Rochesterfan

I chose Thurman because of his all around game. Just an amazing athlete and player. OJ was the best runner I ever saw - the fluidity of his movements was incredible- one moment they had him and then bang he was gone. I would have loved to see Cookie play that is something I have only read/heard about and he sounded great. McCoy is top flight, but the time has been to short to be better than others for me. Fred Jackson is an inspiration and I love his story and effort, but I don’t think he holds a candle to the other guys.

I agree with you post in premise - I also think the change at QB will help out overall. I have said it in other posts and Dennison certainly deserves a lot of blame, but he was brought in to run a WCO with short precise patterns attack horizontally across the field with the desire that it would open lanes for Shady. That could not materialize because the QB could not drop and throw in rhythm - TT does many things well as a QB and he is a natural leader, but a WCO was never going to work for him. I think the addition of AJ and the change in set-up will allow the offense to do some things they simply could not do last year. I am hoping that means the offense overall will show improvement even with what appears to be lesser players. We have seen NE thrive with average players at WR because of the system and Brady -can we get a fraction of that production with AJ and our castoffs?

Actually - I believe that is where the voice of the fan section came from - I am sure there are others. I have a lot of issues with local sports hosts - both WGR and TBN, but much like Hap said - I choose what to pay for (or not) and find content that I enjoy elsewhere. There are many long time writers that I loved reading when I was living in Buffalo in the early 90’s and I kept my subscription when we moved to Rochester, but as things soured - many of these guys became bitter and I can read or listen to them anymore - so I don’t pay. Buffalo needs to begin to replace these “legends” with fresh blood and guys who’s takes are not always so jaded and slanted. This goes for both TBN and WGR, but as long as we are talking about them they will stay on because even negative commentary draws readers if it is talked about.

Yolo had a thread based on a story from Around the NFL about how the Bills would have strongly considered Rudolph at 22 - I believe - that may have even been the title, but I would need to search. I can’t remember if they quoted or just sources attributed to Beane about Rudolph at 22, but it basically exploded people’s heads because of where he eventually went, but I believe there were links to other teams like Pittsburgh that had a 1st round grade, but finally value outmatched need and they took him later. The idea came out after Gunners thread and basically confirmed the that Allen and Rudolph were 2 of their top guys and speculation is that Darold was #3. All three are bigger pocket based passers - exactly what Beane talked about for a franchise QB.

Agreed - I think that Allen and Darnold were at the top and I think Gunner’s thread covers it pretty well. To me if if they had lost out on Allen or if Allen and Darnold had gone #1 & #3 - I think Beane’s Comments about Rudolph perhaps at 22 tells you how they thought of Rosen. I would never rule out them taking him, but my guess is if they missed Darnold and Allen - you are looking at LB at 12 and we will see who falls to 22 for QB. If multiple are still there it may move to the 2nd round with other players being chosen at 22. I think they had a wide gap between the top 2 guys and picks 3-5 at the QB position.

Nice to hear from you again also! I usually enjoy what you bring to the conversation.

I agree - Dennison was slow to change and did not do the best to fit scheme and player and Dennison got and deserved a ton of blame - up to and including being fired at the end of the season. He certainly had more than his fair share of failed adjustments. I just think it is not fair to say he did not adjust or try to adjust - it is just based upon what he was asked to do and his scheme fit - he was put behind the 8 ball from the beginning. I think Dennison would have been a better fit Denver with Trevor than Mike McCoy was (fired mid-season) and I think McCoy would of been a much better fit here in Buffalo than he was in Denver. Especially as McCoy had success with Tebow and some of that same playcall mentality could have worked with Tyrod. Unfortunately that is the nature of the NFL and hopefully Dabol can outshine both of them.

I think the perfect example of this was Rex and his defense here in Buffalo. How many times over the 2 years did we hear defenders talking about calls coming in that they did not practice and therefore the team was still reacting to the call at the snap. Even if the new new play was correct because the players were less familiar and had not practiced it - the fit did not work and it left gaps to be exploited. Now if Rex had been here for years and the guys had practiced the plays together numerous times in the past and knew how everyone would react - you can call these special plays and get away with it, but as the team was uncomfortable with the plays - it lead to more failure than success. Of course you see some of the backside of that with Dennison who was slower to change and adapt and struggled because he got poor reads on plays because the QB could not follow the offensive script. You need that middle ground - tweaks and coaching in-game and major changes at halftime to ensure you get the best of both worlds.

