Thurman#1

No. It is not monopoly money. It is money from our future cap years. We can and will free up some money. But doing so does hurt us, and Beane is aware of that and doesn't go overboard on it. Yes.

This much I can totally agree with. They still look like a really tough team, but without Von Miller I'm considerably less arrogant about their chances. But yeah, I'm nervous every game the last half of the season even though they look really good.

Um, no. That's really not the question at all. One of many questions might be, does that stat from NFL LIve directly disagree with what Bill said. And the answer would be, "Um, no, of course they don't. Whoever tries to pretend they do is spinning like a centrifuge." Specifically addressing NFL Live's stat that you quote, there are about six or seven relevant questions. Question 1: The most basic question. Is it true that "Mac was 17-17 in their scoring drives." NO. That is false. Take another look at the play-by-play as I did. I've counted at least two INCs so far in those drives and I stopped there. So I guess that at least so far, I'd have to say that apparently NFL Live knows less than just about anybody about the stat they cited (or you misheard or misreported). Question 2: Even assuming they did well in the air on four drives, does that mean they did well in the whole game? Um, that's self-evident. Of course the answer is no. Question 3: How many drives did they have? Eleven. Question 4: If you did well in four drives out of eleven, does that mean you did well? Um, duh. Question 5: Did they do well in the passing game when they managed 234 yards on 40 throws with 3 INTs? Again, um, duh. Not awful. But certainly not good. Question 6: Did NFL LIve actually say @the Bills are going nowhere with the Defense playing like this"? Hard to say. You quoted them on two things, and the other one is wrong, and you've got no link for this. Can you produce a link? It's hard to imagine why anyone would say that about a defense that has allowed 17.8 PPG in the last five games and is DVOA's fourth best defense. The fact is they had four scoring drives, one of which started from the Bills nine yard-line. 23 points when you had one drive start nine yards away from the goal line just is not very impressive.

If you don't care what the stats say, it's because you've got an agenda. Stats don't say it all. But they absolutely do tell a lot of the picture. Jones didn't exploit the Bills secondary. Three INTs. 243 yards. This simply isn't especially good. Did they have some good moments? Yeah. But that's nearly always what even really bad games look like. Some good moments, but not especially effective overall. Saying they went through us like a knife through butter - which is what I was replying to - is just nonsense.

I know. Mac Jones carved us up like a knife through butter. You know how those knives are always throwing 3 INTS as they cut through butter. 243 yards!!! WOW!! Joe Montana-esque!!! I thought he was Dan Marino and Pat Mahomes combined out there!!! 5.85 Yards per attempt in the passing game. 75.3 passer rating. That's how the passer ratings look when knives carve through butter, isn't it? And 23 points scored!!!!!!!!! He was downright Peyton Manning-esque out there!!! It almost looked like they'd sneaked Brady into Mac's jersey!!! You are delusional. Seriously.

Teams have managed an 80.1 passer rating against our defense this year. That's 4th best in the league. Considering the injuries of Von Miller, Hyde and several CBs, they're playing exceptionally well. Hell, they're playing well even if you leave the injuries out of it. The ship doesn't need to be righted, but adjusting the set of the sails just a bit is a good idea for nearly every team.

They pretty much are the same, as McNasty pointed out above. Except more wins against a much harder schedule despite far more injuries. They pretty much are the same, as McNasty pointed out above. Except more wins against a much harder schedule despite far more injuries. Beside the point. You said we lost the first five minutes, and therefore, "There is no way we would have pulled that game out." You actually said that. Which was pure dumbosity, and he was right to point it out. The first five minutes of a game doesn't mean much unless after that first five minutes you're down 21 or something. We weren't. Sure, the Bengals tore our offense up early, but so did the Bears. So did a bunch of other teams right at the start. We had every chance to win that Bengals game. No way to know for sure, but I thought we would. You are right - no question - that if we play the Bengals in the playoffs, as it looks like we will, it shapes up as a tough game. But we'll be the favorites, and for good reason.

This is the worry for me. The rest of the team is really working. And when Von was healthly you just had the sense that they'd get a sack just when they needed it. This year their QB pressure is good at times but able to be handled often. I worry when they face Mahomes. Bad take on the defense. Particularly for all the injuries, they've played really really well. The one worry is that they haven't adequately replaced Miller's sacks when they needed them. But we're 4th in defensive DVOA. This is a very good defense.

There are many reasons to request an interview with a potential candidate for a job. One is that you have legitimate interest in having him possibly fill the job. But there are others. Maybe you want to ask him questions about his current position, or how he's handling it, or how his current organization is functioning. Another might be that you want to vet him for a position down the road and let him know of your long-term interest in his career. There are plenty of others. This is so early in Dorsey's OC term it seems weird that they would think of him as a legit HC candidate. HC positions are mostly about executive functioning, which Dorsey hasn't showed much of yet. I suppose it's possible they want him, but seems more likely to me they want to ask him some questions about something or possibly just vet him for down-the-line positions.

