D. L. Hot-Flamethrower

Excellent Post!

http://www.nfl.com/features/freakonomics/episode-15 This has been researched and debunked as I said earlier. I doubt seeing the evidence will change the opinion of those who cling to clichés. This argument is very similar to those who believe baseball is 75% or 90% pitching. It is wrong whether or not you believe the evidence. May I point out that if Seattle's offense had played poorly yesterday, or all year for that matter, the outcome would be very different.

This! That old defense wins clich has been debunked many times over. There are a lot of different ways to build a championship team, and enough defense is one of them. Just like enough offense. Enough of a running game, enough of etc.. I expect to hear all the oversimplification of building a winner now that the Super Bowl is over. THE FORMULA is.......blah blah blah. Leave that to the media please.

This!

I think your definition of a dynasty is very limited. Ever team starts out with a goal to get to the SB. A dynasty by my definition is dominating your conference over an extended period. The Bills clearly did that! Where the 91 Redskins a dynasty, or the 90 giants for that matter?. The Dynasty of the NFC during that era was Dallas.

Yes it was a dynasty-no question! Much harder to get to four SBs than to win only one. In retrospect, it was so enjoyable to have those multiple years of excellence as a fan. Should they have won the first one and never returned it would not have been as enjoyable a period IMO. I was frustrated crazy like a lot of BIlls fans, but age and wisdom has caused me to reflect on the period. It was awesome, I just wish my son and daughter could experience the week after week excitement of winning those conference championships. The most resilient sports team ever!! I would also add that group of Redskins who beat the Bills, are regarded now as a great one-year wonder. The other years surrounding the Super Bowl victory, were mediocre only. Why? because they were a very good team, who had a great year. The Bills were a great team, that had a very good season, and a very bad performance in one game.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Oh..What happened to being a reporter, and reporting the news, passing along you know....accurate info! Everyone in the media has to editorialize and give their own opinion. I really don't give a **** about how Graham thinks a team should be run. Has he ever run one? Does anyone want him to run one for that matter? The answer of course is no !@#$ing way!

Very well put, I don't know that I've ever heard it put so succinctly! Makes a lot of sense. The only thing I might not agree with is a player drafted at the top part of the first round, as we do at #9. I think you pay for and expect a starter at this level of the draft.

Looks like a quality hire by the team.

Jacoby Jones is a FA and WR we could use. I wonder if they got along?

Weaver and Henderson!!

I re-thought it with everyone's help. Thanks. I looked at all the boxscores, time on clock, score. Also, took into account whether any garbage scores occurred. Results are below: We were actually 2-3 in decisive games, and 4-7 in close games! DECISIVE VICTORIES NOTES NYJ W23 MIA W19 TIGHT WINS JAX W7 BAL W3 MIA W2 CAR W1 TIGHT LOSSES NE L2 CIN L3 OT ATL L3 OT NYJ L7 KC L10 FG W/2:00 LEFT CLE L13 LATE TD INT W/2:00 LEFT NE L14 LATE TD W/3:30 LEFT DECISIVE LOSSES PIT L13 3-23 BEFORE VERY LATE TD NO L18 TB L21 The point of all this is how close are we really? Well we were 4-7 in the closer games; and it is not hard to envision winning the 2 OT losses, the first NE game, and the KC game! That gets us to 10-6 overall and in the playoffs. However, to be fair, we beat Carolina, Baltimore and Miami the first time in nailbiters that could have gone the other way. I guess it is fair to say we were pretty competitive 13 of 16 games. I think we are getting there, but only 2 decisive wins over weaker teams (NYJ,MIA) is clearly not enough.

Nice effort! I think our needs are prioritized as follows: 1. Taller, longer, receiver with jumping ability and catching radius. We do not have anything close to this, and it hurts in the redzone especially. Draft 2. Another TE to be our number 1, with Chandler as our second TE, you need to have two good TEs in this offense. Draft or FA 3. Right Tackle. Pears was not strong last year and is getting older. Draft. 4. Interior O-LINE. Speaks for itself. Do this free agency. All these things will make EJ that much better.

Great Point! I had always thought we did worse in defensive points allowed than we need to. We kept the yardage allowed down, forced turnovers....but gave up touchdowns in the redzone too frequently.

