Orton's Arm

For the record: James Fenimore Cooper is considered one of early America's finest writers. If you ever take a class where you're required to read American classics, odds are pretty good you'll be assigned something he's written. He wrote The Prairie in 1822. Below is a quote from page 581: ******* But as little does he know of the temper of a Red-skin, who as seen but one Indian or one tribe, as he knows of the colour of feathers who has only looked upon a crow." ******* Consistent with that sentiment, The Prairie featured multiple tribes. The Pawnees were portrayed in an extremely favorable light; with their chief portrayed as a hero. Their enemies--the Sioux--were shown in a negative light. But it's not as though Cooper portrayed every Sioux as being bad. The reader got to know several members of the Sioux tribe; some of whom created a favorable impression. Others not so favorable. Cooper clearly wanted his readers to root for the Pawnees in their war against the Sioux. And to admire the Pawnees' chief. The latter is described as physically perfect: well-muscled, athletic, handsome. Not once did the Pawnees' chief--Hardheart--flinch or show fear--not even when the Sioux were planning his execution. "Look at that noble Pawnee, Teton, and see what a Red-skin may become, who fears the Master of Life and follows his laws." (The "master" that Hardheart followed was not the Christian God--it was the Native Americans' great spirit.) At least in the eyes of Cooper, the term "Red-skin" was descriptive, not pejorative.

Um, no. That's not what he said. Nor did he say anything remotely resembling that.

Bill Belichick isn't vague about injuries for the sake of being a jerk. He's vague about injuries because he wants to avoid giving his opponents any information which might possibly help them. As a Bills fan, I don't necessarily object to Marrone doing the same thing, for the same reasons. I don't necessarily think Marrone is the long-term answer at head coach. But I have no objection to how he's chosen to handle this particular issue.

> we have EASILY the worst qb situation in the league in buffalo, and there's not even a team that's a close second. I'm a little less optimistic about Manuel than some. But the above statement might be going a bit too far. There are some teams with pretty bad quarterback situations out there. > In New York: they had a top 10 quarterback . . . I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "top 10 quarterback" to describe Sanchez. Mark Sanchez's career average is 6.5 yards per attempt. Would you like to take a guess at what Trent Edwards' career average might be? At no point in his Buffalo career was Trent Edwards surrounded with an adequate offensive supporting cast. But there were times when Sanchez was put into an absolutely fantastic situation. A great OL. A very good running game to take the pressure off the passing attack. Some good receiving threats. Everything was all set up for him to succeed. Despite all that, Sanchez's best season was his rookie year, when he averaged 6.7 yards per attempt. Even in the years when his offensive supporting cast was surprisingly good, he didn't materially outperform Trent Edwards' career average. (For the record, in Trent Edwards' best season, he averaged 7.1 yards per attempt.) Mark Sanchez is definitely, definitely not any kind of answer for the Bills as a starting quarterback. It's very questionable whether he'd be a better backup than Trent Edwards would be. But if we want a Trent Edwards quality backup, why not just sign Trent Edwards? Why would we actually trade for a guy like that?

If Mark Sanchez was on my team's roster, I'd be willing to listen to trade talks too.

Last season, Tuel was a rookie. During the regular season, the one time he was given a significant number of practice reps was going into the Kansas City game. Did Tuel look great against the Chiefs? No. But did he look significantly better than he had against Cleveland? Absolutely! Even just a week's worth of practice reps seem to have helped him considerably. Last season, Thad Lewis was a fourth year player. You normally expect more improvement from a QB going into his second year (like Tuel) than a guy going into his fifth year (like Lewis). That's why it's credible that Tuel could overtake Lewis.

You have a good point. The Bills are well below the overall salary cap, so there's room to re-sign guys like Hughes. Kelly the Dog has made a good case about why it would be okay for the Bills to "overspend" on their defensive line. But even if the objective was to keep the DL within a specific budget, why get rid of Hughes? Why not eliminate the salaries of other, older players instead?

