Rampant Buffalo

Any time you can use an early draft pick on a pass rusher with a quick first step, that's an excellent use of the draft pick! 👍

There are certainly cases where a natural monopoly could exist. But it's not obvious to me that event ticketing is one such instance. Ticketmaster is collecting gross profits far in excess of any value it's providing. That would not happen in a competitive landscape. Because event ticketing is not (and should not be) a natural monopoly, I believe the correct solution is to break Ticketmaster up into a minimum of four competing companies. Each of these companies would be granted a non-exclusive, permanent right to use all intellectual property currently owned by Ticketmaster. (Except the Ticketmaster name, which would be discontinued.) If a person or entity owns a significant share of one of these four companies, that person or entity would be forced to divest itself of the other three.

Why is Ticketmaster entitled to engage in monopoly type pricing?

I remember reading an article about RBs who had received big contracts. Just about every RB they mentioned hit the wall 1 - 2 years in to his big new contract. Are there RBs who remain in their prime for many years? Yes, but those are the exceptions. Usually, by the time a RB's rookie deal is completed, most of his good years have been used up. That's a strong reason not to pay big money to a RB.

I suggest a change to the thread title. "Jefferson gets paid. 4 year contract, worth more than one dime!"

Your list of Big Four RBs makes sense to me. If I were to add a couple guys to that list, they would be Earl Campbell and Eric Dickerson. When I look at a player, I ask myself two questions. 1) How good was he when he was in his prime? 2) What was his longevity like? You take a guy like Emmitt Smith. When he was in his prime, he was a good player. Probably a step up from Rodney Hampton. But, he was not a great RB, even though he had great longevity. For me, longevity serves as a sort of tiebreaker. You have two RBs who produced similar levels of play when in their prime. One had much better longevity than the other. I'd say the one with more longevity was the better player. If I'm comparing Emmitt Smith to Rodney Hampton, Smith's longevity plays a big role in my comparison. If however I'm comparing Emmitt Smith to OJ Simpson, I'm not putting much emphasis on Emmitt's longevity. Emmitt's prime years weren't good enough to put him in the same category as O.J. Simpson.

Time for the Kansas City Chiefs to start kicking the tires on McManus!

That's a solid post. I agree that my analysis from earlier was incomplete. For example, Emmitt Smith played behind one of the two best OLs in NFL history. (The other being the OL from the 1970s Raiders.) That's going to make his stats look better than they otherwise would have. My earlier analysis was not intended to take OL play into account. You also made a good point about the importance of a passing game, to take pressure off the running game. Other than Herman Moore (WR), Detroit didn't have much in the way of a passing game. But it sounds like the Bills of 1973 had an even worse passing game, with less than 1000 passing yards! I'd like to thank you for the time you took to do your analysis, and I learned something from it. If you decide to analyze more, there are a couple suggestions I might make. 1) I'm at least as interested in a RB's yards per carry, as I am in his total yardage. For example, let's say you're comparing OJ Simpson to another RB of his era, such as Franco Harris. The Steelers used a RB by committee approach. In order for Rocky Bleier to get his share of carries, Harris had to get fewer carries than Simpson. If Harris is rushing for fewer yards than Simpson, is that because he's getting fewer carries? Or is it because he's doing less well than Simpson with the carries he's being given? Simpson averaged 4.7 yards per carry, compared to 4.1 for Harris. I'd argue OJ Simpson was a better RB than Franco Harris. Another point I'd like to raise is this. Some seasons, there might be two or more great RBs playing at the same time. Other seasons, there might be just one great RB. Using your method, the best RB in the league benefits when the second-best RB is as bad as possible. That's going to penalize the best RB in the league, if there happens to be another great RB active at the same time. To avoid this problem, maybe compare the best RB to the 5th or 10th best RB. I'd think that would give you a steadier, more reasonable comparison.

To me he looks like he'd be perfect for a '90s grunge band.

My understanding is that the woman gave consent at the time. After the fact she wished to withdraw consent and file rape charges, on the basis of having been drunk. I'm focusing on her drunken state because, as far as I'm aware, that's the sole basis for her rape allegation. That said, the reporting I've seen of this hasn't exactly been world class. The reporters in question have been more focused on helpfully providing their own interpretations and accusations, than they have on sharing the facts of the case. If there's more to the story, I encourage others to show me where my knowledge may have fallen short. I agree with you that blame should never be placed on the person being assaulted. There is never a substitute for consent. In this particular case, however, it's my understanding that the woman provided consent, and that therefore no assault occurred.

