Thurman#1

Kirby, saying that they chose not to sign Sammy is correct. But it is still very reasonable to think that paying what it would've cost to re-sign him would have put the team in an uncomfortable position, forcing them to not sign other people they would like to keep. Yeah, they chose not to sign him, but their unwillingness to pay him the huge money he would have received - maybe a year later but sooner or later - if he'd stayed healthy and was dominant was very likely a big factor, probably one of the two primary factors in terms of why they didn't sign him. And the idea that they haven't been "forced" to let someone go in a decade is misleading. Sure, there hasn't been a case where if they hadn't let someone go the league would have penalized them for going over the cap. But the reason that they haven't been forced to let someone go this very year is that they shed salaries like crazy. It's like saying that since a guy hasn't had his house foreclosed on and sold he must be OK financially ... ignoring the fact that he sold his car, his TV, all the furniture and broke into his 501K to make the payments. And yeah, they could have re-structured Dareus and Glenn ... same as a guy could take out a second mortgage to have extra money to pay the first. But it's not prudent either way. It's just putting today's expenses on tomorrow's salary cap, not something financially intelligent teams do. There's no guarantee that the cap will rise forever. Good teams don't make that assumption. Teams can't sign anyone they want. They're balancing the value of different guys and different positions in their scheme and how many guys they can make their eight to twelve "core" guys and a million other factors. And those decisions get harder the closer you are to the cap, and we were very close to the cap this off-season until we let a bunch of guys we might well have like to keep hit the road. Thanks to the fiscal conservatism they showed in NOT re-structuring anyone (and in letting Sammy go), our cap situation has gotten brighter.

Agreed. This is a blow to Tyrod, but doesn't kill his chances. But Sammy's contribution last year is irrelevant. He might have been injured again even if we kept him, yes, but he's healthy and the odds were very high he would have done better than 430 and 2 TDs.

Twenty-to-one shot, at best. Rather than cut him they'd trade him. They could get something for him. But more, he's a second-year guy who missed his first year, on a team switching systems. It's just not likely to happen. They'll trade him or - most likely - keep him and develop him and see how things work out.

It isn't one guy you'd be providing the info for. It would be the community. But we both know you're not giving this info to anybody, don't we? If your info would check out you would have absolutely no reason not to give it to us all and show us. That's how we know your info wouldn't check out. And knowing that, you've indeed got every reason to keep this info out of the hands of every single person reading this. After all, they might check your work. Wouldn't want that, would we?

Their actions don't contradict my opinion at all. They both took the best QB they could find. Rex might indeed have said he thought Buffalo had found their guy. Rex threw out an awful lot of wildly optimistic hot air. Their actions consist of forcing Tyrod to take a major pay cut to keep him and trading for an extra 1st round pick next year in a year that's at least so far supposed to be the best QB year in a while. You can completely believe me and still understand their actions perfectly. I've said before, Figster, I hope you're right. I just don't think you are. I'd be thrilled to be wrong, but it's not likely on this particular issue. Could happen, though, nothing's impossible.

More of the same. You're missing the point, which is par for the course for you. This isn't about you and me. It's about how people act when they're searching for truth and trying to bring value to the discussion vs. how people act when they're trying to cover up shoddy, partisan work they're not confident of. Confident people share their work and make it easy for people to check it. People who've done shoddy work try to hide it. You're obviously in the latter group. You've already done the work, you know where the plays are. In this thread, you identified the plays so very poorly nobody else could find them without extensive guesswork. If I remember correctly you identified one play - in total - as a third down where the throw was high, without identifying what game you were talking about. Out of nine games. It wouldn't be easy for anyone to find but you. For you, five minutes. Anyone else, hours and hours. And it's not just me who you're stopping from checking. Anyone here could and probably would check a game or two if you'd done what you would if you didn't have something to hide. People who still believe in Tyrod could check too. But you're obviously too scared of even their opinion to show the specific plays. Everyone reading this thread already knows at this point what's going on. You're cowering on this issue like a whipped dog. You'll never give the specific plays. And everyone reading knows why at this point.

