Cash

You are right, he is wrong. But your example kind of confirms his point? He's basically saying that a Seahawk who grew up in Alabama wouldn't have been very affected by the conditions last week, whereas a Charger from Alaska would have wilted. Human beings can and do acclimate to their climate. The Alaskan Charger, assuming he stayed in the area all summer, is a lot better equipped to deal with extreme heat than the Alabaman Seahawk who spent the offseason working out in Seattle.

The Gragg play was also quite nice. I love that kind of misdirection/play-action stuff. Use a fake, get the QB moving, hit the TE moving the same way, let him run. Very nice play design and execution. Gragg is a ways away from being a good TE, but he's a good enough athlete to turn that play from a 6 or 7 yard gain to the 14 yard gain he got.

Great idea! I will go with a boring guess: Running play to CJ Spiller for 4 yards.

Unfortunately, once this thread gets merged INto the other, the "read first unread post" lINk will take me back to the begINnINg of the thread INstead of where I left off. That stINks.

I live in Boston, and the Patritos are easily my least favorite team. If I didn't have to deal with their terrible fans all the time, that might not be the case.

I don't care how bad Lewis looked in practice/preseason, Jordan Palmer stinks. And he doesn't know the system, where Lewis at least played sorta half decent in five starts last year. I will give the Bills the benefit of the doubt and think that they're not done addressing the QB position for now, but they get no credit for signing Palmer. I will also say that Whaley's "we're set at backup QB" comments look pretty foolish now. Apologies to the brightsiders, but I worry that his "we didn't mind giving up next year's #1 because we think it'll be in the 20s" comments are going to look just as foolish in a couple months. But back to his backup QB comments for a second, they bothered me at the time, even though I liked what Lewis did last year and was okay with bringing him back as the #2. Whaley said something to the effect of, "you want your backup QB to be able to go .500 for you, and Lewis was 2-3." First off, I'm no mathematician, but I'm pretty sure 2-3 is below .500, so Whaley's statement just didn't make sense right off the bat. Second of all, it's weird for the GM of a 6-10 team to be talking about the backup going .500. Forget about the backup, how about getting the starter to go .500? It's been a while since we've even been there. And third, it's just an asinine thing to say. NFL coach/GM-speak is all about "we're always looking to improve everywhere" and "competition makes everyone better", etc. Which I think is mostly BS, but there is something to it -- complacency is bad when the margins are as thin as they are in the NFL. To then turn around and say that you're not even going to attempt to improve THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION is crazy. What makes it even crazier is to say that your justification is that all you want out of your backup is to go .500. Well sure, you can live with your backup going .500, but why wouldn't you burn some calories and try to find the diamond in the rough that can go .600? Maybe you can pull a Matt Cassel and trade him for a 2nd-rounder the following year. And what's more, the guy that you're being complacent about didn't even go .500! You're acting like Lewis was Frank Reich or something.

Good point. When Jim Irsay was caught with half a pharmacy in his car and the other half in his bloodstream (and $20k in cash, which isn't at all suspicious), there were a lot of "addiction is a serious disease, you guys -- he need help!" articles flying around. We don't see nearly as many of those sentiments when it's a player.

FWIW, Hopkins was pretty bad prior to getting hurt, at least from what I saw. 2013 preseason kickoff stats 2013 preseason FG stats 5/5 on FGs, but with a long of 39. Very poor on KOs. And the one day I was able to make it to camp, he was comically bad on FGs. He had like 3 or 4 straight kicks that he "popped up" that landed well short of the goal posts. Probably either a mental problem or a weird technique error, and correctable I'm sure, but not a good sign nonetheless.

