transplantbillsfan

Not that it's impossible, but it's hilarious that a 5th round QB is being buoyed up to such high aspirations. It's hilarious, though not surprising from Bills fans. May I ask this question, how many QBs drafted since 2000 after the 4th round have been as good as Taylor has been over his 30 total NFL starts? Make 30 games the threshold. I got Brady. Anyone else? It'd be awesome if Peterman becomes the next Brady, but Taylor's much more likely to demonstrate he's our long term answer than Peterman is. Might happen. Highly improbably, though. There's a reason he was passed over 4 times by every team and Buffalo didn't exactly leap to draft the guy considering they passed over him with their first 5th round draft pick. Even Buffalo and McDermott viewed him as a 5th round draft pick. That doesn't speak resoundingly about the guy. He's just likely going to be one of those names we talked about during draft time who'd be a "late round steal" that we forget about with time, like David Fales. Or like that guy KC drafted a few years ago. Or Garret Grayson, Or... Too many to count. We're Bills fans. We're too funny. We already have our "late round steal" as a starter at QB. Doubt it happens with Peterson, but I'd love it if it did.

Stats matter. But every single stat needs to be taken in the correct context.

Hmmm... seems a familiar sentiment

I'm not saying and I don't think Fahey is saying the numbers are definitive. And despite saying you're not dismissive, you're still pretty dug in your foxhole and don't seem willing to acknowledge the merits of what he finds. And I don't think you're wrong about everything you say. In Fahey's "shorthand skill set," which is a box at the beginning of every QBs chapter that involves 4-6 bullet points of strengths and weaknesses of the player, 2 of Taylor's weaknesses in that box include: -Avoids tight windows over the middle of the field. -Not an anticipation passer. All I did was provide numbers, but Fahey's chapters more anecdotally explain each QB. Granted, he feels strongly positive about Taylor, but he talks about weaknesses, too. And he talks about specific plays from specific games like the Seattle game, the Raiders game, the first Phins game, and the Cardinals game, among others. You keep bringing up what the coaches said as though it was incredibly damning and irrefutable evidence that Taylor's holding the team back. It's just funny to me because sometimes people label what coaches say as truth and sometimes they label it as coachspeak. I'm sure there's truth to what they said, but you stated the other day that you think the best thing that could happen this offseason would be for Peterman to show real promise in TC and win the starting job. It's just a weird position and just shows how dug in you are about Taylor. Why would you not, instead, wish that in Dennison's new offense, Taylor would demonstrate how much he can thrive? That seems a lot more realistic. People are just so damn dug into their positions that once they like or dislike a guy they NEED him to stay or be gone.

I don't even think you were involved in that conversation so I don't think it was directed at you.

What the hell are you talking about? Where are you getting $16 million from?

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!