grb

I don't mind a few barbs and thrown elbows - as long as it's kept in reasonable moderation. But what really roils my stomach is when one of the sides - either side - gets whinny, maudlin, and decides to throw a Pity Party. Then they get together with their tribe and trade weepy posts back and forth. This results in so many crocodile tears you think you need to build an ark. And honesty too : This topic has enough meat for either side to build a strong case. Why in the world is wild exaggeration necessary?

Third Down Calculus ( Just kidding - Tyrod, as always.... )

It seems counter-intuitive, but according to NextGen stats McCoy isn't seeing eight men stacked in the box that often. They have about thirty running backs ahead of LM, by percentage of "a rusher seeing eight or more defenders in the box against them". Of course all offense numbers by the Bills are skewed by the Carolina debacle, and the Panther's front seven didn't need that much help. https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/rushing#percent-eight-defenders

The Bills were 13th in the NFL in third down conversion percentage in 2016, ahead of Arizona & Seattle, behind Pittsburgh, the Chargers and Detroit. This year they're 15th, though the sample size probably isn't adequate yet. The percentages? 40.95% in 2016. 39.13% so far this year. A conversion rate of fifty percent was achieved by zero teams last year, the highest number being New Orleans's 48.64%. The numbers are in a fairly tight group, from the Saint's best to the Ram's worst, at 31.46%. Given a team has plus-minus 13 third downs per game, that means the difference between highest success and most humiliating failure is a couple of third down plays per game. With the majority of teams in the middle, a single play per game swings them way up or down the chart. https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/third-down-conversion-pct?date=2017-02-06 https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/third-downs-per-game

Well, that would certainly shut-up the people complaining over his lack of 300yd games !!!

My way of describing it is this : The Pro-TT guys think the glass is half-full. The Ant-TT guys deny there's a drop of water in the glass, deny the glass exists, deny there's a universe for the glass to sit in. No one suggests Mr. Taylor is heading for Canton, or he solves the Bill's long term qb needs. That includes all his supporters. They just say he's played better than some give him credit for and still has a potential upside. Sorry, people, but that ain't a radical view. Meanwhile, it's common for the haters to say Taylor isn't even a starting quarterback - hell, isn't even a quarterback at all, but a running back in disguise. Whether that's a "radical view" or not, who knows? The bigger problem is it's counterfactual and brain-dead stupid. Most of the heat generated in the Great Tyrod Message Board Wars comes from haters trolling and supporters taking the bait. Since trolls will always be among ye (to paraphrase scripture), I guess we just need to stop taking the bait.

If it's the play I remember, there was a guy running right at him, so he tried to float an arc over the rusher and badly mis-threw. It ever there was a time to scramble a few steps clear and toss a bullet, this was it. Instead, Taylor opted for a finesse throw which looked ugly.

Sigh. We get this after a game where the Bills' running backs gained 62 yards on 25 carries. Four regular season games back ( for TT) the defense had a total meltdown, the game was a complete shoot-out, Taylor faced a 14 point deficit three separate times - and still he put the team up under two minutes with a TD pass on a fourth down play. I sometimes doubt there's anything the man can do which can kill all the clichés.

But do you credit Taylor for being a starting quarterback? You're on record as saying he's worse than +36 other qbs currently in the league. It would be nice to get this issue successfully resolved, rather than have to revisit it again after Atlanta.......

I think even if Scenario A played out exactly like that, the Bills would still go for a first round QB. The team did not put together their hope chest of draft picks to chose a right tackle or replacement wide-out. That's not what's been sold to the fans, who are expecting high draft day drama with a god-like quarterback as the result. That said, Taylor could easily be brought back to shield their first-rounder. The very careers of McBeane will depend on their QB pick. If they throw him in the pool and he sinks, things could get very ugly. Taylor will still be cheap at starter quarterback rates. Bringing him back may look like a good choice.

Taylor and consistency is a strange thing. For instance, you almost never see him have a brutally awful game, like Dalton's opening day stinker. As bad as the Panther's game was, TT still completed 68% of his dinks and didn't toss a pick. Taylor's low end is ineffectual play (Panthers), but he always remains posed and things never spiral out of control. You'd probably get a different count of these games from the pros & antis, but there is clearly too many of them. Can TT cut those games back to one or two times a year, the rest being Jets or Broncos-grade? Sure, particularly with a bit of help from the OC. That's probably his clearest professional objective to achieve this season. Can he do it? We'll see.

I always wonder how the math works with something like this. Taylor was 20 of 26, but at least two passes were dropped. So that leaves 4 passes out of 26 for TT to be VERY inconsistent. I guess it must be all those "plays left on the field" by Taylor alone, no other NFL quarterback doing so.

ZJ's problem in Carolina wasn't making the catch, but route running and - even more important - ball awareness. Jones didn't know where the pass was until it was right on top of him. A bit sooner tracking the ball would have meant a small tweak to his route and an effortless catch. And that's something which will improve with experience. Remember : It wasn't that long ago ZJ was supposed to be an alternate third receiver, behind a clear number one (Watkins) and the seasoned veteran (Boldin). He wasn't supposed to carry so much responsibility so soon.

