Thurman#1

Continued from last year? Yup. His good performance, his production at the level of a #2, has indeed continued from last year, except that he's improved this year. Last year he was 33rd in yardage in the NFL and tied for 15th (a 9-way tie) in TDs, putting him in the top 23 in the league ... all despite being 48th in the league in terms of targets. This year so far, he's 66th in the league in targets. And despite that he's 41st in yards and tied for 6th in TDs. So yeah, he's continuing his good #2 performance from last year. And yeah, Juju ain't on the Chiefs this year. Which has zero relevance, since I was talking about last year. Irrelevant, but it is at least true, so you got that going for you, I guess.

Well, yes, it's a three-game sample. I've said at least three times in this thread that numbers for three games are not yet statistically significant. Here's one of them: Funnily, when people on here in this thread are attacking Gabe's performance this year so far, I don't see you leaping in to tell them that three games isn't enough to judge. Why is that? Strangely, it's only when good things are said about Gabe that you jump in to save the day this way. When you're talking about Gabe's performance this year, the three games are all there is. There's nothing else to talk about. People insulted his performance this year. Of course I used the three games to point out how wrong they are. Duh. As for your belief that one, "can only conclude that this will be Gabe's last year in a Bills uniform," congratulations for giving us a superb example of confirmation bias. What that there is ... is an opinion. An opinion that might possibly turn out to be true. And equally, an opinion that could easily turn out to be utterly wrong. Anyone with a clear view of the whole situation knows that we just don't know yet. It'll depend on financial demands from both sides. It'll depend on our cap situation. And it will GREATLY depend on the rest of the season. You're right when you say it's only a three-game sample. Right. You've clearly made your mind up far far too early, with too few facts. How come it's OK for you? If Gabe is awful the rest of the year they won't want him. If he's terrific, they will want him and things will come down to contract negotiations. The most likely outcome - if he doesn't get injured - is that he'll improve somewhat and perform at the level he'd likely have performed at last year if he hadn't been injured and if Josh's arm hadn't also been injured. In that case they'll likely try to get him back, but it might easily be financially prohibitive.

Controlled contract? Yup. You don't see many teams with two WRs making $25M or more. It's too much investment in the one position. You surprised me there with Adams' age. I thought he was around 28. But no. He's close to the downslope, though not there yet.

IF he could make the cap work? Davis and a 2nd? Yeah, I'd do that. But while this year the cap could work, the next three years his salary will be $16.8M, $35.6M and $35.6M. The cap won't work out.

Sorry, man, that's dopey on the face of it. He's got two TDs. How many teams have their #2 with more than 2 TDs? That would be zero. He's got 159 yards. How many teams have their #2 with more than 159 yards? Eleven. That puts us above average for #2 WR yards. He's the #2 because he's producing like a #2. This really ain't rocket science. An upgrade from Davis won't be that easy to find without paying a lot or using an early pick. Gabe is not a one-trick pony, he's a guy who is really good at the deeper routes and is absolutely excellent at scramble drill catches and solid at intermediate balls as well. He's producing like a #2. Getting a better #2 would be a slight upgrade, not all that big of one. As for the guys we brought in ... dude, it's been THREE GAMES!!!! Give it a bit of time. We might find them disappointing but it's way too early to say at this point.

It's not that he's content with a 2 and a 1 catch game. It's that everyone - except apparently you - understands that 2 and 1 catch games happen sometimes in the NFL, particularly for guys who aren't their team's number one option at WR. JuJu Smith Schuster had three last year and he WAS their number one option in KC. Valdez-Scantling was their #2 in KC and last year he had 8 games with 2 receptions or less, and he has two so far this year, but less than half of Gabe's yards, and zero TDs to Gabe's two. How come you're only talking about receptions and ignoring yards and TDs and .... ... Oh. That's why. Ignore the positive and stress the negative, hunh? Gotcha. But even if you ignore it, Gabe is still kicking butt in TDs and doing very well in yards.

