dave mcbride

Along with Cal, Oregon, Alabama, and Stanford, Purdue is the only school with three good-to-excellent QBs since 1960 (see my post above for details). That said, after the 1960s, Purdue seems to go about 15-20 years between good NFL prospects. They haven't had one since Brees, although Orton could actually play in the league. He wasn't great, but he was physically capable and could operate an NFL offense. But really, he's a Steve DeBerg-type QB -- good enough to get a coach fired. My own advice about QBs is to NEVER assume a school is a predictor of anything. To reiterate a point I've made numerous times, it was assumed up until 2001 that Michigan QBs would never be great and would most likely be terrible.

Payne dominated the Bills in 2019.

Good post. He did hit on a high-trajectory bomb to Diggs last week - a play in which Diggs had time to adjust and make the play.

9 home games and 8 road games. What's to complain about?

Parcells hired him. He also hired Coughlin. Part of being a great coach is identifying and hiring great assistants. It’s basically the number one job of a head coach, and Parcells was unparalleled in that area. He also rescued and nurtured Sean Payton. Parcells is one of the greatest ever, in my opinion.

The rules are the rules and they are crystal clear. Easy solution: don’t do it.

In that 2019 Denver game, the difference in ability to handle wind between allen and the denver qbs was stark.

Well, given that we’re facing Washington, it’s worth mentioning that he played well in a quite windy game vs them in 2019. Average 18 mph winds with gusts higher than that, and a passer rating of 110.4 (70 percent completion rate). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201911030buf.htm He also played well vs Denver in similar conditions. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201911240buf.htm

Lot of drops for Darnold last night. Completion pct should have been significantly higher.

Chicago is without question one of the great American cities.

Oh please. It’s The New York Friggin’ Times, for chrissake. And no, I’m not going to bloviate about its content. Read the story yourself.

Yeah, I knew it was in the same space, but I thought it was basically new ($500 million was a lot in 2000 too). I've been to the old one and not the new one, so you'll know better than me. Yeah, that appears to be right. Lambeau's upgrade made it basically a new stadium.

The new Soldier Field opened in 2002. It's not close to being the oldest stadium.

The argument isn't what he did in the Miami game (although he made a couple of poor plays trying to make stops on outside runs along with fulfilling assignments well), but more on his overall performance last season, which wasn't great and a step backward from 2019. Granted, he played injured for much of it, and that doesn't get mentioned enough. Playing with a bum shoulder as MLB is really rough. Regardless, the guy he was drafted to be -- Luke Kuechly -- made play after play after play after play. Edmunds does not, at least up to this point. Maybe Edmunds gets closer to that level of performance as this season progresses. I am hopeful because of the talent. But it's laughable to suggest he's anywhere close to Kuechly at this point in his career. His postseason performance last season was uneven too -- good against the Ravens, but mostly a JAG-level player against the teams that had strong passing offenses: Indy and KC. He was awful vs. KC, but so was almost everyone else. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/K/KuecLu00.htm https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/E/EdmuTr01.htm

Our defense is predicated on having a MLB who is as instinctive, as good in coverage, and as capable of making big plays as Luke Keuchly. That's who the Bills thought they were trading up for. He is not close to being that player. Badol is right that it's a devalued position, although just as there are elite RBs, there are elite MLBs (all of the ones who fall in that category are guys who can cover, however). The better way to think about it is that inside LBs who are excellent at stopping the run are more or less a dime a dozen relative to DEs, pass rushing OLBs, and CBs. Think Reggie Ragland ad infinitum. Wagner is special just the way that Alvin Kamara is special -- they are excellent in the pass game. Edmunds has the tools to be good in the pass game, but the fact of the matter is that he was a poor pass defender last season. It's too early to tell this season. I'm hoping for the best.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/sports/football/josh-allen-buffalo-bills.html Have at it.

Ryan has had some great years, was an MVP, and by all rights should have been super bowl MVP if Shanahan doesn't call an incredibly stupid pass play on second and 11 from the NE 23 with 3:56 to go and up by 8.

Cassel was a very, very stiff player with a slow release. Jones is more compact, more fluid, more accurate, and already better at digesting quickly what's in front of him. He's not Michael Vick, but he's clearly better on his feet than Cassel. Cassel had a couple of attributes, but the limits on his game were more numerous than Jones's. Don't forget that the 2008 Pats' roster was coming off a 16-0 season and completely loaded still.

He looks quite good to me. I don't like the fact that he's on the Patriots, that's for sure. Saying he's rag-armed or being set up for success seems akin to whistling past the graveyard to me. He made a lot of great throws at Bama last year that demonstrated he could play. Disagree. The Pats roster is very strong top to bottom and as I said, he looks good. The Bills can definitely win the division, but they're not a shoo-in. He looks much better than Cassel to me.

This seems like a more convincing assessment to me than the Kubiak evaluation. Kubiak didn't even mention the late third-quarter near pick on the McKenzie throw.

I know it's only two games, but he's averaging 8.0 ypa, has a completion rate of 68.5 percent, and has a rating of 100.5. I always liked him coming out of college, and I think that the Jets situation totally warped people's view of his talent/potential. He is now with a functioning organization, and this is when the judgments of him based on his play will be more or less accurate. What the Jets dumped on him was just ridiculous, both in terms of personnel and Gase's horizontal passing game.

I was wrong about that - I misremembered. He didn't fumble in that game. Sorry!

He's gotta stop the fumbling. Three fumbles in two games (and just 29 touches) isn't really acceptable.

Actual evidence?