Luxy312

At first glance, I thought these trades were terrible. Looking at the numbers, I'm not so sure. WR is pretty much and even exchange. I think Watkins has more talent but that we are getting a guy that is more consistent. for DB's, Darby was OK but not that great. We don't need a man cover corner (which is what he is). So even if they traded even, they got a 2nd and 3rd round extra pick. Can't all be wrong.

1 - Yes, of course. I wondered why they signed Crabtree a number of years ago when they had Holmes and drafted Cooper. Looking at the numbers though, you can see why. 99 targets and only 47 receptions. Not a great ratio. 2 - Who is "they"? I didn't hear any of the front office or coaching staff tell us right out of the gate that he's a #2. As far as I know, he was going to compete for playing time like everyone else. 3 - Drops in camp are the same as spectacular plays in camp. Don't care now and won't care ever. He doesn't have a great record for catches in gametime though, and that does matter. Hey, did you know who else had a lot of drops? Robert Woods. 4 - If Watkins goes down the same thing happens as the last two years. Other guys play. There's probably better depth on this team now than with Woods and Hogan. Zay Jones is better than any #2 that we've had the last two years as well, at least as far as I've seen. Bigger target, better route runner and better hands. 5 - Don't know who signed him or wanted him and don't care. Not relevant.

Let's do some math to figure out who appears to be more valuable to the Patriots. Edelman gets a 2 year extension this year for $11.5m with $5m signing bonus and guaranteed salary this year of $3m. Can earn some other chump change for roster bonuses, etc., but will just keep it simple for now. Basically, they could cut him next year and they would get back $3.5m in cap space after having spent $8.0m. Gilmore's deal was 5 years for $65m. $18m signing bonus with another $22m in guaranteed salary for total guarantees of $40m. Cut him and his cap hit next year would be $22.9m. To suggest that somehow Edelman is a "star" and that Gilmore would be at risk at all to be let go is disingenuous at best. At worst, it's just a massive failure to grasp the reality of the situation.

I would call this the #1 challenge besides injury, of course. We need the receivers (all of them) to get the ball in short to intermediate space. It's been sorely missing from the passing game.

So our defensive line is beating our offensive line and this OP is complaining? Last I checked, MOST fans were hoping for dramatic improvements from the defense, which was pretty mediocre last year. I would love for someone to explain to me how we can essentially have our cake and eat it too. Should Taylor and the offense be walking up and down the field all day on the defense? This OP pretty much starts any thread the same way. "DOOM".

IMO, Wood will either re-sign with the Bills or retire. I don't see anyone paying him that AVV. Watkins is either low or high depending on how you want to look at it. If we think he's finally healthy and going to show us what complete seasons look like, then it's low. If you believe that he's going to continue to miss games due to nagging injuries, then it's high. Either way, I would try to figure out what to do with Wood right now and simply wait on Watkins. Let the season play out and see if you have to tag him or not. I see this as Kyle Williams last season in the NFL. I truly believe he retires after this year.

Let's see. This team has said during the Rex Ryan era that they wanted to be a bruising running football team. They were exactly that. Check. They haven't said that they want to run a K-gun since the 90's. 25+ years of more CHECK. To boot, they matter of factly ran the ball better than any team in the NFL. If you're going to assign some other idiotic nefarious reason for it, you could say that the North Koreans made them do it.

So CTE is the ONLY risk? That's just stupid. Run track and field or play tennis and trash your knees. Be a catcher in baseball and do the same. Be a pitcher and have to have TJ surgery. There are risks in every physical sport that you play. Knowing that for every 1 million children playing sports right now, roughly 0.005% of them will play at a high level professionally. Many of those won't even last a few years. Just golf or chess club? Shelter your kids from everything because the world is scary? Sounds pretty accurate for this millennial generation and even more accurate for the next generations to come.

