HappyDays

There were threads on those extensions here and the consensus was that they were overpaid. Dak does get more attention because he plays for the Cowboys but I don't agree that he is getting unbalanced treatment. I agree Dak is better than everyone on that list above. I still would not want to extend him until after this year.

The also lost 4 games where they scored 15 points or less. Their defense wasn't bad last year. They were 11th in points allowed. It's not like those Saints teams a few years ago where the defense made it impossible to win even with Brees at the helm. Everyone knows the defense was the strength of the Bills last year. We also had a mediocre at best offense around Josh Allen. We're not a good comparison to the Cowboys. Maybe coaching sunk them but are we already claiming McDermott and Daboll are better at coaching offense? What is the evidence for that? This discussion has gotten too polarized. Some people here think Dak is just a backup which is obviously wrong. But there are some people here who think it's crazy to even question paying him. The fact is he led a team to 8-8 and he's looking for over $35 million per year. If that is Allen in 3 years we'll be having the same conversation whether his stats are good or not. Right or wrong people want to pay the QBs that win. That's not to say Dak was solely responsible for the record last year. You just can't try to convince me he takes no responsibility for their season. They had a pretty easy schedule - they were in the worst division in the NFC, and they played the AFC East and NFC North. Their defense was 11th in points allowed. The offensive roster around Dak was easily top 5 in the NFL. All they needed was a 9-7 record and they couldnt do it. They should be a better team this year. New coaching staff and they added Ceedee Lamb. This is a good year for Dak to prove he is a championship caliber QB.

No one cares about college stats in scouting a player for the NFL. I could find and post countless examples of this not mattering, but do you really need me to?

Correct. Using that list is not a good use of statistics. Past results in a vacuum do not predict future results - i.e. the gambler's fallacy. It's like if you had a friend who always drove way over the speed limit, drove drunk, and never wore his seatbelt. You call him out on it and he says "but the chance of dying in a car wreck is only 1 in 100,000." Sure, for everyone else. But for him the probability is different because of the other factors. Allen is a QB who has gotten better at every stage of his career, from college to year 1 in the NFL to year 2 in the NFL. And I for one thought he played better in the 2nd half of year 2 than in the first half. A consistent upwards trajectory. You can't use completely different QBs in completely different situations to predict where he will end up. The funny thing about this discussion is I think every single person involved has the same idea - Allen was better in year 2 than in year 1, and he needs to continue to get better to be a franchise QB. If anyone disagrees with either of those two points they're on a different planet. So how about we just wait and see what happens? Anyone who claims to know how likely it is that he'll become a franchise QB is lying. No amount of data can make that conclusion.

This is the worst kind of hindsight. Here are snippets from a scouting report on player A: Here's a scouting report on player B: Which player is Pat Mahomes and which player is Josh Allen?

That's nonsense. He had 1 season over 1,000 yards and another over 1,100. I think Cooper is a little overrated but he has never been a JAG. I mean of course Dak is better than Derek Carr but you cannot call Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup and Zeke Elliott a JAG offense.

How did I know someone would bring this up? We're talking about a QB coming off of his 4th season a starter, looking for $35 million per year. Of course Dak is better than Allen right now. That has nothing to do with the conversation.

Zero help? He still has Zeke pass blocking and catching the ball. Amari Cooper is a top 10 WR. The offensive line is great. Man I don't even dislike Dak but he's looking for $35 million per year. There isn't other help coming.

A good example of this and why it didn't matter was their final 2 games of the season. They came into the Philly game at 7-7. Philly was the same. It was absolutely a must win game to get into the playoffs. They lost 17-9. Then in week 17 they won a meaningless game against the Redskins 47-16. Their point differential in those 2 games was +23. That's the story of Dak Prescott and the Cowboys last year. When they won, they won big. Great stat padding team. But there were too many important games that the offense flubbed.

You're right, they changed coaches from... the guy that Dallas just hired. This is why I'm way more skeptical about Dallas this season than most people. McCarthy made it to one championship with Aaron Rodgers in his prime. Prescott is not anywhere near the level of Rodgers. That's a tough sell for me. Rodgers was injured for half the season in 2017. You can't use that against him. 2018 was a bit of a down year for him but he has a decade of elite QB play to stand on. Give Rodgers the Cowboys offensive line, Zeke, and that receiving corps. He would drag Jason Garrett kicking and screaming deep into the playoffs. You're crazy if you want to use Rodgers as your comparison. I don't think I'm making too much out of a single season. It's the most recent season. That's how it works when you're looking for a big extension. No one cares what you did 2 years ago in the NFL. Your point about the coaching staff is fair but that alone doesn't excuse 5 winnable games where he couldnt get the job done. And it's not like they just hired the cream of the crop. If coaching was an excuse for Dak last year that isn't going away this year.

I see it in the opposite light. In his 4th year as a starter with the best supporting cast of his career he couldn't manage the 1 extra win it would have taken to make it to the playoffs. Again, they didn't lose 8 games in horrific blowouts, and no one thinks his offensive cast was anything less than stellar. They had poor coaching and an average defense. But I showed you 5 games that were winnable. Any one of those games would have gotten them in the playoffs if he had made a few more plays. At some point the QB looking for over $35 million per year has to be accountable to the result of the season. You're right that finding a QB better than Dak is far easier said than done and I'm not saying they should show him the door. I think they should gave him a shorter extension like he's looking for and see if he rises to the occasion with a new coaching staff. If he plays well and they end up paying him more in the long run no one in Dallas would complain.

