Orton's Arm

I agree with your point about minimum wage being too low for people to make a living. However, consider things from the perspective of a business owner. If minimum wage is $7, it might make sense for a particular business owner to have four employees. If it's $14, maybe it only makes financial sense for him to have two employees. So he lets the other two people go. The higher you make minimum wage, the more you'll increase unemployment among unskilled labor. There is another way. The government could provide a minimal baseline subsidy to all poor people. Then, for every $1.00 of wages you earn, you lose $0.35 of your subsidy. The amount of your subsidy would vary week to week, based on however much you'd earned. This way you'd always have a financial incentive to work more hours rather than less. The minimum wage could be very low, because lower wage workers would be living off of their wages + subsidies. With a low minimum wage rate, the unemployment rate among unskilled laborers would be low. This system would also help welfare recipients into the workforce; thereby resulting in the creation of more wealth. As for corporate jets: corporate officers will often do quite a bit of business travel. They tend to work very long hours each week; which is part of the reason why they were made corporate executives in the first place. For business travel, there are basically two options: purchasing airline tickets/spending a lot of time in airports; and using a corporate jet. From a time efficiency standpoint, the corporate jet is better: you can leave whenever you want, and you don't have to deal with airport security, long lines, layovers, or the other punishments inflicted on air travelers since September 11th. Some corporate executives tend to take a *lot* of business trips; so those punishments weigh more heavily on them than on the average American. If a corporate jet can save each executive 100 hours a year; then those 100 hours per person can be dedicated to making the business run better. If an executive makes a wrong decision--or fails to take advantage of an opportunity--it could cost the company tens of millions. A corporate jet used for business travel is a legitimate business expense; for the same reason that plane tickets used for business trips are a legitimate business expense. > Subsides for oil exploration as if oil companies would stop looking for oil if the govt. didn't pay them. Unless the government is physically purchasing oil or some other tangible good from oil companies, there is never a good reason for it to cut them a check. I agree that the idea of subsidizing oil companies is completely unacceptable.

Agreed. Even Barry Sanders "only" averaged 5.0 yards per carry during his career. An average of 6.0 yards per carry is just insane. But even if Spiller averages, say, 5.5 yards per carry this upcoming season, that's still really, really good.

You've hit the nail on the head. It should be illegal for any state or local government to give money or other subsidies to an NFL team. Ending public subsidies would--as others have pointed out--increase owners' costs. The salary cap should be lowered to reflect those increased costs.

I remember when the Rams moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis in the first place. Maybe it's time for them to move back.

The rankings seem reasonable to me. Last season, Spiller averaged 6.0 yards per carry. Thurman Thomas never averaged more than 4.9 yards per carry. (Of course, YPC doesn't take into account the other aspects of the game--aspects at which Thurman was better than Spiller.) Stevie Johnson is a very solid #1 WR who consistently gets open against Darrell Revis. Chandler is a reasonably good pass catching TE. The Bills may not have much proven talent at #2 or #3 WR, but that's why they used a second round pick on Robert Woods. Is there room for improvement with the above situation? Absolutely. Stevie Johnson is good, but not in the same category as Larry Fitzgerald. Spiller will probably get less than half the RB touches; which means that Fred Jackson's age and injuries are a serious concern. Chandler is also coming off of injury; and isn't Gronkowski even when healthy. Even if Robert Woods ultimately has a successful NFL career--which is not a given--it's worth noting that even ultimately successful WRs typically contribute little during their first two years. But as Bills fans, it's easy for us to become overly focused on our own team's problems; forgetting that other teams have their share of problems as well. Few if any teams have a RB as good as Spiller, and there are plenty of teams with a #1 WR less good than Stevie Johnson.

Obama's economic experiment has been tried before, in Western Europe. High levels of government spending. Large, very active regulatory agencies, not afraid to impose plenty of paperwork requirements or complex new regulations. More and more obligations for employers for each person they hire. An overall economy controlled mostly by politicians and bureaucrats; not by businesspeople. At least in Western Europe, the result of all this was a high level of ongoing unemployment and a reduced level of entrepreneurship. Hardest-hit are recent college grads, many of whom spend years unemployed before landing their first job. Glad to know this experiment is working out a lot better in the U.S. than it had over in Western Europe.