I would not want Josh Allen sitting behind TT at all for any length of time. Their gameplay is to different and TT does not read the field and throw guys open. Therefore what is Josh going to learn - the offense would be stagnant. Plus TT was on his last year - so you would be paying 16 million for one last year - rather than 10 million to AJ for 2 years and he is a more comparable fit to Allen. In terms of wins and losses - TT might be better than AJ - we won’t know that for a bit, but to help Josh grow - I do not want TT anywhere near him.

This is part art of what I can’t stand - Dennison had a lot of faults, but he was hired to bring in a certain offense that the coach envisioned for a long term success. You make it sound as if he did not make changes throughout the season or in game. He adjusted a ton throughout the year both in game and out of game. The issues stem from the expectations that players will also adapt to coaching and get better and as was talked about numerous times by Sal on WGR - TT was unable to adapt and it forced Dennison to scrap what he wanted to do and implement a plan that he was less comfortable with. The Bills had a very, very limited offensive roster with many players with a limited skill set at key positions and this very much impacts how much you can adjust you overall game plan. Now I will fully agree that Dennison was not the fit for the team as it was constructed for week 1. The players did not really fit what he and the HC wanted and he was slow to adapt, but TT was also injured in preseason so he did not have a couple of weeks of his starting QB to see that he could not handle the offense and his back-up in Peterman could handle it. Once you get through the preseason the in-season major adjustments take weeks to implement because you are changing assignments for players and have to get everyone on the same page - for the Bills it took about 4 weeks. We saw a similar change happen year 1 under Marrone where they wanted to run the up-tempo offense with a veteran QB and when Kolb was injured in training camp and then concussed in the last game - it took about 4 weeks to completely adjust the offense to EJ.

I believe it is a totally flawed argument. A game plan is typically built with some variation and all coaches make tweaks and adjustments all the time - they are minor, but it is not like the entire half is scripted. If if you have game planned and prepared halfway decently you should have a somewhat good idea going into the game if your WRs are outmatched or the front was susceptible and if you are just finding that out in the game - you were not prepared enough ahead of time. Throughout the game you should be tweaking what you are doing and seeing how they react and how you can exploit that, but Halftime should be for your big adjustments and changes if things are not working. That is when you have your teams attention and can really teach or set-up what you need to accomplish in the 2nd half, but your opponent is doing the same. The correct answer is both are vital and most coaches do it automatically the levels of adjustments vary, but they tweak and adjust all the time - this includes Dennison last year. What can impact the levels of adjustments is the strengths and weaknesses of your own team.

There was a thread about it with various lists and discussion. Just do a search.

I think this is huge and a great point. You knew that Marrone was not happy with EJ - things came out right away and that was not the guy they wanted running the offense. Marrone/Hackett wanted to run an up-tempo offense and that is what they were installing all off season and into the preseason. When they had had to go with EJ they had to redefine the entire offense and it created a riff between the coaching staff and the front office. In this case the GM and the HC are working in unison and will both work to support Josh and try to build him up long term and therefore there will be more buy-in from all of the coaching staff to ensure this is a success. I am hoping that this buy-in and the work ethic brings about growth and development and we have ourselves a winner.

How to answer this this is another question on perspective and how people look at experience and past performance versus future potential. For me - I would say No they are not the worst QB situation in the league. First I do not look at individual teams, but try to group teams together because the difference between groups of players is minuscule. I look at the Bills in a group of teams like KC, Houston, Chicago, SF, and even the Rams as teams with little experience with positives and negatives. These teams have an unproven starter and/or a potential long term answer. I find that I would rate little to no experience as either better than bad experiences or outside the grading curve because you just do not know. To me there are teams like Miami, NYG, TB, Cincinnati, and maybe Tenn or Dallas that have a designated starter that has struggled and no real back-up/future plan - that is a worse QB situation to me than the unknown. Then there are teams like Indy, Cleveland, NYJ, Arizona, and Baltimore that have a starter that is questionable, but a potential replacement to me these teams rank right around the inexperienced teams because the starter is just a short term place holder to see if the starter recovers or the future QB needs to play. Then there are legends/ high end QBs that are on their last legs with no back-ups - NE, NO, LAC, and maybe Detroit. These guys are still in a good spot, but need to be looking to the future. I rank them slight above the no experience/weak starter teams. There are very few teams that have an ideal situation with both a young/experienced starter and a good experienced back-up. A team like Philadelphia, maybe Indy (depends on Luck), and two questionable teams due to back-ups like Oak and GB. Overall I think these teams would be highest on my groupings. There are just many ways to slice this and that leads to many different conclusions and outcomes - for me it is not the worst situation because there are several teams I would not switch QB groups with - so to me those are worse, but I totally understand why someone would and could rank the Bills worst. Added post edit: Additionally there are teams like Atl, Minn, Carolina, that have QBs in their prime and minimal back-ups that are in a good position. There are also teams like Denver and Washington that can fit into a few categories depending on how you are feeling or what metric you want.

