transplantbillsfan
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Posts posted by transplantbillsfan
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5 hours ago, HappyDays said:
Joe Marino broke down another set of WRs:
Notably he really likes Legette and sees him as worthy of our pick at #28.
He doesn't only like Legette... he seems to love him. He actually ranks Legette as his WR #4 ahead of Brian Thomas Jr. and Adonai Mitchell.
He didn't seem to have a negative thing to say about his game. The question mark was just the 1 year of production.
For value I almost hope we trade back from #28 to draft him, but who knows what actual NFL teams value him as? Maybe just draft him at 28 if he's there.
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1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:
No, Transplant.
You're talking about what offense the Bills coaches choose to run. I'm talking about how well Allen executes the offense he's given to run. Those are two different things.
The Bills do not give Allen plays with complex route trees and tell him to ignore half the routes. They do not do that. They give him plays just like the plays that every other team, including the Ravens, give to their QBs, and they expect him to execute those plays just like every other quarterback. Yes, the Bills may have some plays they give to Allen that most other teams don't give to their QB, but whatever they give him, they expect him to execute the entire play. The Bills offense is not sandlot football.
So it seems at least on 47% of the passing plays as I mentioned in those previous advanced stats that Allen gets the ball out quickly and efficiently to his 1st read since he has the highest completion percentage in the NFL.
That leaves 53% of remaining plays and 23% of ground for him to meet your 75% benchmark.
Seems we can establish he's extremely effective getting the ball out to his 1st read. You don't really think he NEVER gets the ball effectively to his 2nd, 3rd, or 4th reads, do you?
Considering he's EXTREMELY effective getting the ball to read #1, dropping the % down to him getting the ball to his 2nd read to something like 10% would be a ridiculously large drop and then to something like 5% for 3rd and 4th reads would be a lot, too.
But even with that Allen would be over 70% of those in-structure plays you were talking about in terms of distributing the ball to his playmakers.
Obviously his completion % wasn't over 70%, but I'd assume you wouldn't put drops on Allen, right? Or routes that were miscommunications on WRs?
And what about when those plays are blown up by defenders that get through the line immediately. Those are the plays you said Brady would take sacks on. Josh gets plus plays instead.
Shaw, you're right, Allen needs to be better. That's fine. I have no problem with anyone saying that Allen can be better. The issue is that you put Burrow in a different tier from him saying he's a better QB and I just think that's patently false.
Also, I'm quite sure there are passing plays where coaches coach Allen to scramble, and I don't consider that Sandlot Football. Michael Vick has talked about how his coaches used to coach him up for the times he should run the ball. It would be complete negligence for Harbaugh and McDermott not to do the same with Lamar and Allen.
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7 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
It seems you've missed the point entirely. I am not talking about how often Josh carries the ball. I'm talking about how effectively Josh executes the offense he's given to operate.
The question isn't how many times Josh ran the ball. The question is how effectively he executed the offense as designed. If he had an option to pass or run, did he choose the right option? Did he execute the fake properly? If it was a designed run, did he make the right cut. In the passing game, which is what most of us have been talking about, did he make the right read? Did throw to the guy he was supposed to? Was he too late coming to a receiver? It has nothing whatsoever with how many times he carried the ball.
How a QB executes the offense is the QB's most important job. He's the coach on the field. He's the leader. He's the decision maker.
Josh's physical skills are important, of course, but if physical skills determined who's the best QB, Michael Vick would have been the MFP five years in a row and won four Super Bowls. There never has been a QB with his physical skills. And Cam Newton was not too far behind.
Brock Purdy was in the MVP discussion in 2023, and his physical skills make him look like a high school kid when he's compared to Josh. He was in the MVP discussion because he ran their offense with tremendous precision and effectiveness.
The simplest measure, at least one of them, is passer rating. He's 34 on the all-time passer rating list, behind 13 QBs who are still active, and behind retired guys like Brees, Brady, Romo, Manning. When a guy has a high passer rating, he's completing a high percentage of passes and his TD to INT ratio is low, like 3-1. Josh has been 3-1 once, in 2020. Mahomes, Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady all are better than 3-1 for their careers. That's a tell-tale sign that Josh hasn't made decisions, hasn't executed the offense, as well as he's supposed to. When he's throwing for 29 TDs and I8 INTs, as he did in 2023, he ain't there yet. And don't tell me about his running. To get up to 3-1 in 2023, Josh would have needed 25 rushing touchdowns - which would put him in the top five all-time. That ain't happening.
Josh needs his extraordinary physical abilities just to overcome his deficiencies in the execution of the offense. He's not bad at executing the offense, just not great. He's not a bad quarterback, but this isn't a discussion about bad quarterbacks. It's a discussion about great quarterbacks. I've been saying for years that when Josh masters the mental part of the game, and he's making good progress, we will see perhaps the greatest QB of all time.
