Thurman#1

Yes, Sammy gave the passing game a significant boost. But he didn't give the win-loss record a boost at all. They scored four more points the year they brought in Sammy than they did the year before. What happened that year is the D got better and they won three more games, moving up to 9-7 and not doing any better than that very mediocre 9-7 for Sammy's whole tenure. And the goal isn't to give the passing game a significant boost, or it shouldn't be. It should be to give the whole team a significant boost. They should draft a WR in the top two rounds. Maybe even do a trade-up of a few spots.

Sammy Watkins is absolutely a data point they've looked at. They'd be stupid not to, and they're not stupid. Is it one of the main things they're looking at, no, almost certainly not, but the likelihood of top ten receivers succeeding in justifying their draft spots completely is decent, but far from great. Same was true back when we traded up for Sammy. Which means that drafting a receiver high is a very reasonable move, but giving up a lot of valuable draft picks to do so is really really not. Julio Jones is also something they'll have looked at, but not a main focus. Julio is a case where they got that pick exactly right and it still didn't do enough to lift a 13-3 team enough to win a Super Bowl or even to being a really good team for most of Julio's stay there. The guys they lost the chance to pick in that trade appear to have hurt the team as much as having Julio helped it. Sammy is part of the the phenomenon that Massey and Thaler reported on, that GMs consistently over-rate their ability to correctly know who to draft, and that inability to correctly risks leads them to take risks that are stupid, specifically by giving up high round picks to move up to pick one guy. What they found is that moving up a bit doesn't seriously harm your odds, but that big move-ups should not be undertaken, as they significantly reduced the odds of draft success. The way to maximize your draft success is to maximize the number of darts you can throw, particularly with valuable big-time picks. There is an exception: trading way up for a possible franchise QB is worth doing because your odds of teams success without a franchise QB are so low. The same can't be said for other positions. And those guys are very very smart, they're not fans in Mom's basement. Thaler has won a Nobel Prize in behavioral economics, which is precisely the area they're looking at in this draft study. And all the studies - all of them - say the same. Drafting is too difficult. But these guys spend so much time studying and preparing and strategizing and discussing, that there tends to be a sense that with so much prep they gain more control. And you don't. These guys, NFL GMs, who know way more than the rest of us, still don't do well enough at picking to make really big trade-ups a good idea.

Sure. The question is whether they are already committed to the idea or whether they're trying to figure out how much it would cost to move up in case someone they like fell to, say, 20th. I'm pretty much completely sure they're kicking the tires on move-ups and finding out the values. Far less convinced that this is their number one choice, the way they want it to go. My bet is they're also checking out move-downs in case things fall the right way. That they want to be absolutely prepared no matter what happens. My guess is that the odds are probably somewhere around 30 - 60% that they move up a bit for a Thomas or a Legette or a Mitchell depending how things fall and how much they like whoever they really like. They move up a few spots with fair regularity.

Yup, this is what I think. He was excellent in college. That's the reason he's ranked so high. And McDermott loves guys with positional flexibility and uses them really well in his scheme to cross up offenses and make the D less predictable. But I also think that if he's the clear BPA at #28 and we're still there, we might trade back to try to produce a situation where a receiver or other position of need is the BPA at the new draft spot six to fifteen or so spots further back. If there are two or more guys left on the same draft tier at #28, they'll choose the one at a position of greater need.

Yup. This. And yeah, it'll level out in about two years.

Again, he didn't ask about "elite for his position." The question was this: "Name one player on offense or defense not named Josh Allen that any OC or DC on opposing teams is concerned about." And the Bills have guys teams are concerned about on offense. Wouldn't mind them getting some elite talent on offense. But great QBs can make offenses dangerous without a lot of marquee talent. In fact, that's the way the last two dynasties, including the Chiefs, have worked / are working. Kelce may have been elite, but is he still? He was still damn good last year, and that lateral last year was a thing of beauty, but would it be wildly surprising to see Kincaid outproduce Kelce this year? Next year? Not that that means we should avoid elite talent, obviously, on offense or defense. And giving Josh talent that can help him would by definition include the defense too, as the Chiefs showed. But it's harder to get elite talent in the late twenties when you're low on cap and trying to get back into good cap shape for the future. And more so when you need work at a lot of positions.

