Thurman#1

Know what happens to GMs who suck? They lose a lot games. An awful lot. Belichick is a damn good GM. Unfortunately. Having said that, he makes mistakes like anyone else, and so far that trade you mention appears to be one, but it's hard to say that when the year they made it they won the Lombardi. And their defense was coming together the past couple of weeks. Awful early on, they've improved, which is the M.O. of the Pats when they start awful. Unfortunately. Also worth noting that Pats defenses are generally bend but don't break models, which means they don't end up high in yards-based rankings. It'll be interesting to see how they manage after this injury. It does appear to be a big problem for them. Um. Hunh? They've been very happy with Gillislee. We'll see about Gimore when he gets back.

Is this actually non-sarcastic? Appears 90% kidding, but ... Anyway, they wasted time on him. If they can get something for him they should. He probably got a few hundred bucks too for his time at camp or activities. They've got his rights. If he isn't going to retire, he should be here.

Let me repeat. Try reading carefully. I'll help. Yes, a defensive TD/INT ratio of more than two is indeed bad pass defense. The reason people don't spend a lot of time on passing TDs per game as a stat is because it comes down to game situations, field position, time on the clock and a whole ton of other things. It only means much if it's extremely high or extremely low. On top of how many passes are thrown, a lot of it comes down to field position and whether teams close in like to run or not on short yardage. That's why people go to the ratio a lot, More indicative. INT percentage means a ton more than TD percentage. Teams don't care whether they score by pass or by run. Tyrod's TDs/game is just about 1.25. If 1.4 was low, how about that? But he doesn't get attacked for it, for good reason. His TD/INT percentage is quite good, and he does get credit for that. But again, those four teams have given up 31 TDs and 11 INTs. Which is really quite bad.

Yes, a defensive TD/INT of more than two is indeed bad pass defense.

21 TDs and 10 INTs. Which averages to ... ungood pass defense. Far from terrific as he and you are trying to paint them.

No, defenses are not ranked by defensive passer rating. But yeah, PASSING DEFENSES are very reasonably indeed ranked by passer rating. But if you want to leave out Carolina, fine. The other three passing defenses allowed 21 TDs and 10 INTs.

He's part of our problem, no question. And it wasn't real good evidence. Centrifuged and spun within an inch of it's life, as usual ... Wanted to see those 11 games Transplant was talking about, and wondered why he was including Flacco (not that great), Dak (very young) and Deshaun Watson (extremely young), wondering if it was to adjust the numbers down a bit so Tyrod would be more competitive. Yup. Not to mention that Transplant left out Wentz, who had a great game. If you’re going to include Dak and Watson, you should include Wentz. Why was he left out? Oh, wait, leaving him out helped Transplant’s already weak argument. Here are the four teams referred to, their schedules, and the stats for each game: Cincy (played Baltimore, Houston, GB, Cleveland and Buffalo) Flacco 9/17, 121 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT 71.0 Deshaun Watson (in his 2nd pro game) 15/24, 125 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, 75.9 Rodgers 28/42, 313 yards, 3 TDs, I INT 102.6 Tyrod 20/37, 166 yards 1 TD, 1 INT, 63.6 Denver (played Chargers, Dallas, Buffalo, Raiders and Giants) Rivers 22/33, 192 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT 99.6 Dak 30/50, 238 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, 68.6 Tyrod 20/26, 213 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 126.0 Carr 10/18, 143 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs 100.0 before his injury Carolina (played SF, Buffalo, New Orleans, NE, Detroit and Philly) Tyrod 17/25, 125 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, 79.6 Brees 22/29, 220 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 131.4 Brady 32/45, 307 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 104.6 Stafford 23/35, 229 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 141.8 Wentz (why’s he left out? Oh, cuz he would’ve hurt Transplant’s case) 16/30, 222 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 110.7 Atlanta (played Chicago, Green Bay, Detroit, Buffalo and Miami) Rodgers 33/50, 343 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 90.7 Stafford 25/45, 264 yards, 1 TDs, 0 INTs, 80.2 Tyrod 12/20, 182 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 106.7 Putting those 12 games - including Wentz's - in order, by passer rating … 1) Stafford 23/35, 229 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 141.8 2) Brees 22/29, 220 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 131.4 3) Wentz (why again is he left out? Oh, cuz he would’ve hurt Transplant’s case) 16/30, 222 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 110.7 4) Brady 32/45, 307 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 104.6 5) Rodgers 28/42, 313 yards, 3 TDs, I INT 102.6 6) Carr 10/18, 143 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs 100.0 before his injury 7) Rivers 22/33, 192 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT 99.6 8) Rodgers 33/50, 343 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, 90.7 Tyrod’s total as computed by Transplant goes here, with a 90.5 9) Stafford 25/45, 264 yards, 1 TDs, 0 INTs, 80.2 10) Deshaun Watson (in his 2nd pro game) 15/24, 125 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, 75.9 11) Flacco 9/17, 121 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT 71.0 12) Dak 30/50, 238 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs, 68.6 These pass defenses simply don't come out looking good from this analysis. Not that you'd have been told that by Transplant. That’s why he didn’t spell it out game by game as I’ve done here. Most of these games were very good, And the QBs who brought down the average were two guys in their first two years (Watson’s a rookie in his second game, actually) and Joe Flacco (who a lot of people might want to exchange for Tyrod but not many would consider any kind of a big step up). Stafford had one game at 80.2 but another at 141.8, so I don’t think you could count him as bringing the average down. Also cracks me up that Transplant’s trying to use total yards here as an average for these guys when one of the QBs got injured early in the game (Carr, leaving Manuel to throw 17 more passes). Of course Carr didn’t have a lot of total yards. Take out Carr’s partial game and Transplant’s group averaged 239.2 yards per game (which would be 12th in the NFL) against those four defenses while Tyrod averaged 172 (which would be 28th). Wanna argue against using total yards at all? Fair enough, but it wasn’t me who brought them up, it was Transplant, trying to compare Tyrod’s average to the group average, including Carr’s partial game. And this is all leaving out Wentz’s excellent game, and there’s a QB most of us would trade for Tyrod in a flat tenth of a second.

