BADOLBILZ

When Morse came out of Missouri he was a pretty good right tackle prospect.........if he's not a center here I think he's done in Buffalo because of the contract.........but if he moves on he might try a position change because you just can't protect your head with one arm between your legs at the snap.

This thread is an interesting dissection of the overzealous mindset. 1) The first response was the quintessential "shout down". 2) Then we have people who are consistently defensive of any criticism of the organization as a rule......but openly admit to being emotionally harmed after reading the article. 3) Then you have another faction the "well Mahomes wouldn't have been as good here" or "the organization felt the same as I did" crowd. If you have a mindset like these...........you may very well be a fanatic.........but you are going to be very difficult to have rational discussion with. 1) The reality is.........it's just a game.......if a hypothetical presented by an article like this has the power to anger or depress you then it's because you let it........it's certainly not the author's fault. 2) And why does it matter if an owner who has proven he can be the steward of total incompetence(Sabres/Rex) wanted to pick a QB and the football people did not? We've long known it was an epic mistake to pass on Mahomes........the wrong guy wanting to make the right call doesn't make it any worse. 3) Accepting the mistake and learning from it(why it happened etc..) makes the fanbase more knowledgeable and that's always a good thing.......being a better educated consumer makes it harder for the seller to get away with substandard work. And this is where the "they see things like I do" mindset is an "L" for the fanbase............presuming this like-mindedness......as far too many fans do with regard to new hires or personnel decisions........it just takes away any objectivity. And when the organization knows that you will go into default acceptance they then know they can just re-package the same mistakes over and over if it suits their level of interest in winning. And then you are susceptible to what Ralphy gave us for most of his tenure as owner.

1) The Bills are legit SB contenders the same way that Manning's SB winning Broncos were and Flacco's SB winning Ravens were. The Steelers and Patriots were much better all around teams than those Broncos......but injuries to those teams opened up a path for a team with woeful QB play...........and on the flip side Flacco just got red hot and the Ravens upset Manning and Brady. And the other SB that Manning won in Indy they got there because half the Patriots team was ill with the flu. If ever there was a postseason that could go sideways for the teams with the highest SB odds, it's THIS one. 2) The story about Pegula wanting to select Mahomes was out there immediately after that draft...........it was discussed here. @thebandit27 talked about it, among others.

Not blinking for a couple weeks..........yikes........sounds like he's toast.

Yeah they also may be thinking about cutting ties with Morse after the season to save the $5M to help re-sign the healthier and better center............and his salary probably has injury guarantees if he is still not cleared in late March........which would be a concern if he gets another concussion. They already more than doubled down on their cap issues at the DT1T by cutting Dareus and signing Star to that fat contract.............getting Eric Wood-ed again by Morse and having to pay Feliciano at the same time would be disappointing.

He doesn't deserve it. Underachiever...........and changing teams was a mistake if he wanted to make it too the HOF..........he had just made a nice transition inside in Buffalo and could have been so much better in that Cottrell/Wade defense in the late 90's. Instead he made himself look like something of a journeyman even though he played pretty well in ATL and INDY. This is probably his best chance though.........the greater appreciation of athletic LB play........a lot of people might say he'd be even better in today's NFL and that's always a good look...........and as for his past legal troubles, the 2020 focus on mistreatment of black men in the judicial system and kind of a quiet backlash against perhaps overreactions in the "me too" movement.........and the fact that so many people have much bigger fish to fry than nitpicking the character of NFL HOF'ers..........it's probably his "Harold Baines" window right now or never, IMO.

Yeah and IMO Feliciano is also a much better center than he is a guard. Additionally........with improving the run game a priority.......you have to wonder if Morse is going to be more tentative at the point of attack. It's not like the play he got hurt on was an unexpected hit.........it's standard operating procedure for the Patriots LB's to try to blow up run plays that way if they anticipate a combo block coming. It isn't out of the question that Feliciano/Winters might be better than Morse/Feliciano.........and that's knowing that Winters is just not good.

I am so glad Brady decided not to go out on top. It's really made for a lot of enjoyable prime time NFL games this season.

