson 0 Tie-27th and last) Cousins 0 Tie-27th and last) Wentz 0 Tie-27th and last) Roethlisberger 0 (and the same missing three teams as above, Miami, Minny and Tampa Bay) NFL TD/INT ratio to the deep middle: 5/2 Tyrod after 1st Week Attempts to the deep middle: Tied for 16th and last with 0 Completions to the deep middle: Tied for 12th with 0 Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Sorry about that, heartfelt apologies. I hate to make stupid mistakes like that but missing someone's identity is a bonehead move. Sorry, Scott. Last thing I'm going to do is have some coffee, though. I live in Japan and it's midnight and I'm headed for bed.

No, you said the deep and intermediate middle of the field was not a problem. But I shouldn't be surprised by your switching the ground yet again. It's your consistent M.O. Lose one argument, don't acknowledge it and move on to the next. And dude, you already gave us data on the whole season for the deep middle for those eight QBs. One week is an insignificant sample. Having said that, it's interesting that your own count here lists 15 QBs who threw one or more times to the deep middle. And Tyrod was 0 for 0. W hich coincidentally was his stat line there for seven out of the eight total weeks. Seven weeks at 0 for 0 and the one remaining week at 0 for 1. Yeah, I think we can all see why you don't think he goes there infrequently or has any problem there in the deep middle. Tell me, anyone else in the league have one or fewer throws to the deep middle over the course of the season? Anyone with any serious number of reps, that is? Or is Tyrod dead last in frequency of throws to that part of the field? And yeah, you pointed out that the intermediate middle isn't a problem, but then you gave no statistics, just a note that one QB had "about the same" numbers.

Typical Trannie argument. Blow hard about the deep middle, throw out a bunch of stats that prove the opposite, get proven spectacularly wrong, and then he changes the ground of his argument without ever admitting how thoroughly skunked he was. And again ignore the actual problem. Which again is not just the intermediate third. It is the deep and intermediate middle third. Always has been. Funny, in his post about the deep middle, he threw out the specific numbers of seven or eight QBs. After it was pointed out that the numbers said the opposite of what he thought, he switches to intermediate, but also changes from seven or eight QBs to just one. Hmmm. Wonder why that is. And Captain Miniscule Statistic himself doesn't mention any specific numbers this time. "About as much" as Wilson ... and Wilson only. Hmmmmmm. Makes you wonder.

The kumquat warbles at dawn.

He is being deliberately obtuse. His goal isn't correctly understanding the situation. It's saying absolutely anything to make Tyrod look good. If that requires responding to a post about scoring, clutch time and chunk plays by talking about third downs instead and pretending like he addressed the post, he's fine with that. He's interested only in spin. Not in understanding. But people can see that. It's spectacularly easy to notice. He isn't convincing anyone who came in neutral. Not even slightly close.

Again, same argument from Transie, and again, it's dumb. Yeah, Brady's thrown both deep and to the deep middle a lot less frequently than he's thrown short. Same with everyone else. Folks, pretending that deep throws only affect the defense on plays when the offense actually throws deep is missing the point. They have to defend the deep middle against Brady. Knowing Brady's thrown it there there 15 times out of his 43 deep throws you know you absolutely have to defend it. That affects your safeties on every play and your CBs on every pass play. Whereas with Tyrod throwing there one time out of 29 deep throws and 236 total throws you know you can move your safeties towards the horseshoe area where he actually does throw, short and towards the sides as you get towards the intermediate and deep areas. When 28 of 29 deep throws are to the outside thirds, the defense says, "Thank you for the tendency, Tyrod."

Thanks. I used the English language to communicate. And I succeeded, for the reason that Brady does indeed throw to the deep middle at a rate nearly 10 times higher than Tyrod. That's a fact. And as for the idea that deep throws aren't important because they don't happen all that often, that is a butt-stupid argument. Butt-stupid. Deep throws are extremely important, to both offenses and defenses, which is why many teams are looking for a deep threat every year. Will that deep threat only make a difference if they throw deep to him on half the plays? That argument is missing the point, and not by a little bit. Brady's only gone deep, according to espn, 43 times this year. He goes short much much more often. Does that mean his deep throws mean nothing? No, just the opposite. They're wildly important. They have a high probability of being major chunk plays or TDs. They're not that frequent but you don't know when they're coming. They move the safeties back and make running and short passes easier on every single play. So of course if you then divide that number, 43, up three ways for each third of the deep field, your total numbers will be small. But no serious fan should think those numbers unimportant because they're small. It's like thinking gold and platinum are unimportant because they're hard to find and rare. Tyrod having thrown only once to the entire deep middle third out of all of his 2017 throws (Thanks again for letting me know, Transie) is giving the defenses a precious gift. They know they don't have to worry much about that whole area. When a receiver fakes a deep post on a fly route, the DB knows it's either a fake or a route to an area the QB doesn't throw to and that you can wait a step or two to respond. Tyrod gives defenses a major advantage with this behavior. Tyrod's gone deep 29 times and only one of them to the middle. This helps defenses deal with Bills deep passes much more easily. Extremely clear tendencies like this are a gift to the defense.

Um, me. Or rather, it depends what you mean by a legit QB. If you mean a franchise QB, I definitely think the Benjamin deal isn't dependent on them thinking Tyrod is a franchise guy. Benjamin's under contract for another year and could be re-signed beyond that. And he's young. No reason whatsoever to think that if he doesn't make Tyrod a franchise guy this year then he failed. The guy is 26 years old.

There are studies showing that believing in "the process" works. It's useful in children's education, business, sports psychology and a ton more things. This isn't something McDermott made up. Carol Dweck is maybe the big name in this movement. I think everyone should watch this, its great stuff: Conversation on this site is not restricted to what is happening this year. And the past absolutely does influence the present, so it's extremely reasonable to discuss the past when trying to figure out what will happen in the near future. Bot of those posts certainly do matter this year. You might disagree with what they think - reasonably - but their posts were relevant. Also, if you think the Bills are pretenders, you're likely to want to think about what will happen down the road.