dave mcbride

Definitely not PI. Occurred within one yard of the LOS.

Interestingly, Bill Polian always said that one guy who should have gotten another chance was Kay Stephenson, whom Polian thought was a good coach in a bad situation in Buffalo.

Good thread idea. Where would you put Marrone? He wasn't fired, but with no extension offered and the retention of Whaley, he clearly thought that the situation was untenable. Another good one to think about: Mularkey was fired after getting the team to the playoffs (and his second straight winning season), but I personally thought it was the right move. That team played below their level of ability because of the offensive game planning, in my view. I think Harbaugh got on the bad side of the poisonous people in that organization (Trent Balke etc.) They fired the wrong person.

Oh man. It's a TEAM game. QBs don't win and lose games; teams do. Rivers has taken Chargers teams to far above where they should have been given their overall talent level.

Not mad, actually. All I ask is that you address his production compared to those two and factor in that he did what needed to do to win that fricking game vs. NE. Do you not put Rivers in their category? Roethliberger is a great player, but I don't think he's as good as Rivers. You also made an argument about "sandwiching" and applied it to years before the year zero of this debate - the year Ryan actually came on the scene! Finally, you also didn't address the point I raised about the truly horrible Atl D in the years before Quinn arrived. That stuff matters in debates like this because as you know, the QB is hardly solely responsible for a w-l record.

Upon looking again, they went 8-8 one season. Don’t be pedantic — you are way better than that. Address the actual issue. This is just false. The Falcons’ problem in the down years was *always* the defense, not Ryan.

Like I said in my initial post, it may not qualify as a tank given the whole dog fighting episode and everything that surrounded it. It was more like an act of of god than anything else. Back to the falcons, though - they should have easily won one SB, they should have made another, and they should have beaten the eagles last year (they outplayed them). They are usually in it, and they've had 8 winning seasons in the 10 since Ryan arrived (in a very tough division). They're generally always at least pretty good, and Ryan was actually good in their two down seasons (the D was terrible). Really, I was just flagging a team that got a lot better by getting a lot worse because they landed a franchise qb. Outside of Atlanta, the only other teams I can think of are carolina and SD. The rams don't count because they traded up for goff. Re SD, though, they kept the same front office. Not sure they tanked because they already had brees and were 8-8 the year before. But perhaps they didn't know what they had in brees yet.

Not sure of your point. They were really bad in 2007 and should have gone to the SB in 2012 (they had a 17-3 lead near the half v. SF) and had two 13-3 seasons in that stretch. Every season was a winning season.

I'm not sure anyone has brought this up yet ( @GunnerBill , @ScottLaw , @Kelly the Dog , @Fadingpain) but ... http://www1.cbn.com/700club/matt-barkley-quarterback-leads-stats-and-prayer-0 ??

Apologies for not responding sooner about this. I assume you're talking about the early 80s units, so I randomly took the 1984 2-14 unit. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/1984_roster.htm My view is that while it was a bad offense and bad team overall, the o-line was actually quite talented. Devlin, Ritcher, and Ken Jones were all good, and Grant and Borchardt were credible longtime starters who had started for some good teams just a few years earlier. Tony Hunter was a little below average (recall that his career ended early because of a bad leg injury), Byron Franklin was OK, and Greg Bell was actually good (recall that he led the NFL in rushing TDs twice for the Rams). Fergy was on the downswing, but still better than what we have now. The problem with that team was that the defense was bad too. Anyway, given the quality of the o-line, which at least gave the Bills a credible running game (11th in rushing ypa), I don't think you can say that those offenses were worse.

They'll win at least another game. The defense is too strong and too many of their upcoming opponents too weak to not win a game in which they have a turnover feast.

The 2007 Falcons were awful (4-12 and near the bottom of every category), and they got Ryan at #3 in the next draft. Not sure that was a deliberate tank, though - it was the Bobby Petrino season. But it was also the post-Vick season (who wasn't coming back), and they were rolling out Joey Harrington as their starting qb. Regardless, they have had sustained success ever since except for a couple of bumps in the road after 2012. From 2008-2012 (five seasons), they were 56-24.

Every historic offense or defense needs a name: the K-Gun, the 46, the steel curtain, the Tampa 2, the Flex Defense, the Greatest Show on Turf, etc. etc. My vote: The Tecmo Bowl offense.

My favorite data point this week: the Pats gave up 6 points against the Bills (no TDs) and their defensive DVOA ranking (as per Football Outsiders) declined because the level of competition factors into the equation. It appears that if you give up more than one FG vs. the Bills, you're failing.

Sean Gilbert begs to differ.

Peterman vs. the Bears defense (near the top of the league in INTs with 11) is just what the doctor ordered on that front!

Now this is fake news!

Dr. Z and Joel Buchsbaum were the best. What separates them from the good ones today is that it wasn't easy at all to get all of that film, and it required a ton of VHS taping (once VCRs came on the scene) and cajoling friends in other regions of the country to tape and send them games. They didn't have instant info via the internet at their hands. They did it the hard way. He called Jim Ritcher!

I just found out that the game I expected to be played on either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday was played on a Tuesday! Who plays football on a Tuesday???

How so, specifically?

Running or not running is HIGHLY dependent on the score of the game. What was the run pass ratio in each of the last two games while the games were still competitive? Until the Colts score was 14-0, the Bills ran it 8 times and passed it 8 times. Of the first 29 plays against the Pats, 14 were running plays and 15 passing plays. Outside of the first run by McCoy, most of the other runs did nothing. That rushing ratio is significantly above the league average.

That just isn't true.

The offense has no strengths, especially when you consider that keying on a good RB is about the easiest thing in the world to do if you have no fear of either the QB, the receivers, or the pass blocking ability of the line.

I've found the playcalling to be pretty solid myself. At no point this season have i found myself saying "wtf" to a set of play calls. Dennison elicited that from me many times. I think that the calls generally make sense. The problem has been the players, specifically those operating the QB position.

LOL. Think really hard. Hint: the other person is a LOT more famous than Williams.