Thurman#1

The obvious things, I think. I'd like to see him throwing before guys are open, with anticipation. Stay in the pocket until it actually starts to break down. Go through more options faster in his progressions. And see things better in the deep and intermediate middle of the field. The quantitative stats won't mean much. The qualitative stats will. Nearly always when the film is showing a guy throwing well, the qualitative stats reflect that and look good. Plus one more thing. I'd like to see him not tail off at the end of the year. This is a new offense and will likely start fairly strong since teams won't have film on these guys in this offense. As they get film and figure out what's going on, they'll start to attack more intelligently. Good offenses / coaches / players adapt when that happens. Limited ones can't. This happened in Tyrod's 2015. His passer rating for the first six games was, if I remember correctly, around 20 points higher than it was in the last eight games when it dipped to pretty much the level he maintained this year. The same happened with YPA. Completion percentage too. He looked terrific those first six games and much more human thereafter. How he is performing at the end of the year will mean more to me than how he performs at the beginning. A smallish dip would mean little or nothing. A significant one would tend to point towards a failure to adapt. Agreed, it's the biggest issue and the most important stat. But it's a team stat, not a QB stat.

Seems pretty obvious to me that Sal was probably right. You're right too that it also was a chance to check out the backups in game action. But it almost certainly never would have happened if not for the injury clause in Tyrod's contract. They simply didn't want to take the risk of further injury when that would have meant that they would have been required to keep Tyrod - and at the old and very expensive contract value. It would have meant activating that $30.5 million that was guaranteed to him under the old contact if he was on the roster in March, and he would have been on the roster in March. It's been pretty clear that Whaley simply did not want to do that. And that Tyrod is here now for two reasons, first because he was willing to lower his contract and second because McDermott took over the reins of power. He appears to value Tyrod - at least with the new contract - far more than Whaley did.

I don't think too many were outraged, though honestly you could say that ice is cold and get some people crazed and offended. But I don't think upset in the scouting department after the draft will cause problems the same year. Looks like a lot of hoo-hah over nothing, IMHO. I think they'll be good. Still glad we made the trade, though.

Was it really clutch in the Seattle game? It sure was a good overall game, but on that final drive on the second and six play with 1:09 left, he scrambles right and ends up running ... and misses a wide-open, and I mean nobody within ten to twelve yards. They send two guys on go routes down the middle, one on the right and one on the left and both in the middle third of the field. The guy on the right beats his man by a step or a step and a half. The one deep safety goes after him. The guy on the left, Woods, is dropped by his cover man, totally dropped seven or eight yards past the line of scrimmage and is all alone. In the deep middle third of the field. Tyrod runs the ball for a four yard gain and Tyrod has nobody near him as he approaches the line of scrimmage near the numbers, but just misses Woods. Did he play well that game? Yup. And you're right that that 3rd and 20 throw to Woods on the sideline was flat-out terrific. But he wasn't clutch. Had the chance to take the lead with a minute left and couldn't do it. Oh, and where was Woods again on the play when he was wide-open in the end zone? Oh yeah, the deep middle third of the field. As for the 50 yard bomb to Clay against New England, it wasn't as good a throw as you're making it out to be. Clay was wide open with one guy six yards behind him and a safety seven or eight yards inside him and Tyrod threw the ball so as to stop Clay from running away from the safety. Clay had to flatten out his angle and it allowed the safety to get back in the play and bump Clay's legs just as Clay went for the ball which prevented him from getting his second arm around on the ball. If he'd made that catch it would have been sensational and Tyrod could have put it in a place where he wouldn't have had to make a terrific catch. It certainly wasn't a bad throw but it wasn't great by any means. Could've led him to open territory. You point to drops? Can't be bothered to look at them, though calling the Clay play you noted above a drop was very debatable, but every QB deals with drops. It's part of the game. You can point to lots of very nice catches too, the Woods catch on the sideline that you reference above. That was a terrific catch. Sure there were some drops but you could point to any QB and cherrypick some plays where the same thing happened. It's part of the game. You say, "He threw a touchdown pass on fourth down to Clay to go ahead against Miami with less than 90 seconds in the last game he played. Again, pretty damn clutch." Hunh? The Bills last possession in that game ended with 4:09 left in the game. With a punt. And if you were talking about the first Miami game, he went, what, 4/13 in the 4th quarter? He was getting a lot of pressure, and he absolutely did have that final drive to at least make it closer but they had three or four drives in that 4th quarter that went nowhere. Clutch is overstating it. Tyrod certainly shouldn't be blamed for all of Buffalo's problems last year. The whole team was bad except for the run game. But Tyrod deserves his share of the blame.

