Thurman#1

He really isn't conservative, dude. The stats speak to that, he's statistically top ten most aggressive at going for 1sts on 4th down for instance. He certainly was conservative his first couple of years. But he's changed.

First, those might have been blunders. Or might not. Hard to know what would have happened if they'd done something different. But let's say they are blunders, 100%, for argument's sake. Did he have some good calls in the rest of the game? Was everyone else on our team perfect? You can pick two or three plays out of a loss and blame it on virtually anyone. There'll be drops, there'll be plays Allen missed his guy or went to the wrong guy, missed tackles, a fumble ... it goes on and on. Blaming it all on McDermott with that little causation just speaks to not liking the guy. There are legit arguments against some of his decisions. But there are also terrific calls, and folks on your side don't mention those. Oh, and I think we've got a really good shot at beating the Ravens. Particularly at home. I'm with you in that I'd rather see any team other than KC and then the Ravens. But we can beat any team this year. Also we could lose, particularly to KC, the Ravens and maybe the Bengals if Burrow is on a heater.

Agreed with virtually all of this, Bill, until the last couple of sentences. I could be wrong of course, but I don't think Amari gets anywhere near $26M from anyone at his age and with his production this year. Now, if he absolutely destroys the playoffs, I'll be forced to eat my hat on this, but my guess is more like $18M - maybe $20M as his ceiling (excepting one of those wildly high unguaranteed years at the end of the contract that he'll never actually be on the roster for). Again, I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

More like I proved you don't know how stats work. Or more strictly, you proved it, not me. Oh, and you're dead right when you say that comparing Andre Reed is not fair because he came from a different era. Quite right. Which is why I said the exact same thing before you did. Do you actually read the posts you respond to? As for the six guys in my main comparison, though, you're dead wrong, and very obviously. Here's how the comparisons look. DeVonta's numbers are slightly better than Cooper's, but close. Both are in the center of the bell curve. Yes, DK's numbers, as I said, are a lot better. Very impressive. That's a very significant difference. Which is why I said so in my post. You say he's much better as if you're proving me wrong, when you're only agreeing with me. Again, it's as if you don't even read most of the post before you respond. Aiyuk is also better, but the difference is not large. They both fit right into the fat part of the bell curve, around 27 - 36%. You say that Deebo is used differently, and I have to admire you on that one. Excellent red herring. That's a sweet little diversion tactic, a really nice little straw man. In the passing game, they're used much the same, and in fact make an excellent comparison. Their pass yards per year are almost exactly the same, to the yard. Comparing a guy who puts up about 797 yard per year in the pass game over his career to a different guy who puts up 798 yards per year ... well, it's an excellent comparison. Duh. Now, if you threw running stats in, yeah, it would be a horrible comparison. But I didn't do that. In the passing game, they're an extremely sensible comparison. Deebo has 34% to Amari's 35% of Under 40, and 29% (higher) to Amari's 28% in Under 30. So when you say So when you say that Deebo is "a little better than Cooper," at having fewer games of lesser impact in the pass game, that is what we in the business call "wrong." Or at the absolute best, very misleading. In the real world, outside your fervid little imagination, when a guy is 1% higher at one of the two stats, and 1% lower at the other, that is virtually the same. The differences are statistically insignificant. To pretend otherwise says far more about your desperation to be right about this than it does about what the numbers actually say. Like Deebo, Courtland Sutton and George Pickens are also virtually the same as Cooper, the difference is statistically insignificant. Cooper's 35% and 28% to Sutton's 35% and 26% Cooper's 35% and 28% to Pickens& 34% and 26%. Statistically insignificant differences.

I always enjoyed it when announcers referred to guys I'd never seen like Y.A. Tittle or Otto Graham. I'd go read about them and I'd feel like I had some sense of their style. Always made me feel like I was getting deeper into the world of football. Oh, and I like Harlan. Last time I saw Jim Brown he was threatening to mount a comeback in his sixties. And he looked tough and capable enough even then that it almost seemed like he still had a shot.

