Arm of Harm

Four pages in and no one has mentioned . . . Lamp! I'm of the belief that the problems with the running game were caused in large part by the offensive line's blocking, or lack thereof. If an interior offensive lineman can come in and play reasonably well, there's a clear opportunity for him to start. Part of being a dark horse is low expectations. Lamp has that part down cold! Most expect him to compete for a roster spot as a backup. But he was originally a second round pick. Can he play at or near the expectations of an OL drafted in the second? If he can, he'd be an outstanding candidate for dark horse.

Dawkins knows all about not being a feather anymore.

Let's throw some numbers around. . . . Yards per attempt (career) Trent Edwards: 6.5 Alex Smith: 6.9 Tom Brady: 7.5 Alex Smith's last year in KC: 8.0 Quarterback rating (career) Trent Edwards: 75.5 Alex Smith: 86.9 Tom Brady: 97.3 Alex Smith's last year in KC: 104.7 Riddle me this: if Andy Reid's system and personnel provided this dramatic a boost to Alex Smith's numbers, what kind of boost might Patrick Mahomes be getting? I'd argue that this past season, Josh Allen played at a higher level than Patrick Mahomes. I'd further argue that Allen had the second-best 2020 season of any QB in the NFL, after Aaron Rodgers. If Buffalo and Kansas City were to simply swap their starting quarterbacks, the beneficiary of that trade would be Kansas City.

I read an article by a former Buffalo Bills offensive lineman. I think it was Ross Tucker. According to the article, all the Bills' offensive linemen were subjected to the same training. All offensive linemen, that is, except one: Mike Williams. According to the article, Williams was allowed to get out of doing a lot of the stuff the rest of the linemen had to do. While the primary onus of Williams being a bust is on Williams himself, I think he would probably have accomplished more in the NFL if he'd had the benefit of a coaching staff which created accountability.

All that sounds reasonable enough. The point I was making about Allen is that he isn't a standard-issue, "great physical tools but wasn't accurate in college, didn't process information quickly in college" type guy. Had he been a standard-issue example of that, I would have opposed the pick as strongly as I'd opposed the Losman and Manuel picks. With a guy like Allen, based on the information I'd gathered as a casual fan going into the 2017 draft, I personally wouldn't have wanted to bet on him, but neither would I have wanted to bet against him. Our front office made a better decision than I would have, had I only been given some draft guides to work with. That's a huge step up from the playoff drought front offices, which frequently made worse decisions than an intelligent fan equipped with draft guides would have made. Examples of those bad decisions include the Losman and Manuel picks, Whitner at 8th overall, and all first round picks used on RBs during the drought.

In E.J.'s rookie year he averaged 6.4 yards per pass attempt. To put that into perspective Trent Edwards' career average is 6.5, and Losman's is 6.6. Below are Manuel's yards per attempt numbers for each of his years in the NFL: 2013: 6.4 2014: 6.4 2015: 6.7 2016: 5 2017: 6.2 What story do these numbers tell? 1) E.J. was not better later in his career than he was as a rookie. 2) E.J. was not a starting caliber quarterback. 3) E.J. was not better than Trent Edwards. Are those three statements consistent with the eyeball test? Yes, absolutely! Going into his second year, Marrone could see that in training camp E.J. was no better as a second year player than he'd been as a rookie. That's why he wanted another option at quarterback, and why the Bills coxed Orton out of retirement. After E.J.'s first four games of the 2014 season, it became clear that there was still no improvement over what he'd shown as a rookie. So they took him out and put Orton in. If you don't have the right quarterback it really hamstrings the team. There's the time and effort the players put into preparing. The time and effort and long hours the coaching staff put in. If you put an inferior quarterback under center, while keeping a better quarterback on the bench, you're basically writing off all that time and effort, for the sake of one guy. Before going down that road you need to ask yourself: is that one guy worth it? I was opposed to the Manuel pick from the second it was announced. To me he fit the prototype of a first round bust: great physical tools, but without having demonstrated accurate passing or fast information processing at the college level. Had I been in Marrone's place, I would not have been willing to sacrifice a year's worth of the team's time for the sake of EJ Manuel. Someone who was fully on board with the Manuel pick--as Whaley had been at the time--might be more willing to believe he was worth that sacrifice. If a general manager messes up, it's common for the head coach to get fired. That's why head coaches strongly prefer working with good GMs. Whaley had been the one person most influential in convincing Nix to draft Manuel in the first place. After Manuel's first two years, indications were that Whaley was still high on Manuel. When Marrone exercised his opt-out clause, it's likely that he'd concluded that Whaley was incapable of getting the quarterback position right. He evidently did not want his own head on the chopping block as atonement for Whaley's failures as a general manager or Manuel's failures as a quarterback.

