Greg F

For all the yungins ... The Bills, Patriots, and Jets were original members of the AFL's Eastern Division. The Dolphin franchise was added in 1966 and were also in the Eastern Division. For us elderly fans there is a lot of history in the AFC East.

Put Searcy over the top and have him lay the wood on him every time he catches the ball. Kelce will start hearing footsteps increasing the chance of dropped passes.

His throwing mechanics include his footwork, which is, and has been terrible. He "doesn't use them all the time" because he needs to actively think about what he is doing. IOW, the process of throwing correctly for EJ has not yet become habit, or ingrained in his muscle memory if you prefer. His biggest problem, when he doesn't have time to think about his throwing motion, is to revert to the old habit of throwing off his back foot. That is the habit he needs to break.

EJ could improve but the difference between him and Orton is Orton's throwing mechanics were good coming into the NFL, EJ's were not. In all likeliness EJ has been throwing that way since he was a kid, it is a habit. Habits are hard to break. Especially habits that someone has been doing for more than a decade. It's possible he could correct it but I think the odds are against him. To fix his bad habits EJ is going to have to consciously think about how he is throwing. He is going to have to repeat the motion over and over until it becomes automatic and he no longer has to think about it. IMO it is good that EJ is sitting where he can concentrate on his throwing mechanics without having to simultaneously try to master the mental aspects of playing QB. On what basis can anyone claim that a methodology that is proprietary, cannot be validated by a third party, and that admittedly is based on subjective inputs, be called a "better stat"? As faulty as the NFL QB rating is at least it is based on objective data. ESPN's QBR strikes me as marketing masquerading as objective analysis. Not like that has never been done before. So next time you want to use the ESPN QBR keep in mind your faith in it is just a belief.

I think a lot of star players were stars because what they did right was so ingrained in them that they never had to think about it. If you ever work with kids you know there are some that can just throw. No one ever taught them to throw, it just came naturally to them. As a consequence they don't really know what they are doing right, it just works. It is hard to impart knowledge to someone if your good at something but don't really understand why you are good at it.

First. Orton was 190/368 in his first two years as his second year (2006) he never saw the field. The next time Orton would play was December 17th 2007 where he started the last 3 games (winning 2 of them) of the Bears losing 2007 season. From 2008 on Orton has been above 58.5%. 2005 - 51.6% 2006 - DNP 2007 - 53.8% 2008 - 58.5% 2009 - 62.1% 2010 - 58.8% So you are wrong as Orton had 2 years in his first five in the league where he was above 58%. If you only count the years he actually saw the field then 3 of those first 5 years he was above 58%.

Don't know where your getting this as he 8th among QB's with at least 40 attempts.

The Bills are tied for first with Arizona and Seattle at 3.2 YPA which in my opinion the more important stat. The Bills are 5th in total yards given up on the ground but 3 (Arizona, Seattle, and Denver) of the 4 (Detroit) ahead of us have played one less game.

From the Chicago Tribune article: While the police are allowed to ask a passenger to provide identification the passenger is under no legal obligation to provide identification. The police statement is a lie by omission.

Nobody is arguing anything different. It is a dubious stat put out by the NFL so idiots like us can argue about it. ESPNs QBR is a black box that that they admit is composed of numerous subjective inputs. Subjective inputs make it prone to the biases of the person(s) who create the data. The subjective nature of the inputs also make it susceptible to adjustments when the results don't live up to expected results. Let me point out that the use of subjective data is a well known problem that often leads to studies that come to complete opposite conclusions. It should also be pointed out that this doesn't imply the bias is malicious, it is simply a fact of human nature. It is the old garbage in garbage out problem. To assume that it is "way better than the old passer rating" is assuming that the data is free of bias, which by its very nature cannot be. The proprietary nature of the rating makes 3rd party validation impossible and thus judging its reliability impossible. If ESPN was interested in the integrity of their rating they would release it for 3rd party analysis. While the NFL passer rating is clearly too simplistic at least we know the input data is objective and easily verified. The ESPN rating, OTOH, is composed of inputs that are subjective in nature and could be complete garbage for all we know. In short ESPN's rating it is nothing but a sales gimmick.