Shaw... I understand you think I missed your point. I think you missed mine and we're just talking around each other.
You think the offense is predicated strictly on the ball being spread around to the 4 or 5 offensive weapons on the field on pass plays.
I think any OC that has a weapon like Josh or Lamar at QB would be a complete idiot to not coach them up in some way on when they should use their legs on passing plays.
You think McDermott and his OC by extension just grit their teeth and allow Allen to use his natural instincts to run on passing plays at the times he needs to.
I think McDermott is smart enough (in fact, "buttoned up" might be the right term here) to understand it would be incredibly foolish to not try to coach Josh up on the times he should take off, since it's part of his natural ability, anyway.
We disagree. That's plain to see. I really think you're being too old school in your mentality of pigeonholing the QB position--especially the modern QB--to just passing is a bit naive.
6 hours ago, Beck Water said:Can you explain what "designed runs and scrambles" means to you? Scrambles, to my understanding, are by definition when the structure of the play breaks down and the QB chooses to run.
ummm... yes.... how else would anyone else define these things?
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8 hours ago, oldmanfan said:
Calling specific runs is different than going through progressions on a called pass play.
Read the post right before that one in my conversation with Shaw
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2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
Cool data. Thanks.
I think you're wrong. I don't believe 31 coaches in the league tell their QB look at youth 3rd and fourth option and Brady tells Josh to tuck it and run. Don't believe it for a.minute. McDermott is much too buttoned down for that.
Josh has assignments like everyone else, and he's still learning to execute them properly. He gets graded on his execution.
The Bills offense is not predicated in Josh being Josh. I'm sure of it.
Then how do you explain that the guy McDermott fired at OC had Josh running via designed runs and scrambles 4.2 times per game while the guy he hired as Interim OC and then retained permanently in that position had Josh running 9.7 times a game?
Brady doesn't sound like he had the offense very "buttoned up," at least based on your definition.
Also, I don't think 31 other coaches say that, either. Lamar falls into a similar bucket as Allen. Maybe Hurts, to a lesser extent.
I'm a little mystified that you think every QB needs to be judged and evaluated as QBs by the same set of standards.
A good coach knows the talent he has at specific positions and uses it. However buttoned up McDermott might be, he understands the stallion he has at QB and chose the OC that had him running almost 10 times a game.
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10 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
This is completely off the subject. This thread started out about Josh and whether he's being fairly or unfairly criticized. It evolved, a bit, into whether Josh does his job as well as he should. You're talking about who should bear the responsibility when the team underperforms. That is a completely different subject.
Your bolded language makes the point. Who ever has had a job where their job performance is measured relative to how some other employee did their job? No one, that's who. "Well, General Custer, it is unfortunate about that battle, but you outperformed your soldiers that day, so you get an A for the Little Bighorn."
Josh, like every quarterback, must be evaluated on objective performance criteria. Fans to a great extent, and coaches to some extent, do it based on common data, like completion percentage, yards per completion, etc. But I think that teams and coaches also use far more sophisticated criteria, objective and subjective. Each play is evaluated by what Josh was supposed to do, and what he actually did. In a perfect world, your QB does what he is supposed to do 100% of the time. That's executing the offense.
What fans tend to do with Josh is overemphasize what he accomplishes off script, and particularly overemphasize the WOW! off-script plays. Nobody claims that Josh is better than Tom Brady, but Josh's off-script percentage is almost certainly better than Brady's. Brady gave up on plays all the time - when it went off script, particularly if he had pressure on him, he went down.
Josh's off-script plays are good and important, but more important is to get a very high percentage on the on-script plays. One measure of success on on-script plays is whether you got positive yardage. I've said often that choosing the 30-yard throw with a 50% completion probability is not as good a decision as the 8-yard throw with an 85% completion probability. Stringing together positive plays is vey important in a league where the defenses are designed to deny big plays. And, in 2023, particularly early in the season, we saw Josh doing just that - he had a very high completion percentage in the first five or six games of the season, taking the easy, short throw over and over. The yards piled up, and the Bills rolled over opponents.
None of that has anything to do with how well the linebackers played, or even how well the offensive line played. Even when the line sucks, Josh's performance is graded on what he's supposed to do under the circumstances. When someone misses a block and Josh throws the ball away to avoid a sack, the coaches don't just ignore that play for evaluation purposes. He's evaluated on whether he should have seen something presnap, he's evaluated on whether he looked soon enough to the side where the rush was coming from, he's evaluated on whether he had a hot read that he should have gone to instead of just throwing it away.
