grb

Off topic, but I did a lot of work back in the early 90s with a fellow named Roger Crozier. Never been a hockey fan, but I understood he was something with the Sabres way back in the day. He was in charge of construction for a big credit card company and named one of his buildings the Sabre Wing. Another building he named the Red Wing, which then segued into an entirely different direction with the White and Blue Wings. He was a great guy to work with.......

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/11/3/16602430/analysis-tyrod-taylor-was-not-the-problem-in-thursdays-buffalo-bills-loss-to-new-york-jets Anybody who wants to compare your version with reality can just watch the above, video clip by video clip. Somehow I'm betting they trust their eyes over your agenda. For instance, the first series Taylor was dropped for a sack by a Jet who wasn't blocked at all. That happened repeatedly throughout the game, with Taylor escaping sometimes, but other times swarmed as the pocket collapsed just as Taylor sets his feet. As noted in the piece, only 16 percent of NFL drives are able to survive a sack to achieve an additional set of downs. Plus, on the first series there was an illegal shift penalty to boot, which backed the Bills to their goalline.

This argument : BringBackOrton : "Taylor did nothing in the Jets game until garbage time" BuffaloHokie13 : "Taylor played well the entire Jets game, including before garbage time" BringBackOrton : "So part of the time he played well was in garbage time like I said" Really? That's your point?

The myth that Taylor did nothing in the Thursday Jet's game until "garbage time" is one of those zombie lies that just won't die. Here's what he did in the First Half : 15/11 76.6% 115 yds 7.7 ypa 1 td 0 ints This was with a Jets' pass rush in Taylor's face the moment he set to throw. This was with repeated third&longs caused by penalties, a porous o-line, and nonexistent ground game. McCoy ran for 25 yards on 12 carries. Tolbert added another three yards for his contribution. Taylor led the Bills in rushing with 35 yards. Want to dig into the substance of your error? Attached is a series by series analysis of the game. Why don't you give it a shot and kill the zombie once and for all...... https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/11/3/16602430/analysis-tyrod-taylor-was-not-the-problem-in-thursdays-buffalo-bills-loss-to-new-york-jets

These days in college sports, "troubled" can mean rape, robbery, and riotous mayhem. With Alexander it's seems to have been weed and sub-par scholastics, so keep that in mind. He's probably not NFL-ready at this point, but has a lot of potential....

So much babbling, but it's really not that complicated : 2015 : Taylor was on a team with a good (not great) offensive cast. He was a little raw but played well, with a passer rating ranked 7th in the NFL, an average of 8yds an attempt, low interception rate, excellent deep ball, and over 500yds on the ground. If you look at Taylor's games when he actually had Watkins and Woods playing, his numbers become stellar : 63.6% comp. 8.25 ypa 27 td passes. 6 ints in fifteen games over two years. That's his ceiling with good (not elite) offense support coupled with a mediocre to bad defense. People come up with their loonnngggggg lists of TT's crippling flaws, but somehow never explain the simplest of facts : When the Bills put a decent level of talent on the field with Taylor, he played well. 2016/2017 : Each successive year the Bills gave Taylor less to work with. Granted, much of it was injuries; but some was front office priorities. Taylor's passing rating reduced to 17th/18th with one of the worse receiver situations in the league, no deep threat, spotty (at best) pass protection, and a running game which declined from '16 to '17. Given that mess, isn't it amazing the worst quarterback in the entire history of the universe only fell to the middle of the pack? That apparently is his floor. The two QBs immediately under Taylor's rating last season were Matt Ryan and Jameis Winston. Imagine what Taylor could do with the weapons either of them have, huh?

So now we've gone from : Your Old "Point" : Watkins and Woods had much better production with the Rams Your New "Point" : Watkins and Woods didn't have better production, but the Rams passed more so .... so .... I'm not sure what what my point is ..... This was what you originally said : " Tyrod had both Woods and Watkins on his team just like Goff did and look at the difference in production from them two." You actually looked up the numbers because you actually believed what you'd been told - what you said above. It's not my fault the stories passed around were wrong.

Your quote : "Two games with under 100 passing yards and 6 more with under 200 really isn't doing enough to stay on a NFL team." My response : The most important Bill player on offense last year had at least six stinker games, so maybe your logic is faulty. Your counter-response : "You can't just pick out a handful of games" Hilarious. You can't begin to make this bull**** up........

