transplantbillsfan

Wow. Dumb post. Boo!

Well his overall numbers are good, too. He's 12 in the NFL in Passer Rating and 0.1 behind Russell Wilson at #11. I don't think this is about cherry picking, it's just pointing to something tons of people are critical of when it comes to Taylor and providing evidence to the contrary. Similarly, Taylor has the 7th highest Passer Rating in the NFL on 3rd down and has the 8th highest conversion % on 3rd down passes, despite having the 2nd most 3rd and 8+ yards in the entire NFL, behind only Phillip Rivers. Is that really cherry-picking? Or is it just bringing up a flaw that some posters have been driveling on about forever and pointing out that Taylor's doing better in that respect in 2017? For example, people have been really critical about Taylor throwing the football over the intermediate middle portion of the field. Well, according to NFL's Next Gen Stats, so far in 2017, Taylor's passes to the INTERMEDIATE THIRD of the field look like this: 13/16 (6.8% of his 2017 passes) with 2 TDs and 0 Interceptions. By comparison, Russell Wilson is 16/25 (8.3% of his 2017 passes) with 2 TDs and 1 Interception.

Perception is not always reality

I actually think Taylor's last 3 games have been by far his best 3 game stretch of his career thus far. I don't think we'll pass as much as some believe against the Saints simply because their D is supposed to be weakest vs. the run, but I'm really excited to see what Taylor can do with Benjamin and Clay on the field. And I hope Zay Jones is healthy and good to play because he was finally starting to look the part vs. the Jets.

Could you give those of us who aren't subscribers to the Buffalo News some of the highlights?

Truth: the Bills primarily had MAJOR OL issues!!! https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/11/7/16611976/nfl-week-9-buffalo-bills-offensive-line-problems-a-whole-team-issue-against-the-jets-tyrod-taylor The Jets’ front 7 defenders seemed as if they were on the Bills’ side of the line of scrimmage all game. With their aggressive play, they were able to neutralize the Bills’ offense and win 1-on-1 battles up front.

Very well stated, Shaw.

There might be a little of that, but Ryan's year under Shanahan was head and shoulders better in every statistical category. 1.3% higher completion % than his 2nd best year in 2012, 15 more passing yards per game than his 2nd best year in 2012, 1.4 YPA better than his 2nd best year in his rookie year of 2008, 6 more TDs than his 2nd best year of 2012, a better INT% than his 2nd best year of 2010, Passer Rating of 117.1 compared with his 2nd best year in 2012 of 99.1. It was the perfect storm in 2016 for Ryan's MVP season, and a 2nd year of being comfortable in Shanahan's system was what did it. The step back this year with Shanahan leaving almost certainly would have happened whether the Falcons won the Super Bowl or lost.

Great job summing up my points!

Matt Ryan's last year was an anomaly over the span of his career. It was head and shoulders better than his other years. You think a light just suddenly went on in Ryan's 9th year? Plus, before Shanahan, Ryan had Mularkey, who has been another high level OC in the span of his career. Ryan has always benefitted from a talented play caller.

https://twitter.com/SInow/status/926553585118101504

I'm sorry, do you not expect that people would ever disagree with you? Are you coming on a discussion board to discuss or do you have some fantasy that you're actually standing on a soapbox in the middle of a park and that everyone must listen to you and when people disagree, your autopilot is to be incredibly arrogant and snarky? I still don't think think you got the gist of the thread. I don't think that Taylor is better than all those guys. I think Taylor has the ability to be as good as or as successful as all of the tier 2 guys. He'll never touch tier one.