I believe that in that kind of evaluation scheme, detailed, critical evaluation of every aspect of the QB's decision making and physical performance, Josh's grades are good but not yet great. I also believe that he's made steady progress toward great. I think he's improved virtually every season. 2023 was his best so far, and he isn't done yet.
Shaw, all of this neglects to consider the fact that his off-script plays might be part of the script in the first place if you can acknowledge that going beyond read #1 is still part of the script.
Does anyone really think that his coaches are stressing the point to him that he needs to always get to his 3rd or 4th read? His coaches have obviously understood his athleticism throughout his whole career and have incorporated running as part of the progressions, so to speak.
You really think there's never been a point where his OC has said "OK Josh, if it's man coverage and your 1st read is covered and it's a 2 high shell, RUN!!!!"?
I think 2023 was evidence itself that Josh scrambling has been part of the coaching. Look at his rushes for the first half of 2023 with Dorsey vs the 2nd half with Brady. Heck, just look at the "low positive" attitude Dorsey was clearly coaching into him. Just note the fact that during the time Dorsey was coaching in 2023, Allen ran less than 5 times per game. When Brady took over, that number doubled and he ran almost 10 times a game.
As for all the "in-structure" stuff, Josh is actually pretty good and getting better. When Josh does pass the ball in under 3 seconds he has the 2nd fastest release of any QB in the NFL. When he does get the ball out in under 2 1/2 seconds (which is 47 percent of his passes), he completes 78% of his passes. That's #1 in the NFL.
And Josh had the lowest turnover worthy play percentage of his entire career at 3%. He was just really unlucky.
(EDIT: All the stats above are courtesy of Joe Marino in his QB roster evaluation he did a month or so ago. He's said in the past he pays for subscriptions to various sites like PFF for thier Advanced metrics, so that's probably what they're from)
Saying Josh can improve is fine because every NFL player can improve, Including Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes. Positing that Josh has more ground to make up as a QB than especially Burrow is, I think, silly.
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3 hours ago, FireChans said:
I’m sorry but I disagree. Lamar as a 2 time MVP getter is pretty much a lock for HoF.
I think Allen and Lamar will both be in there.
I agree with you regarding Lamar, but I think it's stupid that he's probably more of a lock for the HOF than Josh right now.
Josh has almost 60 more TDs over the span of his career (both drafted in 2018), lots more wins, lots more total yards, lots more 4th Quarter Comebacks, lots more Game Winning Drives, lots more playoff wins, etc.
Yet....
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6 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
Thanks for this. I don't disagree much - you raise some really good points.
I don't think Josh being the ultimate tractor carrying his team, which he is, makes Josh a good QB. Michael Vick carried his team, too. What I said about Josh, and have said for a long time, is that his number one job is to execute the offense at a very high level, and although he improved a lot at it last season, he still isn't elite.
I've said something like this before. Maybe you've got 40 offensive plays in the game, and the QB's job on 30-32 of them is to execute the play as designed, on schedule, making the right decisions and quality throws on 100% of them. Mahomes does that. Burrow does that. Brady did that. On the other 8 or 10 plays, the QB has to bail his team out, go off script and make something happen. Allen may be the best in the league at that, and only Mahomes compares with him. And in that category that Burrow falls down. He's more like Brock Purdy or Tua on steroids - he's superb at all the throws that he can make on script, but if the on-script play isn't there, things tend to fall apart with him.
Josh needs to be better on those on-script plays.
Here's the problem with on-script plays for a QB in the NFL:
The other 10 players on offense need to do their job and be on the same page as Allen.
So was it Allen or Gabe more to blame for multiple incompletenes along with a few interceptions on option routes that happened during the season? Was it Allen or Dawkins more to blame for the incomplete pass to Shakir at the end of the drive in the KC game?
Multiple examples of this.
Also, I disagree on your assessment of Mahomes. Mahomes is just as scattershot as Allen is, if not moreso, at executing plays as designed and on schedule.
I think your assessment of Allen lacks the nuanced focus of what's actually happening on the OL.
Which statement here do you think is more true:
Josh Allen has let down his OL throughout his career by getting unnecessarily sacked and pressured when he could have gotten the ball to the WR as determined by the playcall.
OR
Josh Allen has made his OLs look better throughout his career by avoiding pressure, sacks, and making incredible plays only he and maybe a couple other guys can make.
??????????????
Based on your argument, I would assume you believe statement 1 is the more true statement.
I'm not a film buff, but I listen to and read a lot of them. Based on your criteria of 75% (30-32 out of 40), I think Josh is actually already pretty Elite even in the category you don't think he is.
Frankly, I also don't think that when your QB rips off an unscripted 50+ yard TD run in a playoff game that it's an indication of anything other than greatness.
