dave mcbride

The Town is actually really good. Worth Watching.

I gave it a B. I fully approve of the trade because Diggs is elite but the Vikings got good value too. Basically, it was a normal trade between two well run teams that know how to assign value. It’s not like the Bills fleeced the Vikings.

Gerry: I think it’s fundamentally unfair to compare the two trades. One was a garden-variety trade between two well-run franchises who know to assign value, and the other was this: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28911663/deandre-hopkins-trade-grade-texans-flunked-cardinals-got-elite-receiver.

On paper this looks great, but why didn’t Seattle keep him and why did we get him for relative peanuts? Was it salary cap issues in Seattle?

You should answer his question. Take away the gender aspect of it, and it’s a clear-as-day case of nepotism. There are a lot of spouses and scions who have been given responsibilities they weren’t worthy of because of family connections. Indeed, Just about all of Napoleon’s relatives who were given regions to rule after his conquests did a poor job. I have no opinion one way or the other about her acumen because I don’t really care about hockey, but obviously on a Bills board there will be a lot of Sabres fans participating. Generally speaking, I like her (she’s a very good public ambassador, which is important), but that doesn’t mean she’s good at overseeing the Sabres specifically. On the flip side, I can’t think of one thing that she has done regarding the Bills that was an objectively bad decision.

Just looked it up. Winston set the NFL record last season for pick-sixes: an unbelievable seven. He also had two strip sacks returned for TDs. That is 63 points alone (!!!), and the team gave up 449 total. That doesn’t factor in effects of the other 23 picks, many of which put the opponent in excellent scoring position.

A ridiculous number of winston pick sixes (And near-pick sixes that placed the opponent in the red zone) added to that total. It totally skews the points allowed number.

Their pythagorean won-loss record last year was 8.2-7.8, and this was in spite of the fact that their qb had an incomprensible 30 picks and 12 fumbles.

They had the number two defense in the league last year by the DVOA metric, and they are loaded at receiver. Brady is a huge upgrade, and Arians is a good coach. They could be very good next year.

He was also a rare five-star recruit out of HS. He had terrible QBs at Maryland and some injuries while there, so he ended up being underdrafted.

Flores runs essentially the same defense as NE and has a lot more cap space.

He was injured and young under Rex, who ran a by-then ridiculous (because ridiculously complicated) scheme. I wouldn’t overinterpret those seasons. A system that exploits their advantages. Belichick has always been great at scheming to effectively set the edge and creating confusion from his mix of rushers, especially guys who are multiple (big but with decent pass rush ability) like Shaq.

I totally disagree. Last year, I said he looked like the perfect DE for the Belichick system based on how they exploit big DEs, and I thought the Pats would be very interested. Turns out I was sorta right. He is a fantastic fit for that system and actually a bad fit for McDermott’s, which makes stars out of quick twitch DEs like James Hardy. This just isn’t true. Anyway, the Pats system is a 3-4 in only the most loosest of senses.

Not everyone can be an all-pro. He's a solid NFL starter who stays on the field, and this is a pretty cheap deal, relatively speaking.

Shiuld be. He’s been that good.

They traded up for Dawkins too.

What do you predict the situation will be in, say, 2022? By the way, you'll get a kick out of this: This year, Direct TV stopped working for us because the street trees in front of our house and on the public sidewalk (14th St in Brooklyn) have grown so tall that they block reception from the Direct TV tower. We didn't realize that the dish only gets reception in one direction, and since our backyard is free of really tall trees, we were flummoxed. This started a year and a half ago, and the repair guy simply walked our dish over two houses (without us knowing) and planted it on top of another house! That house gets sold in the meantime, and the new owners discovered this and simply cut the cord (which i totally get and had no problem with). The repair guys came back and re-positioned on top of our house, and when it didn't work they figured it out - it was the trees. Consequently, we became one of the rare qualifiers for Direct TV's streaming NFL ticket package (you have to prove obstruction or no nearby tower service to get it). We signed up for that via our son who is in college, so we got the student rate - $80 for the season!

"• At this point, I think the Bengals would take a bag of pylons and a stopwatch for Cordy Glenn. That player/team relationship was fractured beyond all recognition last year. It’s hard to be certain of many things this time of year, but I’m certain that Glenn has played his last game for Cincinnati." https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/03/02/combine-draft-rumors-risers-free-agency-outlook-rbs-wrs

The Cardinals absolutely made the correct decision. Murray is clearly a lot better than Rosen. I was pretty unimpressed with Haskins. Sometimes a team just knows what it has, and is wise enough to abandon a sunk cost.

He missed multiple games. You have to separate out his games from the backups to get real accuracy numbers for tua.

I suspect Mariota. Brooklyn or just Manhattan?

Did Ruben quit on the team? I distinctly recall him being deactivated for the finale after he launched himself across the table to get at Gregg-o because he was so pissed off. He gets he-earned-the-right-to-his-aggro-freakout merit points from me for that, not he-quit-on-the-team demerit points!

Yes, always. I get far more satisfaction out of a Bills victory, even when 4-9, than the victory of a fantasy team.

Not true. She used to, but in 2018 made $10 million. This. I have had a fantasy team for years, and I ALWAYS root against players on my team when they play the Bills in real life. I do not have any sympathies for them because they are on my team; I actively root for them to fail. It's quite easy to do because I care far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, more about the Bills than my fantasy team.

@Hapless Bills Fan - you might like this recent book, which is on the long-term divide between scouts and number crunchers (albeit with a focus on baseball): https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691180212/scouting-and-scoring. That's at root what all of this about. More broadly, the rise of FO and PFF is really the knock-on effect of the amazingly successful career of Nate Silver, who has gone from projecting the 2008 TB Rays as a world series team because of his statistical projections to the famous data-based projection guru in the country today.