Thurman#1

First, it is a great accomplishment. It really is. Peyton's first four years: 111 TDs and 81 INTs (a 1.37 TD:INT ratio) Peyton's fifth and sixth years together: 56 TDs and 29 INTs (a 1.93 TD:INT ratio) Peyton's TD percentage the first four years: 4.9% Peyton's TD percentage years 5 & 6: 4.8% Peyton's INT percentage the first four years: 3.6% Peyton's INT percentage in years 5 & 6: 2.5% What you see there is that after his fourth year, his TD percentage stayed much the same while his INT percentage dropped. A lot. Josh's first four years: 103 TDs and 46 INTs (a 2.2 TD:INT ratio) Josh's 5th & 6th years: 64 TDs and 32 INTs (a 2.0 TD:INT ratio) Josh's TD percentage the first four years: 5.2% Josh's TD percentage years 5 & 6: 5.6% Josh's INT percentage the first four years: 2.3% Josh's INT percentage in years 5 & 6: 2.7% Josh's TD percentage went up a bit. But unlike Peyton, his INT percentage also went up. And between year 5 and year 6 it again went up, from 2.5 to 3.1. Two of Josh's three worst years in INT % are this year and last year. The other, the highest at 3.8%, was his rookie year. This year, Josh was 30th best in INT %. Last year, 24th best. How does Peyton compare? In his 5th year he has an INT percentage he was 21st best, pretty close to Josh's 24th. In his 6th year, it drops radically, a vast improvement, all the way up to 4th best in the league. And it wasn't a temporary change. Peyton never again got even close to his 5th year status. His INTs dropped a bunch. He never again had years as bad in INTs as those early years including year 5, or at least not until his very last year when he'd lost all his velocity and his balls seemed to hang in the air a long time. I'm hoping that this year is a bit of an outlier for Josh. Which is absolutely possible. Even with the INTs, Josh is still one of the best QBs in the league. We're lucky to have him. Having said that, are the INTs a very real problem? Yeah, they are. Anyway, it really is great for a QB to be compared to Peyton Manning in nearly anything. It's a cool stat, and the TD stats are fantastic. Again, we're lucky to have him.

Oh my, yes!!

As he should. Putrid may be overstating it, but it sure wasn't good. The defense gets most of the credit today.

Come on. Bills fans don't grade Allen more critically than other QBs. Just the opposite. They're going far out of their way to forgive any problems. Fans of every team with a franchise QB do the same. We're not alone, but that's the tendency, to blame anyone but the QB. Allen hasn't performed this year as well as we've grown used to. He just hasn't. You're right that no QB is perfect or even close. Nonetheless, Allen hasn't been as good this year. Pretty good last week, happily. But he'd been playing significantly below his standard for weeks before that. And to say that when you "watch any other great QB play a game I see plenty of missed passes or jitteriness in the pocket," is really really questionable. Some, sure? "Plenty"? No. Even great QBs have games like that but every time? Nah, it's just not so. The draft is a game best played by teams that do NOT fixate on one position. Yeah, the Bengals got Burrows a really good WR pair. They did that in years when the draft fell in such a way that they felt WRs were good value where they drafted. And that the weapons are not good enough is really really NOT why our passing offense is where it is right now. It is PART of the reason our passing offense is where it is. Another part is that Allen hasn't been as good consistently. The O line overall has been very good this year, not much of the problem, but they weren't good last week. That's part of the problem also. Coaching too. The problem is the whole unit. As has been pointed out over and over here - correctly - very few Super Bowl winning teams have had weapons all that much better than ours. A few, yes. Most are at the same general level, instead using an excellent QB to paper over a solid but not elite group of weapons.

