transplantbillsfan

To the bold... Total Bull $H!+ You told me 50 after I presented the criteria and responded directly to that criteria. I told you give me 10. Maybe you just selectively read the way so many here seem to do and merely saw my first set of criteria and ran with it, but I'm glad you're admitting 10 don't exist, further cementing the uniqueness of Taylor's situation

Wow... all that time writing this post up and you could have easily discovered at least half of the plays based on game, down & distance, and targeted WR by looking at the play by plays in the time you wrote it... And you write enough long winded posts that go nowhere, so clearly you'd have the time to do the other half. You're a smart guy, Thurm... have at it!

Boooo!!! I plan on surfing til I die so I'll keep searching for that fountain

Thank you for coming to show all these players how to act on and off the field. Please help us get back to the playoffs

Arthritis in my right knee and getting hip problems at 35. Yeah... sad...

Hope so, I started taking osteobiflex a couple weeks ago just to try to find the fountain of youth again

"Can" as demonstrated by several examples doesn't mean anyone has said he shouldn't do it more. http://stats.washingtonpost.com/fb/leaders.asp?range=NFL&rank=111&type=Passing&year=Taylor had the sixth highest passer rating in the red zone in 2016. Kirk Cousins moment...? Looks like he's got a little bit of a fire lit under him. I saw either yesterday or the day before from Joe B that he thought Taylor had a good day or two and camp. But he tweeted it. He didn't write about it in his daily "seven observations". I can see Taylor getting frustrated reading only about the bad or unavoidably good rather than what's going pretty well for him and camp. Either that, or maybe more likely, he knows that the team is working on certain things and at times that might make him not look as good because of the things they're working on it, yet that's all the media sees and reports on without having context. Regardless, he seems angry!

I'm 36. And I felt my body take a turn at 35. Suddenly I'm having weird problems I never had before. I can understand it for football players for sure.

CHEEEE HOOOOO!!! I have always loved Boldin! I wonder if it's just coincidental that this is happening the day after a Watkins scare...?

Thank you for the honesty and open mindedness, but I'm still curious what specifically changed your mind? Did you rewatch a bunch of games? I ask because these "nuances" are very seemingly scout specific. Any plays as examples of these you could direct us to?

Yeah... this is interesting because before BBMB shut down I remember you felt very differently about Taylor. What changed your mind? At least I think that was you, right? You were the one getting a scouting job, right?

I like that you bring this point up. I actually feel like the timing West Coast offense will work really well for Taylor. I think when he has A well defined and quick timing route before the ball is even snapped, it will only A well defined and quick timing route before the ball is even snapped, it will help him rather than hurt him. help him rather than hurt him. Somewhere in this thread, another poster posted a link to a WGR interview of Cian Fahey talking specifically about Taylor for about 14 minutes. One of his points about the whole YAC thing was that Taylor threw the ball down the field a lot more than the majority of NFL QBs (7th highest Average Depth of Throw) and that, in general, any NFL QB throwing deeper throws will be less likely to get YAC out of those throws. And he also points out that Taylor's accuracy percentage (% of "catchable balls" vs "uncatchable balls") was still the ninth highest in the NFL (76.02%). In his catalog, he actually breaks down the accuracy of each QB in specific ranges: behind the LOS, 1 to 5 yards, 6 to 10 yards, 11 to 15 yards, 16 to 20 yards, 21+ yards. Two out of Taylor's three most accurate ranges were the parts of the field that I think will be the focus in the West Coast offense. He was the ninth most accurate quarterback in the 6 to 10 range. He was the eighth most accurate quarterback in the 11 to 15 range. As you might guess, the other category he ranked highly in was the 21+ range, where he was ninth. I've brought this up before, but I really think you saw this when Lynn took over last year. Lots of plays designed even over the middle in that 6 to 15 range. To me, that's the bread-and-butter of the West Coast offense. The general criticism that Taylor was the reason that the Bills were so poor in YAC because he doesn't put the ball in places where WRs can gain any extra yardage is questionable, at best. A few months ago when this issue came up, I started with the plan to do the whole season, but after doing the first 3 games and realizing time was an issue (wish I had more of it), I decided to jump to what I thought was his worst 4 game stretch. What I did was just rewatch the completions for ball placement to see how many of his completions were poorly placed and left yardage on the field. This is more about ball placement than accuracy, something Fahey said he's not looking at as he's just looking for "catchable balls"... and yes, I think the 2 should be examined separately because accuracy would include all those incompletions. But there seems to be this general belief by some that Taylor's WRs were somehow always bailing him out and that Taylor is responsible for leaving yards on the field. Well, in those 7 games (BALT, NYJ, ARI, CIN, JAX, OAK, PITT), Taylor completed 111 passes. By my own eyes (feel free to doubt them and try this yourself ), only 7 of those passes were so poorly placed that they left potential yardage on the field. 1- A high pass to Clay on 3rd down in the Ravens game 2- A 3rd down pass to Woods in the Ravens game 3- A 2nd down pass to Goodwin in the Cardinals game 4- A 1st down pass that was low to a wide open Woods on the sideline in the Cardinals game 5- A 3rd down and 1 to Harvin in the Bengals game that was a little behind him... he was gonna get clobbered, anyway. 6- A 1st down pass to Clay that was a little behind him in the middle and really didn't have much chance for YAC... in fact, the chance for that YAC may have been to the middle, where the ball was thrown. 7- A 3rd down pass to Goodwin around the sideline that was a 1st down conversion, anyway

