transplantbillsfan

Jesus... you're citing scouting reports? Look, maybe Peterman becomes Buffalo's starter at some point. I'm SUPER happy he was there when our --SECOND-- 5th round pick came along. But anyone thinking this kid will start day 1 is just naive or blindly hopeful. I have a standing bet with anyone who wants and only one taker: barring injury, Taylor will not lose a QB competition (whatever farcical one might happen) and will be our starter week 1. 3 to 1 odds.

Wow... you really go to some extreme efforts to completely dismiss Fahey's findings. Passive aggressive? I thought I was pretty direct, actually.

Fine by me. Seems like a really narrow-minded way to go through life, though.

First of all, why do you say "I'm glad that you are still trying" ...? I'm just relaying Fahey's findings. And yeah, I think you're right to a degree; consistently making those tough throws in traffic and the anticipation throws are things that Taylor needs to work to do more consistently. Fahey acknowledges this, himself. But regarding Taylor's 2016 season, while Fahey says there was certainly bad with Taylor, "the good severely overshadowed the bad." But I think his last words in Taylor's chapter ultimately sum up his feelings: "You could ignore all the context. You could just point to the missed throws. It'd be about as rational as throwing out a four-course meal because your fork was bent. A four-course meal that you ordered for a fast food price." I agree. I wish more than just Fahey did this. I think this is why PFF can be so invaluable.

Shaw, Fahey explains everything in good detail, but he categorizes accuracy % along with failed receptions and created receptions. So, essentially, passes by Taylor that fall in the "failed receptions" category qualify positively towards accuracy % while "created receptions" qualify negatively towards accuracy %. In other words, accuracy % is very simply how accurate the pass is. An accurate pass by a QB that results in an incompletion because a defender makes an exceptional play on the ball would qualify positively towards accuracy %. Taylor is the 3rd best in the NFL in interceptable pass %, according to Fahey. He also breaks avoidable sacks into 3 categories : missed read, ran into sack, and process in the pocket He breaks unavoidable sacks into 4 categories: beaten blocker, blown assignment, coverage, botched snap According to Fahey, 4 of Taylor's 7 avoidable sacks were "missed reads" and 3 were "ran into sack."

If you don't trust the data, why don't you just go through and rewatch the 39 sacks as objectively as you can and categorize them yourself? I understand skepticism of subjectivity. But if you can use the same subjective criteria to evaluate QBs across the NFL comparatively and come up with numbers using a generally consistent evaluation criteria, it'd be pretty valuable, albeit not absolutely perfect. Considering Fahey's reputation and the fact that he makes his living doing this, I think it's fair to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's doing this. And by the way, I feel like some folks think Fahey is a Taylor homer, but this catalogue is almost 200 pages and outside of Taylor's own chapter and the actual data itself, he doesn't even mention Taylor in the introductory chapters.

This just sidesteps the point he was making that saying Taylor isn't an NFL level QB is profoundly stupid, which is true...

Completely different era. The ninja strikes again! I'd respond... but why bother considering you're just going to disappear when any reasonable counter-claim is presented as you always do.

Boy you make a lot of assumptions. How do you know Taylor's numbers look better than Rodgers? Or Brady? Or whoever you want to throw in there? Did you buy the catalogue and look? I never said who was above or below Taylor in any category. If not, what you're doing is just sad. And why the WRs don't get YAC you claim is Taylor's fault for where he chooses to throw the football...? How do you know how much choice the offensive system gave him in where he threw the football? Do you truly believe it's everyone who's credible? Or do they lose credibility if they disagree?

According to Fahey, 7 of Taylor's 39 sacks were avoidable. Of the leftover 32 sacks, 22 were because of a beaten blocker, 2 were because of a blown assignment, and 8 were coverage sacks. 8 QBs had more avoidable sacks than Taylor, including Matthew Stafford, Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, and Alex Smith. Would you say that those QBs also have poor progression speed and pocket awareness?

​Fahey talks about this idea that Taylor had WRs running constantly wide open all over the field that he should have thrown to as a common misconception. He has his own explanations. I'm not going to copy and paste because that'd be a disservice. What I'd ask is this: How many of those plays where you saw a WR and TE running free all over the field did you also look at the factors impacting Taylor getting rid of the football?

Have you gone through every snap of not just Taylor but those 32 other NFL QBs and charted them using the same "eye test" you used to chart Taylor? If you have, I'd love to read your numbers. If you haven't, that's why his subjective analysis is better than yours.

Yeah, but at least he's using his own version of the "eye test" across 32 other NFL QBs. One of my biggest issues with all the anti-Taylor posters is that they talk about Taylor in a vacuum as though the bar he needs to meet is arbitrarily set up in our minds when that bar should really be what all those other guys playing the position on 31 other NFL teams are doing comparatively. So, while you might not like Fahey's methodology, at least he does it across the board with all the other QBs in order to give some sort of point of comparison to see where Taylor falls in the hierarchy of certain aspects of the position rather than someone just saying "my eyes tell me he's not good enough."