Steve Young - Nope. Addressed it earlier in the thread. Look at his stats in his fifth and sixth years. He was still behind Montana, but when he played he was tearing up the league. It was very clear the Niners had a franchise guy waiting for Montana to leave. In Young's fifth year he only played three games but if you pro-rate his stats for the whole season, he'd have been 2nd in the league in completion percentage, 1st by far (120.8 with the next guy being Montana with a 112.4) in passer rating, and 1st in YPA. And he was doing the same in camp and preseason. In those days, it was unusual to have a 2:1 TD:INT ratio. Only two starters did it that year, Montana and Esiason. Young went 8:3. Young had absolutely proved himself well before his sixth year. Alex Smith too, though you have a shade of an argument there. As you say, he had a franchise type 6th year. Yeah, they threw him under the bus thinking they had a better franchise guy (wrongly) but it's beside the point. He'd become a franchise guy, and he's basically been the same guy ever since. Some people don't think of him as a franchise guy. Doesn't matter to my argument, because whatever he is now, that's what he was in his sixth year. Sixth year would still make my point, but it's not true. The light came on for him late in his fifth year, which is what allowed the Giants to win a Super Bowl that year. If he'd still been playing at the level he'd achieved in his first four and a half years, they wouldn't have won that Lombardi. It certainly deserves it. But IMHO the mods have designated it as the sort of off-to-the-side place to isolate some of the weirder Tyrod fanatics and genuine haters.

Dude, always go to the original story. Second stories often start games of Chinese Whispers as they re-phrase and paraphrase and add and subtract. The link to the original was right in the story. The story you're attacking totally makes up one at least one thing. The writer says, "Despite Flutie's accolades, Johnson told Sports Illustrated that he felt he should have been the team's starting quarterback in 1999 based on his stats." Go read the original story. Johnson may well have felt he deserved to start but he didn't say so in the story this guy is poorly re-phrasing. The whole Flutie / Johnson part of the original story is here: "DOUG FLUTIE, who in 1998 signed with the Bills straight out of the CFL, and then battled three straight camps with Rob Johnson, who arrived from Jacksonville in exchange for first- and fourth-round draft picks: 'When I signed it was, Well, I’ll have a chance to compete for the starting job. Weeks later Rob signs for big money. Mine was a very minimal contract, so the writing was on the wall. That’s when the goal kind of shifted to, I just hope I make the team.' "JOHNSON: 'When Doug signed it was kind of a joke, to be honest—no offense to Doug. No one in the NFL really thought much of it. Until I got hurt [in Week 1] and he got his chance and played well, it wasn’t really thought of that seriously. [Flutie won Comeback Player of the Year that season and then signed a four-year $22 million extension.] When they signed Doug to a big deal, I was like, All right, I’m out. I was over it.' "FLUTIE: '[in 1999], I had a legitimate contract now, but I honestly don’t recall any friction at that point. He probably hoped he’d be the guy to play.' "JOHNSON: 'My stats [in 1998] were better than his, but his win-loss record was better than mine. It was the perfect storm. He was the underdog; I was a prototypical quarterback with size. He had the autistic son he did commercials with—that pulled at people’s heartstrings; I was the surfer boy from California. A local radio station had this skit where they used a high-pitched voice for Doug, I guess because he was short, and I sounded like Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It was hilarious. That’s how people thought of it.' "FLUTIE: 'I know fans have a tendency to root for the little guy or the underdog. That may have been all that was. I don’t know how his relationship with the fans was. I just went out and played.' "​As Flutie, Johnson and many others have come to realize: Whatever you’re told the day you sign, that isn’t always the reality when you get to camp." That's it. There just isn't a whole lot here. But if you're going to get upset, at least get upset at what the guy actually said. Me, too. Absolutely loved it.

But Rodak neither said he was trash, nor that he should be traded right now. You're exaggerating what he said, which is likely part of the problem. What he actually said was this, "If the trend continues for Ragland through the preseason, it would make sense for the Bills to test the trade market." "If ..." "...test the trade market." How is that unreasonable? There's room for disagreement. but going nuts over it doesn't appear to make any sense to me.

So, basically he said something you don't like? And this is how you react? Got it. Exactly. It's a concern. Second team would be no problem. Third team is cause for concern. And anyone in the media saying anything bad about a bad football team is a weasel and a rat and eighteen other unpopular animals. I'm no big fan of Rodak, but there's nothing particularly wrong with what he wrote here beyond that there's room for disagreement.

