Shaw66

1. I thought he caught the ball fine this season. Had a few drops, but increasingly he seems to be catching all the balls he should. 2. I don't think #2s catch a lot of 50-50 balls. What #2s do is run good routes and catch the ball when their route attacks a weakness in the defense. That is, #2s are told to run their routes and be ready; the QB will read the defense and throw it to you. 3. I actually liked his route running this season. 4. Separation is a myth, at least for #2s. If you can get separation in a pure one on one situation, you're a #1. #2s and slot receivers get separation based on scheme, not on physical ability. Plus, he's played about one and half seasons. Like everyone that young, he's still learning. I'm sure replacing Zay is not a high priority for McBeane. They want a #1, for sure. They a tight end. They want o linemen. They want a running back. They want a lot of guys on defense. Zay is behind all of them on the to-do list.

Thanks. Those are both interesting points. And of course I may be wrong. Still, I'd guess that next season you'll see a guy who is targeted like a #2 and has stats like a #2. What I see is decent speed, good but not great hands, hard work and commitment.

Quickly eyeballing it, Colts have two in the top 10 and 3 in top 25. That and getting Luck back explains the turnaround. Browns have three in the top 10, including a QB. I didn't see anyone other than the Bills and Bears with two in the top 20. So on that list, the Bills are big winners compared to most the league. And if they were big winners, it means they have their two most important positions filled for next ten years. That's HUGE. Think about that - McBeane don't have to worry about a QB or an MLB for ten years. Belichick had it at QB, but no place on his defense. Bills need good coaching and good role players. Imagine a future where the Browns and Bills fight for AFC supremacy year after year. Like the Pats and the Colts, or the Pats and the Steelers. It's not so far-fetched.

Absolutely. We certainly can see what happened to productivity in his area, but we have no idea how he contributed to that productivity. The head coach and coordinator do.

Another comparison for Zay. The thread about the best rookies in the league says Calvin RIdley is already one of the best #2s in the league. Let's take that as true, even though on most teams Ridley may be a #1. Ridley caught 8 more passes than Zay for 170 more yards. That's the difference between one of the best #2s and Zay. And Ridley was on a team that threw 118 more passes, and he was on the field with a top 5 #1 and a top 5 slot receiver. Do you think Zay would have caught eight more passes playing for Atlanta with Ryan, Jones and Sanu? Zay was fine, and he'll be fine next season. Could someone do better? Sure. But he was far from being a liability in 2018. Next season he'll be on the field with better wideouts (either because McKenzie and Foster will improve, almost without question, or because the Bills will acquire better talent), with better pass protection (couldn't have been a lot worse) and a better QB. Zay won't be a problem.

Not sure what it all means. What are these rankings, like #62. I assume that means he ranks 62 on a list of something. All receivers? All wideouts?

True. It's all about big names, and the big names were built in college. FOr example, I haven't seen a lot of Darnold and Jackson, but I'd take Allen over both in a heartbeat. I know Jackson has been phenomenal running, but I have trouble seeing a long term future for him. I've never seen a lot of discussion around here about why the Bills took Edmunds instead of Vander Esch. I suppose the answer is that Edmunds had the greater upside, but Vander Esch has looked spectacular when I've seen him.

We're all pretty excited. In his end of season presser, Allen said he wants to keep playing. My wife is getting sick of hearing about the Bills since Sunday.

Yeah, that was a great play. He made a decent play on the ball, but as you say, it was his determination that stood out. And it did cause the fight - the Jags tried to pull him off their guy, and the Bills came in to protect him. And, by the way, his play kept the receiver out of the end zone. Huge turning point in the game.

I agree. Surprised where Alpha is coming from. I'd like 800 yards and 10 yards per catch from my #2. I don't care if the catches are boring or highlight real catches. Zay can easily be in that territory on a team that throws the ball 100 more times.

Did you see his touchdown catch against the Dolphins fir his first Td? Great catch. What numbers do you expect from your #2 for the season? Don't tell me you want 1000 yards.