If I can generalize a bit, I think the basic arguments of each side are as follows: Anti-Da'Rick: Great signing post-draft, and as Kirby said, "If he was an idiot cut him, if not develop him." Several reports out of camp said that he was loafing, didn't know the playbook, and in general didn't seem to be taking this chance very seriously. For people in this group, that counts as being an idiot, and the Bills were right to cut him. (Some of these people think there was and is a good chance he'll eventually figure it out, but it would never have happened without him getting cut first. Some others seem to think that the Bills cutting him is proof that he's a bum and will never amount to anything, and any success he's had or will have is a fluke.) Anti-Hogan: Imagine if, halfway through the movie Rudy, Sean Astin was moved to 2nd-string, and by the end, he had replaced a 4-star recruit as the starting defensive end? That's what seems to be happening with Hogan right now. Great story, great example for the other players, but there's a reason that Rudy was on the scout team and not dressing for actual games.

Just going from memory here, but weren't the Cali-based Raiders and Rams in the AFC and NFC Wests, and the Vikings and Steelers in the Centrals? So all of those 70s streaks at least started in 4-team divisions like everyone plays in today. The Raiders', Rams', and Steelers' streaks were fully in 4-team divisions, and the Vikings put up 2 (or 3?) of their 6 years in a 5-team division with a historically awful expansion team. Still very impressive, but the more teams in a division, the harder it is to maintain those streaks. I don't think it's fully a coincidence that we didn't see as many long streaks during the decades when every division was at least 5. You'll still get dominant teams -- the Bills had what, 4 straight and 5 of 6 from '88-'94? -- but it's less likely that none of the other teams in the division jump up to have a good year and break the streak. There's a reason that since the NFL went to the current division alignment, we've seen more division winners with bad records. The fewer # of teams per division, the more likely that all 4 have losing records, or all 4 have winning records, or 1 stays dominant for a long time, etc. From a statistical standpoint, the best alignment in US sports history was MLB prior to divisions being created. One division, everyone plays 162 games, everyone plays everyone else a bunch of times, and whoever has the best record at the end wins the pennant. It's a lot easier to tell who the best team was with that format.

Interesting. What size were divisions in the 70s? The Patriots' AFCE win streak has been helped by the 2002 realignment, which dropped divisions from 5 or 6 to 4, and took the Colts out of our division. I wonder if there were also smaller divisions in the 70s, and that helped contribute to all those streaks.

Makes a lot of sense. Johnson doesn't seem to have really done much of anything in practice or preseason, and based on the snap counts I saw at Rumblings, hasn't even played much on special teams. If a guy that raw and late-drafted makes the team, it's because of special teams. Seems much more like a practice squad candidate than a roster spot to me. Maybe they'd worry about someone snatching him up if they cut him, but I doubt it. Basically no chance either one gets cut. Dixon was signed to a 3-year deal as a free agent this past offseason. Brown was acquired this past offseason for a 4th (or 3rd) round draft pick. There's no way the Bills would make either move, then turn around and spite themselves without something drastic happening. Jarius Wynn is likely safe for the same reason, although his was only a 1-year deal, so Wynn being cut would be less surprising. And I would say that Alan Branch is safe, since he signed a 3-year contract extension this past year, but in his case, it looks like something drastic is happening.

I think it's fairly unlikely that all 3 of Lawson, Urbik, and Pears make the team. Wouldn't be shocked if Jacuies Smith gets Lawson's spot when it's all said and done. I think Smith is the new Kyle Moore.

Barnwell's age adjustment for 40 times seems a little smelly to me. Is a 26-year-old really slower than he was at 21 when he ran at the combine? Michael Johnson was 28 when he tore up the Atlanta Olympics. Usain Bolt didn't seem any slower in the 2012 Olympics (age 25) than the 2008 Olympics. Carl Lewis was faster in the 100m in 1988 (age 27) than in 1984. Obviously there is a slowdown with age, but my guess is that for a pro athlete who's training year-round, he won't start losing speed until he hits 30 or so. So what? So Barnwell's method heavily biases towards inexperienced teams. So it's no surprise that all of the teams at the top are bad offenses, because having a lot of inexperienced players tends to mean having a bad team.

Practice time. Quality, consistent long-snapping is a lot harder than holding for FGs, and requires a lot more practice time. There's probably a bunch of regular players who could develop into decent long snappers, but they wouldn't be able to practice with their units enough to make it worthwhile. You slept with Garrison Sanborn last night? Well done!

