Hapless Bills Fan

Exactly, This.

2 facts walked into a bar……, IOW, no Look around this thread

We have 3 CB on the practice squad. Think the idea is if a guy is injured, we elevate one of them. Can't deny that it's slim pickin's tho

The guy who gave us fits last time we played the Stillers was Cam Heyward. To un-stall our O we had to switch up the routes the WR were running to put Diggs on shorter, faster developing routes and we made some change to our blocking scheme, my memory fails me. But IIRC he was still pretty much in Allen's face all game. Anyway, Hayward's the guy I hope we've got a plan for. Bates is not going to be inactive as he was our #2 center all preseason and can play any position across the line. Doyle should be inactive at this point. At least one DLman will have to be inactive. That still gives McDermott and Frazier plenty of DL to rotate. Basham would be my guess.

It has to do (IMO) with people using two different definitions of "regression" as I outlined above. People don't believe he will regress in the "returning to a former less developed state...talent has declined" sense. I think most people understand he could decline in the statistical "regression to the mean" sense, especially if we have a better run game and run more, or if defenses play us in a way that forces him to dink and dunk more.

Perhaps. But how were you on Fitzpatrick? And in the post to which I responded, you weren't just speaking for yourself. You said "Fans want their team to win football games, but short of that they want to be entertained. Fitzpatrick, for all his flaws, was an entertaining quarterback to watch. Taylor, equally flawed, was not." That is revisionist history, IMO. There was a point where Taylor was an entertaining QB for fans to watch. We loved his scrambles - and those deep balls! And there was a point where Fitzpatrick was not perceived by fans as particularly entertaining.

Seemed bringing in an average QB who would improve the offense to average was Rex Ryan's plan to get the Bills to the playoffs and break the drought. When he took over, we had the #4 defense in the league and the #18 offense on points. Seemed like his idea was, take that #4 defense and improve the offense to top-10 or close to that, and we're "In", it's "On". So he brought in an OC who had offensive success all the way to the Superbowl with a "meh" QB who could run and a creative run game, and a QB who could run and throw deep and who was careful with the football - not throwing game-changing picks. Well, that part worked as intended, but the defense tanked I think there's some revisionist history here. In 2015, relative to EJ Manuel, Thad Lewis, Jeff Tuel etc - Taylor WAS entertaining. He was exciting and fast when he ran, and he threw a pretty deep ball and also passed decently to wide open receivers. In 2016, when the offensive productivity dipped because teams had tape on what Taylor wouldn't try so they could focus on shutting down what he did well, fans started to get restless. Then in 2017 when the Bills abandoned the offense that suited Taylor AND jettisoned all the good WR on the team (Watkins, Woods, Goodwin), then tried to make him a pocket passer throwing to Deonte Thompson, Andre Holmes, Zay Jones, and Fat Kelvin Benjamin, it became pretty Grim. There was a similar phenomenon with Fitzpatrick. He was a blessed relief when he replaced Trent Edwards, and we were vastly entertained in 2011 when the Bills started 5-2. Then when we had a 7 game losing streak and it became clear his penchant for throwing game-turning picks at the worst time was not a skin he would shed, he became "the worst QB in the league" "Pickspatrick" "he sucks" etc etc. He was not seen as very entertaining.

True Dat. He was also given Todd Haley as his offensive coordinator. This is probable. I think the point is that he's still in the league because while he's not the guy you pursue as the Franchise, he's 24-21-1 as a starter, and a QB who can win at least half the games for you as a backup has value.

It shouldn't be overlooked that Zimmer seems determined to make himself hard to part with, and so does Obada

So, uh, what's his explanation for putting the SB Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers a tier below GB and on a par with the Rams and SF? Never mind, I actually don't care. Fortunately for all concerned, football games are played on Sunday and occasionally other days of the week, not on paper.

What's scary to me is that bad as they were, I think they were better than Allen had the following season - Zay Jones, Fat Kelvin, Bob Foster, and Jason Croom with return performances from Charles "feet of" Clay aye yi yi

Possible. But the D giving up a TD to the Ravens from the 9 yard line instead of picking it and running it back for a TD could have lost us the Ravens game too. Or, the D getting a stop or making a play in the 2017 playoff game could have won it. My point is that our memories tend to be selective, and we forget that defensive and ST play tend to have big roles in the playoffs. Bortles only passed 23 times for 75 yards in that game, vs. >200 yds in his next two playoff games that season, so it's not like game conditions were perfect for a pass-a-palooza (and of course, same was true of the Ravens game) Allen shows far far more ceiling as a passer than any QB we've had since Kelly retired, but let's not pretend he's been an unstoppable offensive juggernaut in all our games

While throwing to Charles Clay, Deonte Thompson, Nick O'Leary, and Zay Jones, and Jordan Matthews, let's not forget that.

As far as I'm concerned, he's a Great HC. He persuaded the Texans to hire him instead of pursuing Frazier or Daboll. Good work, Coach!

Congratulations! If that is your Biggest Beef against the man, you have just won the Award of Merit for Nothingburger I'm sure when he was the backup QB in Baltimore, everyone was crowding his locker all the time, asking him how to pronounce his name 🙄 True, Dat. If he'd passed for 188 yds on 37 attempts it woulda been SOoooooOOOooo much better!

