Cash

I don't recall this - could you jog my memory? I get that Sean is a "utilize the positive language of success" guy, and I have no problem with that. It might seem silly, but little things add up in the long run, and I think saying things like, "throws he'd rather have back" instead of "bad throws" can be one of those little things that adds up. BUT! On this, and the decision to start Peterman last year, it drives me crazy how McDermott talks. No one is perfect - everyone makes bad decisions here and there. But to look back at a colossal failure of a decision, and say that you'd do it again without hesitation shows a lack of introspection that is very concerning. This isn't like, "I had an 80% chance to win pre-flop, but my opponent made a straight on the river - I'd make that same bet every time." This is more like, "I didn't realize that three of a kind beat two pair... maybe I should brush up on the rules of poker?" I get that a "good" decision can lead to a bad outcome. That's an important thing to understand. But sometimes the decision was actually bad, so you should look at how it led to the outcome, and see if there's anything you can improve upon next time. If McDermott is doing that, he's not letting on to the media. Caveat: there was that report that he "owned" the Tyrod benching last year, and it gained him a lot of respect with the players - depending on how he owned it, that might be a really good sign. I don't actually care what McDermott says to the media, but with most people, what they say publicly is very indicative of how they are privately.

I was told that only Tyrod missed open receivers. Now apparently it's other QBs, too?! In all seriousness, this is an interesting specific example of Peterman sucking. The bill of goods we were sold by the Petermaniacs was that he's smart/good at reading defenses, and will get the ball out quickly to the right read, and that will make up for his physical limitations. In the cover1 video, Peterman fails to read the defense and also fails to get the ball out quickly. He did have time for a 3-step drop and throw to his first read, but his first read was well covered and could've easily been a pick 6 if he made the throw. If he was better at reading the defense pre-snap, there was a play to be made, but he isn't. During the game, I was saying that Peterman should continue to start (and stink) through the first 4-5 games, because those are brutal defenses and we can "protect" Allen that way. But the more I read, the more I think that Peterman just isn't qualified to be on an NFL roster, and starting him is indefensible. Certainly if he starts again and still plays like this, he can't keep playing. Honestly, if he has a third historically bad start, it's hard to justify keeping him on the roster at all.

What a Marrone. He's smart enough to know that TO margin is one of the best predictors of wins. But dumb enough to think that an extra 21 points against 1 TO is a bad trade. That TO can only lead to 8 points the other way, genius. 16 when you consider the opportunity cost of the lost possession. Still less than 21.

Was ready to say 6-10 before the McCarron trade, but now I'm going with 5-11. Not that I think AJ is that great; I just have no confidence in either guy left. At least having a third guy around, who's a proper NFL veteran and has had occasional moments of good play, would help a bit. As it is, I think Peterman starts until we're about 1-4, then Allen starts the rest of the way.

Just did it. I actually had to add another player in at the end because I only had 52 in the first pass. Probably not a good sign...

Lombardi's opinion is meaningless and garbage.

Haven't had time to read the entire thread yet, but I assume everything is still Tyrod's fault?

I get what you're saying, but I think that's kind of a cheat and/or strawman. No rational person thinks that an inaccurate QB is incapable of ever putting the ball where he wants to; just that that doesn't happen consistently. So one great throw doesn't do a lot to quell those worries. Having said that, I went back and re-watched the supercut of all of Allen's throws from the Panthers game. Three were especially bad, and probably about the same were especially good. The rest were mediocre: a combo of "good throw, but it was easy and to a stationary target" (a la EJ) and "catchable ball, but the receiver had to adjust for it" (a la Tyrod). Not a terrible start, nor a great one.

Hahaha, there was a time when I would've been obsessively following every snap of Rosen's to see if I was really right or wrong. Now, I like to think I have the wisdom to not care. I mean, I can't do anything about it either way, so I might as well focus on something else. If in 2-3 years Rosen is a confirmed star and Allen's a confirmed bust, I probably won't be this mellow, but for now, why worry about it?

One of my main anti-Allen arguments pre-draft was basically, "if he's so good, why didn't he put up good numbers against bad competition, a la Flacco or Roethlisberger?" I get that his teammates were really bad or whatever, but I would hope that a top 10 QB would be capable of elevating a poor team. Especially since our team (for now) has very little talent on the offensive side of the ball. I was was a big Rosen proponent before the draft, but it's over now, so I'm not following him in the preseason. Hopefully the Bills were right and I was wrong. Either way, I'm not into driving myself crazy with what ifs. As for Allen's debut, that didn't change anything for me. We already knew he was capable of flashes of greatness on individual plays. We still don't know if he's capable of consistent goodness the rest of the time. There were several stinkers in there with the good throws. His first throw was an EJ Special - receiver had his man beat deep; throw was uncatchable out of bounds. EJ made some nice plays from time to time, too. But obviously it's still very early, and there's plenty of time for Allen to improve. Hopefully he does!

