twoandfourteen

Boys, go back and read what I wrote. Of course I am being selective. I selected the most crucial play of the 2017 Buffalo Bills season. I already explained why that particular play is significant -- more so than any other random play throughout the season. I am referring TO that specific variable. When that Dalton throw occurred, the Bills had exhausted all of their own opportunities to be in control of their playoff chances. They needed someone else to do something for them. THAT is the inarguable fact. Dalton misses, the Bills stay home. MJS -- it would actually be dumb to ask that question about 99.9% of the things that occurred prior to that. Except maybe the Zay Jones miss in Carolina. If TT connects there, the Bills have an extra win and that would have rendered Dalton's TD irrelevant. You two are free to discuss the Bills playoff chances with any other play this season. I'm only interested in this one.

Simple yes or no answer: If everything else in the 2017 NFL season remained exactly the same -- would the Bills have made the playoffs if Andy Dalton threw an incomplete pass on 4th & 12 against Baltimore?

I agree -- it takes a full season to get to the playoffs. I give TT 88% of the credit for putting the Bills in position to benefit from that Ravens loss to Cincy. 12% goes to Peterman/Webb for the Colts game. But without Dalton's heroics, Tyrod's Bills would have chalked up just another mediocre 9-7 season that would have gone right in the pile with all of the others. That is an inarguable fact. Would you have put your money on Tyrod to make a huge TD throw between two defenders on 4th & 12 with the playoffs on the line?

Nah, I think the fact that the Bills ultimately had their playoff ticket punched on a heroic 4th down throw that their own QB would never have even seen -- let alone attempt -- really says all that needs to be said.

"You're welcome."

That's a fair point. However, I would also like to point out that the Bills lost 20 games over the past three years with Tyrod Taylor as the starting QB. So, by this logic-- he had ample opportunities to rack up some "garbage time" yards. Yet, he still only broke through to the promised land one time... and it took him 5 quarters to do it. I think the disconnect here is that the "anti-300" crowd is using that metric in the context of "wins & losses" and the "300 yard games matter" crowd is using it in the limited context of "basic competence at the position".

"Usual 230" is being a bit generous, haha. Half the time, the guy was under 200. 44 Total Games Passing Yards 43 games under 300 - 97.7% 38 games under 280 - 86.3% 30 games under 230 - 68.1% 23 games under 200 - 52.2% 16 games under 180 - 36.3% 7 games under 130 - 15.9% Passing TDs Games with 3 passing TDs: 6 - 13.6% Games with 2 passing TDs: 7 - 15.9% Games with 1 passing TD: 19 - 43.1% Games with 0 passing TD: 12 - 27.2% 31 games with 1 or 0 passing TDs - 70.4% 38 games with 2 or fewer passing TDs - 86.3% 13 games with 2 or more passing TDs - 29.5% 12 games with 0 passing TDs - 27.7% 24 games under 230 & 1 or 0 TDs - 54.4%

It's not like Fitz was 2-14 every year and Tyrod was 13-3. They were both QB's of middling teams that won between 6-9 games a year. A couple of breaks either way. Really not that big of a difference. They are the same guy -- competent backups that are great to have in the locker room, but shouldn't be full-time starters. Tyrod Taylor being called "The guy that wins" is hilarious. A couple of nice games against Miami and Tyrod is now "the guy that wins". How about that W-L record when down by a single TD at any point in a game? Maybe you could tell me about all of Tyrod's clutch throws and game-winning drives late in the 4th Quarter? The abandonment of reality and absolute lowering of every possible standard when evaluating this player is borderline insulting.

And Taylor wasn't scoring points or getting first downs at the worst possible times. What's the difference?

Orton and Fitzy both had a bunch of 300+ yd games. Fitz had games of 307, 350, 337, 369 vs New England alone. Which is why the whole "Tyrod is the best QB the Bills have had since Kelly" notion is absolutely absurd. If anything, they are all at the same level, and the only reason TT is in that group is because he didn't turn the ball over. But he also didn't produce much offense. At least the other guys were trying to make plays. *Also -- TT needed 5 quarters to throw for 300+. He was around 280 or so at the end of regulation.

Yeah, that guy sucks.

I must have missed those posts. Can you give me a specific example? When you can't attack the argument, you attack the person. I'm still here talking, aren't I?

You explained this one far better than I could have. Nice post. Do carry on, Professor.