This just makes very little sense. First, I was comparing Zay's second season in the NFL to Woods' second season. In that season the Bills threw 80 more passes than in 2018. Woods, Freddy (one of those UDFAs you seem to disdain) and Sammy all caught 65 or 66 passes. Zay's production compares very nicely with what Woods did in his second year. And more importantly, all of this stuff you say is just stuff. The NFL is about production, and what I gave you were the stats that say he produced like an average #2, and you say it doesn't matter. It DOES matter. Production is just about all that matters for a receiver. Your whole argument about the Rams is wrong, too. It's what too many fans do too often - they compare their guy to the comparable guy on the BEST team in the league. I wasn't comparing Zay to Woods this year - he's a five or six year pro playing on a great team. What I said is that Zay was an AVERAGE #2 in production, and he was. And that's not bad for a second year pro, on a team with a rookie QB and that couldn't pass protect and didn't pass much.

He was 59th in the league in receptions this year. Take out the running backs and tight ends and he was in the low 40s. That means he was average for a #2 wideout. He was 61st in yards this season. Take out the running backs and tight ends and he was around 50. That means he was average for a 32 wideout. That's on a team that was 28th in the league in attempts. His season was quite similar to Robert Woods' second season. He catches about the same number of passes for about the same number of yards with about the same ratio of catches to targets. Maybe all the things you say about him are true. Somehow in his second season he's an average NFL #2 wideout.

It feels strange arguing the other side, because I think Allen is going to be a star. A true star. If Daboll does his job, Allen will be next season's Mahomes. By 2020 we'll be celebrating that we traded Mahomes for White and Allen. But ... 10+ yard per attempt isn't something to brag about. McDermott admitted a week or two ago that they've been trying to get him to take the checkdown more oftern. By the time draft night came, I was Mayfield-Darnold-Rosen-Allen. When the Bills traded up in the first I said to myself "Good, take Rosen. NO, WAIT. TAKE ALLEN. TAKE ALLEN!!!" I changed my mind because I didn't a wimpy little guy - I wanted the body and the arm. By the end of preseason I wanted him starting and nearly puked when I heard it was Nate. FortuNATEly, that didn't last long. I'm genuinely excited every game, just to see him play. I just look at the stats and think he's a long way from where he needs to be. But I also think he's on a rocketship that's going to get him there faster than the pundits might think. I think he's going to be studying film all off-season, I think he'll get significantly better protection and a better running game next season, and I think he's going to have a whole summer to get used to the receivers he's going to be playing with. (I think they will be Zay and Foster and two or three guys who aren't yet on the roster.) I also think Edmunds will be consistently better than we saw most of this season. He won't be great, not yet, but he'll be a problem for opponents. I think the defense will improve around him. I think this team surprises a lot of people and goes 10-6 OR BETTER. I'm just saying that Allen wasn't a quality starter this past season.

Actually, I'm not sure I care if they ever get a "true" #1. I agree with what you said, and not just because Daboll is the OC. I think if you look around league, real success in the league is rarely determined by having a "true" #1 wide receiver. They're nice to have, but not essential. Seattle doesn't have a "true" #1. Arizona did and never won. Atlanta does and never won. Cincinatti. Detroit. Houston. Moss only won with Belichick (or did the Giants beat them that year?).. I don't think that lesson is lost on McBeane. They're building a team, not a collection of talented players. Add to that the fact that "true" #1 wide receivers sometimes (and more than most other positions) are prima donnas. Odell Beckham and Antonio Brown are the latest examples. That's also a no no in McBeane land. McBeane are going to keep getting the best players that fit what they're doing. If a "true" #1 comes along with the character, determination and competitiveness that they're looking for, they'll grab him. A HInes Ward (not a #1), an Andre Reed (not really a true #1), a Larry Fitzgerald. But until that guy comes along, Allen will be throwing to guys many people here won't like. Look at Minnesota. Look at the Rams. Look at the Chiefs. One of the dumbest comments we on TV these days is "So-and-so has completed passes to NINE different receivers today." They say it like it's a big deal and it shows how So-and-so sees the field, etc. It's baloney. Offenses are DESIGNED to spread the ball around. They take advantage of mismatches all over the field, and they don't throw a lot to the #1 because the #1 gets doubled a lot. "True" #1 wideouts are overrated in terms of building a winner. Love to have one, no doubt, but they just aren't that important. Stud left tackle is more important. A stud GUARD may be more important. A stud center definitely is. And three or four guys on the defense are more important.

