hondo in seattle

The collective memory of TBD is a thing of beauty! It was a good tweet by Barnett - cool he referenced the Bills mafia. And let's note he's not as old as Fred Jackson.

Yeah. There are those 5 minutes or whatever in London we'd all like to forget. Other than that, I think EJ's played well for a backup.

Holy crap, 26CB, I'm amazed you remember that Mini Max Anderson wore #22! My earliest Bills memory is watching a game on TV when I was maybe 9 years old and the Bills medical staff were attending to Mini Max. One of the announcers said that he had "swallowed his tongue." I had never heard that expression before and it horrified me! I had to ask my mom what it meant. For all the youngsters out there, Mini Max - all 68 inches of him - was our starting RB before we drafted OJ.

Thanks, as always, for your great analysis! Cardale looked better maybe than I expected. Roman and David Lee are doing a nice job with him. And I'll wander a bit off topic here and say that DW is doing well making lemonade from lemons. He inherited a bad QB situation but acquired TT who had a promising first season. Then he got Cardale who looks like he can be TT's backup next year when EJ most likely leaves. And if TT doesn't live up to his promise, maybe Cardale will live up to his.

He wasn't a Pro Bowler because (1) he played for a loser and (2) he played behind a weak offensive line. Virtually all his yards in his prime were YAC - Yards After Contact. I know you disagree, but I think Fred might have been a HOFer if had played behind a good line for a good (playoff caliber) team and stayed healthy. He didn't have OJ level talent but he was still very talented and played with extreme effort. Wall of Famer for sure. That said, I don't care that the number has been reassigned.

Ralph was one of the best owners. He kept the Bills in Buffalo. And when he died, he made it inevitable that the team remained in Buffalo and gave much of his fortune to charity. Yep, the Bills only won something like 46% of their games during his years of ownership. To me that matters little. I'd rather root for a .460 Buffalo Bills than a .600 L.A. Bills. I do hope, though, that the New Era deal ushers in a new era of winning. Yikes, Vegas, are the ad hominem attacks necessary? Do they make you feel better? They certainly aren't persuading anyone. We're all Bills fans here - a band of brothers united by shared hopes and history. Let's show some respect.

Good answer. Larry Felser seemed to have sources within the Bills organization. Sully clearly has nobody.

This is a great move. Tyrod may or may not be an elite QB. But even maybes like Osweiler are commanding big money on the open market because a maybe is worth far more than a no. The escape clause after year 1 to protect the Bills shows TT is clearly willing to gamble on his own performance. It ought to have been an easy roll of the dice for the Bills. Tyrod's performance last year created more hope than we've had from that position in a long, long time. And Roman's been raving about TT this off-season. There aren't a lot of certainties in football and you need to pay premium dollars for possibilities. My only disappointment was Whaley's remarks. Before the contract is signed, he's supposed to hide his enthusiasm as a negotiation ploy. But after the contract is inked, the GM needs to show his belief. The whole not-greedy, play-the-hand-your-dealt schtick was dumb. TT's our man now. Pat him the back. Stroke his ego. Show him some love. To maximize Tyrod's chances of success, we want him to feel supported and the team to know the organization believes in him.

If we fans weren't allowed to criticize people smarter than us, what else would we have to do?

Which is why he's a better coach now than he was for the Brownies. Coaches (and GMs) have learning curves too.

Supposedly Thurman said it's not just a matter of the next guy stepping up, there would be schematic changes with Ragland out for the year. Rex is paraphrased in the article linked above saying that Spikes is a true Mike linebacker which could limit the team schematically. They clearly have different strengths and weaknesses but how much would the D need to change schematically with Hawthorne or Z. Brown?

Why do we beat up on our own??? As Bills fans, we're supposed to love all Bills players and hate all Pats players. It's almost as if we blame the current roster (and coaches and staff) for 16 years of futility. Personally, I'm really hoping Goodwin stays healthy this year and torches a few opposing AFCE DBs.

