Matt in KC

Is this what it's like when you do drugs and get stuck in a bad place? ...and I honestly don't know if I mean LaDarius or me continuing to read/post! I respect the fact that you (LaDarius) think "Nance does not adjust well to the ball. He does well if the ball is right to him " but this seems to contradict the quote from Ben implying Nance adjusted well, has soft hands and BR couldn't believe some of the one-handed catches. What exactly did you see? You said at one point you saw 4-5 (5-6?) games if I remember right.... Did he have bad stats those games, a lot of dropped passes? Do you think what you saw was representative of his college career? Were some of the games when he was just coiming back from injury? Give us some context in which to interpret your claims of first-hand information to weight them against the other quotes. Also, is there anything else we should know, such as you know Nance directly or indirectly outside of football, that might sway your opinion?

Honestly, I don't know. I have a rudimentary understanding of stats; enough to think that there may be a measurable correlation between height and success (admittedly quite watered down by the other factors involved). Though I guess if coaches think height helps (even if it doesn't) they might give taller players more playing time which would lead to the outcomes.... hmm.

What a fantastically reasonable response and summary. I think almost everyone here agrees with these points. I know I do. The questions become trickier when we try to guess how Nance will fair in the NFL, because we have very little data, or first-hand observation on which to base an opinion. Unfortunately, as we pool our data, quotes, and LaDarius's first-hand observations, we have run into a wall of name calling and generally unpleasant interactions, because it seems like some opinions are being rejected out-of-hand and some interesting data is being treated as invalid. I am tempted to run an SPSS regression on receiver height and a positive outcome (yards?, receptions? TDs?) to see what it says in terms of the percent of variance accounted for by the predictor of height. This would be an opinion-free way to let science judge whether height has (likely) contributed to success, as defined, and to what extent. I think I'd have to ask for help from someone at work to get the access however, so I'll need to coome up with a work-related exercise to get help setting this up....

OMG, what the fvck is your avatar?

Holy crap, this again? I think I'm coming out on the other side.... The first half hour I spent reading/writing/pissed on this topic I really felt annoyed. Now I kinda see that the board has gone a few days without being ridiculously critical of one of the Bills (you know, since McGahee came back). I think LaDarius has helped us focus our negativity. I think after LaDarius is banned, we might actually feel better about the Bills players. Heck, this topic alone may make 50 people watch Nance a bit closer, and root for him just a bit more on the high passes we're likely to see in training camp....

1) The Bills give up less sacks than the league average 2) JP has 90% of the posters on TSW believing in him by mid-season 3) Lindell has a strong year after a preseason refreshingly free of negative thoughts (and posts) directed his way 4) The Bills show heart, if not wins, in a respectable effort for the year 5) An unexpected player makes the pro-Bowl from the Bills 6) New England finishes in third place in the AFC East What can I say... I'm an optimist. Edited 6/18/06: I only just now saw I was supposed to make this bold.

Hey, LaDarius, how do you think Nance got 81 catches last year? Luck? Skill? All QB placement? Did he "earn" any of those catches? I'm pretty sure you don't think it was his height.... I am not presuming to know anything at all (but would like to hear your opinion since you actually saw him play -- on TV, I assume?).

Peters? Fletcher? If we start the year significantlly under the salary cap I'm going to be pissed. If we still have space, we should try to extend some of our talent and use this year's space to fund it so we're less strapped in the future.

Speaking of which, What happened to MacGahee's stiffarm? It almost completely disappeared after the first game of the year. Does anyone know if he might have had a shoulder|elbow|wrist injury? Or was he just trying to "hit the hole hard" (per Mularkey) and not work the edge?

The fact that "I appreciate learning the stats and hearing observations/opinions as data points on which to build my opinions" makes me a parrot? If you want to call my attempts to learn about Nance parrotting, then so be it. I'm pretty comfortable with myself and think I take longer than most people to judge people, including you (after all, here I am responding). After years of studying Psychology, Philosophy and Marketing I understand that my football (and other) opinions are based on what I hear, see (including reading) and trust, and that there are any number of ways I can be biased or conned. I have no illusion that I am correct. Nor do I have any faith that your opinion is more correct than the scouts quoted, or Big Ben. Why should I? Frankly, if you have first-hand observations or access to other data about Nance, I'd like to hear it. That kinda makes me a non-parrot, doesn't it? Let me take a second to ask you to redeem yourself a bit: admit that you are repetitively squawking the same CAPITALIZED crap again and again here. If your point is to talk about Nance, then do so. If your point is to claim that first-hand observations deserve significantly more weight than objective recordings of fact, then maybe this shouldn't be on a football board at all(do we have an anti-science board?). I'd even be happy to debate this with you if you treat me with respect, but WTF has gotten under your skin here?

