dave mcbride

No.

This.

The Lions lost that game late because their kicker missed a makeable FG. That's always the story with that team - they always have one or more truly gaping flaws, whether it's no credible RB, a terrible secondary, no pass rush, etc. And when I say flaw, I'm talking worst-in-the-league sort of flaw at an important position/set of positions. It's always something, and that's the curse of that franchise. They get a truly elite player like Suh and let him walk. I mean, wtf? He was DOMINANT there, and has been excellent since he left. When he left, their excellent 2014 D (11-5 that season; robbed by Pete Morelli in the playoffs on call as bad as the NRC one) goes immediately into the tank. You think the Bills consistently make bad decisions regarding personnel and overall team building, but imagine being a Lions fan. And let's not forget their first round drafting. They did manage to get Stafford, Suh, and Calvin Johnson with top-2 selections, but when they draft outside the top two they're either taking duds or guards/centers. It's mystifying. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/det/draft.htm

I personally think he's very good but has simply played for a bad franchise. He's truly elevated that team at times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap

Bear in mind that Singletary missed basically 3 and half of the first seven games and that Yeldon fumbled on one of his few touches in the first game that Singletary was fully out (against Cincinnati). I don't think the coaching staff had much trust in Yeldon at all this past season, and he's an experienced receiver. Gore is a non-entity as a receiver, although he will catch the occasional dump-off when everyone else is covered.

College football is all about recruiting. Why anyone would think Daboll could be a good recruiter in the upper Midwest with national stretch potential for 3 star recruits outside the region is beyond me. That's not a criticism of Daboll. There is no chance he'll get this job.

Fair point. Still, that's gotta be a pass play even if you're resigned to firing it out of bounds. Josh has to know that.

Um ... they had a pass play in and he shifted to a second option. The first option was the main play. I mean, I suppose you're technically right, but it's just as likely that Allen misread the play (we'll never know) and/or had a brainlock regarding the time left. The time management was ALL on him, and he had a number of brainlocks that day. The right thing to do was not to shift to GoreFail plunge. Throw it away if necessary and give yourself two more plays.

All I'm saying is that the first option was supposed to be a pass play from what I read. The second play was a run play. Maybe it should have been a different pass play; I don't know.

Somewhere between 17 and 21 percent of attendees at Bills games are from Southern Ontario, so the cited metro area number for Buffalo is off by a good bit. The Niagara region of Southern Ontario has 448,000 people, and I am not talking about Toronto. That is Bills country.

The Gore run was a pass play that Allen audibled out of because he didn't like the look. Don't blame the coaches for that one.

Who won this trade? From the NY Times in 1983: John Elway, the Stanford University quarterback who insisted he would not play for the Baltimore Colts when they made him the first pick in the National Football League draft last week, was traded last night to the Denver Broncos. In exchange for Elway, the Colts received Chris Hinton, the offensive guard from Northwestern who was the Broncos' first pick in the draft and the fourth player taken over all; Mark Herrmann, a quarterback from Purdue who has played three seasons with the Broncos; and the Broncos' first-round draft choice in 1984. Quarterbacks always go earlier than people think in January/Feb.

?? - He missed at most a couple of games at Florida in his entire career at Florida. He was extremely productive in college: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/percy-harvin-1.html

What took him down were injuries and personality/attitude. The first can affect literally anyone in the NFL, and the second was unique to Harvin and probably the biggest red flag on him. I also fully believe that if he had been healthy in Seattle in 2013, he would have had a career season. He wasn't a gimmick player, either; he was one of the most explosive players in the league who could beat anyone around the edge on a rushing play and take it to the house on a five-yard slant. Plus he was a GREAT KO returner, with 6 TDs (including the Super Bowl) in his first 5 seasons. That is rare. Also, unlike Spiller, when Minnesota moved on from Harvin, they actually got a great return from Seattle: a 2013 first round pick, a 2013 seventh round pick, and a 2014 4th round pick.

6-2 is better than 1-7 -- no doubt. That said, the record is deceiving. They feasted on bad teams. Next year, just like the Bills they're going to have to face the AFC West and NFC West.