> AVP had a great mind for quarterback, better than Fitz, IMO. In that case, maybe I should put AVP into the "decision making" slot, and create a new "toughness/leadership" spot for Fitz. > And to take this full circle, Matt Barkley is a guy who has everything. I believe that his arm will limit his success in the NFL. Obviously, concerns about his arm strength were more deeply seated than I'd realized; or else he wouldn't have lasted until the fourth round. It's quite possible his lack of arm strength will prove his Achilles Heel; preventing what otherwise would have been a very successful career. Several years after having drafted Aaron Rodgers, the Packers used a second round pick on Craig Nall. That decision on the Packers' part doesn't seem to have irreparably damaged Rodgers' self-confidence or mental ability to play. If a guy is truly confident in himself, he's going to look at competition at the QB position as a challenge, and an opportunity to prove that he's better than any other guy on the team. If Barkley can achieve the same level of arm strength as Montana or Brady, he has the potential to become a franchise quarterback. I would much rather the Bills used their third round pick on him, than on a WR who didn't even start for his own college team.

Short-to-intermediate accuracy: Kelly Holcomb Intermediate-to-deep accuracy: Rob Johnson Sack avoidance: Doug Flutie Stature: Drew Bledsoe Arm strength: J.P. Losman Scrambling ability: Tarvaris Jackson Decision-making: Ryan Fitzpatrick If you could combine the best attributes of the Bills' post-Kelly quarterbacks, you'd have a franchise QB.

You are correct to state that tax revenues are lower than usual. From 1971 - the present, the high point of federal tax revenues occurred around the year 2000; when they peaked at 21% of GDP. Federal tax revenues have since declined to less than 16% of GDP. Back in 2000, federal spending represented 18% of GDP--which together with the high tax revenue caused a surplus. But that's changed: federal spending now consumes 23% or more of GDP. The difference between the 16% of GDP the government takes in as federal revenue and the 23% it spends represents the federal deficit. The government's economic power does not consist solely of federal spending. Every time new regulations are made or new bureaucracies created, politicians in Washington increase their control over the economy. The U.S. economy is a hybrid model; partway between a free market and Soviet-style central economic planning. There are a number of things the U.S. could do to get itself out of its current economic mess. But perhaps the single most important would be to create a friendlier environment for entrepreneurs. Fewer paperwork obligations. Fewer government bureaucracies. Simpler, more transparent, more even-handed legislation. Less politicization of all things employment-related. Entrepreneurs represent the main engine of job creation. Any burdens we lay on their shoulders will result in the destruction of jobs. Any burdens we can remove from their shoulders will result in the creation of new jobs.

Let's say you want to buy a machine for $1 million. The machine is expected to produce $100,000 a year in operating profit. There are two ways you can get that $1 million for the machine: debt and equity. For example: you could use 0% bonds and 100% equity investment, or a 50/50 mix of debt and equity, or 80% debt and 20% equity. Or any other ratio you care for. (Equity is like your down payment on your home. Debt is like your mortgage.) Let's say that you pay for the machine with 100% equity. The equity holders will get a 10% rate of return. On the other hand, let's say you pay for the machine with a 50/50 mix of debt versus equity. The debt holders get a 7% return on their bonds, which means the company can afford to pay a 13% return to the equity holders. That's a better return than the 10% they could have gotten, had the machine been paid for with pure equity. On the other hand, the equity holders are now at more risk, because the company is more leveraged. The increased risk balances out the higher return. There is no one debt/equity ratio that's right for every company. Generally, more debt and less equity is considered a high risk, high reward proposition. Suppose a company wanted to have a 95/5 debt-equity ratio. The people that would be buying that company's stock and bonds are big boys. They know how to read a balance sheet, and they understand the implications of a 95/5 debt equity ratio. Any decision they make will be made with their eyes open. If these investors were children, unable to understand even the most basic aspects of corporate finance, it would be necessary for government regulators to step in and protect the investors from themselves. Executives and major investors tend to be highly confident people; and as such are sometimes vulnerable to mistakes born of overconfidence. It's possible for overconfident owners + executives to make a company too highly leveraged--to accumulate too much debt. When this happens, the company tends to get driven into bankruptcy. Bain Capital has never needed to seek bankruptcy protection. Prior to Mitt Romney's entry into politics, there had been no reason for anyone to describe Bain as anything other than a very well-run company.

