BADOLBILZ

Approximately 15% of 1st round QB's become franchise QB's........and only about 25% of first rounders at all positions play up to the expectation when drafted...........better than half fail to even get their 5th year options picked up. If the difference between a 15% chance and 25% chance is where they draw the line between expectation and astonishment then I'd suggest that person is easily amazed. Fans like to create narratives that include things like destiny and a singular stroke of good fortune etc.............like Josh Allen becoming good means something magical has happened............there isn't anything mystical going on they just finally addressed their basic math problems.........the most likely place to find a franchise QB is round 1.......and you miss 100% of the chances you don't take. And their timing was right because the 2017 and 2018 classes are going to produce double or triple the average amount of franchise QB's.

Last season, New Orleans now-third-string QB Jameis Winston also surpassed Dan Marino's then-and-long-time record 1984 season passing yardage total of 5,084. The passing yardage numbers of today are great for creating faux awe and "shattering" the seemingly modest records of QB's past.............but obviously totally out of perspective relative to those before the 2010 rule enforcement changes. It's a disservice to Jim Kelly and even Drew Bledsoe to act like passing their yardage totals TODAY means much.

Yep. The last truly great NFL game of the "violent era" might have been the 2013 NFC Championship game between the Niners and Seahawks in January 2014. It was a crossover.......a lot of the new protections were in place.......but the styles those two teams played allowed for a throwback. It was an extremely violent clash between two Super Bowl championship worthy division rivals that absolutely hated each other. You can't beat the perspective and drama that the old ultra-violent game created on it's own...........and it felt like a privilege to watch NFL players beat the living hell out of each other. Today it's not just the lack of violence itself..........the significance of each season has changed now that QB's don't get hit and can get 20+ chances at a Super Bowl ring. I'm glad enough that the NFL is adapting to a more sustainable style of play...........it wasn't very nice of us to celebrate the truly gratuitous violence and the impact it had on players.......so I choose not to actively compare the styles of play when I watch games today. I still love it........still a great game......but obviously no.......it's not as compelling of a product.

I don't think you recall the period after the Denver game.......a year ago this week........when Von Miller blew some smoke up Ford's azz after the game there were a lot of people who thought he was ascending rapidly to stud status. For the rest of the season that game was cited over and over by those who loved the Ford pick.

If "wait's" and "but, but..'s" were candies and nuts oh what a Merry Christmas for TSW!

FWIW.......we already crossed that "15%" bridge before you jumped in to argue. Here is an excerpt from the 6th post in this thread: "QB's are a bit more of a risk.........I think @Kirby Jackson had a data set once that said you could expect about 15% of first round QB's to become franchise QB's........but the reward is so much higher than that of drafting any other position so what was amazing was how few shots the Bills had taken at QB's in round 1 in the prior 58 drafts." As for those odds........a general 15% chance of getting an actual stud franchise QB? Those odds ain't that bad when the chance of getting just a star player at any position is only like 1 in 4. So yes.........based on statistical probability.......fans should anticipate most of their first round picks to be a disappointment on some level.

Among the actual draft picks there hasn't been anyone who has stood out as a likely star...........so early returns aren't exceptional. We have seen flashes of excellent play from some of them........but it's not uncommon for rookies to get lot's of opportunity and playing time out of necessity or just because of the teams draft investment in them. But then when they don't show a lot of improvement their playing time gets cut the next year. Think Brandon Spoon.......starts 14 games for the Bills as a rookie at MLB.........never plays another down in the NFL. For further perspective remember that last year at this time a lot of people felt Cody Ford, Devin Singletary and Dawson Knox looked like studs in the making and they'd fight you if you suggested otherwise. They've all had lousy second seasons and many of the same fans want to fight THEM now. Probably the Bills best looking draft class at midseason in the 2000's was the 2007 class: 1. Marshawn Lynch 2. Paul Posluszny 3. Trent Edwards Fans were thinking we probably had 3 perennial Pro Bowl players.................but none of them even made it to contract #2 with Buffalo. The upside is that in a couple years the players could be a lot better. Fred Jackson was a rookie UDFA on that 2007 team.

This game was maybe McD's best in terms of handling timeouts. It's been said before.......but maybe the most impressive thing about McBeane so far has been their willingness to change/fix things that aren't producing the desired results.

Yeah I tell employees or contractors/accountants/attorneys etc. that I am impressed by their work all of the time..........I can't think of one such instance where either party would find "astonished" as an appropriate synonym. "Your work on that safety audit was astonishing." "Your opening statement was very astonishing." I think it would be simultaneously less appreciated and more expensive to go the "astonished" route.