Sorry, dude, but again, saying Davis is a #3 is just dumb. It says far more about you and your preconceptions than it does about Davis. #3s produce like #3s. That's how you know they're #3s. #2 like Davis produce like #2s. That's what he did last year and he's well on his way this year to significant improvement. The Bills pass catchers look plenty good. They spent far more resources on TE this year than they did on WRs, and that shows but there's nothing wrong with it. It looks like it will give defenses plenty more good options to deal with. They produced enough to win every game this year, and it would have amounted to more if Allen hadn't had the horrible decisions against the Jets that lost us that game. An upgrade, at a reasonable level of compensation, is never a bad thing. They don't need it, but it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt anywhere on the team, really, Most needed are probably OL and tackle in particular and replacing the older guys at safety as we move forward.

While I disagree with Jones-Drew that Cook is a bell-cow (44 carries is 12 per game, and that's not a bell cow), yeah, he's having a really good start. Our whole run game looks good so far, though not so much during the Jets game. Yes, because of the 17 games a year. But not by much. A very few backs have averaged 25 carries a year or more. People always mention 25 carries a game when they talk about bell cows, but in reality it's really rare, and in the last fifteen years or so, spectacularly rare.

While I do agree wtih this, 37-3 isn't exactly a squeaker either.

That doesn't really make sense. Nobody argues Davis is a #1. Other than the three or four teams with two guys who have claims at being a #1, there really isn't a team that would get #1 production from their #2 consistently. I mean, that would be ideal, but it's not really realistic. Practically what teams do when their #1 goes down is make it up by spreading it around more, everybody gets a few more. They don't just throw the extra five or six targets to the #2 guy.

If they liked him less than me, they could cut him from the team. They could make him inactive. They could sit him on the bench. They could just not throw to him. The idea that him being 66th in targets is a red flag is ridiculous. They're throwing to him in such a way that he's OVER-producing for his targets. The idea they'd be angry or frustrated about that is flat-out nuts. Instead, they've thrown him enough passes that he's 41st in yards and tied for 6th in TDs. That is a flag alright, but a very very green one. He's number two in targets on the Bills, more than Kincaid, more than Knox, more than Cook.... Unsurprisingly, Diggs is number one. But we are an offense that has some good targets but likes to spread it around.

When you look at the guys who have YPCs close to Davis's, most of them are inconsistent. It's really hard to be inconsistent when you're catching longer balls. The QB is likely not to be able to be as accurate and things just get tougher. Catch/target ratios go down for guys who are getting thrown a lot of longer balls. And that's Davis. It would be nice if we had a guy who could do everything well. But very few guys can, and those guys get paid like #1s. Very few teams have two of them. That's just the way it is. Gabe gets big plays, and that is a very very important and valuable skill. Could you just point out where I said he was a burner? I didn't. I did say that he does run past guys consistently. The reason I said that is because he does run past guys consistently. It's one of the reasons he often gets open deep. I'm not going to argue the measurables. I'm arguing that he gets open deep, that he's effective and productive. He is. This is what makes him a very legit #2.

Thing is, it takes more than you capitalizing the word "ARE" to make a statement true. They are not deficient. If they were deficient, he couldn't do the job, and yet he can and does. Well enough that pretty much everyone agrees that he's likely to get a contact in the eight figures per year range. He could be better, as could everyone, really. But he's not deficient.

Richard, you're a great poster. But come on. Production doesn't mean you're playing well? Dude, that's ridiculous. You can have all the opportunity you want and you still either end up producing ... or not. Plenty of guys who get opportunities fail with them. Davis is succeeding. As for receiving opportunities, let's look at both last year and this year. Last year he was 33rd in yardage in the NFL and tied for 15th (a 9-way tie), putting him in the top 23 in the league in TDs ... all despite being 48th in the league in terms of targets. In other words, he got an awful lot more production than his opportunities would have led you to expect. 33rd and tied for 15th are both excellent production for having the 48th most opportunities in the league. This year so far, he's 66th in the league in targets. And despite that he's 41st in yards and tied for 6th in TDs. He's OVER-producing for the opportunities he's had. And projected season numbers have a great deal to do with efficacy. Everything, really. They are produced directly from his productivity. He's been very productive. That's why his projected effectiveness is high.