Quick quiz question. The four teams Tranplant mentions in his original post as being such terrific defenses ... how many of them are in the top ten of defensive passer rating this year? Any guesses? Uno. Cincy at #6. #6 Cincy 73.3 #14 Atlanta 86.6 #16 Denver 89.5 #26 Carolina 100.0 These aren't four terrific pass defenses. The Panthers have allowed 10 TDs and 1 INT. Together, all four teams have allowed a total of 31 TDs and 11 INTs.

You don't throw away average QBs. But Tyrod isn't average. He's slightly below average, somewhere around the 20 - 22 neighborhood. And except if the guy is in his first two or three years of his career, getting thrown away is exactly what happens to those guys as teams desperately look to replace them. It's precisely the fate of that group, the group Tyrod is in.

This is it, precisely. Taylor looked terrific for his first seven games. Then teams figured him out. Since then he's been the same guy who was forced to take a $10 million pay cut to stay with the team.

Who - among guys not playing - have they committed to playing when he gets back. "We'll see" and "The best guy will play" are their default positions. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here. They haven't seen him play healthy consistently yet. Of course they aren't committing to him. The guy's played 81 snaps, 73 offensive. Of all Bills who've played that little, how many have McDermott committed to starting?

It was absolutely a mistake with Peters. The bracketing shows he was aiming for the contract he got with Philly, which turned out to be an extremely reasonable value for Peters, who has a good shot at the hall of fame at this point. While we ended up with three or so years of Demetrius Bell and even for a moment or two Langston Walker, a void that continually left our QBs open to thunderous surprise hits. And what the Bills did with Glenn may have been spreading disinformation but that's par for the course.

Not like we had a choice at that time. Lynch averaged 3.8 and 3.6 YPC in 2009 and 2010. Everyone knew he wanted out of Buffalo and it was his 4th year. Nobody was giving us anything significant for him under those circumstances.

Then the point was off-point. The reason there are no dominant teams is because it's early. Later in the season there will be dominant teams. Every year people say anyone can win the Super Bowl if you make the playoffs. Every year there are a bunch of teams that make the playoffs as complete fodder teams with no chance outside a couple of plane crashes. And those teams lose. The same will be true this year. The better teams will get better as the season goes along. There will be a very small group of very good teams.

Bad comparison. Our offense last year was 16th in the league. Our defense before Ryan came on was 4th. That ranking - 4th - was a lot better reason not to change than 16th was. More, the main goal isn't competing for the playoffs this year. It's consistently competing for the Super Bowl. We have no idea yet how that will work out. It's a long-term thing. The Bills offense wasn't particularly good last year. The run game was excellent but the offense was acceptable, not good, 16th in the league. And yeah it'll be hard to compete with Tyrod struggling to throw over 200 yards a game and getting sacked a lot. But the record shows that's Tyrod. He's likely to average just around there. More if he throws a lot, maybe, but nobody seems to want that to happen.

