Billy Claude

This was probably was mentioned before but the rules should be the same as for tobacco; legal but with strong restrictions on promotion/advertising. That would take it out of the NFL's direct revenue stream. and make the situation less hypocritical. It's not like the NFL having an extra revenue stream helps the fans in any way at all. Draftking is required to report net annual winnings of over $600 to the IRS. So you will be taxed. https://help.draftkings.com/hc/en-us/articles/4414347431955-What-are-the-1099-Misc-reporting-thresholds-for-DraftKings-Daily-Fantasy-Sports-Reignmakers-and-Pick6-winnings-US#:~:text=If you have greater than,from the prior calendar year.

Vlad Ducasse - he was only on the team because his position coach wanted him and just seem so incompetent. Also somehow the name didn't help - you expected someone name Vlad to be tough.

Agree. That's why there seemed to be so many of them.

You are right. I did miss that one. For some reason I mistakenly had it listed as being on first down. I have fixed the original post to correct for this. A bit strange that the three "arm punts" all happened with in five games of each other. I wonder if the coaches talked to him about it.

This always come up whenever there is a discussion of turnovers. Bascially -- it doesn't matter because many of them are as good as punts.

Just tired of seeing this idea being repeated over and over again as if it was fact and it is storming outside here.

There's been a lot of talk about how many of Josh Allen's interceptions are just as good as punts. I was curious as to how true this is so I looked at the data for the last two seasons. To summarize, the idea of a "arm punt" is greatly exaggerated, 3 out of 32 interceptions met my criteria as an arm punt. Details are given below: I counted an arm punt as (1) at least 3rd down (2) outside field goal range (outside opponent's 40 yard line) (3) intercepted at least 35 yards past the line of scrimmage (4) at least 5 yards to go. This last criteria is because I find it hard to believe that if you need less than 5 yards to get a first down, the best option is to throw it 40 yards downfield. For the 2023 season with 18 interceptions, 6 were on 1st down, 4 were on 2nd down, 7 on 3rd down, and 1 on 4th down. Out of these last 7, only 2 on the interceptions meet the criteria: Game 1 vs Jets 3rd and 8 from the Bills 31, intercepted 60 yards down field Game 3 vs. Commanders 3rd and 20 from Bills 40, intercepted 41 yards down field (not in original post -- added later when pointed out it was missed). Game 5 vs Jaguars 3rd and 15 from the Bills 41, intercepted 52 yards down field. All the other 3rd down interceptions went less than 16 yards pass the line of scrimmage (2 were with the line of scrimmage in field goal range). The 4th down pass was from the Dolphin 35 and was a 4th and 2. For the 2022 season with 14 interceptions, 3 were on 1st down, 6 were on 2nd down, 4 were on 3rd down and 1 was on 4th down. None of the 3rd and 4th down interceptions went further than 20 yards pass the line of scrimmage and 2 of the 3rd down interceptions. Of course, there are other reasons why an interception is justifiable, for example, 1 of the 2023 interceptions was a hail mary and you can argue you have to force it on 4th down but I don't feel the arm punt excuse is valid.

Obviously the Dolphins are also uncertain about Tua, otherwise they would have already signed him to the new contract he wanted. However, it is unfair to just ignore the injuries the Dolphins offense was dealing with at the end of last season. Yes, Allen can make the off-platform play that Tua can't dream of doing but there is no need to denigrate Allen's teammates to make that point. Allen's oline was pretty decent in 2020 also.

Much of the reason for Tua's and the Dolphins poor play at the end of the season was due to the numerous injuries to their offensive line as well as both Hill and Waddle being hobbled. I'm not saying Tua is all that great but let's be fair. If Josh Allen were facing the same injury circumstances, folks would be making all kinds of excuses and justifiably so.

Here is a data point for folks who want to place most of the blame on Coleman's lack of production on the FSU QBs -- this is the percentage of team passing yards for Coleman vs. the receivers drafted around him. Worthy 1014 out of 4047 (25.1%) Pearsall 965 out of 3111 (31.0%) Legette 1255 out of 3336 (37.1%) Coleman 658 out of 3373* (19.5%) McConkey 478 out of 2749* (17.4%) Polk 1159 out of 5209 (22.2%) Mitchell 845 out of 4047 (20.8%) *Games in which the player did not play were removed from team totals. Note that McConkey, Polk, and Mitchell all had WR or tight ends from their team drafted before them (Bowers, Odunze, and Worthy). None of them were the #1 targets on their teams. The other FSU receiver drafted was Johnny Wilson in the 6th round. It is pretty clear that they drafted Coleman on potential rather than actual college production which is fine, maybe he will hit. That has been Beane's M.O. since he has gotten here.

