HappyDays

I mean this is just stretching to find reasons not to compliment the player. KC's defense had the play sniffed out and perfectly covered. None of the RBs you mentioned would come close to making that play. There is a phenomenon happening amongst certain Bills fans where they're making the jump from "we shouldn't pay Cook" to "Cook isn't that good." There are plenty of reasonable arguments for why Cook shouldn't be extended - his position, his snap count, his 3rd down %, etc. You can make those arguments without making irrational comparisons to Singletary and the like. Any discussion about extending Cook should acknowledge the fact that if you don't extend him you are losing some of the great individual plays he made last year.

Funny enough I don't think there's any way Hurts is the 5th best QB in the NFL right now. But you're weighing different factors more heavily than I am. I can't find reason to poke holes in anyone's list because there are a lot of different ways to approach the question. The top 4 is the top 4 in whatever order you want, and then from there it gets tricky. The way I look at is pretend each QB was on the Eagles last year. What would their record be? The top 4 might have had that team undefeated. From there I am ranking based on how I see their consistency and skill set.

FWIW I struggled the most with that tier of #5-#10. What made me put Stafford at the top of that tier is I think he is still the most consistent out of that group. I am not looking at stats and I am not factoring in his 2022 Super Bowl win. His arm power is still there and because he's played for so long he can diagnose defenses with the best of them. He had to deal with Kupp losing a step and Nacua being injured for much of the year, middling pass protection, and a below average defense.

People are too quick to blame mental illness for stuff like that. If a guy has schizoprehnic delusions that cause him to burn down a building, okay that is a case where mental illness was responsible. But not too many mentally ill people out there are grabbing a security officer's gun outside of a club and shooting at someone they're having an argument with. That is just run of the mill bad person behavior. Antonio Brown is a bad person. Don't muddy the waters by even bringing his supposed "mental illness" into it.

I assume the question is referring to last year. The 2017 Bills facing last year's schedule would absolutely not have gone 9-7 and made the wildcard. I would say 7-9 at best. The competition in the AFC has gotten a lot tougher since then and we're playing a 1st place schedule.

I think he was also just playing better two seasons ago though. 2022 for my money was the most impressive season of his career, right after trading Tyreek Hill he had to play a new brand of football and immediately delivered an elite performance. Not sure what happened after that season, maybe just fatigue from a lot of deep playoff runs, but he is not playing that well these days. And again I'm not talking about stats, just actual play on the field based on the eye test. So I have to rank based on how these QBs are performing now, not on what they were doing over two years ago. I could see an argument to arrange the top 4 any way you'd like. It depends on what factors you're weighing, how far back you're analyzing, what play style you prefer, etc. I would expect any fan of one of those 4 teams to rank their QB #1 and I would respect it. There are solid counterarguments for all of them too. That's what makes the conversation interesting.

I'm really not looking at stats at all. And I am taking the supporting cast into account, that's why I have the most recent Super Bowl champion at #11 on my list. Mahomes just hasn't played at the highest level over the past two seasons. Allen, Jackson, and Burrow all got MVP hype last year. The QB of the 15-1 team got no MVP hype at all. That tells you where the national perception is at right now. Part of it is people recognizing that their defense and special teams was the primary engine to that record. And those parts of the team definitely gave him some leeway that the other top 3 QBs did not have, even accounting for his middling supporting cast. I hear you on the clutch factor. I just don't think you can weigh it so heavily that you ignore the QB's play for the other 58 minutes of a football game. If you were weighing playoff football heavier then Jackson might be #4 on the list, maybe even out of the top 4 entirely. But I'm just looking at their play on the whole over the entire season.

It doesn't have to count for anything. QBs have a lower impact on single game wins than most fans think. They're probably worth like 30% or less of the team's overall success. Which of course makes them by far the most important player on the team, but the rest of the team taken as a whole is still more impactful. This is the same line of thinking that makes a lot of Eagles fans argue to the death that Hurts is a top 5 QB, but when you watch him play there is a clear drop off.

Actually Mahomes being #4 is not so controversial. Because it's based on how they're playing right now, not their career achievements. Chris Simms ranked Mahomes #4 in his list, Joe Marino did a QB ranking recently and also had Mahomes #4. It's kind of undeniable that the other top 3 are playing at least at his level or higher. For me Allen and Jackson clearly were the two best QBs last year, Burrow and Mahomes I could place in either order. I gave Mahomes the edge because he has that uncanny ability to pull out a close game at the end. But his overall play last year would have lost more games for both the Ravens and Bills IMO.

Chris Simms just did his top 40 QB countdown. This was his top 10: Here's where I'm at, entirely based on their play right now not on their career. I put a line in between what I consider to be a significant drop off from one tier to the next. 1) Allen 2) Jackson 3) Mahomes 4) Burrow ----- 5) Stafford 6) Daniels 7) Stroud 8 ) Herbert 9) Goff 10) Mayfield ----- 11) Hurts 12) Murray 13) Prescott 14) Geno 15) Love 16) Nix 17) Tua 18) Purdy 19) Lawrence 20) Rodgers ----- 21) Maye 22) Darnold 23) Daniel Jones 24) Young 25) Penix 26) Wilson 27) Caleb Williams 28) Fields ----- 29) Ward 30) McCarthy 31) Browns QBs 32) Saints QBs

No the expectations are right where they should be. He was taken in a WR heavy draft which means the talent was pushed down the board, and we had our pick of 7 different WRs before we traded down. So if Beane and the scouting staff did their jobs properly then Coleman should be expected to develop into at least a solid WR2. That means he needs to be a regular contributor and get a minimum of around 800 yards. Now if he doesn't hit that in year two does that mean he's a bust? Of course not. But this year you want to see meaningful progress leading in that direction if nothing else.

Yeah and that mindset is why we once trotted AJ Klein onto the field in the divisional round instead of playing a rookie Dorian Williams. Klein knew the defense better but that doesn't help when your movement skills resemble the Tin Man. There is a part of me that worries the same thing will happen with Tre White and Hairston. Hopefully not though. McDermott said earlier this week the plan is to play a lot of young players on defense and reports from OTAs/minicamp said Hairston was being coached hard and getting better week over week. So I hope that they are expecting him to win the job, and that even if he is still making some mental mistakes McDermott will give him his runway early in the season to acclimate to the NFL and the team will be better for it in January.

The mindset should be if there's a tie or even if it's close you give the job to the rookie because the rookie has the most room for improvement. We shouldn't be afraid of mental mistakes early in the season if the rookie is learning from those moments and ultimately playing better than the vet ever could in December and January.

My mantra in the offseason was 40 PPG offense. The team went a different direction. If it was up to me that is still what I would have tried to build. That being said on the whole I liked most of the investments they made on defense, especially early in the draft, and I'm glad we will likely find out once and for all if the talent or the coaching is the main reason we can't slow KC down in the playoffs. I understand the logic behind this offseason's strategy but I won't be convinced it will make a difference until I see it happen.

Yeah I'll be honest I still kind of wish we hadn't signed Tre. I love what he meant to the franchise but I believe he is just washed at this point. I would rather keep younger players whose bodies haven't broken down, like Strong and Ingram, but the team will probably feel obligated to keep Tre here over one of them.