Thurman#1

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.

He has a point and his post was reasonable. Consider mellowing out.

Went from Newsday to the News. Kinda following in Sully's footsteps. He turned down an offer from Newsday to be a columnist to come here.

But it's not an obsession. It's just that he's only interested enough to talk about the one thing. See the difference? He's only interested in talking about QBs, see? Not Peterman, of course. Tyrod. Not Yates. Tyrod. See? Quarterbacks.

You may well believe that there should be a stat called yards per dropback. Because if there were, it would reflect well on Tyrod. That's clearly the main attribute you look for in terms of whether a stat should exist. Thing is, there isn't. And for good reason. It's never been considered useful or as providing a good look. Not to mention being a horrible kludge of a name. What's a dropback? Is it what QBs do on passing plays? But don't they drop back in play action? And reverses? And handoffs, really? It's just a stupid name. QBs drop back on every play except the ones where they're in shotgun. And a horrible kludge of a stat too. And you say you're considering sacks ... and yet you're still using the 8.0 figure instead of the 6.1. Wonder why that is? Oh, yeah, because it makes Tyrod look better. Yet again cherrypicking, this time for the stat that makes him look better. When it's third and 14, teams don't run much. For obvious reasons. But hey, Tyrod can average 6.1 yards per dropback on average if he scrambles. And that's one of the higher averages in the league so since it makes Tyrod look good, everything's OK. There's a reason people look at pass and run stats separately. They go together awkwardly and for a QB passing ability is wildly more important. And that play is a perfect example of why. 1:15 left in the game, down by six, first down at the Seattle 23. Robert Woods is stunningly wide open in the deep middle third of the field - Tyrod's kryptonite, the deep and intermediate middle third - uncovered in the end zone for a 23 yard TD and Tyrod simply doesn't see him. Eight yard run. Looking at your stat, that looks great. But it cost us the game.

Yes, but you CAN'T just add in the running TDs. Not unless you're also going to add in the negatives that should come with them. Wanna add the TDs in? Fine, you need to add the 13 fumbles too. There are reasons why passing stats and running stats are kept separate. They aren't equal and putting them together leads to awkward results. And again, there are a ton of guys with a similar career arc, I already listed 13 or 14 in an earlier post in this thread. Here: 1) Cassel: 3 years on the bench. Got his chance to start for three years and didn't play like a franchise guy. Never improved to become one. 2) Schaub: 3 years on the bench. Got his chance to start for, what, six years, and didn't play like a franchise guy, He wasn't. Briefly looked close. But he wasn't. Never improved to become one. 3) Shaun Hill 3 years on the bench, though he got in around 12 games due to injury during those years. Picked to start in years four and five and didn't play like a franchise guy. Wasn't. Never improved to become one. 4) Seneca Wallace: 5 years on the bench with occaisional spot duty. In 2008, is an injury replacement for Hasselbeck and plays well enough that when Hasselbeck gets healthy, Wallace still starts for the last few games. Plays well but didn't play like a franchise guy. Never improved to become one. 5) Huard: 5 years on the bench, with 6 starts due to injuries to Marino during those five years. Started the season as starter the next couple of years but didn't play like a franchise guy. Never improved to become one. 6) Grossman: 3 years on the bench. Two years as starter, but halfway through the second it was very obvious he wasn't playing like a franchise guy and he was benched. Hung around the league for 10 years. Never improved to become a franchise guy. 7) Garrard: 4 years on the bench though he started five games because of injury in his fourth year. Halfway through his 5th year, was named the starter. Outplayed Leftwich in training camp and was named starter again. Had a very fine year that made him look like a maybe but not a sure thing. That had been his sixth year, so he looked like a guy who might become another Gannon. Then didn't play like a franchise QB while starting three more seasons. Never improved to become one. 8) Fiedler: 3 years in the league on and off with different teams. Started for three or four years and didn't play like a franchise QB. Hung around the league for nine years. Never improved to become a franchise guy. 9) Holcomb: Practice squad in Indy for a year, then another year on the roster, then let go. Out of football the next year. Back in as a backup in Cleveland for three years. Competitive with Couch and became the starter in his fifth year in the league but didn't play like a franchise guy. Never improved. *** Is this beginning to sound like a broken record? It has happened a lot. Some guys were out quickly and others hung around for a while. But the ones who hadn't proved themselves as franchise guys in six years ... never did. *** 10) Jim Miller: 5 years on the bench. Won the starting job in Chicago in his sixth year and had a PED suspension sideline him. Was starting by the end of his sixth year for a brief playoff run. Didn't play like a franchise QB but played well enough to get him the starter job the next two years. Never improved enough to become a franchise guy. 11) Beuerlein: This one's arguable, as he was started for a few games here and there early. In his first five years he started nineteen games. Got traded to his third team, Phoenix, who started him in his sixth season for nearly the whole year, though he was benched two games for Chris Chandler. As that suggests, he didn't play like a franchise player. Hung around the league for 14 years. Never improved enough to become a franchise guy. 12) Danny White: Drafted in 1974 as a punter, so played in the WFL instead, sharing the QB position with John Huarte. Signed with the Cowboys in '76. Four years on the bench. Took over as starter in his fifth year. A good year but in his sixth year he became a franchise guy (12th in yards, 8th in TDs, 6th in passer rating, 5th in YPA) And that's what he was, a franchise quarterback. Proved it in six years despite four years on the bench. 13) Romo: 3 years on the bench. Fourth year was OK but in his fifth year he played like a franchise QB. And that's what he was. Proved it before his sixth year despite three years on the bench. 14) Aaron Rodgers: Three years on the bench but still proved himself a franchise QB well within six years. 15) Tyrod: 4 years on the bench. Started two years. Hasn't proved himself a franchise QB within six years. And I just did NOT have to go back very far to find this list, and I didn't even comb through very carefully. Just looked at lists of QBs from 2009 and 2003 and picked the ones who I remembered had sat before having their chance. Found this group in less than ten minutes. So it simply isn't true that this is a rare career arc. Just the opposite, it's common, and Garoppolo appears to be only the latest to follow this very well-travelled path. Again, one guy in NFL history has proved himself a franchise QB after not doing so in his first six years. And dozens and dozens have followed this path if the large number I pointed out from only recent years is any indication ... and it is. And what has happened is simple. Out of this large group of guys who sat for a long time early, with the one exception of Gannon, they either proved themselves franchise guys within six years or they never ever proved themselves as franchise guys despite having had good chances to do so.

