BullBuchanan

Our situational defense has been drastically inferior to theirs. We definitely won't reverse that this year, but maybe we can close the gap?

Olave isn't happening. He's not for sale. If he was, how would you feel if they traded for him and 2 weeks later he was concussed again and out for the year? Would you give Beane credit for the try? There's no legitimate talent available. You're looking at Shaheed (another injury prone player) who has never reached his potential, Meyers, or some other lesser talent. At absolute BEST, those guys take some snaps away from Coleman/Palmer, but they don't completely replace them in either 2 or 3 WR sets. There's no player available who is a clear step above what we have that we can afford. Don't get your hopes up for next year either. If you're looking for an Olave-level player, that's at least 2 years out, if not more. IF we make a trade, I expect it to be for a Safety, #2RB, or maybe some other spot on defense. Beane has been telling us all along that he likes who we have in our WR room and I believe him.

Thank you Rapp! Sincerely, Me and all of your teammates who you would inevitably injure.

Is that a thing that's done by anyone consistently? Does it correlate to winning games? Whenever I've looked at pass distribution charts, deep throws to boundary WRs haven't been high-frequency areas. It's mostly where you take shots when you get 1-1 matchups, where you have broken plays, or if you have an unbelievable talent outside you may go for a couple shots there. These are all 5+ year old examples but everyone of them states you make your hay within 10 yards of the LOS and int he middle of the field. Once you get more than 10 yards down the field on the outside, success plummets. Is this a particular weakness of the Bills or is it a feature of the game? I can't even find any data to tell us how we're performing on the boundary compared to the rest of the league. https://operations.nfl.com/gameday/analytics/stats-articles/where-s-the-best-spot-on-the-field-to-complete-passes-and-not-get-picked-off/ https://medium.com/the-sports-scientist/evaluating-quarterback-efficiency-using-heatmap-plots-9e9a5b6342cd https://opensourcefootball.com/posts/2020-08-22-nfl-pass-location-visualization/

I think the defense played their first great game last week against the panthers. They had some great situational plays against the Ravens, but they've been annihilated by injuries. Based on what I saw from Hoecht and Hairston, I can see a scenario where there's a big turnaround there in a short amount of time. I also don't discount the Patriots and Falcons like you do. The Pats have been on fire. They're 6-1 for a reason. They're well coached with a lot of young talent. They days of us walking all over them are absolutely over. The falcons have been playing tough all year. They played the Bucs to within 3, obliterated the Vikings, beat the Commanders. They have their own issues, so they aren't what you'd conventionally call "good", but they aren't a toothless team.

I think you're also missing the point about what it means to be a "secretly elite" offense. You're hammering the team for not having an obviously visible elite passing offense. Things that the metrics you're pointing *might* be relevant to (though I'm not so sure about the correlation to WR separation and winning football games). | What I'm trying to tell you, and I'm guessing you didn't watch the video based on your responses, is that the Bills aren't even trying to do what you're suggesting they're failing at. They are "secretly elite", because in spite of looking to some people like they're failing, they're not just succeeding, but at the top of the league. That makes it secret, because there's a chance everyone is actually fooled about how they're winning football games. The running game has been traditionally elite, no doubt. Most people can see that. What folks aren't seeing however is just how successful the passing game has been so far. Is it perfect? No absolutely not. They've had a couple stumbles, but it's very early in the season. We've been heavily injured, and Josh hasn't been playing his best ball at times. We're still in very good shape, considering all of that, and there are a lot of reasons to think we're on the right track here if you take the data into account as well as the content int he video.

I guess the point is that some people on the internet think the Bills have "passing woes". I don't. The data doesn't. Internet people do. "Eye tests" are about the least reliable way to measure anything. 100 people have 200 eyes and all of them lie.

Didn't say it was a formula, just that you can win that way. The 2012 Ravens aren't really a repeatable formula. They were just a well rounded decent team that rode an out of this world playoff run by Flacco to a SB. The comps there are probably the 9-7/10-6 Giants teams that beat Brady. I just think the folks complaining about WR aren't being realistic. It's pretty clear to me that those folks aren't looking for a depth-type piece like Jacobi Meyers or Rasheed Shaheed. They make it sound like our WR room is in shambles, but one of those guys comes in and all of a sudden we're a SB contender? I don't buy it. It's more like they want a top 10 type player like Chase, Nacua, jefferson, St. Brown, etc. That obviously isn't happening. IF we get even one WR they'll be somewhere between 25-50. That's a role player/depth guy. We've got a roster full of those guys already, so I don't think Beane's going to go out of his way to add another one. One thing that MIGHT be possible is they look to upgrade the TE room since they seem like they really want to use them a lot. Maybe they finally go out and try to get Hockenson. I also wouldn't be shocked to see them try to upgrade RB2, since their entire philosophy is basically on Cook's shoulders right now and the dropoff is massive. Maybe Jordan Mason, Nick Chubb, or even Devin Singletary could be options there.

