Thurman#1

Yeah, he wanted out as bad as Peters did .... that is that both guys would have been perfectly happy to stay here if they'd gotten an offer here equal or better to what they got elsewhere. After they got better offers elsewhere they did indeed want out. Lynch on the other hand actually seems to have wanted to go to the west coast to be close to Oakland and away from where he'd had his problems. Lynch and McGahee seem to be the only guys in the last ten or fifteen years that actually did want out. But every guy who leaves for big money gets the habitual sour grapes response that he didn't want to be here and he wasn't very good anyway.

His decision was probably based on what nearly all NFL decisions between teams are based on, money, with nearly everything else important but less so than money. QB job safety and efficiency likely play into it, as does the situation in which the QB had that kind of efficiency. Tyrod's been in a much better offensive situation than Flacco has for the last two years, with an excellent run game and a good OL compared to Baltimore's. Baltimore has a better, more proven program. Better coach (from what we know so far), better owner (from what we know so far), better defensive-based system (from what we know so far). The Bills have a way to go, obviously, as they're starting new schemes on both sides of the ball and have a new coach, a new GM, etc. The only stable thing in the Bills recent past is their instability. The Ravens have been a stable good program for a long time. But these decisions generally consider factors like these but are mostly based on money, guarantees, signing bonuses, back-loaded vs. front-loaded, average yearly salary, etc.

Pennington wasn't on his way to being a star. He was already there before those surgeries. "Pennington was inserted into the starting lineup in 2002. The Jets were 1-3. Vinny Testaverde was looking his age. Things looked bleak. All Pennington did was win 8 of his 12 starts that year and lead the Jets to the AFC East title. While doing it, he led the league in completion percentage, quarterback rating, and touchdown rate while posting the second lowest interception rating in the league and the second highest yards per pass attempt rate. "The numbers partially describe how great Pennington was before he got hurt. Before that fateful game in Buffalo, he had completed 65.7% of passes in his career. He had 49 touchdowns against 22 interceptions. He had a 94.7 rating. And his team had won 19 of his 30 starts. He was averaging 7.3 yards per attempt in a span where that put you in the top five in the league. When Pennington got hurt in 2004, he was completing 68.2% of his passes with 8 touchdowns, 2 interceptions, and a 99.1 rating. The Jets were 6-1 at the time. "The numbers do not tell the whole story, however. It wasn't just about them. "Everybody remembers how the Patriots won three of four Super Bowls from 2001 to 2004. Not many remember what happened the one year in that stretch when they did not go all the way. The Jets came to Foxborough Week 16. The Pats, Jets, and Dolphins were in a tight race for the AFC East title. A Patriots win would have eliminated the Jets and left New England in control of its own destiny. A Jets win kept Gang Green alive and put New England in deep trouble. "Pennington lit up Bill Belichick's defense that night to the tune of 22 for 33 for 286 yards, 3 touchdowns, and no interceptions. Tom Brady was 19 for 37 with 133 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. In the middle of the Patriots dynasty, Pennington went up to Foxborough in a huge spot, outplayed Brady, and carried the Jets to a win." http://www.ganggreennation.com/2013/3/27/4154264/new-york-jets-what-if-wednesday-what-if-chad-pennington-hadnt-gotten People forget how very very good he was.

Funny how people confuse facts with opinions. And assume that people will never make big jumps upwards or regressions downwards.

Loss. Seriously, loss. But we didn't have the money under the cap thanks to Whaley's profligacy. Sour ... grapes. Every time a guy leaves Buffalo this is the cry that goes up, he didn't want to be here. And it's true only in that we didn't give him the best offer and that's why he didn't want to be here. Through the years there really are only a couple of guys who genuinely didn't want to be here, McGahee for instance after the Applebees comment and the comments on Buffalo women. The rest would have been happy to stay with the right offer. Classic sour grapes. They pretty much all go for the jackpot, all the NFL players. Except the guys on their third and fourth contracts who've already banked $50 mill or the guys who marry supermodels who are richer than they are. Oh, and if Gilmore had played with no heart at all the Pats wouldn't have signed him.

