zonabb

No thanks. He's a bust, guaranteed. Couldn't keep a college starting gig and there are some who think he has potential? Every report suggest his weaknesses are "fails to read defenses" and "locks onto targets" and "poor timing" and "questionable decision-making" and..... it goes on. Welcome to EJ Manual 2.0. A project QB isn't, and it has been proven over and over and over, a guy with a huge arm and physical talents and no brains. All of the above weaknesses are mental issues, not physical. Do you know how ling it would take to fix a guy like this? If you can't even be good enough to start in college with these supposed superior skills, how the hell is this a guy anyone would draft as a QB. Those who poo-poo the wonderlic fail to realize that for QB it's a good proxy for mental capacity, recall, and mental agility/reflexes. It measures what you know but the speed requires you to be sharp and focuses, key attributes of a QB. So I've said it here ad nauseam, a 22 on a wonderlic for a QB is the starting point, no Super Bowl-winning QB has ever had less than a 22 (reportedly) with the exception of Bradshaw who apparently had dyslexia(?). Favre I believe was the 22. So if you want a Super Bowl, I hate to break it to you, the wonderlic score should matter. Can you get into the playoffs with a sub-22, yes. Just can't win it all. Cam Newton and his 21 came close! But look at the SB winners on the list published here (http://www.nflstatanalysis.net/2011/03/qb-wonderlic-scores.html). No Montana or Aikman there unless I missed. One site has Aikman with a 29. Brady 33 Rodgers 35 E. Manning 39 Young 33 Brees 28 P Manning 28 Flacco 27 Roethlisberger 25 Dilfer 22 Favre 22 Jim Kelly (and Marino) 15. So you can have productive teams and runs but I would argue a 15 today is worse than a 15 then, game is more pass oriented and complicated. My point is, if you review the list, there are a ton of super athletes with sub-22s. At the same time, you can argue "Well, lots of brainy QBs sucked too and never won squat." Also true and I'm not suggest drafting one of them guarantees you anything. All I am saying is the only guarantee out there is that drafting a sub-22 QB will never win you a super bowl.

Wrong. Stop reading the boosterism on the Buffalo News and other media outlets and do some data collection on your own. There is no drastically significant increase in any relevant data variables and when compared to national trends, we still rank near the bottom third in many critical metrics. Still a top 5 poverty city. We haven't even returned to predecession job numbers and many new jobs created are low level retail and back office services. That's not a resurgence, revival, or renewal no matter what anyone says. But it's your right to believe the rhetoric and feel good stories and ignore reality. Problem here is everyone sees a few tower cranes and billions in corporate welfare and they suddenly think decades of decline are over. Sorry, not the case.

And therein lies the problem for many people because what is supposed to be a business on the field, one of competing and winning, has migrated to a win "off the field" mentality. This is the same imperial, global domination mentality espoused by our so-called leaders. The idea of a roving American target like an NFL teaming games in Europe is frankly ridiculous. Belgium anyone? I used to like sports as the escape from corporate life, now it's ingrained into fans that we must accept constant barrages of commercials, in the stadium and at home. That what used to be 3 hour games are now closer to 3.5 so we can be sold more products. Any of this make the games better? Aren't we interested in the product? The reality is the product is worse. Here's hoping out leaders in Erie County and NYS tell the Pegulas to go pound salt when they put their greedy little hands out for stadium funds. If the NFL can continue to be profitable at this rate and now want to expand globally, let the league, not the taxpayers, act like corporate welfare advocates and pay for stadiums. Guess who becomes the teams that get sent overseas? The small market powerless teams who will be forced to give up a home game and let the Cowboys, Patriots, either NJ team, etc. be the road team, saving a home game for them. No league has more wrong than the NFL. I don't seem the Premier League, Bundesliga, or La Liga looking to put teams and games overseas, or did I miss something. Why can't you just have it on TV there and be done with it? The Premier League is more popular in the US everyday because we get to watch all games every weekend. Model seems to work for them, without trying to move games overseas.

Doesn't sound good. Hopefully this KID pulls through. I remember the dumb things I did in my early 20s, often wondering how I made it. You feel invincible. No helmet, no lights, dark clothes. Man.

Some minor upgrade or roll player. No joke, the Ryan Bros were at the airport this morning on an outbound flight. Doubt any high level players are coming in for a visit since SOP is that the high level players come to see the facilities, coaches, staff and owners (they get the red carpet rolled out). Small time bit players don't get that same treatment nor do coaches fly to meet with small time bit players.