Let's say a car salesman gets someone drunk. Then he gets them to buy an overpriced car they didn't need. Later, the contract is declared null and void. That's just putting things back to the way they were, except that some of the car salesman's time has been wasted. That's the outcome which does the least harm, and the person who's getting what little harm there is (car salesman) is also the one most at fault. Now let's say a woman acts as described in my earlier example. She knows that if she's drunk she's more likely to have sex with some random guy. She routinely gets drunk around guys she's attracted to. Sometimes she has sex with one of them. If she feels bad about it the next morning, she presses rape charges. That makes it someone else's fault. She was not the one to blame. A man's life is now ruined. But the woman was not to blame. She should continue doing what she's doing. We live in a culture where women are often told it's completely acceptable for them to act this way. But is that the message we should really be sending to women? Do we really want our legal system to uphold and enable this type of behavior? If a woman is going to feel bad about having drunken sex with men, then maybe she should control her drinking when she's around men?

Nope. Not what I was saying. I was addressing the specific issue of a woman giving her consent in the moment. Then she withdraws consent after the fact and presses rape charges. Her argument is that she was drunk, and therefore her consent didn't count. If a woman doesn't give consent, and a man has sex with her anyway, then that's rape. Period. End of story.

The article you quoted states that the Bills should be "ashamed" of having signed Steveson. The basis for that claim is a single incident. A woman got drunk and had sex with Steveson and another wrestler. She later sought to press rape charges, but was unable to do so. Her argument was that she was too drunk to give consent, therefore making it rape. She was unable to press rape charges because it had been her own choice to get drunk. The article used the word "awful" to describe the law which prevented her from filing rape charges. Before deciding whether we should agree or disagree with the reporter's opinions, let me ask you this question. Should people be held responsible for the actions they take, while drunk? For example, imagine a really strong guy who's an angry drunk. If he has a lot of alcohol, he'll get into fights, and often send other men to the hospital. Do we say, "He was drunk, and so not responsible for his actions." Or, do we say, "Dude. You need to cut this out. If that means don't get drunk any more, then don't get drunk." For the second example, imagine a woman. She knows that when she gets drunk, she'll have sex with guys she wouldn't have had sex with, had she been sober. Knowing this, she chooses to get drunk while in the company of men she finds attractive. She has sex with these men. Then presses rape charges afterwards. If she pressed rape charges against a man, that man's good name might later be dragged through the mud, by media outlets such as USA Today. So which would you rather have? Would you rather be sent to the hospital by the angry drunk? Or would you rather have criminal charges filed against you, and your good name attacked by the national media? Why do we want the people in either of these examples to keep getting drunk? Why not have them both stay sober, so that other people don't get hurt?

Good post, and I'd like to add to what you've written. Sixth loss, the Eagles. The Bills had two defensive coordinators for that game. The really good one was named Sean McDermott. In the first half, his defensive game plan held the Eagles to just three points. Our really good defensive coordinator exited in the third quarter. His place was taken by the terrible defensive coordinator. Who, coincidentally, was also named Sean McDermott. The soft zone/prevent defense became a sieve for the second half. It allowed the Eagles offense to complete 8 - 12 yard passes. Easy throws, easy catches, we did nothing to contest or challenge. Just let them have those. Easy peasy, at least for them. We would have challenged on a 20 - 30 yard play, but just let 'em have the 8 - 12 yard stuff. If we'd played any defense at all in the second half, that game is a Bills win. Unfortunately, the terrible defensive coordinator defeated the Bills defense, more thoroughly and completely than any opposing offensive coordinator ever could.

