hondo in seattle

Yeah, sometimes we forget what McD had to work with when looking at his win-loss record as the Bills HC. Two years ago, we had the lowest active cap spending in the NFL and arguably the worst roster. McD did a fine job of coaching just to get to six wins. Every one of those wins was against a team with a pricier group of players. Coaches shouldn't be judged solely on wins and losses. They should be judged on wins and losses versus the talent on the roster. There's no way to prove this, but I believe McD has earned more wins from his Bills squads than an average NFL coach would have with the same rosters.

I didn't get caught up in the diva hype. When we traded for Diggs, I googled him and found a lot of good comments about the guy from his ex-teammates and ex-coaches. There were a couple themes: nobody works harder than Stefon and nobody wants to win more. Nearly all the negative diva, crybaby crap was coming from the media, not his teammates or the other people who knew him best. BillsFanChick does a beautiful job here refuting all the talking heads who didn't like the trade and didn't like the man. There's inherently a lot of good in Diggs but I also agree that the team and culture and McD has built probably brings out the very best in Diggs, too.

Great recap, stevewin. He sounds like a great dude. I've traveled to four continents and have spicy Korean Silkworm Pupae (Beondegi) in my cupboard. But I've never done a polar plunge nor returned a punt in the NFL. So I'm going to tell my wife that none of my screws are loose after all. I ran a 4.8 in football gear in September... of 1977.

Thanks for the kind words. Most Bills fans are good people. Like every fan base, we have a few idiots. Sorry about those. The other day I commented that I actually feel sorry for Jets fans. I know the suffering of a true fan when their team sucks. We Bills fans have experienced enough of that ourselves. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But I can't find it in myself to wish you guys well. For the sake of Jets fans everywhere, I do hope you Darnold improves and Gase gets replaced. But I hope you raise to the level of mediocrity, never good enough to compete with the new-look Bills. I'd be cool with the Bills winning the AFCE and you guys getting into the playoffs as a one-and-done wild card some day. But no more than that. The team you have now is painful to watch.

I hate forfeits. But this is just stupid. They violated clear NFL instructions (sometimes called "cheating") and put player safety at risk all at the same time. Not a surprise that two more Titans tested positive today. Whether it's a forfeit or a million dollar fine, the NFL needs to slap them hard.

One of the things I think is interesting about Beane is that he doesn't seem to have a preferred method of talent acquisition. For example, the backfield was rebuilt through the draft. But the WR corps was rebuilt through free agency and an expensive trade. At first, I thought Beane was drafting for difference makers and signing solid, affordable - if unspectacular - players in free agency. But our starting wideouts disprove that theory.

Little Jon... an old breakfast spot in Bellevue, Washington. No? I'm an old graybeard from the era of cool, groovy and far out.

Logic, I liked your last article about Josh but this one is better. It tells a good story. I'm not sure what 'crunk' means but I'm hoping you're right about Josh Norman and see a lot more of it.

Sadly, I've only seen the Bills in person 3 or 4 times. This was the first. RIP.

I was happy when we signed Klein. Now, I'm not sure why.

I agree with the OP - the problem with the defense is real and concerning. The D hasn't cost a game yet but it will if McD and Frazier don't figure something out. The decline is hard to understand but I see at least of four things at play. * Some of the players we lost (e.g. Lawson) were more valuable than we/I might have given them credit for. * We remained pretty healthy last year. This season, our opponents have been targeting the backups who are pressed into duty. * The productivity of our offense forces our opponents to play more aggressively when they're on offense. * Our D was great the last couple seasons not so much because we had athletically elite playmakers. Instead, we played extremely well as a team. Our players were smart, well-coached and rarely missed their assignments. This year - without preseason or a normal offseason - our D just isn't executing as well.

The article is written from the Jets perspective and how the Jets screwed up the Darnold pick. I have to say that as a long-suffering Bills fan, I feel sorry for the Jets. Too many times over the years I've read articles about how and why the Bills screwed the pooch on the draft. Or a GM or coaching hire. Having been through all that - even though I'm glad the Bills are taking advantage of the woes of their opponents - it's hard for me to glory in the failure of other teams. I'll admit that at one point I wanted Josh Rosen that year. I don't watch hardly any college ball but had read how pro ready Rosen was and that he was a safe pick. By the time of the draft, though, I was both excited and nervous about the Allen pick. Maybe the highest upside, said some of the QB draft gurus, but also a big risk. I heard a scout once say that QB is the hardest position to draft. According to him, there are no QBs in college that possess the full skill set needed to succeed in the NFL. They all have to learn and get better. So the scout has to predict which ones will do that and which won't. Allen has progressed where he needed to. For whatever reason(s), it doesn't seen Darnold has.

NHK12, I get what you're saying. Allen made some great plays that made victory possible several times last year. Yet he didn't have a lot of great games. That's why I don't think Barnwell is entirely wrong when he says, "In 2018, Allen was a hindrance to the Bills' chances of winning. In 2019, he was good enough to stay out of the way. In 2020, he is driving Buffalo's success." Yeah, it's a simplification. But if you had to sum up Allen's career thus far in three short sentences, this isn't a bad way of doing it. In the end, I don't care what Barnwell or any other talking head says anyway. I'm just enjoying Allen's progress and the victories.

Nice article - really love the enthusiasm! And I like your memories of some of Allen's defining plays. But, for me, the article would have been even better if it didn't read like a bunch of bullet points instead of a story. A 1 or 2 sentence paragraph is okay here and there but, as a reader, I'd like some flowing narrative utilizing fuller paragraphs. But I like that there's nothing wishy-washing about your position. You have the courage to uncompromisingly state where you stand.