You've mentioned these numbers several times, percentage of games of under40 yards and under 30 yards. Thought I would do a bit of research on that. Figured I’d start with the six guys I just mentioned above as being good receivers but not top ten true #1 types. Those gus would likely get targets far close to Cooper-type numbers. Here they are, along with the results: DeVonta Smith Under 40 17/62 (27%) Under 30 13/62 (21%) DK Metcalf Under 40 21 /96 (22%) Under 30 12 / 96 (13%) Deebo Samuel Under 40 27/ 80 (34%) Under 30 23 / 80 (29%) Brandon Aiyuk Under 40 20/ 69 (29%) Under 30 13 / 69 (19%) Courtland Sutton Under 40 34 /96 (35%) Under 30 25/96 (26%) George Pickens Under 40 16 / 47 (34%) Under 30 12 / 47 (26%) Metcalf looks terrific in this company, far fewer days with lower numbers. Everyone else looks grouped around the same sort of range, around 27 – 36% for under 40yards, and 19 – 26% for Under 30 yards. Exactly as you'd expect, a rough bell curve and Cooper in the midst of the biggest gathering near the middle of the curve. Thought I’d check Golden Tate, an old favorite of mine, just for the hell of it, too. He’s got a few more games of lower production than Coop. Golden Tate Under 40 67/159 (42%) Under 30 43/159 (27%) This is just how these kinds of numbers look. Then I thought since I’m looking up favorites, why don’t I check Andre Reed. Needless to say, I figured in that era, numbers of lower games would be a bit higher, as the rules hadn’t yet been adjusted to favor the passing game yet. But as I watched Andre I always thought of him as tremendously smooth and consistent. This one’s more for fun than for the comparison, but yeah, Andre was far from consistent if you just look at his lower games, same as anyone would be Andre Reed Under 40 90/229 (39%) Under 30 63/229 (28%) Not as far away as I'd have expected. Hunh.

Yeah, he is spot on. Precisely so. Nearly everyone who's not a real top ten guy fits into the 35 - 45% range. As does Amari. It's what happens, due to variance, to guys who don't get the huge numbers of targets that the top ten guys do. You are obviously comparing him to guys who get a lot more targets. Getting that many targets smooths out the variance, and make it easier at higher target per game numbers to reach the lower numbers you are referring to. Again, look at guys outside of the true #1s and you see his numbers are well within the normal range. They just are. Again, you said this, "The number of games he has under 50, under 40, even under 20 yards is higher than what top end WR1s should have." And again, comparing him to true #1s in ingenuous. He's not one of those guys. He never was. He's never gotten the target numbers they get. You also say, "Go compare how many games Chase has under 20 yards compared to how many Copper has." And again, Cooper doesn't get the number of targets that Chase gets ... not to mention that Chase has had Burrow throwing to him rather than lesser figures who were throwing to Cooper. Oh, and will you stop pretending that I am against you as to whether we should re-sign him? If you're curious about what i think - why would you be? And yet you keep bringing it up in your replies to me - go read what I've written about it. It's not that far back. Till you do that, stop replying to me about it. I've never mentioned it since you and I started talking. Yes, few catches in the last four of his 6 games. But it's just dumb to pretend that we know why that is, and that the reason is that Cooper isn't good enough. Pure nonsense. Is it because he's injured and not as explosive as usual? Maybe. Is it because Josh isn't confident they're on the same page? Likely, IMO, but certainly that meets the Maybe Standard. Is it because they want to save him for the playoffs? Maybe. Is it because he simply hasn't had a lot of snaps? Because he hasn't. Maybe. Is it because he just isn't very good? I greatly doubt it after seeing those terrific plays he made, but t's absolutely not impossible. Could be something else. Fact is, you simply don't know, regardless of how well that fits your narrative. I don't know either, don't get me wrong. But if I've got a narrative it's that we don't know yet how well he'll do. That's far more defensible, not to mention sensible.

Joe Marino in his All-22 review: "Kaiir Elam, definitely not as bad as I think some people felt watching the broadcast tape. "On the one touchdown that he gave up to Kayshawn Boutte, I thought it was a really silly defensive play call on a third and four if I'm not mistaken, just straight man coverage and Drake Maye just hit his back foot and threw it up.It was a great throw, it was a great catch but let's not act like that wasn't sticky coverage. I mean Kaiir Elam was probably an inch away from deflecting that ball. "I thought his run defense and his tackling was really good in this game. And so I don't find myself down on Kaiir Elam. I find myself optimistic with a young player that I think just needs reps. And I think he should absolutely be given an opportunity to be the starter next year. "Again, certainly didn't feel like it was this disaster performance that I think some people are feeling like coming out of the game."

It's very very clear that at this point he's no longer keeping him out because he has no zone experience. That was a year or two ago. At this point they're keeping him out because Benford is better. Douglas also, but not so much lately. Douglas may be coming back to Elam, whether from age or injury or whatever.

