VW82

I don't understand why it's that controversial of an opinion. Baker threw for over 4000 yards and 28 TDs last year while playing in one of the worst coaching situations in recent memory. His Oline this year makes ours last year look like starters in the pro bowl. He's gone against two tough defenses so far (Rams and Titans) and we've gone against three bottom five defenses. I'm not saying Josh has no chance to be better than him or anything else like that...just that Baker has looked better and had more success in his short career to date.

Courtesy of ESPN writer Bill Barnwell: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27680783/barnwell-stacking-surprises-nfl-seven-3-0-teams There's much more in the link. So basically our defense is once again saving our bacon. Hopefully the offense starts to pick up the pace and do their part too. Once that happens the sky's the limit for this group.

To date, Baker has shown way more than Josh or any other QB from the 2018 class. It's anyone's guess who will turn out to be the best.

To everyone saying we don't have a game changing pass rusher...Jerry Hughes was 3rd overall last year in pressure% behind Aaron Donald and Khalil Mack. Pretty sure that counts as elite.

I hadn't noticed that. Will have to pay more attention to the rush next time we're down there. One thing I have noticed is we don't seem to be able to stop teams once they get in rhythm on a drive. Maybe it's as simple as us being too tired to resist after a long drive??

Our defense is the main reason we're currently 3-0 (besides the NFL schedule makers) but I worry about how we'll fair once we start facing better offenses. It seems like any time a team gets within our 20 yard line we give up a TD. We're 4-4 so far this year. Last year we had one of the worst red zone defenses in the league despite being 3rd in total yards allowed. Anyone want to venture a guess as to why we're so stout defensively everywhere on the field except near our own end zone?

Week 1: D+ Week 2: A Week 3: C- He took too long to make decisions and throw the ball on way too many plays today, including the intentional grounding play which likely cost us three points. The INT was awful. He had another almost INT on the long throw into double coverage in the end zone and a should-have-been fumble on our 30 yard line. There were some spectacular plays mixed in as well like the sack escape that led to short throw for a first down the left sideline. Very up and down overall. Like the Jets game, we need to be able to score more than 17-21 points vs. bottom five defenses.

I thought he held the ball too long on a number of throws. Sure looked to me like we had guys open and Allen just didn't pull the trigger, or he locked in on one guy the whole route. He was much better with that last week. Work in progress. This looked like a lot of his games last year only it was against one of the worst defenses in the NFL.

Gore has been really good in pass protection too. Such a steady player.

Big time cheers to the NFL for scheduling us three of the five worst teams in the league to open the season. Hopefully we're getting all these mistakes out early and are saving our best stuff for when it matters. Feels good to be undefeated regardless of how we got there.

Poyer was excellent and so was Jordan Phillips. Outside of Gore and maybe Knox I don't think anyone on the offense deserves a game ball. We just made perhaps the worst defense in football look competent.

Thank god. Defense bails out the offense once again.

Tough call but Cinci has been getting screwed by the refs all game

Pretty lackadaisical 2 min drill.

I'm a little behind in tape delay but did McD grab Knox's D while consoling him after that drop??

This ranking is pretty close to how I'd have it with the obvious caveat that Ben would be somewhere in the top 10 (and Brees top 5) if healthy. Kyler Murray is definitely a little too high but he's the number one overall pick and showed some serious flashes last week so I can sort of understand the enthusiasm. Lamar is about ten spots too high. Josh needs more wins and more games like he had last week to break into the top 20. Our super soft schedule this year will probably hold him back in the eyes of many in the national media, which is fine by me -- I kind of like the nobody-believes-in-us element. Edit: also Wentz is way too high. I take it back -- this list is dumb.

Our schedule is so soft this year we could probably drop this game and still easily get the 5 seed. If this team doesn't make the playoffs I'm adopting the Seahawks full time instead of only as a second team when the Bills fall out of the playoff race.

Matches what I saw. Thank god they seemed to abandon the run after that first series. I didn't think Oliver had a very good game either. Harrison Phillips OTOH was all over the place. Our Dline is so deep this year.

These valuations are getting a little ridiculous IMO. Bills are worth just shy of 2B but only have EBITA of 82M?? I wonder what their net income looks like after amortizing stadium reno's. The current NBA valuations don't make sense either. Forbes claims there would be numerous bidders for a team like the Giants (@ 3.9B!!!). There are only so many people on Earth who can write a ten figure check AND like football/basketball. Many of them already own NBA/NFL teams. Who's buying these teams in the future if the valuations continue to increase? I get that NFL expects increased revenue from their next TV deal but unless it's an increase by a multiple factor the financials won't come close to justifying it alone. There has to be an actual market of buyers. Currently there are few to none franchises for sale and so that drives up the price but I'll be very interested to see how it goes once the next generation of owners pass and their families can no longer afford the tax bill given the hard-to-believe unrealized capital gains over the last decade.

