Rampant Buffalo

They turned out better than Coleman!

I'm going to strongly disagree with their Hall of Fame worthiness metric. I see they have Emmitt Smith listed as their 4th most Hall of Fame worthy RB ever. Eyeball test: he was a good player, but not a special player. He averaged 4.2 yards per carry, while playing behind one of the two best offensive lines in NFL history. A guy like Eric Dickerson averaged 4.4 yards per carry, while playing behind an OL which was significantly inferior to the one the Cowboys had. The one special thing about Emmitt was his longevity. That, and nothing else. A good player who hangs around a long time is not more worthy of Hall of Fame induction than a great player. Period, end of story.

Is Sammy Watkins a case of Torrell Troupe writ large? Torrell Troupe was an NT that the Bills picked in the second round. Rob Gronkowski went one pick later. Troupe got hurt. The coaching staff pressured him to play through his injury. That made the injury significantly worse, thereby ending his career. If Troupe had been allowed the time to properly heal, he might well have been a solid asset to the team. Sammy Watkins also played through an injury, in this case to his foot. I don't know what role, if any, the coaching staff had in that decision. The foot injury severely altered the trajectory of Watkins' career. I would also add this. Tyrod Taylor didn't always do a great job scanning the field. There were times when Watkins was wide open, waving his arms, and Tyrod would throw it to some other target instead. Someone not nearly as open as Watkins. Greg Roman's offense prizes a QB's running ability. If you're selecting your QB on the basis of his 40 time, you're not always getting the best pure passer. Kyle Orton had some good games as a Bill, but other than that the Bills had pretty much nothing at the QB position during Watkins' pre-injury years.

If you're using Windows, you need to go into Paint. Open the photo. Then click file (upper left corner), then "save as" from the file menu. Choose .JPEG. Try uploading that. If that doesn't work, go back into Paint. File, save as, and this time choose GIF. You should be able to upload the GIF file for sure. If that doesn't work let me know.

Several years from now the following will happen: Divorce attorney: "Keon Coleman has given me permission to issue the following statement. He wishes for a divorce. Unfortunately, I was unable to help Mr. Coleman. He is completely incapable of getting a divorce. For that matter, he is completely incapable of getting any kind of separation."

Guys knock it off! Keon Coleman is a good draft prospect, and he's slowly growing on me. How slowly are we talking? In 5,000 years, he will have grown on me one inch.

They should get me out there. I'd drop every pass which came my way. Every. Last. One. Then I would be the most consistent.

I mean, I did that just the other week. Okay, granted, I herded my worm from Wichita to somewhere in the panhandle of Texas. But same general concept.

I believe that for there to be a discussion about something, it's best if the following is true. 1) The subject is important. 2) Fans have at least some knowledge about it. 3) There is disagreement among the fan base. For example: Josh Allen is important. But, there's near-unanimous agreement that he's the answer at QB for however long his good years last. Therefore, he's not the center a QB controversy. No real discussion to be had there. There's a paucity of topics which check all three boxes. New examples of such topics aren't generated very frequently. Moreover, if you look just at the first page of topics on this board, you'll see a ton of posting volume. If you have a ton of posting volume chasing a small number of interesting subjects, the same subjects or arguments will tend to come up multiple times.

No. I personally wouldn't say that. Very few people on this board are anywhere near being pro-scout level analysts. I would, however, say that 70% of the people on this board are closer to being pro-scout level analysts than Doug Whaley had been.

First off, I agree with your overall point. While no draft pick ever is guaranteed success, a rigorous and independent analysis can be a useful tool for improving probabilities. But using that type of rigorous analysis on Manuel seems rather like killing a housefly with a sledgehammer. A far more casual analysis, such as the one I did, should have been ample. When I watched his college highlights, I saw nothing which would set him apart from a typical college QB. The only two reasons to draft him at all were his physical tools, and his presence when he walked into a room. But plenty of people could exert a strong presence when walking into a room, without necessarily having the ability to succeed as NFL QBs. His physical tools ultimately proved not good enough. Manuel (4.6 in the 40) was benched for Tyrod Taylor (4.4) by an offensive coordinator who prizes a QB's mobility above all other traits. Drafting the wrong QB is worse than drafting no QB. The wrong QB means several years of self-delusion, during which the search for the right QB is put on hold. A front office with any level of competence at all would have avoided the Manuel pick like the plague.

One battle I'm watching is to see whether Bills makes the final roster. Yeah, it's a long shot. But, it would be way cool to see a guy in a Bills uniform, with the word Bills on the back of his jersey.

