MTBill

Biggest problem with this - that it's part of a documentary. I think it's weird that you'd film your family moments and air them. To each his own behind your doors - other than what is patently wrong. Parents kissing kids is fine. I wonder this - is this normal in their house, or were they hamming it up for the camera? Either way, nothing to see here. I've got 3 boys, probably never kissed them on the lips - at least not that I remember. I don't kiss my daughter on the lips either. But I wouldn't condemn another family for a different way. This brings Ferris Bueller to recollection. "So that's how it is in their family."

As far as it "happening already" - that's not quite possible/above board. As far as agents and teams talking in principle about a signing, that would not shock me. And the charade can go on 'til March... Only way a trade could happen is if the Redskins do a tag again - which would allow other teams to sign him, but they'd lose picks...

Commitment is a 2 way street - the transition tagging year over year soured that relationship. Sure he got paid, but they never showed any love. They wanted the booty calls, not the ring.

I'm probably just obtuse - but something said here lit a lamp in my head... Going the FA route or the Draft route is expensive. Because a QB is expensive. The FA route you are paying cap room for a hope that the guy wasn't a product of a system and can succeed in your system. The Draft route you are paying in draft capital (to move up) for a hope that a college kid makes the transition (and wasn't a product of a system). If you are already picking top 5, it is less of a gamble since you don't have to trade up. We aren't there this season. I am lukewarm with Cousins. I think I would love to have him as our QB - but not for the kind of $ it will take to land him. I really think it's up to Daboll and McBeane and what they want to run. I also would not mind trying for either Keenum or Bridgewater on the cheap. I would not trade up. Unless you have some real talented QB coach/OC who knows how to evaluate a QB (something we haven't seen in Buffalo - maybe ever) it is a lot of sacrifice of other needs to move up.

I think the elephant in the room is cap space.... I don't know the Bills have enough of it. Not sure whether Cousins is 'it', but he would be an upgrade and a better option than a rookie right now. I am sort of scratching my head though as to why the 'Skins would rather have had Smith... Seems like maybe Smith did less with more. But I don't follow the Skins well enough to know their skills players.

Not in the "trash heap" because of one bad game... but he has an uphill battle. His 1 attempt in the WC game was a bad throw to a DB too. He had the same OL and receivers and OC. New OC, new opportunity, I'm not holding my breath. How short is his leash if you start him again? If he throws a pick in his first 5 attempts? 2 in his first 10? Is that just bad coincidence or further proof you've now wasted more time with him.

FYI - Alex Smith's new contract has a $71M injury guarantee.... so this isn't an alien construct to the NFL for aging players...

Nice work - only thing I might change up.... Those passing stats are for a career - since not all players play 4 years, maybe just take it to average/year? That settles the underclassmen stuff out. What about # of Sacks? Did you look at that - and did it predict anything? What about conference or opponents? (Just another analytics guy who is too busy/lazy to find the dataset myself...) Thanks!

Don't sell the farm for Luck (or any QB). Might as well write us off for another 17 years if they do that. I don't see them trading away a ton of picks for a QB. I wouldn't even do that deal someone posted above for the #3 pick (21, 22, 2019-RD1, Glenn). That's crazy talk. This isn't a team where Brady transforms it into a SB winner - and Luck is no Brady.

6. What is your window of opportunity? Do you have the supporting cast right now for a SB run, or are you 1, 2, or more years out? This has to play into your strategy. I personally think 2020 is when a run will be more likely than 2019, regardless of who is QB. 7. Who is available? You can't pick up someone who isn't available - so you have to look at the options you have and make the best of it. I think who is out there in FA after other teams re-sign their own matters a lot - and ties in to who/how you draft. 8. Are you suffering from low self esteem? I think balancing fan desires with media expectations play into decisions more than it should. Teams end up taking players in order to please people - should not do this, but it is done. What do I sort of expect to see? I think they are still doing evaluations. They finished the season with an unexpected 1 week extension - then raced to the Senior Bowl after replacing the OC (which the timing was right for). They are going to determine what they have - and what they don't have. Hopefully Daboll is going to adapt to what he has to work with along with the potential for what can be replaced. The OL needs shoring up, we need a backup RB who can share the load, we need a deep threat WR to complement a ton of possession guys, probably need a TE as Clay is injury prone and we need the QB to run the offense you want to run (along with a backup QB). I expect to see 'best rookie available' when it makes sense for a QB in the draft. There are holes to fill on OL and the front 7. We need another WR, RB and TE. Too many to fill in one draft - even with the extra picks. I really don't think Peterman is the boy for the job, maybe he'll prove me wrong. He's only a 5th round guy - I'm not saying he's a bust the way others before him were. I just don't think he is the guy.

<yawn> Nothing to see here. Move along. Wood participated fully in the offseason. He signed an extension before the start of the season. He got an injury in October. How is this the fault of the Front Office? It is an unfortunate event.