Yeah, 3 of 10 is not good. But let's not pretend that any receiver's catch percentage is totally on him. It's on him, on the QB and on the defense. 1st 12:07 INC Should've had it but the ball was well behind him, for no reason. 1st 3:36 INC Should've been caught 1st 3:32 COMP 1st 2:04 INC Gabe was wide open, Josh didn't get it over Tavai and it was tipped away with Gabe having no chance 1st 0:39 COMP, a crucial one on 3rd and 7 2nd 0:38 INC Gabe Open in the end zone but LB coming from the other side, far overthrown or thrown away 2nd 0:14 INT Allen hit as he threw, ball came nowhere near Gabe, he appeared open, though he was almost out of the frame 3rd 4:37 INC Couldn't see it, the Game Pass film skipped and Nance said, "off the hands of Gabe Davis", dunno what happened. 4th 11:36 COMP 4th 3:47 INC the long one where the defender was very close but Josh hit him, just a bad play by Gabe in the end zone This wasn't a good game, but three of those ten came nowhere near him and one was thrown hard and behind him and was a hard ball to catch though he should've caught it. Three completions, two bad incompletions and one I won't know till we get the All-22. Three of ten paints a picture that is far worse than Gabe deserves.

Correct. Davis's career catch percentage (though I doubt they've included this game yet) is significantly over 50%.

The correct answer is that it will depend largely on how he plays next year, and while many assume we know how that will be, we don't. We can guess, but we don't know. Sometimes guesses work out and sometimes they don't. It will also depend on what kind of numbers he demands. Before the year it looked like he might be one of our top priorities over the next couple of years. With the way he played this year he no longer looks like that much of a priority. If he plays better in the future, he will get more money and he'll have more leverage. If he levels off at his current level he won't get a ton of money, here or elsewhere. WR is very likely to be one of the three or four areas they might be willing to use a higher pick on this year. Probably they might bring in a good solid WR the way Polian brought in Bill Brooks.

Nonsense. Of course you do, in the right situation. This isn't the right situation, of course. We've got a lot to play for. But plenty of teams have given up on the last game and won Super Bowls. Most recently the 2014 Pats who lost to us 17-9 with Garoppolo replacing Brady at halftime. Plenty of other examples as well.

It was smart as hell. Made it much harder for the D to quickly diagnose how they were lined up. Extremely smart. It was a TD, though it was called back. It left basically the whole Chiefs OL standing in front of Toney. The LB who was playing contain kept that responsibility, stayed in place and almost made the play, but the blocker who just kept him from wrapping Toney up had nobody else to worry about. After that it was like 6 on 3. When I stopped the video looking at the right side of the field as Mahomes throws it back, there are three Chiefs to the right of the right hashmark and seven Raiders. And the play is going back to the right side. Smart as hell. The Raiders were lucky a phantom holding penalty got called. Looked to me like they were trying but just simply not even close to good enough. You have an excellent point about the fan base. Very true.

I'm sure the Chiefs would find that totally fair, except not. EtNovad. Not sure if that was Autocorrect working on your post, but it's a small mistake.

The only off the field issue appears to be that at this point they'd rather him be off the field when they play zone, which is most of the time. He essentially did not play zone in college. Next year hopefully he'll have figured it out. As of now, though, he's pretty good at man and less so in zone, though seems to be improving. And that improvement is good news. Thanks to those looking at the actual facts in terms of snaps rather than just going with their narratives.

That is objectively ridiculous. Power rankings are subjective undertakings.

Any one of four teams as #1 is a legit opinion. Maybe even five. The Bills are certainly one of those teams. Probably top two or three.

