dave mcbride

I don't recall him having a particularly strong arm, but it was a long time ago. You're right that he had a ton of injuries over the course of his career, and by the time he became a household name (mid-80s) he had missed a fair amount of time. That's what I remember, at least. I'm not saying he couldn't make the throws, but he was no Jeff George. Yeah, people forget that Pennington's arm was good enough before the torn rotator cuff injury (the worst injury a QB can have; it's what Newton had and he can barely throw now).

That actually makes sense.

Simms is definitely an important player in NFL history. Not a big arm but a first round pick; won a lot of games; was pretty much always slightly above league average in terms of performance (as per PFR); and game managed a power running team that relied a lot on TEs. He didn't have a HOF career, but he definitely qualifies for the Hall of the Very Good.

I went out for a beer with an old friend of mine last night who is from Boston and a fanatical Pats fan (his dad has had season tickets for over 40 years). His comp for Mac Jones was Phil Simms, and that made a ton of sense to me.

What is amazing to me is the requirement that a certain number of people who are actually on the roster every week have to be inactive. What's the friggin' point of that? In no other sport does that happen.

The backup in every instance is worse, and Winston was actually having a very good season. Siemien has been terrible.

Taylor Heinecke lookss to me like a long-term loser but a guy with a long career ahead of him getting coaches fired whenever he has to play for an extended period of time. He’s a poor man’s Fitz, and his ceiling is Steve DeBerg. He was AWFUL vs. Buffalo. Lawrence had an easy TD a dropped and another great pass within the five yard line dropped on a 25 yard throw late in the game. Don’t get me wrong - he is not good yet. But he played better than Allen and did enough on his end to have the Jags beat the Bills by two scores. His supporting cast is awful, though. Roethlisberger may be in steep decline, but he’s still competent when healthy and a lot better than Rudolph. The Bills win that game if Rudolph starts. Basically, for all of their losses, they would have won if the backup had started.

Five of the Bills seven wins have come against backup quarterbacks. They are 2-4 against starting QBs. The easiness of the schedule is real. They have feasted on weak opponents.

I didn't leave them out; I know he wasn't good vs. Indy, KC, or Philly a couple of years ago. I'm just saying he performed well vs. Houston, and no, you can't exclude that game. No team has scored more points or gotten more first downs against Houston than the Bills, and only one team gained more yards (LAR).

He had a rating of 102 vs Houston in a downpour and was 20 of 30 for 248 yards.

A dome ain't gonna save you from that drive!

Remember this bad weather game in Buffalo involving Belichick?

Don't get me wrong - I was a fan of his and defended his play last year. He was reasonably productive in the games that he played.

LSU has to keep up with Bama so ... they'll take almost anyone if they're elite. Otherwise, the AD and coaches are going to get fired. Bama gets the pick of the litter these days, but the team has also had its fair share of complete dolts/criminals (Ruggs, Dareus, Reuben Foster, Cam Robinson, Kuondijo, etc. etc.). ND is a pretty selective school, with 19% of applicants getting in. Alabama accepts 83% of applicants. Of course, as the flagship state university, it has a different mission and different responsibilities to the Alabama public than a place like Notre Dame. But yeah, the standards are obviously lower for athletes at ND even if they're higher relative to the rest of the nation's football programs. https://www.uhnd.com/football/2015/07/01/notre-dames-academic-risks-selfinflicted/ "Notre Dame’s standards are well known for being one of the most difficult in the country. High school athletes must have at least four college prep courses and two years of foreign language completed to be admitted. Additionally, recruits must be able to point to specific evidence from within their high school academic record that indicates the capability of meeting the stringent demands of academic life at Notre Dame. But clearing the admittance hurdle is only the first step. Notre Dame student-athletes are subjected to difficult math courses, such as calculus, as freshmen and must achieve – as well as maintain – a GPA of at least 2.0 by the end of their freshmen year. To put this standard in context, many universities only require one year of foreign language to be admitted, and students do not need to achieve a 2.0 GPA until their junior year."

My guess: the countless minor injuries plus a couple of more major ones add up over time, and once you're 30 or so and are running a 4.5, you aren't going to be wanted by teams looking for an answer at speed receiver.

It is partially a myth, but not entirely. The standards ARE higher than at places like LSU, which has no standards outside of being a good football player.

I think Beasley right now is playing with broken ribs. He is clearly avoiding contact -- even going down before the first down marker a couple of times untouched -- when he can to protect himself. Hopefully, they're nearly healed up. When he's healthy, he has wiggle. He's extremely quick.

He played in two games in 2020, including against the Bills. IN that game he played 8 ST snaps and none from the LOS: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/202012070sfo.htm. He played one game this season for Cleveland (vs Pitt) - 2 defensive snaps and 11 ST snaps.

I think teams are pretty beat up at this point in the season. Another day of rest and recuperation may be more beneficial than practice.

As a UCLA alum, I'm not happy! But I do think Kelly is actually building a pretty good program. The Bruins aren't dominant, but they really improved. They had a good year and are well coached. I assume the recruiting will follow, and Chip has a record of getting his guys.

I don't get Texas. I mean historically, they are as storied a program as Alabama and USC, but they have flat-out struggled over the last decade. They were pretty dominant in the Mac Brown era too (7 top ten finishes in 9 seasons between 2001 and 2009), and have 26 top ten finishes since they started ranking teams in 1940 (82 years; or basically one out of every three seasons). SC has 31 and Bama had 31 before the Saban era. It's also a great school in one of the best cities in the country, and the program has massive support behind it (donors, the state, an enormous fan base, etc.). I get that there is a lot of competition in Texas, but there's a lot of competition in California (I include the states of Oregon and Arizona here; the schools there all draw from CA) and Florida too. I expect they'll rebound, but I can't understand why they've been in a funk for nearly a decade. I have to think it's bad coaching hires. Maybe Sarkisian is a genius, but he took over a team with four straight winning seasons and got them to 5-7 in a not-great conference. They also lost 6 in a row before finally squeaking by Kansas State in the finale. I can't imagine he's long for that program. Note the UB reference here! https://hookemheadlines.com/2021/11/15/texas-football-the-fire-steve-sarkisian-talk-needs-to-stop/. No team should ever lose 57-56 to the Kansas Jayhawks--a historical doormat if there ever was one--unless it's a college basketball game.

You gotta factor in postseason. He had 64 carries for 300 yards over four postseason games last season (4.7 ypc) along with 18 catches for 182 yards (8.2 yards per reception). He also had four TDs over four games. Those are good numbers against top competition, and the sample size isn't small. He's basically picked up where he left off from last postseason. His regular season stats were bad though. He had 12 carries for 103 yards in the second game vs. Carolina, but the rest of the way did basically nothing.

I think KC will absolutely destroy Denver in KC.

The stadium in Orchard Park is the windiest in the league, and by a fair bit. THAT is the reason why it is the worst weather stadium. https://247sports.com/nfl/cincinnati-bengals/Article/Kickers-Nightmare-The-Windiest-NFL-Stadiums-105213973/ and https://weather.com/news/news/2019-09-12-nfl-worst-weather-cities The Patriots don’t play in Boston, and the Bills don’t play in Buffalo. Foxborough is much further inland than Boston and not as windy; OP is a southern suburb and windier than the city and the northern suburbs.

Jackson got beat badly on a double move vs Jax that should have ended the game, but Lawrence overthrew the wide open receiver who had a clear path to the end zone. It would have made it 16-6 with two minutes left.