bobobonators

Yup, 100% agree. Wilson's baseball background definitely helps him with sliding..haha. Even though Wilson is also a tiny guy, he seems to have that uncanny ability to always avoid the big hit...to always slide on time...to always be shifty just at the right time. That type of awareness can't be taught. His agility is amazing and he has complete body control. I'm not sure TT is at that level but I think TT is smart enough to know when to not push it further on a play - when it comes to typical pocket injuries, that is ultimately up to fate to a certain extent.

Hard to argue against that.

Agreed. We would not have lost the Jax game at a minimum. Guaranteed. Might have changed dynamic of season. Oh well, who knows. I'm excited going forward however. Biggest worry with TT for me going forward will be injuries, not performance. He seems like a bright guy. He seems confident. He seems like he will continue to improve.

I've thought the exact same thing. Despite Rex's success with the Jets, I wonder if all the hoopla with him in the media (the foot fetish nonsense) and his time on hard knocks kind of discredited him a bit with players outside the Jets organization - specifically with players on a rival team like the Bills. This core group of Bills defensive players (MW, MD, Hughes, KW, etc) have all competed against Rex and the Jets as a division rival for a few years now...so part of me wonders whether or not they take him that seriously as a result (compared to a player that rarely played vs. Rex and was in another division etc., and was not caught up on all of the division rival nonsense that goes on). This is not to say that Bills players don't like Rex and that all defensive players on the Bills don't believe in Rex - but like you said, my concern would be with the veteran superstars that have been around the block already and may not be as open to Rex's motivation. We'll see. That angle, if true, makes me a little concerned.

You specifically mentioned coaching rankings and then threw out a list of coaches, stating that all of the coaches you listed are no less a quality of a HC than Rex is. You even stated "no fair-minded" person would think that. So you stated that all of those coaches are either equal to, or better than Rex. I consider myself a fair-minded person and I disagree. Within the last 6 years (which is very recent), Rex Ryan as a Head Coach has been in two AFC Championship games. He has a 4-2 playoff record, including a landmark victory over the Patriots in the playoffs - on the road. Now, lets look at the coaches you have listed (excluding Belichik, Tomlin, McCarthy): Gruden: No playoff victories. Hasn't achieved squat. Lewis: HC of one of the most talented rosters in the NFL over the last 2-3 years. 0-6 in the playoffs. Zero landmark victories. Rivera: 1-2 playoff record. O'Brien: No playoff victories. Hasn't achieved squat. So, as a fair-minded person, how can you fairly state that Gruden or O'Brien are "no less" the HC than Rex is? What parameters are you utilizing for that statement? And lets not even go back to what Rex accomplished as a coordinator for the Ravens where they finished top 5 in defense 3 out of the 4 years he was their defensive coordinator - including #1 overall; #2 overall; and #5 overall. Rex Ryan was able to take a Jets team to consecutive AFC Championship games on sheer will, because lord knows that roster was not littered with talent.

Seahawks stadium looks sick. I want ours to look much like that. Just looking at it I feel intimidated. Lmao

All i know is that if we play more than one team next year coming off their bye I'll lose it Next year's schedule is going to be brutal as it stands now. I mean matchups*

Yup. Looking back the season came down to not being able to beat the Jags. And not being able to take a single game from the Giants/Eagles/Skins. Our schedule next year looks brutal with the afc north, hawks, cardinals and panthers. Oh boy. Other than Belichick, Tomlin, McCarthy, what have the others achieved in the NFL that Rex hasnt? And we're not talking about Rex having success 20 yrs ago. Its still fairly recent. Be objective. Gruden Lewis Rivera Obrien have all been on the hot seat within the last few years. Thats how great they are..

WR can be shoved out of bounds. And completion % and TD/INT ratio are both still relevant. QBs arent completing 95% of their passes and not every QB that finishes a full season has a 3.33 TD/INT ratio.

I agree stats can definitely be misleading at times. Or they can be manipulated a bit. That being said i had no idea what to expect from TT going into this season and boy was I impressed.

Awesome. Thanks! And i understand how comparing different eras can be difficult. The point of the thread was not really to compare TT to Kelly but rather that i had to go back all the way to Kelly to find a Bills QB with comparable numbers. Even Bledsoe, a more recent QB, did not eclipse TT in any of those categories.

Ok..well I did the first part... Someone else tell me where TT ranks in yards/attempt; completion %; QBR; and TD/INT ratio among "active QBs"...b/c I don't have the time..lmao.

Well, I did say that...but the whole point is that I even had to go back to Jim Kelly. Also, completion % is still relevant...also yds/attempt...maybe not total yards b/c teams pass more today. Also, TD/INT ratio is still somewhat relevant.

So it's a slow day at work..lol I decided to see where TT's 2015 numbers rank compared to other Bills QB's over the years. In 14 games in 2015, TT had: 3.33 TD/INT ratio 7.99 avg yds/attempt 67.8 QBR 63.7% completion % Going through every QB to play at least 14 games for the Bills in one season, you have to go back to Jim Kelly's 1990 season to even get close to matching all those numbers. in 1990, Jim Kelly coincidentally also played in 14 games, and he had: 2.66 TD/INT ratio (Tyrod even had more attempts than Jim Kelly that season..TT had 380attempts in 2015 and Kelly had 346) 8.18 avg yds/attempt *no QBR back then* 63.3% completion % ***The reason I used Kelly's 1990 season and not his 1991 season is b/c in 1990 his TD/INT ratio was much better despite Kelly throwing more TD's in 1991 and also b/c Kelly's avg yds/attempt were slightly better*** I guess this shows how many bad QB's we've had over the years...but when you look at the numbers, TT had a better statistical season this year than any of Flutie's years...or Bledsoe's years...and even many of Kelly's years (from 1986-1989)..and of course the game has changed a lot since Kelly...but it's still crazy. Only 1 QB since Kelly had numbers in any one of those categories that exceeded TT's this season and that was Trent Edwards in 2008 with a 65.5 completion %.