Right now Taylor's quarterback rating has him twelfth by NFL.com, but there are three guys in front of him with under ten passes - two with only a single pass attempted & completed. http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?tabSeq=0&season=2017&seasonType=REG&d-447263-n=1&d-447263-o=2&d-447263-p=1&statisticCategory=PASSING&d-447263-s=PASSING_PASSER_RATING&qualified=true

All this is 100% right....

If Peterman was in the Bills would have been up by 5 scores after their first drive !!

(1) Taylor took the longest time time throwing the ball last year. This year he's near-bottom. (2) Most quarterbacks at the bottom are highly mobile & run, so scrambling is a factor (3) The difference between the most lightening fast to slowest is only about one second average time. That's how tightly this stat is grouped. (4) The pass protection is frequently atrocious; Taylor sometimes makes plays by extending the play; Taylor sometimes holds the ball too long. All three are true. You don't have to pick one exclusively....

You win this thread !

Hey - you can call it speculation if you want, but a better name is elementary-level play for a receiver in the NFL. Not that I want to pick on Jones, who has a fine career in front of him, but he looked pretty bad on that play. His route was wrong, his ball awareness was non-existent, and his play on the pass was terrible. Need some help? Here's one hint : If you run forty or fifty yards to catch a pass, it's pretty typical to get your head back to read how the ball is coming in. Your typical NFL receiver does that every deep route he runs. Jones didn't. Another hint? If you do a stutter-step, stop, leap straight-up and the ball grazes thru your hands, then it's a sure bet you could have collected it right off your shoulder if you ran it straight thru. No one has settled where the route was supposed to go, but if it was back pylon, Taylor's throw was perfect and Jones' route absolutely hideous. If it was front pylon, then Jones' route was off a bit to the outside, and Taylor's pass off a bit to the inside. The only difference is Taylor's pass led the play away from the cornerback & into the end zone. Jones' route was into coverage and out of bounds. In short, Taylor threw to a point in space, and expected his receiver to show entry-grade skill playing the ball. It was only one play from a rookie still learning, but Jones failed.

Watkins or Boldin would have known where the ball was prior to the last possible split second. Consequently, their play on the ball wouldn't have been clumsy & panicked. Their adjustment would have been effortless and the catch would have looked easy. And, yes, Zay Jones will have many better days......

Uh huh. Last play of the Panthers game Taylor threw to a point in space, leading his receiver away from coverage and into the end zone. The result? Zero ball awareness by the receiver, who didn't track a forty-yard pass until it was right on top of him - then made the clumsiest imaginable play on the ball. So your take is right - except for the most heavily scrutinized play in years. What do ya guess it's wrong on countless unscrutinized plays as well?

We all know the allure of the second string quarterback; it's basic human psychology 101. But this Peterman Thing takes it to whole new levels. All we've seen from NP is preseason play, almost exclusively against (and with) the 2s & 3s. The results were a 54.4% completion percentage for 5.4 yards per attempt. His longest pass was 28 yds long. Taylor played a terrible game against a brutal defense in a regular season contest and still managed 68% completion for 5.0 yards per attempt. There isn't the slightest reason to believe Peterman last Sunday wouldn't have been lambs to the slaughter. There are good reasons why Peterman (like Taylor) was drafted so late. And I think Peterman (like Taylor) has a good chance to prove the critics wrong. But to do so (like Taylor) he's going to have to maximize his talents with discipline, focus and a lot of hard work. Wherever you rank Taylor in the middle-third of current starters, I'll bet he wouldn't have been anywhere near as good if dropped into the lineup his rookie year. You put NP out there now and all you'll do is expose him. His best shot is long term.

White has looked like a pretty solid pick so far, but as for Rookie of the Year hardware I always wonder if you can win it without gaudy statics like interceptions....

I agree with pretty much all of this. However, one point : It's easy to mock Dennison's statement because Taylor had a bad game along with everyone else on the offense. But if I had to guess, his motivation wasn't self-delusion, but this : The only person on the offense remotely close to making plays in that debacle was the only person being blamed by fans and media. Looked at that way, I think you can understand Dennison's clumsy statement.

It is kind of interesting to see all the choleric rage against Taylor over a game where McCoy got .8 yards a carry and the running backs managed fourteen yards all day. Per NextGen Stats, the Panthers stacked the box less against McCoy than typical league-wide Sunday in all other games. They just didn't have to, with their front seven vs the Bill's o-line. So, Taylor gets 80% of the team's rushing yards, 93% of the total yardage, 100% of the first downs, and the reflexive reaction of fans is to wage jihad against the poor guy. Maybe I've missed it, but has anyone offered a single post about McCoy's 9 yard rushing day? Point of comparison : LM had 13% of the team's rushing yards and 22% of the total offense. Incidentally, the term "scapegoat" is from Leviticus, describing a goat designated to be cast into the desert with all the sins of the community. Well, the Bill's offensive community had an awful lot of sins last Sunday. The o-line was over-matched, the running backs did nothing, the receivers were non-entities. If Taylor is going on a desert vacation, I hope he packs a lot of water......