Agreed. On another matter, polls like this hint at the correct way of turning the franchise around. If Buffalo is considered the second-worst destination for free agents, then that would make it very difficult for the Bills to become the Ravens of 2000. Granted, that task would be difficult for any team. But it would be especially difficult for Buffalo, given the low regard in which the team is currently held. On the other hand, a franchise quarterback can serve as a cornerstone around which to build a team. If the Bills had a young Peyton Manning under center, we'd become a destination for free agents.

The real question is: what player could the Bills have taken with that pick? For example: some drafts represent a great opportunity to take a QB. Other drafts, not so much so. The same is true of other positions. If the first round of next year's draft has a lot of great players at positions the Bills need, the price we paid will look higher than it does now. I'm personally of the opinion that you're often better off having one great player than two good ones. Hopefully Watkins develops into that one great player. (Which he shows every sign of doing.) At the same time, we won't know the true price we paid for him until we get to see which players would have been available to take with our first round pick in next year's draft.

Good idea.

Bills fans would be less than thrilled if, for example, Gilmore began attracting some of these additional flags. On the other hand, suppose the Patriots got flagged for this two or three times in a game against the Bills. I personally feel that Bills fans' satisfaction about that would go a long way toward offsetting our dissatisfaction about the Gilmore flags. More generally, I think fans are more accepting of flags if they're applied evenhandedly, than if some teams are partially exempted from the rules applied to everyone else.

This. The penalty for pass interference is very severe. Refs are unlikely to call more than a small handful of pass interference penalties per game. Knowing this, the Seahawks adopted a deliberate strategy of engaging in pass interference all the time. Sure, they knew they'd take a few extra penalties here and there. But they felt that over the course of the game, the yards from these penalties would be more than offset by the extra boost this gave them in shutting down the opponent's passing game. If refs weren't enforcing rules against defensive holding or pass interference--which they weren't--a strategy like the Seahawks' was a completely logical response. But blatant disregard for the rules is not good for the game as a whole. The Seahawks and other teams like them will continue using that strategy as long as it's logical to do so. The only way to make that kind of strategy illogical is for the NFL to crack down, hard, on that kind of behavior, and not just in the preseason. If that means a lot of penalty flags over the short-term, that's just the price of doing business. Eventually teams like the Seahawks will adjust. But they will not change their strategies until the the refs prove they're willing to throw a lot of penalty flags in regular season games to put a stop to stuff like this. Having sacrificed their credibility on this issue in previous seasons, it may take several penalty-rich weeks of play before credibility can be reestablished.

> In fact, anyone who believes the trust is serious about keeping the Bills in Buffalo . . . No one without inside knowledge can be certain about the trust's level of dedication to keeping the Bills in Buffalo. Do I think the trust would like to keep the Bills here? Absolutely. But what if the Toronto group bid $100 million more than the next-highest bidder? What if it was $200 million more? How much financial temptation would it take for the trust to decide to sell out? I don't have the answer to that question. Neither do you. The two factors keeping the Bills in Buffalo are the lease and the fact that Pegula appears to be the highest bidder. If Ted Rogers was still alive, it's quite possible one of those factors would have been eliminated. It's likely the lease, alone, would have been sufficient to keep the Bills in Buffalo. But not certain. Suppose Ted Rogers bought the team, with the ultimate intention of moving it to Toronto. He'd have two options: 1) Wait it out in Buffalo, then move the team once the lease had ended. 2) Concoct a legal strategy for breaking the lease. Either of these strategies would have been associated with considerable risk. It's quite possible Ted Rodgers was more willing and able to take on large risks than his successors. Perhaps he was also better able to obtain rewarding outcomes from high risk situations. His death made it less likely that either of these risky strategies would be put into play, or that they would succeed if they were employed. On the other hand, it's very possible that even Ted Rogers would have balked at the idea of buying a team as firmly nailed down (over the short-term, at least) as the Bills. The Toronto group would have been much better able to take advantage of any team-stealing opportunities with Ted Rogers than they could have without him. That alone would not have been sufficient to guarantee their ability to steal the Bills, due to the lease. But if there was some weakness--some way to steal the team despite its apparently being nailed down--Ted Rogers would have been the one to take advantage of it.

