Shaw66

Maybe Allen actually IS worse than the others. Ever thought of that?

But if he's the best in camp and in the preseason games, if he executes the offense better than the other two, don't you start him? The guy who wins the job plays, riggt? Or do you just ASSUME he's not ready for prime time even though he's outplayed the others in the summer? To be honest, I'm not sure I know the answer.

I hope you're not talking about me. I never cherry picked stats. I'm a passer rating guy. I said after his first year in Buffalo that if he had a passer rating in the top 10 every season, like he did his first seaon, I'd take him in a heartbeat. He wasn't close the next two seasons, and now he's gone. May or may not have been his fault, but that's unimportant. He wasn't getting the job done.

That's true. He admitted that the people who made the decision didn't agree with him. He just doesn't share their opinion, nor, apparently, yours. He's entitled to his opinion, as are you.

He said he'd done enough to deserve to stay. That's different from saying he'd done enough to win. If Shady said he'd done more than enough to do deserve to stay, would you trade him? There's nothing wrong with what Taylor said.

Yes, I agree that we should be fine with Gunner's comment - the offense will be, and should be, conservative until the Bills have an offense that can win opening it up. And I agree very much about the Steelers protecting Ben. Ben was something of a train wreck for several seasons off the field, and the Steelers had a lot of patience with him. I don't think Allen is likely to be an off-field problem, but it may take a while to get him up to speed as an NFL starter. McDermott is likely to be patient, so long as Allen is working at his craft and improving.

Several things: 1. I'm still not convinced about Tyrod, but once they benched him for Peterman, he had to go. That was a clear vote of no confidence, and there was no going back. 2. I sincerely hope he succeeds in Cleveland or somewhere else. He's committed to his craft, he works hard, and I like to see that work ethic rewarded. 3. Tyrod is a quality guy. Some guys would have griped somewhere along the line, on his way out the door, if not earlier, but he wouldn't do that. This latest comment isn't griping; it's just a statement of his confidence in himself and his recognition that the Bills had a different view. I've written before about my good friend who lived next door to Tyrod on Main Street most of the time Tyrod was in Buffalo. They had the only two apartments on their floor. She's 92, and she's a big fan. Recently she told me that one day she was in the lobby of their building with her wheel-chair-bound granddaughter. Some other people were there, too. Tyrod got off the elevator, in a hurry to go someplace. People recognized him and wanted to talk, but he was headed straight for the door. Then he saw my friend and her granddaughter, stopped and came over to talk with the girl. No one asked him to stop; he just wouldn't leave with giving the girl a few minutes of his time. When he finished chatting, he was out the door and gone. Good luck, TT.

McDermott is in the Reid coaching tree. Beane, too, I think.

I expect they'll overspend lile the Pats did with Gillis Lee and Hogan. They'll look for role players who fit the process, good teammates, etc. I don't expect they'll chase the big names at the top of the market.

In his first NFL game Marshawn Lynch runs out of bounds late in the game, saving clock for the Broncos to drive for the game-winning FG. I have enormous confidence in McDermott. I think you'll see increasing situational awareness from his team in the coming years. He needs a couple of years where the roster isn't turning over so much.

Right. And it's clear that especially with the marginal guys like that, the Bills are looking for character - competitiveness, full-time commitment, team mentality. Overachievers. Dingus - People aren't saying depth isn't a concern. Some are saying it's a concern everywhere. You can try to say otherwise, but I guarantee you that if you could talk candidly to 32 head coaches, all 32 would tell you about the positions across his roster where he'd like to have a better player on the bench. Most positions. What I and others are saying is the answer isn't better players, because better players aren't out there. The players are the players. The answer is coaching - getting marginal but committed players, and then getting them ready to play. I agree, the Bills need depth almost everywhere. They're going to get it, or not, from names you don't recognize, and I don't either, because they're going to prepare them to play. As an example, when Hyde and Poyer went out last season, there wasn't a huge drop off in the quality of the defense. The subs weren't making big players, but they weren't liabilities on the field. As I said, Milano is another example. If you have players committed to excellence, learning and practice, every day, you can manage your depth.