My least favorite Bill in the last 15 years, maddeningly inconsistent and among the lowest football IQs I've seen, bone head plays galore. Never could figure out how to turn to the QB. Would love to watch Sammy Watkins against him for a game. Go deep every time. Happy he's gone, won't miss screaming about his stupidity.

The concept of capitalism is simple: buyers and sellers of a good/service establish the price in a market based on supply and demand. The price establishes the market. So the Raiders are not screwing up the market anymore more than the Bills did with Mario Williams or Marcel Dareus. The demand for the best guards is high, the supply is low and therefore the price is high. Lesser quality guards (see: Incognito, Richie) are in less demand and hence bring lesser prices from the market. If someone doesn't like the price, the don't pay. I get where you are coming from, you are suggesting the Raiders overpaid which in turn resets the market higher for players of lower quality. In football, last year's prices are meaningless as the cap increases and teams with lots of money and maybe one glaring hole can go into the market and pay top dollar. It's how this system has worked since its inception. All in all.... equilibrium reigns over the entire mess.

No doubt, just watch the comedy routine that is the GOP presidential race. Say a lie often enough it becomes truth. Seems to be the way a lot on this board function.... Statements of "fact" absent any evidence.

Take it from the best comedian out there... it's an epidemic.

If launching the crown of your helmet into the face of a running back, knocking him out cold and causing a fumble is still legal, the NFL remains a tone deaf joke.

Oh, so you knew he was an alcoholic, not a college kid having a good time and drinking a few pops but you're assessment was based on your diagnosis of alcoholism, got it. Where is your medical practice located?

I've maintained all along that a new stadium makes zero sense for the Pegulas under current economic conditions, that is limited growth. Don't confuse billions in tax breaks, tax credits, and other forms of corporate welfare to build new buildings as a so-called resurgence. Buffalo is still shedding population, experiencing increasing poverty, and widespread urban decline. The region isn't doing much better. So there's no market to build a new stadium and jack up tickets prices. More importantly, absent increasing wealth in the region across the demographic spectrum, the Pegulas realize the most profitable stadium is the one with zero debt service. The reality is that even with state and local money, the Pegulas realize they'd have to outlay hundreds of millions with little return. Staying at the Ralph makes the most sense and the NFL is going to have to realize that in many small markets, mega stadiums as a tool to squeeze the populace of more money aren't the answer. Last point on eminent domain...that's a slippery slope with some very tough political optics. The Bills need the local government to act as condemnor, meaning Orchard Park or the City of Buffalo. I'm not sure either of those two entities would like to take someone's property and give it to a billionaire. I think realistically, the Pegulas are going to have to overpay for properties if they choose to get into acquisition. Also, it's the fastest way, takings can run through the legal system especially slowly when am owner(s) refuses to sell. Hopefully they stay at the Ralph.

38 with one sip of coffee in me, mind's a little groggy. Answer 42 questions.

Pats fans celebrate championships and get to discuss winning annually not as a dream, but as a reality. Bills fan have nothing much to grab onto and instead wallow in this constant over-analysis of players because the team offers little in the way of hope. I'm of the "who cares" party, I stopped rooting for and getting attached to players half my life ago. I don't care about them, no one should honestly. Some are good people, like Fred Jackson, but when he was let go, I didn't get angry or sad or worry. I didn't care other than thinking, well that kind of sucks for about a minute. They come and go, bartered and sold like cattle at the stockyards. The culture of the NFL player is garbage. The culture of the NFL media, from the screaming (If I talk loud, my point is valid) morons on the TV to the local media honks. And most troubling, the culture of corporate NFL is out of control. They take a very economic approach to every press release, every decisions, every event. Maximize utility, the basis for the study of economics... how individuals and firms maximize utility. So I take the same approach, I seek maximize my utility with respect to the NFL. Happiness is utility. I like the game, itself, from opening whistle to the final whistle. Going on Sundays to RWS is fun and I like the games. But that's it. I get decreased utility by investing emotionally in players (I used to stew over a loss for a day or two, now I'm over it before I get home!), caring about the owners (even ours, they'll be fine without my consideration), caring about the coaches, or purchasing any NFL product aside from my seats. If McCoy got cut today, I wouldn't bat an eye. I would impact me about as much as hearing the alarm clock in the morning.... about a second of "dammit" and then back to the reality of my day. Same with any guy on this team. They are thoroughbred horses that the NFL rides as hard as it can and then sends them to the glue factory. Much like the NFL does with cities, just as St. Louis. Players maximize their utility unlike horses, they get bought, sorry "drafted," and then get to FA where they maximize their utility, not based on sentiment, or the owner, or the city, they go to the highest bidder, like the offspring of American Pharaoh. Nowhere in this complex system is the fan anything other than the means by which all these people get paid. The players, owners, and league only seek to maximize your utility by somehow maximizing theirs. So the bottomline is.... stop caring about players, owners, and the league. You'll find life is better when you break free from this sh!t show that is the NFL. I'm still a fan, I come here daily to see what's up, but man life is better on away Sunday's when you're not sitting around all day watching football.

