YattaOkasan

It is rapps spot out the gate as he’s the vet. But his 100+ coverage grade needs to be improved upon. Given the investment bishop really needs to make the decision easy this year on safety #1. The Forrest signing and Hancock draft get me excited cause they have the athleticism to compliment bishop better than rapp. So it’s rapp to start in the spring but let’s see how TC plays with two better athletes getting time on task.

He did have a tougher rating in 2023 pre injury. So not spotless. Gave up two TDs and averaged 50 yards per completion !!(8 completions and 47% so limited stats). Rookie season didn’t have any coverage and then new regime didn’t him like warranted or not. I would say it’s an open question if he can return to 2022 based on injury and 2023 regression in limited snaps.

Forrest has done it (though a bit ago) in the NFL is why. In 2022 (second season) he started 11 games and had a coverage rating of 75.4. Not sure what his run defense was like but that rating would be so much better than any of our safeties last year. He got injured and then new coaching regime. I think it’s more likely he puts it together than a 5th round rookie (though I’m also high on him and prefer him to rapp or Hamlin). Not too much about Hancock from rookie camp. I think preseason will be super interesting to evaluate him.

Forrest is my preference at S over Hancock but I understand. Need better coverage out of that position and better athletes would be the easiest way to achieve that.

I have big concerns about hardy at NCB with what we ask TJ to do. I don’t see hardy holding up in the run game at all.

One thing I am interested in is how much (as a %) man coverage the Chargers faced versus how much zone coverage. I suspect Ladd and Keenan allen types did/do better against zone. For the longest time the Chargers run game was pretty meh even with Ekler so I assume they faced a lot of zone. On the flip we have gotten a lot of man coverage lately because the run game is a problem if you play zone. This may explain why we could see an increase in productivity (though output will likely not improve because of opportunity).

I think those are all really great points but the ranking seems more like cause its the shiny new object and the context of the signing after the beane radio dust up thats. Its VERY clear the Bills have palmer ranked higher (like nothing they have done supports them thinking Moore is a better player). They could be wrong but Im surprised how many people are just assuming Beane didnt prioritize WR correctly (Moore should have been a Wave 1 WR if he is truely WR3 and ahead of Palmer). All that said I am very excited for how he rounds out the room. I just expect less statistical output from him mostly cause of opportunity with other players being ahead of him based on investment.

Last year was Knox's best drop % and Kincaid was worse. But I agree with you Kincaid has better hands as demonstrated by overall career numbers.

Im still confused why people think Moore is a better receiving option than Palmer. The Bills have pretty clearly shown they think Palmer is much more of a priority. Maybe it turns out that Moore > Palmer but going into the season the Bills clearly prefer Palmer.

Also gave up a big play in the Pats game the week before. It didnt mean much but hes gotten burned. I def think we started below average S's last year and it was a big cause of the 3rd and long issues.

Thanks for that explanation. I do agree hes a great separator and I am pretty excited for him. But I think they showed us how much of a priority he will be for the passing game (at least initially) with the way they pursued him slowly and the contract he was offered. If we did this ranking in terms of ceiling then I think he maybe the highest (though shakir still has a bit before he hits his ceiling as well as Coleman and Kincaid).

would be super tough to do in a cap compliant way. Epenesa would have to go for Cap reasons anyway. Dawkins would have to be restructured and McGovern extended at a minimum.

@BarleyNY I like the premise but need a bit more background. Is it target share; overall ability; what we think target share should be? Ill go with predicting target share using last years data as guide Shakir Kincaid Palmer Coleman Samuel Moore Knox I think Knox is pretty clearly the bottom and as you said Shakir pretty clearly the top. Kincaid was comfortably number 2 last year so have him retaining that. At 3 is where its super cloudy to me. Coleman was number 3 but I think Palmer takes all of Hollins targets and most of Coopers to be number 3 this year. People (@Kirby Jackson and @Nephilim17) who have Moore at number 3 are interesting to me. If Moore was so high up the list then why was he deprioritized this offseason? Also why is palmer, who they rushed to get a bigger contract, gonna get less targets (palmer seems a much higher priority)? So I have Samuel and Moore being very similar.

I think coddringtons size is the issue at CB. He isn’t big enough to play inside as we use our nickel CB and I don’t think anyone sees him as an option outside.

