grb

To be fair, he has absolutely no help. But I understand real quarterbacks don't need quality skill players.....

Huh. I left my electron microscope at home and totally missed that. How small "a degree" are we talking here?

The Ravens might look to draft a QB fairly high as well.

These aren't bad questions, Gugny, so I'll take a stab at some answers : What are your feelings toward police officers? Is your beef strictly with dirty cops? Or do you have something against police officers, in general? If so, why? Police departments often have no accountability. Bad cops are a tiny percent of the whole but often their own peers don't question their conduct and their departments shy from disciplining them. If their actions are criminal, local DAs can hesitate to charge and juries frequently refuse to convict - sometimes despite blatant evidence. There is a great deal of debate on what degree the Black community suffers from bad policing more than others - but it's probable they feel it more. There's often an aggressive edge to policing in the Black community which may or may not be justified by higher crime rates. But if someone is in your face you feel it, theoretical justification notwithstanding. It they don't have any accountability for their actions, you feel it much more. Do you regret wearing the socks and the Castro shirt? Kaepernick by all accounts is a extremely reserved and withdrawn figure - to a fault for people expecting a more boisterous leader. Both his personal life and presence inside the club-house has been scandal free, kneeling at the beginning of games excepted. He had a strong religious faith thru college which seems to have continued into the pros. He's been heavily involved in charity and social work. Given the socks and tee are the sole evidence people muster to prove he's some brutish thug villain, I'd bet he has regrets. Would you agree that wearing the socks and the shirt took away from your initial means of protest (kneeling), which, alone, would have been more likely to be taken seriously and respected? Pretty much the same question above...... If you were to become part of an NFL roster, what would you do to minimize the drama that would inevitably come with it? What could he do? The media circus is on autopilot.....

Kinda depends on how you look at it. Let's take the last four times Taylor has been asked to perform late game heroics : (1) Miami, last year : TT looked pretty good, leading the team to a touchdown on a fourth down TD pass with under 90 seconds left to play. (2) Carolina, this year : TT led the team down the field, survived a questionable PI call, and would have had a last second TD pass if an overwhelmed rookie had the slightest bit of ball awareness. (3) Cincinnati, this year : Not a finest hour kinda deal. (4) Tampa Bay : TT led the team down the field with big plays to tie; made a clutch throw for the FG to win. It's rather funny that many of the very people who insist on their "eye test" over numbers & stats then turn around and lay everything off on cold-hard win-loss numbers for their "deal breaker" on late game comebacks. Seems like an "eye test" would be extra relevant there, huh? And Taylor has looked pretty clutch the last few times in that situation.....

Yep. And not for failing to make the catch itself. Nor for his route, though it was bad if a front pylon throw and worse if a back pylon throw. With that play the real problem was Jones had zero idea where the ball was until it was right on top of him. Add just a smidgen of ball awareness then Jones makes a microscopic tweak to his route (whatever it was) and effortlessly scores. That's what receivers are expected to do when they run down the field fifty yards. It's not like a flat out to the sidelines. Watkins would have the catch & TD ten times out of ten. But the Bills need Jones out of his funk for lack of any better alternative. They need his contribution the last half of the season.

And heerrrreeee we go again !!! Here's an assignment for you, nee Allan : (1) Go to the official NFL stats for quarterbacks (2) Note the statistic for +20yd pass plays by a quarterback (3) Calculate the rate of QBs pushing the ball down the field (3a) If you're math-challenged, that entails dividing the number of long plays by attempts What will you find? Taylor is currently sixth in the NFL behind : Goff, Brady, Brees, Cousins, Watson. Tell us : What kind of Checkdown-Charlie result is that ?!?

My philosophy? If I wasn't here indulging in pointless arguments on football, I'd be off somewhere posting partisan politics. (Tho come to think about it, the people on those sites tend to be much more reasonable, understanding and even-handed)

Cue someone who wants to exclusively blame one side !! Exhibit A, please step right this way, please....

Cue the sack study by Cover1. At the time this study was done, they found 5 of 18 sacks to be Taylor's fault - by holding the ball too long, not being decisive, not throwing it away, missing a play, etc. Obviously this requires a case-by-case subjective call, and if some of the instances where Taylor is found "at fault" seem iffy, the same is surely true about examples where he's "cleared". All in all though, it reinforces the sack problem has multiple fathers : Clearly Taylor makes too many mistakes; the line's pass protection is frequently bad. Too many people want to exclusively blame one or the other..... http://www.cover1.net/tyrod-taylor-needs-to-minimize-the-amount-of-sacks-he-takes/

I think life was a bit easier when there weren't all these damn stats......