Cherry-picking is a problem, is it? Well, then it's a problem you suffer deeply from in this very line of logic. In referring to Tyrod's yards per scramble, how many of his sacks are you including? Or are you cherrypicking only the scrambles where he made it past the line? Hmm? Oooopsie. You're a superhero of cherrypicking, dude. As for my cherrypicking, you betcha, I cherrypicked an example of a play which shows the fault in your logic. You assume that missing opportunities in the pass game is made up for by having an 8 yard per scramble average (again, an average reached by cherrypicking). It's not, and that play is an example of why. That play lost the game for the Bills and yet looked to an extremely poorly thought-through stat like yards per scramble like a good play.

14-14, according to ProFootballReference. But again, win-loss is simply NOT a QB stat. It's a team stat. The official name of that stat is "TEAM Record in Games Started by This Quarterback (Regular Season)". And he wasn't the least of this team's problems. That was the run game. He was basically an average problem, ranking with most of the team except for the run game. The whole team was pretty much a problem outside of that terrific run game.

At a $1.4 mill average salary? For a second year guy? Nah. That's a reasonable price for a backup and he still has room to grow and improve, especially after missing his first year.

Right now they're paying Wood $6.35 mill per year making him the 9th highest paid center. At that new number he'd again be the 9th highest paid. My guess is they pay him. If Groy is as good as we're hoping, they could slip him over to guard and keep him as Richie-getting-old insurance or Miller not being as good as we hope. Center is the linchpin. I think they don't want to start over there. Sammy, I can't even begin to predict. We still don't know what he is in terms of injuries ... or his results if he stays healthy all year and teams start to figure how to game-plan for him. Too many unknowns for Sammy, IMHO.