I sleep fine. And he doesn't have to "be fit." He fits perfectly, as one of a host of guys who by the end of their sixth years did not manage to prove themselves a franchise QB. And out of that entire group of, what, over a thousand QBs who didn't prove themselves a franchise guy by the end of their sixth year, exactly one, Rich Gannon, then made major improvements and became a franchise guy. Tyrod fits perfectly into a very large group and a smaller but still large group of people who started off with several years on the bench and then got a chance to start and still didn't prove themselves by the end of their sixth year. And again, none of them became franchise QBs but Gannon.

It was four years on the bench, not five. And you're right, there are always growing pains. But the good ones have growing pains and still manage to show themselves franchise guys by year six, no matter what their career arc, again with the single exception of Gannon. Maybe it would have been different if he'd gotten more playing time there, but guys with college records like Tyrod get drafted as backups in the mid-rounds, not starters in the top one or two rounds. Some guys still fight through that and when they get their chance to start they make hay. I'm not quite sure I understand your question. If he becomes our franchise QB, he'll have proved himself a true exception, a very unusual guy and a very unusual case. "... Uncovered his franchise potential after his first season with the Bills"? Wouldn't even be a question, which is why I'm not sure if I'm missing your point. If.

See this folks. Classic. This is how Trannie probably thinks scientists publish each others work too. Like this: Scientist 1: I've come up with kind of a breakthrough here. I combined compound 1 and compound 2 and they produced a small explosion and a bit of compound 3. Awesome. If you don't believe it, do it yourself and check it. Scientist 2: I will check it. How much of each compound did you use? What temperature did you combine them at? Scientist 1: You're a smart guy. Figure it out yourself. (Trannie's first response to me on this issue.) Scientist 2: Hunh? I'm asking a question so I can check your work. That's the way work becomes valuable, if it's repeatable. How much did you use and what temperature did you combine them at? Did you need an enzyme or any other compounds? Scientist 1: Just go do it yourself and if you have the same results we can have a discussion. Trannie's not confident in his results, so he wants to leave himself wiggle room. All he has to do is go back and put the game times on the seven plays he himself picked out. Take him five minutes. That's what a confident person would do. Confident people make it easy to check, not hard. Shows what he himself thinks of his own numbers. They're weaker than a spoonful of vanilla ice cream in an August rain.

Agreed Boldin should help. But sitting on the bench absolutely helps a good QB who is working hard on understanding the game and working hard on his fundamentals while he sits. Aaron Rodgers was awful in training camp and in preseason his first two years. Then in his third year, still behind Favre, a bit better and then in his fourth year it came together, both in camp and in preseason. Much better. Sitting absolutely helps. There's a limit to it. The guy who has sat ten won't be three and a half times better than the guy who's sat three, but it absolutely helps. From an interview with Bob McGinn on his retirement after 38 years as the Packers beat writer: The MMQB: "You documented how fortunate it was that Aaron Rodgers didn’t have to play the first couple of years—he just wasn’t ready." McGinn: “He was a very poor player here for his first two summers and regular-season practices. Fortunately for him, and he knows that down deep, he didn’t have to play early. His delivery was a mess, bad body language, he didn’t know how to deal with teammates. He learned so much from Brett Favre on how to in some ways be one of the guys and relate, and he became much more of a leader. He was really poor and how many great players have ever had a start like that? Not that many. A lot of scouts look at that exhibition tape those first two years and he was a little bit better the third year, but not to any degree, and then he just really developed. He lost a lot of close games in ’08, but by ’09 he was playing great and by 2010 he was maybe the best in the business. And then there have been a lot of playoff disappointments and poor performances. It’s a quarterback league and all the rules are designed for that quarterback to dominate, and he hasn’t done it in the most important times since 2010." https://www.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/13/themmqb-exit-interview-bob-mcginn-green-bay-packers-milwaukee-journal-sentinel-nfl-beat-writer

Agreed that he's unlikely to become a franchise QB. If that's what happens, he will be yet another QB who never proved himself a franchise QB by the end of his sixth year and then never did later. But you're wrong, I don't hate the guy. He's obviously a very hard worker and a smart guy, and it would be by far the best thing for the Bills if he became a franchise QB. I'd love to see that. It's just that like you, I don't think it'll happen. If it was going to we'd have started to see it, and we haven't. Nobody has to believe what I say about six years, but history shows only one guy has ever not been a franchise QB by his sixth year and then later gone on to become one. Transplant wants to pretend that Tyrod is a deeply unique case and therefore an exception. He's not. There've been thousands of QBs who've played in the NFL, and his narrative, started off not playing for several seasons then got a chance to start for a significant period of time, is a reasonably common career arc.