Yeah, I get that it's not about that there is variance in the first place. And yes, it's about the significance of the variance. Get all of that and didn't say anything different. The fact that there's a ton of variance means that pretty much everyone has stats that are pretty similar to that, 45% of games under 50 yards is in the ordinary range, 35% - 45% is what people tend to be grouped around. That's the results of variance. There are a few higher than that, most particularly the few true #1s who tend to get an absolute ton of targets. And comparing him to "top end WR1s" is disingenuous. He was never a true #1. He was a top end #2 for most of his career probably, top 20 - 30 or so but he was never a top ten guy, he just wasn't. Although his QBs may have played into that. So yes, MDH is spot on. Yes, game by game, Amari's been a boom or bust type of guy. Nearly everyone is. That's how the stats work if you're not getting top ten targets, for guys like DeVonta Smith, DK Metcalf, Deebo, Aiyuk, Courtland Sutton, George Pickens ... Oh, Nico Collins is at almost 50%, though there are reasons, but that's just the point ... in a lot of games there are reasons, for everyone. Xavier Worthy is way over, though I only mention him because he's on so many people's minds here, apparently, he's not really a fair case study as a rookie.

Hell, no. They hate the Bills.

No, he's right on. This is how stats work. These numbers have high variance. Of course most of his production will come in around 30 - 40% of his games. Again, that's how it works for most data sets of this type. You get some good games, some average games and some not so good. Most of the production comes in the good games. That's just how the numbers work. Look at James Cook. 928 total rush yards in 14 games. Four games over 100 yards. So 46% of his production came in just four of his fourteen games. Does that mean he sucked in the rest or that his production is only sporadic? No, it's how this all works. Throw in Cook's next highest game and you find that he got 505 yards in his best five games. Meaning in the rest of his games he only averaged 47 yards per game in his worst nine games. That's just how stats work. Take out the best games and the rest will show a pretty low average. It's just math in cases when a guy gets on the average around seven or eight targets a game or around 11 or 12 carries a game. There's going to be a lot of variance. And when there is a lot of variance, then if you take out the top 30 - 40% of games, the rest will average quite low. Leaving out this year, when he's been fighting injury and dealing with a completely new offensive system (and in Cleveland a horrible situation this year), in 2021 - 2023, Coop totalled four games under 20 yards. Chase had two in the same period. Out of roughly 50 games, three seasons, that's not a significant difference. Unsurprisingly, three of Coop's games below 20 came in Cleveland. Having Joe Burrow throwing to you rather than Massage King will smooth out your variance a bit. But not a lot, as MDH showed. This is how everyone's stats look, or rather the huge majority of guys stats, though if you get so many more targets, as Chase does, you will have fewer extremely low totals such as under 20 yards. But you will still average a lot lower in your bottom 60 or 70% of your games. It's just math, and math works the same for everyone. This year Chase has only had one game where he got less than 6 targets (5 vs. KC) and only six games with less than 8 targets. Whereas Cooper in Buffalo this year has had two games with more than three targets. And one of those two (vs. LA) he had 14 targets. That's variance.

Both Keon and Cooper were out Week 10. And the offense rolled along just fine.

Yeah, and DaQuan, who I thought played better against the Pats, hasn't been as good overall as he was last year, and he's an absolute key guy for this Bills DL. McDermott's D has always depended on having one huge guy in the middle to make it easier on the smaller lineups they put around that guy. When the big fella isn't quite doing what he usually does, there's nobody really to take up the slack. We don't have another monster in the middle of that type. But I think what many here are missing is that Terrell himself has missed games for injury. He played 18% of snaps in Week 2, 0 in Weeks 3 and 4 and 0 in Week 8. Ankle and pec. That also may well be a big part of the reason he's not playing quite as well.

What, specifically? I read your post and went back through and read every post, hoping to find something, and I didn't, really. Yeah, we might be holding him back for the playoffs. Or not. That's wishful thinking. Could be true, but there's no logical reason to specifically think so. Yeah, the offense got better when he got here, but we were just as good with him on the bench as we were with him on the field. He's made seven or eight really excellent plays. But so have most of our skill position guys. There are a lot of other likely reasons for our offensive improvement around mid-season. I wouldn't expect to see anything much that breaks any trends the next two weeks now, without much to play for. Hopefully he really shows out in the playoffs. I'm hoping so, but not holding my breath.

