ToGoGo

I have a good feeling about Harvin. He's been underperforming by his standards the last few years and from what I've heard from Pegula, Rex, the WR coach, now Harvin himself, and our loaded receiving corp, I think he really might breakout this year. He could have visited other places, flashier places, but for some unexplained reason signed with us on his first trip despite reports of his inner circle trying to persuade him to visit other teams. Something about us appealed to him. I keep thinking about Pegula telling the story about Percy having a long conversation with Pegula's daughter on the private jet. Usually hearsay from owners and management is BS but sometimes when you read between the lines you can get a feel for things. My intuition is Percy has matured a lot and is ready to be a professional. Percy might know it himself and that's why he said what he said. Maybe he signed with us not just because of Rex's charisma, but because he wanted a quiet place to put his head down and get his career back on track. I've been totally nailing fantasy picks the last few years based on my gut so hopefully I'm right about Harvin this year.

I mean, I agree with the mistakes point. Knowledge is a necessary component for confidence. Anything that will improve Manuel's knowledge will make him more confident. However confidence does not always lead to leadership. It's a bit of a Venn Diagram between those two qualities. But it's true players in the huddle are more likely to listen to you when they see you doing your job correctly. I think the OP came to the conclusion that Cassel learned how to be more of a leader from watching Brady for several years, and he will bring what he learned to Buffalo and it will hopefully rub off on Manuel. There's a lot of speculation here, but I'd argue reasonable speculation. It's become a bit of a cliche but Cassel will raise the floor on the team's QB position. Tough to prove all the OP's points but I still generally agree with him. Manuel could use mentorship from a veteran QB and Cassel brings good qualities to the fold that Orton might not have had.

I've met both kinds of people in the workforce. I assure you the ones that are afraid of losing their jobs to the younger people eventually do. That karma comes back around.

I thought the OP showed original insight, which is so rare on message boards I personally believe it should be respected whether you agree with it or not. Maybe I just overvalue original insight. I took from the OP the reminder of how valuable learning from a solid pro can be. I've gone into many businesses with no mentor and made so many dumb mistakes and gone down so many wrong roads that I never would have went on if I had somebody to shadow or ask questions to. Mentors give you direction in your field because they've been there. This is not just pertaining to the QB position in the NFL, but to nearly every scenario in life. The OP's point about the value of a mentor is inarguable to me, even if a few exceptional QBs made it without guidance. I can tell you that I ended up making it in a few of those businesses through trial by fire, but it was a lot more difficult than it had to be. It's one thing to be told what to do by some coaches on the sideline, and another to watch a guy go out there and actually do it. There were definitely things Manuel could have learned from Orton and I'm sure he did. He would have to be stubborn not to and he has never come off that way to me. One thing Orton lacked seemed to be character and courage, and character is something that Manuel seems to be great in already. Courage can be taught, I've seen cowards turn into fearless people with my own eyes. I'm not calling Manuel a coward by any means, but he can definitely use some courage to throw the ball into tight places.

Dalton had a good first two years for a QB, especially a 2nd rounder. People were really optimistic on him and now all of a sudden he has a bad year and this "Dalton is the epitome of an average QB" narrative came out and now it's supposedly a fact. Recent history shows that these "Player X SUCKZZZZ" narratives have sometimes very little basis in fact. Remember when nobody would touch Randy Moss with a 10 foot pole when he was in Oakland? I remember fans saying "I don't care if NE gets him". That's a true story. I see no reason why a QB that has been to the playoffs several times is not good enough for the Bills. Zero. Also, I live in Miami and watched Tannehill lots of times. He's going to be a top 7-10 QB in this league for a long time, probably starting in 2015.

This is a really good point. However, even though those guys are going to be on the latter part of their primes, the rules are setup so that they last far longer than they have in the past. Expect to see Roethlisberger, Rivers, Manning, and even Brady for another 3-5 years.

Can you give some recommendations? I'm serious, there's so many hacks I don't know who to read to get original insight.

Good point. You're right. The previous poster just made such an absolute negative statement that I had to say something.

A statement like this makes me question how much you know. I recommend you watch some of EJ's college videos here: http://draftbreakdown.com/players/ej-manuel/ They are not just highlights, but every passing play he was involved in. You'll notice that running is actually one of his (relatively few) strengths. I normally support Marrone on a lot of things he did, but he and Hackett overreacted to EJ's injuries. They trained him to avoid contact which led to his scared running last season. EJ is strong at escaping the pocket, running the football, size and strength, short and intermediate throws, not causing TOs. When you take one of his strengths away from him (running), he becomes a less efficient QB. He has improved his muscle definition in the right areas since his rookie year to prevent injuries, this means he can start running again. If he does not, he will never reach his full 2016 potential, much less his career ceiling.

Perspective doesn't exist on message boards.

I lost a lot of respect for Tomlin that season. You can see that he could not handle the reality of a losing season and decided to play dirty in order to win. I've met people like this in real life and they are the worst. I remember there being other shady things he did that year that I can't remember off the top of my head. What he did deserved a 6 game suspension at least. A head coach of all people cannot do something that affects a play in a game, much less a TD scoring play. They kept the punishment to a minimum because he's a Steeler. The Pats get away with everything because Bob Kraft is in the league's pockets. I imagine he has as much dirt on the NFL as they have on him. I'm usually the first to roll my eyes at punishments for off-field mistakes, but I am very stern about on-field cheating. Browns and Falcons should be punished.