Isn't that the point John was making? Those are Taylor's numbers from 2015 if you were to "project" his numbers for the 2 games he didn't play in: Cincy & Jax I've been saying all along, his 2015 production was really impressive for any first year starting QB and expecting him to build on those numbers seems almost unreasonable. But I am glad we can agree on his 2015 production being a relative benchmark.

Taylor needs to be better than 2016. That was not good enough. What if in 2017 his final stats are 430+ passing attempts, 8 YPA, 64% completion %, 3500 yards passing, 23 passing TDs, 7 INTs, 650 rushing yards, 5 rushing TDs, 1 lost fumble? Would 4000 total yards, 28 TDs and 8 turnovers manage to keep him in Buffalo as the starter beyond 2017?

I feel like talking "total TDs" just like "total turnovers" would be the opposite of cherry picking.

Oh man.... helluva post and spot on

https://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/194613-article-on-why-2017-passing-game-can-make-giant-leap-forward/ That debate inevitably devolved, too

I thought you guys decided on Root Beer? I prefer the real thing myself

BWAHAHAHA!!! Love it!

Wow, 19th? That's actually higher than I thought it would be. Considering that the Bills as a team had at least 3 more rushing TDs than any other NFL team not located in Dallas even without Taylor's 6 rushing TDs, 19th for Taylor seems pretty okay.

RF... you say some negative and some positive in here. I still don't think your feelings have changed, but this is the most balanced post I've read in a very long time and it's the type of posting and perspective I think we should all aspire to. I'm being serious, too

I think John's point is that if this was right, defenses would always be doing this and Taylor wouldn't even be able to function on the football field. If what you're saying is correct and defenses know that all they have to do is to dare him to beat them, they would always do it.

Oh good gawd!!! Thurm's gotten to you!!!

Okay, I am just going to assume you intended to put the word "consistently" after "TT" in every one of those questions because obviously ​Taylor does every single one of those things to some degree during the year. You just believe he needs to do all of them more, correct? I'm assuming that's what you mean. If you think he never does those things there's just no sense talking to you. But to each task, I think Taylor commands and orchestrates the offense a lot more than you seem to think as he's specifically stated in post game PCs that in looking for something the D is giving he'll audible to different plays... from a pass to a run or a run to a pass. He's also the "ball-handler," so even when he has an option or a triple option with a run play, he's obviously the one commanding and orchestrating where the ball goes. I guess that touched on the first 2 questions. Taylor needs to work on pocket presence. I agree. He could stay in the pocket longer, at times. Though as I've pointed out to you before, Taylor stays in the pocket with pressure closing in on him or coming straight at him fairly frequently. More than half of his TD passes came under pressure and for 80% of those TD passes, he remained in the pocket. Even when he leaves the pocket, he always has his eyes downfield and is always looking for open WRs. I think identifying and delivering to those (NFL) "open" WRs is what he needs to get better at. Does he make multiple reads? Yes, he does. You just want him to do it "consistently," but I'd rather he makes the best pre-snap read possible and knows where he's going to the football when it's snapped. Listening to Greg Cosell the other day on the Colin Cowherd show, he was asked about Drew Brees and how age is affecting him and one thing he said that I thought was interesting was that Brees has continued to be able to play at such a high level because he knows where he's going with the football when the ball is snapped on the vast majority of plays. He does most of his reads pre-snap rather than post-snap. And I think that's what you'd rather have your QB do. Taylor and throwing with anticipation is another one. Does he do it? Yes. You just want him to do it "consistently." One of the things people often tie this to is YAC because the belief is that Taylor isn't leading his guys to gain more yards. Except that (according to Cian Fahey) the average depth/distance of Taylor's throws was the 5th highest in the NFL. And he was still top 10 in accuracy %. When you're throwing downfield, those aren't passes designed to get YAC. Short passes and screens are those types of plays. And head-scratchingly Buffalo had like the fewest screen plays in the NFL in 2016, despite having Shady McCoy and Sammy Watkins. Does TT use the entire field? Of course he does. I don't even know what you mean here.