Thurman#1

Actually, we were 16th on offense in 2016 and 13th in 2015. And yeah, I'm sure you were talking about scoring, but while yards reflects almost completely offense, scoring is more of a whole-team stat because drive-start field position is absolutely huge in scoring. Not to mention that scoring includes stuff like pick-sixes and blocked kicks recovered in the end zone that the offense has little to do with. Yards is simply a better measure of your offense than scoring. Which is why when people talk about how offenses rank they are talking about yards. And surprisingly, the defense and STs scored significantly more than the average NFL defense and STs do. And they also gave the offense the 11th best average drive start, a major advantage in terms of scoring. And that same offense also left the defense with crap field position, 23rd best, which deeply hurt the defense in terms of scoring given up. We'll see. But we didn't just lose Sammy. We lost Woods and more to the point we lost the Roman blocking schemes and playbook, generally acknowledged to be pretty much the best in the NFL in terms of maximizing the run. We'd better hope that the pass game picks it up because my bet is that the run game will still be pretty good but not the absolute terror it was last year, in terms of both yards per carry and scoring on run plays.

They appear to have let Ragland go because he wasn't very athletic or fast. And that's the problem with Spikes too. The McDermott defense appears to need quick, explosive LBs. Spikes would not seem to qualify.

So, if you look at the worst of your recent history, and only the worst, things will look pretty bad? I wouldn't have realized. But no, two draft classes don't set you back five years, they set you back two years. Whaley's picks don't look good, especially so after yet another scheme switch but they didn't look great even before that. But it isn't reasonable to criticize twice for the same mistake. Yeah, the tradeup for Sammy was always stupid. But when you then go on to point out that our second pick was in the third round ... yeah, we got it, you already criticized the Sammy trade. It's not a tank. Tank is a lovely popular hockey term that has become popular among football fans but it's a poor fit. In a sport without guaranteed contracts, there's no such thing as a tank. But yeah, to use the football terms, we're rebuilding. It's not a total rebuild, but it's a rebuild. But it's not as if we were going to be good even if we'd made every single move with the specific purpose of being as good as possible this year. Yes it was. He was the GM and with brand new owners. If he'd told them he wasn't going to be able to work with Rex, they'd likely have listened.

A CB and what might be a good #2 WR and several more guys ... and a second first rounder next year. He isn't easily pleased. It's not easy to get somebody to give you two firsts for something. It was dumb when we did it for Sammy and it was smart when we got the Chiefs to do it this year, especially in a draft which at least so far looks strong in QBs early. That's nonsense. Time doesn't devalue a draft pick. Yeah, in the trade chart you usually a higher draft pick the next year, but not because a third rounder next year is actually worth less in terms of likelihood of getting a good player than a fourth rounder this year. You have to pay more next year because it's only desperate GMs in a weak bargaining position who make dumb tradeups like that. The smart teams accept those trades and get the higher pick next year. Look at Belichick who has made an absolute field day of stealing that extra value from desperate dumb GMs his whole career. The "have to win this year" guys will accept the fleecing and trade away the higher pick next year. That doesn't mean the next year's pick will be worth less in terms of what can be gotten with the pick.

First, there's no evidence Russ has any power in the football side. Going to meetings isn't power. And having your remarks printed isn't either and that's all we know ... that he went to meetings and had some reactions reported. Second, the quotation isn't bad at all. There's no particular reason to think that he meant that you have no expectations about the positions. He could easily have meant that you don't have any pre-suppositions about the candidates and you let what they say make your decisions about how good their interviews were. And I agree with the guy who said the timing of this post is strange. If Russ does have power on the football side I would totally agree that that would be awful, but I don't see any evidence.

while I totally agree that if you're going to ask for accountability you have to do so believably from the first minute, at this point, I doubt Dareus is ever going to get it. I'd love to see it, but he's had so many chances that I just can't believe he is going to ever really own his problems. Bill Walsh for one came in without a single NFL game and put a ton of rules in place for the Niners and had an awful first season. At least one coach was fired by Walsh for going behind his back to management saying he was putting too much emphasis on piddly-ass rules. Management stuck by Walsh and the coach was gone. There's a reason teachers are told not to smile till Christmas. You don't earn the right to make the rules with good performance over time. It's putting your rules in place that tends to determine what kind of performance you'll have in the long run.

