Shaw66

I really don't buy the splash signing notion. I think Mario Williams was one of those. Not Watkins, not McCoy. Both of those moves were driven by the desire to improve the offense, not ticket sales, dramatically. Football people made those deals, not marketing people. McCoy particularly - Eagles called, Doug and Rex jumped and made a deal in a half hour. That had nothing to do with marketing.

I agree that the Bills need more yards per game passing, but it's hard to fault the QB when the game plan is to throw fewer than 25 times per game. Some people will argue (they always do) that he isn't asked to throw more because the more he throws, the worse he gets. However, the data doesn't support that, either. Some of his best games (and some of his worst) were when he threw over 30.

I agree with you, at least for now. If the Bills had a true franchise QB and they weren't winning, I wouldn't be looking to unload him. But that's not where the Bills are. There are real questions about whether the Bills can win with Taylor. But you don't help your credibility by supporting your argument with stats that aren't true. If you think Taylor isn't a winner, that's a legitimate opinion and there's some evidence to support it. But when you say his 4th quarter passer rating was 65 when it was 90, I have to wonder if your opinion is based on anything real. Right. That's exactly what I said. His 4th quarter passer rating isn't bad; it's right around his passer rating for the season - a little below in each of the last two seasons. The problem is that the really good QBs, the guys many people think are special, have BETTER passer ratings in the fourth quarter than they average for the season.

i'm not exactly endorsing this comment, but it's worth talking about. A no-star system works if you have Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. But look at most other teams; they have stars. Look Seattle, Atlanta, Green Bay. A lot of what seems to have been going on with the Bills is to model the organization after the Pats. That's all well and good if you have a Belichick, but McDermott hasn't coached one game yet, so I wonder whether it makes sense to go aggressively in that direction. Atlanta has two players this year with cap hits over $10 million. Pats and Bills have three. Steelers, Packers, Seahawks all have five or six. It's too early to tell where this team is headed so far as stars are concerned. But if they're going in the direction the Pats are going, McDermott and his new GM better be really good at figuring out who the athletes are that fit the system. And the system better be awfully good, because a mediocre system with mediocre talent ain't cuttin it in this league.

No. The argument is that people post information that is wrong and then base their argument on it. You said you believe you'd seen it posted (no link) in several places that Tyrod's 4th quarter passer rating is 65. It isn't. It's more like 90, which isn't bad.

But this is the kind of stuff that I'm really skeptical about. Other than the citation to Football Outsiders, these statements are completely conclusory, with NO EVIDENCE to support them other than, maybe, Fahey's observations after film review. The guy has ZERO football experience, and yet we're supposed to believe his conclusions about Taylor's impact on the running game. He may be right, but I'm not going to believe it just because he said it.

I vote no because there's only a 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 chance that a first-round QB will make it as a credible starter in the NFL, let alone become a true franchise QB. As much as I loved his performance in two national championships, Watson hasn't shown me enough to make me believe his odds are better than that. Taylor, on the other hand, already has shown he can be a credible starter in the NFL. His chances of continuing to be at least a decent QB are much better than the chances Watson will be. He also could get better. So I think for the short-term, Taylor is the better option. Since the Bills only have him for the short term, and since the Bills are now well positioned to go after a guy in 2018 whose prospects are as good or better than Watson's, trading Taylor for Watson doesn't make sense.

I'll say, without any sarcasm intended, good for you. It's an old fashioned notion that the GM picks the players and the coach assembles the team. The best teams do it more cooperatively now, and there's plenty of evidence/rumor that Whaley didn't agree with the head coaches.

Shady - Taylor's 4th quarter passer rating in 2016 was 86. In 2015 it was 101. In 2015 with the scored tied his passer rating was 88. When losing his passer rating was 95. In 2016 it was 92 and 92. I think you need better data. It's funny; I'm constantly defending Taylor here, and I'm not at all convinced he's the guy. But there are so many misstatements and misrepresentations about his performance, it's crazy. The problem with Taylor's late-game, close-game performance is not that it's bad. The problem is that it isn't as good as the best QBs. His late-game, close-game numbers are like his numbers at other times. The best QBs get BETTER in those situations.

Just discovered this duplicate thread, and this is one that seems to have legs, so I'll repost what I just said in the other thread. I love hearing from the people who have been there. Now, I'm not sure how he knows the things he says and he knows, and in fact I suspect he can't prove much of what he says actually happened. I think he's speculating. But he's speculating from a perspective the rest of us don't have. He's been there and seen these dynamics up front and personal. So he's inclined to know even though he wasn't in the rooms at OBD. Very interesting commentary, and believable. Thanks for posting.

I love hearing from the people who have been there. Now, I'm not sure how he knows the things he says and he knows, and in fact I suspect he can't prove much of what he says actually happened. I think he's speculating. But he's speculating from a perspective the rest of us don't have. He's been there and seen these dynamics up front and personal. So he's inclined to know even though he wasn't in the rooms at OBD. Very interesting commentary, and believable. Thanks for posting.

