Tyrod's friend

I'll just go ahead and say somebody named McDermott thinks you are wrong. So there's that. But I'm sure once the HC stops and has a chance to consult with you, he'll immediately change his mind.

There aren't any. Elway: 47% comp rate, 1:2 TD:INT ratio Namath: 47% Comp rate Bradshaw 37% comp rate Manning, P: led the NFL in INTs, 3-13 season plenty more where that came from. The only selection against this was Carr ... if you have the ability to play, you will rise above the circumstances of your first year. If you don't, you probably never had the right stuff anyways. I'm not worried about failures in the first year. This is one kid that seems pretty resilient.

As regards risk injury ... well, how do you suppose Katherine Webb would respond to that question? We're only exposing certain players to injury? I'm not saying you can't learn from sitting, by the way. Rivers, Brees, I guess you could add Favre; none of the started at all as rookies. We can't know whether or not they benefited one iota so it's not argument to make in either direction. My argument is about "destroying a guy's confidence". I don't buy it, not for a second. Personally, just judging on how Josh Allen reacts to adversity and his overall personality, I think he's MORE than capable of rising above difficulties - perhaps more than any guy I've ever heard. Don't coddle and at some point in this season, let it rip. Cheers and welcome sunshine and 60 degrees. Of course, Bill James would have pointed out all the way back to the 1983 Abstract ... youth triumphs over all in baseball. The capacity to outperform your age is one of the biggest indicators of HoF players in baseball and you just happened to pick out two guys in Acuna and Harper that hit that market to a tee. (Or Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Robinson, Griffey, Rodriguez and on and on). Acuna is going to be amazing ... I'm looking forward to seeing him battle two great pitchers in the next two days. Should be fun.

I agree, provided that "plays 1 bit better" has absolutely nothing to do with his performance, and everything to do with his processes. How is his footwork? His mental processing? I don't care one wit who throws for more TDs in this preseason.

With due respect, this is a team game. The team is expected to win games this year not next. Tell me exactly why either Peterman or McCarron should be fed to the wolves with the that line and WR core. Either the OL and WR are a group you can win with or they aren't. If they aren't, replace them. Don't make the decision about the QB because the offensive line stinks. If AJM and NP can't out play this rookie, it will show. And for what it's worth, there are enough examples of QBs that were hammered as a rookie and recovered to play. The guy that won the first AFL Super Bowl complete 48% of his passes his rookie year. The first guy to win 4 SBs completed 38% of his passes his first year. I got another guy that was an MVP of a Super Bowl, in his first year he completed 37% of his passes. One of the two greatest QBs of all time lost 13 in his first year, lead the league in INTs, and following what was a college career where he continually lost the "big game" got the tag of a loser because he constantly lost the last game of the year. One of those great '83 guys? He seemed to bounce pretty good after completing 47% and throwing twice as many INTs as TDs in his rookie 83 season. By the way, you know one of those '83 guys was allowed to sit and "learn" behind the veteran. I guess ... you suppose Richard Todd played the role of "teacher"? At any rate, I think Ken O'Brien (other than Blackledge) had one of the worst of the '83 records, short of Marino, Kelly and the 47 percent Elway. Shall I go on? Don't give me the bullsh!t tag that you'll ruin a future career by destroying a man's confidence with bad teammates. A great career rises above. A bad career wallows and it would have wallowed anyways. Just an old guy talking here. Seen plenty, maybe you see it differently.

I would not rule out Connor McDermott starting at LT and moving Dion Dawkins to his natural positions either inside or RT. Dawkins played well enough for a rookie at LT, but still above all he was not dominant or even ... good, really. He would be good and possibly dominant at RT. I realize the assumed importance of LTs, like duh. But you might have a net positive offensive line this way. Dawkins and Miller could be special together.

That's frankly not fair by a distance. Every competent analyst that I've read has (in addition to your points) also said that he is functionally inaccurate with where he puts the ball. He says as much himself. I haven't watched 650 passes, but I've watched enough game tape to see that and I'm no scout. Nobody, not even Metzelaars, suggests that the kid is accurate enough right now for the NFL. He's got all the rope in the world from me. But I keep coming back to something Dan Orlovsky said. Apparently some coach told Dan that he does everything great on 60 out of 65 plays. But the NFL QB has to do it right on 65 out of 65 plays because unlike in college, the defense on the other side is actually going to do their job right an awful lot too. He has a long, long road.