I won't dismiss the stats. For years I've been saying that although people may not think it's perfect, the passer rating is a good measure of how well a QB is doing. Allen's passer rating is horrible. He isn't the only QB in the league with a weak receiving corps, but he and Rosen are the only starters in the league with a passer rating below 70. That number is horrible. Take one stat in isolation: Interceptions. Allen's interception perception is second highest in the league, behind only our man Ryan Fitz. That stat has very little to do with anything other than bad decision making. It doesn't matter whether you're thowing to Kelvin Benjamin or Julio Jones if the safetytis undercutting the route. Allen had only two games with a passer rating over 90. He had 6 below 70. EJ Manuel's CAREER passer rating is 77. Allen is spectacular. At the same time, he has a long way to go.

One thing that ought to temper our enthusiasm is that Allen's stats are horrible. I was just looking at Football Outsiders, and his DVOA rank is 33. He LOOKED like a stud against the Dolphins, but it was the Dolphins and a meaningless game, a game in which the Bills were amped up because of Kyle. If he can't look good in that game, when can he? We need more of those 3 TD passing, 2 TD rushing games!

This is great! Thanks. I'm not a Newton fan. I don't think he is a quality decision maker, and for whatever reason his throwing is inaccurate. I've thought for a couple of months that Allen is going to blow right by Newton. In five years they won't be discussed in the same sentence. My, aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?!

Login=c Thanks. Another greater poster heard from. I actually just said the fill-in-the-blanks thing in my response to Buddo. That doesn't mean just any guy off the street; it means the best you can get at every position. But the best isn't necessarily the best athlete; he's the best role player for the position. Finding, drafting and keeping the studs is the hardest part; the role players should be easier. That's why I said the pressure is on McBeane. They don't have to find a GREAT tight end; they just need one who can catch the throw Allen made at the end of the first Dolphins game. If you're like me, it was hard for you to write "the best player on the field" and "transcendent." I haven't said that, because I'm afraid I'm going to jinx him. But it's true. That's why I got on the band wagon so early. When he made that touchdown throw in his first preseason game, a back shoulder dart to the goal line between two defenders, it SHOCKED me. The next preseason game he made another, then another. By the time he took over from Peterman and I saw a game or two more, I was sold. The guy doesn't have great talent; he has exceptional talent. And, as I've been saying, he has intense desire to drive himself and be driven by others to be the very best possible. It's really exciting. Maybe with a couple seasons under his belt, the move to RT won't be so hard now. Or the move to LG. In the grand scheme, it doesn't matter. He's a reasonably talented offensive lineman who still will get better. Put him where he fits best and then deal with what's left. Also, I don't think they need three new pieces. I think they need two. The good players on the line make the mediocre players play better, because they operate as a team. That's why losing Richie and Eric was such a blow. You lose your two best, and your two worst are floundering. So I think all they need is two. I won't complain about three, but I don't like big overhauls. There should be three guys from 2018 who are good enough and will bring continuity to the 2019 line. But that's just me ruminating - I don't really know.

Thanks. This is a nice analysis of how I think the will handle the off-season. They want to grow young players, so they're going to be careful signing older free agents. The kind of guy I'd expect to see them spend on is a guy drafted in the first or second round coming off his rookie deal, a guy who underperformed his draft position. A guy McBeane scouted and wanted in Carolina, a guy they know is an athlete and who buys into the process. People here will complain that they're signing busts, but that's not what they'll think they're doing. They're looking for guys whose pro coaches didn't challenge them the right way to get them to perform.