Nope, you appear not to understand the meaning of ad hominem. That wasn't ad hominem. It was based directly on your process and your words. That's not ad hominem. Ad hominem means saying it must be wrong because it's Einstein. I didn't say that at all. I said look at this gigantic mess from Einstein. His lack of logic, lack of responsiveness and apparent lack (still) of listening to the actual quotes from Levi in that interview say some sad and pitiful things about him, don't they? That's not ad hominem. It's the result of how you went about this whole thread. At long long long long last you've finally posted a link. At least that's a tiny step in the right direction. But now that you have after an excruciating attempt to delay and pretend, posted it, it's clear why you didn't want to do so. First, about the article, it's a good one. Dunne is an absolutely excellent writer. And Levi, as he always does, comes across as classy, as accountable, and also as really smart and hard-working. I didn't know that about him losing his father to ALS in college. Jeez, that's sad, and it makes your root for him even more. I can't even imagine that. And the reset of the story about his charity endeavors also really hits home. Just a hell of a good man. I already really liked him, and now I'll root for him every Sunday except against the Bills. But you have the same problem now that you did before you posted this. Levi never says what you say he did. The reason you couldn't highlight in orange any of Levi's words beyond, "Yeah," is obvious here. You say that the information comes "directly from Wallace with quotes from Wallace." Well, yeah, it has quotes from Wallace. But no, the 13 seconds info there comes from Dunne, without any evidence in this article that backs you up at all. The closest he comes is for Dunne - not Levi - to say, "He thought his position was sound." "Thought." Past tense. Not present. Because that's not what he thinks today. Dunne says that Wallace "did not go rogue." As if anyone says he went rogue. But there was failure in communication within the framework of the play, and Wallace just admits it, here and in the podcast video you seem so unwilling to look at, for obvious reasons. Dunne says: "He thought his position was sound. After all, this is how the play was designed. In retrospect, however, Wallace wishes he would've turned his head around and noticed that safety Jorday Poyer was lined up so far back. If he did that, he would've adjusted his alignment. Instead, for a split-second, he admits the two friends took their four years of communication for granted and were not on the same page. " 'Rarely,' he adds, 'do me and Poyer ever bust.' " Pretty clear here what Wallace thinks, and it's not that the play was the problem. He goes on to talk further about the problem in the next paragraph, saying "It was in the gameplan," but, as Dunne says, "[Wallace] puts it on the players to realize KC only needed a field goal and believes guys were too caught up in the emotion of the offense scoring a touchdown." Exactly. Dunne goes on to go just that bit further: "What stung most was that players felt like they let each other down." And his evidence for that is the Wallace quote, "The 11 guys on that field let each other down." Precisely. I'll always be a Wallace fan. Great article too. I'm thinking right now of looking up his foundation and contributing. Sounds like it does spectacular work. But Wallace knows, and he said it. Both here and in the video. EDIT: I sent $50. Felt good.

Does Einstein crack you up, or what? This is so hilarious I just can't help pointing out what a shambles it is. Does the poor sap even know who he is quoting there? The only three links he posts are incomplete, unable to be duplicated (how convenient ...). Not links, in other words. They're actually semi-links, only partially there. He actually posted about half of a link to his own google search and two other semi-links, not whole and thus unable to be followed, to pages somewhere in TBD. Like that proves anything. And then he keeps posting the same link-less copy, the gray stuff he highlighted in orange, without the slightest apparent clue who wrote it. Did you notice that? There's no author. I seriously suspect he might have written it himself. If not him, though, apparently someone who apparently typed his opinion and is thus to be taken seriously. Einstein doesn't even appear to know that the stuff he highlighted in orange is almost 100% not Wallace. I mean, the education system these days is bad, but I'd argue the great majority of it would flunk work that bad. He has a couple hundred words there, and he highlighted 50 of the words. 49 of the 50 words there are the unknown writer's. He has orange-highlighted one word that Wallace said, the word, "Yeah." And he thinks he made a point that supersedes my own transcript of what Wallace actually said in the video. The two disagree, and he thinks Wallace's own words hold less weight. If he's a troll it wouldn't be all that funny, but I actually have a feeling that he really believes it. It's a tire fire in progress where the tires are going, "No, it's clearly not hot, I saw on the internet somewhere that the temperature was just fine. He could check Wallace's own words. But he won't. Fascinating to me.

You're so right. * sigh *

Folks, see what Einstein did here? He yet again repeated his own summary of one sentence that Wallace said, all the while ignoring the rest because it doesn't suit his narrative. He ignored part of the direct translation that I posted which showed where he is wrong. Which is what someone who is an absolute slave to confirmation bias would do. Even his google search, "... admits he played assignment incorrectly" is a drastic result of his own confirmation bias, and will therefore produce results twisted by Einstein's own perceptions. The search which would have helped him, then and now, is - to boringly repeat - "Levi Wallace 13 seconds." This one doesn't enforce his own beliefs on the search. The one he used does. Again, he's the one ignoring what Wallace said. I'm transcribing it. Gotta be impressed by someone willing to double down on dumbness. The article doesn't say what he apparently thinks it does. The article says that if he had looked at Poyer's depth, he would have played it differently. In other words, he had some freedom within the play, as does Poyer, and they have worked extensively on working together within that play, but because he didn't check Poyer's depth he stayed further outside than he should have. Right play. Bad communication by the players within the play allowed a result that they would have avoided if they had communicated better. But Einstein was and appears to still be too full of communication bias to look any further by, say, looking at all of Wallace's words. He found what he wanted to hear and didn't bother to check any further. Typical. And revealing of his motives.

Can? Absolutely yes. Without question. Will? Dunno. It definitely makes it quite a bit harder. They'll have a real chance, a good chance. But it gets harder.

Disagree. But it's possible. Tyrod was not on an upward trend. Jones is.

Yup. You're nice enough to do his googling for him and then you see the weird interpretations that follow.