dave mcbride

Wagner will be 33 in June, grew up in LA. Not sure Buffalo weather will appeal to him. He was PFF's highest rated LB for the 2022 season, which is great, but he hasn't been part of anything but mediocre to moderately below average defenses since 2017. I know Seattle has had secondary problems, which suggests to me that great LBs can't make up for problematic secondary play or a weak pass rush. The running backs of the defense, as it were.

I think Bruce had a significantly better season in 1996 than in 1990. He had fewer sacks, but IIRC he set the NFL record at the time for pressures (I think 47) by a wide margin and was a terror vs. the run--much better than in his earlier years. He was utterly unblockable that season. The Bills' defense was better in 1996 than in 1990 too. Note that PFR assigned him an AV of 21 in 1996 and an AV of 17 in 1990. He won defensive player of the year both years. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/S/SmitBr00.htm The Bills as a team had 48 sacks in 1996 and 43 in 1990. Bruce opened more up for more players in 1996. The Bills made it to the playoffs in 1974: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/1974.htm

The Bills have have put up 5 above-average defensive performances in the postseason under McDermott/Frazier and 4 bad ones. Let’s not exaggerate.

Anyone who says he is bad at drafting has to at least mention that he drafted Josh Allen, who will arguably be the best player in franchise history when it’s all said and done. And he wasn’t served up to the Bills on a platter. Beane had to be really creative to get in position to take him. Everything else is secondary. If you read the piece, you’ll see that the Browns have so much rollover in cap space that the Watson contract isn’t particularly onerous for them.

Have at it: https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/02/22/top-quarterback-contracts-salary-cap-misconception-space

Beasley and John Brown were good signings. They also got one quite good year out of Daryl Williams (no more than that, though). I'd also argue that Da'quon Jones' season this year was elite. He was hugely missed vs Cincy.

Shady weighs in and what he says sounds plausible to me: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/02/21/lesean-mccoy-im-rooting-for-eric-bieniemy-but-he-had-nothing-to-do-with-chiefs-pass-game/

I am thinking Bears too, but they could have simply paid Roquan, though. The Giants make sense too. What about the Seahawks? They desperately need help in pass D, and he's an elite pass defender for a LB: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/

Just looking at his stats, the trajectory is upward: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/J/JeudJe00.htm. 67 percent catch rate and 9.7 yards per target is really good. Gabe Davis was 51 percent and 9 yards per target; Diggs was 9.3. Also, Wilson had a passer rating of 110 when throwing his way. I'm starting to like this idea ... EDIT: Jeudy was 9th in the league in yards gained per target: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2022/receiving.htm#receiving::rec_yds_per_g

Honest question because I don’t know: is Jeudy actually any good?

Curious about Reich. Carolina makes a decent amount of sense, but I have to think Reich is done with the retreads after Rivers (who was actually good but one and done), Wentz, and Ryan.

The Eagles gave up essentially 24 points (defensive td plus the Toney punt return accounted for 14), 340 yards, and 21 first downs. The Bengals gave up 23 points, 357 yards, and 23 first downs. Both defenses lost the game on controversial albeit valid penalty calls (although the Eagles penalty was certainly more questionable given the way the game was being called). So … kind of a complete wash to me.

Curious to know what you think of Chris Simms' take: https://www.nbcsports.com/video/super-bowl-lvii-eagles-james-bradberry-holding-penalty-was-right-call

With the first angle I watched, I agree with you. But he held him twice, actually, and I hadn't seen this one because it was obscured on the telecast. The ref apparently saw it, though. Mahomes was throwing to a spot, and the grabs by the defender after he was beaten on the release (he guessed wrong -- he was playing a crosser) definitely slowed J S-S down. Not saying he would have caught it, but holds like that obviously can mess up a timing play. If it hadn't been called, I would have been fine with it, but for all we know he had been doing it a lot and the refs were simply fed up and unwilling to let him cheat (literally) KC out of a TD.

Starting to think that maybe they got the call right. I hadn't seen this angle, and it's pretty clearly holding. I mean, I know it happens a lot, but it was a game deciding play, and it may be the case that the refs weren't going to let a guy who guessed wrong and was beaten get out of it by holding the guy who beat him.