What I'm saying is that stat may be helpful to coaches who discover an aspect of his game that requires improvement. It isn't particularly helpful in deciding whether he's a good quarterback, because EVERY quarterback has some details in his game that are worse than some other details. That's why I keep saying that all this data that Fahey has collected doesn't amount to a whole lot in a debate about Tyrod's value as a long-term solution. His passer rating matters. If his passer rating is in the top 10, I don't care if he's last in the league in YAC. I mean, I care in the sense that I'd always like my QB to get better, but I don't care if I'm in a discussion about whether to keep Taylor. If Taylor's passer rating is in the top 10, I'm keeping him, whatever his YAC is. And if his passer rating is in the bottom third, I'm NOT keeping him, no matter how GOOD his YAC is. Detailed data like this doesn't determine the value of a QB.

If this is true it's exactly why you need a GM. McD is supposed to be figuring out how to get the guys he already has to win games. He shouldn't be wasting his time managing contract details. Actually, I'm guessing that Overdorf is acting as GM.

Why do they cover the statistics? Because they have to write articles every day and they run out of things to write about. There are LOTS of statistics. It's possible to count things in a lot of different ways. The question is whether the statistics are meaningful in any way that is important. The question here, for example, is whether YAC is a meaningful stat in evaluating a quarterback. It's an equally meaningful question in evaluating a receiver. For example, Ezekiel Elliott averaged more yards after catch than maybe any other receiver in the league. Does that make him a great receiver, or does that mean only that he played on a good team? Or does that mean he's good at breaking tackles? Among non-running backs, Martellus Bennett was second best. Does that mean he was the second best receiver in the league? A guy's yards after catch may be high because he breaks tackles. It may be high because he's so fast he outruns people (like Goodwin - catch a ball behind a defender and sprint 50 yards to the end zone). It may be high because of the style of offense (Bennett). It may be high because the QB is good at throwing guys open. So it may be nice to know that a guy has great YAC, but what really matters is WHY he has his YAC. There may be ways to improve his YAC. But it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that a receiver is good because he has high YAC or bad because he doesn't. Similarly QBs. YAC doesn't answer questions; it's the beginning of questions. If Taylor's YAC is low, the question is WHY? Is it something about Taylor or is it something else? And more importantly, does it matter? From looking at a few stats, it appears to me that Taylor's 2015 YAC was low compared to the rest of the league? Do I care? No. Why? Because his passer rating, which DOES correlate to good passing, was high. His air yards were high and his after catch yards were low, and it averaged out just fine.

good discussion. In other words there's a lot that we don't know and what we don't know keeps some of this data from being reliable. I go back to correlation. Does this data correlate with good quarterbacking? If it doesnt, then the data may be useful to coaches but not so much in evaluating the value of a qb.

If there's no GM and no scouts who is actually signing these players?

I agree with you completely. Isolated stats just don't matter if overall performance is good. After the 2015 season people pointed to this Stat or that stat to try to prove Tyrod had a bad season. It wasn't a bad season when your passer rating was 99. We all see isolated things that we think a player could do better. But just because he might be able to do something better doesn't mean he's a bad player

I never look at PFF, so it isn't fair for me to criticize, but I will anyway. Every once in a while someone at BBMB would post something like "PFF says that John Miller was the second most effective guard in the league in 2016." (That's an example; I'm not suggesting anyone said that.) I'm sorry, but I can't buy stuff like that. The players and the coaches know who the best players are, and if John Miller actually was the second best guard in the league, the players and coaches would be telling the media and we'd know about it. So those kinds of ratings just make me believe that the quality of the film work behind those comments is lacking. That's what's intriguing about Fahey. He seems to work really hard at his analysis, and his data seems to be meaningful.

Still not sure about accuracy. As I said, the concern about accuracy is that he doesn't get yards after catch because of how he throws. I wonder if he evaluated that. In any case, it sounds like he's pretty thorough. And the sack analysis is the kind of detail I was talking about. That's pretty good. Thanks.

And I agree with the point that emotionally, Sammy may check out with this news. "I'm outta here and I'll show them." He may have a lousy 2017, get a nice deal somewhere, and then become the All-Pro he's capable of. Gotta keep your stars, and you don't see the good teams franchising their stars - they sign them.

Maybe they franchise him, but that costs $15 million and the Bills have no flexibility to spread that money. We'll see how it works out.

This is a serious mistake. First big one of the McDermott era. This essentially means he's gone after next year. If he catches balls for 1200 yards and the Bills go to the playoffs, they'll lose their #1 wide receiver. Why? Because if that happens the Bills will have to break the bank to keep Tyrod and they won't be able to match the offers Sammy will get elsewhere. Never, never, never give up on talent too early. If you haven't special talent that isn't playing up to the level you'd like, keep trying, because you want to still own the player when his play catches up to his talent. Much better to waste a year on talent that doesn't come around than to give up a year too early. Can you say MARSHAWN?