Codrington was only punt return by the end of the year and not even in the playoffs. He filled a need last year but he doesn’t do anything else on teams. I think he’s gone.

Both had coverage grades over 100. I put a lot of our 3rd and long problems on them.

The 3 down lineman wasnt something i realized when i looked pre draft, but after i heard post draft became a bit more excited. Likely means he had to play run to pass as well as being inside of the tackle as a 4i. Notably Deone Walker also found himself in some 3 down lineman sets (though he benefited some when he was outside more).

I aint worried about injuries much. Whole thread is trying to figure out what to do with all the players we have at this position. Honestly besides QB we dont have much drop off from starter to backup. CB or TE would probably be the biggest drop?

I think the big difference with those other players is they have a much higher ADOT. They are being targeted down the field whereas Moore's uncatchable balls are closer to the LoS. I didnt have catchable balls in the PFR database so I cant tell what typical catchable % to catch % looks like but Moore's ADOT was lower than most of the others with a similar catch %. Also of note he only had a 4.9% drop rate so the difference of 11.6% between catchable and catch % is not just on him as PBUs and INT would be included in the catchable % but might not be catchable per se (I dont know exactly how they handle that with the metric, but assume only grosses misses are considered uncatchable).

From just a quick look Deion Branch seems like a great example. Y/target of 7.9 yards per with NWE and 6.9 with SEA. Note that he played with NWE before and after SEA. This includes his rookie and final year numbers. 2010 is very interesting as he had less than 7.0 YPT and after joining Pats he had 9.5 YPT.

lol we’re both right. Forgot the picks were so close. He went one before our 173 and two after our 170. What is wrong at Lb? TB Milano and Dorian as back up. Hoecht if you want a SAM. I agree S room underwhelming but they did pick hancock as a DB that will try S. Walker is the 1T they want. You seem to just not like the picks

Paul went the pick before us. Second statement wrong. They announced hancock as a DB and said the spring he will play nickel and S. I am also concerned the starting safety group is rapp and bishop but hancock actually seems like a better investment than I thought they would make.

I brag about Spencer brown all the time. More than anyone but Josh. Dawkins quite a bit too. Those guys are so much fun. yes Josh has been bailing out the offense but the defense can’t directly be bailed out by Josh. Hence the investment.

But its not really true to say its the LB's. Terrel Bernard had a sub 80 rating when targetd and Milano was 85.4 (obviously limited role). Dorian had a below average coverage grade. So we can blame him and take the improvement that comes with Milano. I think I can blame one room though for 3rd and long troubles as the functional role of the safety is downfield coverage (where the offense has to have success for 3rd and longs). Whereas CBs will have press and short area responsibilities. So I do think its fair to lay a lot of the 3rd and long woes on safety. But I understand the whole group logic as 4 of the most targeted players (2 Safeties, 1 LB, 1 CB) had +100 ratings when targeted. I like Tre but am not expecting much from this move. But calling the CB room the problem for pass defense is not supported by any data (not sure if youre making this point, or what point your making at all other than neg'ing). Im ok assuming Milano is an improvement over Williams (has been demonstrated as recently as last year). Tre at the end of the year (sub 60 rating w/ BAL) was playing better than Douglas though the fear there is that it was in limited reps. Considering we all expect a high draft investment, I feel ok with the plan there. Safety is where my concerns remains. Taylor Rapp was never a plus athlete and his processing isnt as good as hyde/poyer so he gives up plays. Hopefully Bishop can put it together and that will lock up one of the safety spots. But opposite him I sort would prefer Forrest. Considering I'm not expecting a high draft investment (my feelings will change if we get somebody), the safety room is the blinking light for this season. They didnt play well last year and our only hope for improvement is growth from a rookie and a vet gets better at processing....

Thanks for confirming. I agree our pass defense was awful. I disagree that Benford was a problem or is not worth the contract. I think the safety room is why we took a step back on pass defense on 3rd and long. Losing the best safety combo in franchise history will do that to you. So while I would like better CBs I hardly think they are the problem relative to safety and pass rush. So no I dont understand your concern around CB relative to the other groups. If you think Safety was such a good position, you should look at their coverage grades. If you think we should just have better players everywhere, thats not necessarily realistic as we need to prioritize somewhere and CB was not considered the priority this offseason because the safeties objectively played worse in coverage than 2/3 of the CB group.