Hmm...

1.) No, I very much wanted them to get back to the Super Bowl. I was a kid at the time, so there wasn't a lot of logic behind my stance, but adult me agrees. Even the worst team in the league probably has a 10-20% chance against the best team at a neutral site. I'll take a 10% chance at a championship over a 0% chance every time. And while the 1992 Bills probably weren't quite as good as the previous 2 years, they still were legitimately great. I'd say they had at least a 40% chance on a neutral field. The game we actually saw was basically both the worst game the Bills could play and the best game the Cowboys could play. As an aside, didn't we beat the 49ers in SF in the no-punt game that regular season? Plus we beat the Giants with Simms in the 1990 regular season, and beat the Cowboys in Dallas in the 1993 season (albeit without Emmitt Smith). It's not like the Bills were going 0-4 against the NFC during the Super Bowl years - we held our own with the NFC powers, just didn't play our best game in the Super Bowls. 2a.) Vs. Washington - I genuinely thought we would win. We should've won the Super Bowl the previous year, and while Washington was maybe a better team than Simms-less Giants, the Bills were seemingly better in the 1991 season than in 1990. (O was better and really dialed in; D was worse in regular season due to major injuries, but was healthy for the playoffs.) 2b.) Vs. Cowboys #1 - I was pretty nervous at this point, but thought we'd have a good chance. The decreased optimism was partially because of losing 2 in a row, but also because the Cowboys looked REALLY good that year. I don't think a close loss would've shocked me, but the blowout did. 2c.) Vs. Cowboys #2 - I was a complete basketcase by then, and hoping for the best while simultaneously dreading the worst.

Plus, he undermines himself somewhat in the middle there. Like, if one team has 7.21 yards per play and the other has 7.20, the chances of 7.21 winning are probably something like 50.00001% before other factors are taken into account. Obviously when there's a significant disparity, you'd expect it to really have an impact on the winner, and that's reflected in the 74% overall stat. But at what level does it become significant, and how significant does it get as the disparity grows? And how does that line up with other factors? Say a QB starts playing more conservatively to cut down on turnovers, and it hurts his YPA. What's the tradeoff? Is it better to lower your TO rate by 5%, or increase your YPA by 10%? I'm not saying he's wrong (he might be right!), but it's frustrating that he's doing such a shallow/surface-level analysis while trying to sound deep. Yeah, I agree with all of this. He acknowledges that a sack produces a stalled drive 84% of the time vs. 100% of the time for an INT, but continues to equate them in his kiddie-pool analysis. (And then when the bottom QBs on the combined sack+INT list are mostly bad, he concludes that it's a valid metric to use for all QBs, which isn't how that works.) First, you need to look at the overall chances of a stalled drive at any given point. If it's 80%, sacks don't look so bad all of a sudden. It's probably much lower than 80%, but I don't know what it is, because this guy's analysis is really weak. Once you have that, then you look at what % of the time sacks produce turnovers. Then, you look at how much yardage sacks lose on average, and combine that with average punting distance to get an idea of the yardage advantage for sacks vs. INTs when you're out of FG range. Then, you look at sack yardage lost and FG conversion rates at various distances, and that gets you an idea of additional points lost by INTs vs. sacks when you're in FG range. Weigh all those factors together appropriately, and you can come up with a rough average of how costly a sack is compared to an INT - I'm guessing somewhere between 50% and 75%. Then you weight sack % accordingly when adding it to INT %, and then you have a useful metric. That's a lot of work! I'm not doing it, and neither is Salfino. But he could at least try a rough guesstimate - start with stalled drive %, factor in punt yards - sack yards lost, and ignore fumbles and FGs. Good stuff - thanks! Again, it's not so much that I think he's wrong as that I think his methodology is weak, but he seems to think it's definitive. It's also hard to tell exactly what his point is. Tyrod is mediocre? Tyrod is terrible? Tyrod isn't the great QB that numbers guys think he is? I agree with one of those, disagree with another, and think the third is a pointless strawman.

From memory, I believe that was on the road against the 49ers, and it was during our 3-1 (4-1? Maybe Flutie got win #4?) start in 1998. It was a nice play by Rob Johnson, but hopefully wouldn't make my top 5 of clutch Bills plays I've seen. I originally was doing to say "definitely wouldn't", but then I realized that I haven't seen a ton of super-clutch Bills moments. The early 90s teams were so good they usually didn't need to be clutch, and most of the teams in the drought didn't really have opportunities to be clutch. Even if someone makes an amazing play to win a game, how much does it matter if that was the difference between 6-10 and 7-9? Sorry to be a downer! Let's get more clips of clutch Bills plays in here and jog my memory! Love the idea of this thread. And so far, I agree that Christie's comeback FG should have the top spot.

Volektricity! I'd forgotten that proud moment in Bills history.