3 hours ago, Shaw66 said:Butting in here, but I think you're both right. It is certainly true that Allen's performances in the playoffs have never been the principal reason for losses. There are plenty of fingers to point in a lot of directions, and Allen may not even have been the #1 suspect.
And while I'm not convinced Allen should have thrown for the first down instead targeting Shakir, I am absolutely sure that his mastery of the mental game is what Allen needs. That's what will define his true greatness. And just because he hasn't necessarily crapped the bed in the playoffs, having a more effective QB managing the game will make the regular season easier, make it possible to coast into division championships instead of scrambling to get there, make him tougher to game plan for, etc. etc. etc.
I have no doubt Allen needs to get better.
How about his supporting cast and coaching?
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8 hours ago, Shaw66 said:
What's he done?
Well, he's beaten Josh Allen in the playoffs.
His career passer rating is 6 percentage points higher. 6! He has better completion percentage, yards per attempt, and fewer interceptions.
Other than that, he hasn't done anything.
Shaw I think your explanation in the previous post is fine except for bringing Burrow into the conversation and putting him above Josh.
I think Burrow is the most overrated QB in the NFL. That's not because I don't think he's really good. It's because he's less of a Tractor and more of a Trailer than Mahomes, Josh and Lamar. Burrow has been widely talked about by many (not all, but a significant and loud enough portion of the national sports media) as the 2nd best QB in the NFL when I think he’s more clearly the 4th or 5th. Aside from his injury history and the whole "the best ability is availability" thing, Burrow had arguably the best WR corps I. The NFL the last few years along with a top 10 RB group.
I used to question Mahomes's greatness because he had 2 HOF players as his #1 weapons in Hill and Kelce. I can't question that anymore. I frankly look at Burrow and wonder why the label of greatness was given to him so quickly by so many. I can answer my own question and get to the Super Bowl appearance, but let's be honest, there's a lot of luck involved in winning in the playoffs and getting to the Super Bowl.
Fact is that Burrow and Mahomes both began their careers with at least a couple E.lite weapons in the passing game and were able to grow into being great QBs with that crutch (along with an Offensive HC of course) and are only now backsliding a little into losing those weapons and needing to be the full Tractor. Mahomes is that Dude. I'm honestly skeptical of Burrow being there considering since his National Championship year in College he's always had more than 1 Elite weapon.
And by the way, Burrow has had 2 great seasons total in the NFL. That's it. And he only reached 40 TDs in one of those seasons. And it's not like you can say he was incredible protecting the Football because he had at least 15 turnovers in both of those seasons.
Contrast those 2 with Josh Allen, who has been given the opposite trajectory. A horrible roster and no weapons in year 1. A couple pretty good weapons finally in year 2. It wasn't til year 3 he finally got an Elite weapon in Diggs, but he's never had 2 the way Burrow and Mahomes have for multiple years at the beginning of their careers. Hopefully next year is the year he finally has 2+ of them through some combination of Diggs, Kincaid, Cook, rookie WR, etc. But that would be his 7th year before he finally got what Mahomes and Burrow started their careers with.
Josh Allen is better than Burrow. He's been the ultimate Tractor carrying this team since his rookie year. If the real criticism of Allen with relattin to this Burrow vs Allen argument is #QBwinz then maybe what McDermott really needs to consider is going old school and start using Allen on D as an LB as well as our QB.
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A poor man's Roethlisberger???
Look... maybe Josh never gets the 2 Super Bowls Big Ben got (I think he will, though), but Josh is already better than Big Ben or Phillip Rivers ever were.
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On 3/25/2024 at 1:38 PM, H2o said:
If I trade our 1st next year it would have to be for MHJ, Nabers, or Odunze.None of them will make it to 17 or 18.
Yes... this is the only way we trade our 1st.
I actually think it would be worth it for any of those 3 guys as long as we aren't giving away too much more than next year's 1st.
In 2011 Atlanta traded up from 27 to 6 and gave up that year's 1st, 2nd, and 4th and the following year's 1st and 4th.
For me if Odunze falls to the 10ish range and we can make a similar trade that the Falcons did, but keep our 2nd this year, I would say do it.
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Ya know what I think this deal very well might mean...
Tre White back in Buffalo in 2025.
I don't absolutely think it happens, but if Tre plays well or decent in LA, his contract is up. Who else has a contract up at the end of the year that Buffalo strangely hasn't extended yet????
Rasul Douglas.
Add in what revealing comments McDermott and Beane made the other day and the combo of this one year deal with another team and the clear desire on McBeane's part to eventually see Tre again... just don't be surprised
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On 3/21/2024 at 5:36 PM, Thurman#1 said:
I would dearly dearly love to be wrong about this. I so hope that I am. In early years, he would have come out at some point and said something like, "well, I clearly had some problems with the long ball, particularly on go routes this year. I need to do some work this offseason in correcting my fundamentals and in figuring out how to do this in a way that Stefon, the guys and I can have a better shot at completing a few more of these. I'm working on it with ***." Hopefully we hear something like this at some point this offseason.