Copied what I posted before for convenience: For the first 32 games this year the team with the highest quarterback rating won 87.5% of the time. Using just YPA for the same 32 games I found the loosing team had a higher YPA in 8 of the games. IOW, the winning team had a higher YPA in 75% of the games. OTOH, in those 8 games only one of them had no interceptions by either QB. In the other 7 games the loosing team had more interceptions than the winning team. I am not quite sure how you would "mix three parts YPA with one part interception percentage". If you could give me some direction on how the interception percentage should combine with the YPA I would be happy to run the numbers. As a further bonus I modified the quarterback rating formula by zeroing out the TD/att from the quarterback rating and got 3 games in the first week and none in the second where the team with the higher quarterback rating lost the game. The difference in quarterback rating for those three games was 2.60, 4.65, and 1.73 as opposed to 4.93, 16.6, 7.6, and 2.4 for the 4 games listed above.

The only point you have made is your not interested in the facts. You have demonstrated that with your blatant intellectual dishonesty. To put it simply, you are blinded by hero worship.

You just cannot admit you are wrong. The "cornerstone" of your points were based on myths. The Colts played their starters. Too bad it doesn't fit the fantasy you want to believe.

You forgot to add 'even if it means opening up your QB to get crushed by hordes of angry defensive linemen'.

Why comparing QB's based on quarterback ratings in different era's is futile.

The myth of the backups rears its ugly head again. The backups didn't enter the game until there was a little more than 8 minutes left in the game and the Colts were trailing 28 to 6. Unless of course you consider Edgerrin James, Peyton Manning, and Marvin Harrison backups. No, what I am looking at is someone who has now made 2 factually incorrect statements to support their mythological perception of a poor quarterback and is attempting to move the goal posts to divert attention away from those factually incorrect statements. Get back to me when you can show some intellectual honesty.

In 1999 Flutie started the first 15 games. The last game of the 1999 season Johnson started and the Bills won. So in fact the Bills did win, and quite convincingly (31 to 6), "when Flutie wasn't playing". Flutie was a one trick pony that the league had figured out.

It is the nature of a sales gimmick. Not necessarily accurate but it got your attention.

I compared the first 2 weeks of the season and found one game the first week (N. Foles - 87.45, C. Henne - 89.87). There were three games the second week: B. Hoyer - 81.67 ~ D. Brees - 89.27 D. Stanton - 66.30 ~ E. Manning - 82.96 N. Foles - 84.4 ~ A. Luck - 89.3

The NFL changed the rule in 2008 so the winner of the coin toss could defer to the second half. Prior to that the team that won the coin toss had the choice to kickoff or receive to start the game. The team that lost the coin toss got the same choices to open up the second half. Prior to the rule change the winner of the coin toss always chose to receive the kickoff as they knew the looser of the coin toss would chose to receive to start the second half.

It would be the team with the longest playoff drought against the team with the longest playoff win drought. The Bills haven't been in a playoff since 1999. The Bengals haven't won a playoff game since 1990.

According to a few different sources he has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, not molecular engineering. In fact, I couldn't find a degree program for molecular engineering at MIT. A search for molecular engineering on the MIT web site takes you to chemical engineering courses where there are courses on molecular engineering. I hope the "one other guy" actually has a degree in statistics. The statistics requirements for engineers (or scientist for that mater) is not, IMO and from experience, inadequate for the task at hand. Underlined for Correction: I intended to type "inadequate".

It has always had a use. Where getting grid power to remote locations is costly it clearly is a alternative. For supplying power to the grid, without mass storage, it will never be economical. The intermittent nature of both solar and wind precludes them from ever supplying more than a small fraction of the power due to grid stability issues. Look at history of the development of any technology and you will see that the largest jumps occur early in the development of the technology. Once the technology has matured the improvements become much smaller. Solar has benefited from semi-conductor technology which is approaching its physical limitations. You can't get smaller than an atom.

Solar is a mature technology that is well over 30 years old. One of the most significant problems with solar (as well as wind) is that it cannot be scheduled. IOW, it cannot follow demand. Demand generally peaks between 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm while solar peaks at noon. There is no economic way to store the energy produced by solar or wind which dooms them to being nothing but boutique sources of energy for the well healed economically at the expense of the average tax payer.

HD for me from the Watertown station via TWCNY.