Yeah, I hope he has a really good camp, too, but my views on what a good camp would be for him have dropped with his minicamp performances. I just want to see improvement, that he's beginning to understand things. It was always a long-shot that he'd be starter-ready the first year, but even those odds have dropped. Hope he'll develop, improve and work on mechanics and strength that might allow him to throw with more strength. The velocity worries are overstated but a bit more wouldn't hurt.

And most make sense, certainly including this one. He didn't say that Kelly would necessarily succeed or become a franchise guy or anything like that. Just that he is talented, and particularly more so than the two Denver guys. What's the big deal about that? He was widely considered to be a very talented kid. If he didn't have his off-field baggage he might well have gone in the first.

Talking about Fantasy WR ratings and especially Donte Moncrief. Watkins is listed 20th. Burleson (at 36:07): You wouldn't take (Brandin Cooks) over Sammy Watkins? Brandt: I like to roll the dice, I go Cooks. Adams: No, I would take Sammy, I think Sammy Watkins has a way higher ceiling than Moncrief. Burleson: Really? Adams: If Sammy Watkins is healthy, yeah. Willie Colon: I think Sammy's foot ... in two years we may not see Sammy on the field no more. Burleson: No kidding? Willie Colon: And I think talking to the powers that be, I know some guys up in Buffalo, and they feel like even when he's off the field, it opens up the offense, 'cause now Tyrod's not focused on Sammy. It gives other guys opportunity to shine. So Sammy may be on the downslide of things. Adams: So you're taking Moncrief over Sammy. Colon: I am. That's what was said, as exactly as I could transcribe. Big plays: 100, which was 1st in the league Big rush plays: 77, which was also 1st in the league, and only three teams were over 60 Big pass plays: 23, which was 28th in the league Interesting.

There's nothing unreasonable here. He didn't make the choices, he just set up a mathematical system to pick highly-valued guys, and the Bills popped up. And with three in the top 25, he's right, it's worthy of notice, leading the league by far. four in the top 29 even more so. Worth noting also that he doesn't say that valuing a guy highly is necessarily bad. Von Miller is in the top ten, for instance, but he's just worth it. Whereas Dareus and Charles Clay have definitely underperformed. I'd argue that Cordy Glenn has earned his money, though. Patrick DeMarco, it's too early to say. As for what he said about Whaley, "Doug Whaley wasn't a bad player evaluator at all, especially given the bevy of street free agents who came into their own in Buffalo. But he consistently failed to properly value players." Yup. Dead on. Reasonably kind, even.

Coaching and analytics isn't separate. The best coaches use analytics, formally and informally, on a constant basis. And yeah, talent is huge. But analytics can also make a difference in getting bigger talent. For example, the Pats have been consciously attempting for years to gather as many draft picks as possible. They then sometimes trade them and sometimes use them, but they gather as many as they can. One example is how they've been consciously using the rules to get extra comp picks since well before the Belichick era. And it was a comp pick that was used to pick Brady. So yeah, having Brady helps. But getting Brady came about partly as a result of using analytics in smart ways.

I remember that play too, BKK. I liked that decision but most fans didn't. Yeah, they already know that. But the reason they know that is that the analytics said so. They said so probably ten years ago, but it was still analytics. So yeah, those particular numbers are too simple now, but there are tons of variations and the numbers are still being crunched, every week, in a ton of different ways, from which players with which body compositions need what in their smoothies to when should players be taken out in uncompetitive games to when you should go for two knowing your own kickers extra point kick percentages might have a slightly different answer than a guy with a significantly higher or lower percentage. There are a a million questions and a million variables and they haven't even scraped the surface yet. But they will. Come on, man, nobody's saying to completely eliminate the gut. Analytics just feed into your decision with good, relevant information. They don't 100% make it for you. Nobody is saying that.

I see what you mean. What bothers me most is the ultra-conservative moves that analytics wouldn't support. Marrone used to consistently punt on 4th and short from juuuuuuuuuuust barely outside field goal range. Even late in games when we were down. Used to drive me nuts.

There were no other dot charts. Three, despite many including me begging for more. Three dot charts, Tyrod, Brady and Rivers. I wish there had been more. There weren't. The data on the other QBs you're referring to is from those same charts you're referring to that don't look at the relevant areas. And in 2015 when I did the exact charts and the dot charts were available, the issue was with frequency but also with very bad results to that area. Two of his six INTs that year came from the very few throws he put to the deep and intermediate middle and his completion percentage was also really bad there. I was saying that in 2016 I can't comment on quality. In 2015, I can and it was awful. To that area of the field he threw little and badly in 2015.