It all makes sense when you think about it. It's all about who has the right to make the player a free agent, when he has the right, and guaranteed money. Tyrod was making peanuts. He'd never made any real money in the NFL. Tyrod had a great 2015. He had the option to become a free agent at the end of 2016. The Bills wanted to be able to to look at him in 2016 without fear of losing him. So the Bills went to him and asked him to give up his option to become a free agent after 2016. Tyrod said he'd give up the option to become a free agent, but only for real guaranteed money, like $50 million. Bills said if they were going to give him big guaranteed money, they wanted him for the long term (in other words, they wanted to take the decision as to when Tyrod was next a free agent away from Tyrod and keep it for themselves). Tyrod said okay to the long-term deal. Why? Because he was getting big guaranteed money. The guarantee is what was different between the 2016 negotiation and the 2017 negotiation. Tyrod went into the 2016 negotiation with pretty much NO guaranteed money. He was at risk. When the Bills put a big guarantee on the table, he took it and gave up his right to become a free agent. . However, when Tyrod came to the table in 2017, things were different; he had the guarantee. He had $40 million plus the money he made in 2016 on the renegotiated contract. That $40 million was in his pocket. The Bills, for the second year in a row, were asking for a favor. Tyrod said I'll give you your favor if you give me my freedom back. The 2017 deal was essentially that Tyrod gave the Bills $10 million back in exchange for getting back the right to become a free agent while he was still in the prime of his career. From Tyrod's perspective, his future was in good shape even with the smaller guarantee; he'd rather bet on himself to be a winner and get a really big payday than worry about failing and getting stuck with a nice, but relatively smaller payday. Did I ask my friend? Yes, sort of. I posed him this question: It's March of 2016. Tyrod had a good year in 2015 and he can become a free agent at the end of 2016. The Bills put two offers on the table. One is for six years, the deal Tyrod took. The other deal is the same for 2016 and then it's $30 million guaranteed for the next two years, then free agency. In other words, the second deal they offer is the same first year plus the contract he renegotiated in 2017. I asked which deal he'd tell his client to take. He said the the deal with free agency after 2018, in a heartbeat. His client still is getting a lot of guaranteed money, as much as he'll need for the rest of his life, AND he's getting the opportunity to negotiate for a new contract in a couple of years. My friend said the opportunity to renegotiate is really valuable, especially in a league where the salary cap keeps going up. So why didn't he take that deal in 2016? BECAUSE IT WASN'T OFFERED. Except for the fact that they were forced to make a decision about Tyrod in 2017, the Bills liked the 2016 deal better than the 2017 deal. The $10 million they got back is nothing compared to what they're going to have to pay Tyrod next year if he has a good year.

It's not the first time you've heard it. I've been saying since the day the terms of Tyrod's new deal came out. After a while I thought I was losing my mind because everyone on these boards was telling me I was wrong. So I finally asked my friend. He said it was a no brainer. Here's why: By ordinary human being standards, Tyrod made a lot of money in 2016. Under his old contract he was guaranteed $40 million more, and under his new deal he was guaranteed $30 million more. So that means either way, he's set for life if he manages his money reasonably well, because after taxes and current living expenses, he's going to have north of $10 million put away. So either way he's okay. Next, he's almost certain to play for the Bills through 2018, because even if some QB, like Peterman, takes his job, the Bills are better off keeping Taylor as the backup than cutting him to save some cap money, because they can't get as good a backup for the money they save. Okay, so where is Taylor at the end of 2018, assuming someone has taken his job? He's a free agent, and he almost certainly gets a new deal somewhere for $10 million, because he was an NFL starter who lost his job to a better player. He wasn't a stiff. He had good numbers, Bills just found someone better. So Taylor isn't really giving up the $10 million guaranteed. Granted, it isn't guaranteed, but absent injury, he's almost certain to earn that extra $10 million, and probably more after that. But what did Taylor get? Taylor got all the upside if he has a good year in 2017. If he's a top 10 passer in 2017 and/or the Bills go the playoffs, the Bills will renegotiate with Taylor after 2017 because they don't want him to become a free agent in 2018. When he renegotiates, Taylor will get $20 million a year (better than the $16 he would have gotten on the deal he gave up), and he'll get another $50 million guaranteed. So the chances are good that Taylor gave up little or no money to do the new deal, and he put himself in position for a much bigger payday than he had under the old deal. As my friend said, it was a no brainer for Taylor.

This argument is for another thread, but still I want to make the point. TAYLOR DID NOT TAKE A CONTRACT CUT. Taylor gave up about $10 million of guaranteed money so that he could become a free agent in two years instead of five years. I know a professional agent. He has represented some of the biggest names in sports. I mean BIGGEST. I asked him which was a better deal for Tyrod, the one Tyrod had or the one he took in March. He said the one he got in March, no question, no question at all. He said he would have urged Tyrod to take the deal the Bills offered. Free agency in two years is worth MUCH more than the $10 million he gave up. This idea that Tyrod gave in to the Bills because he had no options is just wrong. The Bills came to him with their hats in their hands looking for help. Tyrod gave them something they wanted in exchange for something he wanted - free agency. If Tyrod plays the full season in 2017 and the Bills make the playoffs, Tyrod will get a new contract next year much better than the one he gave up last month. If that happens, everyone will look back and blame Whaley for renegotiating.