Bleeding Bills Blue

Oh man! Everyone on this board wanted to draft him.. imagine how ballistic the board would've gone!

Both KC and OAK did a good job taking care of the football last year. A nice outlier and regression example would be carolina with 39 takeaways in 2015, and 27 in 2016. Both very good numbers, so that suggests that their defense was good at taking the ball away. They had 19 turnovers in 2015 and 29 in 2016. They went from +20 to -2, and 15-1 to 7-9. They had some terrible luck last year with turnovers and losing close games. They were in Miami territory and rivers threw a pick 6 and they lost. The 2 raiders games were there for the taking, and their defense is underrated. They added Mike Williams, and get Keenan Allen back. Added Okung on the line. Still have Rivers and Gordon. New HC in Anthony Lynn. Bringing back Whisenhunt who was really successful in his 1 year in SD. They could win that division and I wouldn't be surprised.

Good point LA#2

KC and Oakland were 1,2 in the league in takeaways. That tends to fluctuate a bit from year to year, and also tends to have a pretty large association with wins. KC was good the past 2 years though, and they have a good pass rush so you never know.

Their defense is legit, and they were rolling along until Anderson got hurt. Lost a couple tight ones too. I look at Oakland as the team with a decent chance of regression. Lots of takeaways, not a lot of turnovers so they had a massive TO diff. Really good record in super tight games - the NO conversion at the end baltimore was at midfield with a minute left down 1 on 1st down chargers fumbled on in the red zone in the 4th quarter of a 3 point loss, and then fumbled with a 3 point lead in the 4th quarter the 2nd time) win over TB in OT tight win against Carolina. If anything that shows me that San Diego could be decent with a little luck on their side.

Denver is underrated, but i think Oakland is equally overrated.

We had some bad pass protection breakdowns, and had trouble getting lined up. Trouble getting lined up means jumping our snap count, which means blowing up run plays, and getting to the QB.

We had 30 first downs in that game. Scored 31 points, and had 589 yards. Derek carr and oakland had 30 first downs 1 time last season. New England didn't all year until the super bowl.

cuz they have a qb i guess?

I think he's trolling to get this thread closed maybe? I dunno.

Hence drafting someone else, and bringing in TJ yates. They wanted Cardale in so badly that they essentially planned to get rid of him.

Whats your explanation for his game against Miami week 16?

To be fair - they are west teams travelling east. They tend to do worse. The raiders 4 worst offensive performances were all road games.

Yeah - disregarding Cooper and Crabtree is ridiculous. They have a top 5 o-line in football and had 3 running backs averaging 4 or more per carry. They had a better punter, a better kicker. Oh and their defense had 30 takeaways - 2nd most in the NFL.

They weren't very accurate in 2016, so what makes you think they will be in 2017? http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/nfl-predictions-win-totals-las-vegas-gambling-2016-how-many-wins-patriots-051716

I look at it like - we've had scouts run the team. They didn't do a great job of valuing players based on their contributions, and over-valued certain players with regards to picks (sammy, EJ, kouandjo, graham, goodwin), as well as money (Dareus, Glenn, Tyrods first deal, repeatedly paying harvin). Overpaying, and bad cap habits are the reason we lost players like woods, gilmore, Searcy, Levitre. We may have still lost some of them because of contract demands, but we should have at least had the cap space to replace them more effectively. Now having said that, they did bring in many talented players and free agents. We aren't at a browns level of incompetence.

They also get this year to see what you might have in James Conner. They can tag bell again next year and if Conner's no good they have both 2018 and 2019 drafts/free agency to replace him.

Derek Carr's Oakland Raiders have beaten 2 playoff teams in his 3 years at the helm. The Brock O led Broncos in 2015, and the Brock O led Texans in 2016. 1-3 in 2016 and 1-7 in 2015. I'm gonna go with yes.... they do.

Ownership issues are probably at the heart of the drought. Hopefully getting personell and coaching guys aligned will help end it.

To be fair... The Eagles won the NFC east and made the playoffs in 2013, and finished 10-6 and missed the playoffs in 2014.

Where does Groy factor in? Mills is occasionally just brutal at pass protection. Dawkins will need to show he's better at that and I think he can snag the job. I don't think the starting 3 will be the same 2 in the nickel. There isn't a "3 down linebacker" on the roster. Hodges will see a lot of time in the Nickel. Same with Humber, and maybe Milano? I think zo plays SAM for when we do the traditional 4-3 under. Not sure who's the traditional Will, but it seems like the options are Brown/Hodges. When we go over, i could see subbing out zo for one of the others.

I think the biggest problem was panicking and drafting EJ in the first place. Shouldve traded out of pick 8 and into 2014 instead. We were in essentially a prime position to tank for a couple years. We had like 0 QB options, and could've purged the roster of bad contracts like the Jets are doing this year. We'd have probably had Bortles if we went QB in 2014... or we would've bottomed out so hard that we may have gone value and got a guy like Khalil Mack or Clowney for value instead of reaching. Continue on the bottom out path and we can get winston or mariota who are closer resembling cant miss QB prospects. Looking back, it's hard to see where they thought they resembled a playoff team. The only reason we're closer now is Shady (because he's good), and Tyrod (because he's so much better than EJ/Orton/Fitz/Edwards).

I don't blame him for not selecting a top QB. I blame him for having such a bad QB plan in general. If you have a Fitz type - even with a player friendly deal... how can you not look at adding players like dalton, wilson, or foles? Same goes for Whaley. 2014 we didn't draft any even though McCarron or Savage were available in the 4th/5th rounds. We didn't draft Cardale until we were sure we were done with EJ. Displays a lack of foresight.

With a better QB maybe we don't have to jump the gun and hire marrone.

It was Tavon Austin and TJ Mcdonald for EJ, Kiko, glass goodwin, and gragg. And we traded kiko for Shady. Worst part is - I think austin would've been good here. We had Sammy, and needed a playmaker. May have still snagged Kiko in the 2nd, and maybe Glennon in the 3rd? I don't know how much better that would've made us, but we ended up with junk in EJ and goodwin anyway so what was the value in adding picks. The problem was that we cut Fitz for cap room, and had a backup plan of kevin kolb who never even suited up. We needed a QB so desperately. Terrible roster management by Buddy Nix to skip QB from 10-12. Set the team back for years. Williams over Dalton sticks out to me. Graham over Wilson (but also Foles and Cousins). We never sat down and tried to actually build for the future, it was just buddy patching holes every year. maybe... after he punted!