I've gone through the first two pages of the thread expecting you to address the weirdness you're saying here, and so far you haven't. Did you just address it later? Or did I perhaps misunderstand what you are saying here? You say that Bull was confusing the Separation score and average yards of separation. Right? Am I understanding that correctly? Which means, I think, that you are arguing that the horizontal axis represents, as you say, "average yards of separation." I'm understanding you correctly, right? Something is very wrong if that's your argument, so maybe I'm completely misunderstanding you. If that's so, let me know, and please tell me what you're actually arguing. Because if you're arguing that the horizontal axis is yards of separation, then you believe that the Bills average separation on the chart is 0.015 yards, which is 0.54 inches of separation on the average. Which makes absolutely no sense. DBs aren't even close to that good. You would also be arguing that the most open receiver group in the league, according to the chart Lamar Jackson's WRs, average being open by 0.033 yards according to the chart, which is 1.18 inches. Really? The most open WRs average being 1.18 inches? While the Bills WRs average being open 0.54 inches? So our WRs are open about 6/10ths of an inch less than Lamar's? Sorry, man, that is absolutely ridiculous. If you go to NextGenStats, for instance, you can find that Stefon Diggs averages 2.8 yards of separation, that Gabe Davis averages the same, that Dalton Kincaid is 7th in the league at separation at 3.9. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/receiving#yards You're arguing that the NFL average separation is less than an inch? I mean, how can anyone watch the games and argue that the average defender is closer than an inch to the average pass receiver? I don't think there is a chance in hell that the horizontal axis is measuring yards of separation on that chart. It must be measuring something else. My guess is that BullBuchanan is right and that they are measuring Separation Score. But if not Separation Score, it must be something else. Yards of separation does not average out to less than an inch of separation, it just does not. But maybe I'm totally misunderstanding what you're saying. If so, please straighten me out.

IMO they're absolutely changing depth of target. Here's Week 17's charts of his routes: https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/dalton-kincaid/KIN069130/season Three of his seven targets were over 30 yards downfield. He's run a lot of 10 - 15 yard routes after about Week 6. Not many longer, but there have been a few.

Again, I think what you're demonstrating is oversensitivity. Yes we have a few guys who are simply nuts about Josh and have left any claim to neutrality and sometimes even rationality behind. There's one guy in particular, but really a group of ten or so. And fair enough, they're fruitcakes. But Josh really is very very likely to be a Hall of Famer. We're wildly lucky to have him and he's a top five guy and it's not unreasonable to say a top two guy ... though not consistent the way we'd all like to see. But that's what most of us are saying. The constant best in football talk comes from a small group of folks, several of whom write hours a day, nutty and excessive. I don't think most on here think of him as an MVP favorite any particular year, though many or most maybe think he's got a solid chance of winning one or two in his career. Which IMO is reasonable. And yeah, people predicted a game or two more than you did for the Bills, but I'd argue that if DaQuan, Milano and Tre hadn't been injured we might easily have managed that. not to mention that the slide near the end of the year last year sure liked like it might be as much an emotional reaction to one of the most bizarre, wearing and emotionally And you appear to have been very wrong when you predicted that they'd be 2 or #3 in the East this year. They could end up at #1. Your guess appears to have been the delusion, too negative, though if they lose this week I'll have to look back and Also, we've got a #2. Gabe Davis. Should we try to upgrade? Sure, at that position and most, really, but he's a #2, though probably one who's slightly below average. Yeah, it'd be nice to upgrade, but not only did they have him, but they did try to add a #2 receiver, or more specifically a guy who can eventually fill that role in Kincaid, and they had to use a 1st to pick him up and he appears to be getting better and better as he goes. We didn't look like the best team in football before the season, and few thought so beyond the usual suspect and the over-ambition most fanbases show before the season. We looked, most of us thought, like probably a top five team. That looked like an opium dream in the middle of the season for a while, bnd guess what? That now looks like we were right on target. You're not a bad guy. Just pessimistic. Nothing wrong with that. But if you're going to take on the mantle of the guy who is factual then don't go with stuff saying stuff like, "Typically what you get around here is 'the Bills are amazing and can do no wrong...' You we have won the past 3 out of 4 Superbowls and Josh has back to back MVP's.' " Let's be honest, that's counter-factual. Opinions that wild are anything but typical here, though again, there are few nuts and fruitcakes anywhere you look.