The list of huge one year jumps for QB's is long.........they used to call it "the light coming on". Unless it's just limited to Bills QB's I wouldn't even put Allen in that category...........he's made big strides but he was one of the more accurate short to intermediate passers last season and stopped turning the ball over mid-season 2019 etc.......yeah he freaked out in the second NE game and missed some layups and later in the second half of the wildcard game............but he was a good QB on a very positive trajectory and had some fantastic games last year.

I am sure there would be a nice list of players that could have been franchise QB's today.............but the pool of available talent has been opened up by the opening up of the passing game. A guy like Kyler Murray.....a legit high first round pick in MLB.......he takes that multi-million $ baseball contract 12 years ago. Patrick Mahomes is probably steered into MLB as well. There was no way a guy like Charlie Ward was turning down easy back-of-round-1 NBA money back in the mid-90's to earn his stripes at QB in that NFL.......in today's dollars he made the equivalent of $50M in his 11 year NBA career............but nowadays with all the advantages that athletic QB's have it would have been a no brainer to go NFL and be great and potentially earn 5-10 times that instead of just a be decent NBA player. The passer freedom and earnings potential has just opened up the game to a much broader group of players so the pool of talent isn't as limited as it was 15 years ago.

I would have to think on the more recent guys but the 3 Chris's from the late 80's and 90's are the one's that come most quickly to mind. Chris Chandler.......aka "Chris-tal Chandelier" Chris Miller Jim "Chrissy" Everett They would have absolutely feasted in this NFL..........I mean those guys could deal the ball...........they just couldn't deal with getting more violent hits in a rough start than good QB's get in an entire season now. All three of them might have played into the 2000's with todays protections as well.

That guy appropriately coined the term "the NFL stands for Not For Long".

Maybe the smartest thing that McBeane did wrt their QB choice was to select the guy with the highest ceiling. The days when just having a competent QB made you a threat are kinda' gone..............the studs are inheriting the new NFL. They should have taken that approach with the WR position and drafted Metcalf to pair with Allen.........but I digress.......

The difference was that defenses could always adapt to previous rules changes. Defense's came up with schemes to combat a greater emphasis on passing........like the zone-blitz in the mid 90's........that was designed to address the west coast offense but it was even more of a killer blow to the big meathead down-field passer prototype. And then teams started throwing huge dollars into their pass defenses in the 2000's................CB and pass rusher started collecting the kind of athletic talent that used to gravitate to the RB position. The real savvy vets like Brady and Brees and Manning who could get the ball out quick could adapt to the faster athletes and complex defense's. But the young studs, specifically Rodgers and Roethlisberger, who played a more exciting downfield passing style of game? They were taking a beating and having to play thru a lot of concussions. It was bad optics and just plain bad for business and the future of the sport. So the decision was made to take away the defense's right to be violent. And taking that degree of violence out of the pocket and middle of the field for receivers...........that just took the lid off of the passing game. The next season 7 QB's had top 25 all time passing yardage seasons.........now it's pretty common to have a 5,000 yard passer lead the league and to have young QB's playing well right away. As the passing game has grown and young athletes see these positions can be played relatively safely and great contracts are doled out.........more talent is coming into the league at QB.........which is increasing the odds of hitting on these selections, IMO.

There was a point in Miami when Tannehill was the league's worst deep ball thrower. It was comical. Every team was just daring him to push the ball downfield. Now he is among the best...........he can really drop a deep ball in a bucket to get over an opposing defense. Allen's improvement has been pretty systematic and probably as linear as one could have hoped for a 3 year process.............last year he really advanced his short to intermediate accuracy..........this year his big improvement is basically all the things that are associated with the game "slowing down" for him.........awareness, pocket presence, decision making. So far, his work on improving his deep ball throwing hasn't yielded the desired results though. They are at the point where they might just want to run 40 yard out passes and let him pipe it in on a line(like only he and a select few could) rather than try to get over the top of a defense............case in point the TD throw to Diggs last week.

That pic is with pads. I saw him at minicamp without pads a couple years ago and was taken aback......... he literally looked like his neck and head were 1/3 of his height. Like 4' tall + 2' of headneck.

Gary Anderson..........by far the most successful career of a 7th round pick by the Buffalo Bills.

I am a little more to this side than where @GunnerBill is. Yeah you gotta' be a good teammate and play your role in the Bills defense and he's been a really good story of perseverance. But this defense really props up it's CB's........on MOST teams Levi would be a 5 alarm fire as CB2, IMO. Given the rich history of UFA CB's plucked from McDermott defense's it will be interesting to see if Wallace attracts much attention this winter.