Is this a Taylor-specific rule, or does it apply to other players and positions? If so, let's look at a running back in the 2017 season : Panthers : 12 carries, 09 yards 0.75 ypa Broncos : 14 carries, 21 yards 1.50 ypa Jets : 12 carries, 25 yards 2.08 ypa Chiefs : 22 carries, 49 yards 2.23 ypa Dolphins : 20 carries, 50 yards 2.50 ypa Dolphins : 11 carries 10 yards 0.91 ypa Said running back got 27% of his season's yards in just two games, which is how he could amass the horror show above. Now : Before heads explode, let me be clear : I think LeSean McCoy is a national treasure, whose visage should be on Mt Rushmore. And there are so many caveats to this list : The worst games are the ones up-top, when the Bills still suffered the strongest effects of a dim-witted scheme change to the blocking. McCoy was out with an injury half the last Dolphin game, so take that into account. Plus, running backs need holes to run thru, which McCoy frequently did not have. So context is important in this case. Just like it doesn't hurt to consider a quarterback was playing with a bad offensive coordinator, spotty pass protection, a tight end who missed a quarter of the season (and could rarely practice otherwise), and one of the worst sets of receivers in the National Football League. Context !!! After all, a feature running back averaging 27.3 yards at 1.82 yards a carry over six games of a season might fail to meet your lofty standards.

You know, I understand why you say that. It's what everyone else around here is saying, so it has to be true, right? However, what happens when you actually look? We can't use 2016. Watkins spent half the season on injured reserve / half playing on a broken left foot (with Woods also injured about half the year as well) So let's compare 2015 Taylor, vs 2017 Goff : Sammy Watkins : 2015 : 60 recp, 1047 yds, 17.5 ypc, 9 tds Sammy Watkins : 2017 : 39 recp, 593 yds, 15.2 ypc, 8 tds Robert Woods : 2015 : 47 recp, 552 yds, 11.7 ypc, 3 tds Robert Woods : 2017 : 56 recp, 781 yds, 13.9 ypc, 5 tds So then we do the obvious, and compare Taylor vs Goff re W&W : W&W : 2015 : 107 recp, 1599 yds, 14.94 ypc, 12 tds W&W : 2017 : 95 recp, 1374 yds, 14.46 ypc, 13 tds Not the numbers you expected to see, amirite?

The Bills put much less offensive talent on the field with Taylor each successive season. A lot of this was injuries, but some of it was indifference with the players they let walk. It's interesting to see how far people go to ignore this fact, which is a 500lb gorilla sitting in the room. Recently I had multiple exchanges with another poster over Taylor's deep game. He : Admitted Taylor had a excellent deep ball in '15 Admitted Taylor's deep threat sat half the '16 season injured. Admitted Taylor's deep threat played w/ a severe injury when he was back on the field (after first trying to claim he was "cured" when he came back) Admitted Taylor didn't have a deep threat in '17 So the fact TT's deep game got worse from '15 to '16' to '17 is perfectly understandable in light of the above? Not a chance. This guy claimed that was all a coincidence. Taylor "regressed". It must have required an effort to ignore the common sense of it, but that was the conclusion he wanted......

Here we go again : "you still see the same limitations no matter who is on the field" Really? Taylor had Watkins and Woods on the field only fifteen games over two years. That's only time he ever played with a legitimate number One & Two receiver of decent NFL grade. His remaining time as a Bill he had receivers delivered to the stadium by ambulance from the local intensive care ward. Or scrappings from other team's practice squad. Plus one very over-whelmed under-performing rookie. So, I guess it's informative to see how he performed those 15 games in '15 and '16 : 63.6% comp. 8.25 ypa. 27 TD passes. 6 int Of course that's an imperfect yardstick to grade a quarterback even if it addresses the comment above, so perhaps it's better to take the single season of '15, when Taylor was 7th by NFL passer rating and averaged 8 yards an attempt. Here's the bottom line : Taylor gets no credit here for playing well the very limited time the Bills put a decent offensive team around him. Taylor gets no credit here for wins, which supposedly (always) had nothing to do with him. Strangely, the exact opposite was true of losses Taylor gets no credit here for the Bills going to the playoffs. No contribution whatsoever...... So you'd think it's impossible for Taylor to get any credit at all, but that shows a poor understanding of Billsy Mentality. There's one exception : Success on another team.

Peterman, post-Chargers : Patriots : 6/15 40% 50 yds 3.3 ypa 0 tds 0 int Colts : 5/10 50% 57 yds 5.7 ypa 1 td 0 int 1 fumble Jags : 1/3 33% 14 yds 4.7 ypa 0 td 1 int 1 fumble 1 intentional grounding (in four plays, no less) Sir, you are an inspiration to glass-half-full people everywhere !!!

Yes, you don't give a damn about the facts "Couldn't run a pro offense" is just something you made up Taylor didn't "struggle for a string of games". You made that up too. Like they could deal Peterman to anybody for anything?!?! We'll be back here after the season begins, endlessly debating the same subject - perhaps even weekly. I look forward to it.