I agree. He was overrated by some as a quarterback but he's a better man than many other NFL players.

What's the exact quote? It is a scary statement. But it's hard to imagine a NFL team making scheme changes because their second round draft pick got hurt in preseason.

Yeah, that does suck. But, to me, the fate of the 2016 season lies on the shoulders of Rex more than anyone else - certainly more on his shoulders than on the shoulders of draft picks. If Rex makes the appropriate adjustments, this D will be good. The second most important guy is TT. If he steps up the way we all hope he will, this O will be good.

It really sucks whenever you lose your top two draft picks to injury before the season even starts. But I never expected Shaq and Ragland to be the saviors of this defense. I'm not sure how well I expected them to play at all. They're rookies, after all. If anyone is going to turnaround this defense, it's Rex. 2014 demonstrated how much talent we have. 2015 demonstrated how much coaching matters. If Rex learned the right lessons, this season's D will be good with or without Shaq and Ragland. If the Rex did not, this season will be a disappointment with or without our top two draft picks.

Didn't Tebow turn down opportunities to play a position other than QB? But now he's hoping for an opportunity to play a sport other than FB? It seems like an odd, impractical way of thinking.

I used to live next door in San Ramon. Great area! Danville is certainly located Northern California as defined by Californians. Danville is also home, I believe, of Captain Sullenberger - the pilot that Clint Eastwood is soon releasing a movie about, starring Tom Hanks as Sully. San Francisco is the unofficial capital of NorCal while LA is the unofficial capital of SoCal.

Tebow doesn't win. But he was lucky enough to play on winning teams. Denver's defense won the games Tebow started. Tebow remarkably completed less than half of his NFL passes (47.9%) and his career passer rating is 3 points below EJ's. But he's a good guy and I hope him success. I once drove by the hospital he built in Davao (Philippines). He's a classy, generous human being.

What I think is curious is how often Roman used 2 back sets in San Francisco and how infrequently he used them here despite the presence of Felton. Erik covers this but still a surprise to me.

Sums up my own thinking pretty accurately. I hope both Shaq and Reggie recover quickly and excel this year. But while they sit, I think we're fine. Both are rookies, after all.

I'm not sure what tweaks I expect from Roman this year. Instead I have a question regarding this quote from Erik: "Most statistics tracked by the NFL are solely based on yardage gained/loss etc. Football Outsiders takes into account the context of the yardage gained or loss such as down and distance (weighted offense). So, their stats more accurately reflect how an offensive or defensive unit performed." Does FO's stats really more accurately reflect how an offense or defensive unit performs??? Sometimes the analytics guys get too fancy. Yards gained is a great measure because football is a game about field position and scoring. And to score you need to march up and down the field. Yards gained is a simple stat that measures something important. Sometimes, though, I think yards per drive might be a better measure. A defense forced on the field a lot because of their anemic offense ought not to be punished in the rankings. Others make good arguments about why scoring is a better metric than yards. What makes FO's stats even better? Do they correlate with wins and losses any better? Back to Roman.... It's curious that Roman made some very different choices here than he did in SF. As Roman told John Kyrk, "You adapt or you die." Erik - another great, insightful article!

A rookie LB sprains his knee 2 months before the season opener and the sky is falling? I don't get it. How big is the difference between rookie Ragland and the next guy up? Big enough to convert every W into a L? Big enough to convert any W into a L? Will RR even miss a game? With or without Ragland, I expect this defense to finish somewhere between #5 and #10. Rex is a competent defensive coach. He has a staff of competent coaches and they have some good talent to work with. Rex modified his scheme since last year, players are communicating more... things will get better.

I wasn't expecting Ragland to be a Pro Bowler in his rookie year so I'm not sure how much his knee sprain dampens my enthusiasm. The D will be better because (1) Rex learned lessons from last year, and (2) the defensive players are both more knowledgeable and committed this year. The O will be better because it's the second year in Roman's system and TT's second year as a starter.