You are not wrong. That said I hate the idea of cutting Obada to make room for Addison!

For the first two years of Allen's career I was on the fence about him. I thought he might prove to be the answer, and might not be. Year 3 erased all my doubts, and I feel as though he is now playing at a higher level than Patrick Mahomes. Normally I'm opposed to drafting a "raw" quarterback with great physical tools, but without having proven himself an accurate passer or fast processor of information at the college level. Allen, however, was ambiguous. His college highlight video was very impressive. He'd throw a pass deep downfield, through a narrow window, to the exact location it needed to be. Big boy throws that most NFL quarterbacks can't make. But then, at least according to the scouting reports, he'd follow up a big time throw like that by being inaccurate on a routine throw. Also according to at least some of the scouting reports he didn't display outstanding ability to process information quickly while in college. But, what he had instead was a high Wonderlic score. Significantly higher than any of the other first round QBs that year. So, there were some data to suggest he'd be good at processing information quickly (the high Wonderlic score), and other data to suggest he might not be good at that task. Does Jordan Love's highlight reel consist of big time throws like the ones from Allen's highlight reel? Or, is his highlight reel more like E.J. Manuel's? With Manuel's highlight reel there was nothing impressive or special about the throws themselves. Most of the throws I remember were to college open WRs, who then ran it in for a touchdown. Based on the reports of Love I've read, it sounds as though his college highlight reel had more in common with Manuel's than with Allen's. While I didn't take the time to watch Love's highlight reel, I at least looked up some QBs' Wonderlic scores. Below is what I found: Josh Allen: 37 Baker Mayfield: 25 Lamar Jackson: 13 Justin Herbert: 39 Jake Fromm: 35 Jordan Love: 27 Tua Tagovailoa: 19 E.J. Manuel: 28 Love's Wonderlic is high enough that you can't really call it a question mark. But, it's not high enough to where you can say it's a substitute for having demonstrated fast information processing at the college level. Allen's Wonderlic score is high enough to where you could make that argument.

The front office/GM which drafted Rodgers is not the same one which drafted Love. Also, they're two completely different prospects. Rodgers' draft report praised him for having been an accurate passer in college and good at processing visual information quickly. In contrast, Love was described as a "raw" prospect with great physical tools who needed to improve on his accuracy and information processing ability. As far as Love's scouting report goes: I'll grant that scouting reports can sometimes be wrong. Sometimes a player can improve. Sometimes a player who lacks good accuracy or fast information processing ability can find his way into a Greg Roman offense, where you don't need to be a great passer to have success. If Love's supporters want to find examples in support of their argument, they should be looking at QBs who came into the NFL with great physical tools, but with limited accuracy or information processing ability, who went on to have success. Aaron Rodgers is not an example of that type of quarterback, and it's ridiculous his name gets bandied about as a reason to trust the Love pick.

There's a strong argument to be made for the Losman pick having been the worst player transaction the organization has ever made. In the 2004 draft, TD had wanted to trade up for Roethlisberger. But he decided that the price for doing so would have been too high, so instead he stayed put and took Lee Evans (WR) 13th overall. He then traded back into the first for Losman (QB, 20th overall). To accomplish that trade he surrendered his 2nd round pick for 2004 and his 1st round pick for 2005. In the 2005 draft, the Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers was drafted after where the Bills' first round pick would have been, had they not traded it away. Nor did TD have any reason to try to trade into the first round of the 2005 draft for Rodgers, because he believed his quarterback of the future was already on the roster. Had TD realized that Losman would be a bust, there is a strong chance he would have either a) sucked it up and paid the high price for Roethlisberger, or b) waited a year, then drafted Rodgers. Either way you're missing out on a Hall of Fame quarterback. Of the two I'd rather have had Rodgers. But had the Bills taken either player, they would have been set at the quarterback position for the next 15 years. Instead, they endured 12 years of quarterback purgatory, before finally doing something right and drafting Josh Allen. 12 years down the drain, all because of TD's failure to realize that Losman would be a bust.