Yeah, Tyrod is one of the best-known names. Having your name be best-known isn't the same as being a star. Every starting QB in the league has a decently well-known name because when you watch the offensive highlights they all start with "Taylor takes the snap." I'd question whether the Bills have stars beyond Shady and maybe (last year) Sammy. Good players, yes. I don't think "star" is the word to use for guys like Dareus or Kyle Williams or Jerry Hughes or Incognito or for that matter Tyrod. But hey, that's just me. Agreed that they're unlikely to trade Shady. But dead cap isn't the reason. If they traded him, they'd get hit by $7.875 mill in dead cap. But they'd also save $6 mill in salary. A cap hit of $1.875 mill wouldn't stop this deal. But no, I don't think it's going to happen anymore than you do.

That is some extremely poor journalism by O'Shea. Silva says he "expects" the Bills to "listen to offers." And O'Shea, whoever he is, reads that as, "is looking to trade." Pathetic writing on top of abominable reading of what his source actually said.

So ... what you're saying is that if he'd been healthy, things might have been different, right? Thing is ... he WASN'T healthy. He's shown no ability to stay on the field or to consistently be at the top of his game when on the field. Yeah, if you ignore that things look better. But it shouldn't be ignored. It's a huge part of the picture with Sammy.

For coaches and players there is no such thing as a tank. None. McDermott will be working as hard as he possibly can to win, knowing that a coach's future job prospects rest on how good his team looks and he looks coaching them. Will Beane maybe have to crush a smile when they lose a close one this year? Yeah, maybe. But not McDermott. This is very logical. If one example of something didn't turn out well, it clearly proves that ever doing it under any circumstances is not a good idea. Oh, and there is no such thing as tanking in football. Rebuilding, yes. Tanking, nope, because the coaches and players have far far too much on the line to not do their absolute best.

Yes, they did. That draft pick wasn't Justin Gilbert. It was the right to pick a player at #9 that the Bills traded away. The fact that Cleveland blew that pick doesn't mean we would have. We might easily have used that pick to snag Shazier or Aaron Donald. Or Ebron. Or Beckham. Or Zack Martin. So yeah, Cleveland made the smart trade and we made the dumb one. They then used the draft pick poorly. But if someone steals your money and then gambles it away in Vegas, it doesn't make it OK that they stole your money in the first place.

Come on ... people blame Sammy? Only the nuts and wackos. As for the rest of your post, though, it comes down to "I don't like hearing about this." And you'll just have to deal with it, same as the rest of the world has to deal with stuff they don't like. It's just life. It really was a bad trade from the first minute it happened. And there's extreme doubt about your statement about OBJ being a failure here. Very doubtful. Sammy's big problem is that he wasn't healthy. Beckham has been consistently healthy and available. Yeah, we'd have thrown to him less than the Giants did. But if you look at the stats, guys like Woods had better catch ratios than Sammy, whereas Beckham was destroying the other WRs on the Giants in that stat. If Beckham were here he'd almost certainly still be a tremendous success. Yeah, he'd have smaller gross stats, but he'd still be doing what he's done for the Giants in terms of qualititative stats. He'd still be thought of as a tremendous success. And we wouldn't have had to trade away three picks to get the pick to get him, we'd only have had to use the one. It wasn't a good move, that trade. As for tanking, it basically doesn't exist in football. Rebuilding does. And while we're not doing a full rebuild, there's a large element of rebuilding in McDermott and Beane's plan. Yup, and the good teams - the teams that have consistency in management - love that future firsts are undervalued that way. They take advantage of that whenever they can to get first round picks in future years.

I don't see it as a black eye at all. Boldin came in saying he was here to win a Super Bowl. Then he looked around and saw what the team was capable of this year and realized that wasn't happening, It was worth a try for the FO. He'd have taught and developed the young guys and played good ball as well, but probably the work he'd have done with the young guys was what they'll miss. It was a good thought, but you can't control stuff like this. Oh, you're guessing what he'll say tomorrow? I didn't get it. OK. Um, "It's a shame, they'll miss him, but not all that much. It'll give the young guys a chance to get some work."