The whole comps thing ... it's just stupid. Nobody was even saying Brett Favre was inaccurate. Here's a write up on him made by Kiper ... no commentary about him being inaccurate, although plenty about him having a strong arm. Look, just let the kid be who he's going to be is all I'm saying. It took years for Favre to stop being quite a cowboy - maybe he never did. Maybe what makes our guy special is that he listens to coaches and puts his game under control, and throwing 15 yard bullets is what opens the deep game. I don't know. But leave Brett's name out of this. He has nothing as a comp to Allen. Hope y'all enjoy the writeup on the NFL's happiest warrior. After a nightmarish spring and summer, it appeared Brett Favre would have to consider sitting out the 1990 campaign. His run on bad luck began with elbow surgery to his throwing arm that sidelined him the entire spring practice session. While rehabilitating that injury, Brett was involved in a single-car accident on July 14 that resulted in a variety of injuries, including a gash on his knee, a concussion, as well as severe bumps and bruises to most of his body. After talking to Brett and his family at the Senior Bowl, he was fortunate just to survive the accident, let alone return to the gridiron this season. You see, the car he was driving was in the process of falling down a hill into a creek, before the car was stopped in its tracks by a tree. Had the car fallen into the creek, Brett would have more than likely drowned, since he was unconscious then. His brother, who was in a following car, pulled Brett out of the wreck, where he lay on the side of the road until an ambulance arrived to take him to a hospital. Brett Favre had a first-round grade coming out of Southern Miss, but he fell to the second round in the 1991 NFL draft. Allen Steele/Getty Images After leaving the hospital, he was still not feeling even close to 100 percent. As Brett explained, "It felt like a knife was jabbing me in the middle of my chest." He twice went to see a doctor, before being returned to the hospital for further evaluation. On Aug. 8, he underwent surgery to remove a 30-inch portion of the lower end of his smaller intestine. During the ordeal, he lost between 25 and 30 pounds, weighing in at only 193 pounds before the start of the football season in late August, early September. Remarkably, Brett was able to dress for the season opener against Delta State on Sept. 1, although he didn't return to action until the second game against Alabama. During the middle portion of the campaign, Brett began to regain his lost weight and strength, leading the Golden Eagles to victories over the likes of Louisville and Auburn. He closed out the campaign with a fine effort against NC State in the bowl game, throwing for well over 300 yards against one of the top secondaries in college football. He has a strong, powerful arm, throwing the 15- to 25-yard intermediate routes across the middle as well as any quarterback to come out in the last few years. The Southern Miss baseball coaches have practically begged him to play the last few years. In high school, his fastball was clocked in the 90 mph range. Delivery is outstanding -- he snaps the ball right off from his ear, cutting through the wind that is a factor to deal with in the late fall/winter months. One negative I saw during practice sessions was that he tends to hang his deeper passes, allowing CBs the time to react and get in a position to make a play on the ball. Although not a scrambler, he can sidestep the initial pass rusher, and learn to deliver the ball accurately rolling to his right.(BOLD TYPE ADDED BY POSTER - doesn't sound to me like accuracy was an issue). * This kid is a competitor, possesses above average physical skills, and did his damage against top competition during his four years as the starter. To a certain extent, he is still recovering from the painful injuries he sustained in the car accident and ensuing surgery. I really believe strongly that he has the natural ability and overall attitude to make the successful transition to the NFL. Would be ideal for a club looking to develop a starting quarterback of the future, thus allowing him the time necessary to settle in at the pro level. Combine Note -- Brett was the most impressive of the quarterbacks throwing the football, but didn't run for the clock, still a little banged up from the all-star game.

All these Brett Favre comps ... just makes me laugh. Look, Brett was averaging roughly 55% completion percentage in college. At the time Jim Kelly was the very best QB in the NFL at 63. The top QBs in the league were averaging 57-58% of their passes. John F'n Elway completed 58 and Dan Marino 57. So Brett Favre in college was right in the midst of that. Using a guy who is completing 56% of his passes when the top ten NFL QBs are running 64 and 65% ... you are missing a full deviation here. Josh Allen is nearly 20% less accurate than quality NFL QBs of his era. Brett Favre was very nearly equal to NFL HoF QBs when he was in college. Compare an apple to an apple - you might come up with Jeff Blake. A guy that was roughly 10-15% less effective in completing passes than the better NFL guys of his era. OK career. Drafted in the 6th round, not first. Played a little bit. 39-61 record. Stuck around. Known for having a live arm and was mobile. Brett Favre? SMH. Punching out of your league to compare Josh Allen to Brett Favre. Guys are just reaching for straws here. Let the kid be the kid.

