dave mcbride

The way to adjust is to reduce the extreme number to a garden-variety very good game number -- 2/2.5. That leaves him with 9.5-10 sacks, which is very good. He also had 15 tackles for loss, 6 forced fumbles, and 4 passes defensed. That's a very good season, Plus you can't coach speed, and he's a 4.52 guy. Sign me up for more fast guys. This is all academic because some other team is going to pay him more than the Bills will. Good pass rushers are simply too hard to find.

They beat an elite Saints team last year (and Cousins delivered big time late in the game) but then ran into a juggernaut in the 2019 Niners. In most any other year, that Vikings team had a chance to get to the SB. Remember that SF disemboweled GB the next week too. Sucking sucks. @GunnerBill is totally right about that. And Sabres fans should know it too.

Cousins is good enough to take you pretty far with an elite defense. He's not great, but he's *so* much better than what Washington rolled out there after he left.

Translated: the Bills should absolutely pay Allen now, and it shouldn't be a debate.

I can't disagree with this. I think they have some serious coaching issues, however, and that makes the problems worse. And the owner is always going to be a problem. I mean, they are paying a ton of money to what is now a league-average running back. He has a $14 million cap hit and a $24 million dead cap hit this upcoming season. A lot of guys who we think of as JAGs could equal his production too (4.0 ypc and under 7 yards per reception).

It may be a stat, but so is win-loss record for pitchers. Not many who know much about baseball pay much attention to it anymore. The Cowboys lost most of those games because their defense was a sieve. The opposing QBs' ratings in those three games were 126.3, 130.7, and 115.3. In the game against Cleveland, they actually gave up over 300 rushing yards. None of that has to do with Prescott.

The W-L stat is kinda meaningless vis-a-vis Prescott given that in games 2, 3, and 4 the Cowboys' offense put up a mind-boggling 570, 522, and 566 yards and averaged over 36 points per game.

For the record, they were 2-3. He played most of game 5 and left the game with the Cowboys in the lead (and about to score to take a bigger lead, which they did). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/dal/2020.htm

This is a good piece: https://buffalonews.com/sports/bills/bills-offseason-questions-bills-must-hope-jerry-hughes-follows-edge-rush-age-trend/article_e21262cc-7c4f-11eb-8e10-27a0a7da2776.html. It's also not news. I remember about 10-12 years ago reading an analysis somewhere that demonstrated that older pass rushers aged well, racking up strong production into their 30s. Indeed, Bruce Smith had his best season at the age of 33, and he was awesome at age 34 too (and he remained very good for another three years beyond that). Here's the key passage in this new piece: "Age 33 has not been a production barrier for defensive ends in the way it has been at running back and cornerback. There have been 24 edge rushers who have recorded six or more sacks at age 33 or older in the past 10 seasons. They’ve done it 36 times. So almost four players a year age 33 or older have been substantial contributors to their team’s sack total. Those players include Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Cameron Wake, Terrell Suggs, John Abraham, Julius Peppers and Calais Campbell. Abraham, Peppers, Freeney, Suggs and Wake had eight or more sacks at age 35 or older. And then there’s Lorenzo Alexander, the retired Bill who had 12.5 sacks as mostly an edge rusher at age 33 in 2016. Alexander added 6.5 sacks while rushing more inside than outside at age 35 in 2018."

This is a good board because there are so many knowledgeable NFL fans here. Relegating the broader context the Bills operate in -- i.e., the NFL -- to a separate board doesn't make sense to me.

Not to turn this into a Sabres thread, but I follow them in only the most peripheral of ways and am wondering what the hell is going on. Bear in mind that I know very little (I followed them closely as a kid, but that was a very, very long time ago). In a nutshell, what is wrong with them? Don't they have a ton of elite-level draft picks? Isn't that guy Dahlin supposed to be a transcendental talent? More broadly, isn't it nearly impossible mathematically to fail to make the playoffs for ten years straight in the NHL? What gives?

I totally agree about that. But he was clutch. They were down 28-13 in the 4th, and then while the Cowboys are driving he throws a pick to micah hyde on a wide receiver screen. The game looks over, but after the rodgers INT, he throws two more TD passes, rushes for a 2-pt conversion to tie the game at 28, and then leads them to a fg to tie it again at 31 with 40 seconds left.

Just no. There is far greater than zero percent chance he goes postal again given past history. No need for that hassle.

I watched the game. He played really well, bringing them back from a 28-13 deficit to tie the game (and then bringing them back to tie it again to tie it at 31). A 5 percent sack rate isn’t bad at all, and the pick he threw was followed by a Rodgers pick on the next series. It was one of those games in which whoever had the ball last was likely to win. And that’s what happened. It was a shootout.

This is where you lose me: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201701150dal.htm. GB won that game because of a ridiculous catch late in the game. Prescott was phenomenal in that game and did what he had to do to. This is one of those examples is where qb won-loss records loses its shine; look at what actually happened before opining. It’s like Pat Mahomes 5-7 “won-loss” record in his final year in college: his team lost two games in which his offense put up 55 points and 3 other games where they put up 44, 38, and 37 points. That team record has literally nothing to do with the qb.

These aren't arguments. They're loose correlations that don't account for causation.

Agree with most of this, but Chris Jones abuses almost everyone. He's one of the very best interior d-linemen in the league. He had a 90.3 rating from PFF, which is extremely high (he was a first-team PFF all-pro). My point is, don't judge a guy's performance off of a game facing either Donald or Jones. They're likely to get abused if they're not Quinton Nelson. Here's their write-up, which matches what I saw: This season the spot of “best interior defensive lineman after Aaron Donald” goes to Chris Jones, who finished the season with the second-best PFF pass-rushing grade (93.1) of any rusher. Jones notched 60 total pressures for the season as well as a couple of forced fumbles, and at his best can wreak the kind of havoc that Donald does on the inside. The only thing separating the two players is the volume of pressure that Donald gets by comparison, and Donald has been more consistent against the run this year.

No, I know, but anything can happen in the playoffs, and Dallas's offense with him in there was extremely explosive. I'd far prefer to play Wash/NYG/Philly than a Dak-led Dallas in the playoffs.

I don't think it was as bad this past season. Seriously. It could be that the refs have put him in the team-captain elder statesman category, and aren't harassing him as much as a consequence.

2-3? Sure. But they lost one of those games because they couldn't cover a freakin' onside kick and ended up losing in the most embarrassing of fashions. None of that loss had to do with Prescott, who had a huge game.

If he hadn't gotten injured, I firmly believe Dallas would have won the NFC East this year.

6 sacks in his last 4 playoff games. Postseason performance, baby.

I think Fields is fool's gold. Heaving it up vs. bad Clemson DBs who were regularly beaten like a drum deep is not a sign that a qb is good. Matt Barkley is excellent at the deep air ball too as long as the receiver beats his man. Fields is inaccurate and runs a super-simplified scheme. So did Payton Manning in college. It's not always the QB's fault. In the LSU game, Clemson faced a once-in-a-lifetime offensive-talent juggernaut. And on the other side, Lawrence needed to put up 50 just to have a chance in a game against a defense in which 9-10 starters were going to end up as NFL draft picks.

They have minimized it because it causes more injuries than any other play in the league.

Anything that reduces the kicker's role in the game is something I can get behind! They did it to reduce injury. The old school onside kick -- particularly the scrum tactic -- had the highest rate of injury of any play in the league. I'm not for injuries. I do think 4th and 15 is too easy. I'd make it 4th and 20.