Shaw66

If a.medical student can't do a triple bypass in the first semester of school, why should we think k he can do it five years later? People learn. At least some people.

The over under on the Bills is 6.5. So who are these "most people"?

Pretty simple. The coach isn't going to keep the best guy on the bench. Players want the best guy on the field. The players AND the coach will know in a few weeks. That's when we will know too.

If I recall correctly, they told Fitzpatrick that they were going after a new QB and asked him whether he would be prepared to be a backup and to help train the new guy. Fitz said he wouldn't accept that role; he wanted to start. So, I think the Bills tried to do what you would have preferred, but Fitz didn't want it. Same thing Bledsoe said when they asked him to backup and train a rookie. In Taylor's case, yeah, it would have been nice to keep him, just for the year, but McDermott knew Taylor wasn't his future QB, and the team was better off saving the money and getting a pick for Taylor than keeping him around because it would have been nice.

The 2013 strategy was a good strategy. It didn't work, but not because it was a bad approach. It just didn't work. I see nothing wrong with what they'ye done here. They've decided that Taylor wasn't the answer, just like Fitz. They went after a QB in the first round. You may not have liked the pick in 2013 and you may not have liked the pick this year, but that doesn't make the strategy wrong. After the 2013 effort failed, the Bills tried a different route - they signed a free agent backup (Taylor) but didn't draft anyone. How'd that work? Better to sign the free agent backup AND draft someone. The Bills are doing what they should. Whether they made the right choices, well, we just have to wait and see.

Thanks. It's obvious, but thanks. This states correctly when Allen is. If he DOESN'T pass Peterman on the depth chart as the result of the first preseason game, then he'll be stuck at 3 with some occasional first-team reps. At the point, his only realistic objective would seem to be to pass Peterman for the backup spot. He'll go into the second preseason game playing with the threes, and he'll need the second game to try to climb over Nate. But by then, AJ will be in the number 1 spot, he'll get first team in the third preseason game and the fourth, and there's essentially no opportunity for Allen to pass him. So Allen has a couple of critical weeks ahead of him. These two weeks likely determine whether he has a shot at starting as a rookie. He has to show the progress McDermott is looking for; if it doesn't happen now, Allen has a year of grooming ahead of him. Not the worst thing in the world - if he can't climb the hill fast enough to start this season, then he has a year to climb it. If he can't climb it by then, the Bills may have gotten the wrong guy. Only exception would be if AJ really lights it up, Bills go to the playoffs. Then AJ is the presumptive starter in 2019, and it's tough for Allen to unseat him.

This is unreasonable. 20% of the way to being a factor in the race? Allen is 100% of the way to being a factor. Why: Because he's in the rotation of first-team reps, according to McDermott. He would be getting first-team reps is he weren't someone who's actively in the competition for the starting position. That's true across ALL the positions on the team. Also, because EVERYONE, except maybe you, agrees that Allen is the most imressive of the three physically. Biggest, strongest, fastest, best thrower in purely physical terms. All of those things are factors in becoming the starter, just like accuracy, decision-making, leadership and other things. A guy who leads in several categories, and Allen certainly does, is a factor in the competition. The standard you've set is the standard for who's WINNING the competition, and I'll agree with that there is nothing credible that suggests he's WINNING. But a FACTOR in the competition? You think that McCarron and Peterman would tell you that Allen isn't a credible factor in the competition? Not for a second. They see him throwing the ball, and they both know they don't throw like that. Exactly. If he WEREN'T a factor, that would be news. Of course he's a factor.

Thanks for the look at the third team. I don't know enough to have done this. Interesting stuff. Perhaps the more important point is the opponent's third team defense probably looks as jumbled and of questionable talent. So the play is messier, for sure, but the players, especially the qb, have plenty of opportunity to show what they can do. Can Allen get in and out of the huddle? Can he move in the pocket and find the right target? Can he throw accurately? He is either doing those things or he isnt. Frankly, if think Beane was stating the obvious. If he lights it up in the game, he is getting more reps. If he throws two picks, he gets fewer.

Allen has a shot at starting. If he starts and the Bills go to the playoffs, he has a shot at OROY.

Obviously a long way to go, but when was the last time (probably never) the Bills got into training camp with guys who have the potential to be offensive rookie of the year AND defensive rookie of the year? Legitimate shots at each.

There's just no way anyone can know this to be true. Do you actually believe if he starts for the next five years he won't be more accurate than he is today? The Tom Brady we see now is NOT the Tom Brady who came into the league 18 years ago. It makes no sense to pretend we can tell today what a pro football player will be like in five or seven years.

Thanks for all the posts from TC. Great stuff.

Because an organization is run from the top down. Otherwise it's the inmates running the asylum. The leadership sets the standards, and the employees follow the standards. McBeane want guys who understand that. Okay. It's about bonus language. If the bonus language the Jets are offering is more or less standard for the league, then I have the same problem with Darnold not signing. If the Jets are trying to get him to take language that other guys didn't have to take, then it's on the Jets.

True. It's certainly a good sign that he did well enough in OTAs that he had moved up to first-team reps by the time training camp began. Getting first-team is the first step toward getting first-team reps in preseason games. So he's begun the climb to the starting job. Still, there's no way of knowing IF he can climb to the top or HOW QUICKLY he can climb to the top. That depends in part on him and in part on what the other guys do.

I AM enjoying that it's happening to the Jets. Maybe they got a self-centered, spoiled (pray tell, not from USC!) kid who's play will forever be limited because he doesn't want to get his hair mussed.

This is great. Allen is that kid. He's just trying to figure it all out. He doesn't know all the cliches yet, but he's learning them. He had his episode with the racist tweets from high school, and he knows he doesn't want to go THERE again, so he's falling back on the cliches.

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.