My bad. So I guess their strategy is lock him in now and 3 years from now with salary cap increases they won't be strapped by his contract. That makes some kind of sense. If I were them I would do the shorter contract and let Dak prove himself. I'm not saying they have to cut any superstars. They will have to cut some of their depth and more importantly they will not be able to add to their team. The roster that went 8-8 is the same except for draft picks. There are legitimate reasons to question if he can take his game to that next level. If you look at his game log last year it's not like their losses were all blow outs where Dak didn't have a chance. They lost to the Saints 12-10. They lost to the Jets 24-22. Patriots 13-9. Bills 26-15. Eagles 17-9. He had opportunities to win those games and couldn't do it. Dak's average passer rating in those losses was 78.6. This is on an offense with a top 5 RB, top 10 WR, and one of the best offensive lines in football. It is not ridiculous to question if he's worth a mega extension.

Well, that's the point. They have $4 million in cap space and they just went 8-8. If they pay Prescott more they have to start cutting people. So now you have an 8-8 roster that could get worse as a result of paying him. I know Prescott was not the main issue last year but people are questioning if he is good enough to take them further than 1 playoff win in 4 years on a contract that will actively make the team worse. And FWIW Cowboys fans are just as torn on the question. Like I said I think he's right on that line. I can understand why the Cowboys are seeking a shorter extension, they're trying to hedge their bet.

I think the point is that if you are up against the cap limit you better be a championship contender. And some people believe that if Dallas pays Dak that much money they will not be championship contenders. I don't necessarily agree, I think he's right on the line of QBs that you give massive deals to so I would do it.

I like the idea. Onside kicks are stupid. I would just add the caveat that all penalties are up for review on that play. No one wants to see a BS pass interference give a team an extra drive. If they allow penalty reviews it would be fair. Honestly I'd be okay if they took kicking out of the game entirely aside from punts and kickoffs. Let a team elect to take 3 points inside the 25 yard line. This will encourage more 4th down attempts between the 50 and the 25 and we don't have to pretend field goal kickers are football players. On the same note get rid of the extra point. Make a TD worth 7 points with the ability to risk 1 point on a 2 point conversion.

I mean really, do you remember actually watching EJ Manuel play? Does your eye test really think this is a good comparison? Manuel was awful. He never showed any potential. But sure, I'll play along. First of all you're using a 4 game sample against a 15 game sample. That doesn't work. Secondly even if that's your argument, Manuel's numbers are still demonstrably worse. Allen had better passer rating, YPA, TD%, and INT%. Thirdly Manuel was throwing to Sammy Watkins and Robert Woods. Allen was throwing to John Brown and some combination of Zay Jones, Duke Williams, and other assorted bench warmers. Which, again, he still had better numbers with.

Reportedly not true:

Thank you for posting the thread with all of the Steelers throws. My memory of the game is correct. Allen played extremely well and was let down by his supporting cast far more than they were let down by him. I counted exactly two bad/inaccurate passes in that thread. I also counted 4 drops. As much as some posters think Bills fans make excuses for Allen, I have never seen so many excuses made for a group of receivers. If the ball doesn't hit them softly in the hands at the exact center of their chest, they're off the hook. It doesn't come up a lot on here but Beasley was a disappointment last year IMO. He came in as the receiver who "catches everything." Instead he is a small receiver who plays small. He has excellent short area quickness, but if the ball is a little outside his catch radius or there is a DB in his vicinity he is not likely to catch the ball.

Eh, are we sure? He had one of the greatest QBs of all time for a decade and only made it to one Super Bowl. That's bad coaching IMO.

I like the Ravens over actually. They have a very easy schedule, I'm not sure they'll be underdogs in any one of their games. I expect them to run away with the AFC #1 seed.

- means you have to bet that amount to win $100. + means the opposite, you have to bet $100 to win that amount.

Yeah and in those first 3 drives the Chiefs didn't score a single point and ended up down 24-0. I would say those drops mattered quite a bit. I don't know why this point is so controversial. It is a plain fact that Bills receivers led the league in drop percentage. That fact doesn't excuse all of Allen's bad plays or mean that he was secretly a top 5 QB. It is just true. We don't need to argue over the definition of a drop and pretend that every QB in the league dealt with the same issue. Anyone who watched the Bills last year knows it was a consistent problem.

Yeah but they were already competitive in year 2 as well. Wilson improved, the coaching staff was obviously strong, and they added the talent needed to be competitive for a championship. I guess my point is, what is there stopping the Bills from competing for a championship this year? Last year we were still rebuilding our talent level. We had a whole new offensive roster around a young QB. No one reasonably expected us to be Super Bowl contenders. I thought the expectation was to make the playoffs as a wildcard and look competitive in that game. They met that bar. This year everyone on offense is back in the same system but we added a #1 WR. The defense at worst is at the same talent level (I would argue it has actually improved slightly). So that leads me to conclude that if the Bills do not compete for a championship this year, either the coaches or Allen did not meet a standard that we should expect. Another year of rebuilding isn't going to change the team's outlook that much. This year we should be a team that wins at least one playoff game and looks at least competitive in game 2. If we fall a little short of winning it all, one more good draft and free agency period might push us over the top. But we're done adding the major pieces.

Adding the caveat that the candidates must be external, and opening the rule up to coordinator jobs as well, should eliminate the issue @GunnerBill outlined in the previous thread. I like this change. It makes sense and doesn't provide any kind of competitive advantage.

As in they didn't have to wait any longer than we have. They won it all in Wilson's third year and have been perennial contenders ever since. Aside from injury I don't see any real excuses this year. If we aren't a competitive playoff team either the coaching staff wasn't prepared or Allen didn't take the step he needed. I'm optimistic that both of those things will happen by the way. But I'm drawing my line in the sand - the roster as it's constructed today should immediately be able to contend for a championship if the coaching staff and QB are progressing as they should be.