I think they're about the same level of QB. Cousins has really benefitted from 2 pretty exceptional OCs and more continuity from a healthy WR corps. I take it you think that Cousins is levels above Taylor?

You're right, the evidence is in the game. And if you watched the games, you would know it has everything to do with the types of routes the WRs were running. They were routes overwhelmingly not designed for YAC. "Relying on those comebacks and outs"...? Dude, he's playing in an offensive system and the plays are called by an Offensive Coordinator, not by Taylor.

This is incredibly untrue. Without referring to the fact that Fahey's accuracy % is about how accurate passes are, not whether they are completions or not, I can say this pretty confidently myself because I actually spent time going through a good number of TT's games myself to find how many of his passes negated YAC. That number was very, very low. This is just one of those blanket statements that lacks insight and is simply "torch and pitchfork" material.

It's the 2nd thread I've started in 2 months as a member here. Yes, both have been about Taylor. Sorry about that. Not likely to start another thread for a while. Pretty sure this brings in new, different stuff. And it's just me pulling stuff from a source not everyone will have access to for discussion. Sorry that offends you so much...

Interceptable Pass % was 3rd best Interceptable Passes caught by Defense was 6th most... in other words, the defenders didn't drop INTs very much for Taylor in comparison to his peers. For explanations of Accuracy % buy the catalogue because he spends a chapter explaining how he assesses each thing. Like for example, he discards batted passes at the line and obvious throwaways in the passes he charts. Like I said, there's subjectivity and his numbers aren't absolutely perfect because of that subjectivity, but the same criteria was used for all 33 QBs, according to him. Accuracy % behind LOS means accuracy on passes to WRs behind the LOS, not where he threw the football. I think you're insight into the % of throws up to 10 yards being so low beyond the LOS is really interesting. Failed Reception % is 4th highest, meaning Taylor's WRs were at fault for the 4th most incompletions by % of total throws the QB throws in 2016.

That's the one. Thanks!

Look at the new shiny object we just drafted with our 2nd pick in the 5th round!

Are you joking? Yes, I'm sure Taylor's shaking in his boots because McDermott clearly plans to replace him with a guy he drafted with a 2nd 5th round pick...

Completely fair opinion and well stated, even if I disagree, though not strongly

There's an actual name for this kind of logical fallacy. I can't think of the name right now, though. Anyone...? Besides, did I post an actual assessment by him of Taylor? Do you believe he skews his data because he's enamored with Taylor?

The first is how accurate he is overall on ALL of his passes compared to his peers. The 2nd is how accurate he is to passes solely behind the LOS compared to his peers. He breaks down accuracy % to different levels of the field.

So first of all, I'd recommend forking out the less than $20 to get this PDF QB catalogue emailed to you. It's obvious he put tons of work and time into this. Last year when someone first mentioned him to me on reference to this catalogue, my reaction was: "who the hell is Cian Fahey?!" Well, in short, he's good at what he does... having worked at Footballoutsiders for a while before going out on his own. But no matter what you think of his knowledge, what the catalogue primarily accomplishes (at least for me) is a good deal of comparative data that goes beyond the typical charted data the league tracks. The focus is on the actual level of play of a QB on the field by attributing credit and/or blame for individual things the QB almost always gets credit (i.e.:completion %) or blame (i.e.:interceptions, sacks) for. Fahey acknowledges the inevitable subjectivity involved, but uses the same subjective criteria to chart 33 NFL QBs and every single one of their snaps. So it's pretty evenly subjective, at least. There are chapters that discuss in detail all 33 QBs more anecdotally, but I don't want to post too much simply because of the amount of work he put into it. If you're a football fan and specifically a fan of QBs, it's easily worth $20. But here are a few pieces of comparative data some that seem to counter some preconceived notions. I think people can figure out what these terms mean themselves, but again, Fahey explains in detail what each category means and what he includes. All I'm doing is including the rankings among his 32 peers for each category: INTERCEPTABLE PASS % - 3rd CAUGHT (by the defense) INTERCEPTABLE PASS % - Tied for 6th highest ACCURACY % - 9th ACCURACY % behind LOS - 19th ACCURACY % passes 11-15 yards - 8th ACCURACY % passes 11-20 yards - 10th ACCURACY % passes 5 or more yards - 7th % of total attempts up to 10 yards beyond LOS - 24th % of total attempts beyond 10 yards beyond LOS - 10th FAILED RECEPTION (by the WR) %.- 4th highest CREATED RECEPTION (by the WR) % - 20th highest CREATED YARDS (by the WR) % - 26th ADJUSTED COMPLETION % - 5th ADJUSTED YPA - 3rd SCREENS, SCREEN TDs, & SCREEN % - 33rd AVOIDABLE SACK % - 18th Anyway... there's a LOT more in the catalogue but I don't know if everyone remembers McDermott's PC about why the Bills decided to keep Taylor and one of the things he mentioned was that in watching Taylor on film last year he was really good (the actual word might have been fantastic, but now I'm too lazy to look it up) and all everyone could call it was "coachspeak?" Maybe that's true, to some degree... but maybe he was also being truthful...