Thurman#1

I don't see a blowout. The Bills even have an outside chance for a win. The Jags are not a great team.

It wasn't so much a solid OC that understood Tyrod's limitations and strengths and used them to score more points than any Bills team in a while last year. It was really much more a solid OC that understood McCoy and Gillislee and the run game's limitations and strengths and used them to score more points than any Bills team in a while. Tyrod's passing yards and TDs were pretty close this year and last year. It's the run game that was massively more effective last year than this year. 2017 12 rushing TDs ( 4-way tie for 15th in the NFL) and 16 passing TDs (27th). Last year, 29 rushing TDs (1st in the NFL by a large margin) and 17 passing (27th). The run game was the difference. Going from 27th in passing TDs last year all the way to ... um ... 27th in passing TDs this year doesn't exactly show a major difference.

There were a few who said Tyrod couldn't get us to the playoffs. Most thought that he probably could, but that only a fanbase as abused as ours would make a big deal out of making it to the playoffs. It's not that big a deal for a QB to take his team to the playoffs. Last year Osweiler and Savage got the Texans there. Anyone want them as your long-term QB combo? So did Matt Moore and Ryan Tannehill get the Dolphins there. Again, anyone want them as your combo long-term? Have they proven anything? It's pretty common for a questionable QB or two make it to the playoffs. That's not the measure. It's being competitive for a title. Legitimately competitive. And unfortunately, this Bills team isn't. I wish they were but they just aren't. It hasn't been that long since Colin Kaepernick and Nick Foles got their teams to the playoffs. Kaepernick for a brief moment looked like the real thing, but not so much. Same with Foles. Under the circumstances, not much, probably. We're going to have three days after trading starts to work something out or we'll have to pay him that $6 mill roster bonus (of which $1 mill is already guaranteed anyway). It's due on 3/16. Teams under deadline pressure like that aren't in the driver's seat on trades. We might get something for him but it's not likely to be much under these circumstances.

Clearly they don't mind his mobility, they kept him around this year. You can be a guy who can throw from the pocket and still have mobility. Tyrod can't consistently throw from the pocket well. And yeah, that's a major short-coming. I suspect the same things you do, that the problems we've all seen bother them too, but we don't have a specific comment from McD about that, and we do about throwing from the pocket. They said before the season that a QB to play with them has to be able to throw from the pocket. Some mobile QBs can do that. Tyrod can't do it consistently.

It won't happen, John. Not that Tyrod won't play well. He might. He does sometimes. But not consistently. Not the way a team that expects to compete for Lombardis needs. They know what Tyrod is. One good game won't change anything. It just won't. A season might have, but he's had three chances to do that. A season might have, but a game won't. Yup. Tyrod was the QB of this team, a team that made the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. And Jordan Mills was the RT of this team, a team that made the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. And Vlad Ducasse was the RG of this team, a team that made the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. And Ramon Humber was ... I could go on, but the point should be clear. This may be a playoff team but it's not a very good team and starting on it in no way means they want to keep a guy and don't desperately need an upgrade. At QB, they want a guy who can play from the pocket. They gave Tyrod a chance to show he was that guy and we all saw the results.

Too old. Very fine QB in his day, maybe even now if he stayed healthy, but they need to find someone long-term. Can't see him picking the Bills anyway if he decided to come back.

You're being obtuse. You say that Tyrod was responsible for 54% of offensive snaps? Unimpressive. Most team pass more than 54% of all snaps. You say that Tyrod was responsible for 61% of the Bills total yards but most teams pass games alone are responsible for a higher percentage of their total yardage than that. Your stats are wildly unremarkable, and in fact below average even when comparing only the pass yardage and snaps of other teams against Tyrod's passes and runs. Tyrod got 65% of the offensive TDs? I compared Tyrod's passing and running QBs totalled, with only the passing TDs of other teams. Still well below average in the resulting rankings for Tyrod. I've spelled it out - clearly - twice now and this is the third time. If you're interested in a research project of some sort, by all means go and do it, but don't expect me to do it for you. Again, I threw all of Tyrod's pass and run stats against just the pass stats of the other QBs. And it still came out well below average. Exactly. It matters because the numbers it gives are high enough that at first glance it seems impressive for Tyrod. Transplant can practically hear people saying stuff like, "58% of something or other? And 65% of some other not real clear thing. Those numbers are over 50%, so they seem high!! And Tyrod's name is there, near high numbers. Hmmm." And for Transplant, that imagined response is enough.

Not sure I buy the premise about Davis Webb. If true, why wouldn't they have started him instead of Geno when they benched Eli? But if it's true, I'd offer both firsts this year and a second besides. If they argued, I'd throw in a 3rd. That ought to be enough assuming we don't make the playoffs this year and get an even lower pick. Don't know if I'd give up what you're suggesting. I'd seriously consider it, though, if Darnold doesn't stay in school and if they love him.