You know what they call a number 3 receiver masquerading as a number 2? They call them a number two. If you can do the things a number two can - and Gabe absolutely does - you're a #2. And the people who call you a #3 are wrong. Gabe is currently on track for 901 yards and 11.3 TDs. That would make him 27th in yards and put him in a four-way tie for 3rd in TDs if you put him into last year's rankings. Now in reality three games isn't a big enough sample size. We don't really know how he'll do yet. Duh. But he's performing well. He just is.

Ability doesn't equal skills. It's a ton of different things, how hard you work, mental processing ability, fitness, strength. Fit with the QB and the system. There's a lot to it. But Josh loves him, there's no question about fit with Josh. And he absolutely does have speed, that's not a question either. Not Tyreek speed, or even close, but he gets open deep a lot and a lot of the time it's because he outruns his guy. But without the skills, you don't even get in the door. Gabe's got skills, and a lot of them. It would certainly be nice if we had - outside of Diggs - yet another guy with #1 skills. But very very few teams are in that position, particularly teams that consistently draft later than #20. Very true. However, that's not Gabe, Gabe has stepped up. He's a #2, and a productive one. For a 4th round pick, that is without question stepping up bigtime. It's not clear that they'll re-sign him. They want to, but they absolutely won't be able to make all the moves they'd like to and retain everyone they would retain in an ideal world.

All things absolutely equal? Daboll. But if Daboll was fired - chances are close to zero right now, but for the sake of argument - the Bills would keep Dorsey. He deserves the chance for at least the rest of the year, he knows the guys, and firing him now would be a crappy move that would have repercussions on what coaches would sign with us. Not to mention that Dorsey is doing well so far this year.

Thank you. Yes, exactly. Einstein was seriously spinning. The starting offense kept the Commanders really good DL on the back foot the whole game. The starting offense maybe wasn't great, but they were very good. They wore down the Commanders D and that's why near the end of the game they were getting what they wanted. And yes, Einstein's comparison to the Broncos offense was simply ridiculous. The Broncos were in desperation mode from the 1st quarter, throwing wildly. We very much were not. If anything we were battening down, running a ton. Of course their Yards per Play was high. They were awful. We were really really good.

He's right, of course. Defense and STs absolutely do make a huge difference, whether negative or positive. Over the course of a season, those will cause wins and losses.

I think the Dolphins looked very good but that score was just as much about Denver looking really really bad. I mean, two of those TDs came on one drive that went three yards total and one that went eight yards total. Take those away and it's 56 points, which is still fantastic but not epochal. And the Broncos looked unable to make tackles. I'd put the Fins as top five, but not #1. They still have a lot more to prove. This is an interesting thread. Thanks, everyone.

You're very kind. I don't consider myself a heavyweight, and certainly not Transie either. Kick in any time, I enjoy your posts. As to your points, what Transie said about Tyrod Taylor is totally relevant. He made a dumb mistake (that lasted YEARS for him), based on his misunderstaning that completion percentage means accuracy. He just simply would not hear that the reason Taylor had a high completion percentage was that he was throwing shorter more easily completed passes and that teams took a while to learn how to defense him and his completion percentage for his first half season was greatly raised by that. It's pretty much the exact same mistake he has continued making over and over ever since. He look at Allen's college stats and before the draft spent months telling us how awful Allen was going to be as a pro, finally saying he had no chance. Mostly because of completion percentage. And I'm sorry, but the fact that Archie Manning played a long time ago does zero to refute his relevance as an example. You're absolutely right that the game has changed. But tell me, how has accuracy changed since Manning's day? Does it mean something different? Do they judge accuracy differently? Do they calculate completion percentage differently? They do not. He is the classic example on this, a very accurate QB who played on an awful team with a crappy OL and poor receivers. His completion percentage suffered greatly as a result. It's a perfectly good example, and still relevant. But there are plenty more. David Carr was also really accurate, but ended up with poor completion percentages for the same reason. Elway didn't have a good completion percentage. Favre's completion percentage was wildly unstable his whole career. Lamonica was one of the most accurate deep ball guys of all time. Bad completion percentage. Steve Young was accurate. Great completion percentage. Except when he was not in a great situation. Bad completion percentage in the first half of his career, and then a miraculous turnaround where he either became more accurate or found a good team and system to put up excellent completion percentages. John Elway is tied for 115th for career completion percentage. He was a very accurate QB on a really underwhelming offense. Here are Elways' completion percentage rankings for each year of his career: 28th, 14th, 16th, 14th, 18th, 16th, 16th, 6th, 25th, 20th, 3rd, 7th, 16th, 5th, 19th, 11th. By completion percentage he was really average for his time. Which is nonsense. More, Allen himself is a great example. Awful completion percentage in college. Awful his first year in Buffalo. Still bad his second. Excellent his third. Below 20th best in his fourth and fifth years. Unless you think Allen was actually well below average at accuracy among starters the last couple of years, you have to understand that completion percentage just doesn't equal accuracy. It just doesn't. Agreed there's no real way of judging accuracy, certainly by stats. Have a great Fins week.