Yes, agreed. Maybe a pretty good blocker at this point, but has come a long way. Willing. Sticks his head in and works to make a difference. And TEs are much harder to correctly value than WRs (who are tough on their own. How valuable is a WR who gets open but isn't thrown to by the QB?) because a TE can be the difference between failure and success on a play where they don't touch the ball. They can make a block inside that blows open or keeps open the hole on a run play. WRs on run plays are mostly too far out of the play to make much of a difference except on edge rushes. Our good TE blocking has been part of the reason that we've been running more effectively this year. Far from the only reason, but absolutely they've made a real difference on many plays. I know you weren't saying this, Bull, but some here are comparing yardage as if that's all you have to look at. TEs are multi-faceted and carry a lot more value in blocking on inside run plays. Fans have been clamoring for a more effective inside rush for years now and when we finally get it we pretend Knox and Kincaid aren't making a difference there.

Where are all these people treating the Bills as if we "won the past 3 out of 4 Super Bowls"? That would make us the best team in football. Where are all the people saying that or anything like it? Or saying things that would make you think "Josh has back to back MVPs"? I mean, there are a few nuts on both sides, guys starting MVP threads and so on. But the overall group here I think thought the Bills looked in the middle of the season like a team not a playoff sure thing, and now sees them as a team playing like probably a top five team. Which I think is about right. They've played at that level most of the past three years or so. If you disagree, I guess that's fair enough, make the argument. But top five or so looks very reasonable to me. And that's I think how most people see us. Where are all these people that make you think they believe we look like "we have won the past 3 out of 4 Super Bowls and Josh has back to back MVPs." I think you're mostly imagining them.

They, the Bills, aren't confused in how to use him. The folks who year after year expect Bills rookies to be thrown in completely right from the beginning, they are the ones who are confused. This is how Buffalo treats its rookies, they start them slowly and ramp it up around midseason. You can disagree with that, but at this point you ought to expect it. It's what they do. It reduces mistakes and helps the whole system work better. Oh, and as for the comparison to those other TEs, the difference being that Kincaid is a rookie who was started very slowly. LaPorta is the only other rookie there. Compare Kincaid's year to Kittle's first year. Kincaid is destroying him. Kelce's first year he was effectively a red shirt, and not just because he was on the Chiefs. Njoku's rookie year didn't come close. Pitts is an exception, he was used a ton early on, but the Falcons were 7-10 that year, and he was allowed to make mistakes if it happened, as they weren't competitive. They started him very slowly. His first five weeks, he was only thrown extremely short balls, to get him to feel comfortable. They slowly increased his usage and depth of targets all year long, then he was injured in Week 14 - 16, and now he's back. This is how they do it, and if he hadn't been injured lately he'd probably have another hundred yards or so to his credit. And now he's coming into the playoffs and they haven't shown how they'll use him as more of a weapon. There's nothing wrong with this, and a lot right. Yeah, Happy. I haven't looked as carefully after this game as you have, but that's the way it looked to me too. A really nice game, and they keep loosening the leash.

Please. That figure, 40th, is if you include guys like Chris Manhertz, who has two receptions on the season for a total of 16 yards. Apparently, 10 of those 16 yards were after the catch, though, so the guy must be great. Or Kenny Yeboah, near the top of the list because he's averaging 10.0 yards of YAC on his two completions for 28 yards. Guys like Lucas Krull with 8 catches, Brycen Hopkins with 3, Stone Smartt with 9, Nate Adkins with 4, Julian Hill with 5, Brenton Strange with 5, Mitchell Wilcox with 9, MyCole Pruitt with 8, Josiah Deguara with 8 and Elijah Higgins with 12 ... Throw out guys with less than 30 catches and he's about 15th in that stat, and I don't believe any of the guys above him are rooks.

Yes, it is, it's very good. Particularly for a rookie, but generally in his situation, which is catching ball near the LOS, which is where there are generally plenty of guys waiting to close, yes, it's really good, especially considering how conservative his usage was for his first five games or so. The skill isn't running when there's no defender in front of him. It's two things, arranging things so there's nobody around him / in front of him when he catches it, and breaking/avoiding tackles. Kincaid is terrific at getting into situations where YAC is available. And at instantly heading directly upfield, even setting himself up to do that before he even makes the catch and gets his head around. Kincaid was sensational at breaking and avoiding tackles in college. He hasn't done as well at that in the NFL but he's still terrific at finding situations where he's got separation and YAC is available and exploiting them to the max. More, his YAC/R is equal to or better than Beasley's was in any but Beasley's first year here, and even then it was only a 0.6 yard difference. And that was Beasley's - what? - fifth year in the league? Kincaid's YAC/R 2023 4.3 Beasley's YAC/R 2019 4.9 2020 4.3 2021 3.7 2022 2.3

Um, no. Of his 589 yards, 282 are YAC, according to Pro Football Ref. He's kicking ass at YAC. 4.3 per reception so far. His YAC is almost as much as his yards before reception, 4.7. Kincaid is Josh's Beasley this year, his easy button.

