Shaw66

He said it several times last season. I don't recall his saying it this season, but it would have big news if he dumbed down the playbook this season. They did say once or twice that they were trying to simplify the reads on certain plays, but that sounded more like the reads were too difficult for the QB generally, not that they were simplifying for Allen.

I don't mind if he's a provocateur in what he writes. I mind when his objective when interviewing is to set up his interviewee, to trap him into saying something that will make it easy for Jerry to go after him. If he actually wants to write a column about Josh being no better than Tyrod, he can write the column. It's his opinion, and he can say it and try to defend it he wants. But he knows, knows for a certainty, that a legitimate column on the subject would come out concluding that Tyrod wasn't improving and Josh is, Josh is younger, Josh has a bigger arm, etc. etc. etc. He KNOWS that. He asked the question to see whether McD would say something that Jerry could attack. That's just lazy journalism.

Well, whether it's the right approach or not, the approach that McD has always taken - and he's been very frank about it - is that every player is asked to play the position as it's drawn up in the offense, not some watered down version because the guy is just learning. That's the approach. So you get McVeigh taking a different route with Goff, talking him through every play on the headset to make up for what Goff can't see on his own. There was discussion on this board a couple weeks ago about whether that approach actually stunted his growth. I don't know what the right answer is, but I know the approach the Bills are taking with Allen is "this is the position, the entire position. Play it." The result is that he's going to make mistakes that a veteran QB won't. You can argue that McD costs the Bills some wins by doing this, because Allen makes mistakes. But if you dumb down the position so he can play mistake-free, you also make it easier for the opponent to defend against the offense, because the offense becomes much more predictable. I don't know if there's a correct answer. I like what McDermott is doing, but I get that others might not.

But Gunner, Jerry's idea of an interesting story is to throw someone under the bus, so he asks these loaded questions. How about any of these questions: When you're reviewing with Josh his play against the Browns, what do you tell him about: 1. Staying in the pocket? 2. Recognizing the blitz packages? 3. Anticipating breaks and making quicker throws? 4. Game preparation? McDermott is wise to Sully's bs and declines to answer questions designed to trap him. I Sully would ask questions like the ones I just listed, he and we might learn some football and might learn what's going on with Allen. THAT would make an interesting story.

It's a very interesting question for people like us to discuss. It's a totally unfair question for Sullivan to ask. Sullivan is a smart guy. He knew exactly what McD would say if McD handled the question well. He asked the question because if McD didn't handle it well, he could go after Allen or McD or both. In other words, he asked the question to set up McDermott to make a mistake. McDermott, being the gentleman he is, answered respectfully. Belichick would have blown him off. Two years from now Sully will be complaining that he's one of only a few guys covering the Bills who hasn't had a quality one-on-one sit down with McD. He'll blame it on McD not wanting to answer the tough questions. The truth will be that McD already knows who Sully is and what he's up to, and he isn't going to reward Sully with interviews or anything else.

I'd say this is a bit too harsh, but generally right. A proficient NFL QB would have won that game for the Bills. Josh isn't yet proficient. One thing about Cover 1's analysis is that although he shows what didn't work for Josh on several plays, he doesn't explain what Josh SHOULD have done to make it a positive play. And on some, like the pass down the right sideline late in the game to Brown, Brown essentially says that Josh made the right read and the right throw but he, Brown, didn't anticipate the throw early enough to look for it and make the catch. I agree about the first 20 games being freebies. It's the next 20 that matter. We shouldn't be surprised that Josh had trouble when presented with blitz looks on 50% or more of the plays. That's where all young QBs have trouble - the blitz look gives them more information to process in a short period of time and raises the level of emotional pressure the QB might feel. It seems like Josh made the right play a lot of times when faced with the blitz, so I don't think it's a problem with what he understands. It's a problem of raising the success rate of the entire team on the execution. Josh has to be better more often, but Brown has to make the catch on the back shoulder throw and, as Cover 1 pointed out, Knox has to make his catch along the left sideline. If at the end of next season Josh still plays like he did Sunday, there's reason for concern. At this point in his second season, I'm not all that troubled. I'd like to see a little more out of him consistently, but he's doing okay.

