Billy Claude

Of course this does not say much for McDermott ability to pick coaches since he supposedly wanted Mike McCoy who did not even last a season as OC at his next two stops.

To be precise, there is a quote from Nick Saban at the end of the linked article that said that the Dolphins wanted Brees but Brees failed the Dolphins' physical.

Tannebaum's arguments were all about why the Patriots will do better than people think. Even if all comes to fruition, it is highly doubtful that Mac Jones will get credit for "two great running backs" or outstanding scheming from Belichek. In any case, nothing that would usually make people think that the QB is the main reason is their success.

You can always tell that people are only looking for people to agree with when they attack the messenger instead of the message. An example is a few weeks ago when Warren Sharp argued that it would be difficult for the Bills to win 12 games and he was attacked as a "hater" and click-bait mostly (though not all) by people who did not bother to listen to his video. For me, his schedule strength arguments while valid, others not so much but it is certainly not unreasonable for someone to think 12 games might be difficult when the over/under is 11.5. If that was so, half the bettors are placing an obvious losing bet simply because they are haters. One of my pet peeves on this board is people responding to headlines without even bothering to read the article.

That makes sense as far as the case before Judge Robinson is concerned but since that Watson has publicly said he believes he has done nothing wrong you would think he would need to come up with some explanation for the 60 masseurs for general PR purposes. But most likely, they have given up on the public as a lost cause.

Serious question. Has Watson or his defense team ever explained why he had 60 or so massage therapists?

Yeah, PFF had the Jets draft rated as an A in their draft regrade after the first year. Becton looked really good the first year but he had injury issues even then. However, everybody blamed Gase for playing Becton when he should have sat. Mims also flashed after missing the first half of the rookie year.

With Becton out, Joe Douglas' 2020 draft is truly horrific, especially considering he had two 3rds and three 4ths: (1) Becton (OL, 15 games in 3 years, finishing only 8 of them) (2) Denzel Mims (WR, 8 receptions 133 yds last year, coaches complained about attitude and that he didn't know the routes -- supposedly better in camp this year) (3) Ashtyn Davis (S, started 13 games last year out of necessity but basically not very good) (3) Jabari Zuniga (DE, spend almost all of 2021 on PS) (4) La' Michel Perrine (RB, 4 games, 8 carries, 31 yds last year) (4) James Morgan (QB, released after one season with 0 NFL snaps) (4) Cameron Clark (OL, retired due to injury concerns) (5) Bryce Hall (CB, only good value in the draft -- but really should not be CB1) (6) Braden Mann (P, 18th in avg net yard punting -- very inconsistent, not what you want when you draft a punter)

I did not listen or read his articles during the Super Bowl year since you just couldn't do it back then if you were out of the area. I listened to him in the on GR after the Super Bowl years and he made a whole lot more sense than people like Chuck Dickerson or Art Wander. I understand that is a low bar.

Its basically all about having a video. If any of the women videoed him behaving this way (and I am incline to belief that most of them are telling the truth) he would be suspended for life.

A fake field goal on 4th and 24? You don't need analytics to figure out that was stupid.

Or you can follow a team and say WTF are they doing? All through the drought years from starting Rob Johnson against the Titans to firing your OC because you lost 34 to 31, any respectable writer didn't need to wait to see if many of the moves were futile or not. Unless you are an absolute shill, covering Buffalo sports for the whole 17 years is going to make you understandably pessimistic. He just held on to his skepticism too long. After all, what did Pegula do with the Sabres or the first two years with the Bills (Rex Ryan) do to inspire confidence? He is suppose to be a writer covering Buffalo sports, he should bring in a more realistic attitude than a fan. I read the article and I cannot see what even the most strident homer should complain about. One quote taken out of context does not reflect what he wrote, which was a very heartfelt sentimental piece. edit: I changed "would complain about" to "should complain about" since obvious some people are complaining.

Yes, there are exceptions but on average they work out and that is all you can really apply statistics to. Statistics cannot predict exact results just what is more likely. If you look at after each of those seasons, I think you would say exactly what the statistics regarding the previous season's record predicted. The schedule for 2020 was really difficult and the schedules for 2019 and 2021 were significantly easier. (Although the 2019 schedule turned out to be a easier than even predicted while the 2021 was a little bit more difficult). To go back to the original post that I was responding to, I am simply pointing that there was no huge difference between what the strength of schedule was thought to be at the beginning of the season and what it was thought to be at the end.

This is simply not true. Based on the previous seasons' records the Bills had the 24th most difficult schedule in 2019, the 5th hardest in 2020, the 23rd hardest in 2021 and has the 12th hardest this upcoming season. In fact, most likely the primary cause of the Bills drop in defensive ranking had little to do with the defense (or missing Star -- a prime example of correlation is not causation) and mostly because they had a murderous schedule especially during the first half of the season. Similarly, the reason the Bills defense did so well without Tre White was not because White was not missed but because they faced a bunch of very weak offenses at the end of last season.