Buddo - I always look forward to your comments. Thanks. A couple of things in response to what you said. First, Edmunds. You really got me to focus on how young he is with the comment that next season he STILL may be the youngest guy on the team. And his body certainly isn't done filling it. Two years from now he easily could have added 15 pounds of muscle AND two years' playing experience. He could be a beast. The end-of-season press conferences impressed on me again how much McDermott is about a system. This is a highly structured organization designed to continue to develop players so that they and the team get better and better. McDermott sells these guys a process that has one objective - continuous winning, including winning championships. He sells players on the notion that if they work and study and continuously improve, the TEAM someday will win. It's interesting to me because implicit in what they do is that some of the players he's getting to buy into that process won't be with the team when the championships are won, but McDermott still sells those guys on the notion that they're continuing improvement builds the platform from which some other players will in turn improve. He's telling them that the ultimate success of the team depends on what these guys do, even if they aren't the ones who will win the championships. For example, if the Bills win a Super Bowl with McDermott in three years, Kyle will know he was part of it. So will McKenzie, whether he's with the team or not. So will Dawkins. It's fascinating to watch. McBeane choose players who are willing to commit to that process and the intense environment that goes with it. They chose Allen and Edmunds because they are smart, hungry competitors willing to commit. Desperately willing to commit. McBeane wouldn't have drafted them if they didn't have that willingness. After the draft, they said Allen was an intense competitor. You heard it from Allen yesterday - he HATES to lose. During the draft process, you could see signs that Rosen may not be committed to the same extent, and that's why Allen was the pick. Edmunds apparently is the same way. You said there will always be some "hero ball" from Allen. You may be right, but I think you aren't. I think the process is designed to have the QB do the right thing on every play, and I think that we've already heard from Allen that that's what he's trying to learn. They chose him because he's committed to doing everything the right way. I hate to say it, but Brady is the model. There's no hero ball in him because he doesn't have the raw talent to be the hero, but that's not the point. The point is that Brady seems to do the right thing on every play, finding the right receiver, beating the blitz, throwing the ball away, even taking the sack, almost always while protecting himself from injury. That's the model, I think, that McDermott has Allen pursuing. I think the vision for him is a guy with the physical abilities of a Rodgers (probably better) and the mental discipline of a Brady. That's what they're after. And Allen is buying it and working to be that guy. When he talked about his long touchdown run against the Dolphins, he was asked what he saw. He sort of said he didn't see anything; he just started running, guys made some blocks and he got to the end zone. What I found interesting about it was that all Allen did was make a series of good decisions: he looked downfield, didn't like what he saw, got on the move to avoid the rush, kept looking downfield, saw that running was the best opportunity, kept going so long as he had open field and no big hits coming. It was all good decision making by a superior athlete, and we could see the beauty of the combination of those two things. I think his interception on Sunday was less hero ball than it was a misjudgment by him about whether he could get the ball in there. He knows he's not supposed to take risks with the ball, he just misjudged the risk. That is, he didn't think he was going to show everyone he's Superman - he thought it was a play he could make, and he learned that it's one he can't make. As I said in the OP, he has to make some of those mistakes to refine his judgment. I think there's a LOT of pressure on McBeane now. If you have a young stud QB and a young stud MLB, and it looks like that could be what's happened, you probably have 50% or more of the talent you need to be good. You can get by with a lot of role players at the other positions if you have top ten talent at those two positions. (Obviously, it's too early to say these guys are top 10, but they certainly could be on that trajectory. People laughed at me in the summer when I said the Bills could have the offensive rookie of the year and the defensive rookie of the year. They didn't, of course, but it's not so far-fetched to think that someday those two will be the offensive and defensive players of the year. I think if you could get Belichick and others around the league to talk frankly about it, they'd tell those are two studs.) So McBeane have to go get the role players. From my perspective, I'd love to see them get a really good left tackle and move Dawkins to the right. Get at least one good free agent interior lineman. Then go to work. Thanks again for posting.

Really well said, Stu.

McD said in his presser that for the last game Edminds finally let go, stopped thinking so much and just played. He said it was pretty impressive.

That's what your think. I get it. I just don't think that's what McDermott thinks. Listen to the press conferences today. They're about good athletes learning to pursue perfection. They are studying. learning, teaching each other. Part of the process will be repeatedly bringing in new players to find better talent to learn the same things. So, yes, ultimately McD is looking for Bruce, not Kyle, but only a Bruce who wil lwith the discipliine of a Kyle. McDermott sounded pretty excited today when the conversation turned to Allen and Edmunds. He doesn't want to say it, but it seemed like what he was thinking was he has his Bruce at QB and he has his Bruce at MLB. Yeah, I wrote that before I saw the video of his speech to the team. He had first hand experience of Kyle. It sounds like Kyle was the epitome of what McD wants in a football player.

I congratulate Burleson. He states his point of view nicely, and he's entitled to his view of the situation. I don't know any of these situations nearly well enough, but people have to at least ask questions when black coaches are hired and fired in a year. There's no way it's fair to expect a guy to turn things around in one year. On the other hand, it may have been completely clear inside the clubhouse that he was in over his head. It happens. If he's over his head, there's a good chance he's drowning. Under those circumstances sometimes you just have cut him loose and try to save the ship.