I'm a big stats guy and I've worked with data analysis for a pretty large company before, so I don't 100% disagree with you. Stats are very EASY to manipulate. Everytime somebody provides stats to prove something, somebody will jump in and says "you can make stats say anything", which is true, but it is giving the assumption that stats should have zero credibility. That's is a very unfortunate thing to think. Data can tell you incredible things and point you in unexpected directions. It can also be red herrings or it can make you a victim of selective attribution. But to say that all "stats lie", is a very incorrect conclusion. I know that might not be totally what you meant, but I'm just seeing that opinion a lot when somebody disagrees with data presented without actually analyzing the data. Data should be analyzed on it's own merit, not just dismissed immediately.

I don't see the gradual increase in passes though. I see passing remaining static (as well as the conversion rates) while runs going down (with higher conversion rate). This is data that definitely has an interesting story behind it. The problem is there are a lot of variables to go over.

Football is just too complex a game with too many variables to use a simple table like that and get too many conclusions from that data. What the data tells me is that running on 3rd and short is attempted less, but has become much more successful. What this data needs is to be segmented further to find out WHY running on third and short is converting better even with passing attempts on 3rd and short staying the same. With so many variables, I wish you luck on finding the answer, although I'm sure it's very possible to find out. Very interesting though. Maybe coordinators are getting smarter.

What happened to the hotel, entertainment park, and championship golf course? Also, read what Deacon Jones said about his old team on the next page. Can you imagine the news if a player said that now? And people get annoyed about Lynch. They have nobody to blame but themselves.

Yes, but I get the sense he did it AFTER taking abuse from fans. And he always got it worse than anybody else because he was a reach, held out in training camp, and talked to the media a lot and fans liked to take their frustrations out on him. I always felt the fans were just as responsible for Whitner's bad behavior as he was. It's called karma. In McGahee's case, he was a spoiled brat after Miami who was humbled only temporarily. This guy was hanging out at strip clubs with Shockey and the rest of the hotshot Miami crew back when he was still in college. He was going to be a top 3 pick, a future superstar RB. Yet he was never grateful to Buffalo for taking a chance on him in the 1st round. You could argue Donahue reached that year. Then he says what he says on the way out. Pure trash lowlife move. I'm normally the first to get annoyed with Bills fans when they talk crap about former players (like some on this board recently did with Stevie), but in this case McGahee totally deserves it.

Normally this is correct, but in this case McGahee said some pretty bad things about Buffalo and our women as he left town. Things that got picked up by the national media. He deserves it more than say Whitner or Byrd.

What you are doing is convincing yourself we can't win before we even get out on the field. You should never stop believing. It's the ones that don't listen to statements such as "teams without great QBs don't win the big one" that go on to win the big one. Every rule can be broken. If the Bills go on to win a Super Bowl or even just make it to the Super Bowl, every team without a good QB will copycat our system. I also disagree that a rookie and sophomore Sanchez is better than a veteran Cassel and 3rd year Manuel. Another ridiculous statement.

This made me laugh. I hope it happens though.

This has gotten out of hand. A great QB is very important, but you just took it to a ridiculous level, and then proved yourself wrong in the same sentence. The Jets made it to the AFC championship two years in a row with Sanchez just 4 or 5 years ago. The guy who coached that team is our coach right now. We haven't made the playoffs in 15 years. Please remind me why I shouldn't be pumped about this team right now?

The OP gets it. The Bills strategy is the best strategy they can have. Can't have a great QB? Then surround the QB we have with the best talent possible. It's the obvious thing to do. Sure beats whining about not having a QB, when there are no good ones available. Once we sign a veteran Guard and some depth, we're going to have the best team we can have without a good QB. We're making the Playoffs this year.

Perspective goes both ways. Perspective doesn't just mean the pessimistic point of view. When a large percentage of Bills fans are playing the "wait and see" game with their heads between their legs, it's refreshing to hear someone outside of our community who sees a different point of view. Nobody EVER became successful without a healthy dose of optimism and expectation of success. There is clearly a new energy at OBD. Also, I don't know of any cheerleaders in Buffalo media other than Chris Brown who is pretty much a shill. So I'd argue, John Murphy needs perspective more than Joe Rose does.

Did anybody actually listen to that. Joe Rose knew what he was talking about and made some very interesting points. 1. The Dolphins have too many holes on their roster to cripple their cap with the Clay deal. 2. If they lost Clay they would lose 4 of the top 5 receivers on the team from last year. That might motivate them to keep him. He really built Clay up. Then he showed some genuine excitement for the Bills. It got me excited. Then he told John Murphy "You guys must be excited!", then John Murphy replied in the most whiny, bored, jaded voice ever, "we are". Man, Bills fans are the biggest debbie downers.

Fans have heard of him because of fantasy football and think he's "good". They also see him as a cheaper alternative to Clay, and those who are worried we won't improve our O-line prefer spending less on TE and spending more on OG. Thus Gresham was the guy they preferred.

If they think he's worth #50 then by all means do it. Everyone complains we don't have a great QB, yet nobody wants to spend the assets it takes to acquire one. What's the point on taking a 7th round flyer when the odds of them becoming successful is WAY lower than a higher pick? 7th round flyers on Guards and TEs are much more likely to be successful than a QB. Everyone has their priorities backwards, but their whining always in order.