This.

Thanks for the kind words. You're one of my favorite posters on these boards, and it's good to hear from you as well. > My friend, do you truly think that YPA was the only factor in Elway being a better qb than Holcomb? I know that you do not. Agreed. Elway's YPA understates his value as a QB. But even though YPA isn't perfect, it's at least less bad than other stats. Consider the following: Completion percentage Trent Edwards: 60.6 John Elway: 56.9 QB rating Trent Edwards: 75.5 John Elway: 79.9 Someone looking just at those two stats would think that Trent Edwards and John Elway played at about the same level. The reason those two statistical measures are useless is because a QB can artificially inflate his QB rating by going for a lot of dump-off passes (as Edwards did). Or, he can artificially deflate his QB rating and completion percentage by focusing more on vertical passes (as Elway did). Any time someone starts talking about how great Fitz is in terms of completion percentage or QB rating, I think of the fact that Trent Edwards and Kelly Holcomb have roughly the same completion percentages and QB ratings as Elway. > Teams had to account for Elway's ability to run. They also had to account for his ability to throw tape measure > long passes, as well as perhaps the best fastball ever. In short, there was no true way to defend against him. Agreed. > That said, it IS interesting that he didn't win a superbowl until he relied more on his running game. However, that was then. I would argue that during the '80s, the Broncos weren't as strong a football team as their Super Bowl opponents. Fall of '86/January of '87: The NY Giants went 14-2 in the regular season, and allowed a total of 3 points in their two postseason games leading up to the Super Bowl. In the Super Bowl itself, the Broncos scored 20 points--which was very good, especially against that Giants' defense. However, the Giants' offense scored 39 points. That Giants team is considered one of the best in NFL history. Fall of '87/January of '88: In the Super Bowl between the Broncos and the Redskins, the Broncos defense allowed 42 points--including 35 points in the second quarter alone. The Broncos allowed five sacks; and Elway threw three interceptions. Fall of '89/January of '90: In this Super Bowl, the Denver Broncos faced Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and the rest of the elite 49ers offense. The 49ers also had the third best scoring defense in the NFL. The 49ers won that game by a score of 55-10. That 49ers team emphasized the pass more strongly than the run. The 49ers used short passes as a substitute for running plays. If you're throwing short, quick passes, you're not all that vulnerable to the pass rush. There isn't a huge need to use running plays to punish teams for too much emphasis on the pass rush. A short pass completed too quickly for the pass rush to get there is punishment enough. Elway and the Broncos tended to emphasize longer passes--passing plays which take more time to develop. A team like that needs to put more emphasis on the running game. If they don't then their opponents will sell out on the pass rush as a means of shutting down the deep passing game. > Can you even begin to imagine a protected (by the rule changes) John Elway? That would be awesome!

