Thurman#1

It is fair, yup. But the same - lost opportunities - can be said of any team that makes the playoffs - or comes close - without winning the SB. Andy Reid had a lot more than three years of lost opportunities as an HC till things came together for him. And he's very far from the only one. But yeah, it certainly is a fair statement.

No offense to you, but no you couldn't. None of us could. You're kidding yourself.

They do.

I think you used the right words. You "refuse to believe" it. But regardless of what you are willing to believe, it extremely likely had a real effect. Fair enough they weren't right. Particularly the last two or three games. These traumas were almost certainly a real part of the reason why. Though of course the injuries on defense and particularly with Von Miller were certainly another very real bit of it. Oh, and Hamlin wasn't in good shape by then. They knew he wasn't going to die, but "in good shape" is overstating it. He was brought into the stadium on a golf cart as I remember it. Nor does trauma just go away when you learn the person is going to live. And Knox's brother wasn't in good shape. After the game several guys separately talked about a lack of energy and juice and just not being able to get started. "Guys were exhausted during the week." "You almost run out of gas." Players “haven’t been able to take a breath since the Damar situation.” The Bills have played badly a few times but this was the first time we've heard stuff like that.

Clearly we're agreed that the financial future impact should be a part of this decision. We agree on that much at least. But, no, that's not what I'm saying. Your point addresses need, or at least that's what you said in your first sentence here. Mine does not. I'm saying that regardless of need, or value for that matter, the fact that you can afford something IN NO WAY necessarily means it's a good idea to buy it. And yes, people do understand that the Bills are capable of affording the decision. It is exactly the fact that so many think that whether we can afford it is the right question that has created all of those posts. Again, whether we can afford it is NOT the right question. Again, I can afford that $1.3M De Tomaso. But it would be a spectacularly stupid financial decision for me to do so regardless of the fact that the De Tomaso is absolutely worth every penny. Eventually I'd be the owner of a De Tomaso living under a bridge. Because you can find the money does NOT mean it's a good financial decision to do so. I'm concerned we're talking past each other, at least a bit, so I'm going to disengage here. See you around the boards. Good luck.

Come on, no way you can be so confident about what's causing a very small difference in a stat like completion percentage. Guys who are consistently getting such deep targets consistently don't have completion percentages as high. That's not the complete story of course, but it's a major reason why the completion percentage is what it is. You can't pretend there aren't a million things impacting completion percentages, including how well the QB is throwing and whether he has a problem with his throwing arm, for instance. Or that his Y/R was his highest ever. And because a guy doesn't have something in his skill set now doesn't mean he can't change and develop that skill set. It isn't necessarily possible, and certainly not in every case. But it happens.

For the millionth time, yeah, they can afford it. And if I maxed out the credit cards, I can afford a De Tomaso P72. All I have to do i go to 100 banks or so and get a credit card in each and max 'em all out. Again, whether you can afford it is NOT the question. The question is whether it's a good idea to afford it. And it would not be a good idea for me to afford that De Tomaso. Nor would it be a good idea for the Bills to spend the king's ransom Hopkins is almost certainly demanding. People completely and fully underestand that the Bills can afford it. And that affording it doesn't mean it won't cause financial havoc to do it.

Or they change their opinions - very reasonably - as facts and situations change. That's what thoughtful people should do, the intelligent process, as the world changes.

It's not clickbait. If he says that's what he thinks, it's what he thinks. Doesn't mean it's anything more than one man's opinion, though.

The stuff you're calling facts here are indeed facts, but facts carefully chosen to fit your own narrative. Fair enough, but let's not pretend that they're telling the whole story. Anytime a coordinator switches systems, and from a defense that wasn't good anyway, the first year is likely to be pretty bad. It was for McDermott. After that he had four very good years in a row, followed by a bad one. As I pointed out above (and for years and years here, and it's not a thought original to me) Points Allowed is probably 30 - 40% offense and special teams. The way to isolate defense as much as possible is to look at yards. That's why they rank the team with the fewest yards allowed as the best defense. It's not perfect, nothing is, but it's significantly better than points allowed, which is more of a team metric. And in his 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th years, their defense ranked in the top ten. That's consistency and effectiveness. Also fair to point out that his 6th year had a massive drop. That has to be considered as well. Oh, and part of the reason the schedules have looked so easy is because we have dominated the division, giving each of those three teams two losses most years. The more effective your team is, the less effective your field of opponents will look after the season because of the lickings you put on so many of them. It is legit to say that we may have had some easy-looking schedules those years. But a team can only play who they're scheduled against. And in DVOA, which accounts for easy schedules, we've been consistently rated very high the last four years. We weren't the only team interested in him at that time. That's because he was considered a very fine DC.

