VW82

Again, yes he's fast but it sure looked to me like he doesn't get open very often, and when he does he has a tendency to drop the ball. If all you can do is run verticals opposing defenses will sit on that. Maybe I'm being too hard on him. His catch percentage is just awful though which jives with what I'm seeing when I watch him play. Even fast receivers need to be able to run a full route tree to keep you honest.

Looks like another guy who’s had trouble staying on the field. Individually, all these signings feel super expensive for what we’re getting though I guess that’s just free agency for ya. That said, none of them are cap killers (so far). FA always scares the ***** out of me.

The number is fine if he can actually play. I'm questioning whether he's any good. He was really ineffective in the games I watched, though he did score a TD against us so there's that.

I will admit choking just a little when I saw the number but he's definitely a good player and center was probably our number one off season need. I'm a little concerned with all the missed time but presumably they feel like he's healthy and will be able to stay on the field. I suspect Paradis would have cost us (maybe not another team) significantly more.

I like this signing a lot less than Cole Beasley. Are we sure Brown can get open, or catch for that matter? Dude seems to have a lot of issues hanging onto the football. I get he's fast and right now Foster is the only vertical threat, but this seems like a lot of money for a guy who might not even be a top 4 wideout.

Remember last year when McBeane were making a bunch of head scratcher moves in FA? Feels like eons ago. Beasley is exactly the type of receiver I was hoping we'd sign: he's good in the slot, you can move him around, and he's very good at getting open. I get that everyone wants a prototypical number one guy with size, but Josh needs players who can consistently get open so he isn't always having to throw to players on the run which he struggles with. Get open, sit down in a soft spot in coverage and wait for the missile to hit you in the numbers. McBeane are showing a much better understanding of not just team needs but which types of players are needed in order to fit with our existing guys. It's encouraging.

Hard to argue with stealing a member of that vaunted Chiefs Oline, but the number of missed games is troubling. Hope he can stay healthy for us.

Some of that maybe true. I have no doubt AB would prefer a big market with an established QB and winning culture, but that’s all secondary to $$. Think of it this way. NFL has a hard cap. There are only a few teams with 1. Need for big time WR, 2. Lots of cap space, and 3. willingness to spend that cap space on re-doing AB’s contract AND spend the draft capital to get the trade done. Why would a good agent like Drew Rosenhaus want to eliminate one of the few teams who fit all those categories? Even if AB really didn’t want to come to Buffalo, the best way to do that is to quietly and respectfully tell Bills, so that you can still use the threat of them as leverage with another team for a better deal. You only go the public scorched earth route if Bills are trying to trade for you without meeting your contract demands, which is what happened. If AB gets traded somewhere good and there’s little new money involved then I’ll admit I’m wrong.

This is so desperate. He's doing whatever he can to gain back some semblance of control over the situation. Wherever he winds up, it'll be because that team both paid the most in draft compensation and the most in new money on re-doing his contract.

No one knows anything for sure, but by far the most likely scenario is that Drew Rosenhaus, AB's agent, leaked the finished trade deal to Rappaport in order to put public pressure on the Bills so he could negotiate an extension ahead of the trade going through. Once the trade is signed and done, AB loses a big part of his negotiating position. I suspect the Bills and Rosenhaus had talked extension ahead of time, and so we knew what it might take, but preferred to entertain those talks somewhat privately when AB was already a part of the team. That's not to AB's advantage if his goal is the get the most $$, hence why we saw all the theatrics about him not reporting, etc. When we saw that, we walked away.

i don't understand our need to distort the very simple and easy to understand truth -- that we agreed to a deal with the Steelers with the understanding of what it might take to extend Brown, only to have his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, leak the trade and force an ugly extension negotiation pre-trade which we balked at -- so that we can make up silly alternate realities for ourselves which paint everyone involved to be idiots. It's so insecure. If this was meant to be a joke, then I guess I missed it.