The entire debate is about magnitude.......I don't know anyone who is just disappointed in Josh Allen to this point. If you trust your own evaluation of a player.........as many of us who follow college football and the draft year round do.........you can make your own assessment.....and if you liked Allen a lot at the time you wouldn't be astonished by his progress now. Or if you just trust McBeane's judgement........then all the work to get to #7 overall to take Allen should have created an expectation that he would be a stud. If you are neither of those type of fans then I can certainly understand you being astonished or shocked or whatever the adjectives...........when you come from a position of no expectation and no personal opinion....... it's easy to be swayed by equally uniformed opinions in the media...........and success probably then feels like it came from nowhere. I'm not really that way with any of the sports I follow closely..........I form my own opinions on players or if I can't see them I at least assign an expectation to them based on the relative value of the chips it took to add them. Personally, my comp for Allen the past 3 years has been John Elway..........but he may be morphing into a different type of player than that.........either way, I had a HOF ceiling on the guy so I guess I am just more pleased at year 3 than astonished.

Again....less than half of first rounders at any position play well enough to even get their 5th year option picked up. And all of those that do get their option picked up aren't necessarily playing anywhere near expecation......some of them(like David Njoku for instance) just had their option picked up in the hope that they would play better.........it's only guaranteed for injury. The bottom line is that the majority of 1st rounders at any position fail to make the anticipated impact..........maybe 25%-30% of them pan out as hoped. That's still a good % compared to subsequent rounds........so it's far from random. But if the odds of getting a franchise QB in round 1 is 15% and a stud at another position is only 25%-30%.........it's inexcusable to be passing on QB's........and not that much more surprising when they turn into stars at their position.

He's never finished higher than 11th in receptions or 17th in yardage. Last year was probably his best season and he finished behind both John Brown and Cole Beasley in grabs. The year he put up 100 catches he did it with a meager 10.0 y/r. So this year really is a breakout season for him being up near the top of the league in bulk stats...........he should be no worse than 3rd or 4th in either of them after this weekend.

Healthy scratch = benched btw......those look quite a bit like Shaq's stats in Miami this year.

Impress and astonish are not synonyms..............that's like saying good and great are exactly the same. I expected and still expect Allen to become great......he's getting there..........that was the point of making him the highest selected QB in franchise history. You and some others are astonished......apparently because *some* people whose opinions you chose to give weight to said that Allen wouldn't be good.....and now he is. I think the theoretical difference is that I expect results and some others want results but are often afraid to even hope for them. I understand that a lot of that is due to Bills ownership/management letting you down. But you gotta' have perspective......the NFL is a business centered around a violent, ultra-competitive game........you shouldn't feel like you as a fan are less worthy or likely to benefit from the NFL's intention to create parity.

Should we hand off and get 4 yards this play..........or throw it and get 8? Times have changed since the Roman offense where the Bills were getting almost as much per run play as they were per pass play. What they need is some speed in the backfield to complement Moss and Singletary............kudos to the many people who were on this on draft day. RB's are still a half dozen for a dime or so in personnel chips......but you gotta' have a speed option.......Beane was asleep at the wheel on that. They probably should activate Yeldon and just activate one of Moss and Singletary each week.........they can work on improving their blocking but they need to be able to throw the ball to one of these backs........Singletary is obviously the guy they most trust and he is an awkward pass receiver........Yeldon isn't a great option at RB but he is smooth in the pass game.

I never said I wasn't impressed.........just not filled with astonishment by it. And you are wrong about his accuracy issues being "universally" believed to be uncorrectable. That's hyperbole. When Allen was having accuracy issues in year 1 there were a number of analysts who pointed out that most of them were correctable thru better mechanics and it was often emphasized how inexperienced he was at the position compared to other prospects etc.. He then made huge strides on some throws last year, becoming one of the most accurate short passers in the league. He's taken more strides and the game has clearly slowed for him and he's gotten more help in the receiving corps this year. A switch didn't just come on overnight.........it wasn't a bestowed miracle........this has been a relatively linear advancement..........which isn't always the case with QB play...........but it's not "beyond shocking". He still has to resolve some deep ball/touch issues but at the current rate one would think that he will get there in the near future. We had a thread recently about fan confidence in McBeane..........and it said that a poll of Bills fans said that 89% were very confident in the direction they had the Bills going............and just a couple posts into it someone posted that there was "endless negativity" from Bills fans. Some people just can't contain their need to exaggerate.......

