Shaw66

There are plenty of guys who love the game. Does Kyle Williams care about the money? Tyrod Taylor? Plenty of them. They understand they're piling up more dough than any human being should ever expect, so what difference does a guarantee make, or an extra year, or whatever? They want to play football. The fact that Darnold is hung up on this says that there's a part of him that is about the money, when in fact the money, at his level, is irrelevant. McBeane don't like guys who can't see that.

They ARE two different things, but how a player handles each is very important to McBeane. I am absolutely sure that McBeane look at a guy like Kahlil Mack and think less of him because he's holding out. McBeane have been very clear that they don't want distractions. Beane said it talking about Kaepernick. If a guy is a distraction, his value to the team is less. So if, before the draft, you asked Beane to rank the four QBs in order of likelihood of being a signing problem, Beane probably would have said Rosen, Darnold, Mayfield and Allen, in that order. And if you asked McBeane whether they cared about that, they would have said "absolutely." Not because they were worried that the guy never would sign, but simply because it says something about their priorities. Family first, football second, everything else way down the list. If those aren't your priorities, McBeane value you less.

Correct. He obviously isn't thinking about football. And that's a bad thing. Look at Shady. He has his press conference, and over and over the press asks him about his personal issue. He said, over and over, "I'm only talking about football." Why? Because he knows he has to be 100% about football right now, and he has to manage his personal distractions the best he can without letting it interfere with football. Talking about his problem with the press distracts him from football and doesn't solve his problem, so he consciously decided not to talk to the press. McBeane want their players to be all about football. They support, I'm sure, exactly what Shady is doing with the press. They would be VERY disappointed if Allen were doing what Darnold is doing. Thanks. So they might actually be getting different advice. So maybe it isn't Darnold; maybe he's just getting bad advice from his agent and following it.

It's telling that they both have same agent. That means the agent gave his advice, then the player made his decision. Maybe what Mayfield got affected Allen's choice. I prefer to think that Allen just sees it differently. NOTHING is more important to him than (1) his family and (2) his team, or at least that's the way McBeane want him to see it. Offsets or no offsets, his family will be well cared for with the contract he's signing. So the only thing he should care about is his team. The fact that Darnold cares about the offsets is a red flag. A minor red flag, to be sure, for most teams. A bigger red flag for McBeane.

Culture. The Jets are saying "this is the way we do things." Darnold is saying "I don't want to do it your way. I want to do it my way." That's what I was saying about McBeane. They're immediately turned off when the player's behavior says "I don't want to do it your way." Just like Belichick is turned off. McBeane's view, and Belichick's, and apparently the Jets', is that the players must do it their way on things that are of fundamental importance. The difference between the cultures is, I'm guessing, that the Bills knew what they were getting with Allen and the Jets, apparently, didn't know what they were getting with Darnold. McBeane don't want a guy who puts himself ahead of the team.

Wow. I didn't know anything about this issue. The fact that Darnold actually cares about this says something about the guy. That fact alone reflects a character issue that would put off McBeane. They want guys who have complete confidence in themselves and who are willing to bet their futures on themselves. That' one thing that I like about Tyrod. He's all about "just give me a chance to play. If you don't want to play me, I'll move on." Tyrod left Baltimore to get to the place where he had the best opportunity to play, he renegotiated his contract twice to be sure he continued to have the best opportunity to play, and he embraced being traded because it gave him the best opportunity to play. He makes good money compared to you and me, and he simply doesn't let the fact that he might get a better deal get in the way of playing football. Holding up his signing over this issue says that Darnold doesn't have complete confidence in himself, that he wants some protection on the downside if things don't go well. And it says he cares about how much money he's going to get. From a strictly personal, economic point of view, that makes perfectly a good sense. From the team's perspective, it says Darnold has his eye on the wrong ball. Football isn't number 1. It's why the Bills probably aren't interested in Dez Bryant, and probably aren't interested in Mack. If you're not 100% about team football, they aren't interested. And if you're holding out, or if you're a distraction in some other way, you aren't 100% about team football. McBeane have been very clear - they want guys whose fundamental personality traits indicate that they're committed to the process. That's one of the things they liked about Allen. He's that kind of guy. And that's why he's signed and Darnold isn't. To the extent they think about it at all, Darnold not signing is something that reinforces their belief that they got the right guy.

