Thurman#1

No, they probably don't look at it that way. That $10.5 mill will be down to around $7 mill or so after they sign their draftees, and the Bills always go into the season with around $6 mill available for them to use on injury replacements. The Panthers last year had $13 mill unused which they rolled over into this year, so it's not like they spend right up to the cap either. They could easily cut a guy or two down the line who could clear up some space, but they have very little space available right now. In any case, guard isn't a big area of need right now.

We're still really constricted on the cap next year. Right now we've got only 20 guys earning over $1 mill in base salary next year. That's because we don't have a lot of talent signed yet. Sammy, for instance, isn't signed for next year. They might easily sign Kyle for another contract if he's playing well. And they'll need to re-sign some guys or bring in new ones. At DL for example, next year they only have six guys under contract right now: Dareus and Lawson, and then Ryan Davis, Adolphus Washington, Marquavious Lewis and Nigel Williams. They're really doing a great job getting themselves headed in the right direction with cap management, but the last regime's cap largesse will take another year or so to straighten out. As for Tyrod, if they let him go before the season he would count $8.64 mill against the cap, all dead money. If they kept Tyrod instead, he will count $18.08 mill against the cap, $10 mill in salary, $6 mill in a bonus he will receive in March and $2.08 mill in amortized signing bonus. So if they cut him they would save nearly $10 mill immediately on the cap. They could easily do that. Easily. Particularly if after having worked with him they decide he's close to his ceiling and his ceiling isn't high enough to give them any likelihood of bringing a title here with him at QB. Dunno if they'll decide that, but they could. As for whether we would regress in 2018 without him, there's no way to say that since we don't know who will be on the roster next year or how much improved the guys we have now will be. And yeah people seem obsessed with cap room. It's absolutely crucial. Guys get cut because of a lack of it all the time. The only thing that would not make sense is to pretend cap room is not hugely important. Tyrod could very very easily be cut before the 2018 season. That's how the contract is structured. Doesn't mean he will be cut, but it's structured that way for a reason and the reason is that if they decide they don't want him the cap ramifications won't make it hard to cut him. A different QB. That's pretty much all that needs to be said when you're talking about 2018. Someone else. The one they draft in 2018, maybe or Peterman if he improves. Those would be the best guesses if Tyrod is gone. Which could happen. Or not. But both are very possible.

The real name for this stat, on real sites, is "TEAM wins in games started by this quarterback (regular season)" Note the "Team" part. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/T/TaylTy00.htm Just run your cursor over "QBRec" and you'll see the real name. So he was correct. Wins are a team stat, not a QB stat.

First, agreed that this isn't a rebuild, and that 2010 really was. If it were a rebuild now, we certainly wouldn't have invited Kyle Williams back, for instance, nor McCoy nor Lorenzo Alexander nor Incognito. When you're rebuilding, you jettison the older talent on your roster because you don't really care about this year and those guys won't be around by the time you get good. This isn't a rebuild, there's no question about it. But saying that Stevie Johnson and Kelsay were our best players back then is just not reasonable. Kyle Williams was on the Bills and kicking butt. Jairus Byrd had 9 INTs and was a second-team All-Pro, not just Pro Bowl, but All-Pro. Poz was on that team and playing really well, and Freddy Jackson was earning 1433 yards from scrimmage and averaging 4.5 YPA, while Marshawn Lynch racked up 3.8 YPA behind the same line here. Not that our roster then was as strong as today's group. It wasn't. But you said, "It was generally agreed last season that the Bills had one of the better rosters in the conference, and they still do," and I don't think too many people really thought that outside Bills fandom. I know I thought that roster wasn't going to take us to more than about 8 wins, maybe 9 if things fell well. From what I remember, people thought we had strong areas such as the DL and 4/5 OLs and CB and RB and Sammy if he was healthy and Clay at TE, as well as weak areas such as both safeties and RT and QB and WR and questions at ILB.. Overall, mixed.

Ever see the comments on why Marino took over as QB so early? They said that they expected him to be the #2 that first year. And weren't surprised or overly impressed to see that he was leading the #1 offense to TDs against the #2 defense. But that he was also leading the #2 offense to TDs over the #1 defense. That changed their view. It wasn't that the starter was playing badly. It was just that Marino outplayed him. When a guy plays better that the other guy it's not hard to notice. There'll be a chance. No, I don't think it'll happen. And if they play roughly equal, that would be a win for Tyrod. But when you folks say you know what's going to happen, you're wrong. You know what's likely to happen. Those are very reasonable educated guesses, indeed by far the most probably outcomes. They are not facts. This is it exactly.