Yeah I think they have to be concerned with the hits he was taking. Earlier in the week Tua basically said he didn't know if he would ever be the same player he used to be physically. And today we saw that. He doesn't move well.........there were plays where MOST young QB's can get away from the rush or get to the edge running the ball.......but Tua........who used to be quick and fast.......couldn't. The biggest concern with him was obviously that he has had a myriad of ankle/knee/hip issues...........I mean it was thought by many that they would basically redshirt him this year to get his hip as healthy as possible..........so I wouldn't be very surprised to see them go back to that plan.

Yes, it's quite obvious that they were. It became A LOT easier to be a successful QB than it was prior to those rule enforcement changes. It's not a real blurry line when things changed either.........Cam Newton threw for a rookie record 422 yards in his first NFL game in 2011.

I can accept those odds because 1 in 7 ain't bad at all.........it certainly makes no sense to wait 60 years to pick one with your originally slotted first pick(or trade up from it) in round 1 with those odds(but of course, the Bills did). A 1 in 7 chance would be top-4 Vegas odds to win the SB this year. 1 in 5.......hell that would trail only the Chiefs who are at 7/2. But in reality the odds are probably higher. From 2011-2019......beginning when the new level of passer freedom kicked in: 28 QB's drafted in round 1 8 franchise QB's.....Newton, Luck, Goff, Mahomes, Watson, Allen, Jackson, Murray......including 3 MVP winners. 29% franchise QB hits over that span. And that's fairly conservative......it doesn't count Tannehill or Wentz who have had season long stretches where they have looked like top 5 QB's. And the jury is still out on a bunch of others. So really we are probably looking at more like a 1 in 3 "expected" hit rate at this point. Those are GREAT odds. And the 2020 class has Burrow, Tua and Herbert in it's class of 4.......who all could be on that "likely franchise QB" list by this time next year.........which would put the 5 year hit rate around 50%. I understand why people want to feel amazed.........but we aren't talking about the odds of a Lloyd Christmas/Mary Swanson hookup here.

There was also some crazy stat about Singletary running against a ton of 6 man boxes while Gore saw almost exclusively stacked ones.

Right now.......NFL players in order of desirability in trade IMO: 1.Mahomes 2.Russ 3.Watson 4.Allen 5.Murray 6.Herbert Watson thru Allen different teams might move them around but Mahomes and Russ are the top 2. Even at Russ' age.......he looks like a guy who has 7-8 years of this left in him which is worth the potential of the next 4 guys on the list rising to his level and playing 10-15 more years. The big faller is Lamar Jackson........he would have been top 4 before the season.......and I don't think he's out of the top 10 yet.........he hasn't passed as well as hoped but his potential as a passer is still very high.

@Doc came to the exact same 15% number independently. I remember agreeing with @Kirby Jackson about the players he determined to be franchise QB level.........perhaps Doc can show his work. In any event I do think that number is too low nowadays. It included a lot of guys from pre-2010 NFL. So far the 2017 and 2018 drafts have produced QB league MVP's in 2018 and 2019...........and Allen looks like the real deal as well. I also suspect Darnold will go to Indy or San Fran next season and within two years emerge as a franchise QB. So 3 of 8 now........but I suspect 4 of 8 will end up being franchise QB's from those two classes. 2019 class may prove a total dud but the 2020 class looks like it will produce a couple more. Lawrence is darn near a sure thing in 2020. Unless there are like 15 QB's taken in round one of 2020 and all but Lawrence flames out I suspect that 5 year sample is going to be a lot higher than 15%. It's never been easier to play QB in the NFL.........I don't think anyone disputes that.........so I don't think it's a surprise that the hit rate on QB's in round one is trending upward.

It's important to remember that this system is VERY cornerback friendly. It's easy to forget NOW that there was also this sentiment for Levi Wallace and Taron Johnson in their rookie years..........like good starters had been found on the cheap........particularly Johnson who had developed a Kiko-esque reputation as an excellent slot corner. We can always hope that Jackson sustains what he's shown but given the easy success so many find at CB in McDermott's system we are going to have to see a lot more before we can call him a really good NFL corner.