I haven't read this thread, because it's pretty clear that if he said what the title says he said, he meant just what you're saying. His mental approach is simply to keep learning, keep getting better, execute what he's given to execute. Who "wins" the QB comptetion will be the one who has learned the most, executes the best. You don't win the competition by focusing on your competitor; you win it by focusing on yourself and getting better at what you do. That's what's fundamentally wrong about the notion that there is a QB "competition." In true competition, you focus BOTH on what you do AND what your opponent does, because your opponent will be doing some things you have to respond to and your opponent may have some weaknesses you can exploit. In a QB "competition," you don't change your behavior to respond to whatever it is your "opponent" may be doing. You focus only on yourself. You don't say, for example, "AJ isn't very good at the deep sideline pass, so if I get better at that, I'll have an edge." You "win" by being the best package, regardless of what AJ is doing. So what Josh said is a comment about the difference between true competition and a QB competition. And it's completely consistent with McD's approach, which is simply that your job is get better at your job as fast as you can and to keep getting better. Your job doesn't have anything to do with whether you're better than someone else.

I agree with the point that Allen should be the clear leader if he's going to start. If it's close, I'd go with AJ. Rationale? If it's close, that means it's hard to tell who's better. If it's hard to tell who's better, it means that Allen won't be giving you more on the field than AJ. AJ has experience, which means he's less likely to make big mistakes. He's also less likely to melt down if something goes wrong. I'd let Allen watch from the bench and continue to get a feel for the league. Then, later in the season I'd consider going to Allen (unless AJ is really lighting it up and the Bills are winning). Time will come for Allen. Of course, that's assuming AJ is the other option. If Allen is clearly better than AJ and a push with Nate, I'm starting Allen.

Watch the video. He's a good example of dime-a-dozen running backs. Nothing special at all. Just hits the hole quickly, powers through arm tackles that he should. He looks like 100 other running backs. The Bills probably like Ivory better. The Bills' interest in him will depend on character and price. He isn't a must-have.

thanks for the observations.

Thanks for the write up. Great stuff. Kyle is one of those guys who just do it right. Always has been.

I like this. It's clear, makes sense. You've watched the guy and you don't think he's a football player. That's about as good an argument against his chances as there can be. I hope you're wrong, of course. And I have a theory about how you can be wrong. I think up until now, Allen's played something that's close to sandlot ball. Go out there kid, use your athleticism and see if you can win the game for us. I don't think that's how QB is played in the NFL any more. I think NFL QBs are coaches on the field. They're programmed to execute the plays, not create plays. I think that's why Kirk Cousins got $30 million a year, or whatever. He is NOT a guy who takes the game in his hands and wins it. He's a guy who studies the plan, studies the opponent, and executes. I think the Bills see Allen as a Kirk Cousins type, but with better athleticism. I think they see a guy who will learn the system, do what he's told to do, execute the system. I don't think the Bills were looking for John Elway. They want a guy who by his very nature will buy into the process and execute. I never look at it this way. All I care about is that Allen makes it and is a solid, long-term starting QB. If he is, I don't care if any of those other guys are better. The GM's job is to get good value for his pick, not to get the best value.

I long for a season of that kind of excitement in the stands.

Hapless I gotta thank you for this. Its one of the best things I've read in a while. Very enlightening. I like the basic stuff Outsiders does. I think their problem is that in order to monetiz their product they needed more content. To generate content they needed "data" to talk about. But once they get into the realm of college footvall, there are too many variables and they have to start using surrogates for real data. Anyway, thanks for the analysis of QBASE. Very helpful.