> You seem to be infatuated with ypa but when you consider sacks as part of the equation what happens to the numbers? The difference pretty much disappears, that's what. That's news to me. Statistically, the difference between Cutler and Fitzpatrick is substantial. I'd need a lot of convincing to be persuaded that sacks could make a difference like that go away. Specifically, I'd need to see quantitative analysis--not just unsupported opinions. As for YPA: Kelly Holcomb and John Elway have very similar career completion percentages and QB ratings. Someone who looked at stats like those would think that the two QBs were statistically similar. But Elway has a commanding advantage over Holcomb in YPA; correctly revealing that Elway was by far the better quarterback. Holcomb's completion percentage and QB rating are inflated because he attempted a lot of short, high percentage passes. YPA is much harder to inflate. > Getting rid of the ball to avoid a sack hurts comp% and ypa. Take the sack and both stats > are unaffected. This was the Rob Johnson method to effective QB stat production. Granted. But Jay Cutler is not Rob Johnson. > I'd rather have Fitz QB my team over Cutler because they produce about the same and Fitz is not a jerk. As stated earlier, their production isn't about the same. I'll grant that there are times when Cutler seems to march to the beat of his own drummer; and that there are times when he's annoying or disappointing as a result. On the other hand, you can rely on Fitz not to bring any personality-related drama into the locker room. But even though I too would prefer to have a Fitz personality in the locker room to a Cutler personality, I'm not convinced that Fitz's advantage there is sufficient to offset Cutler's edge in talent and production.

Good post. Just to add to what you've written, the article mentioned some statistical similarities between the two QBs (completion percentage, TD percentage, etc.) as well as one key statistical difference: yards per attempt. Trent Edwards has a career yards per attempt of 6.5; Tom Brady of 7.5. During the four year period in question, Fitz compiled a YPA of 6.7--not much better than Edwards--while Cutler's YPA was 7.1. At least according to the all-important yards per attempt stat; Cutler was about halfway between Fitzpatrick and Brady. I have not seen evidence to suggest that a good defense boosts a QB's yards per attempt stat. Look at Trent Dilfer's career, for example. He spent the 2000 season with the Ravens; after which he went to Seattle. His yards per attempt in Seattle was much better than it had been with the Ravens; even though the Ravens of 2000 had one of the three best defenses in NFL history. If anything, the badness of the Bills' defense may have boosted Fitz's yards per attempt stat. Many of the yards he threw were in garbage time, when games were already out of reach. With a better defense, there would have been less garbage time, and fewer opportunities to pad his stats. On the other hand, it stands to reason that a good offensive line would help improve a QB's stats. If a QB is forced to throw the ball away due to lack of pass protection, that hurts his YPA. When a QB can spend five or more seconds in the pocket looking for the very best downfield target, that's a great opportunity to boost his YPA. The article presented evidence which suggests the Bills had a better OL during the four years in question than did the Bears. The article also pointed out that the two teams' receiving corps were about even during the period in question. In a nutshell, Cutler produced significantly better stats with what was probably a significantly inferior supporting cast. (Especially on the OL.) While Cutler is by no means a top-10 QB, he's proven significantly more over the course of his career than has Fitz.

> In recent years I've met a few high achievers who go through life effortlessly which is completely amazing to me. Agreed. I think such effortless achievement requires a different mindset. Unfortunately, it's easy to say, "I need a new mindset," and very difficult to go about attaining one!

Good post. According to the article, Walsh was even-keeled and debonair when interacting with others. His private misery was something he kept carefully hidden.

The error was mine, not theirs. Thanks for the heads-up. I've now edited/fixed it.