Contract wise and cap wise - I think it's too bad they couldn't put some of that on the 2017 cap if room were left over.... UNLESS - Wood were to ever play again, they they'd have to move that portion to the current/next year. (this would avoid teams trying to game the rule). The key reason here being - we are still in the 2017 season at this point. Maybe that is the case - and some of it was applied to 2017....

When there are 5 'top flight' QBs in the league - some of whom have played >10 years... good luck getting that diamond in the rough. They are rare. What we need is an above average QB (tier 2 guy) - who the OC can make the most out of. Daboll seems like the man for that job. I'm not suggesting TT is above average, but it is unlikely any of this years "top talent" are going to be a top 5 QB the way Brady/Brees/Big Ben perennially are. Just looking at the odds based on the last 5 years "top QBs" who have not blown the doors off year in and years out to be 'elite'. Maybe Wentz or Jimmy G will be that, but I doubt it. There have been lots of 1-2 year pretenders. Smith is maybe that guy - but I don't know how hard they'll have to work to get a trade. I imagine that KC wants to keep him as plan B unless someone offers them a plan B (TT??). Trouble with TT as a plan B guy is he's too expensive to be a backup on the current contract.

Everyone scratched their heads about the 2 FBs. All three of those WR were injured much of the season - Zay playing through it. Dawkins was a great addition. Though not a skill player. Thompson seems to have been a good pickup, I suspect that Zay & Benjamin will have better years next year. Matthews is as good as gone. The OC was part of the problem, the QB was part of the problem, the injuries were part of the problem. Shady was the best story to come out of the offense. I get the frustration, but I don't think I'm hitting the panic button on offensive talent evaluation just yet.

I went off my point. I agree that for most college athletes, the degree is the prize. I was talking about elite college athletes who aren't using a degree. They get no choice in where they play for their first team. They may grow to love a place, but they are basically forced to go where they are drafted if they want to play. Obviously, almost every one of them is OK with this. But some aren't, and they don't really get a say in it. Pretty much everyone on this board gets to choose where they work - unless their field is so specialized there are only a few options - but even then, there are options. The draftee gets no such choice - and that seems slightly broken. For positions like QB - their success is determined by the players surrounding them. If I possessed their talent, I wouldn't want to play for the Browns either. Well, maybe I would - but only because I like challenges. For the record - I was pissed when we got snubbed by Jimbo - and was tickled pink when he came back. Even though I was pissed, I understood some of his reasons.

The problem is - the NFL is a monopoly. If you want to play QB in the US and get paid like the NFL, they are your only option. There is no plan B. The USFL was that for a short while, and the XFL less so. Players coming out of college have no choice in who they get to play for. The draft is in place in hopes of maintaining at least a small degree of competitiveness. If every player got to choose the team - you'd have many teams who would end up folding because they would never have talented players. With Transition tags - the NFL has given teams even more power once a rookie contract is up for a team to continue to hold power over a player's 'rights' from other teams signing them. As a follower of a team like Buffalo - this is a good thing. Imagine a world where the elite players all wanted to play for big name/big market teams. By also having "rounds" of a draft - players also get a slotted salary - again helpful for the team - but not the player. In short - if you are a college FB player who is good enough to play at the NFL level, you are screwed. You have to play football for free in college (yeah, you may get a degree out of it) and then you have to play for the team who wants you based on how much they want to pay you. Maybe they could create some sort of buyout clause for players drafted in the first round to allow them to move to a team which didn't have a chance to draft them (e.g. the team they wanted picked after the place they were drafted) - where the drafting team gets compensated somehow. Even that seems unfair to competitive balance, but the player would still have to find a dance partner willing to pay the cost.

I found/posted above the earliest record of Hyperbills I could find - which does indeed have a few posts on the forum. But - it is a far cry from a real archive - more like a glimpse at the past. It would be funny to find out who posted first/fell for it first of the pixyland.org guy.... Who is still out there as I had to explain that today. His site has 12M hits, at least 15,000 of those were generated from TSW. Or when Belinda would get mad and we'd have to do "nm" or Belinda in the thread... I have changed usernames a couple times - and don't care to get them all linked. I probably have 10,000+ if they were all combined. In one of the later iterations - I was one of the first few to register - so was like member #6. Back in those days, I bounced around a bit. Doing the Usenet group, Hyperbills, another site or two, TSW, one of the BB.COM iterations... But here is home for my Bills fix.

And - for posterity.... Ye olde D&C Hyperbills.... Oldest page I could find on that in the Wayback. Complete with a discussion of HYPERBILLS TAILGATE.... (their caps).... Oh - and I forgot to say it again in this post, when I meant to. Happy Birthday to TSW! and A huge thanks to SDS for keeping the lights lit. I'm sure it hasn't always been easy.

I guess I remember Hyperbills.... I also remember alt.sports.football.pro.buffalo-bills... Found a post I made there in '96 on Google Groups... But I know I posted there during the run - I suspect those years are lost to the vacuum of lost bits/bytes. The earliest posts I could find were '94... but I remember talking about the Comeback on that list. A lot of names on the old Usenet - seem to have shown up at TSW at one point or another...