Thanks. This a really good nutshell summary. I tend to think the Bills CAN do it, can teachAllen what he needs to learn. Why do I think so? Because the way this front office and coach operate, they've evaluated the guy's work ethic, his understanding of the game, his intelligence. They've done that with testing and through interviews with the player and his coaches. They analyzed kind of a learner he is. Remember, McBeane saw Cam Newton come into the league and learn the things he had to learn. He played in a pretty simple college offense, and he had a lot to learn. He's been learning for years. So McBeane knows what it takes, they know what kind of learner Cam was and they know what kind of learner Allen is. I think when they took Allen, they had a high level of confidence that they can teach him what he needs to know. And that confidence was based on actual investigation into the guy.

Amen.

But in this case, the guy is neither dumb nor annoying. In fact, if he's annoying at all, it's because he relentlessly is looking to get better. So he's annoying like Kirk Cousins.

It's clear that purely physically he has all the tour. Whether his mechanics, his judgment etc are good enough is an open question, like with every other rookie. What gives me confidence is that the Bills have evaluating those things and come to the conclusion that whatever it is about his game they DON'T like is susceptible to being fixed. Frankly, I put a lot of stock in Allen's work ethic, his attitude, and his brains.

I'm biased against PFF and toward Outsiders, because as I understand it, PFF's "data" is largely compiled film review, and I'm suspicious of amateurs, which I assume they are, evaluating film. As Kyle Williams said once, how can people evaluate my play if they don't know the play call, my assignment, what I was told to do this week as we were preparing for the game? Outsiders, as I understand, is driven by objective data - down and distance, result, etc. So I tend to think statistical analysis of PFF's "data" is less reliable than the statistical analysis the Outsiders do.

And personal discipline. And focus. But, but, but ... he isn't as much fun to listen to!

so far as I can tell, sitting back and having a drink is your answer to just about everything. not knocking it, just observing.

Yeah, there's some evidence to support this. I think people are too tough on him for Mills and the guard (sorry, senior moment). But you have to wonder how he misfired on his offensive coordinator so badly that he had to make a move after one year. What I like about McDermott is that he thinks about things, makes a decision, but then is perfectly willing to evaluate the decision and change if it didn't work. So as bad as the Dennison choice was, McD at least wasn't afraid to fix it. He did the same thing with the Peterman start. The essence of being a professional is continuing to work at your craft, learning and getting better. McD is a relatively young professional, and he's still learning, still accumulating knowledge. It's clear he works really hard at it. So far, I'm pleased with what I see, but he certainly isn't yet a master at his craft.

Of course you're right about this, as to you. I readily admit there are outliers, that the best people at any skill - investing, golf, evaluating pro football talent, are not always the professionals. But of all the professionals, a high percentage of them are the best people at that skill, and of all the amateurs a very, very low percentage of them are among the best people. So when I'm listening to an amateur and a professional, the odds are very much weighted toward the professional doing it well and the amateur not. So when an amateur is telling me Allen can't make it and professional is telling me he can, and when I know I don't know, I'm inclined to trust the professional. Doesn't mean Allen is going to make, just like it doesn't mean my stock broker is giving me a winner. It's just that the chances are pretty high that a random next door neighbor is NOT giving me a stock winner.

I know. Gunner's really good. As you can tell from my posts, it's not that I have undying faith in this or any other stuff. But until this staff shows me they don't know what they're doing, I have more reason to believe them than I have to believe posters who disagree with them. Why? Because they have knowledge, experience, access and time that the posters don't. They've risen to the top of the profession by being better than all the other people who didn't rise. Unless Gunner posts his curriculum vitae explaining how he collected similar knowledge and how he's dedicated his adult life to this work and what his overall +/- percentage is on NFL decision making, I just don't have any reason to take his word over the experts.

Got it. And, by the way, I love reading your stuff. It's always well thought out. I really was talking to Electric Company and you jumped in. I wasn't saying, don't think I have said, that I think his or your opinion about the question is wrong. What I've been saying is that from my perspective, there's not reason for me to reach the same conclusion you have. But when I'm your situation and reach a conclusion opposite from the conclusion the professionals have reached, I ask myself what it is that they are seeing that I'm not? What's their thought process? More often than not, I learn something about football by doing that, because I figure some things that they are considering that I am not.