A lotta YAC, lotta contested balls, lotta explosion in the 10 yard dash area, lotta highpointing. Guy is a player ...

You gotta be one happy camper! Good for you ... glad to see your guy got taken 7th.

True. Neither of us can do a thing other than choose to watch or choose not to watch. They have asked us to trust the process, and so I have and do. But that doesn't mean I am blind. 2 2s was in fact a 25% premium to the value they received. It's not pissing and moaning to acknowledge that the GM went into this off season without a true QB coach, when he knew drafting a QB might be on his horizon. Or to notice that Brian Daboll does not exactly have a list of All Pros he developed in his time in the Pros. Or to put those points together with drafting the most developmental QB - vis-a-vis his drafted position in ... well, let's go ahead and say the last 25 years. Can you, at the least, see where this might be a sub-optimal? I am hopeful for what that young man can do. I'm totally impressed with him as a kind, gentle soul - although you have to wonder if such a nice guy can tell a street hood with an IQ of 64 and a 40 time of 4.29 to straighten up and fly right. (crap. In reading that it sounds damned racist. I don't mean it to be, but there is a cultural divide that you can see where I am trying to get to.) I suppose and I digress; I'm just saying my version of the truth. By the way, part of which is to point out that Andy Dalton put the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs. Of course, they might have made it under their own power if we hadn't made the decision to put a 5th round pick behind center against the best defense on the road. Again, a sub-optimal situation. Do you see where I am getting at here? In the third year of Tyrod Taylor's time, they thought it might be a fun experiment to take away all his wide receivers. Along with that, give him a new OC (who, simply judged by his performance after the half, might have had truly the worst season I can recall). It's not setting people up for success and I see that as what is happening all over again with a new young man. I will say this - having AJ McCarron as the starter is just about the best guy I could imagine for Allen to learn from. I think he'll be a great, selfless tutor. Bottom line is there's a middle ground between skipping through life with rose colored glasses and crying in your beer every day because the team didn't do specifically what I wanted them to do. Pleasure doing business with you, Foxx. Have a great weekend.

Thanks bro. Happy to drink with you. But honestly, somebody telling us to expect more? Was any part of what I wrote wrong, in any way? I give props to a GM bold enough to pay a 25% premium to take a QB that pretty much was widely thought to be a developmental problem. It takes huge balls to be so committed to an idea like that. Now if I could only recall another GM that was the smartest guy in the room ... hey, I'm just foolin. Just trying to put some historical perspective on things.

So ... for some reason, a team capable of putting together season's like that ... a team that goes to the playoffs, then drops 3/5ths of the offensive line (oh yeah, and doesn't replace a player), that trades away the starting QB, that has a defense being held together by a string, that trades away most of it's draft picks to acquire the biggest project at QB that I can ever recall, and does so without truly a QB coach and an OC that has never in his entire career ever developed anyone into a star, and overall an organization that has been in last place for most of the last 17 years ... from these guys, we should expect more? I would say just the opposite. They might have peaked early. Please. Based on what we have in the category of coaches/developers of talent, if they weren't so damned shot-in-the-ass with their own abilities they might have realized that the best QB would have been the one they wouldn't have to work with too much. But then Terry and Kim wouldn't have a guy to represent the city the "right way." I'm praying for the best outcome - really, I am and I love a kid that gets drafted and says he's leaving Wyoming and California and never wants to leave Buffalo. But it isn't what I'm expecting. Call me desensitized by being last place for most of this millennium. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish my drink.

when one team is willing to give away a 25% premium to par value, it's best to walk away and not get into a contest with an idiot; winner's curse and all. three picks later the Cardinals paid par value. And arguably got away with the better, certainly, the more NFL ready QB.

Two things ... Honestly I think it was at least in part the Pegulas. They wanted someone that could represent the city properly and fell in love with the aw shucks, just a good ole country boy thing Allen had going on. Pretty sure I heard some comments from Kim Pegula just days before the draft emphasizing attitude/character. Right there - I think Rosen lost the Pegulas and lost McDermott. Second they picked Allen for a reason ... And part of it had to be that our football brain trust acknowledged that he WAS improving on his accuracy, through his work with Jordan Palmer. You gotta know that before he worked out for the team there was a discussion about accuracy. Our coaches say, hey what about this 56% bull ****? That won't fly in the NFL. Allen says, yeah, I got that. Let me show you exactly how I did it wrong in the Boise State game or the game against Oregon. See, Coach McD? And now I do it like this, Coach. Then the workout. Then they go back to tape at the Senior Bowl.

