syhuang

Let's look at a more advanced stat: DVOA. The explanation of DVOA can be found at football outsider. (1) Offense DVOA Bills: 3.6%, 10th in the league. => Pass offense: -0.7%(19th). Rush offense: 7.6%(5th) Vikings: -11.6%, 23th. => Pass offense: -0.7%(19th). Rush offense: -21.8%(27th) (2) Defense DVOA Bills: -2.4%, 17th. => Pass defense: -12.8%(11th). Rush defense: 6.7%(25th) Vikings: -8.9%, 11th. => Pass defense: -0.4%(17th). Rush defense: -19.6%(11th) Bills fans will start to disagree DVOA here, but please take a look at how DVOA is calculated first. (3) Special Team DVOA Bills: 6.8%, 2nd in the league. Vikings: -3.1%, 23th in the league. Another interesting stat is DSR (Drive Success Rate), Bills offensive DSR is 0.633, 22nd. Vikings offensive DSR is .597, 30th. Bills defensive DSR is .653, 17th Vikings defensive DSR is .608, 7th One of main problems on Bills defense is that they couldn't kill opposite team's drives. Also, Bills defense's TD/DR is 0.188, which is 20th in NFL. Vikings TD/DR is only 0.088, 6th in the league.

You have to understand that passing yards and complete percentanges are part of the QB rating formula. The stats you mentioned are already included in my comparison. In fact, QB rating considers more stats than merely passing yards and complete percentages. Also, it's funny you ignored Losman's performance this year and only made your argument based on his stats last season.

You're correct. However you need to consider Elway played for Broncos in his whole career and Favre only attempted 5 passes wearing Falcons uniform before he was traded to Packers after his rookie season. The point is developing young quarterbacks instead of signing expensive FA QBs. Including Elway and Favre, it'll become that 7 out of last 10 Super Bowl champions developed their own franchise quarterbacks.

And Losman has very close performance to Drew Brees after 12 quality games. http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=786442

It's impolite to change other people's statement. You need to learn how to spell RESPECT.

For your information, I'm comparing quarterback's abilities. You must be aware that many elite NFL QBs didn't have good W-L records in their first few seasons, especially when their teams were rebuilding. There're many factors which can affect a game's outcome. Do you think Peyton Manning or Tom Brady can have a good W-L record in that Raiders or Titans team?

On Rob Johnson, he didn't play much in his first three seasons and didn't have 12 quality games until his sixth season. Also, as I mentioned earlier, QB rating is not a perfect tool. But it's widely used to meausre a quarterback's performance.

I did some researches on the quarterbacks who were drafted after 1995 and developed in similiar ways like Losman. First, I define a "quality game" as a game when a QB attempts at lease 10 passes. This will exclude the games when a young quarterback comes in to play a series or two when the starting qb needs a breath. JP currently has 12 quality games, including 11 starts. I compare JP's performance to other quarterbacks' first 12 career quality games. Second, I exclude the quarterbacks who had more than three quality games in their rookie seasons. These quarterbacks mostly had bad performance in their first 12 games since they're not ready. Including these quarterbacks' performance will only make JP look good. (1) Excluding the quarterbacks who didn't play much in their second year (less than 3 quality games): There're 13 quarterbacks totally. JP has a QB rating of 73.5 and ranks 6th among them. These 13 quarterbacks can be divided into three groups: <a> With QB rating more than 80 in first 12 quality games: Culpepper, Brady, and C.Palmer. <b> With QB rating between 70 and 80: D.Brees (74.9), B.Griese (74.6), and JP Losman. <c> With QB rating less than 70 Other than JP Losman who is still in his third season, the other five quarterbacks in group (a) and (b) have career QB ratings between 84.9 and 90.9. Does this mean JP will develope into an elite quarterback? Maybe, Maybe not. But he definitely is not as bad as some suggest. (2) Including the quarterbacks who didn't play much in their second year (more than 3 quality games): There're 22 quarterbacks totally. JP ranks 14th out of 22. This is understandable, since most of the quarterbacks are more ready in their third season and have better performance in their first 12 quality games if these games are mostly played in their third season. In fact, among the 9 quarterbacks who didn't play much in their first two seasons, 8 of them have better QB ratings than JP in their first 12 career quality games. The only one who doesn't have better qb rating than JP is someone named Matt Hasselbeck (73.2). If we looked at JP's three game performance in his third season alone, he has a qb rating of 86.2. This will rank him 6th out of 22 quarterbacks. In short, JP Losman is in the right track compared to other NFL quarterbacks. He clearly shows improvements this season and is definitely not behind the schedule. Yes, I'm aware that there're flaws in QB rating calculation, for example, it doesn't take the rushing ability or pocket awareness into account, however, it is still a good measurement on quarterbacks. This analysis doesn't project Losman to become a top NFL quarterback, but he certainly is comparable to elite NFL QBs at this stage of their careers. Give JP more time to develop and remember, patience is a virtue.

No, he is Bills GM. have you sent your resume to him? You sounds like a pretty good quarterback

Have you sent your resume to Marv?

Pretty good, however you forgot to mention Leinart, Cutler, Quinn, or any other high first round QBs will be a immediate success in NFL and any QB needs time to develop is a bust.

For the record, JP's performance you mentioned was early last season (week 2 to week 4), it can not be used to rationalize why meathead benched Losman late last season, when Losman had recovered from injury and Bills were clearly out of playoff race.

