Shaw66

Thanks. That's helpful. Beane claims he is a strict BPA guy, but we all know that if the BPA in every round is a center, he isn't going to take seven centers. So you have to be right at some point. But, since you know that the return on guys down at the end of the draft is low, if you need a receiver, it's not stupid to bet on the same position multiple times. It increases the chances you'll win on one. And it really isn't likely that if the Bills won on two of them, they would have kept one on the bench. First, they aren't likey to be productive for most of their rookie seasons, as was the case with Foster. But even if Foster had made it from day one, if Ray Ray had made it too, they BOTH would have been playing. The coach is going to find ways to get productive guys on the field. Belichick played several seasons with a cadre of small, not particularly fast receivers. So although your points are good and show that the probability of helping the team might have been higher by spreading those picks around, position wise, the practical reality is that you're likely to do no better than one out of three with picks like that, and that's what Beane did. If he'd had two Fosters in the mix, McDermott would have player two Fosters with Zay. If one developed really fast, he would have taken Benjamin's job earlier. Wasted, no. Might there have been a better strategy, yes, I agree.

Thanks. I get that. What I said is that it's nice for you to think about it in that way and talk about it that way, because you like the precision of the language. I don't think the coaches ever get to precision vs accuracy. They might, but I doubt it. I think they review the play and grade Allen on everything he did on the play. If he didn't do as well as they want, they note that and they make a decision or decisions about what they're going to work with Allen on to eliminate the mistake or reduce the probability that it will happen again. They might decide he delievered the ball too early or too late, so they work on his decision making. They might decide he delivered it too high or too low; if it's a recurring problem, they decide what they're going to do about it. If it's just a miss, it's a miss. If the receiver should have had a better ball to give him a better run after catch opportunity (because the throw wasn't precise enough), they decide what to do about that. But I think that for ANY ball that isn't thrown within a small enough radius (isn't precise enough AND isn't accurate enough), they decide what to do. I don't think they say "Josh has a precision problem, so we need to work on his footwork. If he had an accuracy problem we'd work on his shoulder turn." Instead, they look at plays with less than perfect outcomes, decide what Josh should have done on that play to have been better. If it's a recurring problem, they work on it. If it's a random problem they don't do much about it." They don't have a book of remedies for precision and another book of remedies for accuracy, so they don't distinguish.

Sure, they're wasted picks if you look at it that way. But the point people were making was that at that point in the draft MOST picks turn out to be wasted picks, because the guys you're choosing from haven't shown enough to them as NFL starters. They ALL look like they aren't going to make it. None of those receivers looked like Larry FItagerald or Julio Jones or even Robert Woods and Zay Jones in college. None of them. I don't know the rules of craps, but saying Proehl and Ray were wasted picks is like saying some rolls of the dice were wasted rolls, because you didn't win anything on them. That's why I say one measure of a GM's success is his YIELD on all those picks at the end of the draft. Some organizations are better finding players at the end of the draft and among the undrafted who actually can contribute to the team. But they'd admit quickly that although they might be able to see HOW it was possible for them to contribute, they aren't very good at prediction WHETHER they'll contribute. They just don't know. The point is that the idea of "wasted picks" isn't real. At the time, it is not at all obvious that a pick is wasted or that some other player would have been a better pick. No one knows, and calling it a "wasted" pick suggests that someone might have known better. At the top of the draft, the concept of a wasted pick makes more sense. Taking TJ Graham instead of Russell Wilson in the third round was a wasted pick. Because of the positions they played, it was knowable that WIlson had the potential to improve the team more than Graham. That is, no matter what Graham could accomplish, it wasn't likely he'd change the course of the franchise. With Wilson it was possible. So that pick was wasted. But in the 6th round, you aren't looking at guys who have any real likelihood of changing the course of your franchise. Granted, Brady was there and did exactly that, but he didn't look like he had any chance of success. He didn't look anything like Wilson, for example. It's a crap shoot.

