transplantbillsfan

I've given you 9 QBs already, but let's get to 1/3rd of the teams in the NFL so I'll throw a few more in: Drew Brees- 45.3% with a lead & 15.5% with a 2 score lead. Blake Bortles- 39% with a lead & 8.4% with a 2 score lead. Cam Newton- 37.8% with a lead & 5.9% with a 2 score lead. 12 QBs, including Taylor, average % of passes when leading is 40.1%. Taylor, once again, averaged 26%. 40.1% is not 2% more than what Taylor averaged. 40.1% is not 10% more than what Taylor averaged. 40.1% is 14% more than what Taylor averaged. Friggin hell dude even Jacoby Brissett, QB of a 4-14 team averaged more passes from ahead than Taylor at 28.9%. My context text was based on watching what other teams do with a lead because I sit in a bar watching every game unfold every week since I can't watch the Bills at home since they're never on TV. So I had context, just from literally watching the games. Now I've provided you with some statistical context that, in fact, supports what I was saying. You're welcome Weird, I responded to your request to give you some "context," despite the fact that I already had some, but you ignore discussing the weight of that context as it relates to the argument. Why is that? Because perhaps it supports my point, not yours? Hmmmmmm???

Agreed. This is why Taylor his contract is so valuable right now. We can draft a guy in the first round, still keep Taylor and evaluate that new guy, who will (we assume) be an upgrade on Taylor. If worse comes to worse and all hell breaks loose with that kid, we still have a competent starter we could extend or Franchise, if absolutely necessary.

Agreed. The little I watched or know of college football, he's actually the guy I want most. Sorry, I read these threads chronologically. I literally just got to this post. I'm pretty sure I responded to this already, at this point.

What an absolutely head scratching statement. Taylor is your QB for at least one hopefully more games and you're saying that you would prefer that our OC doesn't alter his game planning and play calling to the strengths of his personnel rather than rigidly sticking to whatever his philosophical ideals are offensively? We can go and draft a QB in the off-season. If you don't want Denison at this point adjusting to the strengths of his personnel in order to win some playoff games… well, that's just incredibly weird if you are a bills fan.

Really fantastic find here. PFR is really an invaluable resource. Stupidity like this is annoying. Still assuming this is the reincarnation of the perma-banned Crusher. Same posting style and maybe a little extra bravado now that he's granted some anonymity.

What the HELL did this have to do with Maine-iac's comments about Shady's runs by quarter and half?! Oy

McDermott... keep up with me here... is satisfied with winning. That's priority #1. Unlike the nitpickers of yards and points, it seems pretty clear literally the only thing McDermott cares about is having more points than the other team when the clock strikes 0. Yeah, I think he's damn happy with 7 points on the board if the other team had less.

Really bad guess on your part http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?range=NFL&rank=047&type=Passing&year=2017 Taylor, in fact, was 12th in the NFL out of 37 tracked QBs in 3rd and 8+ yard passing conversions. Plus, he was 5/8 converting 3rd and 8+ yard passing plays with his legs on scrambles. If you were to factor those 3rd and 8+ yard scrambles in he was actually 8th %-wise converting 1st downs on those "clear passing situations." Better than the top 25% ain't to shabby now, is it?

Forget? What the F are you talking about?!?! Shady, you're acting like multiple sub 50 passer rating games are uncommon for NFL QBs when, in fact, they aren't. I only looked up Joe Flacco, Phillip Rivers, Andy Dalton, Eli Manning and Cam Newton and every single one of them had multiple sub 50 passer rating games. Honestly Shady, is your disdain for Taylor seriously blinding you this much?

We were 6th in the league in rushing largely because of Taylor... you realize that, right? Take his rushing yards out alone and we drop to 25th. Oh man... best post I've read so far this week!

What you say here sounds like a coaching thing.

Do you mean the "make him a QB" blueprint? I don't understand how people still say this 44 games into Taylor's career as a Bill... and what... 29 games since we heard that from the Ravens and everyone thought... "welp!!! Now Taylor's not going to be able to play QB because every team will do THAT!!!" Except they haven't. Why is that?

Not on 3rd downs

Fantastic interview/article for a really fantastic player. Man if Gaines could just stay healthy I think you could argue our top 2 CBs and starting Safeties make up the best secondary in the league.

And you have a bad habit of doing the opposite. Yes Taylor regressed a bit in the red zone, where he was fantastic in 2016, that was why I didn't include it in the OP, which was all about his 2 most valuable assets in 2017, not his 2 biggest detriments. You get that, right? But since you brought it up, I don't know total drives per team to the red zone, but if Charles Clay could catch and hold onto the damn ball (and/or Riveron weren't being paid under the table by the Pats) the Bills would have 2 more red zone TDs and one less interception an the team would jump up a handful of spots from 21st considering the difference between 21 and 10 is 52.27% to 57.69%.

Interesting the way you don't even address the 3rd down thing. You're just always searching for something to pick apart when it's anything pro-Tyrod. % of QB passes when leading... just some examples: Tyrod- 26% Wilson- 25% Rivers- 30.6% Cousins- 32.4% Smith- 38.2% Jimmy G- 44.4% Brady- 48.2% Wentz- 52.5% Goff- 61.8% And if you wanted the percentages in terms of a two score lead, they would be as follows: Tyrod- 8.6% Wilson- 4% Rivers- 9.4% Cousins- 6.5% Smith- 13.9% Jimmy G- 10.1%% Brady- 12.6% Wentz- 9.1% Goff- 13.8%

God I wish I could go to this game, but it's a little difficult to do that flight from Honolulu. Regardless, despite the fact that this game will be on TV, I'm going to the bar to watch this game with the bills fans that I've watched and suffered with for years now. Hopefully, we're celebrating a win at the end of the day! Sorry, I heard my name

I've been trying to search for this a while because I really think you're right. If we aren't top of the league we're definitely top five. It'd be awesome if someone could find this stat. Taylor has the 8th most 3rd and 8+ yardage to go on third down passing plays among all 37 tracked NFL QBs. And all of the guys in front of him started all 16 games, while Taylor missed almost a full 2 games.