I'll admit I was really disappointed when that article came out in the Buffalo News, too. It's not like he had been lighting the world on fire and people were calling for him to be replaced. However, outside of that he's been a model for how a professional athlete should carry himself and represent his city. Had the on-field production been there, he would have been a perfect face of the franchise.

ATTENTION TBD FORUM MEMBERS: IMPORTANT POLICY CHANGE FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, ANY & ALL PLAYER EVALUATIONS - GOOD OR BAD - WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE FUNDAMENTALLY DETERMINED TO BE NULL & VOID UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY APPROPRIATE FUNDAMENTAL STATISTICAL COMPARISONS TO EVERY SINGLE PLAYER TO HAVE PLAYED THAT POSITION. For example, the statement "Peyton Manning was a great QB because he passed for 71,940 yds in his career" is fundamentally meaningless unless the fundamental corresponding career passing yardage numbers is included for every NFL QB to have played between 1999 through 2015, while excluding any & all yardage fundamentally accumulated in 2011. Thank you for your cooperation with this fundamentally important matter. Pope Murph VI, of the "hard stats crowd" has spoken. ----- Do you see how absolutely ridiculous your argument is now? I have to admit, the incredible feats of mental gymnastics performed by the #TeamTyrod guys still fascinates me. It truly takes some special bending & twisting of reality, reasoning, & logic to legitimately attempt to argue things like "Passing yards are irrelevant when evaluating a QB" or "44 games isn't a large enough sample size" or "Defensive Coordinators don't waste time game planning to prevent guys like Ben Roethlisberger from throwing for lots of yards." Simply beautiful. Stuff like that is my favorite part of the ongoing Tyrod discussion. It's probably why I keep coming back to talk about it. I guess that's what happens when guys like you continue to argue the inarguable and defend the indefensible. Never change, boys. As for you claiming my statistical evidence is "sloppy & poorly communicated", well -- that is your personal opinion. Maybe you need to look at the passing data of every single NFL QB to determine if a throwing for less than 230 yards & 1 or 0 TDs over half the time is good or not. I've watched enough bad Bills offensive football to know that it's not. I am sorry if a basic breakdown of the number of games that a guy hits a certain level of production is confusing for you. I did try to make it as clear and easy to understand as possible, but perhaps I could have done a better job and it could be communicated better. Why don't you take the information about Tyrod's career as the Bills QB and come up with a better way to present it? Also, the "Dalton Line" was my own point of reference for the purposes of this exercise. He's a good-not-great, basic starting NFL QB. Tyrod is a class act and a great human being, but is nothing more than a high-end backup QB.

Tyrod's numbers are bad enough to stand on their own. There's really no need to take the fact that in 7 out of every 10 games the guy is giving you less than 230 yards passing and compare it to Tom Brady to realize that Taylor is not a very good NFL QB. But, since you asked so nicely, here's a comparison to Andy Dalton for perspective. (TT in parentheses) 45 Games - 2015-2017 9 games over 300 - 20% (1 - 2.2%) 36 games under 300 - 80% (43 - 97.7%) 32 games under 280 - 71.1% (38 - 86.3%) 20 games under 230 - 43.4% (30 - 68.1%) 10 games under 200 - 30.4% (23 - 52.2%) 9 games under 180 - 19.5% (16 - 36.3%) 2 games under 130 - 4.3% (7 - 15.9%) 1 game under 100 - 2.2%* (2 - 4.4%) *Only completed 3 of 5 passes for 59 yds. AD might have been injured in that game? 2 games with 4 pass TD - 4.3% (0 - 0%) 3 games with 3 pass TD - 6.5% (6 - 13.6%) 12 games with 2 pass TD - 26.0% (7 - 15.9%) 20 games with 1 pass TD - 43.4% (19 - 43.1%) 8 games with 0 pass TD - 17.7% (12 - 27.2%) Total Games with less than 230 yds passing & 1 or 0 passing TDs: Tyrod Taylor - 24 (54.4%) Andy Dalton - 12 (26.6%) Even by Daltonian standards, Taylor falls short. They could have run him 15x per game. Of course, he'd probably end up playing in only 3 or 4 of them all season if they did that.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I never said that was a "benchmark". I said it was something a DC would have to account for from a good QB. It's something that could happen if the guy goes off. If Tyrod "goes off", he's not getting you anywhere near 375 -- even if you add in his rushing yards.