Shades of Belichick. He sets high expectations, and McD does too.

On to the fifth dimension of pro football analysis!

Milano is a good example. Probably at his best he's still only a marginal starter in the league. McDermott made him useful.

Ii agree that all teams are looking for depth. I disagree that it's about player selection. Bench players are by definition marginal NFL players. Only occasionally does a team have a starter caliber guy on the bench. Teams that have good depth have good coaches who know how to get good play out of marginal players.

I'm not worried about depth. Depth is about coaching, not players, and McDermott's system is a good system for developing depth. Here's why: Talented players, guys talented enough to play in the NFL or be among the last cut, are all out on the far right end of the bell curve. There are a couple of things that are true about players at the end of the bell curve: 1. The farther out the curve you go, the fewer players there are. 2. The farther out the curve you go, the talent differences get larger. Now, that's not true in every case, but on average, in most cases, it's true. What does that mean? It means when MIchael Jordan is the best basketball player, he's farthest out on the bell curve, there aren't many guys in his vicinity, and the differences between Jordan and the guys near him are relatively big. What's important about that is not who's out there with Jordan. What's important is the 300th best player in the NBA. He's not way out there with Jordan, not close. There are a lot of guys at the same place on the curve with him, and there's very little difference between them. That is, the 300th player isn't that much better than the 310th player or that much worse than the 290th player. They're all about the same - 20 guys, all about the same. Are there differences? Sure, but they aren't very big differences. When you're talking about depth, your talking about relatively small differences among players. Take offensive tackles. There are 64 starting offensive tackles in the league, and those 64 guys are probably in the top 75 or 80 of all offensive tackles in the league. A few teams have a backup tackle who is better than some starters around the league, but not very many. Most of the best tackles are playing somewhere. That means the backups generally fall between, say, the top 60 and the top 100 tackles in pro football, and the guys who got cut and are waiting to get a phone call are in the top 100 to 120. Because the bell curve works the same way wherever you are on it, the differences between a guy who's the 75th best tackle and the guy who is the 100th best tackle aren't that great - about the same, probably as the difference between the best tackle and the 5th best tackle. If you have the 5th best tackle, you don't care too much that you don't have the best. If you have the 100th best tackle, you don't care too much that you don't have the 75th. It's sounds odd, but it's statistically true. So fretting about the talent the Bills have on the bench doesn't make that much sense to me. The best you can expect to have is a guy who has started in the league but isn't starting now, like Ivory. Most of your backups are going to be guys who haven't started, which means they're in among the 60th to 100th best player at the position, and any guy the Bills can get to replace him isn't going to be much different. What matters is coaching. McDermott's "process" is designed to do what Belichick does - teach players with decent talent (backups) how to execute the position. And that's why there's so much emphasis on character. The difference between 75th best player and the 100th best player that matters the most is how hard the guy is going to work, how committed he is to getting every little detail right all the time, because it's THOSE characteristics that are going to make an average backup get the job done when the time comes. Austin Proehl is an example. The guy presumably doesn't have stellar talent. What he has is work ethic. He's the kind of guy who will get the job done because he will practice everything until he can do it as well as he possibly can do it. Belichick wanted Hogan for the same reason. I don't worry about backups. If McDermott is doing his job, the backups will be okay. I worry about the weakest starters, and I worry about the coaches who run the offense and the defense. Those are the guys who matter.

I have no evidence but I think the Pegulas got them fired.

