dave mcbride

Ha ha! Definitely a low entry barrier.

Anyone who says he's the odd man out and then says immediately afterward that he's their best receiver (and, implicitly, cheap to boot) is a straight-up moron.

The board wasn’t around for those two. It was around for F v. J. That’s what I’m referring to.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200301050pit.htm https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201211110min.htm Point being, even bad QBs have the occasional good game. Johnson was terrible overall, straight up. Please don’t defend him. Championing that SD-Buffalo game is like finding a passable slice of Bocce’s pepperoni pizza in a deep dumpster dive. In the two seasons where he was the man - 2000 and 2001 - he crapped the bed.

Yeah, Flutie v. Johnson is the reducto ad absurdum of all-over-the-map discussions like this. This tends to be where it always ends up if the thread goes on long enough.

All I know is that I watched Johnson choke repeatedly in college while I was at UCLA and was never a supporter. That was my take from the get-go. There was a reason he was drafted in the fourth round, and it had nothing to do with physical talent (his talent was fantastic). I was at UCLA when his brother Bret Johnson, the frickin' #1 high school QB recruit in the country, metaphorically picked up his marbles and went home after failing to win the starting job. He then transferred to Michigan State (my wife's alma mater), where he stunk. The lesson for me: be skeptical of raw-talent guys who don't produce despite being surrounded by incredible talent - which Rob Johnson was at USC. He had a few good games for the Bills, but doesn't every bad qb have the occasional good game? He was bad, Badol, and the numbers, from college to the NFL, back that up. Again: the most sacked qb ever in terms of sack rate. PS - we all expected the Bills to win??? Please. We all HOPED the Bills would win. They were playing on the road against the number one defense in the NFL and against one of the best coaches of that era.

?? Phillips all but SAID he wanted Flutie in the years after. Wilson ordered it. From the horse's mouth (in a 2017 piece co-written by Phillips and Vic Carucci in the News): "The next day, our owner, Ralph Wilson, called our GM, John Butler, to tell him he wanted Rob to start our wild card playoff game at Tennessee." Also, what are you taking about re: AZ? The Bills controlled that game throughout and won 31-21. They beat NE in OT because a) the weather was basically a nor'easter and b) Jonathan Linton not only lost two fumbles (once inside the red zone), but got stoned on a 4th and 1 play. The Bills completely dominated the yardage stats in that game. Re the 1998 Bills offense, my do memories fade. They were 11th in yards, 16th in points, and 7th in offensive DVOA. My strong recollection from that season is that everyone leaped on Flutie after the Baltimore game, but as it became clear over the next 16 months, that defense was arguably the greatest unit in NFL history. They finished first in DVOA that season and the next. Most importantly, I am skeptical of anyone who argues that Johnson/Flutie was six of one/half dozen of the other. Johnson stunk, pure and simple. Outside of throwing a very nice ball when the pressure wasn't there and running reasonably well in the open field, he was bad in every other aspect of the game (especially the mental part).

You know as well as i that he lit up the number 1 defense (https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef1998) in the league like a Christmas tree in that game, and while he made some mistakes, he moved the ball up and down the field all day. Johnson did the opposite against a significantly worse pass defense. I'm not saying Flutie was without flaws, but he was a clear shot better than the QB who represented probably the biggest mistake in franchise history. The Bills spent the #9 overall pick plus a fourth for a qb who went 0-5-1 against ND and UCLA despite having, in succession, Curtis Conway, Johnny Morton, and Keyshawn Johnson as his #1s and Tony Boselli as his LT. He choked in every one of those games (I watched them). Badol is a great poster and always worth reading, but even he will confess that he was a massive booster of the disaster that was Rob Johnson when that whole thing went down. All of us make mistakes, of course.

The *one* thing the TN defense could do that season was sack the qb (54 sacks). Combine that with the fact that there isn't a qb in NFL history who has been sacked at a higher rate than Rob Johnson, and you get a truly unholy marriage. But don't take it from me; take it from Wade Phillips, who had no desire to start Johnson (who sucked his entire career and was a huge disappointment at SC given the ridiculous talent around him). As for Flutie, he had played well in his previous two games - against AZ and against NE in a howling rainstorm. As for the Giants game, if either Thurman or Jonathan Linton can actually get a measly yard on 3rd and then 4th down in NYG territory with just over two minutes to go, the game would have been over. But they didn't, and the Bills couldn't stop Kerry Collins from marching down the field to set up the game winning FG. Anyway, Johnson sucked, and while Flutie had flaws in his game, he was, without question, a better player.

Nor would he have been sacked 6 times and thrown for under 125 yards against a pass D that ranked 25th in passing yards allowed and 27th in passing TDs allowed.

A guaranteed number that is 50 percent greater is actually quite significant. Money per year is not a good measure; if Cooks is a middling player after year 3, he'll never see the conditionally promised money in years 4 and 5. If he remains elite or near-elite, he'll likely see it, but his salary won't be adjusted to reflect the changed cap situation. If Watkins is elite after year 3, he'll see a lot more money than Cooks in years 4 and 5 because the salary cap will go up significantly. It is actually quite arguable that Watkins got the better deal, but that's of course contingent on him performing. If he does, he'll be a FA at age 28 and in line for a big 3-year contract that'll probably pay him 20-25 million per (with a lot of the new money guaranteed) assuming the current annual rate of increase in the cap number. It's a "prove it" league, of course, but the players who do prove it are often better off with a 3-year deal than a 5-year deal, especially if the 3-year deal has a bigger guarantee. I'm surprised more people can't see this.