Sorry, but that argument supports my argument far better than yours. What happened when those NBA refs did that? It came out. And that's with a limited amount of basketball refs. For the NFL to influence games the way you're implying, all refs would have to be in on it. Know how long that secret, with lke a hundred guys in on it would last? Like a week if they were lucky. As for any games being affected by bad refereeing? Sure. Far more though are affected by bad playing than bad refereeing. Mistakes are made by any large group of human beings at a fairly high rate. It's part of being human. Errors, yeah. Huge shadowy conspiracies? No. It's nonsense. Apples and oranges. Do teams cheat to try to get a competitive advantage? Yeah. The Pats particularly but it happens a lot. And they get caught a lot but surely not every time. Nobody denies this kind of cheating goes on. But that isn't even close to the same thing as the NFL itself engaging in a wide-scale conspiracy to favor other teams. It just isn't. The risk/reward ratio for each team cheating for competitive advantage is just about infinitely better than it would be for a wide-ranging game-fixing conspiracy that would destroy the reputation of football for years at a time when the game is in an extremely vulnerable position anyway.

"We have the 8th worst defense by yards"? Wow, that's bad! If only the offense weren't even worse. 4th worst by yards. "We're 18th in points given up per game"? Holy cow! If only the offense weren't even worse. 24th in points. And that's with the defense and STs tied for 10th in non-offensive scoring, and with the offense getting better field position than the D ... the offense got the 18th best average drive start in terms of field position while leaving the defense the 28th best average drive start. The defense helped the offense quite a bit more than the offense helped the defense. The side more responsible for any success we've had this year is the defense.

Please. The links are the same ones you use all the time. NFL.com stats, mainly. But thanks for making my point for me. 10 QBs in the NFL ran the ball 50 times or more? Thanks. 19 QBs ran the ball 30 times or more? Thanks. But what I did is take Tyrod's passing stats and throw in his running stats and put the totals against the other QBs raw passing stats, ignoring any of their run stats. And Tyrod still came out well below average. Other QBs passing stats only, compared to Tyrod's total pass and run stats. And it still came out well below average. You tried to pretend this was impressive: And it's really really not impressive in any way. It's not remarkable that he spent a lot of time on the field in an ineffective offense and racked up below average stats.

Nice post. Just about says it all.

"Viable replacement," in the sense of someone who could take the snaps? Never. There's always at least a viable replacement, someone like McCown or Fitz or Tyrod or Foles or Osweiler or Siemian or Savage But he didn't say a "viable replacement." He said an upgrade. And that happens all the time. JaMarcus Russell was no upgrade from McCown and Culpepper, just as one quick example. Losman wasn't an upgrade from Bledsoe for another. Happens constantly. Tampa kicked Dilfer to the curb for Shaun King. The Steelers jettisoned O'Donnell for Tomczak. When a team has a guy who simply isn't good enough, taking a shot at replacing him is the commonest response, even if there's no obvious upgrade.

The run game got worse, that's what changed. Tyrod was still his usual somewhat below average self.

Yeah, Tyrod has been an important part of our team this year. So has Vlad Ducasse. And Jordan Mills. So has Deonte Thompson. So has Ramon Humber and Shaq Lawson. Doesn't mean we can't hope plenty of those guys are replaced by better players as soon as possible. So, Tyrod was responsible for 54% of the offensive snaps, you say? If I only look at passing percentage, and pretend that not a single QB in the league except Tyrod ran a single down, that would still rank Tyrod 25th or 26th in the league in that stat (the Rams threw 54.32%of the time and I don't know if Tyrod was involved in more plays than that, but in real life Goff must have run at least a play or two, as did a few other QBs). So not real impressive. Tyrod was responsible for 61% of the offense's total yards? In what world is it impressive that a QB only does that? The best rushing team in the league this year got 2,179 run yards and only four teams managed over 2000. How does that compare to pass yards? Twenty-five QBs got more passing yards than Tyrod and 19 got more passing yards than Tyrod got pass and run yards together. So again, assuming not a single other QB got a single run yard but giving Tyrod credit for all his run yards, Tyrod is still behind guys like Mariota, Dalton, Winston, Keenum, Bortles, and plenty of others. Don't know where it would fit compared to other teams, but well below average. Again, not impressive. Tyrod got 58% of the offense's total 1st downs? Considering we're 28th in the league in first downs, I'm not real impressed there either. Throw in his 24 running first downs and he would leap all the way up to 20th in the league, tied with Dalton, for QB first downs by pass only. And again, a few other QBs had some running first downs too, but I'm not even considering those. Not noteable. Tyrod got 65% of the offensive TDs? If only that amounted to being, you know, good. Throw in Tyrod's four running TDs and put him on the QB list - the list of passing TDs only - and Tyrod flies all the way up from 25th to a three-way tie for 20th with McCown and Winston. Again, not impressive. So yeah, you're right, he was a big part of the Bills offense ... being extremely unimpressive.

