Billy Claude

I don't understand what the point of a 49ers smoke screen would be. Everyone is pretty certain Lawrence and Wilson will go 1-2. There is almost no chance that the 49ers will trade out of the 3rd spot so what advantage do the 49ers have of trying to fool people? The only advantage I can possibly see is to waste other teams time. Is that enough?

I doubt very much that a the speed of football that Gronk caught was any higher than the speed of a football coming out of a a big arm QB. Someone on Reddit (don't know how reliable) claims the terminal speed of a soccer ball is about 55 mph, I would guess that of a tumbling American football would be similar or even less. Josh Allen threw 62 mph at the 2018 combine.

I always rooted for Losman -- probably the QB I rooted for the most during the drought outside of Fitzpatrick. He was definitely overdrafted, which was not his fault. It is clear now he was never any good but he did show a bit of promise for the one year. The Bills' oline was pretty much horrible in pass protection the whole time during the drought but his was probably one of the worse during the whole era. It was such a pleasure and shock watching Allen seemingly have 10 seconds to scan the field during the last quarter of the regular season last year. I thought this only happened with teams the Bills were playing.

Also Wentz's reaction is pretty common. I don't remember if Brady was angry at the time of the pick but clearly he was later. Also Roethlisberger was angry about the Rudolph pick and obviously Rodgers is mad about the Love pick. I guess they felt they needed backup if Wentz failed and hope that Wentz would see it as a challenge rather than throw a hissy fit.

New England did it pretty regularly -- 2016 Brissett (3rd). 2014 Garoppolo (2nd), 2011 Mallett (3rd)

No real players -- except maybe Rob Johnson -- who, at least according to Marty Biron, actively rooted against the Bills when Flutie was playing, but definitely lots of coaches and front office 1. Rex Ryan -- such a megalomaniac 2. Gregg Williams -- Mr. Blowhorn 3. Tom Donohoe -- thought something was wrong when Marvin Lewis chose the Bengals over the Bills. 4. Mike Mularkey -- trick plays when up 30 points is just karma waiting to happen 5. Doug Marrone -- although I liked him much better after he left.

Did he actually say this? Usually Beane is not that blunt -- especially with regard to a fairly high draft pick.

Well, being forced to hire a particular coordinator certainly didn't work for Adam Gase. I would hope that Frazier isn't desperate enough that he is willing a guy with zero experience and someone that Frazier has never worked with as his OC.

Definitely annoying aspect of human nature. There were plenty of times Tom Brady and Michael Jordan claimed that no-one believed they would win when in actuality they were heavy favorites.

I am pretty sure this kind of thing would have came out much sooner if it the press had been allowed in the locker room.

Passing of the torch in the AFC; Allen over Rivers, Jackson over Tannehill, and Mayfield over Roethlisberger. All four QBs were drafted in the last four years.

It was the regular season but the Ravens shut down the Colts 24 - 10 and had the 2nd ranked defense vs. 10th for the Colts. Their defense certainly looked pretty good today except for the first quarter. Certainly they are beatable but I would have rather have had just about any other team.

I figured that the toughest opponents for the Bills were (1) Chiefs (2) Ravens (3) Colts (4) Titans (5) Steelers (6) Browns. It looks like the Bills will have to play all top three to make it to the Super Bowl.

I don't agree with that. The story at the time was that Pegula offered him an extension and based on how long the Pegulas kept Lindy Ruff Darcy Regier (and later, Doug Whaley), there was no reason to expect the Pegulas to clean house. I assume one of the reasons he didn't get hired by the Jets as he seem to expect was his quitting on the Bills.

It was neck and neck with Gase`s introductory press conference. While Gase appeared to be high, Tomsula just rambled incoherently for an hour.

Jim tomsula

I don't know if Tom Brady doesn't belong on the list either. He started every game his last two seasons at Michigan (though he did the weird platoon with Drew Henson) and led the big comeback win against Ohio State his last year. I remember the UM fans complaining about the platooning when it seem pretty clear that the offense looked a lot better with Brady than Henson. Lloyd Carr was just in love with Henson's measurables.

Something Allen would need to overcome is turnover numbers. Allen has 15 (9 int + 6 fum lost) vs. 7 (5+2) for Mahomes and 6 (4 + 2) for Rodgers.

Sarcasm I assume? Definitely one has much more confidence in this kind of analysis in baseball or basketball but it is still fun to think about as long as you don't take it too seriously.

I am guessing on the baseline but it would explain why the average is negative.

I couldn't figure out what their baseline is. If the baseline is a coach who makes every decision the same as what they feel is their optimal then all coaches would have an overall negative impact -- just that bad coaches would be more negative than good ones. In any case, to a certain extend the baseline doesn't matter -- only how one coach compares to another matters. Perhaps that is why they only release the rankings.

It is at least partially due to the coaches calls on critical plays. Based on their models of what the better decisions are, coaches tend to make the "wrong" decision more often than the "right" decision on critical plays. So the average coaches decisions on those plays lead to negative expected points.

Yes, I absolutely agree -- other factors play a much larger role in him not getting another HC opportunity. His record with the Vikings was worse than I thought (.400) although it was impressive that he got into playoffs with Christian Ponder as his QB even if he had prime Adrian Peterson. He also doesn't give the impression he is that interested in being a head coach. If he wanted it out there that he was looking he wouldn't have turned down a Rooney interview last year.

The Gase and Mularkey hires were a complete shock to me. Gase for some reason has great relations with the owners and almost no-one else.

I don't know where Frazier was on the list but it was widely reported that Dennison was his third choice for OC with Mike McCoy being his top choice.