I've long thought that they played the most vanilla scheme possible vs Jax because they were so sure that they were going to win against such a terrible (and terribly coached) team. It's as if they didn't want to give anything away to subsequent opponents. Anyway, every team has some bad games, but I will say that watching Daboll I always felt like there was a purpose -- as if he was setting up stuff for later on and subsequent games. I wish I knew more about what he did in that respect vs NE in the two no-punt games, and he clearly had the Chiefs more or less figured out by the playoffs last year. He was (and is) creative and obviously smart. I am not so sure about Dorsey. Yes, they produced a lot of points, and maybe simply letting Josh rip is a good plan. But when you get to the playoffs and face other good teams, not having a carefully thought out plan set out weeks in advance is going to cost you. That's how I felt watching them vs. Cincy. Even vs Miami they had a huge lead and almost squandered it away by doing really dumb things on offense. Some of that was Josh--insisting on throwing to a well-covered Beasley because you missed him badly on the play before probably wasn't schemed up by Dorsey. But Dorsey has to rein Allen in from doing that stuff, which he did a lot of this year. Again, it often works because he's Josh Freaking Allen, but it's not Super Bowl-level scheming to say the least. I think Daboll is at that level, and indeed it turns out KC stole that play in which Toney scored from the Bills, who used it against them last year in the playoffs. They hadn't seen it before then.

I thought you might like what Chris Simms says here: https://www.nbcsports.com/video/super-bowl-lvii-eagles-james-bradberry-holding-penalty-was-right-call

In the Mahomes era? I'm old enough to remember way back to February 2021, when a top-five defense held the Mahomes-led second ranked offense to zero TDs in the SB.

Let's look at the last decade of Super Bowl winners and use what I think is a better and more telling stat: defensive DVOA, which factors in a lot more than just raw yards and points. 2013: #1 overall defense (Seattle) 2014: #12 overall (New England) 2015: #1 overall (Denver) 2016: #16 overall (New England) 2017: #5 overall (Philly) 2018: #19 overall (New England) 2019: #14 overall (KC) 2020: #5 overall (Tampa Bay) 2021: #5 overall (LA Rams) 2022: #17 overall (KC; Philly was ranked 6th overall this year, btw) So: half of the SB winners in the past decade have had a top five defense and twice the best defense overall has won it. No terrible defenses have been SB winners either (while the 2019 NE defense wasn't great, it wasn't a bottom feeder and it stepped up to essentially win the SB vs. LA by itself).

I get that, and I just don't know because I wasn't paying super-close attention to off-ball activity and couldn't see much downfield because of the limitations of how games are broadcasted. Skyler Thompson, Tyler Huntley, and Josh Johnson, though (not to mention Brock Purdy). And oh yeah: Christian McCaffrey.

The PI call on the hail mary was just as bad as the just give it 'em call.

I get all of that. I'm now wondering whether it was Bradberry was the one interfering with J S-S on that earlier play. I can't find a link, though. I think the larger point is that guys are allowed to hold in the NFL. Indeed, Pete Carroll basically got his guys to hold almost every play because he knew the refs wouldn't call it that often (it'd ruin game flow and undermine the entertainment factor). Seattle would lead the league in defensive holding calls, but they'd also lead the league in defense ... Maybe Bradberry had been doing it all game and on a key play the ref decided that enough was enough and that he wasn't going to let him do it yet again with the game on the line. Not calling it there may have been decisive in its own way too, if you know what I mean. Regardless, it was very ticky-tack. I've gotten used to watching Tre White doing worse on virtually every play.

There are fewer blowouts, but I think that's a direct result of enforced parity (salary, no more plan B, etc. etc.) -- which is great for the game overall. There have been five blowouts in the past 24 years: Denver over Atlanta, the Ravens over the Giants, Tampa over the Raiders, Seattle over Denver, and Tampa over KC. The Indy win over Chicago wasn't really close either; the Colts dominated that game in every category. Devin Hester had a kickoff return TD that kept the Bears in the game longer than they should have been.

Not a hold, but in the early second quarter when the Chiefs were down 14-7 and with a third and 8 from their own 27 yard line, there was a blatantly obvious PI on Smith-Schuster (the defender clearly grabbed his arm and pulled it back before the ball got there) that wasn't called. I mean, it was BLATANT. I'm guessing you remember it -- Smith Schuster was livid, and rightly so. The non-call took a possession away from the Chiefs. Hurts fumbled it on the Eagles next possession, so I guess you can say "no harm no foul," but one can't predict the future. The point is, they were letting some stuff go in the secondary in that game. The PI was way more obvious than the hold. Indeed, one way to think about that defensive holding call was that it was possibly a make-up call for the earlier play (both plays involved J S-S). Perhaps the Chiefs' coaches reminded the refs about it over the course of the game. And perhaps the league may have told the refs at halftime that they blew a call. Who knows?

They really only gave up 24 points (still not great but not horrible). The defensive TD and the punt return got KC 14. Maybe KC scores a TD on their final possession instead of a FG if they needed a TD, though ...