And again, neither did Reid's. Till they did. And he's not the only one. Madden, Cowher and Landry are the examples that spring immediately to mind, but look at Dungy. Look at Coughlin. Look at Vermeil, who made it four times, was fired because they thought he couldn't take a team to the Super Bowl, and then .... If you think there is evidence in that post, your definition of the word needs work. You provided your own opinion. That's not evidence for anyone but you. Heh. Yes. In fairness, so do they all. Even the ones who win SBs.

Typical. "It's just wrong," followed by no evidence. Just dumb. But typical. And there is plenty of "yeah, but," including the ones you used in your previous posts. You folks want to be able to use all the "yeah, buts" for other coaches, but when people point out that that's exactly as legitimate to use for McDermott, suddenly the stuff you constantly throw out for guys Reid, can not be used for McDermott because they're excuses or better yet, "tired old excuses." But for Reid, though they're even older and tireder, somehow they're OK for you. Utter nonsense.

Donovan McNabb was a top QB too. Not elite, but plenty good enough to win a Super Bowl with. Andy has teams that were good enough to win a Super Bowl in Philly. He didn't break through. There's always a "yeah, but". Always, in any situation, failure or success. Reid had teams that were good enough but didn't break through. Till they did. Again, there's always a "yeah, but." Always. Want me to list them for McDermott? I can. There are plenty. Reid was in position to win. Several times. And he didn't. Until he did.

He really did have success as a DC. That's why he was a top contender for HC jobs for a couple of years. Averaging those stats doesn't really present a full or fair picture. Throw out his first year for example, when he didn't have the pieces in place, and the average gets much better. 14.4th in points and 9.8th in yards. And as I've been pointing out for decades now, Points Against is as much a team stat as a defensive stat. Points scored by opponent defenses count against your own defense in this stat. If your QB throws a pick six, somehow your defense has seven more points charged against it. The opponent runs back a punt or a kick for a TD? Your defense's Points Allowed goes up by seven points. On the face of it, that's dumb. And that doesn't even include the fact that where the opponent's offense gets the ball is a huge factor in the likelihood of scoring points. If your RB fumbles and their team recovers on your own 20 yard-line, the EPA for your team is minus 5.5 points. Starting at your opponent's 20 gives you an EPA of minus 0.2. It's a huge difference and it simply means that when it comes to how many points teams score against your defense, your own offense and STs have a large share of that. If your quarterback is sacked on fourth down at your own one-yard-line and the defense knocks them back to the four in three plays and they kick a field goal, that's a tremendous stand by your defense that looks like a failure in PA, as it shows the defense as allowing three points. Yards do a much much greater job in isolating the performance of the defense. If the other team runs back a kick for a TD, it doesn't affect the defense's Yards Allowed, which is exactly what should happen to isolate defensive performance. Your QB is sacked in the end zone? No affect on Yards Allowed, but somehow your team's defense is charged two points in Points Allowed. Leodis fumbles a kick and it's recovered on the five yard line and they drive the five yards and score a TD? Your defense is charged five yards, which is what they should be charged for. Yard Allowed is a much better measure of defensive success, and McDermott's YA figures in Carolina look like this: 2011 28th rookie season with a scheme switch 2012 10th 2013 2nd 2014 10th 2015 6th 2016 21st That still leaves a very serious drop in 2016. That absolutely has to be taken into any consideration. But four years of being a top ten D is sustained success. That's why he was a top head coaching candidate. He was very successful.

No. No particular reason to make that comparison as opposed to an Andy Reid before he won a Super Bowl comparison.

Not with Knox's contract. It's the K & K era.

No.