I wouldn't. They were 19th last year. But I agree, I don't see huge improvements this year. The line looks good but other than that we look OK and have little depth.

Yeah, 2018 is starting to maybe look like they might have a strong defense.

Odds are very high against it. First, unless a team is in desperate need from something like a starter suddenly going down, a team that wanted him would just wait till after this year. It's late for him to start at the beginning of the season for a team that acquired him now except in cases of absolute emergency. Second, from what we've seen Yates doesn't look like he'd make anyone comfortable as the #2 if Peterman went down. Third, Peterman is completing around 50% of his passes. 51.1%, to be exact. He's doing better than Tyrod in the games but he isn't actually playing all that well yet. He has a ton more to learn before you would probably want him starting even if he was better than Tyrod. Fourth, Tyrod's $15.5 mill guarantee will partly be paid by the team which traded for him (the salary and the $1 mill guaranteed on next year's roster bonus) but that would still leave us paying for $7.5 mill, his entire signing bonus. That's not nothing. They'd save the salary and the roster bonus, but unless they got quite a good pick, they'd want to justify taking that $7.5 mill hit by keeping him. Even if they did start Peterman (very doubtful), Tyrod would be a great insurance policy in case they're winning (no, I don't think they will either, but they seem to be trying to keep that possibility open). Tyrod's performance in the preseason is still fairly understandable as he picks up a new offense. But it won't raise his trade value. Honestly, I'm a major doubter of Tyrod. I think we pretty much saw what he is in the last year and a half or so, which I believe is a top 32 QB who will never be a top 16 or so starter, and top 16 is around when people want to keep you. I wanted them to rebuild this year and let him go. Once they signed his option, though, I think it pretty much sealed things about keeping him for the year. IMHO unless the offer is higher than expected, he's a Bill for this year anyway.

If they didn't want him, they wouldn't have guaranteed him $15.5 mill. Seriously, not going to happen. If they were going to let him go, they wouldn't have picked up his option.

Dude, try to make your questions easier. It was Brady's second year, dude. And by all accounts he hadn't outplayed him in training camp that second year. It was after he was put in the games that Belichick started seeing that Brady's style suited Belichick's game plans more than Bledsoe's. If there'd been no injury, still think Brady would never have beaten out Bledsoe? Please. And yeah, "plenty of excellent QBs have had to ride the pine for years before getting their shot." They weren't ready yet, or hadn't consistently outplayed the guy above them. Brady's a great example. There'd been no calls for Brady to start during training camp. He hadn't showed he was ready. But as he developed and showed he was indeed better and not as a flash in the pan but consistently, guess what, Bledsoe is gone. But hey, if you want to believe that a coach would endanger his job by never giving a chance to a guy who is consistently playing significantly better, that's your lookout. But we'll never know in that particular case because Tyrod simply wasn't playing better than Flacco. He never made the Ravens braintrust look at him in that way.

I basically agree that it's inane. The verdict's pretty much in. He's very unlikely to become a franchise guy, though it's possible. Beane is doing what he's doing because that's what he thinks too. But if this inanity so flusters you, there are a ton of other threads that are a lot more sensible. May I respectfully suggest they may suit your needs better? If you'd rather be here, hey, understand what this thread is.

