hondo in seattle

I wonder how much McD and Beane put the offensive woes on the roster and how much on Rico? They may expect offensive progress this year just because of Daboll.

Kim's not just a tae-kwon-do guy. He's also into MMA and very knowledgeable about football. Here's his bio when he was an assistant S&C coach with the Brownies... Joe Kim enters the first season of his third stint with the Browns. Overall, 2016 marks his seventh season with Cleveland, where he serves as a strength and conditioning assistant/skills development. Kim originally got his start in the NFL with the Browns in 1992, where he was on staff as an assistant strength and conditioning coach/pass rush specialist through the 1995 season. He returned to the Browns from 1999-2000. Kim returns to Cleveland after spending the 2015 season with the Washington Redskins and the 2014 season with the Chicago Bears in the same capacity. Prior to his time in Chicago, Kim served as a pass rush consultant with the Kansas City Chiefs (2010-12), New York Giants (2010), Buffalo Bills (2009), Penn State (2009), Denver Broncos (2007), Miami Dolphins (2001-04, 06), Green Bay Packers (2005) and Dallas Cowboys (1998). In addition to strength and conditioning, Kim brings a wealth of martial arts knowledge and experience with him as a seventh Dan Black Belt recognized by Kukkiwon, USA Taekwondo and the World Taekwondo Federation. He has produced more than 250 black belts and numerous national and international champions. In 1990, Kim earned bronze medals at the Pan Am Games and World Cup as a member of the U.S. National Taekwondo team. He is also a two-time U.S. Olympic Festival gold medalist and national champion. A native of Lakewood, Ohio, Kim attended St. Edward High School. He and his wife, Jeana, have two daughters, Katie and Lexi. http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/team/coaches/joe-kim/710ea118-3e85-4257-9b62-834eec404d60 I'm not sure why the Pats hiring him is news worthy. He's worked with 8 NFL teams previously and has been around the NFL since 1998.

I don't think McD considers faith a requirement. I do think though that if two FAs were available with identical skill sets but only one was a committed church-goer, McD would choose him. Faith bring bonus points.

More or less aligned. I think the D will be in the upper half of the league - and that's progress.

GMs get paid to be right. Media guys get paid to be interesting and generate advertising dollars. It's a completely different job with a completely different skill set.

I wonder how much you can improve "arm strength." What we call "arm strength" in a QB has to do with the distance he can throw the ball and how much velocity he can put on it. Mechanics factor into this. So does fast twitch muscles and explosiveness.

AJ is below the mythical 55 threshold. But I get what you're saying. He's not noodle armed. Considering where we've been, I'm generally happy with the Bills QB situation. We've got AJ who by all accounts is hard worker, fierce competitor and good leader. While he might not have the best arm out there, he can be a good caretaker and mentor to Allen. Allen is a guy with some good character traits and tremendous upside. Who knows how it will all work out but Beane's done good work in his first year to put us in a situation that provides some hope and a reasonable chance of success.

Some high praise here. Pours gasoline on the fire of hope burning inside me. But the fire of doubt didn't actually get any weaker. There are legit concerns about Allen and we just don't know yet if he'll overcome them. Maybe I'm being b*ll-less in my lack of strong opinion but I'm firmly in the wait-and-see camp.

This graphic deserves its one thread?

A lot of teams script the beginning of games for various reasons. So these teams couldn't adjust much until maybe the 2nd quarter. But, that being said, waiting to adjust at halftime doesn't make a lot of sense. Imagine if military leaders didn't adjust their failing plans until "halftime"? Or businesses launching a new strategy? In those worlds you adjust 'on the fly' - why would football be different? In the military, business or sports, you must prepare your folks ahead of time for the adjustments. "Depending on what we see and how things go, we may audible to this or that revised plan..." Maybe you're not explaining the college coach's POV very well but as you relate it, it sounds like he's going to waste the entire first half of the game being sub-optimal. That's unacceptable. That's not how you win. It's situational. You give your original game plan a chance to work if there are reasons to believe it will work. One or two stalled offensive draws don't necessarily mean anything. But if your opponent is doing something completely different that you expected, or if there's a key injury that changes your calculations, you must change on the fly - before halftime.

