transplantbillsfan

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.

Holy friggin balls!!!! twoandfourteen is totally Crusher!!! Mind officially blown! Lesson learned in this thread is that you can't fix stupid, even with a new username. a Crusher by any other name, like twoandfourteen, is still the stupidly stubborn Crusher just like a Ryan L Bills/ Maury Baulstein/ AiritoutFitzy by any other name, like Teddy KGB, is still the childishly simple RLBills/ MB/ AioFitzy thinking he "pantsed" everyone in an argument. Too funny, and a little sad.

Except Taylor is 12th out of 37 QBs in the NFL as a QB on 3rd down in passing. http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?range=NFL&rank=098&type=Passing&year=2017

Taylor was great in the red zone last year... soooooo willing to admit you might be wrong yet?

Like I've said, you just don't get it. I've been patient with you and tried explaining this in many different ways, but you've been lost to the ways of the Dark side. I'm not going to argue this point anymore with you. Your disdain for Taylor and your overt extremism regarding him has accelerated in the last couple months and there's just absolutely no hope for bringing you to reality.

Don't forget about AiritoutFitzy. There's something wrong with a dude on the Internet who constantly feels the need to change his identity

No, he hasn't.

This isn't the same thing as QBs being better comparatively, you realize that, right? For example, some GMs, like Jerry Jones are a little nuts and uber loyal. He'd never trade Dak for Tyrod even though Tyrod is better than Dak right now. The same largely goes for Mariota. Trubisky was a rookie so same rule applies even though Taylor's obviously better now. Tyrod is better than Winston right now but Winston is going to get a ton of time because of sheer physical talent and potential. So just because a GM might take Dak and/or Mariota and/or Trubisky and/or Winston before Tyrod doesn't mean they're better. So then you're left with QBs Taylor is obviously better than like whoever is the QB for the Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Browns, Broncos. Are we applying backups starting for the injured guys in front of them into this equation? Taylor's better than Brissett and Hundley but not Luck or obviously Rodgers. Taylor's better than Foles but not Wentz. Then you get a handful of QBs who you could argue Taylor is better than right now: Flacco, Carr, Dalton, Manning, Bortles. So your question of "who a GM would choose" isn't the same as "who's the better QB in a vacuum." And we haven't even brought coaching or offensive system or offensive talent into the equation here. So, again, saying Taylor is the 30-35th best QB is ridiculous.

You are seriously unbelievably stubborn. So stubborn that it absolutely blinds you. Is it really not become completely obvious to you yet that this whole going into a shell and becoming conservative thing is really largely a product of McDermott's game planning, which frankly I'm really not going to criticize because he managed to get us into the playoffs. But it looks pretty clear that and "McDermott world" it would be ideal to get a lead quickly and then allow the defense to hold that lead while playing Uber conservative on offense, being sure never to turn the ball over. Unbelievable that you aren't even giving credit to Taylor for winning a game. On the bills first two drives Taylor was 8/11 for 111 yards passing, 1 TD, 2/3 on 3rd downs and the team jumped out to a 10-0 lead midway into the 2nd quarter. But yeah... let's not give Taylor any credit

But he's apparently very happy.