I think some schools will decide it is not worth it and step away from big time college football. How much does a school like Berkeley or Stanford gain from having a big time football program? The ideal case would be to go to a relegation system so schools that want to put big money into it can do so and those that don't can compete at their own level.

It's a bit unfair to compare MVS's best years statistically to say he would be as good a WR4 as Davis was in 2020 and 2021. If you compare his last two seasons to the 20 & 21 Davis seasons, MVS falls short in every category; 63 vs 70 receptions, 1002 vs 1148 yards and 3 vs 13 TDs.

I have to disagree with the bold. The best recent Bills WR4 was Gabe Davis is 2020 and 2021. I don't think there is any production statistic one can point to to say that MVS is better than Davis. Career wise, Davis has also been more productive in the playoffs than MVS. To those who say Beane has never given Allen weapons, I would argue that the 2020 and 2021 receiving corps with top tier guys at WR1 (Diggs) and at slot (Beasley), a very good WR4 (Davis), and also a pretty productive gadget guy (McKenzie), were in fact, elite receiver groups.

So basically he would have achieve none of these incentives last season (21 catches, 315 yds). Undoubtedly, the contract was designed that way to do not count against the 2024 salary cap. OTOH, he would have gotten $1M based on his 2022 stats (42 catches, 687 yards).

The point is not whether the NFL made it easier for Swift to attend games. That is up to you to believe or not. The point was the click-bait tweet claimed the NFL admitted to it which is exactly the opposite of what actually occurred.

This is a purposedly misleading click-bait title. The original article states Mike North said the NFL had to adjust the schedule so that there were no conflicts with Taylor Swift concerts that were already scheduled in the various stadia. This is obvious. You can't have a Taylor Swift concert and a NFL game in the same arena on the same day or likely on adjacent days. The duplicitous statement that Taylor Swift can attend 14 out of 17 Chiefs games is simply because those are the days she is not actually scheduled to have concerts. In fact, what Mike North said was that the NFL had to have those teams out of town when Swift concerts were scheduled in the same arena. Whether you believed him or not, North denied allegations that the NFL scheduled games so that Swift could attend them. In particular, he specifically denied that they scheduled the Bills game to be at the same time as Swift's tour is in Toronto. You can 100% call BS on the NFL, but North definitely denies what the clickbait headline seems to imply that the NFL admitted to. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/why-nfl-took-taylor-swift-into-consideration-when-making-2024-schedule/ I detest this kind of purposedly misleading reporting.

It may have already started. I have a feeling we are going to see "the greatest wide receiver draft class ever" with increasing frequency in the coming years.

People have been saying this since Babe Ruth signed his big contract and, yet sports still becomes bigger every year even if individual sports wax and wane. If the QBs salaries are an issue, the NFLPA is less dominated by the superstars, so I could see the NFLPA agreeing to a maximum percentage of the salary cap given to any one player.

Thanks for the very thoughtful discussion. I see your point on Cook but 13 rush attempts is not much but he did seem to run the same play a lot. In contrast, Allen's pass attempt numbers serve as evidence that Brady did adapt game to game though of course game situation matters: NYJ 32, PHI 51, KC 42, DAL 15, SD 21, NE 30, MIA 38, PIT 30, KC 39 He clearly adapted the game plan for the Dallas defense and then tried the same thing against the Chargers but it didn't work. Defintiely not sold on Brady yet but at least he finished strong with a coherent game plan against the Chiefs.

