Thurman#1

Winning the Super Bowl is NOT in opposition to being competitive every year. It's just not. The more shots at the brass ring you have the better. Did Allen say something along the lines of wanting to win this year? Or did he say something along the lines of wanting to win this year even if it hurts our odds in future years? Wanting to win this year is something they all have in common.

I think you're right that it could be a really good signing for them. My guess is that he doesn't put them over the top, though. We'll see. Um, where did I, or Beane or McDermott, say different? We did not. The quotation I referenced is about how to best accomplish that. And players have, as they should, much more of a one year at a time focus that a GM should have. That's as it should be.

Makes sense to me, but I think Hopkins was always likely to settle for very good rather than terrific facilities and $15M or so extra to find private care that would fill the gap,

We're NOT in a "win-now Super Bowl window." This is simply not a team that believes in sacrificing the future for the present. And thank Goodness for that. We're in a Super Bowl window which has a good chance of lasting for many years .... if they don't go nut with their spending. They are already $25M (OvertheCap.com) to $41M(Spotrac) OVER the cap for next year. Spending a lot of money is not, and should not be, a priority. Folks are right that Hopkins is likely to be a very good player even if not what he used to be. But paying the money he got would have hurt us down the road. Significantly. And the point is NOT what is the move that gets us to the next level. They've made it clear - right from the press conferences upon their being hired, but also every time when they've been asked since - that they want to be competitive every year. That's their goal. Whether it's yours or not.

Neither sad, nor true. They did sign a DE. His contract was about half of what Floyd got. That's why they signed him instead of DHop. What surprise, that DHop signed for a lot, somewhere else, for a team that's not especially contending for a Super Bowl. I myself am deeply shocked by what most knew would happen actually happening, for the obvious financial reasons.

Statistics like this for one year have a very large element of randomness. Teams which repeat something like this year after year may legitimately have some kind of problem, perhaps a psychological inability of some kind. The fact that in 2021 the Bills were #1 in the NFL in Red Zone scoring percentage tells you that the Bills are not a team with this kind of problem. They are a team that had a bad year ... worse late, and it happened in a year when their all-world QB hurt his throwing arm and couldn't throw well short, which is the kind of throw you have to make in the red zone.

Interesting stuff, man, thank you. (This is not sarcasm.) Hadn't thought of things like insurance policies. I doubt most players would want the team giving them stuff like this, as it's the team spending the player's money for them. And it sounds like the team is paying for travel, board and lodging for offseason workout programs and such. Which seems fairly obvious, but I hadn't thought of it at all. Makes total sense, particularly for players way down the roster. That would be necessary for a lot of them to even come.

Can't get there on Twitter. Tried five times and keep getting tech messages. Love seeing that. It's a good point. And more, our sample size on Dorsey is still really small. At the very least he still has a lot to prove. And you're right that coordinator impact is really really hard to measure.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's not true. He broke his clavicle at Wyoming and missed a season. Happened on a run. And in 2018 he got a concussion from Pats CB Jonathan Jones. Downfield, running. He has been injured in the pocket. But also running.

I don't see a lot of fear mongering, but if it's out there, it's probably overblown. Having said that, Cam Newton started out his pro career very healthy as well. Only missed two starts in his first five years, and Josh probably should have taken a week or so off after his arm injury last year. It'll be a bit of a balancing act for Josh and for the Bills. Improving the OL is a good first step in helping.

This is the thing. The players and the team created this. The very fact that we're on here talking about it, and that there have been a bunch of threads about it, points out what's what. Fans are interested, because there's something there. Fans are talking, and fan interest guarantees media interest. As it should. This is also a pretty reasonable take. There probably isn't a lot here. But is there a possibility this explodes into a big problem at some point? Yeah. Diggs may not have been angry with Allen, and there may not be any long-lasting issues resulting. But Diggs is a very emotional guy, and serious troubles are one of the possible outcomes here. The widespread awareness of that is why people are talking about it.

Yeah, you're right. He was terrific. And anyone who thinks player opinions are the main thing that decides whether a sportswriter is good just doesn't get it. If you want the players to love you, just write about how terrific they are, even when they're not. You won't be a good sportswriter, but the players will really appreciate you.

Not sure I understand why you're so offended. Sully was a good writer. Cranky, but we could use more of him. Mind you, that last remark that got him fired really was pure dumb. But he was a good one. Thad's OK, but not as interesting as Sully. "Offended." "Stroppy." Reading only Brown's tweet, there's zero indication of emotion there. Legit opinions on both sides here, but let's not pretend that that little tweet on a tiny little issue showed he was upset. I get it's the off-offseason and certainly everyone's bored. But there's not really anything here.

Yes. Good post.

And if an LT was out, ticket sales would drop like a stone?

Burrow threw 12 last year, Josh 14. But in the last 3 years, Burrow threw 5 (in 9 games), 14 and 12, while Josh, with two years more in the league, threw 10, 15 and 14. And in Allen's last three years he has 30 fumbles compared to Burrow's 20. There are reasons for the turnover reputation. At this point, Allen is no longer judged by pre-draft talk, he just isn't. There was a time when he was, in his first two or three years, but that time is long past.