Yes, THE RAVENS were 6-2 in playoff games. Not Joe Flacco. The Ravens. What Flacco did during those two years you're talking about is he didn't play especially well in the playoffs in 2011, played very very well in the playoffs in 2012. And I like Joe Flacco. I think he's widely underestimated. But there's a reason he's never been picked for the Pro Bowl except, as with Tyrod, as an alternate. Six other players were either injured or in the Super Bowl before Flacco got the call and turned it down. And that's bull **** that that job was not up for the taking. Every job in the NFL is up for the taking. Every one. If you play better than the other guy, consistently, you'll get a shot. Teams love to light fires under asses in this way. But there simply was never a controversy there because Flacco played better. I definitely grant you it wouldn't have been easy to take that job. Especially after that contract. Of course you're absolutely right about that. But if you play better consistently, the coaches will notice it. Having a better player take over reflects well on the coaches. You've got to outplay the guy consistently and significantly. Tyrod didn't. In fact, his preseason stats just weren't especially good in Baltimore. 2011 37 for 60 6.8 YPC 1 TD, 3 INTs Passer Rating 66.5 2012 31 for 60 5.4 YPC 2 TDs, 1 INT Passer Rating 71.9 2013 21 for 36 7.3 YPC 4 TDs, 2 INTs Passer Rating 95.0 2014 35 for 55 7.7 YPC 3 TDs, 2 INTs Passer Rating 84.3 The one year was a bit of an uptick, but then back towards mediocre. He just didn't outplay Flacco and certainly not consistently and significantly. He didn't put any pressure on the coaches to make them think of him that way. Whereas Young was performing terrifically ... but so was Montana. Montana at that time was elite. Top two or three in the league. Probably top one, to be honest, as in 1989 and 1990, Young's fifth and sixth years in the league, Montana was not just Pro Bowl but first team All-Pro.

You're comparing Joe Flacco ... to Joe Montana? Seriously, dude? Good lord. Outside of first names and the position they play, there's no comparison there. Can't believe I'm bothering, but in the four years Tyrod was in Baltimore, Flacco's passer ratings were 80.9, 87.7, 73.1 and 91.0. He did have the Super Bowl win season, but Flacco was ripe for the picking and Tyrod couldn't do it. Beating out Montana at the height of his reign as arguably the best in history and certainly top three or four is not something anyone who wants to be taken seriously should compare to beating out Joe Flacco. Yeah, the Ravens wanted Flacco to succeed. But if Tyrod had outplayed him consistently they'd have noticed.

Go count my posts in this thread. Then count Transplants. Check that, I'll do it. Went back and counted through the last 200 posts of this thread, including this one. 31 posts by Transplant.18 by me. Almost double. He's accounted for more than 15% of the last 200 comments. Without him, this thread would've been dead weeks ago. More, in the last month or so, since July 13th - the first two pages of my "content" record - I've posted in 50 threads. About a ton of different topics, from Ragland to Chad Kelly, to the salary cap to tanking to Gary Barnidge to Dr. Omalu on concussions, etc. Now, check Transplant's. To go back 50 threads, two pages, you have to go back to April. Yeah, I have enough interest in this discussion to enter it periodically. But I enter a lot of discussions on unrelated topics. As for your other question, I'm neither a Tyrod fanatic nor a hater. I'm a doubter. Which outside of Bills fandom is by far the most common stance. There are plenty of non-Bills fans who like Tyrod's personality a ton and like watching him play as well. But not so many who don't get why the Bills made him re-negotiate to give back $10 mill and his bizarre Whaley-era contract guarantees. They understand why Beane's stockpiling picks next year in a strong QB draft and in fact think it's a smart move. A few, but not many.

Yeah, it's strange that Young didn't start but three games in his fifth year ... behind Joe Montana in his prime. Hard to figure that out. That is one sad and pathetic argument you've got there. Young was playing at a franchise level from his fifth year on, in camp, in the preseason and when he got his chance. The Niners were thrilled to see they had successfully found Montana's successor and would be able to let Montana go before his game went downhill. Oh, and the criticism you took for pro-rating Tyrod's stats in 2015 from 14 to 16 games is because he was injured and that's the reason he missed those games. Injury is a concern with smaller running QBs. And you were pro-rating quantitative stats (and therefore adding imaginary yards and TDs to his stats) so they got better by adding those two extra games that he never played in. Whereas I was using qualitative stats (passer rating and YPA), which didn't change. Young actually got those stats. Tyrod actually did NOT get the stats you were daydreaming about due to his injury. The last bit of your post maybe rescues it. Yup, Tyrod'll have to improve a great deal. And it would be far better for the Bills if he does improve a whole ton and becomes a franchise QB. It would be great to see, It's just very unlikely.

People go on about his great deep ball, but while he was terrific at throwing the deep ball in 2015, he didn't do nearly as well in 2016. He could easily look better again this year in that part of his game, or not. But it's not a given as many seem to want to imply.

Demetress ... Demetress ... Demetress!!