Hogan and Easley, duh.

I miss Stevie. Best of luck to him in SF, except when playing against the Bills!

I agree that Spiller will likely not be traded. The only thing that gives me pause/doubt though, is Marrone's recent declaration that he's not comfortable using more than 2 backs in a game. That's weird. My hope is that he was lying or somehow misinterpreted or something. But if we take him at face value, here are the possible conclusions: The coach and GM are out of sync (i.e., why sign Dixon to a decently sized contract and trade for Brown if your coach won't use them?) The coach and/or GM are VERY worried about RB injuries At least 1 of the top 4 RBs on the roster is seen as expendable. (But it wouldn't be either of the guys they just acquired this offseason, nor could it be the guy whose contract they just extended, so that leaves Spiller.) Other

Yup. Three quick entries for reading fails up top.

My counter to that would be that isn't it a poor OC/QB coach who allows his QB to only run plays that he's bad at running? Let's face it, long throws down the sidelines were not EJ's strengths last year. We could all see it -- why couldn't Hackett? If those were the only plays EJ was comfortable with, then Hackett needed to work with EJ to get EJ comfortable with other plays. It really is a mystery to me. I don't know why EJ hardly ever runs -- how much of that is on him, and how much on his coaches? Last year, EJ consistently handed off the ball on "read-option" runs regardless of how the D reacted. On the rare occasions that he did keep it, it usually went for a nice gain. That seems to be on him. But he also seemed more comfortable running play-action and rolling out, but those plays seemed to get less frequent (or at least not more frequent) as the year went on. That seems to be on the coaches. Poor execution of deep sideline passes is definitely on EJ. But why did Hackett keep calling four verticals plays? There are other ways to beat press man besides deep fades. If EJ has trouble reading a defense and going through progressions, then why not give him half-field reads, or plays with "tuck the ball and run" as the second progression? The only thing I know is that the offense overall and QB specifically weren't nearly good enough. I don't know how much of that goes on the QB and how much on his OC/QB coach. (Definitely some on each, though.) The good news is that both of them are very young and inexperienced, and so you'd expect both to get better with experience. I respectfully disagree. No offense can consistently execute at a flawless or near-flawless level, especially against good defenses that are executing at a very high level themselves. And regarding our skill players, I agree with you when it comes to RBs -- it's a supremely talented group. But WRs and TEs? No. Not saying they stink, because I think it's a decent crew overall. But sometimes we tend to get caught in the fishbowl of our own team. Chandler is probably about the 20th-best TE in the league, give or take, and there's nothing behind him. Even if Moeaki was healthy, which he isn't and probably won't be, his best season was 47 catches for 556 yards and 3 TDs. Nice, but nothing special. He's not another Jordan Cameron waiting to happen. As for WRs, we definitely stack up better there, but I still don't think it's a crew that can be counted on to just win 1-on-1 battles without help from a clever gameplan. Mike Williams' career bests are 65 catches and 996 yards -- great numbers for 30 years ago, mediocre for now. He does seem to have a knack for winning 1-on-1 battles in the end zone, which is good. Watkins is a rookie. Yes, he's the most-hyped rookie WR since Julio Jones, awesome. Julio's rookie numbers? 54 catches for 959 yards and 8 TDs. Very good for a rookie, and I'll be pretty happy if Sammy matches them. But again, that's pretty much mediocre production. I don't think the goal we aspire to should be a league-average offense. Woods I honestly do not get the love for. Not to say he sucks -- he's pretty decent -- but I'm not seeing the same player as some of the other posters on here. He seems to me like a nice WR, but nothing special. And Goodwin I love, but he's very much a part-time player.