It's not an excuse. It's an explanation. And it's not getting old. You're getting sick of hearing it despite the fact that it makes a ton of sense, that it fits the facts better than anything else. You're sick of hearing it because it busts your narrative. If old matters, your blame-shaming is just as old but stupider. That chart you post about how we didn't have as many injuries as some other teams? Where's the chart about which teams had the most important injuries. With Von Miller we looked like a Super Bowl favorite. Without him a possible contender. The guys we lost on defense were some of the most important players for us, the ones we could least afford to lose, Hyde, Miller and Da'Quan in the Bengals game are crucial pieces for us. And some of the guys who still gutted it out and played as well as they could but well below their usual standard, Phillips, with one arm, replacing Da'Quan, Tre' White just not able to play anywhere near his standard even though he was on the field, and Jordan Poyer looking like a Buffalo rather than a shark, were also key pieces. That chart is deceptive, because some games missed due to injuries are much more important than others and we lost some of our most important players. And pretending that chart is very accurate about quality of players lost is ridiculous. It determines value by AV. And AV is OK at summing up careers, but not particularly accurate at all with picking out value to a team in any particular season. On defense we lost a lot of our most valuable players and several of the ones injured but playing were not able to play close to their usual level. Where's the chart about which other teams had guys die on the field? Seriously, where's that chart? Where's the chart about how many other teams had player's brothers, healthy college football players, die during the season? Where's the chart about mass shooters? Or the one about all the other teams that had home games moved to away stadiums, or the one about all the other teams that had never in NFL history had so many away games in so few days as we did in Weeks 11 - 13. Is this a "so everything's OK" get out of jail free card? No, they still had a bad game, but anyone who doesn't realize that all this and the blizzards and the rest of it was a huge factor is busier pushing a narrative than actually noticing how the world works. If you don't see that that season was one of the hardest most draining seasons in NFL history ... you just don't get it.

Can they see the forest for the trees? It's hard to tell. They're too busy saying that that thing over there isn't a forest or trees, it's a burnt-out ruin of what could have been a forest.

IMO, this likely isn't the whole rule, it's just saying how one term from the rule will be interpreted differently than it has been in the past.

It'll depend on the wording. Perhaps the OP's article misstated slightly. I see the rule elsewhere this way: "By Competition Committee; to make the penalty for illegally handing the ball forward consistent with other illegal acts, such as illegal forward passes." That's a whole different thing. As of right now, "illegal forward handoff" refers NOT to handoffs made behind the LOS, but to handoffs made AFTER a completed forward pass. The correct wording will be huge.

The wording of the rule will be key. In two different articles, they worded it this way, "Proposed by Competition Committee: Make the penalty for illegally handing the ball forward consistent with other illegal acts, such as illegal forward passes." In a 3rd, Jack Deignan has it the same way the OP's article does. https://clutchpoints.com/nfl-news-rule-changes-2023-season We'll need to see the exact wording. It does seem to be a big change depending which wording is correct. As things stand now, an "illegal forward handoff" is only called after a completed forward pass is followed by a handoff. In that case you can't hand forward. The wording of the rule will be key. In two different articles, they worded it this way, "Proposed by Competition Committee: Make the penalty for illegally handing the ball forward consistent with other illegal acts, such as illegal forward passes." In a 3rd, Jack Deignan has it the same way the OP's article does. https://clutchpoints.com/nfl-news-rule-changes-2023-season We'll need to see the exact wording. It does seem to be a big change depending which wording is correct. As things stand now, an "illegal forward handoff" is only called after a completed forward pass is followed by a handoff. In that case you can't hand forward. The wording of the rule will be key. In two different articles, they worded it this way, "Proposed by Competition Committee: Make the penalty for illegally handing the ball forward consistent with other illegal acts, such as illegal forward passes." In a 3rd, Jack Deignan has it the same way the OP's article does. https://clutchpoints.com/nfl-news-rule-changes-2023-season We'll need to see the exact wording. It does seem to be a big change depending which wording is correct. As things stand now, an "illegal forward handoff" is only called after a completed forward pass is followed by a handoff. In that case you can't hand forward.

When you ask a yes/no question, you have to accept when everyone says no. And it should tell you the question had a very very obvious answer. I'm wirh everyone. They have a good circumstance and a chance to be better, maybe eve a lot better. But a lock? This early in the off-season? No, absolutely no way.

That makes me trust him more. He doesn't pretend to know more than he does.

Please, that language you're using isn't clearly asking the correct question. It's spinning and obfuscating. "If we had elite talent, do you think they would be taking them off the field as much as possible?" Um, no. As much as possible, would be no snaps. So, no, you wouldn't keep your elite talent entirely on the bench. But that answer is the result of a poorly phrased question. But if we had elite talent, would we platoon them? Yes. And it's not even a question. They've said they would, again and again. They've showed they would again and again. And Von Miller is elite talent and they platooned him. The rate they'd rest them at changes, depending on age, injury status and how banged up they are, opponent, matchups and lots of other things. And the majority of teams in the league platoon DLs. This isn't something unusual. And McDermott has done it not sometimes or most of the time as the OP said, but all the time. The DL with the highest snap percentage in McDermott's tenure was Kyle Williams in 2017, at 68%, with Hughes at 66% the same year, and nobody else ever that high.