That was pretty good parotting, exceot I think you lose points for nothing being capitalized. I'm amazed there are new YELLING posts of such an avian nature more than a week after someone snapped. Usually tempers flare then after a day or two people choose topics / conversations they enjoy. I did think this would make a funny signature if someone was permanently offended: I haven't seen Nancy play, but have heard wildly differing opinions of various players at times. I personally appreciate learning the stats and hearing observations/opinions as data points on which to build my opinions. With regard to the commentary about height and leaping ability, I'd say that being able to consistently time your jump (and I personally have no idea if Nance does) adds about 3-5" to your height and gives you a much better chance in a jump ball situation. I'd love to have a tall receiver with reliable hands for short-to-mid yardage pass plays.

Actually, RDB said more attempts and completions. I think our "analysis" got a bit off track and circular. Review: Mickey said JP needs to be more accurate Mark VI said JPs accuracy was in part because JPs pass attempts were longer / riskier (because of the plays called) Mickey provided strong stats on Red zone completion rates that went ignored: RJ (not THAT RJ) said that yards per attempt were higher for Holcomb (who we know had more completions)RDB pionted out that Mark VIs point about longer riskier passes seemed to bear out when you looked at yards per completion. Yards per attempt is a compound of both yards per attempt and completion percentage (which is what we're trying to explain in the first place). The real question is what is the yards per incompletion, which I don't think is recorded anywhere. And, if it was, could not be compared to yards per completion, since as RJ (not THAT RJ) said, that figure includes the run after the catch. I do believe in general it's easier for WRs to run further on average after short sure passes than long bombs. But, Lee Evans sure added a lot of YAC on those TD passes from JP....

After sitting out a round of the pick 'em, I'll say: Hurricanes in 7.

Are you kidding? From the CDC&P: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm Don't scare people away from a very effective public health tool!

Thank you. Your words moved me. Take care of KRC, Mrs. KRC. I wish you both a deepened appreciation for all you have as you work through your grief.

Yes, it takes about a month for THC to flush out of your system.

Actually, I'd say Schobel was perhaps our most consistent player last year. He regularly would be a half second from getting to the QB on passing plays, and was solid against the run. He was the only one who looked like he was definitely going to get to the QB if given 6-7 seconds on almost every play. Schobel DID display more moves last year. In 2004 his best (and only really strong) move was the loop around LT. Last year he displayed a strong burst to the inside on quite a few plays. I think this put much more pressure on the opposing O-line to account for him than in the past.

I sure hope he turns it on. If so, I think he and Denney would make a strong rotation at left DE. If not, he's likely to lead to a future compensitory pick - - maybe a high one.

Sabres up 3-1 in the 2nd. Briere just scored again. You can listen from NHL.com. http://www.nhl.com/scores/index.html

I don't think I'd read much into it. Many of the positions where the lineup is uncertain simply list the players in alphabetical order by last name: QB: Holcomb Losman Nall Ochs Woodbury LG: Anderson Preston Reyes C: Fowler Geisinger (I'm not saying Geisinger might win this) WR (right side) Price Reed Smith *interesting to note Davis and Wilson are listed after them* After Royal, the TEs are listed alpha. Is this all there is to Cieslak being listed #2?: Royal Cieslak Euhus Everett Neufeld

Charlie also saw things in his freak-out episode.

And let's not forget the "here's how everyone else acts on the Wall" guy.

No, I don't think the assertion is that the Bills got 4 of the top 100 in the top 100 picks, but rather that they landed them sometime during the draft. Did a half dozen of the guys on this list not get drafted at all? We know Nance is one... who are the others? If there are no others, they went somewhere and therefore someone else has 4+.

I understand what you're saying. Compensatory picks or not, The top 100 went somewhere, except Nance as far as we can see. (The drafting teams are not listed.) So, an exactly even distribution would lead to every one of the 32 teams getting three of the top 99 (96 players total). This means that if the teams with the most top 100 picks are really listed, there has to be at least 3 of them to account for where the remaining 3 players went. When AStrobot says "Only one other team had 4 on the Draft Daddy Top 100," it sounds like one is missing. When he says "The Patriots had 2 (Maroney, Jackson), as did Miami..." it sounds like there must be three more teams out there who got 4, or a team not mentioned got 6, or several other players in the Draft Daddy Top 100 where not drafted.

Well, when he last played, Gray was lining him up at the line on 10% of the plays. The new defense sounds a bit different.... He also may have been frustrated with the young players not picking up the new defense immediately. There's no indication he was having trouble understanding.