Exactly this. He won't come. It won't happen. And there are reasons not to want Rivers, basically age and the state of the Bills roster which almost certainly won't be good enough to compete for a title till Rivers is about ready to retire. Not to mention how prohibitive the bounty the Chargers would demand if they could somehow hypnotize Rivers into not voiding a trade to Buffalo. But right now he's still running a pass game at a much higher level than Tyrod.

No, he is not a statue by today's standards, he just isn't, unless you're going to also classify Brady, Ryan and most of the best QBs in the game as statues. Which would be dumb and remove the negative connotation from the word. He's not a running QB. But he's also not a statue. But his pocket movement skills are still there and still very good. As for Rivers hanging on too long, a lot of that is the offense rather than his propensities, and a lot of the reason he gets sacked so much is because his OL has truly and seriously sucked for years and years, and they haven't had a run game to keep defenses honest for the same multiple years. And yet again ... TYROD ... DOES ... NOT ... HAVE ... A ... 15-14 ... RECORD. That would be the Buffalo Bills in games Tyrod starts. Wins are a team stat. The stat you are referencing is actually called "TEAM WINS IN GAMES STARTED BY THIS QB (REGULAR SEASON)". And for good reason. Giving a QB credit for a win / loss if a kicker makes/misses a 45 yard game-ending field goal simply doesn't make sense. Or if a receiver knocks a ball up in the air and it's intercepted for a pick six, or if an MLB misses a tackle on a late game fourth down that would end the game but an opposing RB turns it into a TD ... The QB doesn't win games. Teams do. And Rivers has had a bad roster around him basically for the last six to seven years. Awful defenses, poor OLs. Unless you think Matt Ryan was bad for three years or so and then has been re-animated with the poltergeist of Otto Graham this year you have to understand that a team needs more than a QB, even if the QB they have is very good.

Nah, Rivers has as much value to his franchise as anyone pretty much in the league. Guy's a top 5 - 7 QB. But while he might make us a playoff contender, even an elite QB wouldn't make this roster an actual title contender this year and probably not next year. We just don't have the roster. And that's why the fact that - as people keep mentioning and mentioning - he has a no-trade clause and there just isn't any way he would void that to go to a team with a roster in the state that ours is in. He's a terrific QB. But he just isn't coming here.

Very few people would share that opinion, I suspect and nearly all of those are Buffalo fans and Tyrod fans in particular. Rivers had a good but not great year last year with an awful OL and an absolutely wretched run game that was completely unable to prevent teams from putting all their defensive resources towards stopping Rivers. The Chargers run game averaged 3.8 YPC last year. That's just awful. Defenses sure weren't saying about Rivers that they just wanted to make him be a QB. And Rivers is in no way a statue. The only way you could say that is if you compare him to guys like Tyrod. He still moves very well in the pocket and even makes some decent runs when given room. No, he'll never be a Vick or a Tyrod or a Steve Young but he still moves in the pocket a ton better than someone like Bledsoe did after he his legs went and people started to use that word about him. The good arguments against Rivers are money ... he's worth it but the Bills don't have it. And age. And the fact that he simply isn't going to come to Buffalo.

Rivers didn't lose to the Browns. QBs don't lose. Teams do. And I don't think it's all that crazy to say that Rivers, who had a decent game for the pressure he was under, was less responsible for that loss than the Bolts run game, which managed a total of 34 yards on 19 rushes, or the OL which allowed nine sacks of Rivers, or the defense which allowed the Browns 124 yards rushing on 29 carries, including two TDs, and also allowed Griffin and Kessler to go 19 for 28 on them. Rivers didn't lose that game. The San Diego Chargers did. Rivers is better than Bledsoe was. But yeah, maybe age will catch up to him very soon. It caught up to Bledsoe when he was younger than most. That's the risk with older QBs, injury and age-based performance decline. Best guess is that he probably has another two years, maybe three. But there's no way to say.