I just read the article. Seems fair enough, for an amateur. I will always repeat what Kyle Williams said when he was told people are reviewing the All-22 and grading him. He essentially said it's ridiculous. He asked how someone who doesn't know what his assignment was can evaluate how he performed. So when Buscaglia goes after Trent Murphy, I just remember what Kyle said. Everyone was going after Lotulelei a week or two ago, until the team and coaches finally came to his defense said he's doing exactly what he was brought in to do. It's nice that Joe B is grading every player, but the only grades that matter are the ones that the Bills coaches are giving to players. I'd like the link to that website. I think that comment applies to every position, but a little less so to the skill position players, because we can see what they're doing. So, for example, I think what he says about Allen is pretty good. He's critical of several aspects of Allen's play, but it's clear that Buscaglia isn't saying Allen is a failure - he's just saying that Allen needs to improve or he will fail. I think that's true. And I agree with Joe B that Allen is showing that he can do all of the things that he needs to do - he's shown that he can throw with anticipation, he's shown that he can manage the pocket, he's shown that he can scramble and throw on the run, he's shown it all. But he's also showing that he can't do it consistently yet, and that's what's missing. He's making the right decisions some of the time, he's making decisions quickly some of the time, he's making quality throws some of the time. He needs to do all of that more consistently.

Guys like Jackson and Mahomes come to the league with a special skill set that allows them to have success early, if their coaches can figure out how to take advantage of the skill set. Over a few years, the league catches up with them, learns how to contain them, more or less. Guys like Mike Vick and Cam Newton come to mind. Their special skills made them successful early (not necessarily immediately in the win column), but the league figured out how to deal with them. Their field generalship never developed. They never became expert at reading defenses and running the offense. The people we think of as truly successful QBs all developed very high levels of field generalship - Peyton, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, Wilson. Lamar Jackson has all the scrambling ability of Wilson, probably more, but we will have to wait a few years to see if he can consistently package those skills with the high football IQ that makes Wilson so successful. I like the Wonderlic as an indicator, but it doesn't determine whether a guy has all that he needs. Successful QBs usually have a relatively high Wonderlic, but plenty of guys with high Wonderlics don't make it and some guys with low Wonderlics do.

I did over 35. Seems like he wins every game with exactly 35 attempts. As for causation, no one can anything with simple analysis. It's complicated. But I gave a logical explanation about why balance works best. I proposed a theory. And your data is consistent with the theory, so that's something.

I just eye-balled Brady's first few years. Looks like he was around .500 when he threw over 35. Which means his winning percentage was better when he threw 35 or under.

I don't find this too surprising. I think most fans are selective listeners. They are overly impressed by - and remember - when Rodgers or Wilson or Mahomes has some monster game, like 32 for 42, 410 yards and 4 TDs, but they forget all the times when the broadcasters tell us that Ryan was 33 for 48 for 380 yards in a losing effort. Most of the games, as your analysis makes clear, that QBs are throwing the ball a lot, the QB is trying to come from behind. He may be posting big numbers, but he's posting them chasing the lead. Granted, it's become more of a passing league, but even so, if you pass too much, your offense becomes predictable and easier to stop. There's always been a very simple formula: If your opponent can run and can't pass, you put 8 in the box and stop the run. That's what Seattle did last night. If your opponent can pass but can't run, you rush 3 and drop 8 into a zone. You may give up yardage in the middle of the field, but your opponent will struggle in the red zone, and you'll get the occasional coverage sack. The offensive theory that has the best sustained success (and it's the theory that McDermott often talks about) is forcing the defense to defend the entire field. Eight in the box only defends the line of scrimmage, because the defense knows it doesn't have to defend downfield. Rush 3 drop 8 defends downfield and disregards the LOS. Only by having an offense that can attack everywhere, vertically and horizontally, can you force the defense to defend the entire field. That spreads out the defense and creates gaps you can attack. Even better, if you can run effectively, you get the benefit of play action, which creates momentary gaps you can attack. People misinterpret HOW the NFL has become a passing league. It's not so much that teams are passing MORE. It's that teams are MORE EFFECTIVE passing. In the 50s, the measure of a good QB was if he could complete 50% of his passes. Now a good QB is completing 65%. - 14 QBS are over 65% this season, and 3 are over 70% The announcers always tell you when a QB is on a run - he has 8 or 10 or 12 completions in a row. That never happened in earlier eras. When you complete a higher percentage of passes, your yards per attempt go up. As has become clear, if you can get 8 yards per attempt passing and 4 yards per rush, passing becomes very attractive. But the REASON you can get 8 yards per attempt is because you force the defense to respect the run, which gives you one on one matchups and allows you to create openings with play action. Once you stop running, the defense can play more zone and can ignore the play action, completions go down, and yards per attempt go down. And that's what happens to most QBs chasing a lead in the second half. They pass more, the defense sits on the pass, yards per attempt go down, and the QB loses. That's exactly why the people here who are complaining about the run-pass ratio against the Browns are right. As we saw with Allen, when pass attempts go up, completion percentage generally goes down, and once that happens yards per attempt drop and drives stall. You have to be able to run. Either the Bills can't because the line still isn't good enough, or they won't, which is bad coaching. I think it's the line. We need to remember that the Bills couldn't run at all last season, except for the fact that Allen was on the move so much. This year the Bills are prudently limiting Allen's rushing attempts, and they're having trouble getting consistent yardage on the ground. We all got excited about the free agent acquisitions and Ford, but other than Morse, none of the newcomers had had any great success in the NFL. I'm always using Belichick as an example, because he does so much right. His philosophy is that his teams will be able to do everything. They'll run inside, run outside, play a possession passing game and play a deep passing game. A reporter asked him once what style he prefers to play. Belichick looked at the guy like he was idiot, paused, and said "we like to play the style that wins the game we're playing." The lesson for Daboll and Allen is simple: If the Browns are going to blitz a lot, you have to have the plays to counter the blitz and have to make the reads and make the plays. Some of those plays are going to be running plays that attack the gaps the blitzing linebackers have abandoned. Allen has to check into those plays, and he has to execute them.

