hondo in seattle

I'm not arguing against Brady as the GOAT. The dude's had an incredible career. And yet there haven't been any individual seasons in his career where he was head and shoulders above the best other QBs in the league. Fitz recently said Peyton Manning was best QB ever. Brees, Mahomes, and others often played better than Brady. Brady did have some fantastic seasons but he's the GOAT because the Lombardis and because of his ability to play at a high-level year after year after year. OJ didn't sustain like that. But in the '73 and '77 seasons, he dominated the league in a way Brady never did. When Jim Brown was around there was Jim and everyone else. No other backs were at his level.

I think Sanders would have been good in any era. But I agree with your general point. These days LBs are pass defenders first. In the old days, you had guys like Dick Butkus, Chuck Bednarik and Sam Huff who made it their life mission to kill running backs. And the rules allowed a lot more violence back then.

You're right: standards are higher today. Rules are different, too. It's not entirely fair to compare athletes from different eras. It's just offseason entertainment. But I do need to make a counterargument that Royale kind of mentions. If Babe Ruth played today - or Jim Brown or OJ - wouldn't they also benefit from today's strength training, coaching, diets, medicine, and so on? I don't know enough baseball to have a strong opinion about Ruth, but if OJ and Jim Brown had all the modern benefits, they'd run all over these pass-first defenses.

I thought about defensive players - Bruce, Reggie, Taylor. But I don't think offenses feared them as much as defenses feared OJ and Brown. I remember games when Pro Bowl linebackers were instructed to spy on OJ the entire game. This was on top of the rest of the defense being instructed to stop OJ at all costs. But they couldn't stop him.

I also saw OJ play and thought he was the most magnificent athlete to ever trot onto a gridiron. The way you describe Jim Brown - "a man amongst boys" - that's what I saw in OJ. An amazing combination of speed, strength, agility and vision. He didn't just make good plays more often than other backs. Sometimes he did things no one else could do. Walter Payton was a stud, too. Using league-leading yards versus #2 player yards as my metric for dominance, here are the modern era top four RB seasons: 1. OJ, 1973: 1.75 (75% more yards than the #2 guy) 2. Jim Brown, 1963: 1.70 3. OJ, 1975: 1975: 1.46 4. Walter Peyton: 1977: 1.45

Yeah, I love watching Barry's ankle-breaking moves. He was an absolute freak of nature. But, IMHO, he was not in the same category as Jim Brown and OJ. In Barry's very best season, he finished with 22% more yards than the next-best back. That's really good - but not as dominant as OJ's or Brown's peak seasons. It's true that defenses knew he'd get the ball 20+ times a game and they still couldn't stop them - but that was true of OJ and Brown, too. And Barry played in the 1990s when NFL defenses had evolved to stop the run more than the pass. Still, I think Barry would be a supernatural force in today's NFL.

Babe Ruth is the most dominant professional athlete in major American sports history. When he hit 54 homers in the 1920, the next best guy - a star in his own right - only hit 19. Babe was hitting at another level: a staggering 184% better than the next greatest long ball hitter that year. The next year, the story was pretty much the same: Babe was 146% better than the next biggest star. But what about football? The NFL doesn't have a Babe Ruth. Brady is great because he's been one of the top 5 QBs in the league since our own star QB, Josh Allen, was in kindergarten. Yet Brady was never - statistically anyway - far and away the best QB in the league in any particular season. Not the same way Babe was. There are, though, two NFL players who do come to mind when I think about dominance. You've got to go back a few years back to the time when the best athletes became RBs and defenses were designed to stop & destroy those backs. In 1973, OJ had 75% more yards than the next best RB. Ten years earlier, Jim Brown had 70% more yards than the #2 guy. Both these guys were transcendent, mind-boggling talents. In Brady's most dominant season, 2007, he only finished with 8.7% yards more than the next best guy. Brady might be the GOAT. But in their prime, OJ and Jim Brown were more dominant.

As a general rule you may be right but blanket statements make me nervous. The squadron I went to war with had both an MD and a PA. Obviously, the training of the MD was more rigorous. But the PA had years more experience as well as more "common sense." When we had routine injuries and illnesses, most of the squadron's soldiers sought out the PA. If I have a routine problem nowadays, I'm more than happy to have a NP or PA evaluate me.

Somewhere in the multiverse, the Fins have both Sean Payton and Tom Brady. And the Seahawks drafted Josh Allen. So glad I live in this universe.

