hondo in seattle

Damar is out there because the defensive coaching staff decided he's the best option available. I'm not sure why we'd want to bench him only to field a player who's worse.

I might be able to do $64.

I doubt if it's even just McD. I'll guess it's the consensus of the defensive coaching staff. These are smart guys who know football. I admit I was very wrong about this season. I penciled Edwards in as the starter, opposite Rapp. And I thought Hamlin might not make the final 53. But, like you, I trust our defensive coaches.

I hate to confess that I don't really care much about Josh's personal life. I guess it's kind of cool that he's dating an actress and showing her around Buffalo but, in the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter much. As an empathetic human, I hope they're happy just as I hope all good people are happy and all evil a-holes learn to become good people. As a fan, though, I just hope his personal life never distracts from his dedication to the Bills and his craft.

I'd love Josh to become more... I hate to say it... Brady-esque: make a good presnap reads and get the ball out quickly to the open guy. But, you're right. That's not Josh. And if he's going to throw into tight coverage, you might as well find a big, strong wideout who excels at contested catches in tight windows.

Didn't know him personally, but he was one of my favorite posters. RIP.

I don't actually. I'm just saying its possible to have receivers who don't get separation and still produce in the passing game if your QB is a stud - which Josh is. Prior to Cooper's arrival, however, it was disappointing to see how little separation we were getting downfield. Although that group (Coleman, Shakir, and Hollins) were hardly an all-star trio, I did sometimes think the fault was more Brady's than anybody else's. But the offense looked beautiful (minus the pick) against Seattle.

Or Josh is just amazing talented doing so well with talentless receivers who don't get open. But I agree that I don't trust the metrics.

This is another one of those charts that look professional and pretty. But those qualities don't mean the data are worth a damn. I don't disagree with the general notion that our receivers aren't creating a lot of separation, but I don't need a chart to tell me that. PFF is one of the most respected data generators out there. And they rated Geno above Josh last week. The subjectivity involved in these "advanced" metrics is often too much to overcome. How do you even measure separation? Do you measure it at the time the ball was actually thrown? Or when it was supposed to be thrown? If the latter, how do you know? Do you measure & track separation only for the guy being targeted? Or all the receivers running routes, even those whose assignment is to rub a defender or clear a zone? Let's say a receiver is well-covered at first, but later as the QB scrambles, jukes the defender out of his jock strap and scores a game-winning 80 yard TD. Do you grade him as being covered on his initial route? Or do you give him credit for the great work he did later?

I'm with you. I was probably in my 40s when I learned the derivation of the word spaz. It was commonly used when I was a kid, too, in a mildly offensive way. We didn't say, "You spaz!" to our enemies as a serious insult, only to friends jokingly. I was surprised when I later learned that some people considered it deeply offensive.

Agree. When I'm in Buffalo, I eat mostly wings, beef-on-weck, pizza, and Polish food. Buffalo excels at these. When in Seattle, I tend to eat Asian food - in all its amazing diversity. And for some reason, Seattle has a lot of great gourmet ice cream shops, too. When in Kansas City, I eat KC barbecue. And so on. Once on a visit to Davao, my wife's hometown in the Philippines, her friends decided they wanted to treat me to lunch at an American restaurant. It was a kind, thoughtful gesture. But the place had pizza, burgers, tacos, and so forth and unsurprisingly none of it was very good. I, of course, expressed my appreciation but, in truth, when in the Philippines, I want to eat what they're good at: lechon, adobo, crispy pata, Addidas, etc.

I love charts like this. They're so informative and look so pretty and professional. But I don't trust them because I don't trust the data behind them. Who's determining win rate? I can't imagine this is any more accurate than PFF grades. Not entirely useless, maybe, but not something we should take too seriously. Interesting though that Gabe Davis is below average both versus zone and man. And Keon is better versus man coverage than either Diggs or Davis. (It's one of those things... I love the chart when it tells me something I like. Hate it otherwise).

Passer rating is better, IMHO, than QBR or PFF grades. But it also has flaws because it measures efficiency rather than production, For example, if a QB goes 10 for 15 for 150 yards in a game, he'll be rated exactly the same as a QB who goes 20 of 30 for 300 yards. I would argue the second QB deserves a higher rating because: (1) he contributed twice as many yards to the team's offense. (2) because he threw twice as much, the defense probably probably played more pass D. But both QB completed 67% of their passes for 10 yards per attempt - statistically equivalent if you ignore actual production.

I live near San Jose, CA, now. My wife flew to Seattle from San Jose the Friday before the game to visit friends. She said the first class section of the plane was dominated by Bills fans flying up from San Jose. We're everywhere.

I agree with the bolded. When we acquire a new midlevel FA, for example, I look at PFF scores because that data is better than the nothingness of my own knowledge. But I don't trust PFF at all. The Smith-Allen grades are crazy. J.J. Watt once said, "The system is terrible. Do they watch a different film than we do?" He also said on McAfee that he's sat with coaches and compared PFF grades with coachs' grades and they were "not even close."