Anderson is also a FA this offseason. He's not a scrub, he just can't stay healthy. I see this move as the replacement - and an upgrade. The 1 year off may be indicative - he had a tryout with the Chiefs late in the season and they passed - but that could have been due more to immediate need versus having an offseason.

After looking further into that data - the statistics I gave could have been incorrect. That site is terrific - but the interface is terrible and not always accurate (at least looking at the plays does not always seem to match up with what you requested). I think these could be more accurate in terms of # of plays (but is still wrong - e.g. no incomplete passes are listed or FG). I had tried Goal to Go first and then when looking at the results there were plays from the 30 which weren't goal to goal. 10 plays inside the 5 (not counting incomplete passes) Results - Passing TD - 3 Passing Plays - 4 Rushing TD - 3 Rushing Plays - 6 http://pfref.com/tiny/164O1

I suspect this is to replace Colt Anderson on ST, he was injured most of this year. Seeing as he (Anderson) played his college games where I live, it is sort of sad - but he had a good career. No idea where McCray was. I saw on that link he tried out for the Chiefs late in the season. Otherwise seems to have been out of the league for no apparent reason.

That site is interesting on passing stats... Taylor is pedestrian with most of those stats - sometimes not even in the top 20. But - Completion % - 4th quarter. He ranked 5th in the league. Ahead of names you'd expect to be higher maybe (Brady, Rogers). He was 1st in the league in Interceptions/attempt (though Alex Smith was nearly tied at 1% of passes attempted - it's not different by much and Smith had nearly 100 more attempts). Looking at the 3rd down conversion % by range - Short (<3 yds) 9th @ 68.8% first downs, Medium (3-7 yds) 7th @ 53.2%, Long (8+ yds) 12th @ 29.4%. I think you can look at statistics all over the place - when we break every data point down - you darn well better be good at a few things. I would not be shocked (or entirely sad) to see TT back next season - with a long term answer in the wings. Peterman does not feel like he is the long term solution - but maybe it was just a bad appearance vs. the Chargers (and his 1 attempt in the WC game).

That list is sort of ho-hum to me... Seems to me like 'here's a list of the top 50 possible FA' - I'm going to try to add a Bills angle on all of them. Lot's of players on the list we (fans) like who won't even hit the market - or would be way overpriced. Bills are still carrying a lot of dead cap space - I don't think they are going after the high priced names the national media thinks we/everyone should go after. I think we still need so many blue chip players. I think McD & Beane came in with a 2-3 year plan (the process), year 1 is done and they had magical luck to get a playoff drought over and had a strong draft class. They aren't going to try to make a splash with Cousins or try to swing a trade for Smith. I think they work to bring EJ Gaines back, Kyle if he doesn't retire - as a locker room presence and I suspect part of a rotation given his age. I think Star from the Panthers is likely given the link to McD. Too bad Jimmy G won't be an option. I think he'd have been a great fit with the new OC who has NE ties to him running the same system. I also suspect Webb will be back - as will Cadet. This will be an important offseason, continuing to build up the foundation.

I agree with you. I'm not convinced this team is going further than a WC with TT as the QB, however if you look at the potential vets who'll be out there... are they long term or short term solutions? I don't think they are interested in Cousins or Smith. I think they could take a flier on Bridgewater if he's at the right price. We have to play the long game - Brady isn't going to be in NE much longer before he retires - then the AFCE could be ripe for taking - and getting to host a playoff game again. I think we still have 2-3 years before that happens. When I look at the new OC, that screams to me a guy who works with what he has... that just sort of tells me he'll be working with TT. I think we draft the best QB available at 21/22 - unless there is a way to 'cheaply' move up. I don't think they are going to go after a top 5 pick, it would cost too many picks for a team with so many holes to plug still - for a position which even going that high would still need a year or two to develop. So - I think they take the best QB available with one of those picks, and fill out the roster. They'll work with TT(or maybe a passable vet), the new rookie, and Peterman in 2018 - then the best of them will take over in 2019 if it isn't TT. That is a "now & future" foundation and seems to fit "the process". I know it isn't what a large portion of this fanbase wants, but it may be what we should expect. Dennison was part of the problem, not the solution. TT was also part of the problem (perhaps in large part due to that system). Peterman isn't ready, and may never be. Everyone wants to knock TT for making the call to throw on that 1st down inside the 5... He couldn't know we'd get an OPI call. If that is just an incomplete pass, they probably try a run... Using the tool provided here. 79 running plays from inside the 5 happened in 2017 against the Jags. Only 3 TDs were allowed on those plays from inside the 5 on Goal to Go plays. The Jags were pretty stout on that D in that spot. 3 TDs were allowed via pass in the same range - out of 33 attempts. So - trying a pass was more than twice as successful in 2017 from that distance against the Jags.