A few months ago, ESPN the magazine came out with an article about Bill Walsh. Below are a few quotes. ************** The most influential head coach of the past 30 years hated his legacy. He hated it from the moment he retired at the age of 57. . . . That 1988 season had been the most wrenching of his career, because the 49ers were not a great team. They were a 10-6 team that happened to win it all, and the grind swallowed Walsh to the point that he was,, as his son says, "like a zombie." So he secretly decided to retire during the season, and in the whooping and wet locker room after the Super Bowl, Walsh wept alone, head in his hands. He wasn't happy. He was relieved. It was over. . . . Pat McDermott has a dream: he wants to coach in the NFL. He is 26 years old, with bulky shoulders, a round face and an eagerness in his blue eyes that shines in the ravenously ambitious. . . . He is in his first job, coaching running backs at the Episcopal Academy in Newton Square, PA. . . . McDermott pulled up [bill Walsh's book] The Winning Edge and skimmed the reader reviews. "Walsh goes through football from A to Z. Everything, and I mean everything that you would ever want to know about football . . . Walsh fleshes out ALL o the details of all of his philosophies on how to run a football organization from management to players. . . . This book is [an] NFL Head Coach's blueprint, bible, and handbook." . . . Last August, interning for the Eagles again, McDermott dived into it, unaware that he had bought a manual for ruining his life. . . . [Walsh's] colleagues recalled him as the most intelligent coach they'd ever seen, which Walsh not so discreetly agreed with. But he could be sensitive to the point of devastation, crushed by failures large and small. It began in high school, when his coach moved him from quarterback to running back. It continued when he wrote his master's thesis at San Jose State and the 192 pages on the evolution of the passing game in football was panned by professors. The only reason he graduated, according to biographer David Harris, was that his paper included only one footnote; he had done most of the original research himself. . . . In 1971 he took over [the Bengals'] offense, which had been limited by a weak offensive line. . . . Walsh devised a system of short, quick passes designed to pick up small chunks of yardage, the West Coast offense in its infancy. Over the next few years, as Walsh turned Ken Anderson into one of the league's most accurate passers, the system worked so well that Walsh began to think he could do something no coach had ever done: conquer the game itself. His offense became so precise that it couldn't be stopped when executed perfectly, so Walsh became obsessed with always executing perfectly. "It would grind on him," says longtime friend Dick Vermeil. "He was so perceptive and detailed and emotional, and he put so much of himself into a game plan, that he took it personally if it didn't work." . . . By the late '80s, as Walsh's definition of success became so narrow as to be unattainable, the Walsh Way started to cripple the coach. He would sit dazed in his hot tub even after wins, despondent that he had miscalculated a play or two. . . . Game day. McDermott wears a headset and sits in the coaches' box. . . . His copy of Finding the Winning Edge is at home, yet its blessings and curses hover. At halftime Episcopal Academy leads 35-0. But Walsh wouldn't be pleased, and McDermott and Fairlie aren't. . . . The final score is 42-7. After the game, the coaches stand at midfield, waiting to address the players. Nobody is happy. . . . Two hours after the game, the coaches sit at a bar, downing beers and wings. Any of half a dozen other patrons would assume that these coaches are there after a loss. In a way, they are. As one round of drinks becomes two and soon three, the coaches dwell on mistakes but not successes, what each player can improve on but not what he did well, as if they're trying to out-angst each other. . . . Walsh mailed signed copies [of his book] to his friends and traveled around the country to discuss it with coaches and owners. But Walsh being Walsh, he couldn't bring himself to actually read it. He hated the book the way he hated his legacy--it wasn't perfect. **************

Good post, and good link to the article about BLESTO and National. I also agree with you that, in theory, the Bills should be better able to evaluate talent than national scouting services which consist largely of junior scouts or castoffs such as Tom Modrak. But I also know that in practice, when the Bills have gone against conventional wisdom (as defined in large part by such organizations), it's backfired. I don't know for certain why this is. Maybe it's because whatever process the Bills use to evaluate players is worse than that used by junior scouts. For example: studies have shown there is zero correlation between how well someone does on a job interview and how well that person later performs in the workforce. Part of that may be because people who do terribly on job interviews don't get hired in the first place, so you only have workplace performance data on those who achieved some minimum threshold level. But the other part is that job interviews are not necessarily a good way of estimating future performance. In order to increase the emphasis on one factor in player evaluation, you have to de-emphasize other factors. For example: suppose team A cared only about 40 times, and based 100% of their player grade only on that. Someone decides that's too narrow, so they add agility drills and bench press to their player evaluations. Now 40 times represent only 1/3 of a player's total score. Every time you add in an additional measurement, you dilute the measurements you already have. If you have five measurement tools which collectively work well, and if you dilute those with another five which work poorly, then due to this dilution effect your player evaluations will be less accurate based on all ten factors than they would have been with the five meaningful ones. It's possible the BLESTO and National people are focusing on a comparatively small, but reasonably useful, set of factors to evaluate. It's also possible that the Bills are diluting their emphasis on those useful factors by paying too much attention to other, less meaningful indicators of future player performance. That, at least, is one possible explanation as to why the Bills have been burned every time they've tried to defy conventional wisdom. Other explanations might be devised.