Again, I did not list that Knox catch in the end. It certainly was not a good or particularly accurate throw, but it wasn't bad enough But the two throws I did list were absolutely not present "in just about any game" from an accurate QB. Both were very short passes. Both completely out of reach of the WR. And the ball to Cook was right to a defender, who luckily didn't hold onto it. I listed them again below: Look at the throw to Diggs on the slant at Q1 12:35 in the Jets game, way behind him. Or Q12 at 9:15 to Cook against the Jets. Short little pass across the middle, open, thrown to the defender. Probably five to six feet left and high on a pass to a guy four feet beyond the LOS.

My posts make sense over the years because I'm older. True enough. Thing is ... as I grew older I kept examining my methods of thought. It's quite clear you haven't looked at your mistakes. You, the young guy, said that Tyrod Taylor was "near -elite." I told you over and over you were wrong. You went on and on about it, how he was going to be the Bills franchise guy for 15 years, how he as top ten, on and on and on and on. Then before the 2018 draft you said Josh Allen had no chance of being a successful NFL QB. So yeah, I think like an older guy, getting wiser with my years. Whereas you have been consistently, relentlessly wrong in virtually all of your opinions about QBs over the years. You were wrong. I was right. I'll take growing older and learning from mistakes any time time over being younger, wrong and inflexible. The sad thing with you is that you haven't learned from your mistakes. All of your dumber opinions about Tyrod were based on how his completion percentage was high and that was super-important. Then your remarkably bad, sad take on Allen before the draft that there was zero chance he'd ever be a decent NFL QB was also based greatly on how his completion percentage was low and how important that was. Sure, you always moved the goal posts, with nonsense like you did here about throwing other stats in next to completion percentage. But that was dumb thinking then, and it's still dumb thinking now. Consistently through the years you've been horrible on QBs, and a great deal of it comes down to how consistently and sadly you overestimate the importance of Completion Percentage. Oh, and once again, thanks for coming up with the formula you suggested above ("accuracy combined with YAC," dunderheaded on the face of it in that it's not "accuracy," it's completion percentage). That formula rates Josh Allen's accuracy in 2021 and 2022 as 27th best in the league. Most people think Josh is quite a bit more accurate than that, but I'm sure we all really appreciate having it proven by you that he was one of the least accurate in the league the last couple of years. 'Preciate the knowledge bomb. 27th most accurate QB in the league, two years running. Got it!!! I can only stand in the radiance of your intellect.

Why do people not get this? He's too expensive. We don't have the cap space. It's not impossible. But it's punitive for the future. You're right that anyone who picks him up will not have to deal with the signing bonus, making him cheaper. But not cheap. He'd be $19.965M x (14/17) this year Then $15.8M next And $14.85 the year after. Not counting workout and roster bonuses, which aren't much, but do add a bit. Not to mention the 1st rounder. Chances are probably non-zero, but not by much. That's ridiculous, seriously. He's absolutely a #2. You're not a #3 when you're 30th in the league in yards despite being 41st in targets, when you're tied for 12th in TDs, and you accomplish all that with an injury that greatly decreases your ability in a large chunk of the season. It simply is not so. Fair enough he's not one of the best #2s. He's not. But he is a #2.

Yeah, really sweet!