Shaw66

If you don't know Stratton, this is a really good couple of minutes about him. Interesting that Stratton said the 64 Bills were about coming together as a team. It wasn't the players, but the team. Also interesting that he gives so much credit to Maguire.

I think what you said is just right. Give it time, it will happen. It's hard to watch that video and come to any other conclusion. This guy is spectacular. When he gets a little more consistent, play after play, he's going to be a big winner. He throws like a winner, he runs like a winner, he leads like a winner.

Who in their right mind would trade Watson?

Jackson was third in the league in passer rating. If Allen had been third, the Bills would have won the Super Bowl. Hard to say Allen is the better passer.

Wow, there's a guy not afraid to make bold statements. Good to see someone outside of Buffalo paying attention.

I'm not a McKenzie fan. I don't think he runs routes well, and I think he catches only the easiest of throws, in rhythm, on target, etc. But at the same time, there's something about that makes him like Tasker. I never liked Tasker as a receiver, either, but then he'd make a play. Then he'd make another play. McKenzie is sort of like that. It seems like he's on the field for 15 or 20 plays, total, offense and special teams, and he always makes a play or two. He's not the best at anything, in fact sometimes I think he's only barely adequate. But he's barely adequate at a lot of things, and that's valuable. Punt and kick returner, wideout, deep threat, slot receiver, jet sweep specialist, maybe running back in a single wing set for a play or two. So, yeah, I can agree with those who say that, other than Diggs, the receiving corps hasn't improved with McKenzie part of it. But the team may have improved by having him on the roster. He's an unusual player.

I agree about Allen. And I agree generally about Beasley, although he will get deep for you when the defense makes a mistake. He has something like Chris Hogan speed - he's not blowing past people, but he'll hurt you deep from time to time. There aren't many teams that have a slot guy who's a true burner. If you've got a 4.4 guy, you're desperately trying to get him to be 1 or a 2. If he can't do either of those, he probably isn't a 3, either. Think Marquise Goodwin or TJ Graham. Now, if you're KC, you have the luxury being able to run Tyreek Hill out of the slot sometime, and he's deadly there, but the only way a team runs Hill out of the slot is because they have enough other talent to "waste" him there from time to time. Fitzgerald always could have been a great slot receiver, but no team was willing to move him there until he wasn't quite good enough to be a serious 1 or 2. In other words, in terms of the kind of guys most teams are able to run in the slot, Beasley is about as good as they come. Edelman, of course, and a few others, but Beasley is right up there.

The final wideouts on the roster could be any one of several different groups. Each group says something about the kind of football McDermott wants to play. If McKenzie is on the final 53 it will say the Bills want to play different styles, McKenzie is useful in different ways. Foster says they want the speed. Williams says that possession is important to them. And could be a rookie added to the mix.

I agree. I think Trubisky is a good example. Allen is a year behind him. This is a prove it year for Trubisky. 2021 could be a prove it year for Allen. But not 2020.

I'm completely in agreement. It's all about decision making. Watch Brady or Brees. They know what they're doing all the time. They make the right play all the time. They don't necessarily execute all the time, but they make the right choice, and they recognize what the right choice is very quickly. That is, they don't go back to the bench, look at a replay and say "oh, I see it now." They see the right choice as it's happening. they're really quite amazing at it. Allen has to progress in that direction. He has to increase the percentage of plays where he understands what he is supposed to do soon enough that he actually has time to do it.

Absolutely sensible. All I'm saying is that unless he has something like a total meltdown, some kind of serious regression, he's the guy for 2021. If Allen is the same in 2020 as 2019, I think the Bills keep as their 2021 starter. I guess what I'm really saying is that unless Allen is really bad in 2020, his performance in 2020 will really only determine how seriously the Bills start looking for a possible replacement. Allen will still be the presumptive 2021 starter, but he mind find the level of competition for his job going up.

I hope we come up with a solution to this virus thing soon; otherwise, the day after the next Super Bowl there's going to be a lot disease spread on the streets of Buffalo.

I agree, but that's true for every player on the team. A judgment for 2021 and the future will be made after the 2020 season. But that's only the beginning of the discussion. The point is, what does he have to do in 2020 to have a 2021 in Buffalo? The notion of a "prove it" year is that if you don't do it that year, you're done for the future. You didn't prove it, so you're done. I don't think it's a prove it year at all. That is, he could have, statistically something like 2019, maybe a little better, so that maybe he's the 15th best QB in the league. That wouldn't prove anything, it would be a disappointment and it wouldn't be enough, but I'd keep him. A guy like a Trent Murphy is in a "prove it" year, or maybe a Levi Wallace, but not Allen. He's shown too much promise to quit on him after 2020 even if he hasn't had a top-10 QB season.

Of course they're happy with him. That's not what I meant. In Buffalo he wasn't the receiver Bills fans hoped he would be, and he has never performed at that level in the NFL. The Bills drafted him to be a #1 for 8 or 10 years. He's never been a quality #1, let alone for five or more years. But he's perfectly fine for KC, given the other receivers they put on the field. That is, he 's fine as a #2, he's nearly a star a #3.

Watkins and Woods were great in our imaginations, but they never showed they could actually do what we imagined for them. Woods has done it since he left, and the Chiefs are still waiting for Watkins. These three guys all are wearing a Bills uniform today, and all three of them showed last season and in seasons before that they can do what we imagine. That's special.