Great post! Regarding this bit, I actually think it's more likely that the Bills would be more patient with EJ in one sense, but less patient in another. What I mean is that if EJ looks about the same this year as last year (which, let's face it, was bad), I think the Bills will and maybe should re-commit to him as a starter in 2015. Maybe bring in a token vet to compete for the starting job, but that would be someone like Matt Schaub if Oakland cuts him after another terrible season. Either Manuel turns it around in year 3 (great!), or continues to be mediocre or worse. In the latter scenario, the Bills draft a QB high in the 2016 draft and move on from Manuel.

How Marrone handles the press doesn't directly matter very much. It will piss off the press corps, and that's not necessarily good for his career, but the much bigger factor on his career prospects is his W-L record, and that's unaffected here. BUT! His W-L record is 6-10. That's bad. Guys like Belichick or Popovich can get away with being surly a-holes to anyone with a microphone because they've built up a ton of caché through winning. Marrone doesn't get that same caché, nor does he deserve it at this point.

Not only was it a run, it was always a run to Reed's side. They never even countered off it, much less play-action. Nor did they have any other plays they ran out of that formation/motion combo. That's really pathetic. I dunno, I'm not super-optimistic about Hackett's pro offense. (I did like him a lot at SU, but I don't follow them as closely.) Last year, our run/pass ratio on 1st down was outrageously predictable. I would imagine that the run frequency was something like 80% or more when the score was tied. Once last year, I was so sick of seeing runs on every first down that I started counting -- I think 12 straight 1st down plays (over about 6 drives) were runs. I get the rationale of "let's establish the run and take some pressure off our rookie QB", but running every 1st down only puts more pressure on the QB, because you're so predictable that you wind up in 2nd-and-long all the time. The scripted start to the KC game was actually a MUCH better example of "let's take pressure off our rookie QB" -- started with some play-action, a couple of easy and low-risk throws, got a first down or two. So the potential (coaching-wise) is there, but why didn't we see it more often? Why were we so maddeningly predictable on first down? The other thing that worries me, and makes me think that this "tell" is real, is that -- from what I saw last year -- the Bills' pass plays were very limited/predictable as well. Now, I don't have the full playbook, and I haven't "reviewed the tape" to confirm every pass play the Bills called. (PS: Stop saying tape. There is no tape. Unless you're watching on a VCR, you aren't watching tape. And film? You wanna spool up a projector, then you get to watch film. Until then, you're stuck watching videos like the rest of us.) But when Buffalo Rumblings or similar sites would break down Bills' plays from the previous week, there seemed to be a massive amount of overlap in the pass plays. Almost every play was either a "four verticals" with one checkdown, or two fly patterns down the sidelines with a couple of slants or crossing routes underneath. It just seemed really basic, like the kind of stuff you'd draw up for a sandlot game. I'm sure that there's more complex stuff in the playbook, and probably even in the gameplans, and I'm even sure that some of the complex stuff got called and ran some of the time. But I just didn't see much of it, whereas I did see a lot of the simple stuff. And the simple stuff didn't work well enough to get repeated that often. The one big mystery -- that may never be solved -- is how much of this is on Hackett, and how much is on Manuel? The playbook can have the best plays in the world, but if the QB is only comfortable running Techmo Bowl stuff, then that's all that's going to get into the gameplan, and that's all that the offense will run. Similarly, a play (whether simple or complex) can open up great opportunities, but unless the QB takes advantage of them, it won't work.

Seems like (potentially) an obvious repeat of the Sonics/Thunder situation. Clay Bennett paid a decent amount of lip service to keeping the team in Seattle, but -- surprise, surprise -- stadium talks fell through, and poor ol' Clay had no choice but to pack up and move to his hometown, which everyone expected in the first place. Difference here is that JBJ is from New Jersey, not Toronto, but given that the group is all Toronto based except for JBJ, I think the analogy still holds very well.

I've been as anti-Graham as anyone, but it's now coming so far that I feel bad for him more than anything. It wasn't his fault he was drafted 2-4 rounds too high. He's trying the best he can; he's just not good enough. He's not a natural football player, or at least not a natural WR. He's a good enough athlete to be in the NFL, but so are a lot of guys who haven't made it. I do wonder if he could be a candidate to convert to defensive back.