This is clearly wrong. The Bills were up at halftime against the Titans and were up in the 4th quarter against the Steelers. They were even up early against the Jaguars.

Do people not read beyond the headline? Rugg's attorneys argued that the police did not have probable cause to test him. As noted in the article, linked helpfully above by Limeaid, the argument got laughed out of court.

This has nothing to do with attracting more fans to the game -- most of the students will already will be NFL fans as you said. That is not the point of putting it into a college campus. The point is to create a spectacle that will make the game different. That is what can be promoted.

Obviously it won't work if you have a lot of games at colleges but you can make an event out of it if it is one game a year. Call it the campus classic or something like. Make it a big deal about what college will host it that year. There is a lot of games on TV right now and ratings for Monday /Thursday night football are okay but could use a boost. Anything you can do to differentiate a unimportant mid season game would help. You don't think ESPN wouldn't promote the hell out of a game at South Bend? It is probably all you would hear about for two weeks. You would have the students going crazy. People would watch it as long as it is only one (maybe two) game a year, similar to the Winter Classic in hockey.

I agree with the rest but if you limit these college site games to one or two a year on a Monday or Thursday, you would absolutely get increased ratings. People will tune in to watch a game in Bryant-Denny or Beaver Stadium for the spectacle as long as you don't do it very often. Have all the overseas games be in the same division and use college site games if you don't have enough oversea games for the division. That way, everybody in the division has a neutral site game.

Well, there were some stories even before they got Watson, for example, the mess with OBJ, and the adult in the room comment. Duke Johnson also doesn't seem to think much of Baker.

So it was based on Watkin's production or lack there of, which in turn is based partly on his attitude. My only argument is that if Watkins had the same production and a better attitude, the Bills would have still not picked up the extension and would have still tried to trade him. Obviously this a hypothetical and just my opinion. Again, I have a lot of respect for what Beane has accomplished, However, Beane did not really contribute to the Bills making the playoffs in 2017. Many of the things Beane did made the team worse for that year not better (in hope of future pay off)-- it wasn't just to get rid of malcontents. I also believe that they expected the team to do badly, and then had to scramble to keep the team in the hunt. That was the way I felt at the time and it is still my opinion now.

I am not arguing that Watkins did not have issues. He clearly did. Just that Watkin's issues was not the main reason he was traded. The main reason he was traded was his contract was expiring and the front office really did not expect the Bills to be any good so they got what they could get. If it was all about culture, why did they bring in Benjamin has much less talent but is just as bad culturally (something Beane must surely should have known about). Tanking in this case, is not coaching to lose individual games since I don't believe McDermott would every do that. Tanking in this case is setting up your roster to fail. I don't think there is any doubt that F.O. expected the Bills record to be much worse that year and then had to scramble when the Bills were still in the playoff picture late in the season. I think going into the season Beane was expecting a 6 to 7 win team. As it was, the team really was not very good but was extremely lucky and I am not talking about Andy Dalton. Hauschka probably hit all his important field goals that season, including some very long ones. There were also a lot of questionable calls that went the Bills way, the Von Miller taunting call on Tyrod being the most obvious. Finally, as someone mentioned earlier, that team had a historically bad worse point differential for a playoff team. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of being lucky as long as you don't base your future plans on it (as the Bills definitely did not do). Given all that, Beane did a masterful job responding to the unexpected situation and moving up to snag Allen. However, I don't think he felt he would need to give up as much as he eventually did, the expectation was probably that the Bills would have a much earlier draft slot than 21.

I have no problem with giving Beane credit for the moves he made to get Allen or with the excellent job he has done as GM overall. I just think that the idea that he had to get rid of Watkins due to a bad culture fit is way overblown. I personally think that they got rid of Watkins because they were tanking (even though they will never admit it).

This idea is the only one that has a real chance of being implemented.. You couldn't do it for all the 17th games but perhaps just for one division (which effectively is two divisions when you include the opponent). If you don't have enough international games having one in a place like Beaver Stadium would be a great idea. There's a lot of advantages to the NFL. First, it would be a spectacle so if there are only one or two of these games a year, it would generate big ratings just because it is different. Secondly, the big universities have a lot of international students, so it would increase the NFL's global reach when the students go back home. Lastly, though I am sure the NFL doesn't care, it would be more fair to the teams in those divisions.

I would add replacing Sammy Watkins "culture" by Kelvin Benjamin "culture" is hardly a slam dunk win for Beane and he doesn't even have the excuse that he didn't know Benjamin well. Beane is a excellent GM but let's not pretend he didn't make a lot of mistakes in his first year. The top four players in his first free agent class by contract value were Murphy, Star, McCarron and Vontae Davis, three busts and one ok but way overpaid player. Luckily he hit it big on his first draft and has clearly learned along the way.