So Bills fans should be amazed for the skeptics? What some of you guys responding to me are talking about aren't the odds that a top of the first round QB would become very good.....those are decent. It's you wanting a bunch of analysts to be astonished. In a league where the guys like Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Russell Wilson have dominated at a HOF level for about 50 combined years without any of them even being 1st round picks...........good luck getting people to fall over dead at Josh Allen playing well for a season. Just enjoy having a good QB........the journey is the reward.

It's a bunch of factors making more young QB's more productive............it really started 10 years ago with Goodell making it very hard to be violent with QB's and WR's.........the fear of being hit while prone was always the biggest limiting factor. Then......after the spike in passing production......... you had the big money going the QB and WR positions. That draws young talent to those positions and it helps the NFL get players that used to go to other sports(see Kyler Murray most recently). And the training these young guys get is very advanced now..........it's easier to access information and the money involved has created a whole QB development industry. Then the implementation of more college style offense.......like RPO's.......have made the reads and throws easier for young QB's. I also think that teams are finding it too expensive to throw tons of money at defense.........and you almost need to be outstanding at every position to be outstanding at defense with the offense having so many advantages........and that is just much harder to sustain than offense is. It's a lot of factors that have favored the expansion of the passing game/QB play.

So you are saying that we shouldn't be surprised that a bunch of fringe analysts of no import might have had it wrong about Josh Allen? Agreed.

I feel like we had a full year to prepare for the QB pick though..........the organization wasn't hiding their intention to draft one.........and by mid-college-season we knew that Josh Allen could be one of them.........so that part didn't catch anyone off guard. I think the feeling that best describes seeing your early draft pick seeming to live up to expectations is "satisfying" or "gratifying"...........when you pick a QB early you expect big things.........if you are actually astonished when he does well then you probably were very skeptical.

To put that season in perspective.......in the prior two weeks......they had beaten Brett Favre at home on a dramatic late game interception as the Pack were near the goal line ready to score....... and had somehow just lost by 1 point to Peyton Manning in Indy holding that score down to 17-16.......very edge of your seat finishes....and Bills fans were loving the direction of Jauron ball.......they reached 7-7.......a 9-7 Chiefs team made the playoffs that year.......but a heartbreaking 30-29 loss at home to Tennessee(***** Robert Royal) put them at 7-8 and basically put an end to the Jaurondimonium that was building. It wasn't a Super Bowl team but it was VERY similar in style to the 2017 Bills that you were probably amazed by.

Needs change fast in the NFL.........and offense is much more likely to be sustainable long term and therefore the better use of early round picks. Defensive success is fleeting.......the McD Bills are proof of that.......but even the great Seattle defense could only be kept together for a few years and when they won the SB they were actually the youngest team in the entire NFL. When you are built on defense your foundation is built on sand.

I did not see THAT.........but there were some pundits who had high regard for his talent and some who did not. Some fans focus on the analysts with negative takes and miss all the positives. For example.......Mel Kiper isn't amazed. Allen was often mocked #1 overall in the year prior to his draft......he was a big time prospect. I've said it before but in more drafts than not from 1990-2017 Josh Allen probably goes #1 overall..........tall, athletic, big armed passers with excellent intangibles don't usually fall too far.

1) The OP. The literal definition of "amazing" is "to be filled with astonishment". 2) I've said that if you aren't using it on a QB.........a first round pick is the most overrated personnel chip. Fans always EXPECT a first round pick to become a star...........but less than half play well enough to even get their 5th year option picked up. QB's are a bit more of a risk.........I think @Kirby Jackson had a data set once that said you could expect about 15% of first round QB's to become franchise QB's........but the reward is so much higher than that of drafting any other position so what was amazing was how few shots the Bills had taken at QB's in round 1 in the prior 58 drafts.

Losman to Peerless for the game winning TD in Houston in 2006 was far more clutch..........that sh*t was crazy. Down 21-17 Jauron punted the ball with just 2:10 left. And somehow it worked because the Texans went 3 and out and punted and Losman brought them down the field and hurled a great pass to Peerless Price who made a diving TD grab with :09 left for the upset win. That was probably the height of Losman AND Jauron's careers in Buffalo. It's easy to forget that football has been played in Buffalo prior to now but there have been clutch plays and Bills games that ended in spectacular fashion prior to yesterday. It wasn't any big surprise that Josh lead the Bills to a go ahead TD with all that time and TO's left.......had they not gotten a TD on that play it had just been second down with a lot of time and a timeout in hand..........they were still going to get a pretty makable game tying field goal attempt.