Thanks! I agree with the critique. There are definetly other, and perhaps better avenues to explore this question. However, I would disagree with the person who said the Bills played in more close games than normal. They were as average as average is.One thing is very clear from this, even if the boundaries are controversial, the really good teams do a lot better in the decisive games. The Bills, were 2-6, in these games. The stronger teams,like the super Bowl squads, DEN&SEA, were a combined 18-0 between them in these types of games!Also, CAR 7-2,SF 9-2, NO 6-2, CIN 6-2 etc. The flip side is HOU 0-5,WAS 1-6, CLE 2-7, TB 2-7,OAK 2-8 were awful. The point is the Bills are a lot closer to these teams still, and lets not fool ourselves into thinking we are a player or two away. WE NEED TO GET BETTER IN ALL AREAS! Another good draft, some more quality free agent pickups, and some more improvement from younger players through better coaching. I think what we did this year was improve our confidence, team direction and our culture. The next step is starting to put away some of those teams we had on the ropes. And, not make that bad play or two that seems to crop up way to often-KC game. When we are able to go 6-2 in those decisive games to go with a 4-4 close games record we will be a playoff team. I want to get there that way, not going 7-1 in close games, get lucky and have an unsustainable record. We want a dominant team year after year.

A common theme is that the Bills were very competitive in a lot of games, and lost a lot of tough games. I decided to do a little study not knowing the answer. What I did was figure out each teams W/L record in close games, 1 possession or 8 pts or less. Obviously, a victory of more than 8 pts can be described as a decisive win, I figured these as well. I also created an adjusted record by using a teams decisive wins plus a 50% record in their close games. Obviously, the difference between the teams actual record and adjusted record can be described as lucky or unlucky. A few observations: In decisive games Seattle 8-0 and Denver 10-0 led the way. New England 5-0, NYJ 5-1, and Indy 6-1 had the best records in close games! THE BILLS were 4-4, 50% obviously smack dab in the middle! Their adjusted record was 6-10!!! We are who we thought we were. What the Bills really need is to win more games by 9 or more points, they were only 2-6!

Looks good! We are good on pass defense and lacking against the run. This looks like a smart move. Also, his teams rush the passer, like we do, so no loss there.

I think it would be a big mistake to change the defense yet again, just to get a name.

If I'm Mike Pettine it's time to move on! He has to be thinking that way. If they haven't hired him yet it is a bad sign. They are not sure, and are looking around and hoping for something else. I can't think of a situation like this that has worked out for a coach. Pettine needs to remember this is not the last job in the world. He needs to believe in the law of continuous opportunity. Withdraw, come back and have a good year, and learn from the experience.

What is it Marv Levy used to say "Cash to Cap"?

Right, the coaches would be more inclined to go for it in the oppositions territory. Right now it is a crutch. Let's take the three.

On another tag, we have been talking about the Extra Point proposal from Goodell. It was suggested we have a new topic on the width of the goal posts-currently 18-6 , and the relationship to the overall place kicking in the NFL. Currently, Field Goal% is at an all time high with over 85% of all field goals made. We all know Extra Points are all but automatic at over 99.5%. I proposed reducing the goal posts first before eliminating it. Others also supported this view as well. I did a little research before starting this topic. The goal is to find how much change might be needed. A scatter plot of all field goals would be ideal. You could then, a la Homeruns Data of ballparks in baseball on ESPN, determine how much to reduce the width of the posts and the desired %made. This data was not available as far as I could tell, it has to exist somewhere. So...The current width in college and the NFL is the same 18-6. This was not always the case, the college width was 24-3 until 1990. Some extrapolation will be required later, but when the NCAA made this change FG% dropped from 67% to 60%. However, comparing the 5 years before to 5 years after tells a little different story. The drop was from 67% to 63%, only 4% points. OBVIOUSLY-doug. Therefore a reduction in the width of about 20% only gave about a 4% drop in FG%. I should also point out an omission, the NCAA also eliminated the use of a 1" tee at the time. Not sure how much impact this had, my guess is that it was slight because the kicking surfaces have improved so much. Extrapolation part: Changes to the goal post below: Reducing the goalposts 4.5' to 14' a reduction of 24%, or 5.5' to 13'a reduction of 30%, or 6.5' to 12'a reduction of 35%,and 7.5 to 11' a reduction of 41%. We are at 85% success rate in the current NFL, I would think something like a 70-75% rate would be better, made even 67%. When they were reduced in the 1990 NCAA, a 20% reduction brought about a change of 4%. Does this mean that if we reduced them 7.5' to 11' the drop would be something like 8-10% to somewhere in the 75-77% for the NFL. And, probably double that the first year to perhaps 65-69%? My gut tells me it will be more. Amd, a cut to 12' feet may be enough. An interesting point, the college data showed most of the drop in under 50 yard field goals! Longer field goals stayed practically the same. I would not have guessed this. Your thoughts? Bring it on! I would also add, that to obtain a larger reduction in FG%, you could place a hortizontal bar at a height of something like 10-12'. Pretty drastic - I know.

Try reducing the width and height of the goalposts first. The whole place kicking game is too easy. All the coaches rely on it too much. Lets have more fourth down attempts in opponents territory!

All I could think of watching Richard Sherman and Erin Andrews, was Dave Chappelle going, "I'm Rick James B word!"