Yup. Which he could waive if he liked the destination enough, but he'd be looking for somewhere with a really good surrounding cast, good enough to compete for a title in the short term, which is as long as he's liable to be around. No reason he'd come to Buffalo as things stand right now.

I'm not thrilled with that article, but it's not nearly as unreasonable as you make it out to be. Gleason didn't say anything about "holding them to their word," which would imply a lot of power to himself. What he said was that, "By signing him, Beane would run the risk of veering from his own message." Which is a lot more reasonable than how you paraphrased it. Gleason also mentioned possible doubts that Maclin would be a big splash. And while cap was obviously a major factor in this decision, that doesn't mean it was the only one. Reid waited to make this move until they'd seen him in six practices over the past couple of weeks, according to a Chiefs article. http://www.arrowheadpride.com/2017/6/2/15732810/surprise-chiefs-cut-jeremy-maclin-save-10-million-against-the-cap Might they not have been watching him to see if he'd lost a step? Might they not have seen something a bit worrisome? They're going to have $7.2 mill in dead cap money over the next couple of years from cutting him. This was not so easy a decision as you're making it sound. And yeah the Chiefs thought the world of him as a teammate and competitor. Not so much as a performer, though, not last year. He was in 12 games and had two TDs and 536 yards, along with his lowest catch percentage since 2012 and his lowest Y/R. There were a lot of questions in play here for KC. Cap was not the only concern. The Chiefs could have cut somebody else, but they didn't. I often don't agree with Bucky, and he didn't convince me here, especially not knowing how much it will cost to sign Maclin. But his article wasn't as bad as you're saying.

Oh, please. Comparing Rivers and Cutler is like comparing Ruth's Chris prime rib and a Quarter Pounder. San Diego hasn't won a Lombardi because football is a team game and even an elite QB needs to be surrounded by a solid team to go far in the playoffs. But they made a conference championship during Rivers' time there. They've won four playoff games from a very quick count and made the playoffs five or six times, mostly in Rivers' early years when they had a decent but not great GM.

Exactly. And I don't know why you would leave out those good good early years. Though even with them, it hasn't been a great run overall. We aren't rebuilding. If we were we wouldn't have kept Tyrod, Kyle Williams, Shady and so on. But reloading takes time too if your roster is weak enough, and right now ours does not look strong overall. Polian did pretty well with the salary cap, actually. And John Butler very much did not. They had to bring in Whitey to clean up Butler's cap mess. Unfortunately, cleaning up the cap mess was one of the few things he did well. Yeah, Mr. Wilson gets the responsibility for all the bad years, but also the credit for the good ones during the Kelly years and the AFL years.

Doesn't get a nibble on Buffalo's side. If he were younger, you don't hesitate for an instant, but he's 36. We would have to build a team around him for the next two or three years, without 3 firsts. Rivers might be worth that, but Buffalo can't give those up. If we already had a terrific roster, maybe. But we don't. It simply isn't going to happen. The likelihood of getting Rivers is pretty much the same as the likelihood of getting Aaron Rodgers. People don't want to accept that, but it's true. You might be assuming too much there. He might go elsewhere. But yeah, not to Buffalo with the state of the roster we've got right now, and especially not if we gave a lot of our chances to improve that roster in the trade.

Yeah, well it was you who called them talented. In the headline to this thread. As I read, I see you're a troll. Won't respond again. But yeah, it's unlikely Tyrod will ever be a franchise guy. But what could the new regime have done this year to get a QB? Romo wasn't going to come here for his last year or two. What other options were there? Trubisky was long gone. If they don't get someone next year, we'll have cause for starting to complain.

Calling this roster talented, frankly is a stretch. As for QB, we picked up an extra pick in the first next year. What options did we miss out on?

Circular argument. We don't know which games he was very healthy in. You're assuming that if he had great stats he was healthy and if he didn't have great stats he wasn't healthy. That's an unfair assumption. But if you make that assumption, it's not a real surprise to find that - with that assumption in place - that when healthy he produced extremely high numbers. Of course he did. You're only counting the games he had extremely high production as healthy. Circular argument and an unfair assumption about when he was and wasn't healthy.