Ummm... nope, it doesn't.

Oh yes, let's give credit to the average defense but not the average QB.

See, it's funny because you're doing this here in 2 separate posts. Child, what you're perceiving as "blaming" would only, in fact, be "blaming" if we lost... or if I were one of those naive posters who thought yards were the be all end all of QB stats I don't care about yards. I care about what the QB does to help the team get the W. Taylor's 2017 season was worse statistically in many ways (YAAARDZZZ) than 2016, but he was a better overall QB in 2017 in some important ways than 2016. Hey, you're the guy who said there was no way in hell a Tyrod led team would make the playoffs... is the crow delicious? Hope so! Cause if you're a true Bills fan you're rooting hardcore for him right now

I did this once during the season in terms of literal minutes we were ahead vs minutes we were tied or behind. You likely casually ignored it because it didn't fit your narrative. You don't want those numbers if they aren't conducive to you saying something negative about Taylor. The Bills had a lead a relatively large % of the season especially when compared with the 26% of passes Taylor threw when leading. It is. And it's not the first time that happened under the uber-conservative McDermott and almost certainly won't be the last.

Run/pass ratio? Why do I need to look that up? Are you lazily trying to make an argument about something?

The other was obviously protecting the football. But first of all, let's get the little disclaimer out of the way: Taylor is not an elite QB. He's not a top 10 QB. And he won't be the franchise QB for the Buffalo Bills. If we have the ability to clearly upgrade on Taylor, I don't think anyone would see that as a problem. And it seems pretty clear that 0BD will be actively trying to upgrade on him this offseason. If 2017 wasn't Taylor's last year and Buffalo, 2018 almost certainly will be. With all of that out-of-the-way, what I think Taylor seriously excelled (and why, combined with protecting the football, Taylor is valuable to a conservative coach like McDermott) at was third down. He was, in fact, one of the better QBs in the NFL as a whole on those Drive-extending plays. Part of that is shown in the fact that Buffalo has the sixth highest conversion percentage on third down in the NFL for 2017. https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/third-down-conversion-pct Yes, we ended up with the worst three and out percentage in the NFL. Yet, we were the sixth best and third down efficiency. Seems strange, huh? Some of that has to do with the three games that we can think of that were absolutely horrid: the Panthers game, the Bengals game, the Saints game. Otherwise, a lot of that has to do with what we do when we have a lead. We don't pass very much and we really barely pass with a 2+ score lead. In all of Taylor's 14 total games (once you factor in essentially the half of the Saints game and the half of the patriots game), just 26% of Taylor's throes of come when the bills were in the lead. Just 8.6% have come when the bills had a 2+ score lead. This is not a mistake, it's part of McDermotts grand scheme and there are seven games in particular where this plan came into place: NYJ, DEN, @ ATL, OAK, @ KC, MIA x 2. And I think he was even extra conservative and three Road games we played, though maybe not the last one quite as much because of the desperation factor. in those seven games, Dennison (probably at the request of McDermott) called 7 designed QB runs. Only one was successful. But all of this belies what actually happened, overall, on 3rd downs for the year; for the team as a whole but Taylor in particular. Taylor was 12th in the NFL in 2017 and third down conversion percentage on third down passing plays (according to what the NFL teams as third down passing plays. ). 42.7% of these plays went for third-down conversions. And yes, that includes sacks. That's up significantly from the 38.5% he converted in his first year as a starter. Yet, Taylor is more than just a passing QB. In fact, Taylor ran the ball 31 times on third downs in 2017. 18 of those were 1st down conversions. When Taylor ran, he converted 58.1% of the time. So, as a whole on the year, Taylor was actually 74/162, or 45.7% in converting 3rd downs. And then there are the passing plays that, for whatever reason, the NFL does not count in the net passing yards. These are plays where a QB is pressured, but instead of taking a sack (which would be included in net passing yards he escapes that sack) and gains positive yardage. On these plays, Taylor was 13/19, or 68.4% in converting 1st downs. So on what I think should be referred to as net passing plays, Taylor was converting 46% of his first downs. No, I'm not going to reslot him because you would have to do that for every single QB and I just don't have the damn time, but I think just about anyone should be happy with a QB who converts first down on 46% of his third downs. PS: For those of you wondering, Taylor scrambled 38 times for 294 yards (7.7 yards per scramble... this was about his average the last 2 years, too). PPS: Taylor had 15 kneel downs for -16 yards so on rushes throughout the year, Taylor gained 443 yards on 69 runs. That's 6.4 YPC.

Good stuff Shaw. I know it sounds like a copout, but I actually think Taylor is executing what McDermott largely wants quite effectively. Grab a lead and then just play safe as possible and protect it. It's become increasingly obvious throughout the season that much of this late game "turtling" (to coin a phrase from another poster) is more a product of coaching and game planning than anything. PS: bringing Freddy back would be awesome, but it's never gonna happen. My Freddy jersey will be on my back on Sunday, regardless.