Yup, I've seen that chart and the article many times before. They're interesting and really do show a lot of fascinating data. But as to the specifics of our argument here, they have a major problem. "In the cases of out-of-bounds throwaways, those dots are placed at the sideline near where the ball went out of bounds." This of course inflates the sideline numbers, as the writers readily admit. "Remember, the sideline data here are "polluted” by those out-of-bounds throwaways that count as incompletions. As a result, the completion percentages near the edges of the field might be lower than you expect. It turns out the sideline is very important to the NFL quarterback, both for targeting receivers and for getting rid of the football." They also mislead a bit about the frequency of passes to the middle, saying about passes of twenty yards or more that, "only 9 percent target the area between the hashes." Wow, sounds like almost nothing. But when you realize that between the hashes is only 11.5625% of the width of the field, seeing only 9% of throws there is not at all surprising. Still, it was a fascinating article and I welcome the chance to read it again. I think it makes clear that you don't understand what I said. To simplify as much as possible - I've written too much recently - Tyrod throws an awful lot less to the deep and intermediate middle third of the field than he does to the deep and intermediate outside thirds. In 2015 I had the exact numbers but they're gone with the old site. But it was roughly 40%+ / 20%- / 40%+. And Brady and Rivers were close to 33% / 33% / 33%, making them less predictable and harder to defense.

Yup, Scott, that's one of the charts that Transplant has tried to use. The problem is that as you can see at the top it's not dividing the field into thirds. It is dividing them by the numbers. The same old problem. Which means that you're looking at charts where the field is divided this way: The left side: 22.5% of the field The right side: 22.5% of the field The middle: 55% of the field Even a guy who throws very little to the middle will look like he's throwing a lot there if you divide the field up that way. More, Tyrod threw often and well in 2015 to the area just inside the numbers, which is still the outer third of the field. Very well indeed, it was striking. So those stats are including in "the middle" all of those passes to the area he threw well and often to. Which drowns the numbers from the middle third. This is just what I keep telling Transplant. Those numbers don't reveal what goes on in the middle third, the area Tyrod has problems in. They actually are constructed very well to hide, not reveal.

Doesn't insult me. He's just pointing out the facts about who gets on TV. Not surprising with out W-L records that we don't. Good post. It's simply not a tank when you keep Tyrod. But yeah, it was almost certainly a salary dump for a team that was in salary cap trouble and is now significantly less so due to doing nearly everything it can to cut cap without pushing costs forward down the road.

That's maybe the deep south. I have friends from Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia who would say you are categorically wrong, and would even go as far as to point out blood from their state on confederate battlefields as evidence. And while I don't have any friends there, I've heard Kentuckians refer to themselves as southern plenty of times. Floridians too. Heh heh heh. Good point. In any case, I wonder whether Beane would have been the successor there. My sense is that he would have but it's not like I have sources or anything. I've only read the stories, but it's interesting to speculate.

IMHO most of them don't do it because if they go for it and don't make it there'll be a massive firestorm aimed at the head coach, whereas if he goes conservative, no firestorm because he's doing what the conventional wisdom has long championed. So even if the analytics, both general and situation-specific say go for it, most teams still won't.

Oh, so Gillman, a coach 70 years ago, divided the field up into five? Wow, well when you have to go that far out of relevancy to find an example, that says a lot about your argument right there. But what says more is that you don't know how Gillman's results turned out in terms of dividing up the field in threes. Gillman was doing exactly what I'm saying everyone should do, spread things out and challenge every area across the field. Which Tyrod doesn't do. As for more recent examples, yet again, Brady and Rivers spread their deep and intermediate attempts evenly across the thirds. Tyrod doesn't. As for your hashmarks thing there you're yet again looking under the streetlights because it's easier to look rather than where you lost the keys. Yet again, Tyrod throws very well and very often across the middle in the first ten yards. And between the hashes would also include behind the line of scrimmage, things like shovel passes or middle screens ... Nobody says Tyrod doesn't throw well in the middle in the short area, because he does. And you're including those stats here, yet again throwing in areas of strength and prolific throwing with his areas of weakness. Which does indeed cover up the problems in the deep and intermediate middle third, but doesn't do a single thing to prove they don't exist. It's like a guy who wants to examine screen passes and can only find stats that combine screen passes and go routes together and so he thinks he's proven that that team's screen passes have a surprisingly high YPA. The problem is isolated in one area. When you throw stats from other areas in with the problem areas, sure, you can make things look much better. But you're missing the problem because it's over in the dark area a few blocks over while you yet again look under the streetlight. Yeah, it's a thing. That's why Roman talked about needing him to throw more and better to middle and the QB coach also talked about the same problem. But it's not a thing that you can find if you look in the wrong place, and that's what you're doing, looking at stat tables that don't isolate the problem but instead lump it in with areas of strength.

You're asking who would do it right now? Jeez, that's a tough question. I'd be right on the edge there. In any case I would give it really really strong consideration.

May 16, 2013 - Bills promote Doug Whaley to GM. Oct 30, 2013 - Bills launch analytics department by hiring Lyons So it wasn't Nix, but beyond that I agree. They clearly haven't been using them enough. Hope they start to do so now.