Good post and good links. I agree with you that Scouts Inc. has been wrong before; and could be wrong again. That said, my impression is that the national consensus is not dictated by Scouts Inc. only. There are two major scouting services--National and Blesto--whose reports inform NFL organizations. Teams learn which players to scout based on being subscribed to one or the other of those services. Evaluations provided by such services serve as a sort of starting point, to be modified by film study and other forms of evaluation. My understanding is that information flows from those major scouting services to some of the major mock draft sites. If a lot of the mock drafts seem to be echoing each other, it's largely because their initial evaluations often come from one or the other of those two places. (At times modified by input from those creating the mock draft.) If (for example) the vast majority of mock drafts had Barkley rated as a first round talent, it's reasonable to conclude that's how one or both of the major scouting services had him rated as well. I don't care that much about whether a team like the Bills ignores the opinions of Scouts Inc. But I get nervous when I see them ignoring the consensus established by National and Blesto. They are not better at evaluating talent than those two scouting services. In the past, when they've picked players well above where they appear to have been rated by the major scouting services, they've ended up with guys like Whitner, Troupe, and Graham. (I'm not saying that I have access to National's or Blesto's reports, because I don't. But if the vast majority of mock drafts have player X rated as a second round talent, it's reasonable to conclude that's where the major scouting services have him rated too.)

I can't speak for others on here, but I personally see Easley as someone who'd have little or no value in a trade. Basically, he's an unknown to the rest of the league. If we try to trade him, other GMs will think to themselves, What do the Bills know about Easley that we don't, that make them want to trade him away? Easley may or may not have value to the Bills. We should have a much better sense of that by the end of the season than we do at the moment.

The one sentence of that article which jumped out at me was this: > Why would they take him with the 16th overall pick when most reports, like Scouts Inc., didn't even > have him as one of the five best quarterbacks in the draft, let alone the first one to be taken? If true, that's a very serious concern.

You clicked on a thread started by someone named "Trader." Not surprisingly for someone with that screen name, the thread explored possible trades.

The Bills will not have roster spots for all their current receivers. If you could get trade value out of a guy, and if he's not part of your long-term plan anyway, why not pull the trigger? However, there are two obstacles to adopting the OP's suggestion: 1) Most or all of the WRs the Bills will get rid of have zero trade value. 2) The Bills don't necessarily know which guys they should keep and which they should let go. The Bills' front office seems high on Easley. Pre-draft, they sounded like they were planning on easing him into the starting lineup. I don't see them trading him away, because they probably think more highly of him than any other team's front office. Brad Smith is grossly overpaid, so he's more of a candidate for a salary cap cut than a trade. The OP's scenario is unlikely to happen, and probably wouldn't happen even if I was the one running the Bills' front office. But it's worthwhile to consider ideas like this--to think each one through--so that eventually you'll stumble across a good idea or two.

> If after one year the evaluation is that there's some doubt as to him succeeding, then draft another QB NEXT YEAR. I disagree. Suppose the Bills had drafted Barkley in the third. They could have told the media, "We had Barkley rated as a first round talent, and we were shocked when he fell to the third." Privately, Manuel could be told that the Bills think that if Barkley works out as expected, they would be able to trade him away for a lot more than the third round pick used to acquire him in the first place. "We don't necessarily think he has the arm to be the long-term answer in a windy place like Buffalo," Manuel would be told, "but he might be the long-term answer somewhere else." Manuel would still be somewhat displeased by the Barkley selection even after all that had been said to him. Hopefully, that displeasure would drive him to push himself that much harder. Drafting a QB a year from now would have the potential to be a lot more damaging to his confidence. The meta-message to him would be, "The Bills started off with complete confidence in him. After one year, they started having second thoughts." A meta-message like that is much more threatening than a meta-message of, "We availed ourselves of a Plan B back when we drafted you, but our confidence in you has increased since then."