Yup. He scrambles very well. Like that scramble for eight yards against Seattle on the final drive. 1:15 left in the game, down by six, first down at the Seattle 23. He has a guy absolutely wide open in the deep middle, uncovered in the end zone and simply doesn't see him. But yeah, he got an eight yard run out of it. That scramble wasn't nothing. But it sure wasn't the best option and we ended up losing the ball on downs. But the play looks great if you just look at yards per scramble. I looked at your post and thought, "Gee, those are some bizarre numbers from Benoit. Rodgers as the 6th best player in the league? OK, yeah. Prescott as the 16th best player in the league? What?" The way you expressed some of those was confusing, though maybe it was me, really. He has Rodgers as the 6th best player in the league. Luck as the 30th best player and the 5th best QB, slightly ahead of Brees. That's very reasonable, I think, though it would also be reasonable to have them switched. They're both terrific. He's trying to take the "valuable" out of it so there's no big clump of QBs at the top, to just pick the best players regardless of position. It's impossible to make any list that plenty of people won't disagree with, But I like Eli at 8th best QB. I think he's consistently undervalued. I might have put him at 10th instead but pretty reasonable, IMHO. Prescott 17th? Sounds reasonable to me. I think he's at least partly a result of an incredible group around him that let the Cowboys baby him. I'd agree that Wentz is too high here but maybe not by all that much. I think he's got a really good chance of taking a big leap up next year. Not going to go through the whole thing, but none of the things you pointed out seem to me indefensible at all. To each their own, but without reading much of the article (and yeah, that should be used against me, but I'm not commenting so much on the article and more on just my opinions of the specific placements you questioned) I don't see anything so very far off.

I can agree on all of that. Don't see it ending the discussion, though. People want - reasonably - to put a guesstimate on what the odds of success are. And I would argue many on here are far far too hopeful based on history. I'm sure they'd argue the opposite about me.

Jimmy G is NOT in that situation now where he's even close to his seventh year. He's going into his fourth. He will almost surely have a chance to start somewhere for a year or two or three before his seventh year. As Tyrod did; It's not like Tyrod didn't have a chance. And when Garoppolo does get that chance, again, history shows what it shows for everybody, that it's rarer than volcanic lightning for a guy who becomes a franchise QB to not have already done so by the time he reaches his seventh year. Meaning when Garoppolo gets that chance if he doesn't show franchise-type ability in those first few years, his odds of ever being a franchise guy will drop precipitously. The good ones trapped behind someone use the time to learn and make themselves ready so that when they get that shot they can quickly take advantage. Again, there have been a ton of guys trapped for three or four years who then got their moment. History shows that the ones who can become franchise QBs do it quickly, and we've seen a large enough sample of guys get this chance to know that this is an overwhelming tendency. One guy breaks it out of the many many who had a chance. I would strongly disagree Tyrod is "WAY" better than Fitz. Better? Yeah. But it's more a matter of different strengths. Fitz is more explosive, continually getting a higher TD percentage, but takes considerably worse care of the ball, especially under pressure. The Amish Rifle is quite a good runner, but not in Tyrod's league. The point is that Fitz had teams thinking that they could maybe make him into a franchise guy. Over and over. Tyrod has too. They're not all that far apart, though I'd certainly take Tyrod over Fitzy.

What can you say? It's true, he wasn't. Not everyone does get their ultimate chance, and some are actively mishandled. I'm not sure where Manuel falls on that scale. Not as far towards mishandled as Losman does, IMHO. Yup. And it's easier to say either one of those than to admit that we don't know for sure. We probably have a good idea about the guy, but there's always a chance we could have been wrong. No way to prove a negative in this case. I personally kept thinking there was a chance right up till the end, but when he still couldn't show improvement near the end, it just became really likely that he wouldn't ever be a good one. But yeah, maybe if handled better. No way to know, and at some point you just have to go with the best guess.

I'm not counting the time spent on the bench against them. Not at all. In many ways sitting the bench for a while can be a huge advantage, as it was for Aaron Rodgers. I'm simply pointing out what history shows, that guys who don't show themselves a franchise guy by their sixth year in the league don't do so, with the exception of Loose Gannon. That's true of guys who sat the bench and those who didn't. It's not impossible. And Tyrod's clearly a terrific guy, he's smart and he works himself to the bone. I hope it happens for him. I just think history shows very clearly that that's unlikely.