I know you don't see it, but your description there of that throw to Clay at 8:15 in the Pats game is very questionable. It's a bang-bang play, it's terrific coverage at the end, McCourty makes slight contact with Clay's lower body as he starts to extend and dive an instant before the catch which makes it a very difficult one. And yeah I guess you could say it hit his hand, but what actually happened is that it grazed his pinky. I just went back and watched it a number of times, both on the standard view and the replay and in the All-22, and that play is at best questionable. And while it wasn't a bad throw, it sure wasn't as good as it could've been. McCourty was coming from the inside, from safety, and Tyrod's throw instead of leading Clay further outside and away, pulled him slightly back towards McCourty allowing McCourty to catch up to Clay and make contact with him. The contact causes his body to slightly revolve and seems to make it impossible for him to get his right hand in, though it's very questionable whether he'd have been able to reach it anyway. Further outside and a bit shorter and it would've had a better chance. Calling it an overthrow is a reasonable interpretation, as with the contact, slight though it was, and the ball's distance it's in an extremely difficult position Clay is in. It would have been an incredible catch if he'd made it. That could reasonably be called several ways. He had to twist his body so awkwardly to make the try that he came down awkwardly and injured himself. As for Peterman not being a legitimate 1st round prospect, neither was Brady. That means nothing. Guys have outperformed their draft status before and will again. And rookies have beaten out vets (particularly unspectacular vets) before and will again. Yeah, it's certainly unlikely in this case, but not impossible. Cunningham beat out Jaworski, for instance and that was totally unexpected. Or Marino taking over for Woodley who had led the Fins to the SB the year before. And drops are very meticulously tracked, though in some cases it's simply an opinion. And that Clay play is an excellent example of that. That this comes down to opinion is the case for Fahey as much as it is for the Washington Post, the standard for that metric. http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?range=NFL&rank=232&type=Receiving Yes, he should stop, though he's absolutely correct on that. I was astonished to see it on the All-22, but I watched nine full games, over and over again on the All-22. And there were very very few plays when Tyrod didn't have a guy significantly open.

You would think not, that he wouldn't be handed it. The odds on him winning it will be very high indeed, though.

Correct. It was the fault of the Buffalo Bills.

The ones who who use the alphabet. And the ones who sometimes say things I disagree with.

Sure it is. Now that they have a GM, they'll begin the process of addressing it. Hopefully they'll do a good job. When we see what they do we should maybe talk about it.

Both. Seriously, that's the answer. But if you had to pick one, the run game was so terrific for the offense and that doesn't need improvement. The defense would take priority. But the pass game would not be far behind. Enough for me of this thread for quite a while. Boring and a crusade.

No but it was part of the reason. Again, 16th in yards, didn't put the D in great field position. They were certainly better than the D but weren't a top ten unit. Sure the defense needs to be improved. Nobody is arguing that. So does the passing game of the offense.

The Pats had the #8 defense. Oh, I see your problem here, dude, defenses and offenses are both ranked by yards, not by points, and for good reason. Points is much more of a team stat than is yards. Yards better isolates defensive units from the offense and STs and also isolates offensive units from defense and STs. Defenses aren't included at all in the offensive yards stat, but they do score points. And they have a huge hand in setting up a lot of points with good field position. When the defense intercepts a pass and runs it back to the one and the offense loses 27 yards on two sacks and a penalty but the kicker converts, the points stat says "Nice, the offense did a great job, add three points to the Bills scoring." Same when a linebacker runs a fumble in for a touchdown or a returner runs back a kick for a TD, the points stat says "Way to go offense, seven points added to your total." Again, yards is how both offenses and defenses are rated. For a reason. Yeah, the Bills did well in scoring points. A lot of that was due to good field position and the run game scoring 29 TDs while the pass game scored 17. A lot of the reason the Bills defense allowed a lot of points was that they were left in the 23rd worst field position on average. The offense and STs did them no favors whatsoever.

I guess if 16th can be considered "one of the top in the NFL" then yeah, we were one of the top offenses. Neither side was all that good. The offense was better. But there were plenty of games where they didn't show up either. And when they did it was mostly the run game.

No, I don't remember that. But I remember many fans saying it. I remember him being very good against the run but being beaten by good fakes by really athletic RBs on a few highlight plays that fans focused on forever. I don't remember him ever being a first round talent, though. And they gave him too much on that last contract. But what was he supposed to do, turn them down and ask for less?

This sort of thing. I'm hoping for more, but expecting around this.