You know, old man, I like words and I like precision, and I like precision in the use of words. You and some others get off on this accuracy versus precision distinction every once in a while, and I sometimes pay attention to it. However, in my mind it's a distinction without any real significance. I get that there's a difference - I think Brees is both accurate and precise, some guys are accurate and not precise and some may be precise but not accurate (although I doubt there are many of those). The point is that I seriously doubt that some coach in Buffalo is saying "we need to work on Allen's accuracy" and some other coach is saying "no, we need to work on his precision." I think both coaches are looking at the same film of the same play and agreeing that the ball wasn't in as good a spot as they would prefer and then looking at the film to see if they can determine what it is that Allen needs to work on to get the ball in the right spot as often as possible. It's not like they say "well, if he has an accuracy problem he needs to fix this and if he has a precision problem he needs to fix that." For them, it's just semantics that doesn't add to the conversation. They're just asking themselves what needs to be done to make Allen better.

It's not "but." That's like saying "you bought three lottery tickets, but the last one was the winner." The whole point was that if you're finding players at the bottom of the draft and free agency, it's a crap shoot. The only evaluation of GM decision making that can be made about players taken under those circumstances is whether his yield - the percentage of guys who stick - is good or not. It makes no difference which guys were taken first or last - all that matters is whether your GM is finding enough guys there.

Could prove to be a Clay-type signing, that's for sure. But the difference is that the signing of Clay contributed to the cap trouble the Bills have been in. That is, signing Clay for too much money kept the Bills from signing someone who was more productive. That isn't and won't be the situation with Star. By the time the Bills are feeling limited by the cap, Star's contract won't be an issue. Whether the Bills overpaid for Star is an interesting question for some people to talk about, but it doesn't have much to do with whether the Bills are successful or fail over the next couple of years. For example, if the Bills thought today that Star was a total failure, they could certainly go sign another guy (if he was out there) and put Star on the bench as a role player. The Bills have the cap room to do that, because they aren't going to spend up to the cap in 2019. They probably could even CUT Star, take the cap hit and move on without too much concern. The Bills are in such an unusual cap situation right now that, given their plan and how they operate, whether they overpaid for Star is just irrelevant. The Star contract doesn't limit the Bills the way the Clay contract did. Plus, I'm guessing the Bills are happy with Star and feel like they got their money's worth. Every team makes personnel mistakes, because it isn't easy to do that job. I doubt Star is on Beane's list of mistakes. I'd bet that there are others that he'd like the Bills to have a do-over on, like Woods. If he had Woods, the Bills likely wouldn't have gone after Zay, which means they could have found some guy in the draft to plug into another position. McDermott said a couple weeks ago that the objective is to have veteran leadership in every position room. Kyle was the leadership in the d line room. I don't know this, but I'm guessing they signed Star to be the guy when Kyle retired. Hughes was the only candidate the Bills had to succeed Kyle, and Hughes brings some but not all of the leadership qualities needed. I'd guess McBeane knew from their days in Carolina that Star was the guy to lead the group and THAT's why they got him. And I'm guessing Star is doing just what they expected from him.

Agreed. I enjoy talking about this stuff as much as anyone, but I have a healthy respect for all the things I don't know about the game. The coaches and players are LIVING this stuff every day. What's funny is that we all watch and THINK we understand what's going on on the field. I think what I and most people understand is pretty superficial.

You know, I hadn't put 2 and 2 together before, but especially during the first three quarters of the season, I was pretty critical of Edmunds because the Bills were giving up a lot of yards up the middle and often it was because Edmunds was in the wrong gap, was caught in wash, had taken a bad angle. It may very well have been the case that Star was doing his job and Edmunds wasn't. I don't know.

I'msure you guys are having fun, and I'll jump in only to respond to your characterization of the OP. The OP is NOT about completion percentage + accuracy. The OP is about the fact that if you look at various pieces of data, like catchable and uncatchable balls, that relate in some ways to a passer's accuracy, the data suggest that Allen is no less accurate, or at least no more inaccurate, than the rest of the rookie QB class. I didn't here him trying to prove that Allen is accurate. Rather, he was trying to show that there isn't much of a statistical reason to argue that Allen is any more inaccurate than his peers, none of whom get the "accuracy" comment from the national media. .

