dave mcbride

25th plus in ALL of the first three rounds! (KC, LA, Philly) The third rounder the Bills traded for Benjamin was their own.

Coincidentally, another USC QB faced the same option and chose to stay for his senior year and made the right decision: Carson Palmer. http://www.talkoffamenetwork.com/palmer-why-not-leaving-usc-early-was-never-on-my-radar/ He had a great senior year and was the consensus #1 pick. He then had a good (and long) NFL career.

Remember when the Bills fired Andre Reed as a team spokesman after he tweeted out the Bills' love for (and intent to take) Ponder right before the draft? The Vikings jumped on him, and IIRC the team blamed Reed for spilling the beans. He was canned immediately after the draft. In retrospect, he performed a great service to the organization.

Good stuff, but I'd add that the mismatch isn't just Tyrod. Shady ain't Arian Foster/Terrell Davis, and he forcing him into such a system seems wrongheaded to me. Wasn't that Chip Kelly's beef with Shady too? If so, it would seem to me that figuring out how to work with a world-class talent should be operative, not remaining wedded to a system. It does, however, sound like you think Dennison adjusted at least a little over the course of the season. Regardless of scheme, he just seems unimaginative to me. The second half results are indicative of that.

Fantastic! Thanks. Sounds like we're not running the right scheme for the talent we have.

Sorry - I meant a quarter-minus. From Bill Barnwell: After Week 4: Tre'Davious White, CB, Buffalo Bills After Week 9: White So, with no other rookie pass-rusher besides Garrett playing well enough to receive votes, this battle comes down to two players: White and Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore. With all due respect to guys like Jamal Adamsand Marcus Williams, who have spent the season playing safety at a high level, it would be shocking if one of these two corners didn't win the award. I don't think anybody would argue that Lattimore has been anything but the best rookie corner in the league when he has been on the field. No team has asked more of any rookie corner than the Saints of Lattimore, and he has consistently come through. Much of the Saints' improvement can be traced to Lattimore's presence; consider that through Week 16, they had allowed a passer rating of just 74.3 with Lattimore in the lineup, which rose to 97.2 when Lattimore was on the bench or injured. (Data for Week 17 isn't yet available.) White's candidacy, then, is based on availability. Lattimore missed three games and played only six snaps in a fourth, costing him what amounts to one-quarter of the season. He played 711 defensive snaps. White didn't miss a game and played 98.6 percent of Buffalo's defensive snaps. The 27th overall pick, White made it all the way to 1,056 snaps, more than any other rookie defender. And while he might best be known for incurring Gronkowski's wrath on a cheap shotthat earned Gronk a one-game suspension, White has been an above-average cornerback all season. This race should be closer than some people make it out to be, if only because availability should matter. Twelve games from Lattimore and four games of P.J. Williams as a starting cornerback isn't the same thing as 16 games of Lattimore. At the same time, though, Lattimore was playing Pro Bowl-caliber football when he was on the field. He looked like one of the best cornerbacks in the league of any experience level. Even with the missing games, Lattimore has done enough to win this award.

Fair enough. He did clarify himself, however. You don't honestly believe that he thinks the coach doesn't want to score more, correct?

I'd like hear from someone with a little bit of expertise about the differential effects of Roman's inside zone scheme and Dennison's outside zone scheme on productivity. It seems to me that the former is more unique and hence a little harder to prepare for.

RwC, I went through every post in this thread and unless I completely missed it, ScottLaw never said the bolded comment above.

He missed a quarter-plus of the season, however. Availability is a key component of value.

Seriously, go through the game logs on PFR and check out the second half rushing when the Bills have a lead. It is pathetic. You're not correct here. He has a point. And he's not even really being critical of McDermott given that there is a logic to it.

Yup, and the McCoy stats up above are telling. He had 7 runs for 46 yards against Miami in the first half of their first game, and he finished with 18 for 49. The Chiefs game was the same. That has nothing to do with Taylor and everything to do with unimaginative playcalling. There was a play last week where McCoy broke three tackles in very impressive fashion just to get back the LOS. That happened way too much this year; Shady hasn't lost a step at all either. I get McDermott's idea, and results are results, but the late-game rushing efforts have been terrible.

Check out his most recent post in the mcdermott has lost the team thread and you'll see!

Also, Badol's Shady crusade was in 2015-2016! He has warmed to his presence.

Judging from form the linguistic construction of Don's later posts, I'm gonna guess this is Spags. Whoever Jimmy Spags is (maybe one of the mods!), the mods know and like him. That's why this thread is still going--they know and like him and are ok with the occasional parody thread (and have been for years). If he were a new person, this thread would have been locked a while ago. Don displayed a bit of faux insider-ish knowledge at first to suck people in, but at this point it's time to put this dog out of its misery.

It's a 5th now. The conditions were met to move it up: Dareus still on the roster at the end of the season and the Jags in the playoffs.

Marvin Lewis has my eternal gratitude so I only wish him well. Negative comments about him should be banned on this board, actually!

He had a good career, with 3-4 genuinely elite seasons.

He does, but Gronkowski is just a better player. That strikes me as obvious. I'll go as far as to say that he's the most dominant TE in league history, and the competition isn't close. Also, re: Kelce, he's in a good situation with a thrower like Alex Smith, who doesn't challenger CBs down the field. He loves the outlet TE, and he was good to Vernon Davis in SF too.

True, but Gronk is hands-down a better player. Much better blocker, for one.

The defense improved from 27th to 15th in DVOA and the offense sank from 10th to 26th. That's kind of a wash, so what might explain the shift from 7-9/8-8 to 9-7 (I think they would have gone 8-8 last year if they didn't tank the final game)? ST went from 22nd in 2016 to 10th this year. Carpenter was basically zero wins above replacement last year, and Hauschka was one win above replacement. The Bills went from a 76 percent kicker to an 88 percent kicker, and the 88 percent guy also made a LOT of lower percentage long kicks. Huge improvement.

He was actually decent the next season (nearly 1000 yards rushing and 4.6 ypa), but the system was a terrible fit for him. I think he basically lost a half a step (lots of small injuries over the years to his legs/ankles), plus he was reportedly dumb. He apparently couldn't absorb the NO offense.

Um, he had over 1700 yards from scrimmage in 2012 and 1244 yards rushing. He definitely carried the load that year and was 6th in the league in yards from scrimmage. And again, his productivity per touch was off-the-charts good that season.

He was misused terribly by Hackett. Gailey was not a good head coach, but he knew how to use the offensive talent he had. Hackett treated him as an up-the-middle pounder.

I immediately thought of the 70-yard TD bomb Flacco threw to Jacoby Jones with 40 seconds left in the 2012 playoff game against Denver.