This is true, but it doesn't make the 2020 season a "prove it" year, which is what this discussion is supposed to be about. Watson made the plays to win the game, and he deserves credit for it. Watson is, in my opinion, one of the league's next great quarterbacks, and he has a year's experience on Allen, and came out of a better program. So the fact that Watson could do it in his year three doesn't mean that Allen has to do it in his year three. The Bills want Allen to be a top QB in the league for the next ten to 12 or 15 years. Whether he gets there in year three or year five really doesn't matter. What matters is that he get there. For me it's simple. He made good progress his first season, and he made good progress his second season. He needs to keep making good progress. That won't necessarily make him a star in 2020, because he still has a long way to go.

I just had a random reaction and wanted to say somewhere. This thread seemed to be the right place. I was in the thread about whether Johnson could have impact from the edge this year. I was talking about positions where we shouldn't be surprised if some rookie or second year guy might unexpectedly have an impact, like Johnson might on the edge. I ran through the position groups. When I got to receivers, I said that's a position where I wouldn't think it's likely. I said it just doesn't seem likely that anyone is taking playing time from Diggs, Brown, and Beasley. And I did a double take. When was the last time any of us wrote the names of the Bills receivers and in their minds what we see now? Moulds and Price, I suppose. Moulds and Evans. But really, I think you have to go back to Reed, Beebe and Lofton before you find as good a group. We should still be dancing in the streets over that move.

Interesting that you put these two, Johnson and Joseph, together. They each have superior athletic attributes, and they must have superior work ethics, or the Bills wouldn't have picked them or kept them. That tells me to expect a little more out of them than you project. Almost certainly, they both learned a lot last season, and assuming a normal training camp and preseason, I think they'll have a lot of opportunity to show they deserve to be on the field. I've said a few times that, because of the competitive environment that McDermott demands, I expect there will be some surprise young faces getting more playing time than we project right now. There's no way to predict who those young faces will be, but we can speculate. Joseph and Johnson are two of them. Ryan Bates is another. There may be one or two more on the roster, and there will be one or two or three added by the time they go to camp. Draftees, undrafted free agent, maybe someone off a practice squad. There's a reason Johnso, Joseph and Bates are on the roster, and the reason is that they have physical skills that are particularly attractive to McDermott. The question is whether they can be trained up to do the job at the position they play. One or two of those types, from the guys the Bills already have or will acquire in the next couple of months, are going to end up with more playing time than many of us would predict today. For example, i think it's possible all across the offensive line. It's possible at edge, and it's possible at linebacker. Possible in the defensive backfield, but less likely. Certainly possible at running back, for sure. Not likely any diamond-in-the-rough youngster is taking time from Diggs, Brown, and Beasley.

And be a guy who gives you confidence he's going to make the play with two minutes left and the game on the line. Doesn't have to do it every time, but he has to look like he can and not make us wonder what good, bad or weird thing is about to happen.

Outstanding! That's exactly what happened here. McBeane had decided they were ready, they had enough, to go for the championship. They knew they could plug their defensive holes in free agency and they needed a receiver. As free agency approached and it began to look like Diggs could be gotten, they went into action. It was almost surgical, just like how quickly Beane dealt to get Allen and Edmund's. It all days they expect to win now. It also says they are all in on Josh. He is the guy they will do it with. That's how they saw it, and a late round pick or two way not going to stop. None of us cared when the Pegulas overspent to be sure they got the Bills. I dont see why we worry that the Bills overspent on Diggs.

I was agreeing with you, and I agree with this, to. My point was a little different. My point was that, just as you say, he has to improve statistically in a variety of ways, and the data of what's past don't really tell us exactly what he has to do. If he significantly improves his deep ball accuracy, it will have an impact on all of the data your citing. Or, he could stay the same on the long ball, not improve at all, and still improve in the categories you cite. I agree that he has to get better, and I agree that the next step, as you describe it, is a fair estimate of what he needs to do. Nice if he did more, but what you describe is good solid growth. I just think there are a variety of ways he could do it. I also agree that that Allen has a history of improving at parts of his game that have been criticized, so the long ball certainly seems to be an area where we could expect improvement. If he improves in that category, it will carry him most of the way to your targets for him. I continue

Thanks, that's interesting. It's a year old, but it makes it even more interesting, because the Bills had the LEAST continuity of any team last season, and they still did okay. This year they'll have 100% continuity, so it would suggest we should see some real improvement. Interesting stuff.

All pretty subjective stuff, but not a bad narrative of what's happened. All we can do is wait and see. He needs at least another year of solid growth overall. He's gotta start being at least a threat to crack the top 10 passer ratings. He maybe won't get there this year, but he needs solid improvement again. Some of that growth has to be in the deep ball category, because to be a good offense, it's almost essential that you're a deep threat. You need that explosive aspect to the offense. Plus, a lot of other stats start moving up if you get better at the deep ball. Yards per attempt goes up, TDs probably goes up, completion percentage goes up. The criticism of his deep ball efficiency is justified. As you point out, there are plenty of reasons to expect him to improve in that area.

Thanks, but if it there isn't a simple link, that's okay. It's interesting to me that they would have done the math to figure this out.

So what does it mean, that two different data crunchers come up with different answers? I think it means it's all more subjective than can be reduced to data in a very meaningful way. I mean, the data can tell us, relative to the other QBs in the league, how productive he is. But the data can't even tell us whether he progressed or regressed in 2019. We're at the limits of the usefulness of the data. At least at the level of the data that's available to us. I suspect the Bills have some analytics on Josh that would be cool to see but that is closely guarded. They know exactly how well Josh is doing and what he has to do to become more productive.