I agree you never want to overpay, and Beane has been pretty clear he is not going to go on a spending spree. And yes, it's because the Bills don't have a lot of good players. But none of that means they got sloppy when they signed Star. I don't know what his market value was, and I doubt anyone on this board knows either. The only people who know his market value are his agent and a few GMs. His agent did his analysis, came up with a number, floated it with GMs and found of his number was a good number or too high. Maybe the Bills were the only team willing to pay what the Bills offered. I don't know. Beyond that, there still is no evidence that either the Bills or anyone else in the NFL thinks the Bills overpaid. The Bills know if they got what they expected and wanted, and if they got what they wanted, they're happy if they overpaid. (By the way, I never heard any fans complain when the Pegulas overpaid for the Bills. They decided what they wanted and they were willing to pay a price that no one else was willing to pay. They overpaid and you'd have to ask them if they're okay with that.) The part we fans can understand is this: whether the Bills overpaid or not, in the current cap situation, and given that the Bills' serious compensation pressure won't hit for a couple of years, and given Beane's conservative approach to free agency, Star's contract simply is not a problem.

Every team is overpaying someone. It's only a problem if in total you're overpaying too much. The Bills have only one or two overpaid players, so they don't have a problem.

Of course, this is just the receptions, so we don't see Brees's mistakes, but out of all those completions, I saw only 2 that weren't essentially perfect. Two were tough catches but catches you expect the receiver to make. Brees is incredible. Allen doesn't do what Brees does, but no one in the league does, either. Not even Brady.

I won't go back and quote the Dude like you did, but you two are saying what I've said, too. I will add, though, for the Dude, that I do appreciate Transplant's work on this, because it validates to some extent what Dude, Philly and I all think we're seeing. We've seen it from preseason - "makes all the throws" kind of talent. It was obvious right away. And like Philly says, it's not that any one is saying Allen is perfect or ready for the Hall of Fame. What we're saying is that he has some things to work on; if you ask McDermott, he'd probably say every aspect of his game needs work. But if you ask him whether he's satisfied where Allen is and the progress he's made, McD likely would say he's exceeded expectations. If Rex were still the coach, he'd say "are you friggin kidding me? Have you watched him?!!?" If Beane does his job during the offseason (oline and receivers) and if McD and Daboll do their jobs, fans all over the country will be talking about Allen next season.

You make a good point about spending on the D line. I think it's correct. Plus, if your line is properly constructed, one of your main stay guys is on his rookie contract. That isn't the case yet, but given the Bills' unusual cap situation it almost amounts to the same thing. That is, the Bill's can afford to invest more in the D line right now.

Yes in one sense it's fair for all of us to make our own assessments. I just don't think anyone's assessment here of a DT is very valuable. None of us knows what Star was supposed to do any particular play, so none of us really can evaluate how well he did it. Kyle laughed at the notion that amateurs can evaluate film and rate players.

No, a teammate isn't going to say that. But you need to understand that the players think differently about the money than we do. The players understand that how much a guy gets paid doesn't correspond exactly with how much he is worth. They know that some guys get lucky, hitting the market at the right time, finding a team with a particular need at a particular time. They don't mope around the practice field all day because they think someone is getting paid too much. They're happy for their teammates who hit the free agency jackpot, and they understand that there aren't many of those guys. The only players who really worry that some guy is getting more than they are are the players McBeane don't want on their team.

No, Alexander is not going to be publicly critical of Star, but he seems to have gone out of his way to say good things about him. I commented before about the idea of "over paid by a couple million." There always are guys on your roster who are getting paid more than their value, and there are guys who are underpaid. There is not way to measure exactly how important a player is to the team, and there is no way to translate into dollars to know exactly how much to pay him. So you always have some overpaid and some underpaid. It would be nice if the entire roster were underpaid, but that isn't reality. As long as you don't have too many guys being overpaid by too much, it doesn't matter if a guy is overpaid. What matters is whether he's doing the job you want him to do. All indications are that Star is doing what the Bills want him to do, the Bills aren't in cap trouble because of his contract, so it doesn't make sense to get excited about it. I don't understand those stats about performance over replacement, but that kind of analysis is what's necessary if you want to know whether the Bills made a mistake or not. That is, how much would it have cost to get someone better, or how much could the Bills have saved by getting someone worse and how much worse would he have been. It's almost a certainty that the right player at exactly the right price was not available in free agency last year.