Don't be moving the bar. You asked about "concerned." Yes, those four guys concern DCs, as do others. Kincaid was a top ten producer at TE as a rookie who didn't get many targets early. Cook was 3rd in the league at yards from scrimmage, not including WRs. They worry people. A lot. Does anyone but Allen keep DCs up at night? It's impossible to know because they're already pacing late at night thinking of Allen. Kincaid was a top ten producer as a rookie at TE. We're a good-looking offense. The NFL knows it.

Yeah, that's idiocy. Concerned? Kincaid, Cook, Dawkins and Torrence, for four. Is it possible they win nine or less? Sure. If Allen is injured. If he's healthy it's still possible but a ten to twenty percent chance would be roughly the likelihood.

We're very very likely to be competitive. Very unlikely to be overlooked, I think. There absolutely are concerns, though some of that will change with the draft and with further FA moves. My guess is they pick at least one safety in the draft above the sixth round. We'll see.

Oh, absolutely. Relief? I'd guess mild relief mixed with knowing that things will get tougher, at least for a while, without having him on the field. Yeah, Allen is really great with the media, really really good. I believe I remember that when he was a kid his father would pretend to be a reporter and interview Josh and his brother to get them used to this. I suspect that's a good deal of the reason he's so good.

We've only got three picks above the fifth round now, before we start trading up. Some fifths and sixth are very likely to make it. Surely, you're right that not all eleven draftees will, but there's no reason to think we'll only keep three drafted rookies.

Yup. Two posts in a row from you with zero substance. Par for the course for you, Transie. The facts are inconvenient for you, so just distract.

Yeah, his headline was "A visual argument against trading down & for trading up." And then the post gave absolutely nothing about trading at all, addressing only whether guys drafted higher tend to succeed at higher (though not necessarily high) rates.

Wow. Intelligent response. So full of substance. What a surprise, a big nothing from you.

More, looking at the lists of top three guys in the draft you put up, one question occurs. How many Super Bowl winners are there? Again, a team that gives up top-level draft assets to trade up for a top WR has never won a Super Bowl. Never.

Unbelievable how you miss the point. You look ONLY at the receivers. Thing is, trades have two sides. You get something. And you give stuff up. And yet not a single word about the whole reason why massive trades consistently make teams worse. Yes, you get, on the average, better players further up. Um, DUH! Nobody argues you tend to get better players further up. Your post is precisely what you get from a person like you. You're not a Bills fan, you're a Josh Allen fan. So it doesn't even occur to you to address the stuff you have to give up, because it just doesn't matter to you. How Josh is directly affected is all that you think about. Point is, it matters to the team what you have to give up. Massey-Thaler and all the other studies say the same thing about this. Simply, trading up and giving up major draft assets like extra ones and twos is a horrible idea unless you are trading up for a potential franchise QB. Trades like this produce overall poor results at a high rate. Every study says the same thing. Every single one.

James Farrior possibly. He did have the one good year with the Jets, but not so good they kept him. Steussie? Good first year but then Belichick buried him on the bench and he was elsewhere his third year. Kyle Brady, maybe. Had a couple of pretty good years after leaving the Jets. Gaston Green, arguably. Ironhead Heyward? Used mostly as an FB till he moved to the Falcons. Testaverde? He was actually pretty decent, but nobody knew it till well into his career.

This, though Gabe Davis in the fourth round was a lot better than decent. People are way way way too focused on WR, to the point where it's occluding their view. Yes, almost certainly we should get a WR in round one or round two. And yeah, most likely one somewhere later as well. But not in both round one and round two. I mean, granted, after KC traded Tyreke Hill, they immediately traded up as high as they could in the first to replace ... oh, no, wait, sorry, they didn't do that. Instead they drafted two WRs, one in the first and then one in the second to immedi ... oh, no, wait, they didn't do that either. They had two picks in the first first round that offseason. Remember who they picked? Trent McDuffie and George Karlaftis. Then in the 2nd they got Skyy Moore at #54. And picking two defenders in the first round that year ... well, it actually worked out pretty well for them despite a pretty mediocre WR room. Haven't heard Pat Mahomes cursing that they should have gotten him a WR in the first couple of picks rather than wasting picks on defense. Thanks to Joe Marino for reminding me of that. We need to build a team. A whole team. You let the draft fall to you. And in the early rounds you go BPA at a position of need, of which we have several. Build a team. Not just a WR room.

