SoTier

Staubach, Blanda and Starr were all drafted 50 or 60 years ago. Warner is a baby ... he came out of college less than 30 years ago. Even Brady was drafted more than 20 years ago. Brisette generally plays well -- and puts up good numbers -- but just not good enough to win games because he can't seem to make clutch plays. His failed QB sneak on 4th down is an example.

I'd be upset that my team wasted a second overall pick on a QB who has shown so little promise of becoming even a competent NFL QB toward the end of his second NFL season.

Couldn't happen to a better team. I laughed 'til I almost cried. I dislike the Pats but I absolutely loathe the Jests. I think I hate them even more than I hate the Carp ... although it's probably a dead heat on the loathing scale.

This isn't something that just affects New York. The US is a large country ... too large for most people to know the geography of each state unless they have a reason to do so, like they've visited a place or they're from that place etc. I would say that, though, that if your job involves maps, that you ought to be able to read one well enough to accurately locate places on it.

FTX Group filed for bankruptcy today. CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned. Crypto Melt Down

Agree. The Eagles might be on a par with the Bills and Chiefs but the Cowgirls, Vikes and Niners are on about the same level as the Ravens and Titans.

You are assuming that the guys already on the Bills aren't nearly as good as players on that other teams are looking to move. I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. "Adding safety depth" could cost an awful lot in the future if the depth player isn't better than the young safeties that the Bills already have on their roster or PS. I don't pretend to any expertise, so I'm good with whatever roster moves Beane makes or doesn't make. He's proven he knows his stuff.

You're assuming that a RB and/or safety better than we currently have are available at a reasonable price. There may not be.

TBH, statistically, JA was trash in his first and second years. Some of that was on him, but a lot of it was on poor coaching in his rookie season (as in lack of an experienced QB coach) and a poor supporting cast. What didn't show up in his stats was his willingness to do anything to win as well as his continual improvement early on. His leadership was on display from the get-go, too. He played considerably better after sitting out his elbow injuring, which obviously had given him time to observe and figure out the pro game better. He was considerably better at the beginning of his second season than he'd been as a rookie, and he improved all through his sophomore season even though his stats didn't blow anybody away. A lot of QBs have the physical skills but not the mental traits to be successful. Some have the mental traits but not the physical ability. Others have both physical and mental skills but not the leadership (ie, "it factor") and vice versa. Allen has it all!

Obviously your perfect parents raised a perfect child who has never done anything illegal, stupid or dangerous.

I agree. Belichick has a good defense, and Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe are pretty decent QBs for Belichick, and Belichick sets them up with his game plans. I think the Pats' offense is considerably better than the Jets and their defense is better than the Fish. That's a recipe to make the playoffs.

Agreed. Belichick has a good defense, and he has two credible QBs that he knows how to put in situations that maximize the offense's chance of success. Contrary to what some think, NE's success over the last two decades wasn't solely because of Brady. Do you know how many playoff berths have been decided on the last week of the season in the last five years? In fact, the Bills broke their playoff drought in 2017 when the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens on a last second TD throw from Andy Dalton to Tyler Boyd. It was on 4th and long I think. Game six is way to early to be predicting playoff berths for most NFL teams. Any Bills fan old enough to remember the most of the Bills teams between 2001 and 2016 can cite numerous times the Bills looked the class of the AFC a few games into the season. In 2003, pundits were predicting the Bills to go to the Super Bowl three or four games into the season. In 2008, the Bills went 5-2 in the first 7 games and finished up 7-9. Another year, they went 6-2 or something in the first 8 games and then collapsed. IMO, it's much more likely that the Jests finish below the Pats and Fish than above them in the standings.

The Jets are NOT going to win 12 games this season. They are not going to lose only once to teams other than the Bills over the next 11 games.

I disagree with your statement that "Allen would have become great no matter who coached him" because I remember how raw Allen was as a rookie. It took him about 2 1/2 years of hard work by Allen and strong mentoring by Daboll and Dorsey to get Allen to where he is today. Offensive coordinators have to tailor their offense to fit the QB they have rather than try to force their QB to fit into their "system". Pair Allen with another OC who would have tried to mold him into something he wasn't or wouldn't have hired a QB coach who had success with a raw but talented QB (ie,Cam Newton), and Allen could have become just another big-armed bust. The history of the NFL is littered with promising QBs who never made it big for one reason or another, at least some of whom never were in the right system to maximize their talents or were never given the mentoring that might have made them significantly better. I think that Daniel Jones may be the poster boy for that. He certainly doesn't look anything like the QB he was in previous seasons ... but then, the Giants don't look like the team that most pundits expected them to be, either.

If the Bills play calling is so bad on first and second down, how did they manage to have 0 third downs on their final drive against the Ravens? It seems to me that poor play calling would manifest itself most notably in pressure-packed situations with the game on the line.