Bills fans understandably like and appreciate McDermott. You see that in their flimsy excuses for the Peterman Debacle like above. McDermott didn't bench Taylor because of "multiple consecutive games ..... incapable of running a pro offense"; he did so because of four straight games in which his defense (SM is a defense-minded coach) gave up the most yards in the NFL. You'll say that's irrational and you'll be right, but it's a fact. McDermott had no fix for the team's defense, so decided to throw dice on the offense instead. Taylor was benched after one bad game which was preceded by three good performances. Again, that sounds crazy (particularly given who was waiting in the wings), but that's what happened. The three games which preceded the Taylor's poor showing vs the Saints : Jets : 29/40 72.5% 285 yds 7.1 ypa 2 tds 0 ints 108.9 rating Raiders : 20/27 74.0% 165 yds 6.1 ypa 1 tds 0 ints 101.6 rating Bucs : 20/33 60.6% 268 yds 8.1 ypa 1 tds 0 ints 96.5 rating To forestall the inevitable bad arguments : Somebody will claim TT's Jets number were all "garbage time", which is garbage. His first half numbers were 15/11 76.6% 115 yds 7.7 ypa 1 td. Mind you, this was while being hammered by a pass rush in his face as he set to throw Someone will point out the Bills lost the Jets game. This isn't surprising as barely any Bill showed up to play. Taylor did, and he played well. Someone will still excuse the imbecilic decision to start Peterman by saying Taylor just had too many bad games. Really? Let's look at another player Panthers : 12 att 09 yds 0.75 ypa Broncos : 14 att 21 yds 1.50 ypa Jets : 12 att 25 yds 2.08 ypa Chiefs : 22 att 49 yds 2.23 ypa Dolphins : 20 att 50 yds 2.50 ypa Dolphins : 11 att 10 yds 0.91 ypa The last game McCoy was injured, so that's not fair. But since you can't run without holes to run thru, the same is true for the rest of the stats as well. Of course you can say likewise about throwing to cripples, cast-offs, and a rookie like a deer in the headlights, couldn't you? Two things are certain : Tolbert wasn't going to run for more yards than McCoy behind that line, and Peterman wasn't going to throw for more yards that Taylor in that offense. Kinda of makes the decision to start him pretty stupid, doesn't it?

"Simply not throwing interceptions & dumping it off all the time will certainly increase your passer rating" During the year in question, Taylor was fifth in the NFL in yards per attempt. "But leading the 30th-32nd ranked passing offense every year he was the starter shows he was pretty underwhelming in every other category." No; it means the Bills called less pass attempts. "And he had ample talent on both sides of the ball...." So now the drop-off in the Bills' defense of '15 and '16 doesn't exist? "etc, etc, etc......throw the ball 2 yards downfield to the RB without going through your reads? I watch every quarterback on every Sunday dump-off for a short gain on long-yardage third downs. The "without going thru your reads" is your crap. ".....games we went down by even ONE point at any time in the 4th quarter" The last five late-fourth quarter games behind by a few points: Jacksonville : Out with a concussion Tampa : Played well Cincinnati : Didn't play well Carolina : Played Well (see Jones, Zay) Miami ('16) Played well. Personally, I don't want to get into another discussion of ZJ's mutant route or complete lack of ball awareness, but will do so if pushed. Reliving the late Tampa comeback would be fun, and who can forget Taylor's td pass on fourth down to take the lead with 80 seconds left against Miami? That was the first lead of the day against the Dolphins, after Buffalo was down by two touchdowns three separate times during the game.

You might as well give it up. Not a single person said Watkins was healed coming back from injured reserve. Not the coaches, the doctors, the sportswriters, or the TV announcers. No one. He was still recovering in May last year before the '17 training camp. https://billswire.usatoday.com/2017/05/18/bills-sammy-watkins-still-working-back-injury-walk-through/ According to sportsinjurypredictors.com, Watkins suffered a high ankle sprain in 2015 and missed two games. He also had surgery to repair a slight tear of the labrum in his hip as well. However, those injuries are not what is dogging Watkins nearly as much as the stress fracture in his foot that he sustained in 2016. Watkins underwent intramedullary screw fixation of his fifth metatarsal in May 2016. The procedure involves the insertion of a metal screw to stabilize the joint in order to speed up the healing process. Unfortunately, as can happen with this type of procedure, the metal hardware was so painful he was placed on injured reserve for eight weeks because he couldn’t play through the pain. After returning to the field, he continued to play through significant pain and was forced to undergo a second surgery in Jan. 2017. It’s not known whether the metal hardware was removed or replaced, but the fact that he is still limited at this point during offseason activities suggests either the team is going really slow with his return because the foot is not completely healed or they are taking an abundance of caution about bringing him back to full speed at this time. Either way, because wide receivers place a tremendous amount of torque on their feet, Watkins slow return is likely to be carefully moderated, especially if he still has metal hardware in his foot. The metal hardware can also sometimes cause significant pain and aching in cold weather, something that could present a challenge playing in the latter part of the season in Buffalo. At this point, it’s probably wise for the Bills to limit him to a walk through while he learns a new offensive scheme under offensive coordinator Rick Dennison. It will be interesting to see how much he is able to do at training camp, because if he is still limited by then, it won’t bode well for his future in Buffalo.