First of all, much like that standard deviation article from a month or two ago, I think you're really missing the point of the tiers themselves. For example: -Prescott might be losing Elliot for 6 games. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened, but when it does, do you want to bet that Prescott looks worse as a QB? Oh, plus he's had the best OL in the NFL for 2 years. -Carr. See rookie year followed by drafting of Cooper, acquisition of OL and building up what would be one of the best OLs in the NFL and voila!!! -We've seen Andy Dalton without AJ Green and Tyler Eifert. Certainly nothing special. -We saw Goff last year without McVay and Woods and Watkins and Cooper Kupp. He sucked. -Kirk Cousins has worked under some of the more brilliant offensive minds in the NFL since he's started in McVay and last names Gruden and Shanahan. -Jameis Winston?!?! pfffft!!! Taylor's better than him right now for sure. Dude's got all the weapons he could ever ask for and a HC who was an OC who practically turned Matthew Stafford into an MVP and you legitimately think he's better than Taylor? I think you undervalue how much coaches and GMs want to protect the football. -I guess you're just a volume guy if you're putting Rivers up there still, too. Not anymore. That's just a handful I felt like going through right now, might do more tomorrow. But yep, Taylor's like all those guys I just mentioned: right system and/or play caller and/or weapons and/or running game and/or OL, etc. and then you get a Franchise QB

Funny, you seem to be the only guy who assumed I meant every QB who's taken even a single snap in the history of the NFL. Anyway, disregarding your unnecessarily (but expected) snarky response to a pretty straightforward correction, I'm glad we cleared up something everyone else seemed to understand except you. PS: This is an actual question- Are you really a Bills fan, or do you just like to argue so you latched onto one of the most consistent losers in sports so you could argue the "glass is half empty" position incessantly because, well, that's just who you are?

These are reactionary tiers. They are tiers that exist solely "in the moment" as safe picks. Those 3 tiers are what those NFL QBs ultimately are rather than how we judge them. Like with Goff, he'd be in your "too early to tell" category, but the reality is that he just is whatever he is. Rich Gannon was always a talented QB, but he wasn't always throwing to Jerry Rice and Tim Brown. Suddenly, he looked like a Franchise QB. That's why he's tier 2.

Awwwww Thurm I've missed you so much, too!!! I thought it was pretty obvious I meant vast majority of starting QBs in the NFL, but since you're including all those guys with any stats whatsoever, why didn't you include all the trick plays where a non QB threw the ball, too? I'm disappointed. Clearly you don't read what you respond to since I obviously put Fitz and McCown in a separate tier from Ryan. i directly said those 2 specifically were in a separate tier. If you were once someone who taught journalism or was an aspiring journalist yourself, I'm pretty disappointed considering how careless you're becoming. Really, though, I'm sorry that fun effort was wasted So, there are at least 18 guys better than Taylor right now? Who?

And Brady would have stayed on the bench if Bledsoe wasn't knocked out in a Jets game. Even Tier 1 guys need the circumstances, like I said. Just not as many. Taylor wasn't seeing the field over Flacco because the team was successful with Flacco for several years. They were going to the playoffs and AFC Championships and then won a Super Bowl. Circumstances really aligned for Flacco in the first 5 years of his career, so much so that he bet on himself, won a Super Bowl and GOT PAID. Then the team couldn't afford more talent because all that money was going to Flacco and look what happened. You legitimately think Eli and Flacco are so much better than Taylor right now? Totally disagree. In fact, I bet if Taylor were the QB of the Giants right now the Giants would be a better team and have more than 1 win. Lots of stars need to align to be a long term NFL starter at the most important position in sports, no matter how much talent he has