Exactly. Even if some teams really wanted to draft Whitner, why would they tell reporters the truth? "No, Ernie Sims wasn't our first choice. We wanted Michael Huff or Donte Whitner all along" "We had no choice but draft Ngata after Whitner was gone" There's no reason to tell reporters what teams really want. Why do teams want to tell King the truth to risk causing bad feelings to their draft picks? These reporters can make stories out of nothing, let alone information like this.

Sorry if it has been posted. http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cnns...cnnsi&type=lgns I GOT A LOT OF BILLS MAIL THIS WEEK. From Jay of Buffalo: "Welcome aboard the Bills bandwagon. Happy to have you. The biggest story from Buffalo is Marv Levy. Here is a guy that got hammered on draft day for picking players too high. Well, they started five rookies on a defense that was ranked in the bottom five last year and have been very good so far. Can you give Marv some credit for knowing football?'' Absolutely. Levy deserves it. My only problem with not trading down to get Donte Whitner on draft day is that the Bills could have dealt down and picked up an extra second-round pick (or third) and still almost certainly have gotten the guy. I remember calling around after the draft, and no one between picks Nos. 8 and 15 was going to take him. And Buffalo had an opportunity to move to 15. But that's over. I think the Bills, obviously, picked the right people on draft day. Talking to the departed Troy Vincent last week, he loves Whitner and thinks he's going to be good for a long time. ====================================== Didn't Witner say something about Ravens were very interested in drafting him? Did King really call Lions?

but......but.....most mock drafts said Whitner and McCargo were reaches. Mort and Clayton also said the same thing before Whitner and McCargo even play a NFL game.

Seahawks didn't sepnd too much on Burleson. The contract reads seven-year for $49 million, but the last three years are basically bogus. Burleson's contract should be viewed as four-year for $14.5 million dollars. He has no chance to see the last three years of the contract which worth $34.5 million. Here is his salary per year from NFLPA: 2006: 1,250,000 2007: 2,750,000 2008: 3,250,000 2009: 3,250,000 2010: 10,500,000 2011: 12,000,000 2012: 12,000,000

You need to analyze more data before you can conclude one first day pick in the OL means one win. As Ramius mentioned, Correlation does NOT mean causation. Here is another example: Based on the stats since superbowl I, the 4th overall draft pick generates more pro bowl appearances than 1st overall pick. Does this mean the quality of 4th overall pick is better than 1st pick? Although it's against the common sense, People only look at this data may still say 4th pick has better quality than 1st pick. But if we look more carefully, the most pro bowl appearances come from undrafted free agents, more than 1st and 4th picks combined. Does this mean teams should forfeit their draft picks and just sign undrafted rookies? I believe any fan with football knowledge doesn't agree this. We can not just base on insufficient data to conlude causation. In this case, we should analyze more data, for example, total number of undrafted rookies, the successful rate of each pick, and so on. In your case, you should also analyze more data like other people suggested, you miss too many factors to make valid conclusion.

A rebuilding year doesn't mean Marv should draft quantity over quality.

Is he holding out? Does he have trouble picking up defense scheme?

Do you think Bills could address their DT problem on the 2nd or 3rd round picks? After McCargo (26th pick), the next DT drafted was Claude Wroten at 68th pick. This implies a dropoff on the qualities between the top 3 and the remaining DTs. Could McCargo last till Bills' second round pick? From the reports after the draft, Giants was planning to pick McCargo at their 32th pick. How about drafting Bunkley at no.8? First, please refer the my earlier post to see how Bunkley is doing, Bunkley holding out. Second, Bills rated Whitner very high on their board, higher than Bunkley. Third, if Bills drafted Bunkley at no.8, they still needed to address the SS position on the 2nd or 3rd round. However, there's also a dropoff on safety after Jason Allen.

Reach and steal are the words used by media when the mocks drafts are very different to the real draft. These are to save media people face and to pretend they know more than the real NFL GMs and coaches.

At least Whitner isn't holding out. I wonder if people still want Bunkley at no.8 after he couldn't pick up Eagles defense scheme at OTA and then hold out at training camp. http://eagles.scout.com/2/548366.html scout.com has learned Philadelphia Eagles first-round pick DT Brodrick Bunkley will not be reporting to the team's training camp headquarters Thursday at Lehigh University. http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/fo...ll/15086870.htm The Eagles are concerned that Bunkley isn't signed. "It's tough on rookies, particularly at that position," Reid said. "If you go back and do some of your work on the history of defensive tackles over the last few years, their success rate... when you miss practice, it's tough to get yourself in the flow. It just happens that that position jumps out at you."

You're right, all of the bonus money in AW's contract is roster bonus and not signing bonus and, thus, counted only to year 1. Vikings received 10+ million extra cap room in that year because lots of their players didn't achieve their LTBE money in the previous season. Vikings then used this additional 10+ million cap to sign AW and make the contract cap friendly.

Again, Tampa 2 doesn't need big DTs. Here is my old post on the DT's sizes of the teams currently running Tampa 2. ------------------------------------- Exactly, tampa 2 doesn't need 350 cloggers. The DTs in Bucs depth chart are McFarland (6-0, 300), Hovan (6-2, 296), Bradley (6-0, 301), and Wyms (6-3, 290). Bears: Harris (6-3, 300), I.Scott (6-3, 302), T.Johnson (6-3, 300), and Boone (6-4, 318). Colts: Simon (6-2, 293), Reagor (6-3, 285), Reid (6-2, 288), and Williams (6-3, 285). Among the three, only Bears drafted a DT this year, Dvoracek (6-3, 298). Thus, stop worrying about our DTs' sizes. We're fine.