Here are some more numbers Turnovers per game Dorsey: 1.8 Brady: 1 Offensive plays per game Dorsey: 60.4 Brady: 81 Brady had about one third more offensive plays per game than Dorsey. Why? How did he get his hands on an extra 20 offensive plays per game? The first thought which came to my head was, Brady's offense had fewer turnovers. So, you'd expect it to have more offensive plays. But if you had 0.8 fewer turnovers per game, would you really expect that to get you an extra 20 offensive plays per game? I wouldn't. I just don't know where Brady's 20 extra offensive plays per game are coming from. But however he got hold of those 20 extra plays, they sure helped some of his other stats. In particular, his points per game stat received a big boost. I look at 6.5 yards per pass attempt and think, okay we need to fix this. I look at an extra 20 offensive plays per game and think, can we count on this going forward? I have no idea how these 20 extra plays came to be in the first place! However he managed it, reducing turnovers and getting 20 extra plays per game are the two places where Brady's numbers are better than Dorsey's.

Below is the 2023 season. Yards per pass attempt Dorsey: 7.2 Brady: 6.5 Yards per rush attempt Dorsey: 4.6 Brady: 4.4 Percentage of offensive plays which were passing plays Dorsey: 58% Brady: 48% Diggs was a much worse player late season, than he'd been in September and October. That's going to drag down Brady's numbers, through no fault of his own. One good thing about Brady: the offense turned the ball over about half as often under him, as it had under Dorsey. The Brady number that's of biggest concern to me is 6.5 yards per pass attempt. Trent Edwards' career average is 6.5 yards per pass attempt. For Losman it's 6.6. Josh Allen is the best QB in Bills' history. We need him to produce at a higher level than Edwards or Losman. Obviously. Also: when you have a QB like Allen, you need to pass the ball more than 48% of the time. A running game which averages 4.4 yards per carry is reasonable. But, if a coach sees 4.4, it's not as though he should become all googly eyed and star struck, to the point where he says, "Wow! We really need to be doing this with more than half of our offensive snaps!"

Good post, and I gave it a thumbs up. But there is one thing I see a bit differently. Let's say there are two women, in whom you'd be moderately interested. They both like you. That's fine, but it's not as good as if the woman of your dreams likes you. Let's say you have two TEs: one very good, the other reasonably good. That's fine--nothing wrong with that--but it's not the same as having the best TE ever.

Hmm. I'm trying to think of some other QB about whom that statement might also be true. Hmm. Hmm.

A. J. Epenesa says hi.

In that case my place on the roster is safe. When I punt the ball 12 yards, it goes straight ahead!

Let's say you were to define a dynasty team as a team to win at least three Super Bowls. From 1970 until today, every dynasty team has had either A) a Hall of Fame WR, or B) a top 3 all time TE, and a good #1 WR. Why is this? Most people would agree that it's extremely difficult to build a dynasty team, if you don't have a franchise QB. Imagine two offenses. Offense X has a franchise QB + decent receiving targets. Offense Z has a franchise QB and some elite receiving targets. It's not about the QB, and it's not about the receiving targets. It's about both. In comparison with offense X, offense Z is going to take their passing game to the next level. They are amplifying the effect of their franchise QB. A good example is the New England Patriots. When Reche Caldwell was Tom Brady's #1 target, their passing game was good. But when Brady's top two targets were Gronkowski and Edelman, their passing game was elite. Gronkowski and Edelman amplified the effect of Tom Brady. Caldwell did not.

The Bills may have done him a favor. By the time they cut the roster down to 53, they're only keeping one punter. The fact they released Haack so early in the process tells me that punter was very unlikely to be him. Now he's free to sign with some other team. Maybe he has a better shot of making that other team's final roster, than he would have had of making Buffalo's.

It's also a squirrel for us to chase, considering we've just spent 10 pages discussing a player unlikely to make the final roster. Let's say you were to take the brain of an elite DL, and put it into Steveson's body. How well do you think he'd do? If you like the answer to that question, then ask yourself this: does Steveson have time to learn a sufficient amount of that elite DL's skill set, before he washes out of the NFL? Probably not? Okay, well in that case what can be done to shorten his learning curve? Undersized, athletic DL. So you think, situational pass rusher. Great. If he can focus 90% of his learning just on that one thing, maybe he shows enough to at least make the practice squad. That keeps his NFL career alive, and gives him the time he needs to keep learning the position.

There. That's what I'd expected you to write.

I read your post 15 times, and it still said the same thing. That he's slower than Coleman! 😮 Do I need to get my eyes checked, or am I hallucinating, or what's going on here?