Shaw66

Um, do the math. There are 32 teams, remember? So, that's 32 receivers who should be #1s and should be better than Davis. 34th in yards per game, that's high #2 receiver yardage. 81st in receptions? That means there were a lot of receivers who were catching nickel and dime throws, because they weren't getting anything like the yards Davis got. Catch % is one of those stats that people get hung up on that are not a measure of football production. Of course, it's relevant to coaches, because it tells them where someone can improve. But it isn't a true measure of performance that is of any real significance if the guy is getting 850 yards. Yards and touchdowns are what matter, and in Davis's first season as a full time starter, boom!, yards and touchdowns. Davis is not a problem.

This is a great example of how people misunderstand the reality of pro football. Other than QBs and maybe a dozen or two dozen other skill players, pro football players do not make meaningful co tri unions in every game, or even half the games. They do their jobs, and sometimes that results in nice days and sometimes not. Most running backs aren't over 80 yards every game. Most receivers don't catch 6 balls every game. The season stats are exactly the way to measure contribution, because every guy, other than the stars, make plays sporadically. It's their totals that matter, and Davis's totals are healthy. Not great, but healthy.

Which explains why Edmunds is gone. Maybe they thought he grow into a tougher downhill guy ro go with his incredible mobility. Year five may have been Edmunds final tryout.

Correct. The defense is going to be 4-3, 4-2-5, rush four, etc. But McD will "expore" pages in the playbook for sure. And if he's the one responsible for calling the defense, it means (1) he has to have studied the opposing offense during the week and introduced the schemes and refinements that he will want to have at his disposal during the game. It's almost certainly the case that McDermott didn't believe that Frazier was as good as he needed to be at doing that nitty-gritty analysis and scheming. If McDermott believed Frazier was getting the job done, Frazier would still be with the team in an active role.

I find it kind of funny that you say that you no longer listen to any of the off-season talk because it's all just talk until they do it on the field, and then you take off from this piece of off-season talk and say some really insightful things. Made me laugh. I think you're right in many respects. As some one else said, McDermott is pulling on the big-boy pants, and now we're going to see what he's made of. There won't be any ambiguity about who's in charge. He had a great defense in Carolina, and now he's going back to having a defense that is largely his. He's probably known this for a month or more, since they made a couple of coaching hires then the Frazier decision. And he knew when they let Edmunds go. He must have some pretty clear thoughts about where he wants the defense to go, and Edmunds didn't fit the plan.

True. I just completed another post that says it seems clear that McDermott trusts Dorsey with the offense. It's a big bet - he's betting Dorsey can be his Spagnuolo.

I think there was a lot more going on back then. It seemed completely clear to me that McDermott could see that he was young, inexperienced, and probably unaware of things that were coming his way. He wanted a head-coach mentor, someone who had been there already and who could say, "look out, kid, here's what could be coming." McDermott welcomes suggestions, so it was a natural to get a someone to be in role. The guy didn't have to be the best defensive coach, he just had to be someone whose style was similar to McDermott's. McDermott could tell him what he wanted, and McDermott could count on Frazier, a veteran coach, to get it done. Thus, McDermott could have a defense more or less like he wanted without having to spend a lot of time on the minutiae, which Frazier would handle. It was a really safe hire. Now, McDermott holds the reins firmly. He knows how to run this team. He doesn't have to spend a lot of time learning how to be a head coach. He's there. He doesn't need a mentor. He doesn't have to spend so much time paying attention to some head coach issues, and he has more time to spend on what he loves - the defense. He can use that time to have a some up-and-comer talent run the minutiae, and McDermott will provide more hands-on oversight to the defense. He will be in a role more like Reid and his offense, where Reid has his hands all over the offense. I think the result will be that we'll start to see more creative defense, both in design and in play calling. The unspoken part of this is that McDermott seems to have full confidence that Dorsey will be able to do his job, because he can't go off dedicating time to the defense if Dorsey can't get it done. That's what I think is going on. Even if I'm correct about why these things are happening, it doesn't mean they will work.

Andy Reid wasn't the "Andy Reid of Offense" in the beginning of his head coaching career, either. Reid spent years becoming the "Andy Reid of Offense."