So MMA, Boxing, and Football are all violent sports that have the side effect of CTE. Now that it's been identified and there's a definitive causal relationship, what does that mean? All of these athletes make good money. I would simply posit that if any athlete doesn't want to take the risk, that they shouldn't take a career in any of those sports. While they're at it, don't go into logging, fishing, agriculture, or electrical work. Stay away from construction and aircraft engineering as well. They have some of the highest death rates (on the job) of any career, but pay a heck of a lot less. Putting CTE aside, we've known for 30+ years that football is a violent sport, with a short career span. We've known that these athlete's bodies at 35-40 years old are often broken down. Should we be so shocked that it is also true of their brains? At least they get to wear helmets. I would be EXTREMELY interested in now the percentages compare for MMA and boxing. To me it comes down to perceived risk vs reward.

Taylor's single biggest flaw as a passer is not being able to make the reads and make decisions quickly. In his 15 weeks last year, he was the worst in the NFL in terms of time between snap and throw in 14 weeks. In the year before, he was the worst in 12 out of 14 weeks. Considering that statistic, he's lucky to have many of the other stats that he does. Notwithstanding everything else, that is a ridiculously high percentage. 26 out of 29 weeks that he played, he held onto the football longer than any other quarterback. I'm a big fan of Taylor, but there's no QB that's going to last long in the NFL when leading in that metric. Plenty of people have said it as well, that he doesn't know how to "throw" receivers open. Has the offense played well enough to make the playoffs? They certainly have, but I would not expect them to go very far where they are. The defense would have to be phenomenal IMO for them to go deep in to the playoffs and we haven't seen that type of defense since Schwartz three years ago. I'm not even sure though that if you combined the offense of last year with the defense of 3 years ago that they would have very far. At the end of the day, it's not a Tyrod Taylor question alone. The offense as a whole was average and the defense as a whole was average. It must improve on both sides of the ball, or they're not going to do anything, even if they make the playoffs.

I will get through the rebuild by watching the playoffs this year, as well as plenty of regular season games Debbie.

In order: - You don't know that they're losing. T.J. Yates has a similar skillset as Tyrod and already knows the offensive system. Generally, ANY backup playing for an extended period is a losing proposition. - Peterman will get his looks in training camp, and you have to have 3 QB's for the season to make sure are there enough guys to distribute the ball to all receivers. He's not ready to be a starting QB right now. Lot's of work to do to get there. - One less position for what? QB is the most important position on the roster. - Sure you can cut him and bring him back, but he NEEDS offseason reps to be the backup. - Kaepernick hasn't done anything in 3 years and is a distraction. RGIII is pretty much washed up as well not having a good season in 4 years. Shaun Hill is 37 years old. Might as well throw Kyle Orton's name back out there. Whitehurst is called "Clipboard Jesus" for a reason. That's really his job. For me it's pretty simple. T.J. Yates is the most ready if he needs to take over the offense and takes the least amount of effort to get there. Peterman is NOT ready and isn't going to just magically be ready if you give him reps as the #2. The Yates play was smart IMO.

Jones was extremely raw coming into the NFL. While having a great arm, his accuracy was terrible. For those suggesting he should be given a chance to "compete", it's a complete waste of time. The majority of practice reps go to the starter which everyone knows is Taylor. No one is going to un-seed him with whatever they do in training camp or even the preseason. There is plenty of data on Jones and what he did in training camp last season. His horrendous game against the Jets really sealed the deal IMO. T.J. Yates was clearly signed to be the veteran backup that knows the system that's being run on offense. Taylor has missed games in his first two seasons, so that's a good move by the front office. Peterman wasn't drafted to simply be dropped. By some evaluations, he may have been the most "NFL ready" for whatever that means. Teams generally need 3 QB's and sometimes only 2 on the active roster with an extra for camps. Jones is the odd man out. I was hoping to see some of that National Championship magic at the NFL level and just didn't.