I agree, all around. I had the same reaction last night. Not so much about Metcalf, because his hands were suspect coming out of college and he had a couple of balls he didn't handle last night. Williams catches all of those. But Gordon did prove the point. The two passes he caught were well covered, and his speed wasn't what made those plays work - his body and his hands were. As I said in the OP, when the Bills threw incomplete to Brown on 4th and 4, you could see it. Brown doesn't have the body to keep defenders from reaching around him and deflecting passes. Williams does, and Williams has hands and fights for the ball, all the things you need on those possession throws. Sunday, Roberts didn't look like a receiver to me. He doesn't get two hands up regularly, and doesn't attack the ball as it arrives. Foster doesn't impress, either. When Brown was a rookie, he was immediately a deep threat AND good on those crossing routes that he runs and completes with the Bills; Foster's in his second season and still hasn't shown much. He'd be my target. Yes, maybe Roberts could run the jet sweep and make McKenzie superfluous, but McKenzie is also the backup kick returner. I don't really know. What I do know is that I think the Bills would be better with a big, sure-handed pass catcher. One other thing, though, is maybe Williams has other issues that are keeping him off the roster. His lack of speed makes him less valuable, for sure, on special teams. That's actually a good point. This receiving corps demands the best possible play from Allen - Cooper would make life easier for him. Still, who wouldn't want a Cooper?

You're right about this. Singletary is probably good enough for DCs to be worried, but only if he's part of a group of skill position players. He's not a feature back to carry the offense alone. And as much as Brown and Beasley are definitely upgrades over a season ago, they aren't elite. They, too, need something special around them. I'm a Duke Williams fan, but he isn't special, either. It was easy to see the other night watching Amari Cooper. I'm not a big Dak Prescott fan - he's good but not special, I think - but Cooper sure made him look special. Having that guy who is going really deliver for you, three or four or five times a game, makes a big difference. He skews the defense. You could see it in the Browns game. The Browns put Chubb and Hunt on the field together, and when Hunt went in motion everyone in the stadium paid attention. You just HAVE to account for him or he'll hurt. The Bills don't have a Cooper or a Hunt or a ___________ (fill in the blank with one of about 20 names). As I in the OP, put Chubb or Hunt or Landry or Beckham on the Bills and the offense looks different in a hurry. Beane has some work to do. But, and I know you agree, if this team is going to be a tough out week after week and through the playoffs, Allen has to continue to develop. QB is the most important position on the field, by far, and practically no amount of talent at the other positions can't overcome mediocre play or worse from the QB. I'm not concerned. I think Allen will be great. He's just going through the learning process.