Wait... so now Josh needs to tell us what's wrong with his game and tell us what he's correcting because otherwise he's not correcting it???
Everyone in the national media has consensus on one thing with Josh Allen:
Competitiveness.
If you honestly think Josh isn't spending the offseason working on his game, you're an idiot.
He's just older now and understands the entire public isn't entitled to knowledge of every detail of his offseason or personal life... note how he's handled the new girlfriend.
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Isn't this the same thread?????
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7 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:
The problem with not watching games, only highlights, is that a guy like Keon Coleman shines in highlights. You don’t see his lack of separation. He’s not in my top 10 (and maybe not top 15) targets for the Bills for that reason.
Listening to Beane talk about receivers, it sounded like Ladd McConkey to me.
I mention this somewhere else, but I listen to a lot of the podcasts with the film and scout guys. Daniel Jeremiah, Mel Kiper, Nate Tice, Dane Brugler... etc.
They stress that when scouting a prospect you really value the highs.
Coleman's highs look pretty darn good. And I really think it's what he does on punt returns more than anything that convinces me to that the skepticism of his athleticism and potential is overblown.
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On 3/23/2024 at 7:27 AM, HappyDays said:
A lot of the talk around Coleman reminds me of the talk around Josh Allen before his draft. It isn't people watching him play and then criticizing him, it's people throwing around opaque stats without context and counting that as scouting (not saying you are doing this). Stats have their place in the discussion but when people say stuff like "he has one of the lowest contested catch rate in the class" that tells me there is something inherently wrong with that stat, not with Coleman. Everybody who watches his tape agrees he is a contested catch monster. As far as separation from his defender that is never going to be his top tier skill, but boxing out defenders and separating at the catch point is arguably just as valuable, and there is more upside to his route running than many people give him credit for IMO.
So I posted this waaaayyyy back in the thread, but with all the talk about Coleman here it seems relevant
On 2/29/2024 at 6:24 PM, transplantbillsfan said:So I don't watch College Football... like at ALL!!!
That said, I just watched YouTube highlights
of Brian Thomas Jr., Keon Coleman, Troy Franklin and Malachi Corely.
They're highlights and I understand what that means.
That said, in watching those highlights, the players I most want to see in Buffalo because I believe they are the modern NFL are, in this order:
1) Keon Coleman
T-2 Malachi Corley
T-2 Troy Franklin
4) Brian Thomas Jr.
Coleman, to me, is a step above Franklin and Corley just from watching the highlights. In reading scouting reports of him, I thought he'd be a big slug who couldn't separate. Doesn't look that way to me. Dude is elusive and even returned punts in college.
I honestly only watched Corley because of the recent buzz and the fact that in Kiper's latest "First Draft" podcast, he said Corley was the guy he really wanted to put in the 1st round. I see why. Dude's a BEAST!!! My only issue with drafting him is I wonder if it maximizes his skillset playing with Josh ...
Which is actually why Corley and Franklin tied to me. I think Franklin is PERFECT in terms of this offense and what it needs outside of Diggs and Shakir.
I am impressed with Brian Thomas Jr's speed and downfield tracking... but that was like all I saw from him. I also understand that playing with Nabers he always got the opponent's #2 corner. So is he just a one trick pony up against inferior competition or is he really that good with the full route tree in his back pocket... just never needed it????
I think Coleman is pretty impressive. Would be ecstatic getting him in the 2nd, but wouldn't be so surprised seeing him at 28
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-Beane dug into Joe Brady's brain with regard to Curtis Samuel, so you better believe Brady's got some ideas already on how to use him.
-Thought the Tre comment was interesting. Would it even be feasible to bring him back again this offseason?
-Sure sounds like we're going with the guys we have at Safety. Almost politely dismissed the idea of Micah coming back by making it seem kinda far-fetched and emphasized DT, not Safety was priority #1 in FA.
-Sounds like the door might be open for Cook to get a 2nd contract in Buffalo based on the way Beane talked about the evolution of RBs like Saquan and CMC in offenses.
-Groot's 5th year option will be picked up if he's not extended first.
-We have $6-$7 million in available CAP space.
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Now we get Austin Johnson.
I think at this point every position on D will be better than 2023 except Safety now with our FA acquisitions, returning injured players and having Rasul for the full season.
D better
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6 minutes ago, FireChans said:
Monken was the OC on back to back national Champion Georgia….
What was Carolina’s offensive DVOA in 2021? You know, the year he got fired?