That's cherrypicking the list. When you look at the list that that stat presents, it's good QBs at the top and bad QBs at the bottom. Like pretty much every stat, there's an exception that proves the rule, in this case Rodgers. Doesn't mean it's not a very useful and telling stat. 4th quarter comeback leaders for the last 50 years (career) are, in order ... Peyton, Brady, Marino, Unitas, Elway, Montana, Favre, Manning, Tarkenton, Roethlisberger, Testaverde, Brees, Moon, Stafford, Romo, Ryan, Bledsoe, Fouts, Krieg, Rivers and YA Tittle. That's a very strong list. The list of the same stat for active QBs is also overall very strong at the top and weak at the bottom.

The winning teams do strive for 190 yards per game passing? Seriously? We must have 26 winning teams in the NFL then, because that's how many average 190 yards per game. Heck the top nine teams average 250 and up. Including KC and the Eagles, the winningest teams in the league. The teams averaging 190 yards passing per game or less are the Raiders, Titans, Bears, Jags, Bills, Ravens and Dolphins.

Dude, absolutely nobody ever has said that you can't win a single game with numbers like those. And a single game is what the Giants won. Of course you can win a game or two. Hell, we've won seven and eight games, so don't pretend you're countering something anyone has actually said.

The Super Bowl? Good lord, dude. This is confirmation bias. I want a thing to be true, so I imagine it, so it starts to look natural inside my head so it seems possible and reasonable. The Super Bowl will go to one of the six or seven or eight best teams, as always. Probably four or five of those teams simply play consistently at a higher level. The rest are opportunistic enough and have good enough defenses and QBs that they can play inconsistently through a game and yet consistently win. We aren't one of the eight best in the league, Auras are the thing you find about your favorite team when you can convince yourself it's there.

Open receivers. That he didn't throw to. I know that's not the answer you want to hear but it's still the truth. Plenty of open guys that he didn't go to. And you're overstating it that he did fine in our wins. Our wins this year have been due to terrific defense and an offense just scraping by. Tyrod hasn't had three fine games. One fine game and one pretty good one and one average maybe. You certainly can't blame all our offensive problems on Tyrod but he's been responsible for his share. Yup. I predicted that we would miss Roman and his scheme more than people expected, particularly in the run game. And that's indeed how things have turned out. Remember how Roman was hated here by Tyrod fans in particular? And how Dennison was going to be the savior because he'd worked with Tyrod before and understood his strengths and was going to use them and we'd see a major upturn?

Hunh. I've always been extremely impressed by Tyrod as a person. Not as a quarterback but absolutely as a person. Seeing he thinks this makes me think a bit less of him. I'm disappointed to see he feels this way. It's not a big deal. But it's not a good look either.

That would be "if", not "when". And guys often make huge leaps between first and second years. Peterman could be one of those guys. Or not. Way too early, though, to assume he won't. Not to mention that teams sometimes draft new QBs. It's certainly not impossible they keep him, especially to give someone more time to develop. If it happens, people will most likely say what they're saying now, and with good reason. 27th best in combined running and passing yards. Yup. Talks a lot about Tyrod barely fitting into the normal range, which for him goes from 6th best to 29th best. Those are the "average" guys for him. To repeat, 29th is within average range for this guy. He's got a point that a lack of turnovers should be to his credit, very much so, but that a lack of explosiveness in situations where we need aggressive play should be counted against him, the two sides of Tyrod's coin. I just find it hard to take this writer very seriously when he keeps referring to 29th best in the league as average and only 30th as below it.

Wow. And at the same level of importance of breaking news, I hear there are earthworms in the ground and that airplanes fly.

I get why people worry about the playoffs, due to the drought. I don't care about the playoffs. I care only about when they become genuinely competitive for a championship. I can imagine them sneaking in for a one-and-done as fodder for the good teams. I doubt even that will happen, but I'd give them a 20 - 25% chance, maybe. Means nothing to me, though. The offense just isn't good enough. Too much pressure on the defense. I'm really surprised and pleased with the D so far, though. They just don't have the personnel across the board. I'm willing to wait if they improve the roster as time passes and become a team good enough to threaten for a Lombardi down the road.

Oh, man are you ever right. And is that a good wakeup call for me that there are things I need to do more than I need to do this. Outtahere. Oh, man are you ever right. And is that a good wakeup call for me that there are things I need to do more than I need to do this. Outtahere.