I don't think many would argue with what you say. However, the real point of the original post is that there is a continuing and popular narrative about Allen since before the draft, and that is that Allen is not an accurate thrower. Putting aside how you might define accuracy and what you might think is the best evidence of accuracy, the fact is that what is said about regularly about Allen and not said about the other rookies is that Allen must work on his accuracy. What the OP's analysis shows (doesn't exactly prove, since we can argue about methodology, what's important, etc.) is that a very good argument can be made that Allen is not particularly inaccurate when compared to the other rookies. He wasn't seeking to prove that Allen is very accurate or even just accurate enough. What he has shown, pretty effectively, I think, is that if people think Allen is inaccurate, then those people should be saying the same thing about each of the other rookies. But no one is complaining about the accuracy of the other rookie QBs. The point is that either (1) all of the rookies have an accuracy problem and all of their coaches and fans should be concerned or (2) Allen's accuracy problem is largely a myth, generated by the talking heads running up to the draft and, as often happens, continues despite actual performance. People look at the completion percentage and conclude that what they heard about Allen's accuracy must be true. I don't think Allen has an accuracy problem. I didn't see a guy regularly missing receivers, and I didn't see a guy regularly hurting the receiver's chances to make runs after the catch. I certainly didn't see receivers turning inaccurate throws into receptions with spectacular catches. I saw a guy who makes an occasional bad throw and a guy who could improve his precision on some throws, but not a guy who has a problem that should keep him from succeeding in the NFL. And I think the data set forth in the OP kind of confirms that. Nobody's howling "accuracy" about any of the other rookies, and Allen did about the same things those guys did.

I have no idea whether the Bill's think the signing was good, but I'm virtually certain that their evaluation of him has very little to do with your stats. The process is completely team oriented. Star has a job to do, in the locker room, in practice and in games. You and I have practically no idea what that job is. He is evaluated every day on how well he is doing his job. Alexander knows what Star's job is. He says Star is doing his job. I'd say it's a good bet that Alexander's view is more accurate than yours.

I love it. He's a solid player, and I'd guess he had real market value. What I really like is that it says that a guy who could go elsewhere to chase a title, for example, likes what he sees happening in Buffalo. Says a lot about McBeane. I hope he has a great season and then comes back for one more.

Not that the Bills have world beaters as receivers, but I think often the separation problem has a different cause - the run game. The play fake simply isn't too credible when you pretty much can't run the ball. A lot of what people think of as good separation is caused simply because a good running game forces defenses to put 7-8 in the box to stop it. When that happens, defenders tend to play off the ball more, and receivers get better separation. With a lousy running game, teams can afford to keep a safety or two back, which allows the corners to play up. Like you, I saw a lot excellent throws and not many real head scratchers. When the team gets better around him, his numbers will be fine.

Well, we agree in theory here, but I tend to agree with those who would RANK the appropriate skills sets (yours is a pretty good list, certainly good enough for argument's sake). Most people would say accuracy is most important. So being bottom 10 in accuracy could be fatal or certainly more difficult to overcome than some other low grade. Maybe put another way, the minimum performance for accuracy must be something like top 15 in the league. I mean, you'd better be accurate. I just don't agree that Allen's accuracy is all that bad.

If Glenn were a promising guy in the process, they would have kept him. I doubt they'll want him back.

I agree. Still, sometimes it's fun to talk about it as though we did. Putting together a couple of pieces, I think this guy got hired because (1) the word around the league was that he was really the guy who built that line this season, not the o line coach and (2) the Bills know he's big into the process. I don't know 1 for a fact - it's just a hunch, but the coaches know each other and talk, they know who's really good and who isn't. The word gets around, and you see differences in line play where he's been, stuff like that. So although it may be mystifying to us why'd the Bills did this, around the league people know this guy is a comer. Just a hunch, but it wouldn't surprise me. As to 2, after Luck's playoff win this season, he said practice won't be any different this week than in previous weeks - come in, do our work. Just stick with the process. The process. That means Reich is using a system similar to McDermott's, and the Bills could see that this guy a "process" guy. That's a big character point for people in the organization.

Hey, guys, I know I'm jumping late, but I think this is an interesting point, and I have a slightly different take. I believe the Bills admitted later in the season that they were working on Allen to check down more often, despite the fact that Allen was hitting on a lot downfield. The Bills' philosophy is to make every play a positive play, every play. And the way to do that is to take the high percentage pass. We saw Allen do it a few times late in the season. If I'm right about that, then the Bills fully expect that when Allen checks down as much as they want, his completion percentage will go up and his yards per catch will go down. In other words, I think the Bills will trade some yards on big plays for success on more plays. That means a lot of the individual stats are less important than we think. In other words, piling up a lot of yards isn't the most important thing.