Why does it matter what job each of the subjects in this issue is? If the "fight" was between four construction guys and some NFL players would the headline state that? My point is, it was off duty cops, what should that escalate the severity of a bar fight beyond, well, a bar fight? And of course, the implication is even great since once was a sergeant. Hang em all. Wait, what were four cops doing out that late, only hoodlums and hooligans prowl after midnight.

But couldn't someone yell "fair, fair, fair" to try and trick the D?

I tried, I wanted to watch but the NFL only proved its a garbage product.

How awesome today that this happened in Liverpool!!! http://www.espnfc.com/liverpool/story/2802375/liverpool-fans-walk-out-in-77th-minute-protest This is why ever week I love the EPL more and the NFL less. Yes the EPL has the haves and the have nots and some issues too. But the EPL keeps and maintains its history, it doesn't relocate teams, it doesn't change its rules to suit the low-brow, instant gratification mentality of society, and generally, fans don't sit there and settle for whatever is handed to them. Find the Jack to a King documentary about Swansea City and the hostile takeover of the team by fans who were sick of a greedy, and owner. You want to see real fans? Those are real fans, Liverpool are real fans. NFL fans are merely consumers. NFL fans settle for being overrun. They settle for a worse and worse product for higher and higher prices. They settle for corporate handouts and special rules for the league and its owners. They settle for the league to lobby against gambling yet sit and watch greedy league owners invest in daily sports gambling so they can benefit from gambling. They settle for teams leaving cities that no longer will hand out taxpayer dollars to subsidize billionaire owners who make billions in profit. If Goodell things that he can trot the NFL into Britain and expect the fans to accept whatever he says as gospel, his ignorance exceeds his arrogance.

The league has evolved away from selling the product to selling products. Marketing and commercials are more important than the credibility of the game. Finding ways to raise money off the field drives owners and players. Basically, it's taken on the consumption culture of America where substance matters not at all and status portrayed through consumption is what people are after. So the Nfls demographic approach is get them young with marketing rather than the product. So growth in popularity is not, I'd bet, growing numbers of people over 35. All my friends except 1 that used to be diehards, went to games, and watched religiously don't anymore. As people age, they lose interest as the thing they grew up with no longer exists in it's past form. No one I know at my work cares, all do well and are older and highly educated. The NFL have given up on the over 40 crowd and aims for youth. That's fine, it's working but how do they keep fans? I'm more of an EPL fan now than an NFL fan. I've watched more minutes of EPL than I've watched of non-Bills NFL this season. I won't watch the super bowl. But Im a diehard bills fan and STH becaus of the culture of the team and what it means for us as a region. The product sucks, frankly. The catch rule, the new PAT rule, the culture of the NFL players (I prefer shut up and play, hand the ball to the ref and move on).... It's a crass and classless product that makes the NHl look credible. The league does nothing to try and not look and act like the entitled Romam Empire, acting like it can be questioned, no one deserves Any information, and it's accountable onto to the ledger. Everyday it's something that pushes me away....relocation, London, and concussion the current problems. So as someone said, you have a choice. I choose to support the team I like in the league I despise. I don't directly support other teams or the league by watching other games (frankly, there's more to life than watching the NFL) and I rarely by any Bills gear. Go to games, enjoy the community comraderie and that's it.

Someone above posted something about his family and I'm not reading it, not time, but maybe its what I read in the past and my take from what I read was that Johnny has some pent up anger over his relationship with his dad, which seems to be based solely on sports and winning. And the two of them have always competed at golf and he's never beaten his dad. The article I read talked of his meltdowns golfing trying to beat his dad. Part of this always made me like the kid, the hatred of losing. Give me a QB who hates to lose and you have something to start with, give me one that doesn't, you have someone with no passion and list of excuses (EJ). But his dad seems like an ahole, both an enabler, telling him how awesome he is and building him up, but also breaking down, never once letting the kid beat the old man at golf. He's leaving the kid to battle the contradiction of being told he's great but the guy telling that can't be beat, the father basically saying, "You can't beat me, you're not better than everyone." I'm not a doctor (medical that is!) but if he has both the psychological issues and the physiological predisposition to addiction, that is a bad combo. I've seen soooo many of my peers have their relationship with their dads go sour over sports. A dad wants to live vicariously through the kid and the kid lacks the passion. I know three kids from high school who were regularly berated for poor play. I recall rides home where a friend's dad would scream at him, call him a "pu__y" and tell him he sucked. That dad was a college athlete and the kid just wanted to play and have fun. Now the kid is a raging alcoholic, recently divorced, and has spoken to his dad in years, who he blames for everything.