LOL -nice call - can see Shaw getting his poor wife up and say stand here and put your arms up - ball whips past her hands. Now take 2 steps back and hold up these wooden hands to mimic the extended reach. Whack ball knocked down - ok now let’s try it at full speed and whack Shaw gets leveled by a pair of wood hands thrown at him - let me getting back to the flowers - you and your calculations.

I liked it - a little goofy, but fun and sounded great.

It depends - does she have the business knowledge that Russ or some of the other people in the building have - No, but if she is a good leader - that translates across jobs. If she listens and asks good questions and trusts the people in their job to be doing the right thing - then yes she is qualified. She also has a certain trust with the fans and can probably get better information and feedback than Russ ever could to help build gameday experiences. One of the proven techniques in business and the military is to take a leader from one department or branch and put him/her over a different group to see if they have proper leadership skills and can translate to other areas. Good leaders lead - overpromoted people fall apart because they are out of their element and do not have instincts on who to trust. I do not know where she will land, but I will not say she is unqualified because she has not done it - she is inexperienced at this point.

This is is my approach also. You have the ability to kick the ball or even put your offense out with a chance to get 10 (start here) or even 15 yards (if needed) and keep the ball. The punt eliminates the big contacts from running starts and the wedge. I would even keep the out of bounds rule on the new “Kick-off” so teams can not try to pin you deep by putting the ball out of bounds.

It seems pretty obvious that the Cards would have picked Allen over Rosen as multiple NFL guys stated they were trying to get up at least to the Bucs spot and now we are hearing Broncos to pick Allen. Therefore they got “stuck” with Rosen and still had to move up because they did not think Rosen would make it to their pick. The only reason I think the Cards could have been a threat is if Denver decided they did not want Allen in the AFC.

I believe when they build the new stadium downtown and it will have a hotel there - that is when they will move training camp.

I listened to a bunch of different Palmer clips and you are correct - he almost always was talking up Josh Allen’s work ethic and improved footwork, but only mentioned Darnold some - never really talking him up. I think Darnold with the USC pedigree and coaching probably did not need or get as much out of Palmer. He has been groomed for this for years - so this was mostly fine tuning for Darnold. For Allen - I believe this was boot camp 101 and he needed to absorb the training like a sponge and therefore was going to show improvement that was not available to Darnold. I also think Darnold was a bit more settled in his draft position- he was never really mocked to fall past 3. It could be 1 to Cleveland or 2 in a trade/NYG or 3 with the Jets. Allen on the other hand was mocked as high as 1 and down in the teens - so for Palmers own career- talking up Allen and getting him in the top 10 improves his cache with clients. I do think it is funny how repeatedly he talked about how close Allen and Darnold were during this training and what great guys they were and now they are rivals in the same division- funny how that works.

Would love it, but Jordan stated on NFL radio - he was happy doing what he is doing. I don’t think he wants to take on the year round rigors of a coaching position. He makes great money working a couple of months with these guys and is becoming a go to guy - especially after Darnold’s Pro Day where everyone was raving about how Palmer put together his throws to highlight skill and minimize mistakes.

Not sure about the bust part actually. If they keep getting players and putting together seasons -there is no reason to think they may not get another shot if he busts. They are showing what we all know FOs of the past needed to do. Identify and get your players. If love everything else he does, but he misses on his first and only QB pick and you fire him in 3 years - why would anyone want to pick a QB. It does impact his legacy and how he is viewed, but if in 2or 3years they think Allen is a bust - They may get a second shot. The issue is can they recognize progress versus a failure because that is where Whaley failed. He had his EJ moment and never tried again -even when there were shots to be had. They then fell back into the pick up a castoff and let’s get through this.

Exactly put him in last years class or next years class and he is competing to be the first QB taken right at the top of the draft - just like this year.

Actually - Josh was highly rated at the end of last year also - so he did not rocket up the boards. The guy that rocketed up the boards based on last year was none other than the Browns boy Mayfield that was considered at best a 3rd round pick last year and became the #1 overall pick.