SoFFacet

Chandler is a pawn. Harvin is a bishop on a board more suited for knights. Still better than a pawn, and the board can always change in the bishops's favor later on.

This is the first Pegula-bucks Bills deal, similar to the Ehrhoff deal for the Sabres. The cap rules are a bit different between the two leagues but in both cases it's basically huge upfront cash in exchange for lower overall cap hit. It is disappointing to see how many people do not comprehend that real cash payout does not matter anymore under Pegula. Cap hit is the only thing that matters, and we just gained a ton of it. Not to mention we immediately assuaged Shady's reservations about coming here. Excellent move, Doug.

Hindsight. When we traded him he was bad and there was no reason to predict he would turn into what he is now. I'm happy for him that he's turned it around, though. There's basically no way that he would be the player he is today if he were still on the Bills. Nah, it's mainly just that he's going to be old and expensive. Not ideal RB qualities.

Right.

NFL schemes are cyclical, as the offenses and defenses around the league adapt to one another. The short passing game from spread formations has been in vogue for nearly a decade, but there are an increasing number of teams that are now built to counter that with larger CBs, lighter/faster OLBs, etc. But many of those adaptations are actually a disadvantage against the run. Eventually some team will succeed with a "revolutionary" power running attack simply because so many defenses around the league are built to counter something else. Then other people will copy that offense, defenses will gradually adapt to it, and the cycle will continue.

This is the thing that gets me. Before the season most predictions were for 6-10 or worse. Instead they finished 9-7. I mean, before people start moving the goalposts just because they don't like the guy, it's undeniable that his team just exceeded expectations by several games.

That's... sad. I found that article to be quite a mundane and pathetic mis-characterization of the Orton/Manuel decision.

No but you see everything good about the team is due to something other than Marrone. And everything bad about the team is Marrone's fault. Obviously.

If I were trying to argue that the Heisman is a meaningful award, I would never utter the words "Johnny Football" or "Tim Tebow."

That's not what that means. A "big board" is a list ordered by overall prospect grade. Being #1 on a big board means that the creator of the list thinks that prospect is the #1 prospect in the draft class. It does not necessarily mean that he thinks he will be picked 1st. A list that attempts to guess the draft order is known as a "mock draft." National Championship = Team Accolade. Heisman Trophy = meaningless award that has not translated into anything at the NFL level in recent memory. Also you can't just look at the FSU/Stanford drafted players. The strength of the roster from top to bottom matters.

The most likely scenario that I've found so far is for us to win out (obviously), and Cincy to lose out. They have Denver and Pittsburgh, so that is certainly possible. San Diego and KC need to split their remaining games to both finish 9-7. Note that they play eachother week 17 so if they both win next week we're screwed.

Not sure that I agree RB is a big need. Fred is the man until the day he is actually ineffective. Bryce and Dixon are fine compliments. Add someone in the 5th round or something and they will be fine for next year. If necessary they can draft another one higher the year after that. The real priority should be the OL, so that no matter who we put back there, he can be successful.

I played around with the ESPN playoff machine for a bit. Technically it's possible for us to miss the playoffs at 11-5. It's also possible to make it in with 9-7 or even 8-8. The other teams in the wild card race play eachother alot so it depends on whether or not those teams split the games mostly evenly, or if 1-2 teams run the table and rise above the pack. The Jags/Jets/Raiders etc play a few games against our competitors as well, and could help us out.

Arbitrary thresholds are terrible.

Disagree. With our offense, 1st & goal from the 5 is probably more difficult than from the 15. Notice that our only TD of the day came from just outside the RZ when the Chiefs D still had a lot of space to cover. Of course it didn't work so everyone will blame the call, but it was really Orton's fault. And that one KC DB made some nice individual plays.

I'm not surprised since it's TBD, but really the reaction here has been downright stupid. We deserved to win but didn't. Boo hoo. That happens all the time in sports. Historically we seem to get more than our fair share of those, and that sucks. But it doesn't change anything. The only thing that a player or coach can ever do is try to increase the chances of winning. The chances of winning were very high yesterday, and that's all anyone can reasonably be expected to control. "Fire everyone" is the appropriate reaction in maybe, Chicago right now.

Please provide a proper link to the original article next time. The model calculates an elo rating from weighted past results. The ratings are used to create a probabilistic distribution of outcomes for the rest of the season. New England's rating is justifiably higher than ours (and everyone else in the conference besides Denver). They are sorted by elo rating.

And they would be misguided. Running into a great defense in the last game in doesn't change what a team accomplished during the rest of the season. Look at Denver last year. "More often" by definition concedes that the opposite is sometimes true. So the statement holds almost no analytic value by itself, and you have to look at the cases individually. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that Brady can't throw the seam to Sanders, the screen to DT, or any of the other common (and frankly easy) throws that are in Denver's current offense. In any case this is a silly distinction to make. Every position on the team synergizes in both directions with other positions.

The best offenses the Patriots have ever had were the ones with Moss and Welker. Losing to the Giants in the SB doesn't change that.

Trying to extract trend data from n=2 and n=4. Declining to subtract D/ST points. Using team metric (points) to analyze individual performance. Triple-facepalm.

Well to be honest, that is potentially the most scandalous revelation that came today. The second video just confirmed what anyone familiar with Occam's Razor had already inferred from the first. All that the second video did was eliminate the other side of the story that nobody believed but couldn't technically prove was a lie. The justification for the light suspension, and for the Ravens organization standing by Rice, was that no one could prove what really happened in the elevator. So if we take for granted that any sane person condemns what happens in the second video, the actually interesting facet of this situation is that if the NFL lied about not having this tape prior to TMZ, it would mean Goodell deliberately misled the public in order to go easy on a star player. It would cast a shroud over all other supposedly objective investigations and punishments meted out by the league. It would mean Goodell is only willing to do what is right because the public learned the truth. It would mean Goodell is corrupt.

I don't think it's necessarily win-now. It's perfectly possible that we are better off in several years with Watkins than we would be with say, Ebron + 2015 1st. It just depends on whether or not the scouting that underpinned the trade in the first place is correct.

It's pretty obvious that "can we please not talk about it" is code for "I'm homophobic but it's not socially acceptable to denounce them in public anymore." Pretending that Sam isn't a milestone worthy of at least some discussion is just silly.

In 3-4: DL: Dareus Branch Williams OLB: Mario, Lawson/Anderson ILB: Alonso, Bradham CB: Gilmore, McKelvin S: Byrd, Williams

According to who, Draftek? I love that site to death, but sorry, the Draftek big board got badly embarrassed this year. I like our real draft better than both yours and the OP's.