I disagree. The Bills had recently re-done Aaron Schobel's contract even though he had multiple years left. This happened after Schobel skipped OTAs for "personal reasons". We were assured it wasn't a holdout, but then by amazing coincidence, the Bills happened to give Schobel a new contract with better terms. So there was a precedent that the team would play ball with an upset player who had multiple years left on his deal. Then consider Peters himself. Yes, he was an undrafted free agent. Does that behold him to the Bills in perpetuity? When he signed that contract, he was the starting RT, and it was reasonable money for a starting RT. But then he was promoted to starting LT, and was excellent in that role. Once that happened, he became severely underpaid compared to his performance at his position. Compounding things, the Bills went out and grossly overpaid Dockery and Walker in free agency, making Peters the 3rd-highest paid o-lineman. You can't have your line set up so that the All-Pro best player plays the most important and highest-paid position, but makes less than two other guys. Peters probably could've handled it better, and the Bills may have been more amenable if he had been more willing to "play ball", but the team was crazy if they thought he was going to be happy with the salary structure they put in place on the offensive line. All of this is from memory off the top of my head, so my apologies for any facts I butchered.

Not sure if Jameis counts, but he's better than I thought he'd be. I don't have strong takes on all incoming QBs, though. And my list of "guys I thought would be good but busted" is pretty long. Recent negative takes: Josh Allen Jameis Winston Blake Bortles Johnny Manziel Ryan Tannehill Brandon Weeden Jake Locker Blaine Gabbert Christian Ponder Tim Tebow

I said Browns, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the pick. This is still the same coaching staff that won 1 game in the past 2 seasons, so it's hard to have a ton of faith in them, even with upgraded personnel. I'm definitely prepared for the Bills to take a step back this year, but McDermott's version of JauronBall seems unlikely to bottom out lower than maybe 6 wins or so. I could see the Browns going 8-8 no problem, but wouldn't be stunned if they went 4-12 either.

Thanks for posting! I agree with the general thrust that 1.) Talent on offense is overall worse, but hopefully 2.) Coaching can make up some of the difference. I'll remain skeptical that it can make up all of the difference until I see it, but hope springs eternal. One thing I disagree with in the OP - the Patriots have had success with multiple WRs over the years, but it hasn't exactly been "plug and play" as you said. They've had several notable WRs not be able to produce in their system, supposedly because of the extreme demands it puts on WRs. Chad Ochocinco was probably the most famous example. But also consider that in the cheating era, they've drafted Aaron Dobson, Chad Jackson, Bethel Johnson, and Deion Branch in the 2nd round, and only 1 of them amounted to anything. Plus Brandon Tate and Taylor Price in the third round. I think it just seems like they've been plug and play because they've consistently invested a lot (at least volume-wise) in the WR position, and we only remember the hits like Branch or Edelman, not the misses like Josh Boyce or Jeremy Gallon. Also keep in mind that the only "bargain" hits were Troy Brown and Julian Edelman. Branch was a 2nd rounder. Welker was acquired for a 2nd rounder plus a 7th rounder. Amendola was signed for a medium-high market FA contract. Randy Moss is kind of a special case - they only had to give up a low pick in trade, but that was only an option because his attitude was so bad in Oakland, and his contract was pretty hefty for the time. Moss' career start in Minnesota put him on pace to be the best WR of all time before crashing hard in Oakland. If we can find a guy like that, I'm all for it, but I don't think it's a very repeatable situation.

It's very hard to predict with Allen, because even if he turns as good as the Bills think he will, it wouldn't shock anyone if he looks like garbage in preseason. Which would probably give AJ a much longer leash than if Allen looks good in preseason. I took it to mean Barnwell thinks Allen will look pretty good, and there'll be a push to play him over AJ while there's still time to "salvage the season".

I get what you're saying, but honestly, all that really matters is if Allen winds up being good. I think most NFL fans/pundits outside of WNY in the 80s and 90s would've put Marino ahead of Kelly, but no one ever criticized the Bills for taking Kelly over Marino, because Kelly was really good. If Allen winds up a clear franchise QB, then the pick/trade-up was a success, even if Watson or Rosen or Mahomes winds up even better. I'm trying to move past the Rosen thing, because it's over now, and he's not a Bill. Being right won't make me any happier, so why drive myself crazy about it?

I'm on board.

Even if I'm spot on, I don't expect the Bills' remaining picks to have a lot in common with my list, because the needs at the top are the kind you need high picks or big FA $$ to fill... OT Pass rush (including DL) OG WR CB LB RB OC Depth everywhere

I agree. I still don't like the Allen pick, but I have no problem with the Bills continuing to take the long view. Build for sustainable success. I've been saying all offseason that next year would likely be a step back - hopefully to then take 2 steps forward.

I hear ya. But which of those do you think will be better with the Bills, at least in the short term? We can't pass block, our receivers can't separate - not even our one good receiver.