Josh's is stronger. But before the injuries Peyton had one of the strongest arms in the league. Excerpt from Polian's book: "I began to focus on every pass in his career that traveled more than 40 yards and what I found out was that, once the ball got beyond 60 yards, he started losing accuracy. "[The trainer] has an arm-strength drill whereby he stands the quarterback on the goal line and has a receiver facing him five yards away. The quarterback has to throw to the receiver using only his arm; he isn't allowed to step into his throw or use his feet in any way. And after each throw, the receiver moves back in 5-yard increments until he eventually reaches the 50-yard line.... "[The trainer] put Peyton through the arm-strength drill, and his pass to the 50-yard line was on a rope. Peyton's arm was among the strongest I have seen. It maybe was not quite as strong as Jim Kelly's, but certainly strong enough. Interestingly, Peyton threw what we call a 'heavy ball,' meaning it has a lot of rotation on it, which was quite interesting because guys with weaker arms usually don't throw a heavy ball. When you catch a heavy ball, your hands sting because it comes out with some heat on it. "I remember turning to Tom Moore and saying, '[Leaf's] arm is not as strong as Peyton's.' "'I think you're right,' Tom said."

When? The '20 Colts game, when they strangled the Colts offense on that final drive when it was do or die. And the Ravens the same year. And the '21 Pats game. And forgiving the offense because it's OK to give up when it looks like the defense is having a poor game while you the offense are having an absolutely wretched game makes zero sense at all. Please. Makes just as much sense to say that you "might lose some momentum too," when you yourself realized your own unit couldn't score that day. And against Cincy, the D held the Bengals to their average score, while our offense scored ten points less than the Bengals D usually allowed. The offense was MORE responsible for that loss than the D. Though neither side played well. That was a team loss but the offense was significantly worse.

Both, same as always. And I at least am not surprised to hear people put down the playoff offense last year. We scored 10 points against Cincy. Is there really anybody out there who didn't notice the offense was a lot worse than the D against the Bungles. It ain't the defense. And it ain't the offense. It's the Buffalo Bills.

All of this makes sense to me. My knee jerk is to hate them, but this seems OK to me. Not that I spent a lot of time watching them last year. "up to" $33M. It's all in the details. The picture will become clearer as we see the numbers.

That's one way to look at it. May be the correct way. But maybe not. Maybe he was sick and tired and felt Diggs needed a slap on the ass which then brought him back to the table and moved things in the right direction. No way to know for those of us not inside. But either one could be correct.

Oh, come on, man. He screamed at Allen on the sidelines. He left the locker room, had to be dragged back in and left again. He took the Bills off of whatever social media like list that people who care about social media take people they aren't happy with off of. He didn't come to the offseason workouts. And then when he finally did come he didn't go on the field. He didn't answer questions and address it. One "it's no problem. I had some stuff to do and it's not mandatory," and the whole thing blows over. He sends out all these cryptic tweets. It went on and on, and that's just exactly what he knew would happen. This isn't a media thing. It's Diggs stirring the pot (lightly, but he's stirring) and the media reporting it, which is their job. Fans were all over it too, why wouldn't the media be? This is news. Oh, and sending those tweets and taking the Bills off of his social media thingamajig wasn't handling it in house. This is news. If only one had happened, maybe not. But all of them? It's a guy who to some degree is unhappy, a guy who when previously unhappy forced himself out of one team. It's news. Most likely news that will disappear but that could have happened months ago with one "It ain't no thing" tweet, a tweet which never came.

Nah, bad comparison. For several reasons. First, Dungy's Colts didn't start with a rebuild, they reloaded and were immediately a damn good team. McDermott and Beane rebuilt. They were not Super Bowl competitive for the first three years. Which is what happens with rebuilds nearly always. Second, if McDermott were in a critical year they simply wouldn't have given him the new contract. You're confusing your opinion with Pegula's. His is the important one, and he very clearly disagrees with you. Third, Allen was not elite or close till the last three years. Not five. Fourth, Andy Reid had a bonafide franchise QB in Philly. McNabb was not elite, no Josh Allen. But a franchise guy? Without question. Reid won his first SB way way way after year five.

Nice point.

First, the data is not there. There might be enough data at this point to be meaningful in terms of yes/no questions. But not enough for nuance. Second, your extrapolations from the data don't particularly make sense. You say that the fact that the most frequent timeline is two years, followed by five years, "suggests that many coaches are capable of assembling a Super Bowl worthy team within the first five years of their tenure." And that's not what the data suggests. You are putting all of the responsibility for getting there on the coaches. Which is just dumb. What that actually suggests is something much much closer to "There just isn't enough data here to think that any of these trends mean much of anything. But if we analyze the data and pretend there's enough, what it says is that sometimes coaches win early and sometimes they win late. The fact that some win early shows it's possible, and the fact that some don't win till late shows that some guys who are perfectly capable of winning SBs don't get the right situation till late. Meaning for why some win late and some win early can't begin to be determined from the data. Situation, luck of playoff and Super Bowl opponent and how the matchups work, injuries, talent of lineup, talent and maturity of lineup in the year the coach takes over, whether the coach comes in with a GM doing a rebuild or a reload, and many many more factors play in. And coach is certainly one of those factors. That's about all that one can reasonably say." Something along those lines. If you assume, as you did, that this is all on the coaches, you're simply avoiding looking at the world as it is, you're giving in to confirmation bias. Some coaches come in in good situations where it's more possible to have big success early. Some don't. Some have terrible luck in opponents who they don't match up well with in playoff battles. Some don't. Coaches who are implementing a rebuild are going to have a harder time early and if it's a good rebuild, an easier time later, which is the raison d'etre of a rebuild. You've got a million factors affecting things, and only a bit under 60 data points, with results which are widely spread out. There's not enough here for data significance in the question you're asking. You can get good data on average time before Super Bowl appearance. That will have some predictive value on the same number in the future. But none of this affects the question of how long a leash should be. There's no way to know the reason why a coach took so long to get there. Were most of the factors beyond his control? No way to know.