BarleyNY

I caught most of that. He said what I hoped he would. Happy with what he's given us, but he needs to continue to develop and we will bring in competition. Hope he becomes "the guy" but not there yet. He was nicely specific about where he's been able to attack the field and where he hasn't. Some good questions too. Taylor needs to worry about his development and improve. He can't do anything about the OL except help them by making good, quick decisions with the ball and improving his pocket awareness and movement. A better RT wouldn't hurt, but they've got FAs at LG and LT to worry about too. That's a nice way of saying they gave him as much as they thought he could handle and that was it. I covered this on the previous page, but the short version is that he pulls the ball down and runs so often that more passing plays would mean more of a physical toll on him. It also considerably reduces his number of attempts in the stat line. It's the right way to bring him along and he certainly passed the test, but he's still got his work cut out for him. I hope he can beat the odds.

This is all true, but I'll add: Taylor has often run when he doesn't see a receiver open, including times he hasn't properly gone through progressions to find someone who is open. He's to be complimented that he's made a lot of positive plays instead of negative ones in those instances. But he's still not recognizing open receivers in some instances and he's taking a lot of additional punishment by pulling the ball down so often. He threw 18 times and ran 14 times against Dallas. Maybe 2 or so of those runs were called. So that means he pulled the ball down and ran on pass plays about 40% of the time in that game. That's way too much. I wish I knew the season numbers. If Roman called more pass plays and he kept up that running percentage Taylor would get killed. He's got to improve his reads and progressions or this is his ceiling.

Keeping Pettine and dumping Farmer is actually a smart way to go. Farmer's been awful.

I assume you mean a deal with $3M base plus incentives. I don't have a problem paying Harvin well, but I do have a problem guaranteeing him any money. It was a mistake this season and it's a mistake going forward. I'd insist on multiple roster bonuses throughout the season - every game if I could get it. It's been done before. Greg Hardy has such a deal, with a $750k base and $9.25M in weekly roster bonuses, plus a hefty workout bonus of over $1M. So if Harvin wants a similar deal - maybe a base around $750k plus something like $500k per game in roster bonuses and bonuses for being on the active game day roster. He can make his $8M-$9M if he performs all season and is willing to gut it out and play dinged. If he steps out of line, nurses an injury or even genuinely gets injured he'd be out. Also if the roster bonuses were small, but the active game day roster bonuses were large he could be kept on the team if he was to miss some time due to legitimate injury, but would be expected back. While I don't think he'd accept that kind of contract, it'd be the only way I'd touch him. *Please note that failure to pay a roster bonus terminates a contract whether or not a player is injured.

I agree almost entirely with those lists. I'd move Cousins and maybe Bortles down to the close, but no list and I'd move Bridgewater, Romo and probably Stafford up to the next tier list.

That sucks. Here's wishing him a speedy and full recovery.

I wonder how many of the fans that paid full price would have purchased tickets and showed up if they hadn't already sunk that cost? The Jets game offers an excellent chance at resale (which the Dallas game certainly did not) so the percentage of Jets fans should be a much better indication of how fans feel.

Oh, I think we are all far too well aware of what's on the line for the Bills.

Geez, it's tough to imagine that americanthinker and Al Jazeera don't see eye to eye on something.

The funniest part of this is that she's the reason he signed in Miami. I know that Cleveland offered him more to go there, which was a big deal at the time because he was coming off of a nasty injury. He had other options too. He took less to go to Miami because that's where she wanted to live. Now she's saying that she always knew that Tanny sucked. So she apparently cared more about living in Miami than she did about her husband making more money in Cleveland or him going to a more successful team elsewhere. She's a crazy trainwreck, but I'm sure Brent would contend that she has at least one redeeming cake-related quality.

Exactly. It doesn't help when the thread title declares a 13 for 18, 179 yard, 1 INT day as "spectacular". Even with the 14 rushes for 67 yards it was far short of that.

This is a concern of mine too. It showed on the interception in the end zone at the end of the first half. Taylor made a poor decision and threw to a well covered receiver instead of the open one nearby.

No, not particularly. They seem more concerned with keeping their jobs via short term gains at the long term expense of the team than with the team's long term success.

Can we put this discussion to bed now?

Tip of the iceberg

Just find it funny that people who are pimping him don't even know where he typically plays. Or that he's getting toward the end of his career (as is pointed out above).

In Baltimore Ngata only rotated over the C's shoulder to play the 0 technique when the NT took a breather. He typically played the 3.

Exactly. Cutting him is an almost 100% certainty, but there's no hurry. You might get lucky and get something for him in trade or, since you're paying him anyway, why not use him as a hedge against a rash of QB injuries in training camp. And why completely tip your hand? Teams and agents know we are in the market, but it's in the team's best interest to not look completely desperate.

The worst was getting up in the night to use the bathroom and taking that Chester walk you mentioned. By the time I got back to bed I was wide awake from the pain. Then I'd lay awake for hours. Good times.....

Agreed. Rob Ryan is a terrible DC. No DC puts more pressure on his CBs than him, it never seems to work for long and he never changes from it. It's just brutal to watch.

I'm not calling for his head already, but the most disappointing aspect of this entire season is been that Rex and rest of the coaching staff haven't gotten more out of the defense. A big part of the coaching staff's job is to maximize talent and they certainly haven't done that on the defensive side of the ball.

Mario is trying to keep his value up, but that's okay because it might help the Bills trade him rather than cut him.

It is. I had it in my right foot and my wife has had it in both feet. It was easily a year before it was right. Not that I have close to the same care as NFL players or anything. Man, Byrd taking a powder in NO is going to push them further into cap hell. They were already in terrible shape and this is another big hit. No. It is difficult to recoup signing bonuses, but a player choosing to retire can be required to repay a portion of it. He also would forfeit any unpaid, guaranteed money. In your example, the player would end up giving it all back.

A healthy Kyle Williams who is back to form is worth paying another $6.5M to this season. If he's not expected to be back to form and healthy, then the team doesn't have a choice and it's just time to move on. When discussing cutting/trading a player, you can't look at sunk costs like signing bonuses or past payments. Replacement cost and ability to replace are important. What's your plan there? Parting ways with him saves $5M in cap space in 2016 and quality DTs rarely make it to free agency. How are you going to improve the defense with that?

If he's healthy and back to form, $3M is definitely way under value, even with age/injury risk. The only renegotiation I could see happening is asking him to take lower base salary, but adding incentives that allows him to earn it all back. Still, there's always a risk when asking a player to take a pay cut (or potential pay cut). What if he says "no"? Are you willing to let him go? You pretty much have to be resigned to that. That's where I balk. I'd rather just pay him his $6.5M than have to replace him. If he's healthy. If he's not, then this is all moot.