I'd bet many more of those third&longs were due to the woeful state of the running attack the first part of the season. Since we're tossing around stats, guess who's second in Rushes for Negative Yards? http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?tabSeq=2&offensiveStatisticCategory=OFFENSIVE_LINE&role=TM&d-447263-n=1&d-447263-o=2&d-447263-p=1&d-447263-s=RUSHING_LEFT_STUFF So you guess it's because of opponents stacking the box - but there's a damn stat for that too - and McCoy is 20th in running backs facing 8+. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/rushing#percent-eight-defenders You see, you have to ask questions........

Jet Lag can be your friend........

I don't even think it's a question of depth at receiver. Both Jones (rejuvenated) and Matthews (healthy) are natural number-twos and/or slot receivers. The Bills need a real One......

Confession : Contract details like this make my head spin. But as near as I can tell you're correct. On the bright side, Taylor apparently gets 500K for the playoffs, 1mil for the AFC Championship Game, and 2mil for the Super Bowl.......

Really? That's so simplistic as to be ludicrous. It's like you're not even trying to think things thru. Let's try a more plausible scenario : (1) From day one The Bills were always looking to bring Taylor back on a short-term deal. There was lots of talk about the front office wanting to dump TT. but never a word came from the front office - not even second hand, unattributed, or anonymous. Read that to mean they were posturing for contract renegotiation but very, very careful not to singe the bridge, much less burn it. (2) Taylor knew the Bills didn't want to commit long-term money, but was satisfied getting equal short-term cash and his freedom. Please remember : He did not take a pay-cut for this year or next. It was only the long-term money he lost. (3) If Taylor finishes the year strong he will do significantly better than with the old deal. Whaley placed a simultaneous bet on Taylor as wild-success or flop. With the latter, he could be dumped this past offseason. With the former, he was locked-up years at a cheap QB rate. Taylor signed because it gave him his first real starter money. (4) No one knows what deal Taylor could have gotten on the open market because things never got that far. It is quite possible - even likely - he would have gotten the same short-term cash he's getting from the Bills. It's highly unlikely he would have gotten the long-term cash of the old deal. So where was the best place for him to play to set himself up for a future contract? Buffalo, or say Cleveland? If you were Taylor and it was all about the next deal, wouldn't you stay put? Doesn't that sound a bit more realistic?

It's a truism that no critical factoid by Taylor critics can ever be surmounted by evidence, no matter how obviously wrong. Once the cliche is branded into their grey matter it simply can't be erased. Now, I had considered this law inviolate - like one of the core principles of physics - but there was one glimmer of hope. The old "truth" that Taylor must enviably be decimated by injury had seemed to finally vanish from the discourse. But yet here it is again. I guess I was right after all. Also : There is no appreciable difference between the injury rate of mobile quarterbacks vs non-mobile quarterbacks. This is the study I quickly found, though I think other people have looked at the question with the same result. http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/02/quarterback_injuries_are_mobile_qbs_like_colin_kaepernick_more_injury_prone.html

Ya know, unrelenting bitter irony just ain't a good look for you.......

If the Bills hadn't released Kaelin Clay they might have been able to swing a trade for Kevon Seymour. It would have been the very essence of the Process in action......

Taylor should have just thrown it away, however mistaken the call was. He shares the blame.

"It's easy to get a good passer rating throwing check-downs...." ?!? Taylor may have less attempts than typical, but he makes big plays at a higher rate than average. How can this be tested? Simple : The NFL tracks +20yd pass plays, so it's easy to divide that number by attempts for a ratio. Currently leading in this big-play rate is Goff, Brady, Brees and Cousins. Then come Watson, slightly ahead of Taylor, who is sixth in the league. He pushes the ball downfield at a higher rate than : Carson Palmer Ben Roethlisberger Cam Newton Alex Smith Russell Wilson Carson Wentz Derek Carr Aaron Rodgers Dak Prescott Matthew Stafford Jameis Winston That doesn't sound like checkdown-charlie, does it?

How much of Winston's 70 extra yards do you think he'd keep throwing to Jones, Holmes, Thompson & O'Leary - as opposed to Evans, Jackson, Howard, and Brate? How many "extra yards" do you think Taylor would reap if the receiving corps were reversed? I suspect those 70 yards would quickly disappear in the first case with Winston still getting those two turnovers (if not more). This, despite how much of a "better passer" Jameis is. And Taylor? Do you doubt he'd have a field day throwing to Jackson and Evans? It would be like the prime of Sammie squared........

The past two years, in the 15 games Taylor had a legit number one & two receiver to throw to (Watkins & Woods), this happened : 63.6%. 8.25 ypa. 27 tds. 6 int. Some "throwing issues", huh? I bet he could do even better with Evans, Jackson, Howard, and Brate. What do you think?

Time to take a bow?

True