I think I was watching a Fox analyst ... they played the Rosen tape about how he was going to seek out revenge. The analyst was clearly a veteran, and he had an attitude. Basically his response to Rosen was STFU. This is a performance league, and neither your coaches or your teammates want to hear your mouth running about what YOU are going to do. It's time to get to work so do that and don't run your mouth.

I'll give Josh Allen this much: there was something that McB saw in his improvement since December that turned their heads. They were working with all the information you and I had, looked at how he was throwing the ball in workout sessions and in person and had a belief that the accuracy was truly related to footwork, and the footwork was in the process of being changed. Simply put, the information they had that we didn't was enough for them. Anyways, I gotta love a kid that comes here from farms in Cali and a field in Wyoming and says he never wants to leave WNY. PS: Doesn't excuse giving up 2 2s to get him. It was still a bad trade. But I prefer not being "Donohoe'd" into missing the next Roethlisberger.

Really??? Arizona paid EXACTLY the value chart to get to ... NUMBER 10 TO TAKE A QB. Stop being an apologist for a novice GM that got taken.

agreed. I always feared/thought Allen was #2. Turns out their analysis took them someplace else and I'll just have to trust them on selection. End of the day, this really is our chance of redemption on Roethlisberger, isn't it? Not allowing another team to move beyond us and draft the big, strong armed thrower from a smaller school and settling for JP Losman. So it goes. I have to be happy they drafted the centerpiece of the defense and offense on a single night. I think they got a little hoodwinked, but they made their stand and you have to applaud them for that much. Edmunds. What a pick.

Because they valued Minkah Fitzgerald more. A lot more, as the mattress guy says. Not any one of the QBs, but presumably THE ONE they wanted was there for the taking at 10. They CERTAINLY took a call from Oakland, and the offer Oakland took was 1300 Draft Value points - exactly the required amount for the trade to be a draw. But in taking the call, Miami also knew with certainty that Minkah would fall directly into their laps. It's just game theory. Would they have taken Rosen if Oakland hadn't made the trade, and Oakland had taken Minkah Fitzgerald? Maybe. Not enough information to say so; Miami might have just taken Vita. But based on what we can presume what happened (a call from Oakland), and what we knew what happened (Oakland taking frankly a ****ty offer), I think it's safe to say Miami just had what they felt was a Pro Bowl S as a better bet than a whiny Cali QB.

Frankly, Arizona didn't lose their cool. By draft chart, they expended exactly the value of the 10th pick in the draft - right around 1300 points. One should probably assume that the Bucs were offered 1500 points or damned close to it by Zona - who no doubt were happy to take 1900 from Buffalo. Your statement implies that TB would have taken closer to face value from Arizona or that for some reason, without a competing bid from Buffalo, Arizona would have felt compelled to pay a premium when there were two choices at that time at QB. That doesn't make sense to me in the least. And as I've suggested elsewhere, apparently the Dolphins were so shot in the a$$ with getting Rosen that when they got the call from Oakland, and all they had to do was offer a slight premium ... that they turned Oakland down. How likely is that? You'd have a hard time convincing someone that they ever really wanted a QB. Maybe draft analysts wanted them to want Rosen. But the minute Oakland passed on Minkah Fitzgerald, Rosen became an injured QB and Allen an inaccurate one.

why? The Dolphins certainly took a call from Oakland at 10, with Arizona on the other line. Which means they declined an opportunity to take a QB. It's not like the opportunity wasn't there. Miami took what some analysts felt was the 5th best player in the draft and to that point only the second DB off the board. Their choice was a blue chip prospect or someone that was going to sit on the bench at QB that frankly had issues. Miami taking a QB in the first was a mirage - just like it was for New England, and for the Giants.

Frankly, I meant to say either one of them would have been available at 12. I just don't think a QB was a priority for Miami at 11. They may well take one tomorrow or on the weekend, but they must have received a call from Oakland and told them they weren't interested.

Perhaps you are unaware ... but teams typically discount next year's pics significantly. 2019 #1 = 2018 #2. So for some reason you seem to think the Colts or the Browns are going to give you twice the value expected ... and if they'd agree, I'd say heck yeah. Make that trade.