All I can say is that I'm sorry but my numbers are gone. Hundreds of people saw them, as I published them on buffalobills.com. There were 2015 dot charts for Rivers, Brady and Tyrod. And I went back and watched every single pass in the 2015 season, and put up game by game compilations with every single pass that came anywhere close to being in the deep and intermediate middle third, and my comments. And not a single person challenged me on my interpretation of a single play, on where the ball was being caught. Not a single person, including Transplant himself. That site disappeared, without warning. The numbers are gone. And again, the reason why those numbers are important are simple. Deep and intermediate throws matter. They're where you get chunk plays, they're a way to pressure the defense to cover the whole length of the field instead of being able to step up, fill up the box and make your run game and short pass game more difficult. And if you're throwing about a third of your deep passes to the left third, a third to the right third and a third to the middle, third, you're unpredictable and you make the defense's job tougher. Which is what Brady and Rivers were both doing. But if you throw roughly 40% of your deep passes to the left third, 40% to the right third and below 20% to the middle third, you're saying to the defense, "don't worry about that area, we rarely use it, go ahead and put more pressure on the areas we use more." Which is what Tyrod did. And I didn't take the QB figures and divide by three. There were dot charts showing where every pass went. Brady and Rivers had a relatively even distribution. Tyrod had an extremely visible gap in the deep and intermediate middle third. I then went and checked pass by pass and confirmed that it really was a distribution problem for the Bills passing game and that that was where the problem was.

Why would I care whether the coaches specifically mention the middle third? Coaches avoid talking about what specific problems are for millions of reasons, spin, wanting to keep being positive, not wanting to point out weaknesses ... a million reasons. Have the coaches ever admitted that the players didn't understand the defense last year, have they ever said those words? Nope. But one of the biggest problems on the defense appears to have been that ... well, they didn't fully understand the defense. The idea that something isn't real unless the coaches specifically admit it to the world is flat-out stupid. It's plenty that they said he had problems in the middle. When you look, though, you see it's the middle third. That's the point. As you know, I analyzed every single pass of the 2015 season and discovered that the problem was the deep ... and intermediate ... middle third of the field. You look at the dot chart and it stood out like a twenty-foot great white shark in a thirty-foot wide goldfish pond. That's where the problem has been. The deep and intermediate middle third. Which is why, by the way, everyone knows the Bills have a problem going there and you can't find any trace of the problem using the stats that don't just cover the area that he doesn't throw to but also throws in a ton of passes in an area of strength. You're looking where the light is better, not where the problem is.

This is the kind of thing I disagree with. Was it a success when the 1987 Cowboys who went 7-8 regressed the next year to go 3-13? You betcha it was a success. It allowed them to pick Aikman with the first overall pick that next year and thus served as a building block for a true dynasty. It also gave them the 29th overall pick, the first of the second round and Steve Wisniewski, a cornerstone of the OL and another in Stepnoski as the first pick of the third round. Were the 2-14 1979 49ers a disappointment? They'd gone 2-14 the year before as well, so by your theory they showed no improvement. But in fact they had brought in Bill Walsh that year and spent that year starting to internalize his systems and methods. That year was a huge building block towards winning the 1981 Super Bowl. They didn't even get a good draft in 1980 out of that awful win-loss record in 1979, but it was still an absolutely crucial year in their path to dominance. Improvement doesn't always show up in wins or even visible improvement right away.

LT? Do you mean RT? And I love the Hauschka point. I've been questioning this move because Hauschka has had the same problems as Carpenter. Hope you're right here. Interesting thread. I, like you, don't expect a very good season in terms of record but think this could be an important one in team history if McDermott and Beane turn out to be keepers. I like some of yours, though not all of them. I'd add that it would mean a lot if both the offense and defense start playing better in the new schemes near the end of the season. I think requiring us to be in all games as a benchmark to success will lead only to your own disappointment. Years like that are rare for bad to mediocre teams. Anyway, interesting thread. Thanks for posting it. Assuming the Browns are competitive for Super Bowls within two or three years, I don't think anyone will remember. I know I won't.

http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/28/nfl-analytics-front-office-old-school-approach-draft-game-planning-charting It's an article looking at how all 32 teams handle analytics. "The Bills hired Xerox exec Michael Lyons to be its director of analytics four years ago, but his role has been pretty limited since his arrival. That is about to change. Lyons and analyst Peter Linton have simply provided the information up until now, but with new GM Brandon Beane and coach Sean McDermott in place, their influence is expected to grow and additional hires are planned for before the season begins." I know this is almost three weeks old, but I searched for it and didn't find anything. You can see because I searched old analytics threads, got interested and necro-bumped an old thread on the subject. Sorry. ;-) It's something I have been hoping for since forever, really.