It's not fixed, it's not influenced, it's nothing. The risk/reward ratio for doing something so stupid would be so far out of whack. Just wouldn't make sense. It would be like taking the risk of murdering someone for the potential reward of a half a piece of toast. The fan base of nearly every team is convinced that the league hates them. The league doesn't hate anyone. They just make a ton of mistakes, which will happen in nearly any huge organization. Another good point.

Me either. Not sure he'd even notice. And there's no particular reason why he should.

Sigh. Team stat. QBs should be evaluated on how he plays QB, not how well the weak-side LB plays, or the field goal kicker or the head coach, or, well, anybody. Wins is a team stat. It just is.

If you think averaging sixteen INTs a year is "occasionally," your thinking is a bit clouded on the issue. 80 TDs and 64 INTs, that was Fitzy's Buffalo legacy. Precisely an INT per game. In the modern NFL that was never going to work, and especially not with only that number of TDs. I liked the guy, same as I like Tyrod. But both were always unlikely to be the answer and their play quickly supported that likelihood. Again, Tyrod is better than Fitzy, but that's not any badge of honor.

Please. I inserted the bold text in your post above. Fitzy's in Tyrod's neighborhood. Both below average. Both tempting enough to make coaches think they can fix him and thus getting chances (I'm assuming in Tyrod's case) when better options aren't available. But Tyrod's better than Fitzy. That's not saying much.

He's a below-the-middle of the league QB. Somewhere around 20th. And in that range, teams are unanimously looking to upgrade except if their guy is extremely early in his career and thus might still see a light come on. Everybody's production teeters either way based on their supporting casts. But Tyrod is still below average. He's a guy who can maybe get you to a playoff game with a good supporting cast or a bad group of competitors for the AFC wild card spots. But who cares? Plenty of QBs are good enough to get you a wild card spot when surrounded by good players. Last year Osweiler and Savage managed it with the Texans, Tannehill and Moore with the Dolphins. In 2015, Hoyer, Mallett, Yates and Weeden got the Texans in. And Bridgewater got the Vikes there too (he's young enough that I still have some hopes, actually). In 2014, Drew Stanton started nine games for the Cards and got them into the playoffs. The same year Newton, still not a sure thing and managing only an 82.4 passer rating that year, got the Panthers in with a 7-8-1 record. Any Lombardi trophies in that group? Leading a team to a one-and-done in the playoffs is less of a big deal than most Bills fans are remembering. As for Taylor vs. Cutler vs. McCown? If healthy, McCown. Higher ceiling. Assuming Josh would be injured, it's a tossup, sad to say. If I'm a coach in a make or break year with Tyrod or Cutler as my QB I"m saying - with justification - to my management, "Hey, look at who I have at QB here. What do you expect?"

Yeah, shocking to see fans excusing McDermott for not picking DeShone Kizer, Davis Webb, CJ Beathard, or Joshua Dobbs. Boy, it just makes my blood boil when I think .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Ah, nice little nap. And yeah it's easy to blame the QB when he's not playing below average, which is consistently the case with Tyrod. Most fans are highly aware that Tyrod isn't the only cause. Your post and the OP are basically straw men. Almost nobody blames the whole season on Tyrod. It's obvious to everyone that this team has a lot of problems. But yeah, Tyrod is one of them.

I can imagine someone trading for Tyrod. Not that they'd give a lot, but if you want him trading eliminates all competition for him. Don't see the Giants at all interested, though, they wouldn't want him as a starter and they've got a backup. You're underestimating Glenn's value, IMHO. He's been healthy as a horse his whole career. Yeah, this one injury has lasted a long time, but it's not usually a career destroyer. He'll bring back value from someone if they trade him. Might be nice to have really good tackles on both sides of the line, though, and keep both Glenn and Dawkins.

It certainly is not all the Bills need. They do need one but they need plenty of other things too. Another serious pass rusher for one, but anyone who couldn't come up with needs two, three, four and five just hasn't been watching. As for what they can do, I don't see them able to trade up to pick one or two. Maybe if one of the big two falls just a bit to #4 or #5 we'd have a shot. Less so if we win the next game and the Chiefs win a playoff game.

No. "... especially if the team intends to commit to offensive coordinator Rick Dennison." I'd love Smith as a bridge / insurance guy. Don't want just him and not a high draft pick. Tyrod is slightly below average. Smith is slightly above average. And has actually been better than that this year.