Avisan

You guys aren't thinking straight about this. He was going to the ground as part of the process of making the catch. He dives for it-- he HAS to maintain possession throughout. His hand is under the ball, but it moves and touches the ground slightly-- the ground has officially helped him control the ball, which invalidates the catch. It was the right call. Painful, but the right call.

1.) Nothing I said was factually incorrect. We had him for two years minimum for relatively cheap, with the ability to throw in an expensive third year if he produced. Only having for this year was entirely self-inflicted. 2.) Yeah, I was agreeing with you. 3.) Herald article. He's overpaid, but a defensive contributor right now. I don't think Gilmore is a world-beater, but he's a solid player. Acting like he's a total bum is ridiculous. 6.) Is Tolbert still our #2?

Dalton has always had AJ Green as a safety net and has consistently played on solid, well-built teams. I don't think he's a difference maker. Same overall caliber as Taylor.

I think Rivers was on the borderline of elite earlier in his career, but I don't think he's that guy anymore. I did probably miss him in my list, though. He's always been an up-and-down player prone to making boneheaded plays, his ups were just crazy up for a few years in there.

1.) Watkins' contract was only expiring because we declined his 5th-year option. We had him for minimum 3 years if we wanted him (this year, option, franchise tag if no long-term deal). This one you can't hand-wave away. His production has been fine on the Rams-- he doesn't get targeted much and he produces on the targets he does get. He consistently draws #1 corner plus safety help, and Goff takes the safe stuff underneath when it's there. 2.) Woods is better than anything we have on this roster for sure. 3.) Gilmore is a solid player playing solidly for NE. Almost definitely overpaid right now, but we'll see how things pan out. 4.) Darby is probably better than any corner not named White on this team. 5.) The Jags and Bills flipped places in YPC on defense. Bills went from mid-3s to mid-5s, Jags went from mid-5s to mid-2s. It objectively made us worse this year. We will not recoup that value with a 5th or 6th round pick. 6.) Gilleslie is still better than any RB on our roster not named McCoy. You can laugh when Mike Tolbert is no longer our #2. It's not that all of the moves were the worst moves ever, it's that they inarguably made our roster worse when there was no need to do so.

Statistically, you don't have much of an argument for the vast majority of those but I don't think any arguments we'd have about them would involve statistics so we can agree to disagree.

Yes, a bunch of TSW experts said he put it in the wrong place. The rest is a non-sequitur. Of course Taylor doesn't make all the throws he should. If he did, he'd be a top 5 guy. He doesn't, so 10-12 is his ceiling.

Which is funny, because Donald Jones and other ex-players have said that it was a good read and throw by Taylor and that the play was messed up by Jones. But I'm sure a bunch of bitter keyboard warriors know better.

This is sorely revisionist. This team had a top offense and good defensive personnel being held back by bad coaching. A lot of the same guys that thrived under Schwartz were struggling under Rex. We KNOW the talent was there. Do you remember how we would have had Watkins for pretty cheap if we'd just picked up his 5th-year option? Because I do. Our cap space was limited, but fine. Other teams manage with far worse situations than ours without gutting all of the young talent on their roster. Glenn's contract is fine, too-- left tackles are expensive to keep. Just the nature of the business. When he's been in good schemes, he's been a monster in the run game and an above-average pass-blocker. We've been dramatically more successful running to the left than anywhere else since we've drafted him. Dareus was absolutely overpaid, but still an effective player with elite potential. It is the coaching staff's job to get those players to turn potential into production. Jacksonville traded for Dareus and immediately improved in the run defense game by 3 yards per attempt. That obviously isn't ALL Dareus, but he's a big part of that. We didn't have a proven loser. We had a talented roster that everybody thought was a good coach away from the playoffs. Pretending otherwise now that The Process is imploding is just disingenuous.

Carolina is 7-3, has one of the best defenses in the league, and Taylor threw a game-winner that Jones flubbed on. Despite the ugliness of the game, that could have easily been a win.

Sure. Question marks after the guys who look solid but could fall off a cliff a la Nick Foles (see Carr and Prescott for what can happen when your supporting cast weakens). Brady Brees Rodgers Ryan Cousins Roethlisberger Smith Wilson Luck (probably?) Wentz(?) Goff(?) After that it's a whole bunch of guys vying for the 12-18 spots, among whom I think Taylor has done the most with the least. Really not sure who else you can argue definitely belongs ahead of him.

Of course not. He's been a top 10-12 QB in this league the whole time. He has a crap O-line and a questionable cast of receiving targets in a terrible scheme. Many QBs look like a dumpster fire in those circumstances. Tyrod has looked AVERAGE despite dealing with those circumstances. There are things he doesn't do very well, which is why he'll never be a top 5 or top 8 guy. But he's plenty good enough to win with.

Look, I'm going to make a statement here that has nothing to do with politics, despite its unfortunate tangential relationship to the current state of US affairs: Trump is a moron. He's always been a moron. He will never not be a moron. He's been understood to be a moron for decades. DECADES. He drove an entire football league into the ground. He's been lampooned and satirized as an icon of corrupt, selfish idiocy since at least as far back as the 80s. He bizarrely tried to claim credit for the Pegulas buying the Bills when that whole thing was going down. He's that kind of moron. Whatever misgivings you might have about the Pegulas, the current situation is much, much better than it could have been.

After this season there will be grown men and women who have not had a Bills playoff appearance occur in their lifetimes, and the Bills are no closer to achieving a playoff appearance than they have been in at least 15 of those seasons. "Growing a pair" is insufficient.

They inherited a talented roster that was a good coach and defensive coordinator away from a serious playoff push. They proceeded to gut the roster and ruin last year's 7th-best offense while making no improvements whatsoever on defense. The excuses need to end.

SO HAS TYROD This is seriously insanity Our offense was great last year. Tyrod is probably in the #10-#12 range of QBs, and that is PLENTY good enough to win with. He'll never be a Brady. Few QBs are. The best part about committing to a QB of the caliber of Tyrod Taylor is that you have free reign to take flyers on guys until you hit on one that you think can be a top 5 guy, and there's simultaneously no pressure to play the new prospect but also no big shock or surprise when you finally part ways with the vet.

Wait, what? So you're cool with them harrassing more minorities, even though it is demonstrably not yielding results, and you want them to do MORE of it?

Anybody pretending that "Inmates running the prison" is a common phrase (hint: it's "asylum") and that the usage of prison had nothing to do with the players being black needs to do some serious introspection about why they so desperately need to deny the existence of racism in American society

Then you need to clean off the lenses you're looking with. You can disagree with methods, you can disagree with proposed solutions, but if you look into what their concerns are and come away with the impression that there are no problems with the treatment of minorities, and particularly of black people in the US then you are objectively wrong. That is not a matter of belief. That is not a matter of interpretation. It's a shameful fact of American identity that we need to own up to and resolve.

Ding ding ding But I'm sure they're just whiny, entitled primadonnas and not grown men with beliefs and life experiences and passions. How dare they do anything but bleed for our entertainment.

You do know that they do this, right? Maybe not all of them, but a not unsubstantial portion of them. Kaepernick in particular has been putting his time and money where his mouth is, which you might know if you actually respected people of color enough as human beings to look into why they feel the way they do.