Rivers isn't going to be available. He just isn't. You know what part of the team kept them out of the playoffs? The part that was on the field. And that absolutely included the passing offense, which was substandard. Only the run offense was playoff-ready. Which is to say that the whole team simply wasn't good enough.

New England doesn't overpay. That may be their first commandment. Making Gillislee the 26th highest paid RB by average salary, just behind Adrian Peterson at 24th and Todd Gurley at 25th when Gillislee had the highest YPA in the league last year ... pretty close to the opposite of overpaying. It's arguable with Gilmore but looking at how the Pats have succeeded so consistently recently by bringing in some high-priced guys at CB ... Talib, Revis, etc., this unfortunately is likely to be yet another smart move by the Evil Empire. You're talking about wins this year, correct? I see some wins too, but probably less than most on these boards do. My guess is 5 to 6 wins with an upside of maybe eight. I probably mean something different by "competitive," too. Don't care about just making the playoffs, never really have since the Super Bowl years. Making the playoffs as a fodder team has never seemed like any real achievement to me.

Sure, they could've kept those two, but it would've been by structuring contracts so that they would have had minimal impact this year and therefore more impact down the road, putting us yet again in bad cap shape. They've pretty obviously - and thank goodness - stopped trying to go into hock to be able to keep or bring in an extra guy or two in the short term. They didn't do any re-structures for salary cap purposes. They want to get in good cap shape, and the year to do it is this one ... we're unlikely to be a competitive team and it's the first year of the new era and with this roster fans won't be expecting much. Most likely they simply want to put this team in better cap situations and that required some surgery without anesthetic losing guys like Gilmore, Woods and Zach Brown that we'd rather have kept in better circumstances. Oh, and Gillislee. We have never been over the cap. Because we cut the people we needed to cut to stay under. And it was seriously painful sometimes. If you didn't see the cap purge we had to deal with at the end of John Butler's term as GM, you ought to look it up. It was a bloodbath. Has there ever been a team that was actually over the cap after the deadline? So, no, not us either, but we've absolutely cut people with cap being by far the main reason and this year it looks to have been a major factor again.

That's a fair opinion, probably. But there's been a lot more pressure on Flacco in that offense than there has been on Tyrod in this one. The Ravens run game the past couple of years has sucked. Teams game-plan for Flacco, while they game-plan to stop the Bills run game. Tyrod hasn't had much success in hooking up with his TE even though Clay was open a lot. It's an interesting decision. Ought to be fun to watch it play out. Yup, and it's a new philosophy for the Bills, one I absolutely love. No borrowing from next year's cap because of this year's problems. It doesn't save money this year, but down the road it absolutely will.

Yeah. Probably depends who got raised up to the 51 in his place. Whoever it was was apparently not a minimum salary guy. Or alternatively whoever did the figuring on how much dead money they owe for him may have missed the $4.5 mill roster bonus they gave him in 2015, if I remember correctly. $12.3 mill available now. And the Bills always keep around $6 mill or so available going through the season in case of injuries they might need FAs for. So that'll be around $6 mill they have to use. With our depth problems, that's money we can really use. It'll be interesting to see what they do with it.

I'd guess 5 - 6. Plus or minus one or two. Too early to say, of course, but if we're guessing now ...

Not entirely true. Tyrod to the RBs 89/ 459 ... 19.4% Rodgers to the RBs 104/615 ... 16.9% Ryan 114/530 ... 21.5% Brady 130/ 546 ... 23.8% Roethlis 126/ 590 ... 26.4% Though Brady and Roethlisberger threw a bit larger percentages to RBs than Tyrod, he was almost exactly on a par with Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan. Nobody was that far out in front, really, though Brady threw significantly larger percentages than any of the others. In any case, I expect Shady to have a good year but for them to limit his touches at his age.