That is 100 percent correct. Shady has been a good citizen and McDermott is a fan of his. Note that McCoy is often the public face of the team too; it was him who was being quoted yesterday on Josh Allen's progress.

Here it is: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/17/pro-football-focus-nfl-analytics-fmia-guest/. Relevant passage (and as per the advice to teams at the end, note that this is EXACTLY what Beane did this offseason): Coverage is more important than pass rush, all else being equal Analytics have a way of upsetting your sensibilities and upending some preconceived notions. Growing up, we’ve been conditioned to believe that pass rush is critical. And for good reason—pressure reduces passer rating substantially (by about 30 points) and nearly halves a team’s yards per play average. And we can see from the broadcast angle when pressure affects a quarterback. Because passing is so important, good pass-rushers have been the highest-paid members of most NFL’s defenses. However, we found that not only does pass coverage (as measured by PFF grades) explain team success better than pass-rushing, but predicts it better as well. This helps explain why the winningest team in the league (New England) has used its only two big-name defensive free-agent signings on cornerbacks over the past decade (Stephon Gilmore and Darrelle Revis), and why defensive end Trey Flowers is currently a Detroit Lion. One need only to go back to last year’s playoffs to see how the quick passing game of today’s NFL mitigates even the strongest pass rush, with the Patriots racking up 78 points en route to the Super Bowl despite facing the vaunted pass rushers on the Chargers and Chiefs. The caveat to this finding? As a trait, coverage tends to be less stable year to year. The upshot? Invest a lot into coverage, so that some subset of five or six of these players give you an elite group.

Read the PFF-written story in last week's FMIA column. Good teams view coverage as more important than pass rush, and the Bills are excellent in coverage. They have actually gotten better on paper since then, which is a credit to Beane. Notably, the Bears and Patriots had fantastic coverage units last year. yes, it's not very good. The top three had the same order for defensive team passer rating, but Jax was sixth (Minnesota was 4th and Cleveland 5th).

My favorite single stat is collective opposing team passer rating.

They were second in DVOA, which IS regarded as a good measure. DVOA, which is MUCH more indicative than either raw points or yards. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef if you’re interested, reado FO’s explainer.

Let's see what he does this year. I'm not passing judgment yet. I won't be shocked if he gets hurt again, but I also won't be shocked if he puts up 1400+ yards and 12 TDs.

That's a fair point, but my issue with Jones up to this point hasn't been injury but his modest physical talent and his tendency to not make plays in clutch situations (first Miami loss last season when he dropped a pass at the 8 that would have given the Bills a first down in the final minute; the bad route he ran vs. Carolina that cost the Bills the game in 2017). He could get better, of course, and if the spring reports are to be believed, he's setting himself up for a decent-to-good season. I don't see him as ever being a #1 (which is OK; he wasn't a first round pick), but Watkins has that potential because of his natural ability.

To be fair to Watkins, he played 9 games plus a very short portion of a 10th game (against Denver the first time KC played them; he had a hamstring issue and came out of the game in the first quarter). Prorated, he was actually on pace for 70 receptions, 910 yards and 5 TDs. Also, if you sub in the numbers from the two playoff games in lieu of two missed games and pro-rate it (which I think you should -- playoff games are the most important games involving the highest stakes and the toughest competition), his pro-rated 16 game-season numbers were 72 receptions, exactly 1,000 yards, and 5 TDs. Either way, he was on pace for for more than 60 receptions and 750 yards. I do realize he gets hurt too much, but anyone watching a healthy Sammy play vs. NE in the AFC championship game could see the lights-out talent on display. He was great in that game, and anyone who denies that wasn't watching. If he stays healthy -- and yeah, I know it's a huge if given past history -- he may well have a dominant season given the quality of the QB and the absence of Hill. He is still young, remember. He turned 26 just 12 days ago, and his huge physical talent and receiving skills are readily evident to those with eyes. Anyway, the book on him hasn't come close to being completed yet.

I think this is probably correct.

Aha. OK. That explains it.

Wow. That is unbelievable. Just goes to show that the injury stuff that we don't find out about in the run-up to the draft is so important. What's wrong with the Bengals? Shades of Rex and Shaq Lawson!

No argument from me! I thought the defense was really good. Bear in mind that our offense was 26th in TOP. That matters too. Not really. Opposing QBs had a collective passer rating of 82.6 vs the Bills (very low), which made them the third best pass defense in the league after the Bears and the Ravens. The reason their pass defense numbers were good is because they actually had a really good pass defense. Nothing more and nothing less.

I don't think playcalling selection correlates with intensity. That game was a complete joke by halftime, and the Chargers knew it. They were first in yards per drive allowed and first in plays per drive allowed. They were 32nd in drive start, which means that against the Bills, opposing offenses had the shortest fields to traverse in the entire league. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/2018.htm.

The blowout situation was terrible last season. In the first 9 games, they were basically blown out 6 times (the Chargers game was a blowout despite the final 31-20 score; the Chargers were up 28-3 and the rest was garbage time). That was about as bad as I've ever seen the Bills. That said, they didn't suffer any true blowout losses in their final 7 games, although I wouldn't argue with anyone who said their final 24-12 loss to the Pats was a blowout. They score in the final seconds to make it look reasonably respectable, but they were steamrolled in that game.