Kelly the Dog

Because when anyone talks about lack of "arm strength" in the NFL in a meaningful way it is not about being able to lob a ball 55 yards. They all can. It's about can you throw a straight hard pass on an out pattern or deep out or 25 yard crossing pattern and have it get there hard and quick enough that a NFL CB or S doesn't step in front and intercept or knock it down. A lot of out patterns that are completions in college and practice and preseason are pick sixes or INTs or incomplete in real games if you lack sufficient arm strength.

Very, very often, and more times than he checked down, Trent would do EXACTLY what Peterman does, which is read the defense presnap, decide where he his going presnap, drop back, look right there and throw a quick release and usually pretty accurate short pass. They both do (or did) that more than any other thing either does. When Trent didn't do that, and looked downfield is when he became Trentative and different from Nate.

Badol is right to a degree, but the Bills thought he was worth 9m and offered him 9m. He wanted 10m because he thought he was the best LT in the game and IIRC there was one LT who made 10m, like Pace or someone like that. He wouldn't sign for less and the Eagles were willing not only to pay him 10m but give away a #1 and more for the honor of paying him that much. The idea that he didn't want to be here was and is a cannard. He wanted 10m because he was worth it.

Because they KNOW he cannot get the ball there fast enough!

They are not poor reads at all if the ball gets there quick enough.

I love to gamble and it's obvious I have strong opinions on the games and the Bills, but I wouldn't personally go near this game. I see 6-7 completely different scenarios it could very easily turn out and maybe two of them have the Bills losing by less than a TD. I admit I am more biased against Nate playing well than most, but still. We have a boatload of question marks. Surely not all of them are going to turn out great for us or bad for us. Some will and some won't. But game one, we need a lot of things to go right against a well coached, veteran, tough team on the road. I think it's a less than 50-50 chance. Unfortunately. Usually, I'm a homer and optimist. That may be a good sign we suck. I don't think in all of the last 18 years I thought we were going to go 6-10, even when most people did and they were right. I always look to the bright side. I just don't see it this year.

Really good post and explanation.

Gotcha. Totally agree. Although I think it's a longshot we win.

Felser was mostly a columnist but you're talking about the best the city ever had who covered the Bills over 68 years, so that is tough to live up to. Dunne is a very, very good feature writer, not a columnist. Eric Turner is absolutely great at what he does, breaking down film and analytics, etc, but not a columnist. But both of those are totally different jobs than Sully's. I don't want to stick up for him, but he was strictly a columnist and if you want to compare him, and his style and substance and entertainment value, IMO you have to compare him to other columnists. It's like saying a drummer sucks because there are all kinds of other guitar players in similar bands who are better musicians.

I would have thought anyone following football would have expected Wentz not to start and Peterman to start, before the annoucements, and especially Vegas.

They won but I would say poor to decent, although Matty Lice was no better.

It's absolutely true. Peterman lacks the arm to get the ball all the way across the field on even short passes, with CBs coming hard on the ball. Twice in preseason he did this and the CB dropped a pick six. The last time we saw him last year he did it and the CB intercepted in the playoff game. It's inarguable that is one of his downfalls and if he proves he can make that throw he can succeed, and if he shows what he has shown so far he is dead man walking. Exactly. He cannot or has not shown he can throw it on a line 20 yards.

Untrue. If you cannot throw a dart 15 yards on an out, you cannot play successfully in this league. And Nate has yet to show that he can.

And how many smashed TVs have you had in the last three years?

How does he do that? Amazing he didn't throw it in the field.

Yup. They should just throw to him every play in red zone.

I don't want to speak for the poster but I'm pretty sure he meant only that he would be mediocre at best like Trent Edwards, not that his game is exactly the same. Actually, there is at least one very strong comparison to Trentative, IMO. Very much like Nate, Edwards would read the defense pre-snap, decide where he was going to go with it, drop back and immediately throw a pretty or very accurate short pass, often a completion. It was only when Trent dropped back and tried to throw downfield that he became Trentative and always seemed to dump the ball off. Most of his passes, or at least half, were just like Nate, with a slightly stronger arm. On the 5 and 7 step drops he turned into Trentative.

I didn't imply that at all. I said that only to suggest that it wasn't new management who just had it in for him from the start. The Sports Editor was sticking up for Sully for a long time here and the negative to positive about him was about 9-1. I didn't say or suggest this site was the only reason. Full disclosure I write a column for them once a week during the season, and will do it again this year. But I am not a shill for them or just support the news. I was criticizing a lot of the News writers. Some of them are gone now and some remain.

I don't know either way but it seems pretty hard to judge excitement until the actual season starts.

Obviously, this place was just one of many places he heard the same thing. I spend a lot of (too much) time on Twitter and it was the exact same thing.

I was not a fan of Sully myself, but I do know for a fact that A LOT if not most all of the local writers really liked him as a guy, contemporary, mentor, drinking partner, friend, etc. I don't really know of one of them that didn't like him.

Why? Just as a general theory I mean. I'm not saying Sully should have. I think he was once a valuable columnist for them because he got people to read his articles and discuss them, liking or hating. I often said over the years that his editors must love him. The last few years, however, his detractors that only grew up with his negativity, and the fact that he seemed to get lazy, seemed to make it no longer worth it for the News. The guy who fired him that he is complaining about, as you may recall, was on here for months sticking up for Sully when he took the job. Endless people here badmouthed Sully and very few stuck up for him. After awhile, it seems to me that bossman realized the bad pub was not good pub.

"Some faces deserve to be slapped." - Me.

WTF?! On an 18 yard pass in the air, to a wide open KB, you B word and say, "Give him his due"- responding to me saying - "Good pass, right on the money but it wasn't that long and not difficult" with you saying "nice pass, right on the money with a safety and corner under." Which wasn't really true, of course. The CB wasn't close to him and the safety was running over but didn't even get there in time to stop him from running untouched ten yards into the endzone.

Some here are convinced that Nate can never be any good based on previous results and/or limited skills that cannot be improved over time. The jury is actually still out on Shein, although he is a little long in the tooth.