They didn't have to give Shady a new deal. They had him under contract cheaply for another year or two. Huge waste of resources. Picking him up was a good move. Bidding against ourselves to give him a new really huge new contract ... really bad idea, IMHO. In combination with a bunch of other moves it put us in salary cap hell and resulted in us losing a bunch of good players. Again, don't know enough about Ducasse to talk about him. They've done a pretty poor job with the draft over the Whaley years, but a decent job with pro players, so I'd hold criticism for right now. I'm with you that comp picks are important, and wish they would be more careful with this. But if they hadn't picked up Ducasse, they'd still have gotten one more qualifying UFA than they lost, so wouldn't have a comp pick. Ducasse's signing bonus is only $250K. He'd be easy to cut if he doesn't play well, and his average salary is only $1.16 M. It's not as if they gave up much. IMHO they're taking a flier and can easily drop him if it doesn't work out.

The Niners under Harbaugh went from a 3-4 with occasional plays in a 4-3 ... to pretty much the same thing. Tomsula was highly involved on defense under both systems. They weren't switching schemes. I don't remember on offense, but this does not meet my qualifications. I guess if you wanted to argue I wouldn't bother to counter, but our group is going to have a tougher first year, with different schemes. We'll run a lot on offense, that'll stay the same, but the scheme will change. And the history of this is that I challenged one guy who said it happened all the time to come up with ten, and said that I thought he might, but that it would take time and a lot of thought. So far the fact that one person came up with two and another person came up with one (that really doesn't fit) if anything indicates that I'm not on the wrong track. It's taking time and thought. Here's a list of ten coaches joining losing teams putting in new systems to the best of my recollection, who did NOT turn things around in the first year: 1) Chuck Noll 2) Jimmy Johnson 3) Bill Walsh 4) Marv Levy 5) Bill Belichick in either of his two head coaching spots 6) Andy Reid 7) Tom Landry 8) Tom Coughlin in either of his two spots 9) Pete Carroll at the Jets and Seahawks (with the Pats he was 10-6 his first year but the year before NE had had 11 wins) 10) Mike McCarthy (8-8) EDIT: Wanna say Landry doesn't count because it was their first year as a team? Fair enough. I'll replace him with Mike Shanahan at all three of his jobs. Took me like seven minutes. That's the difference. It's easy to find them because it's what happens most of the time. I just tried to think of the most respected coaches historically and currently and checked their records. I did find one on your side as I looked. Lombardi went 7-5 in his first year, pretty impressive as they'd been 1-10-1 the year before. It's certainly not impossible that we make a huge turnaround and become a great team. But it's rare, and therefore unlikely.

Shouldn't have? Well, I don't disagree with you there. Whaley shouldn't have done a crappy job with the cap, but he did. I don't mind Ducasse specifically. I don't really know anything about him except that he's a UMASS guy and that's where I got my Masters. Go Minutemen!!!! But I'm with you that I would rather they had for example not given Shady the raise they did. Or not signed Clay even though it's obvious from the All-22 that he's very open extremely often. Or hadn't signed Harvin so that they were paying him dead cap last year and could have rolled the money over into this year's cap. Or something. Point is, they were in an awful situation and had to let a bunch of guys go that they probably didn't want to ... guys like Gilmore and Zac Brown. And Gillislee. I'm totally with you on that, Wayne. And the new guys obviously both care and get it, because we didn't get any of the re-negotiations that just push the problem down the road. I love it that the new regime is just going to take their medicine right now, fight down the nausea at the taste and get a healthy cap as soon as possible. Enough with the "Gillislee was nothing special" nonsense. Nobody is trying to say he's AP, but he's an excellent player for his role, Excellent. Led the league in YPA last year including shading Shady. Got the cheapest team in the league, a team reknowned for not spending much on their run game, to give him an offer to high for Buffalo to match because of their cap problems, an offer that's one of the highest salaries in the league for non-starting RBs. He's a very good player for what his role is, very good, and we'll miss him. Hopefully we can come up with somebody to replace him, but it's not a sure thing by any means. I asked for ten. And said that he might be able to come up with them but that it would take some real time and thought. So that point still stands. Whereas it would be very easy to come up with ten coaches who came in to losing teams and switched schemes and DIDN'T have success their first year. It happens. It's just pretty rare.