Honest question here -- are you saying that 44 games (the entirety of Tyrod's career as the Bills' QB) is too small of a sample size? I was talking ceilings and very good performances, not minimum standards. If you want my opinion on what a reasonable expectation is for a quality day from a decent QB, it would be 250/2. Think "Andy Dalton in his prime".

Interesting question. Let's take a look! 2015-2017 QBs with 375yds or more & 4 or more TDs: http://pfref.com/tiny/h5Wgl 2015-2017 QBs with 375yds or more http://pfref.com/tiny/6H47Y 2015-2017 QBs with 4 or more TDs: http://pfref.com/tiny/T4Rwe Spoiler Alert: Tyrod Taylor does not appear on any of those lists. Matt Moore, Trevor Siemian, and Brian Hoyer do. Anyway, I wasn't talking about a fan's "expectations". I was talking about a DC preparing a gameplan -- you know, trying to account for things that might happen. Ben Roethlisberger might throw for 375/4 because he's proven himself to be capable of doing it, so the DC has to account for it. It is a reasonable concern. Tyrod Taylor won't throw for 375/4 because he's shown to be totally incapable of doing it, so the DC doesn't have to waste the time worrying about it. There is no concern about Tyrod's passing attack. Tyrod's ceiling is probably 285-290 passing yards in a single game at his very best. A good QB is probably around 400 at his very best: http://pfref.com/tiny/67Ef5 Well, you win this one. I should have said a "good" day for him would be 200 yds passing. A "very good" day for him would have been 230 yds passing. Thank you for the correction. I tip my hat to you, good sir.

I know, right? I mean, only just over half of Tyrod's 44 games were under 200 yards passing. (Of course, there were more than a few of those 200+ games where he was at 150 or so late in the 4th Q and padded the ol' yardage stats in garbage time, but we don't need to dig that deep.) Passing Yards 43 games under 300 - 97.7% 38 games under 280 - 86.3% 30 games under 230 - 68.1% 23 games under 200 - 52.2% 16 games under 180 - 36.3% 7 games under 130 - 15.9% Passing TDs Games with 3 passing TDs: 6 - 13.6% Games with 2 passing TDs: 7 - 15.9% Games with 1 passing TD: 19 - 43.1% Games with 0 passing TD: 12 - 27.2% 31 games with 1 or 0 passing TDs - 70.4% 38 games with 2 or fewer passing TDs - 86.3% 13 games with 2 or more passing TDs - 29.5% Such a stupid and delusional post, I know -- what with using actual facts and numbers to illustrate reality. How dare I?

I didn't say "regularly". I said "be capable of". Huge difference. A defensive coordinator has to account for the possibility that Ben Roethlisberger could put up 375/4 (just passing) on him on a Sunday. That would be considered a really good game for Ben, right? A defensive coordinator accounting for the possibility of a really good game from Taylor only has to worry about the guy throwing for 225/2 and rushing for 40/1. Now do you see the difference? Or do we have to take a step back and review how 375 is more than 265? Also, that analogy is awfully specific and personal. Feels like there's some projection going on here. Want to talk about it?

You should care -- because the two approaches are not equivalent. One is a slower, much more inefficient way to gain yardage and score points. I'll let you guess which one that is. Where it matters is at the end of the game when you're adding them all up: One QB threw for 11st downs, the other threw for 4 and ran for 3. One QB threw for 4 TDs and kicked 1 FG, the other threw for 1, ran for 1 and his team kicked 2 FGs.

Now consider the 1500-2000 yards passing and 10 passing TDs he was not close to capable of providing. Tyrod's inability to operate a modern passing offense put the Bills in such an offensive deficit that his rushing contributions are kind of irrelevant. (Also, a I'd be willing to bet that a significant % of his rushing #'s came in garbage time against prevent defenses, but I don't care enough to look that up.) I've said this before. The notion that defending Tyrod somehow "kept defensive coordinators up at night" is an absolute joke. A QB that can drop 375 yds passing and 4 passing TDs on you at any time is infinitely more dangerous than a QB who can only throw for 200 yards passing (on a very good day, let's be honest), 2 TDs, 40 yds rushing and maybe 1 rush TD. If I'm a DC, I let Taylor scramble around all day -- he's never going to score quickly and often. I'll take giving up 240 total yards at Tyrod's best as opposed to 375 to a real QB.

That's a fair point -- I can respect that. The "process" thing is just stupid all the way around.

Um... The Bills have one of the best in American pro sports. People play it at their weddings. "Hey ey ey ey" is one of the first things toddlers learn how to say around these parts.