I'm the one who says the game is mostly about coaching, and I am absolutely sure there were coaching mistakes on Sunday. But I think there point about no margin for error is that if your offensive line is mediocre and your QB is young and your skill position players are average, it means the coaches have no margin for error. They have to be perfect to get good play out of that collection of offensive players. I don't know enough about the game to know what exactly the coaches could have done better, but I'm sure there are things. And I really like the McDermott system, because the system critiques the coaches regularly, figures out where the coaches are falling down and corrects it. The Bills are designed to learn from every game and to improve. Whatever the coaches should have done in the Browns game is becoming part of what they DO do this week.

No, I don't think it's the offense. I think it's Allen. He's young and inexperienced. He doesn't know yet how to read all the defenses, to get the team into the right plays, and to make the right decisions. The Pats, of course, are the ultimate example. Yes, you can argue they have elite offensive game planning, but if you have mediocre players at a lot of positions, game planning only takes you so far. In the final analysis, on the field you need a QB who understands what's going on and executes, a QB like Brady. Allen isn't there yet. It takes years to learn and master all the concepts and to make the split second decisions that are necessary. I think Allen has the talent. We already see how calm he is in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage. We see that he has good pocket presence and awareness. And we see that, WHEN HE SEES WHAT"S GOING ON, he executes very nicely. He has all the skills. He just has to keep learning the game. He was 22 for 41 on Sunday not because the offense sucks - he was 22 for 41 because he didn't see a half dozen opportunities to change the play or throw to a better option. A half dozen opportunities is half dozen completions at 10 yards per completion, which is a 300-yard passing day and probably the difference between a win and a loss. When you're throwing to Jarvis Landry as your number two wideout, it isn't so difficult - the guy is going to get open a lot. But Allen isn't throwing to Beckham and Landry; he's throwing to two guys a notch below. So he has to be better technically - Mayfield can get away with not understanding because he has those receivers. Allen's still learning. He works hard at his job. I think he'll be fine. But it takes time. And a top notch receiver wouldn't hurt.

I'm not sure who in this thread was complaining. Seems like a pretty rational discussion among people who generally agree with what you're saying.

Other people are saying run Singletary more. Allen threw 41 times on Sunday. How much more do you want him to throw?

There's so much nonsense in this thread. Frazier doesn't blitz? Well in the first place, it's McDermott who doesn't like to blitz. He wants pressure from his front four. Frazier doesn't blitz? He blitzed on Edmunds safety. He blitzed on the Browns winning touchdown. He blitzed White at a critical point against the Redskins. The Bills aren't a big blitzing team because they are a bend don't break defense. That's how they play.

I think you're generally right about this. I have a slightly different guess, but it amounts to the same thing. Of course, I don't know what's actually going on, but I think Daboll is trying to do what he saw done in New England. That is - heavy film study to assess strengths and weaknesses. then intense planning to figure out what the coaches think they can do successfully against the opponent. Of course, that's what every team does, but the Pats have taken it to another level. I wouldn't be surprised if Daboll is trying to be as clever as he's seen Belichick's people be. The problem is that it takes a special form of intelligence to do what Belichick does, because he sees things others don't, and he's creative about how to attack what he sees. Belichick has a lifetime of doing it, learning and learning. So I wouldn't be surprised if Daboll is, as you and others have said, too clever for his own good. He may think he outthink the opponent, like he's seen Belichick do, but he can't, at least not yet. Belichick's a genius, but he wasn't outthinking opponents all the time when he was Daboll's age. He was still learning. He's still learning today. In his defense, I'd guess that he's trying be clever about his game plans because he knows he doesn't have the horsepower to simply overpower the opponent with the same thing week after week. Andy Reid may have that luxury, so he can just run his offense out there and challenge the defense to stop it. Daboll doesn't have a great offensive line, he doesn't an Amari Cooper, he doesn't have a Nick Chubb, and he has a young QB, so he needs to be creative. Still, he may be overdoing it.

Maybe he did. I was at the game, wasn't always seeing replays. It just didn't look that way to me. I didn't see him missing open receivers a lot. What I saw were a lot of throws into tight windows where receivers had defenders right on them. As I said, my take on it was that he was in the wrong play and/or he was throwing to the wrong guy. One of the coaches' complaints about him last season was that he'd take the difficult deeper throw over the easier shorter throw. I don't know how many easy throws he passed up - I saw a few, and there probably were more. I continue to think that it's his decision making that needs work, not his throwing.

