Winning without a #1 receiver, taking the 49ers temperature and learning to flush QB rankings before thinking about them for more then six nanoseconds.
Your QB rankings have illustrated the point you're making; they are filled with Purdy types that overachieved despite not having so-called elite traits, and Herbert types with great physical gifts who for whatever reason never fully put it together. Hell, the Chargers have one of the most impressive collections of quarterbacks of any franchise, yet the only one that took them to the Super Bowl was Stan Humphries.
Walkthrough -1 is better than most NFL content! Looking forward to the first fix in a few days.
Today's topic #1 is probably the most interesting of many questions I have about the Bills season. Can they get by with such a questionable WR corps? With THAT schedule? I don't doubt some of the WRs can both get open and catch the ball against zone defenses. I suppose zone lets you keep an eye on Allen running the ball and you test his patience and ability to read the defense. But when push come to shove you need to run man as well, and I don't know how many of these guys can separate. It's the mirror image of my issue #2 for the Bills, which is can they ever play effective man defense with their DBs. I know KC can.
I live in Nashville, so I watch a lot of 1pm Titan games. They did what you want any team to do, address areas of weakness in the offseason (adding the receivers above, drafting Latham for the OL and bringing in Daddy Callahan to coach them up, trading for Sneed). However, all those individual players have to actually mesh into a functional football team. Add an inexperienced coaching staff-1st time head coach and playcaller plus two coordinators with zero coordinator experience and it just seems like too many moving parts to figure out in a single season, much less a single offseason
The debate about the #1 receiver sounds a lot like the debate about #1 pitchers in baseball about which I am more familiar.
One camp says that there are 8-10 "#1" pitchers in baseball at any one time, and the teams all fight over them if they become available.
Another says that there are 30 teams, so there are 30 "#1" pitchers by definition; the people saying you need a "true #1" pitcher to win are instead really saying you need one of the top 10 pitchers in the game to win, which is a different statement.
I think so, in the sense that "#1 receiver" exists in the eye of the beholder. Especially when Doug takes Amon-Ra out of the equation for his article.
If the argument is that you don't need one of the Top 8 or whatever to win, then of course! If it's like, "Hey you'll be fine scheming things up for Curtis Samuel," then it's quite a stretch. And I think a lot of what's being talked about is the subtext of "you don't need some malcontent who expects 20 targets per game."
The QB rankers remind me of movie critics. I can appreciate the artistic qualities of good cinema, but I mostly want watch movies to have fun and be entertained. That should be the primary goal. I get annoyed at movie critics berating me for enjoying a fun action movie: "No!! it's mindless drivel full of explosions and CGI!! Instead, you should watch this 3-hour artistic movie about a woman who falls in love with a fish!"
The shorthand amongst my fellow nerds going back to high school was always "sometimes a tree is just a tree". We were talking about capital L Literature at the time but the sentiment translates well.
I enjoy movie and music crticism! And it does seem like lots of analysts nowadays seem to be evaluating QBs on some molecular aesthetic level. It's just so darn silly when we are talking about a results-driven activity like sports.
"The theory was created in the mid-'90s by Dave Cirilli, a friend of mine who was convinced that Patrick Ewing's teams (both at Georgetown and with New York) inexplicably played better when Ewing was either injured or missing extended stretches because of foul trouble."
I think the 'theory' has always been mostly tongue-in-cheek.
It already stumbled and failed on the "at Georgetown" leg. Georgetown national championship win didn't happen with Ewing injured or missing time.
Further down the Simmons 2001 piece:
"... two crucial elements needed to be in place for any situation to qualify for "Ewing" status:
1. A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series).
2. That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) -- and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.
When those elements collide, you have the Ewing Theory."
Even if it's NBA-only, Ewing's Knicks made the conference finals in '93 and won them in '94.
Sorry to seem so humorless about this, but it was already bullshit when Simmons made the idea public in 2001. Ewing was 38 that year. Easy to believe his team could be better for stretches without him; but it's a little gratuitous to pile on a 38yo athlete who's just a year from retirement.
I don't recall the Boston sports fans hating Ewing (who was, after all, a "local boy" from Cambridge), though we did root against the Knicks on general principle.