Ignorance is bliss. Adam Stites doesn't know what the plan is and can't divine it from his observations of the Bills moves. Therefore there is no plan: "does Buffalo have a plan? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it." I guess it's hard for some to be on the outside looking in.

Nice write-up. Accuracy in the NFL doesn't (usually) mean the same thing it does to you. Accuracy in this world means hitting receivers consistently - even in tight windows. "Accuracy" for QBs combines the concepts of accuracy and precision. Maybe it shouldn't. I wonder if there's any research to suggest precision is more correctable than accuracy, as you suggest? Completion percentage doesn't accurately measure accuracy or precision.

I'll answer that question... Because we're not very good - even if we're better. Both our offense and defense were ranked in the bottom half of the league last year. Timely take-aways and minimal turnovers gave us a winning record. We can't count on the getting take-aways at critical times this year.

I think McD has an obligation to the team to start the guy who gives us the best chance of winning. If that's Allen right away, great! If AJ is the better QB come Week 1, great! Let Allen polish his game while learning on the practice field, QB room, and sidelines. It's hard for a coach to ask his players to play to win when he's not because he's training up a rookie QB.

Thanks for posting. Good stuff. The more I read about Allen, the more I like him and his chances. But my final prognosis remains the same: we won't know until we know.

King has more connections inside the NFL than any sportswriter I can think of. It's the thing I like about him most. When King calls someone in the NFL, they usually answer the phone. None of the Bills beat writers come close to King's level of access. As to his opinions and moral views, he's like anybody else: not entirely consistent and sometimes wrong.

Hadn't seen that before. Very cool!

Expert opinions just don't matter to me anymore. I've heard and seen enough good things to have hope. I've also heard and seen enough bad things to have fear. No one knows if Allen will take the next step and become a great pro. We'll all find out when we find out.

Never heard of this before. Scary, warped stuff.

I so disagree. She's a Bills fan and I like her just for that. This wasn't her best effort but her heart's solidly in the right place.

I guess I just don't get the point of this thread. Are we all going to start a new thread every time we find a so-called expert who agrees with our POV? And then rehash the same arguments we've been having on other threads? There's no new information here. Some people like the Allen pick. Others don't. We just found out the great Joe Marino is in the second group. Who cares? If we keep digging on the internet, we'll keep finding more 'experts' who like the pick, or don't. Are we going to start a new thread every time?

I just have a couple questions... When we've heard analysis from so many more qualified analysts than Joe Marino, doesn't anybody care what he says? And do we really need yet another thread about what someone said about Josh Allen's pro prospects? We all get it. He has flaws in his game that he may or may not overcome.

In five decades of fandom, the only jersey I've ever owned was/is a Fred Jackson jersey. I still proudly wear it on special occasions (playoff games for example!). This is just me - but I'm not going to gamble by buying the jersey of a rookie. But bless all of you who do.

It sounds like Brady's love of the game is finally winding down. He doesn't feel fully appreciated. He mentions that his family is getting the short end of the stick. He's not going to attend voluntary offseason workouts this year. Maybe he'll retire at the end of this season.

Griping and Monday morning quarterbacking are part of being a fan. In fact, it's part of the fun. But I do object to the arrogance of some fans who are convinced they are smarter than Brandon Bean and his entire staff of scouts. Collectively our Bills scouts have spent thousands of hours evaluating this draft class, interviewing players; talking to coaches, family and friends; studying tape; and so on. And yet Biff from Cheektowaga - who has no training as scout, didn't attend the combine, has never seen any of these players in person, and didn't spend millions of dollars on due diligence grandiosely pronounces Beane an incompetent idiot for choosing X. It can be a little hard to swallow sometimes. These kinds of comments are offensive to the professionals. Think about your own profession and how ridiculous it can be to have people who don't know crap give you advice or pronounce judgment in your area of expertise. Beane is much smarter about football than Biff, whatever pretensions Biff may have. The question is whether Beane is smarter than the other NFL GMs. We'll be able to intelligently judge that over time by seeing what kind of roster he builds.