I agree. I don't agree with people about Wallace. Landry is a #1 wideout, 22nd in the league last year, and Wallace is a #2 corner. Mayfield made some great throws. I agree about Singletary's touches, but a better Allen would have won the game passing. Gotta give it time. This is a team that's growing. There is one more talent upgrade coming next season. In the draft and free agency. Then the core will be on the team. Bills have to hope Oliver and Ford have some real impact next season.

I agree about going heavy. Eight mediocre blockers don't do any better than seven mediocre blockers. Going with Williams isn't going heavy. It's giving up some deep speed in exchange for a guy who (I think - this certainly hasn't been proved) could make big possession catches the Bills, like on the play I mentioned.

I just posted the Rockpile Review and said the same thing. If the Bills have a Beckham, a Landry, a Chubb and a Hunt, the Bills win. Those guys put a lot of pressure on the defense.

The Rockpile Review – by Shaw66 “The Bills Don’t Have Quite Enough” The Browns beat the Bills Sunday, 19-16, in a game that proved what a lot of people thought: The Browns were better than their 2-6 record suggested, and the Bills were worse than their 6-2 record suggested. The odds makers were giving the Bills 3 points or, in other words, giving the Browns the home-field advantage in a game that looked even. And even it was. The Browns made just enough plays to win, just a few more plays than the Bills made. The Browns won the statistical battle by a little here and a little there. The Browns were just a little better. The game reinforced the recurring themes about the Bills in 2019. They don’t run the ball well enough, they don’t stop the run well enough, they don’t pass the ball well enough. And, on Sunday, they didn’t kick the ball well enough, either. This was a game decided by the skill positions. The simple fact is that the Browns are better at all the big offensive skill positions – their two wideouts are better, their two running backs are better and at least on Sunday, their quarterback was better. The wideouts were the most important difference. Beckham demanded Tre White’s attention all day long, and he was a handful for White. White gave him a big cushion most of the game, which allowed Beckham some first down catches that hurt, but in general, White contained OBJ. That left Levi Wallace one on one with Jarvis Landry. Wallace survived, I suppose, but just missed defending the two biggest passes of the day. On Cleveland’s opening drive, Landry got behind Wallace and caught a perfectly thrown 17-yard TD pass. Wallace found the ball a split second too late, and his attempt to deflect the ball just missed. Then late in the fourth quarter, with the Browns attempting to put together a drive to win the game, Wallace just missed deflecting the ball again, this time on a 24-yard completion off a long crossing route. Wallace was beat early as Landry sliced through the defensive backfield, but Wallace closed late and had a play on the ball. He just couldn’t make it. A couple of plays later, Wallace was beaten for the winning touchdown. The Bills were in an all-out blitz and Wallace had to overplay the quick out route. When Higgins cut upfield and curled toward the center of the endzone, Wallace couldn’t recover. Mayfield did a nice job buying time for Higgins to make the cuts and then delivered the ball for an easy catch. It would be easy to blame Wallace, but the fact is that Landry has been a superior receiver for a long time, and Wallace often had no help. He just lost a couple of battles against a really good player. Brown and Beasley are nice receivers, but they can’t challenge defensive backs on every play like Beckham and Landry. Trade Beckham for Brown or Beasley for Landry and the outcome of the game is different. Brown ran some lovely routes, and Allen found him often enough, but Brown needs to be open to make his catches. He rarely comes up with the ball when he’s tightly covered. Beasley was solid again on Sunday, but he isn’t a receiver to really test a defense. Same story in the running game. The Bills’ defensive front seven were outblocked sometimes but did well enough to keep from being run over. The Bills’ offensive line didn’t block for the run as well as the Browns’, but they did well enough to give Singletary and Gore opportunities. The difference was Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, two of the most talented running backs in the league. Chubb combines quickness and power in a way that lets him hit and get through holes and break tackles for additional yards. He’s one of those guys who just doesn’t go down. And Hunt constantly threatened to break away. The Bills checked him adequately, but he still collected a lot of yards running and receiving. Josh Allen posted a typical losing QB stat line. He threw a lot – 41 times – and connected just enough – 22 times – to get decent yardage – 266. If the running game had been more productive, he would have thrown less often and completed a higher percentage. If he were a premier QB, he would have thrown 41 times and completed a higher percentage. Either way, the Bills likely would have won the game. But Allen isn’t yet the guy who is so good, so knowledgeable, that he can put the team on his back and win when the rest of the