dave mcbride

People keep bringing up Flutie's shortness, but Flutie was actually darn good for the Bills overall. If he had been in the NFL during his CFL prime, his career would be remembered a lot differently. He was genuinely incredible in the CFL, and today's NFL wouldn't have let him linger there. Factoring in the just give it to 'em game as a Bills win, which I always do, and the Indy game after he took over for RJ after the second play, the Bills were 23-8 in games Flutie started.

Wendell started on that 2014 Super Bowl winning team. He played 100 percent of the snaps that postseason (v. Baltimore, Indy, and Seattle).

Yep, I was about to post this. See the quotes from the Peter King column above. No one is giving up a first rounder for Rosen.

Metcalf (1.6 percent body fat, which strikes me as unhealthy) looks like a guy who might be more interested in being Mr. Universe than a polished NFL WR. That concerns me.

Interesting fact: the Bills haven’t drafted an Ole Miss player since 1976. And while I try to never judge a player based on the school he went to, I do think that Ole Miss players tend to have a pretty high fail rate (relatively speaking) in the pros. LaQuon Treadwell was another Ole Miss specimen who had route running issues coming out of college. He has been a real disappointment so far. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ole_Miss_Rebels_in_the_NFL_Draft Allen was very good in college. He took over a terrible 2-win team and got that team to bowl games twice.

He measured 5’10 1/8” at th conbine. Wilson is 5’11”.

It's certainly an interesting "what if?" situation. It is definitely true that Smith was true believer in Rivers, and he ran the show. Marty liked Brees, to be sure, but Smith ran the show. History has proven both to be right. Their stats are nearly identical (outside of straight-up counting stats). In playoff games, Brees is 8-7 and Rivers is 5-6; The Chargers have won 57 percent of their games with Rivers, and the Saints 59 percent with Brees; Brees' passer rating is 97.7 lifetime and Rivers' rating is 95.6; and Brees has a lifetime advanced passer rating of 115 to Rivers' 112 (100 being league average; by way of comparison, Roethlisberger is 110 and Brady 116). Brees has had better offensive coaching and suffered far less organizational chaos, so it's a bit of a wash overall.

No, they were absolutely going to trade Brees because AJ Smith was all in on Rivers, who he drafted. As you may recall, they started Brees the final game of the season but they were already out of it (at 9-6), and that's the game he injured his shoulder in. It was a VERY controversial move at the time, and people ripped Schottenheimer for not thinking about the big picture. Starting him that game blew up in their face, and they ended up getting nothing for Brees. His contract was up, but they could have tagged and traded him. This was the game - it was week 17 of the 2005 season. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200512310sdg.htm Here's a backgrounder, but it's wrong about who they would have kept: https://www.boltsfromtheblue.com/2010/2/8/1301176/why-did-the-chargers-let-drew As Brees himself said, ""Did A.J. draft me? No," Brees said. "Did A.J. draft Philip? Enough said." http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/sports/060311/brees.shtml

What do you think will happen? I really think AZ takes Murray, but I've been wrong a lot ...

But McCloughan was a central player in two of the best QB draft picks in the last decade: Russell Wilson and Baker Mayfield. He's not some schmo in a basement!

Excellent comp.

I think you may be wrong about this one, GB. Excellent post. I agree. If you don't believe in the QB you have, and if you have the #1 overall pick, and if there is a draftable QB that you truly believe in, you draft that QB.

If they truly believe another guy this year is better, then you treat Rosen as a sunk cost and take the QB who you think is more likely to get you to the promised land. Don't waste a #1 overall on a non-QB assuming you actually believe in one of the QBs in the draft. #1 overall picks don't come around very often, and if you don't really believe in Rosen, cut bait now. Everyone needs to bear in mind that the Cardinals were reportedly crestfallen that they couldn't get past the Bills to land Josh Allen, who they loved.

Scott McCloughan disagrees with this line of thought, and he's a damn good evaluator -- one of the best. He says Haskins is the next Byron Leftwich to a T! @YoloinOhio -- thoughts on this? https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/02/28/kyler-murray-height-best-quarterback-scot-mccloughan

This is a more detailed report - https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2019/02/28/character-coach-jack-easterby-leaving-patriots/Znf0ex9WtMLOorfUOM1fCN/story.html

Ever since I began watching him play, Jones has reminded me of another second rounder who put up massive college numbers: Alex Van *****. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Van_Dyke. Van ***** produced like crazy in college, but had the same questions about size/speed/get-off-the-jam ability surrounding him that Jones has. PS - I see that the last part of AVD's last name has been censored! Wow. I feel bad for the Dick Van ***** fans on this board ...

Catch rates are always lower for guys who run deeper routes (and Christ, RBs usually have catch rates between 75 and 80 percent). Jones doesn't run many deep routes.

I care. It was flat out obvious that it was a forward pass, and it cost the Bills the biggest game they have played in the last 20 years. ?? - The closest camera was at the 20, and the play happened at the 25. The angle on the 20-yard line-shot skewed it slighly enough to create doubt—IF you didn’t factor in the angle of the shot (which, duh, you should). If you do factor it in, it’s pretty easy to see that it was forward. Bottom line that one really can’t argue against: Wycheck’s hand relaesed the ball from behind the 25, and Mason caught it it past the 25.

I wouldn't say "always injured" so much as "always nicked up." He's always played at least 12 games. He's quite average statistically overall, but just looking at his stats I can see teams saying, "hey, we really need to remain committed to him because he really might turn the corner and become a Drew Brees." His YPA (a very important stat) is consistently pretty solid, but to reiterate, overall he's the epitome of average so far in his career. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MariMa01.htm I'm not predicting it happens, but I can see AZ going after Murray. I can't imagine that there's anyone out there who is a big Josh Rosen believer at this point. When I say "believer," I'm referring to someone who is absolutely convinced that the guy is going to be a franchise QB. If you're not a believer (and I highly doubt Kingsbury is) and truly believe that Murray is a probable franchise qb, how can you not take him given what we know about the centrality of the QB position?

Good stuff. I think clinging to Mariota at this point is basically signing your own death warrant if you're the coach. He's just not that good, but the problem is that he's not bad enough to cut him loose without any second thoughts. It's a tough spot, but it appears that Vrabel sees it clearly. I see Mariota as a poor man's Matt Schaub in terms of his productivity and ceiling.

One thing is for sure: the Patriots' entry for Why Your Team Sucks on Deadspin this year is gonna be epic.

Given Bills fans, I suspect it'll be a mix of both.

Alright - this is hilarious: https://deadspin.com/the-spa-where-police-say-robert-kraft-solicited-prostit-1832822284 Here's the headline: The Spa Where Police Say Robert Kraft Solicited Prostitution Has Some Rough One-Star Reviews

See previous page about a certain occasional resident of Juniper, FL. That person is a lot more famous than Kraft.

He can't - it's a state crime, not a federal crime!