Fair enough, but I really think that people are forgetting how good Harvin was when he was healthy. He was spectacular both catching and running the ball. He had 52 carries for 345 rushing yards (6.6 ypc) in his third season to go on top of 1,000 yards receiving and a 72 percent catch rate from abjectly terrible QBs.

The thing is, I never compared them to the Bills! That's a complete red herring. The Jets were not good. That is all I am saying.

Percy Harvin was plenty dynamic and specialized in what McKenzie gets called upon to do. I don't know at all if Shenault is that guy, but I'd take a healthy and happy version of Percy Harvin 8 days a week at the #22 slot. How much was he hampered by injury in '19?

He was very good his first three seasons and one of the best and most dangerous players in the league in his third season despite truly awful quarterbacking (Ponder and a decrepit McNabb). He was also good in his fourth season, and if he had been healthy in that Seattle SB season, he probably would have racked up massive numbers. I'd take that. Again, though, let's wait to see how Shenault measures out in his 40, 20, and shuttle times. Harvin was elite in those areas.

Just thinking out loud, but the idea would not be to get a replacement gimmick player, but a Percy Harvin-type player (who was absolutely sensational when healthy early on and worth the early 20s pick that he ended up being). Of course, Harvin ran a 4.41, so it's going to come down to how Shenault tests out.

A decent overview: https://www.dynastynerds.com/draft-profile-laviska-shenault-jr/ One thing to consider given the Bills offense: he represents a big upgrade over McKenzie, who plays an important role in Daboll's scheme. Shenault is kinda tailor-made to play that position.

See my additions to the post. I added a lot. Also, he ran a 4.59 coming out of HS. Maybe he's a lot faster now with training, weight management, etc., but that's a lot of ground to make up: http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/player/combine/_/id/218609/laviska-shenault-jr

Lofton's drops in his final season with the Bills were both abundant and alarming. My best friend in Buffalo lost good money because Lofton dropped the easiest of TD throws right in his hands in the last minute or so of the 1992 season SB that would have made the score 59-24. (He was playing squares and had 9 and 4.)

Here's his HS recruiting profile: https://247sports.com/Player/Laviska-Shenault-85906/high-school-150761/. No red flags that I see. He was a 3-star recruit, which is pretty good considering he started late. Curious as to why he chose Colorado (lately a weak program) over a place like Texas, but as it happens Colorado went 10-4 (8-1 in the Pac-12) and finished the season ranked 17th the year he committed. He was also the 117th ranked receiver coming out, so Colorado was a solid match. Ruggs was number 1. https://247sports.com/Season/2017-Football/RecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&Position=WR Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, and Arizona State also had recruiting interest in him. Not going to Alabama was very wise given that Alabama got Ruggs, the #1 guy in the country. Update: the recruiter who first noticed him and showed interest was at Texas Tech (when Mahomes was there!) before moving to Colorado. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2852683-meet-the-colorado-wr-who-has-the-nfl-drooling-hes-julio-jones-only-bigger Key passage: 'He was lost at a position that has been minimized in most college offenses, was a 3-star recruit and was ignored by a majority of major schools. Darrin Chiaverini, then a wide receivers coach at Texas Tech, found him at DeSoto and told him he wanted to make him a wide receiver. Chiaverini begged Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury to offer Shenault, and when Chiaverini left to become offensive coordinator at CU, his first priority was to sign Shenault. By that time, Alabama had found tape of him and had zeroed in on adding him to a freshman class that already included receivers Jerry Jeudy, DeVonta Smith and Henry Ruggs III. The very thought of Shenault at Alabama with that receiver class is frightening. Fortunately for CU, Shenault got bad vibes from his visit to Tuscaloosa—"it just didn't feel right"—and he and Nixon both signed with the Buffs. "When he signed," Chiaverini says, "I immediately thought, 'It won't be long until he's the best player on this team.' --- Anyway, the comp to Patterson vis-a-vis the processing power minimum standard seems pretty off base here. He seems to be solid enough on that front.