Parallel question : Why do so many people gush over how smart NP is? From intentional grounding, to diving head-first into a concussion, to throwing wounded ducks off the back foot while falling away, the man has probably made more bone-headed plays per play than anyone in living memory.

It's a simple equation : How well did Taylor utilize real talent around him as a Bill? Answer : Very well. Taking '15 alone, he was seventh in the NFL by passer rating with an 8 ypa. How much talent will Cleveland have around him? Answer : A decent amount. Their o-line isn't bad, a good stable of RBs, deep at WR, a talented young TE. Can Taylor utilize talent in Cleveland as he did in Buffalo? Answer : Why not...... Pretty clear, don't you think? With each successive year the Bills put less and less talent on the field with Taylor. It wasn't all one thing. A lot of it was injuries : Watkins, Woods, Matthews, Benjamin, etc. A lot of it was indifference : The team let Woods, Hogan, Gillislee, and Goodwin just walk. Some of it was freakish stuff : Kalos and Percy's careers imploding. Watkins was dumped for '18 draft capital. Jones under-performed. Boldin saw the Watkins trade as a tank-move and fled. Different causes, same result : Year by year the talent drained away from the offense - until we had a crippled Matthews, a crippled Benjamin, Zay like a deer in the headlights, and a cast-off from the bloody Chicago Bears, for goodness sake. Yeah; there is every likelihood Taylor will enjoy greater success in Cleveland.

Maybe. If it wasn't for the DeShone Kizer dumpster-fire last year, I'd say the odds were 50-50 even. But Hue Jackson definitely took the criticism over that to heart - which is fair enough because he earned it.

And yet, the fifteen games Taylor had Watkins and Woods both playing he threw 27 td passes. But that was only fifteen games over two years. With Brandon Tate, Justin Hunter, Andre Holmes Deonte Thompson, and the pick-up squad from the local ICU? Less so; I concede. Still, a pretty clear correlation, ya think? Given Cleveland's skill players are more equivalent to the '15 Bills team than the mess fielded the last two years, I guess we'll see.

Which is a very good point in turn. People keep claiming individual receivers had much better production before/after Taylor. For the most part this claim is based on little or nothing. Clay, Hogan, and Woods had tiny gains in targets, which is not surprising with the Bills 31st or 32nd in pass attempts. Hogan had a significant bump in yardage his first year with Brady, but was back in TT territory last year. Woods saw a 1-2 yard bump in his per catch number, but the tandem of Woods and Watkins got more catches and more yards per catch when both were healthy with Taylor in '15 than in LA last year. Why? Because Watkins was utilized much less by Goff. Benjamin barely had a healthy moment on the field last year; Matthews had none at all. He was injured before he was traded from Philly, double injured the second day of camp, and injured thereafter until the team shut his season down. The one exception to these meh differences is Goodwin. I don't have a theory why his case is such an outlier, but it is......

Babble boiled down to substance : Yes, Taylor's deep threat played all of 2016 on a broken left foot, but he had one good game so that's irrelevant Yes, the same broken foot had him on injured reserve half the season, but one good game, etc, etc, etc. Yes, the same broken foot had him benched for eight games after week two as completely ineffectual, but one good game, etc, etc, etc Yes, Taylor didn't have anything remotely close to a deep threat in 2017 , but watch me fill a page yakking about (what I call) a few bad throws Yes, losing a deep threat in 2016 and 2017 corresponds to a less effect deep game, but that's just a coincidence !!! It's all Taylor's fault. Really. I (supposedly) believe this crap.

At last a point of total agreement : No matter what, there will be TT threads. In this debate, there will be people right, and people wrong. Stay tuned; it'll be fun.

We're drowning in football stats; there's a number for everything under the sun. I don't think anyone can keep'em all straight. As for Taylor not being a "top 15 qb", he finished 7th in passer rating in 2015, 13th and 16th in following years. Whatever qualms you might have about the NFL's passer rating system, I think it's a stretch to say he'll never be a top 15 quarterback. That's like the people who say he's good for 8-9 wins max, ignoring the fact he delivered at least eight wins two of his three years starting, and with deeply flawed teams to boot. Taylor's real problem seems to be the tendency to dead-zone games. These aren't the multi-interception mega-stinkers all quarterbacks have, but they're still bad by being extremely ineffectual, and have come a couple of times too often in a season at least. Whether experience and much-better weapons help alleviate that flaw, we'll see...