I don't think it's any stretch at all to think Shakir can be a #2 with more targets now that they don't have to force so many to Diggs. Might not happen that way, but it surely could. I'd agree that it's likely that anyone after the first three isn't likely to be a #1 early. Possible, but quite unlikely. But you don't need a #1. You just don't. KC certainly didn't have one last year. Plenty of good teams have good groups rather than a #1 and can still be plenty productive. With James Cook and particularly Kincaid, we show every sign of being able to have plenty of success if they can have a couple of WRs step up to #2 status, and I think it's pretty likely Shakir for one makes that leap.

Says the guy who knew that Tyrod Taylor was going to be a franchise QB. Remember when you said he'd shown that he was "near-elite"? For thousands and thousand and posts, I tried to tell you you were almost certainly wrong. For years. Over thousands and thousands and thousands of posts you told me how wrong I was and how my arguments were pointless. Says the guy who absolutely knew that Josh Allen was going to be a failure before the draft. Remember that too? How you spent months telling us how there was no way he could ever succeed because of your careful study and complete understanding of completion percentages and how they couldn't change? Remember those days? Remember how many "pointless" posts I spent telling you you were wrong? Yeah, I was pointless then and pointless now. Or so it seemed to the guy who knew what he knew about Tyrod and about how it was impossible for Josh to succeed. How pointless were those posts, actually, Transie? What they actually were was right on point. You just didn't see. Your pattern. You're doing some thing stupid, as usual. This time in particular, though. You don't have the ability to tell me what the crux of my argument is. Not without reading my posts. So ***** off about the crux of my argument. We have a bunch of holes on this team. One or possibly two safeties, DT, pass rushing Edge, IOL, CB. Depth elsewhere. And we need the draft to start filling them. And yet again, making a huge trade up is a failing strategy. Massey-Thaler shows it, as do all the studies. It's an idea that has been shown to increase the odds of failure. Again and again. But I'm sure you won't read. 'Course you didn't read the stuff about Tyrod or either. Remember? Remember how hopeless you thought Josh was?

I see what you're saying her, but I think that's a stretch, WR at 2nd most important position. Pass-rushing DE is an important factor on every pass play and many run plays. Receivers are window dressing on most run plays and most pass plays where they don't get looked at or thrown to. I put reciever tied for 3rd, myself. And while the Bills have serviceable EDGEs, we don't have a serviceable pass rushing EDGE across from Groot unless we get lucky with Von Miller. Could happen but it should absolutely not be counted on. If you can't pressure Mahomes better than we have, you aren't going to have much luck against him. And we lost our best sack artist this off-season and haven't brought in another. I'm not worried about us being able to set the edge, but rushing the passer? Yeah, I'm worried.

Seriously? You think that ends the argument? Um, not really so much at all. Just because you can't point to one factor and say it's the only cause of a given result in football doesn't mean the discussion is over. Football is a wildly complicated game and nearly every result is caused by hundreds of factors. But what we do know 100% for certain is that having Julio Jones wasn't enough to get the Falcons over the hump. They were way ahead in that Super Bowl, just needed another score or at least a couple of long good drives even without a score, and having Julio on that team wasn't enough to get them that. They failed to get over the hump, not just for that game but for the ten years Jones was on that team. And again, he was drafted onto a team that was 13-3 the year before, with a good QB, and looked to themselves at least like they were one receiver away. They weren't. Having an elite WR group doesn't win you titles. You need more than that. You need a damn good roster, up and down. Within all too short of a time, they were finding that they needed an overall increase in talent that the picks they'd traded away would have provided, rather than needing just one guy. Picking Mike Evans was a good idea because they didn't trade up to do it, much less make a huge trade up throwing away many of the best picks in two drafts the way the Falcons did to get Julio Jones.