They were asked the question, "Have the Bills done enough at WR?" Their response was to create a video featuring their best WR.

I agree with that. Obviously there were other arguments as well. Such as: who is better. Losman or Trent Edwards? Turned out the answer to that question didn't matter, as neither QB was the right answer.

During the playoff drought, there were a lot of petty personal squabbles on this board. It often seemed as though people were devoting more time and emotional energy into going after each other, than they were into discussing football. Now, you barely see any of that at all; and nearly all the attention is on football. I don't know what specific action the mods took to create this change. But they obviously did something, and I for one am appreciative of that! I'd much rather spend my time on a football discussion board, than on a petty personal squabble discussion board. Predictive statements will vary in their levels of optimism and accuracy. I don't need every predictive statement to be all sunshine and roses.

I'd like to add a team to this conversation: the Cleveland Browns of the late '40s and early '50s. The Cleveland Browns began as a member of the All American Football Conference, which existed from 1946 - '49. The Browns won all four league championships, while going 47-4-3. They were incorporated into the NFL in 1950. "Eager to expose the Browns as a fraudulent dynasty, the NFL matched them against the [reigning champion] Philadelphia Eagles in a highly anticipated Saturday night standalone game to start the 1950 season. . . . The Browns walloped the Eagles, 35-10, turning the Philadelphia-stationed 'World Series of Professional Football' into a stage for Brown’s cutting-edge passing game. Browns quarterback Otto Graham threw for 346 yards, nearly tripling the Eagles’ passing yardage (118). This irked Philadelphia coach Greasy Neale, who said afterward that [head coach Paul] Brown would make 'a better basketball coach because all he does is put the ball in the air.' . . . Three months later, the Browns beat the Eagles, 13-7, without completing a pass." The Cleveland Browns went on to win the NFL Championship in 1950. They won additional NFL championships in '54 and '55. From 1950 - '58, they were 81-25-2.

Yeah you make good points. I will give you a scenario matrix. Scenario 1: McGovern is better at guard than center. Scenario 2: McGovern is equal at both positions. Scenario 3: McGovern is better at center than guard. Scenario A: Edwards is better than SVPG. Scenario B: the two players are equal. Scenario C : SVPG is better than Edwards. Let's say you're dealing with scenario 1C. McGovern is better at guard than center, and SVPG is better than Edwards. The solution is obvious: McGovern at guard, SVPG at center. But, let's say it's scenario 3C. Now things get more tricky. Option 1 is to put Edwards at guard and McGovern at center. You're keeping a superior player (SVPG) off the field and putting an inferior player (Edwards) on, but at least you're putting McGovern at his best spot. Option 2 is to put McGovern at guard and SVPG at center. This gets your five best OL on the field, but at the cost of putting McGovern somewhere other than where he'd be best-suited. It would be up to the coaching staff to decide which option represents the lesser of two evils. From your post, it sounds like scenario 3 is more probable than scenario 1. I wouldn't be surprised if we found ourselves in Scenario C (SVPG better than Edwards, especially later in the year). Which means the coaches might have some hard choices to make.

There is still a path to Clapp remaining on the roster. This path depends as much on the play of others, as it does on his own play. Suppose that in camp, SVPG knocks people's socks off. Really looks like a starting quality center. Meanwhile, let's say Edwards is a disappointment. In that case the Bills might keep McGovern at OG, and put SVPG in at starting center. That scenario creates a need at backup center, which Clapp would fill.

They should not trade him back to the Chargers. McDermott and Clapp go together!

If I was a Cleveland fan, I would hate him. I'd be counting the days until he was replaced. Unfortunately, due to the way his contract is structured, that's going to be a lot of days! 🤢

Edit if you want to, but don't worry about it. I was just messing around with you.

I find that if I say the same thing 5x in a row, it really starts hitting home around rep 4 or 5.

The methodology behind the ranking is this. The guy who did this figured he had two options. 1) Invest the time necessary to do this the right way. Familiarize himself with multiple teams, across multiple sports, for both college and professional. 2) Do the online equivalent of cardboard and duct tape. By the time a person figures out it's not a good list, the site has already gotten that person's click. Guess which option he chose?

Jefferson's likeness was carved into Mount Rushmore, well before 2020. That seems like a Hall of Fame thing to me. Oh. Wait. You were talking about Justin Jefferson, the WR. Never mind then.

Good thing this site was more or less free of complaining, during the drought years! 👍