Thurman#1

Rodgers had a better number of pure 4QCs and GWDs. But if I remember correctly, he is actually below Tyrod (who's very low on the list) in terms of (4QCs + GWDs / starts ). Which is an indictment of the stat. Every time Rodgers went into the fourth quarter up by 20 and the Pack won, it counted AGAINST Rodgers in this stat. Bizarre.

Cool. I'll look for the message.

Carolina is running the same system, correct? Under a guy who trained for years under McDermott as secondary coach. He was promoted a year or so ago to secondary coach / assistant head coach but he knows the system and isn't changing it. Whereas McDermott is coming into a new team with guys who don't fit the system and don't know the system. This doesn't prove McDermott will be good. But it really is an extremely common outcome for a team switching systems to have trouble for the first year and improve quite a bit the second and third years.

Shaw, they save around $5 mill in cap space in 2018 on Dareus. His salary, $5.735 mill, was guaranteed, but the Jags will be paying, not the Bills. The Jags are also paying the rest of his 2017 salary which will also go off our cap this year and thus probably be rolled over. That's something like $3 mill more. But I agree that the most logical thought is that he was causing problems consistently. Maybe small ones, but the guy had a history of being late, and I agree with you that maybe he was a bad practice player. Either that or his talents didn't fit the system and I just don't think that would have been a problem if he'd bought in and was giving his all. As for why we were playing well before and poorly now, my guess is simply that early on we were facing bad teams. It didn't seem like that at the time, but that's what has been shown by season results. We were performing well against weaker team - and for whatever reason the Carolina offense hadn't come together early in the season when we played them. They're good now but didn't appear to be good then. That's my best guess.

You don't have to deal with the locker room problems he was apparently creating. McDermott does. Agreed that a 6th ain't much, but that exactly shows how badly they wanted to get rid of him. Tucker's article said those players were the exception rather than the rule, that many of those players didn't think their team would go far in the playoffs even if they got in, and that those guys were "And isn't that what makes the NFL playoffs so special in the first place? That it really isn't about the money. It is about the pursuit of a title, the chance for a ring, and the glory and lifelong memories that come as a result of it." "For the vast majority of NFL players, the answer is yes. For a select few, sadly, the answer is no." https://www.si.com/more-sports/2008/12/23/takes The Bills didn't give up. They were dominated. There's a huge difference.

It was a debacle, but I've seen that kind of thing before, especially on teams with the quick-strike capability of the Saints offense..

Far from it. 99 was going to make another $70 or $80 mill from us and was only doing the things that a 345 pound nobody making a million or two can do. Dareus may have been doing so at a higher level, but was performing so far below the level of his contract it was wildly obvious. Trading Dareus may have hurt our run defense but it helped our cap status and it seems it also helped the locker room. The fact that he was playing poorly in Buffalo and maybe well in Jax is no reflection on McDermott. It's a reflection on Dareus. Marcel clearly didn't buy in here. I mean, the new guy wanted him to work his ass off, be on time, all that crap. Why would a guy as rich as Marcel want to put up with that nonsense rather than show up on the field and slough off the rest. And screw the rest of the locker room if it has bad repercussions. Hah!! Liking this post a lot, Meanie. It tells me very little, honestly. It tells me that the new administration thought they could do better without them and that they value draft picks. Probably tells me that the playoff teams had the best offers too. Two to four years down the road we'll start to know how good those trades are. As of now, the grade is an INCOMPLETE. First returns will come in the draft next year.

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.