So, you're saying salary cap had nothing to do with it ... and then saying that the reason we lost him is that we offered him a million too little for his tender? You're not noticing that those two things might be very much related. And having $9 mill in cap room on a team which has not yet signed it's draftees who will probably take around $3- $4 mill off the cap ... on a team that generally goes into the season with around $5 - $6 mill available in case they need to make some injury signings .. Yeah, exactly. They have almost no money that they feel comfortable spending. Now, they might cut some guys down the line and pick up cheaper replacements, and that could save them a million or two. But cap problems was a huge part of a bunch of the decisions to let guys go this year. Gillislee too.

"Trimming down the playbook" and "simplifying the offense," are what he said. The playbook isn't what you put together each week. It's the book that shows all the plays in the offense. I know it's an outdated word now that everyone uses computers, but that's what people are talking about when they say "playbook," the stuff you study in training camp. I think you're referring to the game plan. And here's an article where Carson Palmer talks about memorizing a weekly game plan of 171 plays. And he calls it "a game plan," not a playbook. http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2015/11/17/nfl-carson-palmer-arizona-cardinals-inside-game-plan Lynn said he simplified the playbook. He also said, and this was really depressing for me to read at the time, that he simplified the reads. That's different from what you're implying here. Nobody has said Tyrod doesn't have the mental capacity to handle the offense. He's a smart guy, and there's no indication at all that I've seen that he had trouble understanding the plays. Just that he didn't seem to be able to get through his options quick enough to read enough of the field. Which is one of the single main skills that generally separates the top ten or so guys in the world from everyone else playing the position.

Why did we fire him if he can't do better in his first year? Because after that first year, another year will follow. And another after that. And it'll just keep going that way, whether McDermott's still here or not until the NFL eventually disappears. And because caring more about the short-term than the long-term is not how smart people and teams proceed. Change is difficult, especially when switching schemes. And it isn't even slightly anecdotal that McDermott's defense took a while to get started in Carolina. The numbers show it. That's the way it's very likely to go. Oh, and how were we "knocking on the door" with Rex? The guy took a 9-7 team, and ran them to 8-8 and then 7-9. OK, if rookie head coaches succeed plenty, name ten. But don't count guys like Barry Switzer who took over a team that was already excellent and didn't switch any schemes. Ten rookie coaches who took over losing teams, switched schemes on both sides of the ball and really improved the team in their first year. You might find ten, but I'm betting it takes you a while. For obvious reasons.

Doubt it might take some time? Look at the Panthers defense: 2010 Panthers: 18th in D in the league McDermott is hired as DC from the Eagles after the 2010 season. 2011 Panthers: 28th in D in the league 2012 Panthers: 10th in D in the league 2013 Panthers: 2nd in D in the league 2014 Panthers: 10th in D in the league 2015 Panthers: 6th in D in the league 2016 Panthers: 21st in D in the league They got worse that first year. Wondering about scoring defense? Here's the figures: 2010: 26th He's hired. 2011: 27th 2012: 18th 2013: 2nd 2014: 12th 2015: 6th 2016: 26th Got worse the first year and still below average the second year. It generally takes some time. Wondering if this was because they were rebuilding? Every defensive starter in 2011, McDermott's first year, had been drafted by the Panthers. (Check ProFootballReference.com). That's not a rebuild or anything close to it. The second year they brought in some FAs, starting to get their own type of guys in place ... Ron Edwards from the Bills, Dwan Edwards from Baltimore and Haruki Nakamura from Baltimore and drafting 9th brought in two defensive starters, Kuechly and Norman. They got a few of their type of guys in place and the system had been in place for a year and things started to look up a bit.

Or they won't hear anything bad about TT and need to preach. Virtually every time it becomes a problem it's because there are people on both sides. Pretending that it's only the other side that has the problem is missing the entire point. "Yes, the people who disagree with me have a problem with needing to preach," is like saying "Man, elections suck. Damn that _________ Party that I don't like. They always say things that I don't like to hear, forcing me and my friends to reply angrily." On any issue, it only becomes a problem if there are people on both sides joining in and contributing to the morass.

Agreed it's not a full rebuild. But you don't have to rebuild for it to take time to get where you're going. When you switch schemes it generally takes time for the players to not just learn it but have it become natural. And the guys from the previous regime will often not fit your plans as well as you had hoped they would. It'll likely take time. Yes, Gilmore to the rookie White is going to be a downgrade. If things go well he will reach the same level when he has a year or two of NFL experience. Corners generally take some time, same as WRs and QBs. I hope you're right about McDermott's results being better than Rex's, but the odds aren't great the first year. Down the road is what's important anyway. Agreed. Created a hole where there had been a player performing his duties extremely well. But that's what happens when your last regime gets you in salary cap trouble. You lose some guys you're really prefer to have kept.