offense is overmatched. He might become that guy, but he isn’t that guy yet. Allen didn’t throw badly. He had some balls that weren’t as accurate as they should have been, but everyone has a few of those. His problem was that he didn’t have, or couldn’t find, open receivers. A premier QB would have been changing plays at the line of scrimmage, coming off primary receivers to complete more passes and keep the chains moving, and making passes with pinpoint accuracy, like the throw he could have made to McKenzie in the end zone at the end of the first half. Allen wasn’t quite good enough, and Baker was just a little better. A couple of weeks ago, the Bills replaced Duke Williams in the active roster and began to play combinations of speed receivers – McKenzie, Foster and Roberts. That experiment seems to be failing. None of those guys is making an impact in the receiving game. Williams would give Allen something that none of the other receivers offers – a big target with demonstrated ability to make contested receptions. Williams would be a guy that Allen could go to when his principal options aren’t there. A good example was Allen’s throw to Brown on 4th and 4 at the end of the third quarter. Brown made the in cut with the defender right on his back. Allen threw the ball well, although it could have been lower. The defender reached around Brown and broke up the play. Williams has a much higher probability of making that catch – Brown just isn’t the physical player Allen needs in that situation. There always are a lot of reasons to be unhappy when the Bills lose, but this loss was particularly painful because the loss wasted essentially three classic goal-line stands. The Browns ran eleven plays from inside the three-yard line, most from the one yard-line, on two possessions and came away with a field goal. In the end, the Browns were about to go for it on fourth and short, but a false start penalty pushed them back five yards and they settled for the field goal. A Browns fan sitting next to me said that the center intentionally took the false start to force Kitchens to take the field goal. The players knew the Bills simply weren’t going to let the Browns see the end zone. The goal line stands were magnificent, old-school football. Beautiful. And Edmunds sack of Mayfield for a safety highlighted again how the defense always seems to have a different look, a new wrinkle. Edmunds rarely blitzes, and he practically never blitzes when he lines up tight to the line of scrimmage. Mayfield ignored Edmunds at the left end of the line. No one expected he was coming. But the safety, too, was wasted in a game where the Bills were close but not good enough. The Bills defense gave up big TD drives to open and close the game and was solid enough the rest of the time. The Bills offense didn’t produce enough running or enough passing. Sixteen points isn’t enough. Simple as that. Oh, and then there’s Hauschka. I don’t like looking for scapegoats, because football teams win and lose together, but it’s a different game if Hauschka makes one of his kicks. He didn’t, and no one picked him up. I got to watch the game from a suite on the fifty. A big thank you to my host Mike, who was more than happy to have this Bills fan and my buddy join him for the game. Pizza, burgers, dogs, wings inside, with TV and radio play-by-play, seats on the fifty outside with TV and radiant heat above. Tough duty. First half I was inside and didn’t hear the crowd. Second half I was outside. The Browns fans weren’t as loud as I expected they’d be, until the Bills final drive, when they really rose up. And the Bills fans did a solid job making noise when it was their turn. My wife, who was not at the game, happened to hear Mayfield’s post-game interview. In a comment that makes you wonder if the guy is smart enough to be permitted to drive, let alone quarterback an NFL team, Mayfield complained that Browns fans have to learn not to make so much noise when the Browns have the ball. Really, Baker? You thought those were Browns fans making all that noise? The Bills are close. They need to get better, in every phase. They need a little more talent, and they need the talent they have to play a little better. On to Miami, another road game they should win, and if they’re going to make any noise this season, a game they must win. Fitz will be waiting. GO BILLS!!! The Rockpile Review is written to share the passion we have for the Buffalo Bills. That passion was born in the Rockpile; its parents were everyday people of western New York who translated their dedication to a full day’s hard work and simple pleasures into love for a pro football team.

This is well said. As I've said, I want to see Mahomes and Watson continue. I'll give Flacco as an example. He wasn't a star like Mahomes, but he looked like a long time winning starting QB when he was young. He nevergrew, the league changed, and he became a castoff. I just don't trust short bodies of work as absolute evidence of greatness. Continual arc of improvement was what I was talking about. That's what you need to see. And I agree that if the guy hasn't shown consistent improvement and isn't looking like a keeper by the end of three seasons, hardas it is, you probably have to move on. Problem is when you have a coaching change in the middle. That's what complicates the Mariota decision.