You say you didn't bother to read most of my post. I understand. I pointed out areas where you were wrong. It's tough to read that sometimes. A lot wrong with this post I am now replying to also. If you want to say we only have two glaring holes, I guess it depends on your definition of glaring. We have a number of holes. Neither of our starting safeties has ever consistently started at safety. That's a hole. We have a serious lack of pass rushers. That's a hole, and one that needs to be addressed in some way and pronto. Both of those needs are far more serious than RB. We also have weak and unproven spots at IOL and CB. We had to let a ton of people go because of the cap and that created holes. Kid yourself if you want, but that's the way it is. Certainly WR is one of our biggest holes. Very far from the only one. As for a #1, plenty of teams win Super Bowls without them. Get a guy in the first two rounds. Odunze, Nabers and MHJ are absolutely NOT worth using a strategy which has a success record of zero percent in NFL history in producing titles. The idea is dumb, unless one of them falls far enough to be gotten at a semi-reasonable price, in the late teens, maybe. Problem is the odds of that happening are close to zero. Yes, Mahomes had Kelce. Kelce last year had less than a thousand yards last year and yet they won a title. There's every reason to think Kincaid will be in the thousand yard neighborhood this year. We don't need a #1 anymore than Mahomes does. But picking a WR in the first two rounds makes a ton of sense.

Trading up and getting one of the big three sounds like a lead-in to failure to me. As Alpha said yesterday, "Never in NFL history has a large investment to acquire a WR via trade, FA, or the draft has ever translated into a Super Bowl win. No team has given up multiple premium picks to trade for a proven top end WR and paid them big money and gone on to win a SB (which is what some want us to do to get Auiyuk, Higgins, etc). No team has ever signed a FA WR to top of the league money and then turned that into a SB win. No team has ever made a big trade up in the first round using multiple premium picks and won a SB (which many want to send multiple firsts and multiple 2nds to get up into the top 12). There is no example of a major investment like that in a WR ever leading to a SB trophy." Alpha continued, "There are however countless examples where teams have won the Super Bowl without having a top 5 WR. In the past 20 Super Bowls only 1 team had a WR1 drafted in the top 15 of the draft (Mike Evans)." Precisely. You do NOT win because you have an excellent WR group. You win because you have an excellent team. Yes, Mahomes won one with the best TE in the NFL and one of the best WRs in the NFL. He also won two with an excellent TE and a mediocre to below average WR group. That proves the point. It wasn't the great WR that was the reason for him winning that first one. It was having a consistently good team and a damn good QB. They got that great WR with a massive tradeup that had them giving away the next year's first rounder, right? Oh, no, wait. They did not do that in any way, shape or form. They did indeed trade up giving away the next year's first. But for a quarterback. Not a WR. That's what Massey-Thaler tells you to do. That's what ALL the studies tell you. Never do huge trade-ups giving away premium assets except if you are going after a franchise QB. It's not just the studies making that case. That's what the story of the Chiefs tells you. Reid and Mahomes didn't need a great WR to win, as their last two wins show. But if you get a great WR, don't do it with a massive tradeup. The Chiefs didn't. They're an excellent example of doing things the right way. You claim that all five of the last five SB winners had an elite weapon. Not true. Mike Evans is a terrific WR. But he wasn't elite the year the Bucs won it and he came in with 1006 yards. Same with Kupp the year the Rams won. Top ten surely, but not elite. 1161 yards is damn good, 9th in the league among WRs that year, but not elite. And while Kelce was maybe still elite last year, for the first time in years it's arguable. He was clearly showing his age and his production showed it. In any case, the Bills appear to have two young guys who are closing in on elite status already, and both improving. Cook was the 3rd best RB in the league in yards from scrimmage. And Kincaid had a sensational year for a rookie and was visibly improving. You say you'll "be fine if we stay put or trade down to get one of the other WRs. One of them might pan out and become Elite. I think Josh being their QB will help them with that." We're in agreement there. There are a lot of really good prospects this year after the big three.

There are some conspiracies. A very very small percentage of them are true. Ben Franklin said it. "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." If there's no clear evidence, it's almost certainly not true.