He wasn't an objective voice. He looked constantly for opportunities to bash management and the coaches, and when he couldn't find any, he worked to create them. Listening to the press conferences, it was clear that he worked at catching speakers in what appeared to be contradiction when he knew perfectly well what they meant. Then, when they said something that he could construe as contrary to something someone else said, he ripped them for lying. It was cheap, disningenuous and nasty. He called the Bills a dumpster fire, and less than a year later the Bills were in the playoffs with pretty much all the same players that he'd called out the year before. He absolutely trashed Terrell Owens from the day he arrived in Buffalo until the day he left, calling Owens a locker room cancer when there was absolutely NO evidence to support it. His teammates said he was great, but Sully ripped him mercilessly. One day on WGR he went off on Owens and even the WGR personalities were astounded at how irrational he was. The only thing wrong with Terrell Owens was that Trent Edwards didn't understand that he should throw the ball to Owens on every play. Once Fitzpatrick became the starter, Owens was, once again, one of the best receivers in the league. But that didn't stop Sullivan. Objective he was not. I tired of Larry Felser, but he was the rockstar you're talking about. He was loved. Sullivan is talented, but he was way past needing to be refreshed.

Jerry, you don't get it, even on your way out the door. "They felt my voice was becoming bad for business." Yes, Jerry, "they" felt it because it was true, and you refused and refuse to recognize it. From your point of view, it's always been that your voice was the voice of truth and therefore worthy of publication - just because it came from you. Well, guess what? Gifted writer that you are, your voice nevertheless often was rude, insensitive, nasty, biased and downright uncivil. Your voice offended many, and because nothing is more important to you than your voice, you just didn't care. People don't like being around nasty people, but you never understood that, so you don't seem to understand why your voice was bad for business. It's too bad for you, too, because after all the years you invested in covering horrible Bills teams, you're now not going to have a platform from which you could enjoy what looks to be a team on the rise. Of course, your voice might not have appreciated that, either. I hope you come at your new gig with a different perspective. You're insightful and you can write, but if you're lacking basic human decency, you're going to be bad for business.

You're not going to get aggressive game management out of McDermott. That isn't his style or his philosophy. McDermott PREPARES. His plan is to get everyone - including himself - ready for every situation and then perform in accordance with the preparation. Prepare, prepare, prepare. When McDermott goes for it on fourth down, it will be because his preparation tells him that in certain circumstances it's the smart move. He's not going to go for it because he wants to give his players a boost, or because he wants to insert the dagger. I think that's the right approach. Take what the game is giving you. If it's the second quarter and the game is giving you a field goal, take it. Don't go for it because you think a TD will change momentum. In the second quarter, all you're trying to do is pile up points, and if the game is giving you 3, take them. It's not sexy, it's not what the fans want, but it wins. So, for example, I don't think you should expect to see the conservative game planning change, at least not until he has a powerful, dominating offense. (Maybe if he has a dominating offense, he'll open up, but I doubt.) It was quite clear last season that McDermott wasn't going to open his offense until it was the fourth quarter and he was behind by more than a TD. He's going to punt instead of asking his team to do something they aren't good at. We saw it, and we saw that conservative approach work. I don't think it will change.

Passer rating in the top 15 in the league and improving play as the season progresses. No worse than 7-9.

I want to believe Allen will succeed. I have several reasons why I think he will. This stat is NOT one of those reasons. I spent two years arguing with people that you couldn't conclude much of anything about Taylor by studying his stats for throwing over the middle. The data is subjective and scarce, and the differences aren't meaningful. Same here. There are too many variables to conclude that the differences among the rookie QBS in this one, narrow, subjective stat mean much of anything. I mean, what am I supposed to do- conclude that Allen is going to Hall of Fame he MAY have been better in the red zone in college?

Atlanta. I was there, and the place was electric with Bills fans. I don't remember the game, but I remember all the Bills fans cheering for about 15 minutes after the game.

Pretty unusual for the second string guy to take over the starting spot. Usually happens only when there's an injury, the games are meaningless or the strarter is in a bad slump AND the playoffs are on the line. It ordinarily doesn't happen just because someone decides it's a good time to start the rookie.

I think people asking about Groy not starting are missing the point. I've heard McD talk about how valuable he is because he can play multiple positions. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't start. You're going to have a center and a backup center. If Groy starts, then Bodine can be the backup. If a guard goes down, Groy can move over and Bodine comes in. That's pretty simple, and I'm sure McDermott understands it. No, it makes much sense to conclude that Groy isn't starting because the coaches think the guys they have starting are better. Plain and simple.