More “players improving” talk. I think we all know what this means.
“Lamar in year two in Monken’s system is bound to get better, he’s a year older and more experienced, he’s just entering his prime”
Yawn.
More players improving talk. Even brought out the jugs machine. The Bills are apparently the only team that has one. Ravens must have ran out of cash building the Ray Lewis statue.
Yes, Mack Hollins has replaced our WR4 role. We don’t have a WR2. So it’s not better, yet. I concede it very well could be after the draft.
I’m fairly confident Kincaid will be better. I’m not sure Knox will be better. Morris is a nothing player. But it’s still player improving talk.
If Edwards was close to as good as McGovern, he probably would’ve competed for the job. Instead, he took backup money here after starting in LA. He’s clearly not.
Dawkins is another year older and while he had a great year last year, he has been kinda up and downish (still a very quality LT). Spencer Brown had the best year of his career last year, hopefully he duplicates it but I’m not expecting him to suddenly be the best RT in football. Torrence we already addressed.
Again, player improvement talk. Yes, I addressed the additions/losses to the group because that’s usually how you evaluate teams in the NFL. When you lose a starter and shuffle two positions, that’s what you talk about.
AGAIN, every team has rookies or young OL players they expect to be better next year. Every team can say this.
Um, you’re the one arguing that Von needed two years to return to form. Do we even have medicals on Milano? We know there was a fracture but I thought there was something flittering around about ligament/knee damage. I thought same to better was cautiously optimistic, personally.
Seriously. I get that you have this idea in your head that the off-season magically turns players into different players than they’ve been their whole careers, but it’s just not true. Douglas is an above average starter in the NFL. He played really good last year. I expect him to be really good this year. I don’t think he’s coming into the season at 30 years old turning up another level because of…. Babich teaching him cover 3 zone concepts in the Bills training facility for 2 weeks.
I tend to agree about McD making it work with CB’s but part of that was having an All Pro S duo. It’s a lot easier to hide Levi Wallace or EJ Gaines when you have Tre, Poyer and Hyde on the backend as well.
He also hasn’t made Elam work yet, which happens. Sometimes players just suck. Like Elam.
I think Rapp is fine. Damar Hamlin was a football disaster in 2022 so McD didn’t exactly make chicken salad with him in the past. This position group is worse, everyone agrees. So moving on.
Neal was, again, a notable departure. Everyone else is the same. In your world, that means it’s better. In reality, it doesn’t.
Bass was shaky last year. There was not, IIRC, any word on if he was dealing with an injury. Maybe he was. Maybe he just sucks now. Dan Carpenter sucked, then had an excellent run, then sucked. It happens.
Like I emphasized before, you think “off-season = better player.” Tyrod gets another off-season with Greg Roman, he’s sure to improve. Oh wait, no. We all can be wrong sometimes, but you should try to learn from those mistakes.
Whatever bro. Call me a homer. You're an Eeyore. Serious pessimist who must be a blast at parties.
I understand why people like you are the way you are when it comes to the Bills... the only way is up from your perspective.
It's not that I doubt your Fandom. I just think you refuse to have a positive outlook even when the positive outlook is more reasonable than the negative.
So much stupidity in your posts responding to me in this thread that all it clearly ends up being is Ad Hominem.
You just leave out so much in your posts that I brought up that it's hard to take you seriously. It's like you just want to endure to be the last one in the argument no matter how stupid what you say is.
Well, you win. I'm done arguing with you in this thread. I think your ego needs the W more than mine.
Enjoy your offseason. I hope the clouds clear a little and the Sun pokes through.
Come back and say hi and celebrate when we get 12+ wins in 2024
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41 minutes ago, FireChans said:
Sure.
COACHING - questionable. I like Joe Brady, but he was an abject failure before on admittedly really bad Panthers teams. I think with this team he has a chance to fix his earlier mistakes. No opinion on the new hires for position coaches, they come and go in the NFL. As far as new DC, Babich has never called plays, right? That has just as much chance of failure as it does success. We could very easily see the “McD took over playcalling duties” week 4 article.
Joe Brady was the Passing Coordinator of arguably the greatest offense in College Football history. And he wasn't a Figurehead like Bienamy in KC. Joe Burrow has come out in interviews talking about what he did for them.
As for that Carolina team, they were 16th (average) in offensive DVOA in 2020 despite having Teddy Bridgewater at QB, Mike Davis (???) at RB, DJ Moore, Robbie Chosen and Curtis Samuel at WR and Chris Manhertz (???) at TE.
Your Monken comparison is ridiculous. If Brady got that group to be an average NFL offense, I think we can establish he knows a little something.
Also, Babbich will obviously be supervised by McDermott, who hasn't even conceded playcalling duties to him, yet.
