The Big Cat

It's stupid if you don't extend the same qualifier to guys Gailey urged his GM to go out and get.

Buddy: Dareus GREAT AW VERY GOOD Searcy GOOD Gilmore VERY GOOD Glenn VERY GOOD Bradham AVERAGE Carrington BELOW AVERAGE Spiller BELOW AVERAGE Mario VERY GOOD Fitzy GOOD Whaley: Woods GOOD McCoy VERY GOOD SWAT GREAT Darby VERY GOOD Karlos GOOD Incognito and Taylor (I put these more with Rex, TBH), well that's stupid, and also we're going to de-bundle them Incognito VERY GOOD Taylor GOOD Seantrel AVERAGE Hughes VERY GOOD Clay GOOD Let's also explore the good players you inexplicably left off Whaley's list: Kiko GOOD (for what he did and for what we got) Goodwin AVERAGE Preston Brown GOOD John Miller GOOD I guess I align with 90% of Bills fans/people on this board at wondering how you arrived at your conclusion.

I like you.

Fell off is putting it lightly. He went from thriving in a system that hid him to spiraling into full on nosedive.

As late as two days ago, my close buddy, a Bay Area guy, HUGE Niners fan, still believes that Kap is a great QB and that Roman was the problem.

um, didn't he have a twitter handle devoted to how much he hated Roman?

Great. Two of America's most loathsome factions, Pats fans and SJW's, together at last.

You mean when they went from 26th to 31st? More importantly: who made that argument?

So if my point doesn't stand, and you seek to make a counter point, you've seen enough to think we can win a Super Bowl with TT if he played like he did last year? Yeah. Penalties. Rex was the key difference in the Bills going from second most penalized team in 2014 to tied for most penalties in 2015. Couldn't have done it without him.

What's your point?

Oh hell, while we're at it, let's count 2001, 2003 and 2004 Brady! HOLY CRAP! Half the time the Super Bowl is won by teams that don't have good QB's!

Well, if you think about it, two teams in the last 16 seasons have won the Super Bowl with a number one defense and subpar QB play. So, he makes a pretty good point.

Ha, yes thanks for fixing the mistakes.

so is this guy ILB for us? Does he stay on the field in nickle/dime?

i remember thinking this guy was going to be lights-out coming into the league...

I'll never understand why posters like you insist on others admitting they are wrong. What drives this impulse? And exactly what is it you think I'm wrong about? I'm on record up and down this board since last January bemoaning the preparation of Rex Ryan teams. The defense took a step back in 2015, on this we all agree. But to say that the offense wasn't responsible for losses in 2016, that's a blatant misrepresentation of reality to serve the false narrative that the 2015 was a failure. Its only failure was relative to 2015. But that was bound to happen. The 2015 was going to take a step back, regardless because there was no way they could have sustained the health from 2014. And they didn't. This is neither done, nor perfect. When it's finished to my satisfaction, I'll post to another thread. In the meantime: This is a heat map to show how the offense performed relative to the averages of that opponent's 15 other games. The coloration is as follows: RED (0-85%) ORANGE (85-100%) LIGHT GREEN (100-115%) DARK GREEN (115%+) In some cases, this doesn't tell the whole story--or at least not as well as the one does for defense because: Our rushing attack was so good it throws off the "average" column Numbers will automatically get a boost when we were playing from behind against softer defenses and/or accumulating meaningless stats (NE1/CIN/WAS) Doesn't account for turnovers (JAX/NE1) And defensive/ST touchdowns are removed from our scoring, but against opponents' averages. I'm sure there are many other limitations, but the defensive one, I think, tells a pretty accurate story of the 2015 season (coloration is inverse for defense): Again, I have to re-run some of these numbers, so it's not finished, but when we distill the averages, which still come pretty close to how things went, we get this: The above is a side-by-side of averages. Whichever unit performed better in a win gets credit for the victory, whichever team performed worse in a loss gets the blame. Again, not perfect, but a pretty fair at-a-glance for how 2015 shaped out. I'm not pretending anything. The defense in 2015 was expected to carry the offense. But falling short of expectations is not failure, especially when expectations were so high. It's a disappointment, to be sure, but--as we've done 40,000 laps on already--there were plenty of other factors--besides "Rex sux"---that led to the letdown in 2015.

Yes, it's a shameless stretch to say the the reason the Bills lost against NYG and JAX was because of the defense. It's absurd, in fact.

The defense did not lose the Giants game, nor the Jags game. It's such a shameless stretch to suggest so. And you cite those games for when they let us down in the clutch. Which big moments were you referring to in the KC and Philly games? I ask because you insist it happened "time and again" and I simply don't recall that being the case. Please, note I'm not saying it didn't happen. I think, however, that you're grossly overstating the frequency with which it happened while simultaneously (and conveniently) overlookin all the times that clutch plays by the defense late in--and throughout--games were critical to victories: NYJ1--final, game deciding drive ended in a pick HOU--final, game deciding drive ended in a pick TEN----final, game deciding drive ended in a pick NYJ2--final, game deciding drives ended in three picks MIA2--while they played poorly it was a big play that turned the whole thing around IND--shutout for the first 44 minutes Again, none of this is to say that the defense was beyond critique in 2015. It's to curb the overstated critiques that have infested this board for the past five months. Plus, there needs to be some understanding of a standard here. What is the expectation? You cited a handful of lapses, some of which I acknowledge, but maintain would have be inconsequential with any help from the offense, whatsoever.The Philly game applies here too. But aside from the defense not playing inside a vacuum of itself, lapses and bad losses happen in the NFL. All the time. So what's the standard? What's the expectation? You've also cited lapses I fully acknowledge and do not excuse. What I've offered above serves to simply shed a light on your dark--and only dark--characterization of how things unfolded in 2015.

With Sammy Watkins, a versatile TE and as the only team in the NFL who ran the ball on more than 50% of offensive plays...why does it matter so much who the no. 2 receiver is when capable talent like Robert Woods and perhaps Percy Harvin are on the roster?

Good to hear. Just a nit: You should have posted to the guy actually doing the reporting (Vic). Sorry. I'm principally opposed to Buffalo Rumblings "reports."

The argument isn't whether the defense was perfect that day, but whether they were generally good. And giving up 23 YARDS over 8 non-scoring drives (not counting the kneel downs) is a pretty good day... The only other non-scoring drive had a goal line stand. They were better than they were bad that day.

Well, the defense didn't give up 30 points. They gave up 21, and 7 of those came on a short field (36 yards). Plus they scored 7 points of their own: net 14. Far cry from 30.

No, but Corey Graham coming up lame sorta excuses it. The Jacksonville game was just plain weird. But it was, by and large, a good performance from the defense:

By my count, the defense had 9 good performances in 2015 and finished 5-4 over that stretch. I'll show the data analysis (again) which I'm following for this after I put together the offense. Thus far, the defensive data accurately tells the 2015 story, IMO. I already shared these on the board, they're a series of heat maps. But tonight I added an "average" performance and--while it has its limitations and is pretty basic--it's a pretty honest portrayal of how 2015 went. I look forward to posting it again when I've done the offensive one. In the meantime, the 9 good defensive performances according to my method: IND NYG TEN JAX NYJ* NE2 PHI DAL* NYJ2* *Exceptionally good, according to my range. On this flip side, sub-par defensive performances: NE* MIA CIN MIA2* KC* HOU WAS* * Exceptionally bad, according to my range. More to come