> Nicely put. Thank you. > you'd be throwing out guys like Brees, Elway, Bradshaw, Favre, Moon, Gannon, Kelly and Brady ... and a bunch of others. That depends on how you use the author's conclusions. All the QBs you mentioned had failed to produce significantly above average results during their first or second set of 16 starts. (By "significantly above average" the author means results more than one full standard deviation above the NFL mean.) But all the QBs on the above list--except Brees--still produced above average results during the first or second set of 16 starts. Less than 1 full standard deviation above-average, but still above average. From the article: ********* Other than Aikman/Testaverde/Bradshaw — and I think they deserve to be in their own group — that leaves just Drew Brees as the only quarterback in our sample to be below average through both his first and second set of sixteen starts. *********** Aikman, Testaverde, Bradshaw, and Brees were each chosen by the team with the worst record in the league; and with the first overall pick of the draft. (Brees was chosen with the first pick of the second round, the other three were first overall picks.) It's very difficult for a QB to put up good stats when he's on a terrible team. Assuming the patterns described in the article hold true, a QB who isn't chosen by an absolutely terrible team should put up above-average stats in either his first or second set of 16 starts. If he doesn't, it's extremely unlikely he's destined for greatness. "Not destined for greatness" doesn't necessarily mean "complete bust." A non-great QB might still turn out to be the next Ryan Fitzpatrick or Neill O'Donnell. Which isn't ideal, but is better than nothing.

Good post! I don't know whether Tuel will succeed or fail in the NFL. But if he fails, it sounds like his failure story won't involve arm strength. It's good to have reassurance about this aspect of him. On another matter, I appreciate The Senator's comments about Tuel. It's good to hear from those who'd watched him in college.

> So, based on their first two years of play, Brady, Favre, and Kelly were much more likely to be Mark Sanchez. The text you quoted referred to whether a QB's play was one full standard deviation above the NFL average. It's possible for a QB to be above average, while being less than one full standard deviation above average. The author's contention is as follows: if a QB is destined to be great, one of the following will almost certainly be true: He will be statistically above-average in either his first or second set of 16 starts. Not necessarily one full standard deviation above average, but above average. There will be extenuating circumstances (a terrible football team). The above represents the only predictive conclusion the author makes in the article. Arguments about any predictive conclusions other than that one are straw man arguments.

> I dismissed it with two snaps and a circle. You are entitled to your perspective. > And if Brady is the 2nd best QB ever, it would seem to fly in the face of the author's assertion that a QB's first two years predict future greatness. The author's exact words were as follows: *************** I looked at the best 42 quarterbacks to enter the league since 1970. Then I divided each quarterback’s career into sets of 16 starts. Just four of those quarterbacks produced below-average passing numbers in each of their first two sets of 16 starts: three former first overall picks (Bradshaw, Aikman, Testaverde), and Brees. If a quarterback is below-average through two years worth of starts — say, Ryan Tannehill — then it seems highly unlikely that such a player will turn into a franchise quarterback absent extenuating circumstances. In the case of Bradshaw/Aikman/Testaverde, the extenuating circumstances were landing with terrible teams; for Brees, well, he also landed with the worst team in the league: the Chargers went 1-15 the year before he arrived, and Brees was the first pick in the second round. *************** The author isn't saying that for a QB to have a great career, he has to be great at some point in his first two years. He's saying that if a QB fails to be above average in either his first or second set of 16 starts, it's very unlikely he'll go on to have a great career.

> Brady, Favre, Kelly: solid but not spectacular? This analysis lacks credibility based on that conclusion alone. You might want to reread the relevant parts of the article. ********* Brady finished as slightly above-average in RANY/A in each of his first three seasons as a starter. . . . It wasn’t until 2004 that he had his first great statistical season ******** ********* [Favre] played well his first three years, but he wasn’t Brett Favre good. ********* According to his method of ranking quarterbacks' careers, Tom Brady is the second-best QB ever, and Brett Favre is the 16th best quarterback ever. His ranking method isn't the one I would use, and his conclusions aren't identical to those I'd reach. But it's not like anything he's written is so oddball that his credibility can be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

> I respectfully but strenuously disagree with your approach toward the qb position. Fair enough. But if you reread Kelly's post, and then my response, you'll see that I was joking around. > Even with Losman no one really knew in advance whether he was going to be a successful qb. This point, and several others you've raised, deserve discussion. But not in this thread, which should remain about Tuel. > You need to participate more. Your observations and contributions positively add to the discussions. Thank you. I enjoy reading your posts as well.