That's the point, it pretty much is a magic number. In all of NFL history, there's been exactly one guy - one - who wasn't a franchise QB by his sixth year and then went on to become one later. Rich Gannon. Other than that, history shows that if you're going to become one, you will manage it by your sixth year. And yeah, that includes guys who didn't start for a lot of their early careers. The ones who would succeed did it by their sixth year. It kinda is magic. The thing that is unique about Tyrod is basically how obsessed with him you are. Other than that, he's an example of a common group, guys who didn't play much early then started a couple of years and weren't good enough to show themselves as franchise guys before their sixth year. I mean, sure, everybody's unique if you dig enough. He's the only guy who didn't start in his first four years and then was traded and then won the starting job in a Northeastern industrial city and threw 865 passes in four years at Virginia Tech and has the letter "Y" in both his first and last name. Yup, he's totally unique and all you have to do is go to ridiculous lengths to show it. Draw enough distinctions and everybody's in a group of one. Beside the point, though. The point is nobody's ever become a franchise QB after failing to do so for his first six years in the league. Excepting Rich Gannon.

I am a smart guy, Trannie. That's why I know when someone's hiding something. See, folks? Told you he wouldn't give those times (Post 1150, above). He doesn't want any of this repeated. Pretty obvious why, too. He says, "By my own eyes (feel free to doubt them and try this yourself ), only 7 of those [111] passes were so poorly placed that they left potential yardage on the field." But he isn't anywhere near confident of those numbers. So if you actually do want to check it yourself as he suggests, he is going to be as obstructive as possible and not tell you what plays he's talking about.

Again, I've never given a crap about your criteria. Nor will I. It's your consistent weak little ploy to say you're re-phrasing what I said and then adding in your own extra criteria and then challenging me to back up words that aren't mine, they're yours. Looks to me like this is yet another example of this flaccid tactic. On the other hand, I suppose it's possible - likely even - that you posted something that I didn't read. I don't read most of your stuff anymore, so it's quite possible. But if I "responded directly to your criteria," took them seriously and answered ...? ... then fine, show me the posts where this happened. You may even get an apology out of me if I didn't read your post carefully enough before I replied.

I didn't go back to Danny White. Which you should know if you had ... y'know ... read my post. As I said, I found this group by looking at lists of QBs from 2003 and 2009. A guy earlier on in the thread brought up Danny White as if he were an example that disproved my thesis. When he's actually just the opposite, a perfect example of someone who proves my point, sitting for a long time and then when he had his shot proving himself a franchise QB within his first six years. Yeah, after the guy came up with Danny White, I threw him in, but I didn't go back anywhere near Danny White when looking for that list of guys. I found those guys by looking - and again I said this in the last post - at lists of QBs in two years, if I remember correctly it was 2009 and 2003, picking out the names I thought had sat for a while and then played, and checking their career stats to see if I was right. And you're right that some of those guys had moments of solid play. I agree, and that's part of the point. Tyrod has had his moments too. You don't get to start for a couple of years without looking like maybe you could become a franchise QB. That's exactly the point. Those guys were a group of young QBs who sat for a long time at the beginning of their careers, and then started. Had their moments. And after sitting for three or four or five years had their chances to start. Like Tyrod. And after they started, there were two groups. Three, really. 1) Guys who in that situation DID become franchise QBs in their first six years when given a chance. Aaron Rodgers. Danny White, Jake Delhomme, and we could probably find some others. 2) Guys who in that situation DID NOT become franchise QBs in their first six years. So far Tyrod fits this category. And then DIDN'T ever become a franchise guy. This is by far the biggest group of guys. Cassel, Schaub, Shaun Hill, Seneca Wallace, Huard, Grossman, Garrard, Fiedler, Holcomb, Jim Miller, Beuerlein. Not a single guy there you'd want as your starter. 3) Rich Gannon, the only guy in NFL history who hadn't proved himself a franchise QB by the end of his sixth year and then went on and did so later.