I did not remove the special team and defensive touchdowns. My feeling is with such a limited data set, removing too much would make it hard to draw any relevant conclusions. Also, I feel that the offense was actually doing fairly well in the Jets game until all the interceptions happen. In any case, if you pick and choose what to remove, you can come to any conclusion one wants. The only reason why I split Dorsey's games into 4/6 is because I felt that those 6 games were what people are comparing to when they say Brady was much better than Dorsey. I agree. The offense was still up and down even with Brady as OC. I was expecting the Bills to roll over the Chargers and Patriots in must win games and that obviously didn't happen. The defense was also inconsistent, they should have ate up the Chargers and Patriots backups QBs. I agree. A lot of the improvement in the offense came about because Allen was running so much more under Brady than Dorsey. I don't know if want to have Allen running so much except in must win games. One thing I liked about Brady is that he did seem to be more willing to adjust game to game than Dorsey was. Another cause for confidence is that the offense was very effective in the playoffs against the Chiefs. The Miami game, the Bills dominated. I have no criticism of how they played against the Dolphins. Sometimes you are just unlucky. Crap happens. Almost every team goes through lulls. The Bills seem to last longer but maybe it only feels that way because we are more personally invested. In any case, I agree that we don't know how Brady is going to do this coming season. I am pretty neutral. When Daboll left, most people expressed a lot of confidence in Dorsey and many thought he was going to be an upgrade. There is some disconnect between Beane and the OC (or perhaps its Allen) about pass catching running backs. Beane has been signing pass catching RBs since he got here, from TJ Yeldon onwards. However, the Bills offense has steadfastly refused to use them. Definitely not happy that the success of the Bills offense might need to have four receivers (Kincaid, Samuel, Shakir and Coleman) exceeding their production in any previous season. In Coleman's case, this might mean exceeding his college production. There was a few posts from last off-season saying that the Bills receiving corp would be the best ever because Sherfleld, and Hardy were going to have career years since they would be working with Allen and Dorsey would have more experience. Seems deja vu.

Obviously this is an very inexact art and different trade charts will give different conclusions. I used the Hill chart because someone had mentioned it as highly respected. My point was that almost no one complained about this trade two years ago and now, seven years after the fact, suddenly they are. That is what I find nonsensical, not the point value according to one chart or another.

Not sure if you were being sarcastic but I was interested in how the trade graded. Based on the 2024 Hill chart and using GunnerBill's valuing of next year's pick as being in the 16th spot of the next round: Kansas City get #10 = 369 points, Buffalo gets #27 (216 pts), #91 (44 pts), and 1st RD following year #48 (121 pts) = 381 points so a +12 in the Bills favor. I was not on the message board but I don't remember any of the talking heads saying if was a bad deal for the Bills at the time. Even two years ago, most Bills fans would do the trade again if given the opportunity. Those criticizing the trade 7 years after the fact are being nonsensical.

I am impressed with the effort you made in your analysis and I am also concerned that about how well Allen's skillset and mindset fits the short game spread the ball around philosophy. To address a slightly different but related question, I think that the reason why people feel that "eye-test" shows that the offense improved with Brady is that they are not comparing Brady with Dorsey's entire 10 games 2023 season but just with Dorsey's last six games. They are also looking the the performance of the whole team, not just the offense. If we just look at a few team metrics: Dorsey (first 4 games only): 391.0 yards per game, 34:18 time of possesion, 34.75 points per game (overtime data removed) Dorsey (last 6 games only): 344.8 YPG, 26:50 TOP, 20.5 PPG Dorsey(all 10 games): 363.3 YPG, 29:49 TOP, 26.2 YPG Brady (7 games): 373.1 YPG 34:30 TOP, 26.6 PPG (overtime data removed) You can see the teams metrics were significantly better under Brady compared to the last six games of Dorsey's tenure. Is this a fair way to make the comparison? Maybe not; Allen was fighting thru an injury during some of Dorsey's last games and there is often an unsustainable bump when a new coach comes in. Also the metrics used here are not completely offense and Dorsey's TOP numbers are strongly affected by the defense having just lost Milano and White. However, they are the stats (besides W-L) that leave the strongest impression with viewers. As often is the case with a small data set, one can support different narratives using reasonable arguments to exclude or include different parts of the data. However, basically the same thing happened in 2022 where the offense looked unstoppable at the beginning of the season and then very out of joint at the end of the season.

Marino and Kelly both took the Wonderlic before anyone took it seriously. It is possible they just went through it as fast as possible. Pat McInally (Harvard and Bengals punter from the late 70s and early 80s) got a perfect grade of 50 on it and was later told that some teams passed on him because they thought he was too smart and would always be questioning the coaches. In any case, I could imagine that people get lower grades on the Wonderlich than before since the last version I saw had a lot of mental math and there's not as much reason for people to do that kind of calculation in their heads these days.

Thanks for that. I never parsed it out that carefully. So he build his reputation by being elite for effectively one season out of four.