I mean, you could be right - the Steelers clearly had "upgrade the run game" in mind when they signed Trai Turner to replace DeCastro then drafted Najee Harris, Kendrick Green, and Dan Moore Jr. And their OL may in fact, become a better run-blocking OL and a better OL overall than they were last year. They could be Men of Steel on a Mission. But shouldn't they have to prove they can get 'er done before we concede them the middle of our D? That's 2 rookies, a guy who played 4 games last season, a legit former all-pro guard who had a very bad year last season, and Okorafor who hasn't yet become what they hoped he would.

Having Milano injured then out, Edmunds injured, Phillips not all the way back from ACL, and no one else who really wanted to play 1TDT didn't help, certainly - but even with all that, I don't think we had enough hosses who could "affect the QB". Beane seems to have taken the pragmatic approach that if he couldn't afford to hire or draft a sure-fire talent,throw enough plausible bodies at the problem and hopefully 2 or 3 will work out.

The amount of projection around here is astounding. That's not what he was saying.

-So you make up a narrative - that Tyrod planned to be a career backup in the NFL -You ignore or shunt aside any evidence that refutes this - F -For example, Taylor was drafted by the Ravens and had no choice about the team or his role on it for 4 years -The MOMENT he became a free agent he signed with a team where he was promised an honest chance to compete for starter - which he did, successfully ,and then started for 3 years -The man played his ass off to win the Bills their first playoff appearance in 17 seasons -When the Bills moved on from him, they traded him - again, no choice about the team he played for or his role on it -Nevertheless, he has competed for and been announced as the starter on 3 other teams since then (Browns, Chargers, Texans) His whole career either refutes or fails to support your narrative Then, based on the narrative you create (which is out of sync with the reality of his actual career), you declare that you don't respect him Un. Be. Lievable. Tyrod is a competitor. If he wanted to be a career backup, instead of signing with the Chargers he could arguably have tried to sign with the Ravens where he might be seen as an ideal backup for Lamar Jackson but would have 0 chance to compete for a starting job. His problem is that he's never been able to adapt to the NFL passing game, where the QB has to throw with anticipation and into tight windows

One of our problems last year was that the defense was only part-time good, resulting in our having a middle-of-the-pack defense (16th on points, 14th on yards, 15th on sacks, 18th on pressures). We need the defense to take a step to "overall good, part time awesome". It's pretty common that teams who win championships have at least a top-10 defense - it's been true for the last 8 seasons.

I think Fairburn is conflating, or at least failing to clearly distinguish between two different usages of the term "regression" There's "regression" in the statistical sense, "regression to the mean", where a player's outlier statistical performance (say, Barry Bonds hitting 73 HR in 2001) is followed by a return to something closer to more typical numbers of his career (45-46 HR) - which while still good, are not jaw-dropping. Then there's a very common usage meaning something like “returning to a former less developed state.” ....... if a good player gets worse, they can be said to have regressed. That is, their talent has declined." To the former, in Football, there are all kinds of reasons for this type of regression having little to do with the player himself: change of scheme to something less conducive to high numbers; loss of supporting cast that enabled the great results; change in the way other teams defend him, requiring a change in offensive approach; change in other aspects of our team which enable a change in strategy. We know that the first two aren't in play for Josh barring injury. Other teams are absolutely going to change how they defend us, and then the question is "will it help them, or will we succeed anyway?" Then, last year our D early on showed it could squander a 25 point lead, so the O had better keep the pedal to the metal and go balls-out. If our D is more effective at shutting other teams down and we're more effective at running the ball, playing "possession football" be an effective game-closing strategy for us and would cut down passing numbers. To the latter, it's happened before that a player has a "Wonderboy" season that constitutes an anomaly in his career. I think there's nothing anomalous about last year's season for Josh, I think it was progress driven by fiendishly hard work, and represents "getting a lot better at football" that is unlikely to regress. Time Will Tell. We as fans get annoyed by people who use the statistical definition because we feel they're using the talent-decline definition

I know it's a pipe dream but I hope Tyrod lights them up

Interview with SMU's former QB, now playing in the CFL: https://www.wivb.com/sports/cfl-qb-shares-what-its-like-to-play-with-beasley-sanders-on-same-team/ Apparently there are pitfalls: I remember an interview with Beasley where he talked about how he and Josh look at film and discuss what he's going to do against certain coverages - and then he (Beasley) has to do that, even if in the moment he sees something else will work better "or there are going to be a lot of INTs". Thad Brown put this up as an example of extraordinary effort, but it seems to me it's an example of necessary effort. Clearly on the first pass, Allen and Beasley weren't on the same page about which option Beasley would run. On the second, Beasley ran the same route he ran on the first rep and Allen threw that route. On the third, Beasley ran the route Allen threw to on the first rep, and Allen threw to the same route as the first rep It's really the minimum needed to get on the same page, with a WR like Beasley The dude commentating the Denver game last year made it sound as though Beasley could just go out there and run whatever route he wanted in the moment, but that's clearly Baloney

Saw this on Sal Capaccio's twitter, hadn't seen before. Location of new stadium Does anyone know whose football field/track would get taken over there - HS? ECCC?

That was pretty amazing..."he's going in the wrong direction....wait a minute....now he's going in the right direction...he's got blockers..."