If those are the criteria you wanted filled, then they are your own criteria. Go ahead and make your own list up. The criteria I set up and said I could find 50 guys or more (and then I proved it would be easy by find in 14 guys who fulfilled them in less than ten minutes of searching) are these: 1) They sat the bench for a long time at the beginning of their careers, three or four or five years, that kind of long period. 2) They then got a chance to start for a significant period of time. That's the group Tyrod is in. Sure, you can squeeze the margins of that group and make it look smaller by setting up extra criteria. It'd be beside the point, though. The point is that plenty of guys sat for a long time like Tyrod did and then had a chance to prove themselves over a significant period of time starting. And out of that large group of guys, well over 50, how many didn't prove within their first six years that they were a franchise QB and then did become a franchise QB later? One. Rich Gannon. Generally speaking anyone who hasn't proved himself a franchise QB in his first six years in the league is wildly unlikely to do so. And for those who try to say that it's not fair to throw Tyrod in because he sat for a long time, again, it's a large group that sat for a long time and then had a long time to start and try to be a franchise guy. And out of the few that ever - Danny White, Aaron Rodgers, Jake Delhomme, for a few - did become a franchise guy they all did so before their sixth year ended. Except, again, Gannon. Tyrod's very unlikely to do so. It's not impossible, though. Just unlikely.

As you always do, you left out the game time on each play, meaning you say people can do their own checks, but in fact it's almost impossible to do so because we can't even find the plays you're referring to without extensive research. You say we can check your work, but then go out of your way to prevent people from actually doing so. More, you knew this, because I called you on this last time you posted the same nonsense. The thing that makes research like this useful is that it's repeatable. Yours is not, because we can't know which plays you're talking about. Until you put stuff like "3rd quarter 3:02" next to each play, it's virtually uncheckable. Why would you do this? Most likely because another person checking who's not nestled quite as far into Tyrod's jock as you are would come to different conclusions. But folks, don't expect him to supply those game times. He didn't the last time I pointed out these exact same things. He doesn't particularly want his research to be repeatable, because then people could point out plays he missed.

The similarities look vague to me. Williams used to wake them up with an air horn as if to say, "Hey, you can't do it yourself." Treated them like children, basically. Don't see McDermott's approach as all that similar. Your story doesn't say that the air horn was Donohoe's idea. It does say that Donahoe wanted Williams to be hard, though. So may have come about because of Donahoe's toughness mandate. Doesn't specifically say that, though.

It's not a mistake that more than one defense came in last year saying "Make him be a quarterback." The defense DOES load up against the run and try and take it away. They can't, because the run offense was simply terrific. Even when they play eight in the box, the run game is simply not stopped. And yes the Bills scored a lot. Again, mostly the run game. 17 passing touchdowns last year, which was 27th in the league. That ain't good. Whereas the run game had 29 TDs, 1st in the league, and by a wide margin. The second team scored nearly 20% less, the Cowboys with 24 and the third and fourth teams in the league tied at 20. In other words they had almost a third more TDs than the two teams tied for third place. The run game was terrific. 29 running TDs and 17 passing TDs. Which is outright bizarre, because not a single other team scored more running TDs than they did passing TDs, while we scored more than half again as many run TDs as passing TDs. "Make him be a quarterback." That's the game plan these days. They try to take away the run, and last year the run game was so good the defenses just couldn't do it.

No, I think he referenced the whole camp several times, though the focus was on Tuesday's 11 on 11s. "Through the first five practices of training camp, little has changed. If fans at St. John Fisher College have been looking for a step forward from Taylor, it has not been there." Reports overall haven't been thrilling, though he has had some very nice streaks he hasn't been as consistent as he was in earlier camps. I would expect it's the installment of the new system. He's always had to deal with a good DL pressuring him in Buffalo, but this year it's happening again and that's a factor too. Wouldn't be surprised though if the coaches have been urging him to change things in his game up on downs with pressure and trying a new approach can be difficult. I personally expect him to bring his game up and be fairly similar to the guy we saw last year, maybe a bit better if the system fits well and the rest of the offense is working well.

"... stuck in neutral," which is what the story says, is quite different from "looking really bad." It's early and they're installing a new offense.