You ignored my question. I can't tell if you're missing my point or ignoring it. If the Bills have a high YPA but a lower than typical yardage total, it simply means they haven't had as many attempts as other teams. You want a higher total? Throw the ball more. The bills haven't needed to throw the ball more than they have, so the total is lower. That's a good thing. Our running game has been bearing the load, but our passing game is as efficient as the best passing offenses in the league, they just don't pass as much. If they happen to have a need to pass more, expect the yardage total to increase.

We're actually 28th in attempts per game. And that's going to be significantly skewed buy our blowout of the Panthers where there was no reason to pass. If we threw our per game average in that game (29) instead of just 19 passes, we would rise up to 23rd. We've been so successful on the ground, is it really a question why there are less opportunities to pass?

If you want to have an historically good defense, like a top 10 all-time level, then yea, you can occasionally win a Super Bowl like that too. Those are typically pretty hard to come by though.

Not elite, but very good? Yes. Absolutely. They were 8th in total touchdowns that year too.

Umm, so a team that's 5th on YPA, but ranks lower on Total Yardage is missing what to get their total yardage higher?

They have one less attempt than the Detroit Lions. If you'd like to argue their passing game is ***** too, that would be fun to watch.

Again, there's that line. Who says we need to be a "threat through the air" to be successful and win a championship? We've had elite passing offenses here in the past and where has that gotten us? The data shows we've been highly effective through the air AND on the ground. We have a balanced, 2-dimensional approach, which most coaches say is exactly what they want. Some folks here are hung up on us needing to be some high flying offense, but history is littered with dozens of those that fell terribly short of greatness int he postseason. Why keep doing that when history tells you that's not the way to win it all?

There's no such thing as "high leverage moments" in September and October.

I don't think it's a surprise. I mentioned that rather explicitly. A couple of you guys are getting distracted about this whole "you HAVE to be able to throw the ball" point. Well, If you read my post, I've got great news for you. Not only CAN we pass the ball, but it would appear we're one of the best teams int he league at it right now. Sleep easy. Are you intentionally ignoring the data that says this isn't true?

In his video, he specifically identifies Seattle for being successful in the same situations, especially so when opposing defenses try to match personnel. If you can pass really well out of a heavy formation, it gives you a ton of opportunities at deception and exploiting matchups, while keeping things simpler for your own personnel. It honestly seems like a brilliant thing to do to me, assuming you have the horses for it. When we look at how much they've loaded up on TE in the past few years, it starts to make you wonder.

Shockingly, no. they're right in line with everyone else except KC

If you haven't watched Michael MacKelvie's stuff before, he just might be the most interesting sports content creator out there right now. After watching this video, I checked the Bills rushing and passing per attempt, and while rushing at #2 (5.2 YPA) wasn't a total surprise, I was definitely shocked to see us at tied with Detroit #5 (8.0 YPA) in passing. Interesting there's only three teams inside the top 10 in both (Bills, Colts, Ravens), and only the Bills and Colts are in the top 5 in both. Every team except the Ravens in the top 10 passing YPA is in a playoff spot right now. On the top 10 rushing YPA, it's 40-60 (Bills, Colts, Broncos, Chargers) with the Panthers and Jags each on the edge. McDermott has been telling us for years that he wants to run the football, and Beane has been telling us for a couple years that he doesn't think we have a receiving issue. Is it possible they're actually on to something here?

And so what? Why do you think we need that guy when Beane and McDermott don't? Are weeing a lot of evidence that the Bills are trying to run those kinds of plays and aren't succeeding?

This was exactly Beane's point when he went on WGR. He's been saying it's not a problem all along because it's basically intentional. I don't necessarily love that, but I get it. He has a plan. People keep arguing more personnel that doesn't align with that plan. It's like they weren't even listening. This team doesn't want Randy Moss, they want Deion Branch.

100%. Not a fan of Brady's play design at all. Dorsey had a similar problem.

It's such a gross exaggeration, bordering on making your whole statement false. We have plenty of talent in our WR room. It's not a league leading group by any means, but the harder you guys dig your heels in making it sound like we have David Nelson and Donald Jones back there the more ridiculous the whole argument gets. You mention AJ Brown - have you watched him this year? Do me a favor, go look at his stats for this year and then when you're done go look at Skakir's stats. Let me know what you find.