DIRTY.

Yup. And people complaining how Fitz couldnt throw the ball more than 10 yds...

Also, Bills offense #1 in NFL in passing plays of 25yds or more.

Hahaha. It truly amazes me how teams refuse to expand their horizons. Its the same across the board throughout the NFL. Teams continue to interview and higher mediocre coaches who have never accomplished anything in the NFL.

With the Seahawks being 27th in passing last year how did they make it to the SB? They should get another QB

At the end of the day losing TT for the Jags game was killer; and not being able to win one vs either the Skins, Eagles, or Giants. Unacceptable.

LOL. My expectations were the following: Best case scenario 10-6 and our defense would regress a bit. I had zero idea how the offense would do because i had no idea how TT would perform. It turns out the offense performed much better than expected, but the defense was a bit worse than what I expected them to regress to. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I understand every single intricacy of Rex's scheme, but how different is Rex's scheme from the one that Pettine runs? Pettine and Rex were together from 2002 - 2012 - tied at the hip. Look at the numbers MW, KW and Hughes put up under Pettine in 2013. They were very good. Just how much of a difference is there between Rex and Pettine in terms of complexity? Is it really THAT different? Or could it also be that MW, Hughes, MD all had down years as a unit from last year? How often do we see players get paid and then regress? pretty often.

There have been numerous posts about how MW dropping back into coverage has been exaggerated, though I don't remember the stats off the top of my head.

LOL. I'm confused. We'll see. We though Pettine did a pretty good job when he was with us for one year, but that was because look how bad our defense was before he got to Buffalo. The defense Pettine had was pretty similar (in terms of core players) in personnel to the one we had this year and the scheme was pretty similar too. There weren't too many threads in 2013 discussing how the personnel didn't fit the scheme.

What do you mean?

Though I loved Schwartz, I don't think one can simply say our defense was going to continue to be as stellar this year as it was last year. Some players on this D had career years (or matched career highs) last year (Hughes/Dareus/MW mainly) and our DLine was healthy most of the year. Hughes and Dareus got paid and KW got injured this year. MW through a hissy fit and decided to stop playing. A regression to the mean may have occurred regardless of who the D-Coordinator would have been. Look at Schwartz's time in Detroit (Granted he was the HC and not the DC - Gunther Cunningham was the D-coordinator): 2009: Last in yds/game; last in pts/game (*he inherited a god-awful team) 2010: 21st in yds/game; 19th in pts/game (huge improvement) 2011: 23rd in yds/game; 23rd in pts/game (slight regression) 2012: 13th in yds/game; 27th in pts/game (more of a regression) 2013: 16th in yds/game; 15th in pts/game (improvement) The previous three years before Schwartz arrived to Buffalo the Bills were: 2011: 26th in yds/game; 30th in pts/game (George Edwards) 2012: 22nd in yds/game; 26th in pts/game (Dave Wannstedt) (first year that MW, KW and MD are all together) 2013: 10th in yds/game; 20th in pts/game (Mike Pettine) (first year that Hughes, MW, KW and MD are all together) With Schwartz in 2014: 4th in yds/game; 4th in pts/game - It's almost impossible to get better than this in 2015. It was an epic year defensively. Coincidently, the year after Schwartz left Detroit, Detroit had a monster defensive year: 3rd in pts/game; and 2nd in yds/game under Teryl Austin. However, under Austin they finished 18th in yds/game and 23rd in pts/game this year. That's a huge drop off but to be fair, the Lions lost several key players over the off season. What all this says to me is that Schwartz's scheme may have indeed been a great fit for this Bills defense but it also can't be ignored how 2014 was a perfect storm in terms of production from key players such as MW, MD and Hughes. The current crop of players on this defense had been together a few years already and were improving a bit each year through 2013 until finally exploding in 2014. We couldn't have possibly expected MD/Hughes/MW to have even better years than their career years in 2014 and they didn't - not even close. The KW injury also hurt this defense. At the end of the day, in 2015 under Rex we finished 15th in pts/game; and 19th in yds/game - numbers that are pretty similar to those produced by this core crop of defensive players (KW, MW, Hughes, MD, Gilmore, etc) in 2013 under Pettine. In fact, Rex's defense gave up almost 2 points less per game (22.4) this year compared to Pettine in 2013 (24.2). Unless you're truly an elite defensive unit, defensive standings/rankings are fluid from year to year. This year we saw that regression with the Bills. Regroup, add some new blood in key spots (LB/DE) and perhaps we can have a bounce-back year next year on defense. Above all, remaining healthy in 2016 is key. Lets see what Rex can do in yr two. Many of us (including myself) viewed this year as a failure in large part due to the way the defense performed. However, part of the reason we feel so down on the defense may be because our expectations were simply too high for this defense.