But in fairness, it's likely that (my friends and) I aren't and weren't typical Boston sports fans or Simmons readers. For example, *I* think that a chant of "Yankees suck!" at Fenway Park *when the Yankees aren't even the opponent* is one of the stupidest crowd chants ever. So what do I know about typical? :-)
What a great not-quite-opening Walkthrough! As a hard-core Bills fan, I find the take bang-on. very fair and, as always, somewhat amusing. The game I'm looking forward to from an entertainment perspective is Bills at Texans in Week #5 as it's early enough that both teams should be fairly healthy and late enough that the Bills should have figured out where their offense stands.
"The Ravens have a tough divisional slate but face the NFC East and AFC West: their schedule starts off like a nightmare (at Dallas in Week 1, at Kansas City in Week 3, Bills in Week 4) but has lots of Easter Eggs scattered about."
*The Ravens play at Kansas City Week 1 and at Dallas in Week 3.
Doesn't change the overall point, so I'm not holding it against you.
Kincaid may well be used a lot like a slot receiver if Dawson "Hard" Knox is healthy. Don't know if lotsa 12 is actually the plan but it's a consideration when you've no no1
There were years when the Pats' passing game ran through Gronk. Last year KC's ran through Kelce. Baltimore's ran through Andrews for years (and Likely for stretches last year).
The distinction between TEs and WRs is interesting, but maybe overstated in the modern game when evaluating the passing game. Maybe it's less the "WR room" and more the "receivers room" that matters?
It does. The "overall playmakers" room even. But Kincaid is not Gronk, Kelce or even Andrews yet. (And the Ravens have gotten no further than the Bills). If the plan is "the second year tight end is a Hall of Famer," then its more of a wish.
And remember that the qualifier here is that the Bills are essentially a "Super Bowl or Bust" team. They cannot win 11 games and be like, yeah, we didn't need a real replacement for Diggs.
I suspect the "2024 Super Bowl plan" is that one of Kincaid or Coleman is a future Hall of Famer and the other is competent. If both of them are only competent, that's probably the "we lost late in the playoffs again plan". If one (or less) of them is competent, it's the "we're spending 2025 draft capital on receivers plan".
Your QB rankings have illustrated the point you're making; they are filled with Purdy types that overachieved despite not having so-called elite traits, and Herbert types with great physical gifts who for whatever reason never fully put it together. Hell, the Chargers have one of the most impressive collections of quarterbacks of any franchise, yet the only one that took them to the Super Bowl was Stan Humphries.
Walkthrough -1 is better than most NFL content! Looking forward to the first fix in a few days.
Today's topic #1 is probably the most interesting of many questions I have about the Bills season. Can they get by with such a questionable WR corps? With THAT schedule? I don't doubt some of the WRs can both get open and catch the ball against zone defenses. I suppose zone lets you keep an eye on Allen running the ball and you test his patience and ability to read the defense. But when push come to shove you need to run man as well, and I don't know how many of these guys can separate. It's the mirror image of my issue #2 for the Bills, which is can they ever play effective man defense with their DBs. I know KC can.
I live in Nashville, so I watch a lot of 1pm Titan games. They did what you want any team to do, address areas of weakness in the offseason (adding the receivers above, drafting Latham for the OL and bringing in Daddy Callahan to coach them up, trading for Sneed). However, all those individual players have to actually mesh into a functional football team. Add an inexperienced coaching staff-1st time head coach and playcaller plus two coordinators with zero coordinator experience and it just seems like too many moving parts to figure out in a single season, much less a single offseason
The debate about the #1 receiver sounds a lot like the debate about #1 pitchers in baseball about which I am more familiar.
One camp says that there are 8-10 "#1" pitchers in baseball at any one time, and the teams all fight over them if they become available.
Another says that there are 30 teams, so there are 30 "#1" pitchers by definition; the people saying you need a "true #1" pitcher to win are instead really saying you need one of the top 10 pitchers in the game to win, which is a different statement.
Is the #1 receiver debate along the same lines?
I think so, in the sense that "#1 receiver" exists in the eye of the beholder. Especially when Doug takes Amon-Ra out of the equation for his article.
If the argument is that you don't need one of the Top 8 or whatever to win, then of course! If it's like, "Hey you'll be fine scheming things up for Curtis Samuel," then it's quite a stretch. And I think a lot of what's being talked about is the subtext of "you don't need some malcontent who expects 20 targets per game."
The QB rankers remind me of movie critics. I can appreciate the artistic qualities of good cinema, but I mostly want watch movies to have fun and be entertained. That should be the primary goal. I get annoyed at movie critics berating me for enjoying a fun action movie: "No!! it's mindless drivel full of explosions and CGI!! Instead, you should watch this 3-hour artistic movie about a woman who falls in love with a fish!"