Goodwin isn't going to do anything special in San Francisco. Does anyone really see him "taking off" with Brian Hoyer and/or Matt Barkley throwing him the football? I don't. Just like the Jets, the 49ers are pretty much in a rebuilding mode and I see this next season as a bail to get ready for the 2018 draft. Goodwin's contract appears to be the typical "bridge" contract that a team gives a player when they're in transition. Besides that, Pierre Garcon got the big money to presumably be the #1 WR for at least the next 3-4 years.

I see all the usual expected names. I'll add Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, and Daunte Culpepper to the list as a couple of mobile guys (ala our guy) that were also pretty good passers.

Why is there 7 pages of a "who the hell cares" thread? Cousins....aunts....uncles. They are all irrelevant.

He's a Cry Brady I will not be surprised if he gets 1,000 yards and 10 TDs this year.

Gilly's comments don't leave me deflated at all. I'll leave that to his cheating cry baby team mate. I think he just has a problem with his headset. It's not really surprising that it only happens to the visiting teams at "over priced razor" stadium. At least going forward now that he's on the payroll, those problems won't exist anymore. With a little luck and a lot of illegal video, he'll be hitting predictable holes in defenses in no time. Gilly is a joke. This type of crap makes me glad the Bills let him go. Fred Jackson will be appreciated by Bills fans because he was a stand up guy. Taking shots just narrows your fan base.

This is a nice article, but I'm just not buying it. I will believe it when I see it. We've seen 29 starts from Taylor and in none of them has he been a quick decision maker. Running the West Coast offense doesn't allow the QB to hold onto the ball for extended periods of time. We can sit here as fans and say that this offense is different than the one run the last two years. While that is fundamentally true, Taylor has had the OPPORTUNITY to make the quick reads and hasn't proven capable of doing it. Let's look at last year as a good example. In his 15 games started last year, he led all quarterbacks in the average amount of time from snap to release 14 times. Similar the year before with leading all quarterbacks in 12 of the 14 weeks he started. That is absolutely massive statistically. I'm not enamored with Taylor as some, nor think he's a steaming pile of garbage as others. A serviceable average QB would be my characterization. Certainly, a guy that is working hard. He's also a guy that bet on himself with the contract restructure. While I would love for him to show me some Steve Young, I'm not counting on it anytime soon.

If teams are working off of what he's done over his college career and last year, Darnold should be the first quarterback off the board and a top-5 pick IMO. I wouldn't necessarily call him a sleeper or someone that won't be on the radar.

Both of the Bills 2018 first round draft picks are busts. Doomed!

This team for me is set up a lot like the late 1990's early 2000.s Pittsburgh Steelers when they had an elusive running quarterback named Kordell Stewart. When that teams defense was above average but not great, they were a middling team, hovering around 0.500 give or take a game. When their defense played really well, they were in the playoffs. They also had a HOFer in Jerome Bettis and beat many teams into submission with the ground game. It's true that nobody knows what this team will be like. Much of the unknown relates to whether the defense can be more than just average, which is exactly what it has been for the two years that Tyrod has been the signal caller. What I can say is that Taylor is a better QB than Stewart was in any year of his career in every measurable category, and that's without the benefit of having an every game guy like Hines Ward was. The best thing about being a fan is that we can hope. At a minimum, I can see a team that has changed dramatically from a player perspective even in just the last 5 years. Can anyone name other players besides Kyle Williams and Marcel Dareus that were here then? How about anyone on the coaching staff, scouting teams? Saying that this team is the same as it's been for the last 16 years is idiotic.

Things really need to be put in perspective in terms of the offensive line. In the 15 weeks that Tyrod was the signal caller last season, he had the worst average time from snap to pass in 14 of those weeks. There is no offensive line in the NFL that can stop defensive pass rushes indefinitely. I would love to see whatever statistics they used to put together their numbers and whether they could be adjusted to at least somewhat account for that. Clearly, the Bills run game supports that our guys were mostly moving the guys across from them early in plays when they needed to.

Oddly, most of the referees are from the Boston and surrounding area.

When he does come back from suspension, he could be big enough to play right tackle.