Man there are some sad takes in this thread. It's not that complicated. We agreed with Steelers on trade compensation with a basic understanding of what it might take to extend Brown. AB's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, leaked the trade to the media to put pressure on the Bills to up their offer and get a deal done now as this is when their leverage is the highest. When we wouldn't meet their demands, Brown took to twiiter saying he'd never report. Bills balked at the whole situation and backed away. It has nothing to do with how he feels or doesn't feel about Buffalo. Why do people insist on acting like spurned teenagers??

It's just misinformation. Rosenhaus leaked the trade to put pressure on the Bills. He's leaking false info to other networks about other teams to put pressure on the Bills. This is all about making us sweat so we up our extension offer.

Any non Rappaport news at this stage is fake news IMO. They just don't have specifics ironed out on an extension yet. Edit: I suspect AB's agent leaked the trade to Rappaport in order to put pressure on the Bills to up their offer.

We wouldn't be trading for him without reasonable assurances from his agent that he'd not only show up but also extend. Brown was quite clear about wanting a new deal and he has leverage in the form of a no trade.

I have to believe he accepts with a new deal. I suspect the trade parameters have been worked out with the Steelers, but we're still working with his agent on an extension which is why it hasn't been officially reported by Schefter et. al.

Man poor Josh is taking a beating on twitter right now. Did no one watch his games once he came back from injury?

So much for team culture. Bring on the talent!

I am very, very interested in this rumor.

For sure better pre-snap reads will help. You only have to watch Brady and Brees so many times for this to become obvious. They make the easy throws before the defense can adjust, and so they complete a tonne of them. One of my theories, and I hope someone does this analysis at some point, is that Josh really struggles with moving targets. It's a big reason why he occasionally misses the RB leaking out of the back field. It's also part of the reason, I think, why he throws so hard on intermediate crossing routes. He's subconsciously trying to narrow the gap in time lag between release of the football and when it reaches the target so he doesn't have to adjust as much for distance covered by the receiver. Further, many of his best passes on the year were either straight back comeback routes or when the receiver was able to sit down in an open zone. Simple pitch and catch.

While I agree with oldmanfan and appreciate transplant's effort in going through all that tape, I still think we have to put significant weight on the analyses performed by PFF and ESPN Stats & Info on this subject. I don't believe they're confusing accuracy and precision. Nothing that I've read would suggest that's the case. Also, they're very likely using computer programs designed to calculate distance from the target, so they're much more likely to produce a result which limits errors than someone who's guesstimating based on eye test. Both of their studies pinned Allen as the most frequently off target passer in the league. It had nothing to do with completion percentage. I will acknowledge it's entirely possible that transplant was able to remove any bias in favour of Allen, and perform a fair study. Perhaps his threshold for an off target throw was just higher than the public sites which do this type of thing for a living. In any event, there's a preponderance of evidence, both qualitative and quantitative, which would suggest Allen had difficulty hitting the target compared to his peers, especially on short routes as Gaughan suggested. I'm hopeful we'll see improvement in that area in year two.

Brady shouldn’t be considered shoulder to shoulder with Jordan. Yes he won six rings but how many were with him as one of the best players in the league or even on his own team? By my count it’s three though if you want to say four I wouldn’t argue. Everyone forgets that Brady wasn’t really Tom F’ing Brady until 2007. By that time he already had three rings. He’s more like Tim Duncan.

His SB performance resembled Josh’s Green Bay performance this year. I can’t remember the last time a QB tanked his team’s chances this badly in a SB. So many missed opportunities.

I'd like to see him come back with improved mechanics on all throws. It seemed like the work he put in to keep his hips from opening up on throws to the left kind of messed him up on throws to the right (perhaps because Josh was comfortable enough and strong enough to make throws to the right with open hips?). In any event, let's put this accuracy issue to bed. Come back making all the throws, including the touch throws, and hopefully with better weapons and a better understanding of what's happening out there he can take a big step forward in year two.

I think OP took any pass that was even remotely catchable (even if the receiver had to lay out to get his finger tips on it, or stop/alter his route and pull it off the ground) and called it a drop/catchable whereas the PFF and ESPN guys held QBs to a little higher standard in terms of what was considered on target. That would seem to be a simpler explanation than assuming everyone is so completely confused with accuracy vs. precision that they messed up their whole analysis.