Fair enough. I think that the spending by Ryan was an outlier because the Bills almost always hired first time HCs (Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey) or retreads (Dick Jauron, Chan Gailey). McDermott seemed to signal a return to the same old-same old mindset. I think that Pegula turning over control of the team over to Beane after firing Brandon enabled McDermott to hire better assistants in 2019 because he could not only offer them more competitive salaries but also signaled to the rest of the league that the new Bills regime put a priority on winning not just making a profit.

Obviously, you don't remember the Josh Allen as a rookie. The only thing he had going for him as a rookie was his wlilingness to do whatever it took to win games. He had a big arm, but he was inaccurate. He personified the undisciplined playing style called "hero ball" that backfires at least as often as it succeeds. Most pundits did figured he was going to be a bust. While most of Allen's success are the result of his own efforts, you cannot discount the guidance he got from McDermott's assistants, most notably, Ken Dorsey and Brian Daboll in improving his mechanics and learning to read defenses but also in mastering his tendency to become overly excited during games. If you look back on Allen's career, you realize that it took him about 2 1/2 seasons to become the Josh Allen who can march his team down the field in the closing minutes of a game to set up the winning FG with double zeroes on the clock. IMO, McDermott's early hiring miscues resulted from his inability to hire top quality offensive assistants with the money allotted to the coaching budgets in 2017 and 2018 rather than offensive cluelessness. When McDermott was hired in 2017, he came into a situation with a GM who was mainly a talent scout because team budgets, including for the coaching staff, were set by the FO bean counters under Russ Brandon, whose priority was maximizing profits not winning football games. McDermott was instrumental in the hiring of Brandon Beane after Doug Whaley was fired after the 2017 draft. Beane had somewhat more power than Whaley, but he didn't gain full GM powers, including the ability to control the budgets for coaching and scouting staffs, until after Russ Brandon was fired in mid-2018. McDermott and Beane hired Brian Daboll in 2018 and then selected Allen in the 2018 draft. After the 2018 season, all of the offensive assistants except for Daboll were fired, and more and better (ie, more expensive) offensive assistants were hired, including Ken Dorsey as QB coach. It was in 2019 under Dorsey's tutelage that Allen began to develop into a competent NFL QB.

I think that she's lost weight since she left, so you probably will be even more disappointed. I saw her on a clothing (I think) commercial and I barely recognized her. Maybe it was makeup but her face looked even more angular than when she was on GMFB. She looked almost skeletal.

What lengths? Miami didn't play well for most of the game, and Baltimore played terribly on both sides of the ball in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter, allowing Miami to come back to win the game. Tua was good enough to take advantage of poor DB play in the second half which gave him spectacular stats but he didn't play particularly well for the entire game. That doesn't prove he'll be a great QB. It does suggest that he's probably at least a decent or better QB. He needs a bigger sample size. Frank Reich played a great half of football in the Comeback Game, but he never regularly put on that kind of performance even when he was a starter. I don't know that he ever had a similar performance in his entire career.

Actually, the only thing that was impressive about Miami's victory was that they outscored Baltimore 28-3 in the fourth quarter. Scoring 28 points in a quarter is impressive for any team, and even more so for a team that played as poorly as the Fins did for the first three quarters of the game. Exactly. After they got up 2 TDs in the second half, the Ravens obviously dismissed the Fins. The defense in the second half sucked but the offense sucked, too. In the first half, the Fins couldn't stop the Ravens, especially on the ground. In the second half, even Lamar got into the spirit of the collapse and threw an errant pass that was almost intercepted for a pick six. If the Ravens had been able to make even a modest sustained drive in the fourth quarter, Miami wouldn't have time to score 21 points much less 28. They couldn't do it. I cannot see a McDermott coached team collapsing the way the Ravens did.

Fitzy was part of the broadcast team ....

I saw that play and the first thing I thought was, "that's gotta be an "Angry Run" candidate"!

Thank you for another awesome write up, Virgil. I understand exactly where you were coming from going into this game. There's been all this buzz in the media about how the Bills were the favorite to win the Super Bowl, not by a handful of "experts" but by a majority. That's scary for a long time Bills fan. People other than Bills fans calling Allen the best QB in the league? Ohhhhh, baby .... All I can say about the game is that the Bills were scary good last night, dominating the defending World Champions. They didn't live up to expectations in this game, they exceeded them. There's still 16 games left plus the playoffs, but this looks like it could be a fairy tale season. This team is that good.

FYI -- Queen Elizabeth II was, I think, the last living world leader who took part in the war effort during World War II. She worked as a mechanic in the Auxiliary Territorial Service beginning in February, 1945 over the objections of her parents. Pope Francis was alive during World War II but was a just a child.

"Technically" I think the last time a British monarch tried to thwart the will of Parliament, he lost his head.