I mean, you can say that "the offense has been on another level since he was added to the team," as you did. It's not dead wrong, but it's not right on, either. Amari's first game on the field was Week 7, and that was when the offense took off. But he was off the field completely for Weeks 9 and 10 and there was no letdown. Looks to me far more about correlation than causation. IMO a huge chunk of that improvement is what was to be expected from the beginning of the season, that it would take a bunch of time to see who did what well and who didn't, and to get used to playing together. Josh's WRs this year, other than Shakir, had never played with Josh before. Samuel had played with Brady before but none of the others had. This was always likely to take some time to figure out. If Amari had been the reason for the offense getting better around mid-season, how come we weren't worse in Weeks 9 and 10 with him on the bench? Causation here is really really questionable. Has he likely helped some? Absolutely. But there is very likely a host of other reasons that have resulted in the larger portions of that improvement. Correlation, not causation.

Joe Marino pointed out that Josh went to his first read a very low percentage of the time, by far the lowest this season. It seemed like part of our problem is that Josh was thinking about the home run ball way too often again. When he said that, it sounded right to me. When he takes what they give very often, this offense is seriously dangerous.

46% of the snaps against Detroit. We looked unstoppable with him and without him.

He won't be paid like a #1 wideout. Probably not even if he acts like one for the next six games. He'll be 31 next season and he wasn't wildly productive this year with either team. The question is whether we want to pay him like a top-level #2. That he'll probably get from someone. He got $20M a year for his last contract. My guess is he won't get that again, but maybe closeish, $12 - $18, depending how productive he is during the playoffs. Yet another guess is that we wouldn't pay that unless the other terms were quite team-friendly, allowing an easy and relatively painless cut if things didn't work out that well. This is all assuming - as I do - that he's still having health problems that are limiting his effectiveness. Nah, not at all. He's playing less than 50% of snaps and we're not noticeably less productive with him out there than we are when he's on the bench.

This, at least so far. But it's fairly likely that he's having some kind of problem right now, probably physical. We don't know the whole story yet. It'll be interesting finding out what is going on.

We are not not "typically ... seeing average to below average QBs have their best days throwing on us." This wasn't Maye's best day, he's had probably three better days in the last five weeks or so. The guys who looked terrific against us are Goff and Stafford most recently . They are very far from average to below average. This was supposed to be a rebuild year and we're maybe seeing it recently, as the safety problem hits home and we weren't able to bring in a pass rusher to replace Floyd other than maybe our rookie pick who if he does turn out to be a good one will likely take a while, which you'd think he would as a mid-round edge. Thought DaQuan wouldn't be a problem, though, and he's just not having a very good year.

Nonsense. They've been damn good way past 2017. Right up to last year, when healthy. This year, though, there's an issue, and it's real. Will it go away when we get healthy? Hard to say. Hope so. Can't be said for sure, either way. But they need to bring in a serious pass rusher if at all possible next year. Last year with Floyd, they had a respectable rush. This year not so much yet.

Don't know if he's washed, it might be some kind of temporary issue. But yeah, he's not the guy he used to be, and it's really showing in the run game. And the pass game as well, really. But the rest of the line is mostly smaller guys. McDermott's D needs that 1-tech to force and eat double-teams. DaQuan did it the past couple of years but he's not doing it at nearly as high a level this year.

Funny, I thought McDermott said pretty much the exact opposite. McDermott: "...Also, not really knowing, Baylon tweaked his calf on Thursday I believe it was, not really knowing if either of those guys would be available as well, and didn't want to overload either one of them so just trying to patch it together best we could there and applaud Dorian for going out there and being able to stay out there. So unfortunately again for Baylon with this calf and, just having one of those years it seems like. Skurski: How much of that was maybe playing it safe given where you are in the season and where you are in the standings versus they just weren't ready to go. McDermott: It's funny because we have those conversations with out training staff, it's like, "Hey, we're not holding anybody just because of this or that because every week it's tough. But certainly understanding already being in the playoffs, but you're also, you're trying to improve your football team overall, so, they just weren't ready overall, Jay, in answer to your question. But you're trying to get your team with some level of continuity so you can develop this player playing next to this player and then this player playing next to this player over here, and the symmetry, the connectivity of a defense. At the end of the day, those guys weren't ready to play. And that was from our medical staff.

"A lot" is a major exaggeration. When the Bills are a big favorite they tend to win big, but it is true that a few times that does not happen and they don't play to expectations. On the other hand, division games are often tougher than they look to be on the surface, and that's true around the league, not just in Western NY.