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:QB - the same. Josh is still Josh. Trubisky over Kyle Allen is like being covered in ***** but having clean shoes.
Josh is a year older and more experienced. The age he is currently is when it's widely believed that QBs enter their prime.
Plus we hopefully don't see a shoulder injury hamper him most of the season.
Plus a full offseason in Joe Brady's system... see everything previously said about Joe Brady.
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:RB - the same. James Cook and Ty Johnson.
WR - pending draft. I like the Curtis Samuel signing a lot, but if the Bills don’t get a good trait WR in the draft, there’s still a gaping hole in the core. I was a big Davis critic, but he is an NFL boundary WR. We don’t have one on the roster currently.
Regarding RB, did you notice our shifted focus when Brady took over? I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I hope you watched the whole season and noticed that difference.
Plus Ty Johnson is a weapon... moreso than Murray or Harris were. Whole offseason to utilize him.
plus I'm betting/hoping Cook gets on the jugs machine more
Regarding WR, I generally agree, but I also think the NFL is going to more of the "positionless" players.
Plus, to be honest... we all agree Josh Allen’s best year was 2020, right? Josh's top 2 WRs were Stefon Diggs and Cole Beasley. Gabe Davis was 3rd with John Brown just a couple receptions behind him. Mack Hollins had a year in Vegas in 2022 just like Davis's 2020 season.
I still know we will add a WR high in the draft, but that only makes this point stronger. I could see the Bills taking a guy like McConkey because Josh really thrives with WRs who can separate, not the big "contested catch" guys. He had those guys in his rookie year. Remember how that went?
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:TE - SAME TO BETTER. Kincaid, Knox and Quinton Morris. Maybe Brady uses them to be more productive, and Kincaid hopefully continues to improve.
Oh come on... seriously???? The TEs will obviously be better.
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:OL - worse. Downgrade at LG, switched our FA acquisition LG to C where he never really played in the NFL. The Cowboys shuffled their IOL a lot when he was there and he never stuck at center. I’m fairly confident he won’t be as good of a C as Morse. How much that matters is a different question.
I said undecided for this, but I think Edwards at LG is really about the same. Dude was a legit starter in the NFL. McGovern is a question mark, but he has been a Center before. He's also 20 lbs heavier than Morse and as I've mentioned I know Beane wants a bigger, stouter IOL to account for the rapidly improving NFL DTs.
I noticed you only brought up 2/5ths of our OL.
Interesting....
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:DL - same to worse. Von another year older. Daquan another year older. AJE back. The JAGs will continue to JAG.
Agree
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:LB - same to better. Healthy Milano, healthy Bernard in year two of the green dot. Dodson was fine but I don’t think he’s gonna be missed.
Oh now just shut up... all credibility lost.
We get Milano back after not having him for 13 regular season games and 2 playoff games and you can't even just say they'll be better....
oooookkaaayyyy brooooo
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:CB - same to worse. Douglas, Benford, TJ are penciled into the big three, but depth is a major loss with Dane and Tre gone. Has Benford ever played a full season? We are a twisted ankle from Elam starting. Yikes.
Douglas with a full season and offseason with the Bills???? Seriously???
And Elam was a 1st round CB who has made plays in big games. Plus lots of Bills media with their ears to the ground think Buffalo will shift to a lot more Man principles this season.
I don't know about the other depth, but i think Ingram is a sleeper.
Also, when has McDermott not made it work with CBs??? From milking the best from Kevin Johnson to EJ Gaines to UDFA Levi Wallace to 7th round pick Dane Jackson... McDermott is a secondary coach first and foremost and will make the secondary work.
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:
S - worse. This is kinda obvious. Micah and Poyer are shells of their former selves and we’re still much better than the stuff they have now. Maybe McD can make lightning strike again and turn some JAGs into All-Pros again.Agree generally, but see what you just said about Micah and Poyer and what I said about McDermott.
McDermott has a history stretching back to his time with the Eagles of making Lemonade out of Lemons with the safety position.
We now have Taylor Rapp, Cam Lewis, Mike Edwards and Damar Hamlin.
I think we add to that, but I also think McDermott would make that work.
41 minutes ago, FireChans said:ST - worse. I hate ST anyway, but Siran Neal was good at it. So worse, even though I don’t care.
Neal wasn't very good this season according to film gurus.
I noticed he's the only one you brought up...
Interesting....
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1 hour ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:
Let me start by saying I come in peace! Just having a conversation here. I know this is kind of a negative Josh post.
What do you think? Does it matter to you if he doesn’t train or work on his game as much as he use to?
Josh Said something in his (I believe) EOY presser about changing some of his offseason habits this year.