In that case, this settlement is not about giving money to players who'd suffered brain trauma or concussions. It's about giving money to players on the basis of intelligence, with the least intelligent players getting the biggest checks. I don't really see why it's necessary to say to a player, "Hello, we see your IQ is low, so we'll write you a big check." Or, "Hello, we see your IQ is high, you don't get a check." Elimination of race norming does not fix the above problem, and if anything makes it worse. I'd thought some more about this subject since my earlier post. If you want to sue on behalf of the vast majority of players who've played professional football, you only need to sue one entity: the NFL. If you wanted to sue on behalf of high school players, you might get bogged down into needing to sue each school individually. (I'm not a lawyer and I'm just guessing here.) If you could somehow get all high schools, or all colleges, lumped together for the purpose of a single lawsuit, that would indeed be a very enticing target.

I agree with everything you've written, with the possible exception of the bolded. Suppose you were to show a half full glass to a group of Bills fans. Responses to this would fall into one of three categories: "The glass is empty." "The glass is so full it's overflowing!" "The glass is half full." In a perfect world all responses would fall into that third category, but Bills fans don't always do well with moderation. For many it's either all or nothing. With McDermott and Beane, the glass is maybe about 75% full. If we could get it to about 90%, we'd beat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. It's perfectly reasonable for posters to talk about opportunities for improvement, whether that's wasted cap space on guys like Murphy and Addison, disappointing draft picks such as Ford and Zay Jones, bad run blocking by the interior OL, or flaws in the coaching scheme which allowed the Kansas City offense to rip the Bills defense to shreds. In no way does any of that detract from the things McDermott and Beane have done well, starting with their decision to draft Josh Allen.

Except that he was on board with the Manuel pick. Fully. Totally. 100% completely. His current claims or implications to the contrary are an attempt to rewrite history. At the time Whaley was GM, I remember being convinced that Manuel was not the answer, and hoping that at least some part of Whaley agreed with me. Even some small shred of evidence would have been welcome. But no. There was nothing. All the evidence pointed to Whaley being convinced Manuel was the answer. It was a very frustrating time to be a Bills fan. If Whaley wanted to be honest, if he'd wanted to do the right thing, he'd say, "You know what? My glowing evaluation of Manuel was a big reason why Nix chose to draft him in the first round. Once I became GM, I was convinced Manuel was the answer. I was wrong." That's it. That's all he had to say. I personally wouldn't hire him as GM if I was an owner, because the Manuel bust is not the type of mistake a competent GM would make. I'd consider him as a pro personnel director, at least if I respected his character. Which I do not.

I'd do that deal in a heartbeat. The only problem is that Addison took a pay cut to stay with the Bills. If you trade him now it would be a broken promise, and would reduce the players' trust in Beane. I'd strongly prefer to avoid broken promises. But if it wasn't for the broken promise thing the deal you propose would be outstanding for the Bills. I'd much rather have Chandler than Hughes + Addison. I'm under the impression that the combination of Hughes' salary and Addison's would be about the same as Chandler's. Not happy about trading away a 3rd round pick, but that's a lot less painful than trading away a first!

Wide receiver. Beasley and (especially!) Sanders are on the wrong side of 30. Both players are free agents at the end of the year. If you're looking for reasonably young talent at WR you've got Diggs (late 20s) and Davis. If you get a good WR in the 2022 draft, he could spend the next 10 - 12 years catching Allen's passes. If you don't like the WRs available when the Bills pick, another option is TE. If you don't like the TEs available, then still another option is #2 CB. You could also easily justify using an early pick on the interior offensive line, whether to upgrade one of the OG spots or to draft the eventual replacement for Mitch Morse.