The shorthand amongst my fellow nerds going back to high school was always "sometimes a tree is just a tree". We were talking about capital L Literature at the time but the sentiment translates well.
I enjoy movie and music crticism! And it does seem like lots of analysts nowadays seem to be evaluating QBs on some molecular aesthetic level. It's just so darn silly when we are talking about a results-driven activity like sports.
Simmons' description of "Ewing Theory" made no goddam sense in 2001.
Patrick Ewing's "teams never win anything substantial with him"? Both at Georgetown and with New York?
Ewing took Georgetown to two Final Fours and won the national championship! In the NBA his Knicks won the Eastern Conference *twice*.
What on earth does "substantial" mean in that context??
Ugh.
Here is his original description, from 2001:
"The theory was created in the mid-'90s by Dave Cirilli, a friend of mine who was convinced that Patrick Ewing's teams (both at Georgetown and with New York) inexplicably played better when Ewing was either injured or missing extended stretches because of foul trouble."
I think the 'theory' has always been mostly tongue-in-cheek.
I don't. Cheeky, yes; tongue-in-cheek, no.
It already stumbled and failed on the "at Georgetown" leg. Georgetown national championship win didn't happen with Ewing injured or missing time.
Further down the Simmons 2001 piece:
"... two crucial elements needed to be in place for any situation to qualify for "Ewing" status:
1. A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series).
2. That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) -- and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.
When those elements collide, you have the Ewing Theory."
Even if it's NBA-only, Ewing's Knicks made the conference finals in '93 and won them in '94.
Sorry to seem so humorless about this, but it was already bullshit when Simmons made the idea public in 2001. Ewing was 38 that year. Easy to believe his team could be better for stretches without him; but it's a little gratuitous to pile on a 38yo athlete who's just a year from retirement.
Simmons was energizing a fanbase predisposed to dislike Patrick Ewing.
I don't recall the Boston sports fans hating Ewing (who was, after all, a "local boy" from Cambridge), though we did root against the Knicks on general principle.
But in fairness, it's likely that (my friends and) I aren't and weren't typical Boston sports fans or Simmons readers. For example, *I* think that a chant of "Yankees suck!" at Fenway Park *when the Yankees aren't even the opponent* is one of the stupidest crowd chants ever. So what do I know about typical? :-)
What a great not-quite-opening Walkthrough! As a hard-core Bills fan, I find the take bang-on. very fair and, as always, somewhat amusing. The game I'm looking forward to from an entertainment perspective is Bills at Texans in Week #5 as it's early enough that both teams should be fairly healthy and late enough that the Bills should have figured out where their offense stands.
Thanks!
"The Ravens have a tough divisional slate but face the NFC East and AFC West: their schedule starts off like a nightmare (at Dallas in Week 1, at Kansas City in Week 3, Bills in Week 4) but has lots of Easter Eggs scattered about."
*The Ravens play at Kansas City Week 1 and at Dallas in Week 3.
Doesn't change the overall point, so I'm not holding it against you.
Thanks! Sorry for getting that mixed up.
“ Quarterback evaluation has become increasingly divorced from anything remotely quantifiable”. So has politics, which is way more frightening.
This is Mike telling me to stop dumping my half-informed opinions on Panthers QBs all over his comment sections. ;)
Kincaid may well be used a lot like a slot receiver if Dawson "Hard" Knox is healthy. Don't know if lotsa 12 is actually the plan but it's a consideration when you've no no1
There were years when the Pats' passing game ran through Gronk. Last year KC's ran through Kelce. Baltimore's ran through Andrews for years (and Likely for stretches last year).
The distinction between TEs and WRs is interesting, but maybe overstated in the modern game when evaluating the passing game. Maybe it's less the "WR room" and more the "receivers room" that matters?
It does. The "overall playmakers" room even. But Kincaid is not Gronk, Kelce or even Andrews yet. (And the Ravens have gotten no further than the Bills). If the plan is "the second year tight end is a Hall of Famer," then its more of a wish.
And remember that the qualifier here is that the Bills are essentially a "Super Bowl or Bust" team. They cannot win 11 games and be like, yeah, we didn't need a real replacement for Diggs.
I suspect the "2024 Super Bowl plan" is that one of Kincaid or Coleman is a future Hall of Famer and the other is competent. If both of them are only competent, that's probably the "we lost late in the playoffs again plan". If one (or less) of them is competent, it's the "we're spending 2025 draft capital on receivers plan".