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On 3/18/2024 at 7:48 PM, FireChans said:
@transplantbillsfan not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m going to create a character for you. His name is transplantravensfan. Here is his thoughts on the 2024 Ravens.
”I think it’s pretty clear that the Ravens are already better in 2024.
QB - BETTER (Lamar gets another year with experience in Monken’s system. Safe to say this will only grow and help him perform even better than his MVP year. We also added Josh Johnson as backup who is Lamar Lite.)
RB - BETTER (Henry is a star RB and Dobbins was always hurt. Gus was nothing special)
WR - BETTER (Getting rid of Odell was addition by subtraction, he was clogging up targets for our younger guys. Zay Flowers had a great rookie year and is primed to be even better this year)
OL - BETTER (Retaining all the same young guys who are only gonna keep building chemistry, and again, more experience in the Monken system)
DL - BETTER (Locked up Madubuike who is a rising star on the DL and is only going to get better)
LB - PUSH OR BETTER (Lost Patrick Queen, but we had already traded for Roquan who was a way better player because Queen wasn’t good enough, but we have Trent Simpson our ILB in waiting who was a third round pick who has a year of experience learning the system, I think he’s gonna rise to the occasion)
DB - BETTER OR PUSH (Kyle Hamilton is a rising star and is only going to keep getting better. Rock Ya Sin is still a pending FA and I’m hoping we can bring him back on a cheap deal because he was decent last year, but even if we get a rookie or two, we have Humphrey as a vet to help lead them.)
ST - SAME (We have the best kicker in the league and Harbaugh always has a pretty good to great ST unit)
So there you have it. I think the Ravens are going to be better pretty much all around next year. We were already in the conference championship, which means next step is the Super Bowl!!!”
Just to be clear, I don’t follow the Ravens that closely. It took me 5 minutes and their Spotrac page. Do you see how little analysis that actually is?
Something I notice you did here--which you have a tendency of doing--is avoid the heart of the issue by deflecting.
You imitated my post below with the Ravens as your case study
On 3/18/2024 at 6:33 PM, transplantbillsfan said:The Bills are making moves.
Ty Johnson back upgrades our RB corps from the beginning of the year considering how late he joined us last year.
I think Curtis Samuel brings some serious juice to a meh WR corps along with a lot of creativity. Watched his highlights because I've never really watched him before. In particular I watched the year he was with Joe Brady in Carolina.
Truly is Deebo light. Ran multiple times and for multiple TDs out of the backfield. Although I still think/want a WR early in the draft, I think our WR corps has already been upgraded with the subtraction of Gabe, Harty and Sherfield and the addition of Hollins and Samuel.
One week into FA... this is pre-draft and with Blackmon currently visiting and a bunch of CAP space cleared, here's very simply the way I'll assess every position. Is it "better" or "worse" overall at this very moment. Better vs worse is NOT only determined by personnel, though. It's also determined by experience & chemistry building (like for Bernard, Cook, Shakir, Kincaid, & Torrence) and health (Josh, Milano & Jones)
Feel free to disagree
Coaching- BETTER
QB- BETTER
RB- BETTER (even if we only had 2, which we won't)
TE- BETTER
WR- BETTER
OL- undecided (I honestly lean towards better, but I know I'd be called a homer. Center and LG are question marks, but I also think the right side of the line will be better)
DE- BETTER (Already know I'll get pushback here based on Von. I will disagree. I really think Jonathan and Kline would be fine at #4 & #5
DT- WORSE (based on depth)
LB- BETTER
CB- BETTER
SAFETY- WORSE (but honestly... if Blackmon signs and it's Blackmon and Rapp I lean better)
PUNTER- same
KICKER- BETTER
Special Teams- worse
So without a draft or a bunch of offseason acquisitions, unless you disagree with those assessments (and I embrace the discourse), I fail to see how this team will be worsenin 2024, barring significant injuries to its most important players.
Now, instead of deflecting and trying to argue that "every fanbase can (and of course they will... they're fans) make the same argument that their team will be better and therefore no teams will actually be better"
...
can you instead provide your honest opinions about where I was wrong and why? I provided 14 categories on the team and I think 9 will be better, 1 will be the same, 1 I'm undecided on, and 2 will be worse.
Since the thread is about how the Bills, NOT the Ravens will be better in 2024, where do you think I'm wrong and why?
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12 hours ago, FireChans said:
Will the Bills win more games in 2024 than 2023?
Yes I think they will
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2 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:
In NFL punter only has x amount of good punts in his leg every year...
A boxer can't fight 20 times in a year...
You can overextend kicking leg so you at least want somebody in camp usually so returners can get practice
How much do you think Haack will understand he's getting paid despite not being able to make the team?
2024 WR Draft Class
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
You should listen.
When are you going to come out with your own WR Big board?