What better place for a narcissistic marketing myth to go than NYC. That's got disaster written all over it. Gitter done.

League is just full or horrible human beings. I wouldn't pizz on any of them if they were on fire, let them call a lawyer for that. The league just can't say "Hey, that's awesome you have the tape that we don't have of something we cherish. How about we buy it from you?" It's like someone calling and saying they have the only copy of your wedding tape and want to sell it to you for a dollar and you say "FU, we don't deal with terrorists." A dollar seems like a reasonable offer for your wedding tape and whatever this guy is asking for seems like a reasonable offer for a corporation that just yesterday signed a $900M, 2-year(?) deal for some Thursday night games. Sadly, it doesn't seem to impact their power as more people tune it. Personally, didn't watch a single NFL non-Bills game this year except one quarter of the last Panthers game. I haven't watched the Super Bowl in a number of years. Die-hard Bills fan because it's connection to people and what games do for us as a community, ardent detester of the league, many of the players, and wasting 3.5 hours of my life to watch 12 minutes of game action and 3+ hours of commercials and stupid announcers. I hope the NFL goes backwards. I hope the players sue their nuts off for concussions and health issues and they have to hit the reset button. That's all for now!

How about who cares? By the sounds of it, everyone here is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and also dabbling in the management and coaching of NFL team. Rex coaches right? Whaley drafts right? Enough said. In the doldrums of the NFL offseason, which here starts before Xmas, the local rag seems to be trying really hard to write about the team more often than in the past and in order to do so, they need to make up stories to print. This is as much of a non-issue as possible. And Sully is the guy who historically writes garbage and then doubles down on it all the time, even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/2016/01/05/roth-whaley-ryan-teamwork-display/78299072/ As I keep saying over and over and over, stop reading this joker. He's the equivelant of that ex-girlfriend who constantly trolls you on social media. Put him on ignore people.

I love questions about models with no data. And I will provide an answer with in data but a theoretical, evidenced-based argument instead. The one caveat or assumption to the model to assuage and concur with AlwaysBillieve is you do it when you don't have a franchise QB or when you do but need a backup. This is a QB driven league, absent a franchise QB you , statistically, tend to miss the playoffs and don't win Super Bowls (I know there are a few outliers, Dilfer right?). Also, because I looked too, you don't win Super Bowls with low Wonderlic QBs. Look it up. Pretty unbelievable. I think I recall 22 or 23 is the cut off. The only one below that I think, of published or reputed scores, was Bradshaw and I believe he had dyslexia so the Wonderlic score probably is not valid in his case. A Anyway, know these two things, you have no choice but to draft a QB every year. First, in come case you don't have a viable starter, meaning you keep drafting until you at least get one of those. Second, even with a viable but unproven non-franchise player, you still should hunt and try to develop one. Third, these players do developer and some do "get it" in the pros as late rounders. Being on the practice squad or running the scout team is valuable time. Lastly, and I think the most important reason why is that in the current hyper-greedy and impatient NFL, one without a minor league, it's a way to give a guy some time. If you have a Tyrod Taylor, you draft a guy this year in the 3 or 4, someone with talent but maybe inexperienced (but not dumb! No low Wonderlics) who can be groomed without an issue. Let the team see what they have. Let him learn and practice. In all honesty, I think the league should allow some designated "free passes" to teams for the practice squad (or do they have one, I think players have to go through waivers), giving teams an incentive and time to draft a QB, let him stay on the PS a year, and then see what they have. The Cousin-RGIII issues is a perfect example, albeit not in different years, making it even more. It's also an example of what happens when you don't employ that practice, given the Bills past on him about 30 spots before he was drafted for TJ Graham when Cousins and Wilson were still on the board. I'm not saying Cousins is franchise material, Wilson is. But you miss opportunities in the mid and late rounds in order to go with the best player available. Sometimes, you have to step out of that approach.

Excellent point. Clearly you've had an unfair life and now you're bitter and resentful of others. Charity sucks, close them all because you don't like it.