I don't think it's about contract, it's about ability. Tier 2 needs more stars to align than tier 1. There are a lot of QBs throughout history who are tier 2 guys, but the stars didn't align and they fell off the face of the earth. David Carr is the first example that pops in my head. He wasn't a bad QB. he was just in an absolutely atrocious situation. I'd say the same thing for RG3. The tier 2 guys need help in different ways. David Carr needed an OL. RG3 was a bit of a head case, so I think his issues had more to do with guidance in terms of leadership. It's almost revisionist history, don't you think? Remember all the conversation in the 2012 draft? RG3 was viewed by many as one of the best prospects to come out in years, and if it weren't for luck coming out in the same year, he was the clear-cut number one draft choice. Some QBs were just destined for tier 3 or below. I think EJ was always one of those guys, sadly. He just never had it upstairs. And I'm not talking about intelligence, I'm talking about IT. Tier 2 guys are never solidly in tear one or solidly in tear three. There will be years where we'll talk about them as elite guys like we did with Ryan last year or Tannehill and his second or third year (I can't remember which) or Kaepernick as he began his career or the other way around like Goff last year. Once you know you have a tier 2 guy, I think you need to make a very abrupt choice: keep shooting for a tier one guy and probably miss or build your team and system to suit the tier 2 guy's strengths. You can keep looking for a tear one guy. But once you start adopting your system and bringing in players for the tier 2 guy, you're probably going to be bringing in some W-2s, which would mean you'd have to somehow luck out in getting your tier one guy. But then again, all the teams that have tier one guys lucked out, one way or another. It was inevitable once he saw the field. I agree seeing the field wasn't inevitable, though.

Eli's tier 2. Plenty of tier 2 guys have been to and won Super Bowls. Cam Newton, Joe Flacco, Eli, Russell Wilson are all tier 2 guys, but guys who also prove you can win with those guys in the right circumstances. I think the blurred line between tier 1 and 2 are Big Ben and Kurt Warner. Both of those guys have played at such high levels, but have also been the beneficiaries of some unbelievable talent with Big Ben having Leveon Bell and Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown over the years and Kurt Warner having Marshall Falk and Torrey Holt and Isaac Bruce with Mike Martz calling the plays and then Fitz in Atlanta. Another? Been here since the beginning of March. I've started 14 threads since I've been here, 10 about Taylor. I'm barely averaging 1 thread a month. Plenty of posters on here are much, much worse. No need to enter them if you don't want to discuss, ya know

Nononono... You misunderstand what I meant. Matty Ice is a Franchise QB now, but it's thanks to all those circumstances I mentioned. Him being a franchise QB wasn't inevitable in the same way those Tier 1 guys were.

My oh my... looks like Taylor was 5/5 with a TD in the intermediate middle portion of the field... one of the biggest areas of criticism folks have had towards Taylor