There are 32 teams, so - all things being equal - the chance of any team winning the Super Bowl in a given year is 1 in 32, about 3%. But not all variables are equal. Some teams have better coaches and better players. So the very best franchises might have a something like 10% chance of winning the SB, while the worst teams might be under 1%. While I really like the team Beane and McD built, I never thought the Lombardi was in the bag.

He once "heroically" helped a turtle safely cross a road in Kansas City. ftw.usatoday.com/2022/05/nascar-daniel-suarez-saves-turtle-kansas-speedway

Just looking at the highlights and ignoring his RAS... Pros: Soft hands; good vision (can find gaps in zone defenses and space to run when he has the ball); decent size; tough to bring down. Cons: Slow. He never runs away from people. In fact, he's often caught from behind. And I only saw his highlights. So I'm not sure about his drop rate, motor, or blocking skills. In any case, I can't see him beating out Knox or Howard. Not sure about Sweeney, either.

What's motivating Hill to make these comparisons? He's unnecessarily provocative. He can praise Tua without mentioning Mahomes or anyone else.

I get why you are saying what you are saying, and hope you are right. But decades of Bills fandom have turned me into a bit of a skeptic - or maybe Missourian. I won't truly believe it until I see it on the field.

Curiously, at one point - before his amazing RAS score - he was considered a top prospect. Here's the conclusion to a profile written after his sophomore season... Despite suffering a finger injury that required surgery over the spring, Wydermyer heads into the upcoming college football season as one of the top tight ends in the nation. Additionally, he has the talent to be the first tight end selected in the 2022 NFL Draft. www.profootballnetwork.com/jalen-wydermyer-texas-am-te-nfl-draft-scouting-report-2022/

He talks about being "more present" and "happier." I'm kinda curious what drove the decision to retire but, in any case, I hope he finds the presence and happiness he's searching for.

He's got a new home, a new job, a new group of peers and players. Immersed in his new life, I believe that he doesn't think about 13 seconds very much. And I give him credit. He doesn't sound bitter about Buffalo and doesn't throw anyone under the bus. All-in-all it was a positive, classy answer.

I get you. If the HC is doing his job right, he'll have good coordinators, position coaches, quality control coaches, and analytic guys to share the burden. A HC shouldn't have to sleep in the building. The entire staff should be robust and talented enough that they can win without any of them working 100 hours a week. On the other hand, I can imagine getting so passionate/obsessed that I'd work long hours and sleep in the office, too, if I was a HC.

I have a narrow focus. I don't care what the national media thinks. I don't care if the Bills are viewed as "relevant" or not - whatever that means. I certainly don't care what's happening in Boston or what Pats fans think. Each week during the football season when I sit down in front of the tv, I only care if the Bills win. That's it. And lately we've been winning more than losing. I'm enjoying the ride.

If Watson was our starting QB, I'd pretty much stop following football. I'd still read about the Bills. But I'd stop wearing my gear and Sundays would become a time for other hobbies.

Here's the problem with using analytics to judge coaches. Players thrive under good coaches. Because the players are playing well, they're rated highly by the analytic guys. So the expectation is that the coach wins all his games because he has the better rated players. Analytic nerds are still struggling to fairly evaluate players given all the things that impact their performance (coaching, scheme, the players around them, their responsibility on each playcall, etc.). They're not remotely ready to evaluate coaches.

According to Wikipedia, Jessica is ranked #8 in the world as of June 6, 2022. Since it's still June 5th where I'm located, this seems a bit magical to me. Anyway, congrats to Jessica for cracking the Top 10!

I think Brady is on the staff because they want a good staff. An OC doesn't develop plans or make decisions in a vacuum. An effective OC will be collaborative and utilize the skills, wisdom, and experience of his subordinate coaches. Under the right leadership conditions, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As an outsider looking in I can only guess. My guess is that Dorsey has been groomed for this role and has McD's confidence. Brady wasn't brought in as Dorsey's backup. But he was brought in to help make the coaching staff - and Dorsey - better.

Agreed. Those 9 picks Byrd's rookie year are misleading. Several times he was out of position but had the ball bounce his direction or the QB made a terrible throw. His actual skills improved as his career progressed, but he never again got more than five picks. The gridiron gods smiled on him his rookie year. He wasn't actually that stellar. Hyde and Poyer are both better.

I'm sure there are thousands of 'almost' stories. I don't really care if Miller wanted to be a Cowboy. In the end, he chose the Bills. That's all that matters.