Yup, if we were dopes.

Sorry, but saying that in one sentence and then going on to spray all over the place with Sammy Watkins references and all sorts of other things really does not make it clear that that was your point. Only that that was one of many things you were saying. And again, when you go off in many directions, people are going to reply to all of what you said, not just one sentence of it. If that is the only thing you meant, fine. I find it irrelevant. I only care deeply about whether the guy we picked does well in our system. How LaPorta does is of minor interest to me and has nothing to do with how good a pick Kincaid is, to me. None. If you care, I guess that's your business. I don't. Nor do I find the horrendous Watkins pick (more specifically the awful at first glance trade-up to get the Watkins pick) at all relevant to Kincaid. I guess even mentioning that Watkins disaster pushes my buttons. If I over-reacted, I'm sorry. Did you have to bring that up?

Oh. Well, you might want to make your point clearer then. None of us actively want that. Not that it matters much. What matters is whether Kincaid is good, not how he compares to a guy with a somewhat different skill set on a different roster with a different scheme. Kincaid shows every sign of being very very good in our scheme with our guys. LaPorta's good too. Which is pretty much irrelevant to me and I think most Bills fans. Though so far I like watching him play as well.

He's right. FAs can be much better targeted for present needs. Drafts are more for the future, particularly as good teams draft later and thus tend to get guys who are not as football ready. Oh, sorry. Even you're confused, hunh? I'll give you some time to go back and see if you can find something salvageable there.

Sorry, it was a very stupid point about Super Bowl windows.

There are indeed loads of examples throughout the league of players drafted higher than other players at their positions and being outperformed. There are also loads of examples throughout the league of players drafted higher than other players at their positions and outperforming them. Strangely, you didn't mention any of those cases, the ones that didn't fit your narrative. Which is what cherry-picking is. And again, you had to go back nine years to find your example there.

You are absolutely cracking me up here. That's precisely the definition of cherry picking. You search till you find the examples that fit your narrative and you ignore all other examples. Specifically squarely and strictly cherry-picking, not to mention that the Watkins pick was nearly a decade ago and has absolutely nothing to do with this regime. Kinda sad, and an on the nose case of cherry-picking.

I see. So somebody (you?) tried to hijack a Kincaid thread, and here I was assuming that in that Kincaid thread you might be talking about Kincaid? My bad. Should've figured you might have been completely off the point into the weeds. So I may well have missed the point, since I only looked at your post and not the ones you were replying to. Still, you were absolutely cherry picking as I suggested. Not to mention completely off the point talking about a different position and a different Bills regime.

Yes, we do. It's called cherry picking. And shouldn't be taken seriously. More, it's dumb cherry picking, comparing guys taken at #4, #7 and #12 and with complete ingenuousness wondering who can imagine why they might be better early in their careers than a guy picked at #25 who plays a position where guys genuinely start slower in their first years than do WRs recently. Just pathetic.

Yup, shoulder problems. I'm not worried in the least, myself. Week 7 43 snaps Week 8 58 snaps Week 9 52 snaps Week 10 41 snaps Week 11 51 snaps Week 12 58 snaps bye Week 14 60 snaps Week 15 33 snaps Week 16 2 snaps This ain't mysterious. He's injured, he's getting fewer snaps. He'll be fine.

Bills Chiefs Ravens in no particular order. The Browns aren't that far behind the big three, though, IMO.

Not much more to say. Exactly that. He's hit 50% on every single snap for weeks. Every snap, and way beyond 50%. Hell, I hit 50% of Von's 100%, and I'm no spring chicken. You don't get to be a pro athlete till you get to maybe 85%. The problem is that the difference between 90% and 100% is the difference between NFL average and terrific. That's why it's really hard to tell what will happen, even for doctors who spend all their time on stuff like this.