All QBs need some circumstances, but for a small minute handful of QBs there was an inevitability that they'd be Franchise QBs purely based on their physical ability/ mental ability/ intangibles. Tier 1 QBs are the Elite guys (Brady, Brees, and Rodgers are the only 3 absolutes up there with Big Ben probably creeping in, too) who can largely "carry a team," even though with Football being the ultimate team sport, these guys still needed a couple things to fall into place. Brady would never have been Brady without the Hoodie... same for Brees & Payton. I actually think Rodgers might be a slight step above those guys because I just think Rodgers and McCarthy have never jibed as well as the rest, but Rodgers had the circumstance of learning from one of the best in the game on the bench for 4 years and not feeling any pressure. These guys are the generational, rare 1st ballot HOFers that Buffalo was so lucky to have once in Jim Kelly. But they're rare. Incredibly rare. Previous to the 3 (maybe 4...?) guys above we've had maybe 2 other QBs we've seen in that category playing in the NFL since 2000 in Peyton Manning and Brett Favre. Tier 3 QBs are the guys who are often labelled as "journeymen," "fringe starters," or even "bridge QBs." These are the guys defined by Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown and Brian Hoyer over the span of their careers. These are guys you want as your backup, but will suffer through them as your starter because they might pleasantly surprise you on occasion. Tier 2 QBs are the vast majority of guys in the NFL and these are the guys who have the ability/capability to be/of being a Franchise QB, but unlike the tier 1 guys, it's not inevitable, or close to it the way those guys are. This is where Tyrod Taylor sits. There are plenty of guys in this category, some of them are probably the higher end of tier 2 like Ryan, Goff, and Wentz. Some of them might be more in the middle like Cousins, Prescott, and Rivers. And others are on the lower end like Dalton, Flacco and Tannehill. But they're all there in tier 2. The last 2 years for both Matt Ryan and Jared Goff exemplify this tier. They require the right circumstances and, unlike the tier 1 guys, they need a combination of several of these circumstances to be what one might consider a "Franchise QB." These circumstances typically are a combination of weapons in the passing game, a running game, offensive system, offensive play caller, and/or defense. Matt Ryan has always had the weapons over the span of his career (as a rookie he had an explosive running game with Michael Turner and a solid WR corps with one of the league's best WRs at the time in Roddy White and throughout his career he's had Tony Gonzales and Julio Jones and Davonte Freeman and so on) and he's also always had pretty good Offensive Coordinators/playcallers (Mike Mularkey, Dirk Koetter, Kyle Shanahan). Last year Matt Ryan had an MVP season and I remember all the "HE'S ELITE!!!" conversation. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I predicted that Ryan would take a pretty significant step back this season because I believed Shanahan was largely responsible for Ryan's season. And look what's happened? Ryan still looks like a starter but has come dropping out of any of the "Elite" dialogue anyone was having... it's pretty funny because I bet all those talking heads who were saying that (and there were A LOT!!!) just feel like idiots now. It's not that Ryan is a bad QB. He's not, he's good. He's just not great the way those tier 1 guys are. He still has good weapons there, so he's still gonna be good enough. Jared Goff is like the exact opposite example of this. Yeah, I know he was just a rookie last year, but he absolutely SUCKED last year. Like he just looked really bad and the Rams looked foolish. And keep in mind that this was with one of the better defenses in the league and also with one of the more talented RBs in the league (whose production also, ironically was terrible... consistent with this whole "OC help needed" theme, hmmm? 0:)) Then what happens? The team hires a brilliant young offensive mind as a head coach and goes out and acquires talent at the WR position, much to Buffalo's chagrin. And voila!!! Do you guys honestly think Goff just magically became a different guy or is he seriously the beneficiary of a brilliant young offensive play caller and newly acquired (or differently utilized) Elite talent? Yeah, I think it's the latter. Taylor's in this tier, too. These guys aren't good enough to overcome circumstances, and so far in his career, there have been more circumstances working against Taylor than a lot of the other guys in this tier, which might be the reason we move on from him after this year or, more likely, after next year. But if some circumstances can start shaping up more in Taylor's favor, he's a guy who CAN be our Franchise QB.

Tyrod Taylor as the 3rd string QB???? Sheer lunacy Taylor is better than Fitz, first of all. Second of all, just last week you were saying you had one foot on the Taylor bandwagon? What happened? If you say the Jets game, you lied about ever being open to Taylor and were just waiting for any loss the Bills had to pounce. And the Jets game was not the loss to pounce on Taylor's play since that's one of Taylor's 5 best career games (I'd say) and the team lost in spite of his performance, not because of it.

This is going to get a really warm response, I can tell http://buffalonews.com/2017/11/04/stats-wizard-tyrod-taylor-or-ben-roethlisberger-no-seriously/ Tyrod Taylor or Ben Roethlisberger? No, seriously ...

I remember what you think of as my "meltdown" right after the Steelers game, yes. I made very sure to word that entire thread carefully. I was composed, calm and deliberate. The gist of the post was that Taylor wasn't the guy FOR US because of the way our team was being run philosophically with Rex and how our defenses under Rex (who I'd assumed would still be around this season) would need a top 5 QB. And since I thought Rex would be back, I wasn't remotely willing to put up with another inevitable losing season just to keep Taylor. I'm a Bills fan. Once Taylor's not a Bill he's "just another guy" pretty quickly for me. In that thread, I even said in that Taylor would start and probably be successful to some degree with another team, he just wasn't good enough for us. And Taylor still isn't good enough to carry a team with a bad defense to the playoffs. My stance there hasn't changed, though I do think Taylor's gotten better and is making strides this year. Meltdown? Too funny.