Sure, but let me first be clear that I thought Josh played very well overall. I graded him with an "A" performance and it wasn't on a curve. That said, here are the throws where I thought he had issues with accuracy beyond the acceptable norms (i.e. minor ball placement problems): 1st q (1:56): deep ball to Brown overthrown by 6-8 yards 1st q (1:49): under throw to Foster on the out pattern. The ball was catchable but given how open he was Josh has to do better on that one. 2nd 1 (14:15): Josh throws wide on the out to Knox who stretches to get one hand on it and the ball bounces off. Trent Green comments how Josh needs to learn when to put a little more touch on it to give his receivers a better chance. 3rd q (4:49): Josh misses Zay on the hot route in the slot throwing way behind him. 4th q (6:55): Josh misses Zay on the crossing pattern in the end zone. This one was catchable but like the throw to Foster it just wasn't good enough forcing Zay to lay out for it on a routine 10 yard throw from a clean pocket. So five inaccurate throws in thirty attempts for an accuracy% of 83.3% which based on last year is on the high side of average for an NFL QB according to Elias Sports Bureau. Like I said, he had a good game. I still disagree with posters claiming Josh's accuracy issues are no worse than your average QB. I think he's below average in that regard, but he's also above average when it comes to making jaw dropping plays. In the end, as long as the offense is able to finish off drives with TDs it won't matter that he gets a little wild a little more often than other QBs.

Not sure how I'd rank Allen, Jackson, and Darnold at this stage as they're all pretty close but I do think Baker is way ahead. He has the biggest floor and ceiling of those four. Downgrading him based on one lackluster half of preseason (he was reportedly great in camp and had a perfect QB rating in the only other preseason game he played in) and one regular season game after putting up 4000+ yards and 28 TDs as a rookie with little to no help on offense and with one of the worst coaching situations in recent memory...that just doesn't make any sense. Baker is a stud. I fully expect the Browns to make the playoffs and wouldn't be surprised to see him make the pro bowl this year. Allen looks like a stud too but he still has a ways to go.

I get the frustration but I think this is flawed logic. McD was hired only a few months before the draft. Beane wasn't even brought in until later that year. What was McD supposed to do? Let Whaley pick his QB of the future on his way out the door? Pick a QB with virtually no deep dive knowledge of the QB class or even his own team? I will admit that it turned out to be insanely bad luck that two all pro QB talents happened to go mid first round in the year we had the opportunity to take one of them. The question we should be asking ourselves is did McBeane make the right decision trading two 2nds, a 3rd, and Cordy Glenn to move up to take Josh when we could have just stood pat and taken Lamar Jackson who looks like a comparable talent. That's the one to keep an eye on going forward, not killing our first time head coach for trading back and gathering futures so he could re-stock the cupboard once he had a better idea of what he was working with.

This is a pretty close analogy. A good all around starter (Jackson, Gore) and a specialist (Spiller, Singletary) that performs well behind him in a limited role which only puts him positions to succeed. We ran 30 passing plays vs 34 running plays (7 of which were Allen rushes and many of those were scrambles on passing downs). In week one the split was 37 passes vs. 25 rushes (includng 10 Allen rushes/scrambles). I think people really underrate how important pass protection is at the running back position, and more specifically the knowledge of when to pass protect vs. when to present yourself as a target in the passing game, and the ability to run good routes while doing so. Frank Gore is excellent in the passing game; Jackson was too. Spiller was below average and it looks like Singletary might be as well. Clearly the coaching staff thinks so otherwise he'd be out there getting more touches instead of being limited to a change of pace, exclusive running down type back just like CJ was for us initially.

I mentioned this after week one but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Singletary’s snap count went down in favour of Gore. The discrepancy between those two in pass protection is glaring. Frank might be better than Fred Jackson. Watch Gore in JA’s sweep right for the TD. He’s basically playing FB. I wouldn’t go so far as say Singletary is a train wreck on passing plays but he’s definitely looked like a rookie so far (especially in preseason) in that regard.

I don't understand this post. Josh had a really good game today -- can't we just leave it at that? 64% and 7.6 YPA are average for an NFL QB. He also has four TOVs through two games not counting the should-have-been-strip sack today and dropped pick and called back INT in game one. Josh had accuracy issues on several throws today just as he did in week one, and in each of the three preseason games too. It should be obvious to anyone who's watched him play he has intermittent problems with accuracy. Why do we need to bend the truth and pretend like that doesn't exist? There's more than enough to like about him already that we don't need to do that. I was thoroughly impressed with Allen's play today. It showed that he's improving and that he has a tonne of potential. It did not prove that everyone has been wrong all along about his various bugaboos.