I appreciate the lucidity of your post. And the clarity of thought of your posts in general. You've obviously spent a lot of time watching football, thinking about football, and generally preparing yourself for the season. Unfortunately, all that preparation will have been wasted if EJ stinks.

I don't see what the problem is. He was asked a question and answered honestly. If I was in his place, I wouldn't look forward to three games in four days either.

Canadians seem like a good bunch. But by "Canadians" I mean most Canadians. Not anyone affiliated with the ownership of the Rogers group. There are plenty of filthy rich Americans I don't trust; and the ownership of Rogers seems cut from the same cloth.

There is another way to reduce torque/rotational forces. A helmet should have two layers: a hard outer shell and an inner layer. When some rotational force is applied to the outer layer, it will rotate along with the force. But the inner layer does not rotate. As a result, the rotational force isn't transmitted from the outer layer to the inner layer. Or at worst, it gets transmitted but largely dissipated.

You are right. If it's okay with you, I'll respond to recent posts by Bill from NYC and FeartheLosing. They seem to want to engage in serious football discussion (as opposed to name-calling). Bill from NYC> EA, what were the stats on Chris Chandler. Chris Chandler: 7.1 (1988 - 2004) > QBs themselves are protected and back in the day, there were safeties such as George Atkinnson, Steve > Atwater, Ronnie Lott, etc. who would KILL receivers over the middle. Receivers now own the middle. You'd think that this change would cause yards per attempt to increase. But for whatever reason, the elite QBs of today aren't putting up any higher yards per attempt stats than the elite QBs of 20, 30, or even 40 years ago. I don't have an explanation for why yards per attempt stats haven't increased. All I know is that they haven't. FeartheLosing> College coaches usually have a difficult time making the transition to the NFL, especially if they have never coached at the NFL level. Agreed. I'm normally not a guy to want to hire a college coach with no NFL experience. But when the college coach in question is doing something truly innovative, and getting extremely good results, that's sometimes enough to overcome my anti-college coach bias. Bill Belichick's name sometimes gets thrown around as a guy who's very innovative on defense. In the past, the same had been said about Bill Walsh on offense. If you can find a guy like that in the college ranks, the potential upside he offers can be more than sufficient to compensate for the downside. > Anyway, I know I'd rather see new owner Terry Pegula hire someone like Bill Cowher who is a proven NFL winner over then some unknown college coach. Bear in mind that you may not be getting the same Bill Cowher today that the Steelers had back in the '90s. As people get older, they gradually lose their mental flexibility--the ability to change and adapt their thinking to new situations. It's also possible Cowher doesn't have the same fire and passion he had a couple of decades ago. I'm not trying to paint too bleak a picture here. For example, Joe Gibbs was a reasonably good coach in his second stint with the Redskins. Belichick is still a good coach, even if he's not as good as he once was. My own instinct is to hire a coach at his peak; instead of an aging guy who is no longer as creative, passionate, or driven as he may once have been.

I agree the Bills' offensive line in 2013 was unacceptable. > Should this coaching staff / GM fail again this season, I for one won't be sad to see them go. After Gailey was fired, I'd wanted the Bills to hire Chip Kelly. The thing I like about Kelly is that he's innovative, outside-the-box, and very, very productive. The reason a guy like Dick Jauron is the opposite of these things is because Jauron lacked either the ability or self-confidence to know when or how to step outside the lines. Jauron's conventional approach was due to his lack of ability; just as Kelly's unconventional approach was because of an excess of ability. When the Bills hired Marrone, I was initially very disappointed. I warmed up to him somewhat. But I'm wondering if the Bills might have been better off with someone Kelly-like all along. I've read that Oregon has a Chip Kelly clone as its new head coach. If Marrone gets fired, I'd like to see us investigate that guy as a potential coaching candidate.