Billy Claude

The whole concept of comp picks is one of the stupidest ideas in sports. It speaks to how short-sightedness and/or weak the NFL players union that they agreed to something like this. The only purpose is to protect strong teams and suppress free agent salaries.

I have to disagree here. If the Jets kick a field goal Brady would have probably just needed to go 70 to 75 yards to tie. I wouldn't bet against Brady to do that. If the game is tied, the chances of the Jets winning in overtime are pretty low. 100% of the time the Jets should have gone for it. It was just a bad play call and bad defense afterwards.

Wilson had tried to extend Butler during the summer of 2000 but Butler turned him down, so it was pretty clear Butler knew he was leaving and I think Erik Flowers was widely being considered a huge reach post-draft even before playing a down.

The draft was so bad that the conspiracy theory people argued that John Butler purposedly messed it up as he knew he was leaving after the season. This led to the other big reason for the crash in 2001 and the drought in general -- hiring Tom Donahoe as GM to replace Butler. But definitely the incredibly bad special teams cost them one or two games. With reasonable special teams they might have made the playoffs.

Not all revenue is shared. About 40% of it is not (based on the Packer's report from 2019). A winning teams makes more money than a losing team -- certainly much more than a change in a few percentage points in the Super Bowl ratings. Most of the owners have their wealth coming from other sources and I would guess most would gladly take $10M off their huge profits (note they would still be making a lot of money) to be able to lord it over everyone else at the owners' meeting. Otherwise why would the owners give such long guaranteed contracts to head coaches if it doesn't matter. If it was primarily about profit everyone would behave like Ralph Wilson did in his last decade and just hire cheap assistants. Nor do I think that that Chris and Woody Johnson enjoy the sell the team chants every time they stick theirs heads out at MetLife.

I wouldn't be surprised if David Tepper was behind a lot of the recent moves that the Panthers have made. He is a vulture capitalist famous for his impatience and abrasive personality. If Goldman Sachs passes someone because of their "loud and profane manner", you know the guy is pretty much of an ass.

These types of comparisons are much less meaningful in football with such a small number of games compared to baseball, basketball, and hockey. That is why analytics has not had as much success as it has in the other sports. Last year most of the front-loaded while this year it is back-loaded. That has to be accounted for in any comparison of the first 11 games this year vs. last year.

It's been four years of finishing near the top of the league in penalties so it must be something the coaching staff is doing or not doing. Some of it maybe that they are coached to be aggressive but false starts are just players not being well prepared. The surprising thing is that Bills did pretty well penalty wise under Rex Ryan -- they were 32nd in false starts in 2016 with 7 and 31st in 2017 with 9. McDermott's first year it was tied for 9th with 21 false starts while keeping 3/5th of the line (Glenn, Woods and Incognito) from the previous year.

McDermott is undoubtedly the best Bills coach since Marv Levy -- but it is concerning that the Bills have been among league leaders in penalties every year since he got here 2018 6th in number of penalties/ 5th in yards / 9th in false starts 2019 8th/14th/2nd (tie) 2020 6th/5th/4th (tie) 2021 6th/6th/2nd For someone who preaches process, you would expect penalties, especially false starts, to decrease.

What gave it away?

Marcellus Wiley was one of the biggest Flutie guys on the Bills and probably the most vocal. https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/bn-blitz-newsletter-marcellus-wiley-still-convinced-doug-flutie-wouldve-won-music-city-miracle-game/article_c994fd8f-c5fe-5539-b9c3-b5f7af3695f5.html https://twitter.com/marcelluswiley/status/522896577959309312?lang=en

I don't think you can judge Mayfield based on his recent play. He is clearly injured and aggravated his shoulder further on Sunday. The only question is why the Browns continue to play him when they have a serviceable backup in Case Keenum. You would think Keenum would give them a better chance than a injured Mayfield.

Not that I disagree with you about Nick Wright who clearly has gone to the Skip Bayless School of Broadcasting but Nick Wright works for Fox Sports not ESPN.

I can believe that there can be a subconscious bias toward star players - "DeAndre Hopkins couldn't have dropped that -- the CB must have gotten there early", home teams, and even perhaps teams that are regarded as well coached. I might even believe that particular referees may even have personal biases against particular players. However, to believe that the NFL tells officials to favor one team vs. another is to believe that either Goodell can keep this secret from 31 mostly billionaire owners or that these hyper-competitive owners get together and decide who is going to get the calls and who isn't. To me this is just completely lubricous. It is a sad statement on the critical thinking of society as a whole if many fans believe this.

Definitely best mic'ed up session so far, however, I found it funny that after the game, Allen was telling people who lost 40 - 0 "keep doing what you're doing".

Good article. The importance of interpersonal relations is obvious but often low zero priority. The Bills are lucky in that both McDermott and Beane are excellent communicators who have reputations for being honest and forthcoming with the players, staff, and even the press. The contrast with Doug Marrone (players seem to hate him), Rex Ryan (fire your offensive coordinator after your defense gives up 35 points), and Doug Whaley (seem to never take responsibility for any mistake) could not be more apparent.

I applaud him for taking Milano minimalist philosophy and not going crazy with the car (though perhaps not the best choice). So good for him as long as he didn't buy himself a Lamborghini.

At the end of the season press conference that year, Beane said they would make a strong effort to bring Shaq back but that Jordan Phillips had earned the opportunity to determine his value in the free agent market. It was clear they wanted Shaq back and from all indications they made what they felt was a reasonable offer to Shaq (though obviously not matching the Dolphins offer) but did not want Phillips,

The Giannis Josh Allen comp is dead on but I don't see the Tom Brady Lebron comp. Lebron was, and to a certain extent, still is an athletic freak, who was one of the mostly highly heralded prospects ever. The only things Brady and Lebron have in common are they are both older and have high ball IQ. A much better comp for Tom Brady is Steph Curry. Both were not as super highly regarded coming out of college but have accomplished much more in their careers than expected from their more limited physical attributes.

Keeping Sweeney over Hollister might also have to do with the salary cap. Hollister would have cost 300K or 400K more than Sweeney. It's not much, but with the Bills seemingly very close to the cap, the difference may have been enough. I am sure they would have loved to get rid of Christian Wade's 660K but with him on IR they will just have to eat it.

I expect Hollister is going on the Jag's 53. He probably told the Bills he would not accept going on the practice squad so I doubt very much it had anything to do with keeping both Fromm and Webb.

Conclusion: playoff teams usually do very well against rookie qbs.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/cristiano-ronaldos-juventus-salary-revealed-13189267 It looks like Ronaldo's 31M Euros salary is after-tax. I believe soccer salaries on the continent are usually quoted after-tax while in the UK (and the US) it is usually quoted pretax. I assume Italian taxes in that bracket are likely around 50% so the larger number $71M number reported elsewhere is likely pretax.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sport/football/highest-paid-football-players-2021/ Not sure if this is a reliable website but it agrees with Forbes and a bunch of others -- the claim is Ronaldo got 51M pounds from Juventus and 34M pounds from endorsements -- unless somehow the Juventus contract is not all for "playing". Of course, you know more about this than me. I found the gap interesting and also that Paris St. Germain will have 3 of the 4 top paid players in the world next year.

Three players last year had higher salaries than the average salary in Allen's new contract -- Messi $93M, Ronaldo $78M, and Neymar $71M (not including endorsements). Only two this year since Messi took the pay cut in the move to PSG. Shocking the separation between the very very top players and everybody else. The next highest is Mbappe at under $30M.