Bills 30, Raiders 20. A solid victory but nothing on the epic scale of the 51-3 thrashing. I really thought the Bills would win the SB after that. Though I didn't actually see the game - only read about it afterwards. No TV in the middle of the Arabian Desert in those days. I think we'll see more RPO from the Bills than we have the last two weeks.

As I recall, we had the lowest active cap spending in the league that year. Few pricey contracts because there was little talent. Full rebuilding mode. We're spending much more this year because we have much better players.

Don't crows eat batard? Not the other way around? batard /bəˈtärd/ noun a short loaf of French bread having an oval or oblong shape. "I picked up a rustic batard from my favorite grocer"

I think you're providing a good defense of DVOA. But I remain skeptical. Scenarios like the ones I mention above still bother me. And from what I understand, Shatz and FO don't actually break down game tape. They rely entirely on box score data. They take those numbers and contextualize them: down and distance, game clock, and so on. There are advantages to that approach but issues as well. The full context can't be quantified. There's scheme, playcalls, officiating, full & partial injuries, momentum, leadership, and all sorts of other human variables that effect the (statistical) performance of a player and the outcome of a game. While I think examining DVOA can provide some insight, I think the human brain is still more capable at evaluating the totality of a team's performance in all it's complexity. To put it another way, if I think Josh Allen has taken an important leap forward and Schatz still insists that he's a subpar QB, I'll trust my eyes before I trust Schatz's metrics.

Interesting point. You say that as a season progresses, DVOA becomes more accurate. But so do you and I. Has their statistical modeling really surpassed the intellect of an informed fan? Maybe because I'm not into betting or fantasy football, I don't see their utility yet.

Some cats overvalue picks. How many 1st round picks never become NFL stars? Diggs was a legit star. Proven at the NFL level. It was a great trade as we all know now.

Thurman, you're an intelligent poster so let me ask... Imagine that the top 50 posters at TBD predict the W-L record for every team and their results are combined. And then the statistical geeks at FO predicted the W-L record for every team. Who would more accurately predict the season? Personally, I think it would be roughly a toss-up. But if I had to bet, I'd bet on TBD. I think the TBD posters better appreciate the human element in the NFL. Team X has a new offensive coordinator whose skill set matches the squad. Team Y fired their lousy HC and replaced him with someone much more capable. The Bills signed Stephon Diggs who was the missing piece for Allen & Daboll and creates mismatches that Allen can take advantage of. You say DVOA is meaningful but far from perfect. DVOA can predict the outcome of games/seasons with some degree of accuracy that's better than chance. But so can you and I - and everyone else here. Given its imperfections, I'm not sure what DVOA brings to the table. Trivia. Did you know that a 4 yard run on 1st and 10 is scored as a failure by FO while a 4 yard run on 2nd and 6 is scored as a success for DVOA purposes? I'm not sure how many OCs would agree with this. Here's another scenario. Your team is down by 2 points. It's 3rd and 32 and time is running out. You need 20 yards to get into FG position. Things seem hopeless. Then your QB fires a perfect 31 yard pass to a toe-tapping receiver. Clock is stopped with plenty of time for the winning kick. That pass is scored as a failure because by FO rules, any 3rd or 4th down play that doesn't pick up a first down is a failure ("on third or fourth down, only gaining a new first down is considered success"). You say the FO folks are open-minded about their mistakes. Maybe as they fine-tune their scoring system and algorithms, they'll get better at this.

I think OJ is underrated as a football player. I don't think he just might be the best RB of all time (neck and neck with Jim Brown), I think you can make a case for him being the best football player of all time. Back when the best athletes became RBs and defenses were designed to stop the run first, OJ was in a league of his own. In 1973 he nearly doubled the output of the next best guy. As a QB, Brady never did that. But I also believe we ought to give our children heroes who are honorable and not just talented. Instead of honoring confederate generals, narcistic entertainers, and guys like OJ, we ought to honor teachers, Medal of Honor winners, civil rights activists and emergency responders. Bob Kalsu is a hero and deserving of the Wall of Fame. OJ is not.

The chart of worst DVOA of 3-0 teams (1985-2020) toward the beginning of the article cracks me up. It lists teams with crappy DVOAs that - nonetheless - start the season with three consecutive wins. Then the chart shows their final season W-L record. If DVOA was a meaningful statistic, you'd expect these teams with crap DVOAs to finish the season poorly. Yet most of them do the opposite and finish with a good season record. So what's the point of DVOA if it doesn't tell us which teams will win and which won't. At the end of the day, Win-Loss record is the only stat that means anything. Later, Shatz writes this gem of a paragraph: "One more thing on the subject of the Bills, since I enjoy picking fights with their fans so much. There's absolutely no denying that Josh Allen has been fantastic this season. He even has a positive (3.7%) completion rate over expectation according to NFL Next Gen Stats! We're told that we should have known that Allen was ready to take the leap this season. I certainly didn't hear that expectation from any film experts this offseason, but the numbers especially don't suggest that a huge leap forward was coming." That's the thing with statistics. They describe the past, not the future. And football is played by people, not numbers. Throw in the human element and sometimes wonderful things happen. Allen is coached well and is dedicated to his craft. Most Bills fans expected Allen to take a step/leap forward this year because we could see the progress in his trade that the number crunchers couldn't encapsulate. And not just Bills fans, if Schatz didn't hear optimism from the film experts this offseason, he didn't listen to many.

It often takes two to get a sack. One to flush the QB, the other to make the tackle. Jerry is moving the QB off his spot often enough. But the QB just moves to a new spot and throws a completion.