I think this a Mitch Trubisky signing. A guy with talent needs a reset, so he takes a one-year deal in a situation when he can do that. Hyde and Poyer won't be her forever, so if he shows he can operate in the system, then he becomes one of the successors at safety. He won't have started in Buffalo (absent injury), so the other teams won't know how good he is. That means his price in the open market will be low, just like Trubisky's was. That means if they like what they see this season, they will be able to lock him up longer term at a relatively low price.

Thanks. Those are fair, detailed comments. I'll comment below, but first I'll say that Dopey's comments just after your response are arguments that carry more weight than yours. And I'll say that his production was very good, despite your comments. Contested catches. I think you're correct when you say "consistently." He's made plenty of contested catches, but not as many as he should. He has trouble with bodies around him. But he is generally a good ball catcher - he uses his hands, he doesn't bobble or juggle too many balls. Contested catches is something that can be improved. As Dopey said, this was his first season as a full-time starter, and it's not surprising he had wrinkles in his game. Route runner. I'm not sure what this actually means, but I doubt it's a fair criticism. Brown was not a good route runner, but Davis always seems to end up where Josh expects him to be. If you're talking about getting separation, it's unreasonable to expect great separation from a #2. Few guys in the league get great separation, and if Davis got great separation, he'd be a #1. I think he runs the routes he's supposed, and he often gets open. If his routes don't get him open, it's because of route design or because he's drawn defender to him, which means Allen knows to go elsewhere. And I think both points are details to be worked on and improved, but aren't disqualifying, by any means. 800 odd yards and 7 TDs is very nice production out of the #2 spot, and that's what Davis did in his first season of starting.

Absurd. Crashed and burned? He had more catches and more yards than 10 of #1s in the league, and more catches and yards than about 25 of the #2s. That is not crashed and burned, by any means at all. Anyone who wants to replace Davis because 2022 wasn't good enough has unreasonable expectations for a #2. Anyone who wants him to improve on 2022, great. You do, I do, McDermott does, and he does. But burning quality draft picks to get someone who might be better, forget it. Spending cap space beyond what's already been spent, forget it.

I'm now on a crusade about this. I think many people have this perception that Davis is a problem, and I don't see it. At least, not so big a problem that people should be so excited about. Just seems to me that it would NICE to have top-of-the-league production from the #2, but it isn't necessary for the team to succeed. Yes, the Davis wasn't as consistent making plays last season, but he was still a nice play-maker in the offense. Yes, it's fair to expect some improvement in his production, and I'm sure it's his expectation, too, but he is nowhere near a problem.

Wow! Interesting! I may comment on the others later, but this one is the most intriguing. Not sure I'd say never, but in general I agree. McDermott isn't a natural football genius, like maybe McVay, and a lot of the guys who get deep into the playoffs are like that. However, I'd argue that Reid also isn't a wunderkind. He got where he is by accumulating knowledge and gaining wisdom, and that's exactly what McD is doing. McDermott will continue to improve because that his core principle - the growth mindset. So, I'd guess that 10 years from now, McD will be a star and McVay will be a guy who had some success.

Now that the Bills are this good, I no longer ask myself which teams are better than the Bills. I don't give a hoot, for example, about the power rankings. When the Bills used to be ranked in the 20s, I'd look at the power rankings and ask myself whether the Bills were better than the teams immediately above them. I don't do that any more. Instead, what I think about is which teams on the schedule will be challenges. Before the season started, those teams were the Rams, the Chiefs, the Bengals, and maybe one or two others. After a while it was clear that the Rams actually weren't a challenge, and some other teams looked better. But the Bengals game was always on my radar as a big, big game. And going into the playoff game against I had an uneasy feeling, not because I felt the Bengals were a better team, but because in the recent weeks they had been playing closer to their potential than the Bills were. I thought the Bengals were playing better. So, in that sense, I agree with you. But then the question, the only question that matters, is WHY were they playing better? You seem to think, I guess, that the Bengals had a better roster and lineup, and therefore they were better. I don't think that's true. I have said for years around here that differences between rosters among well-matched teams are irrelevant - there just isn't that much difference in talent to determine the outcome of games. Games are won or lost or by how well the team plays, and that has to do with things like their mental attitude, their preparation, the quality of the coaching and game planning, etc. It's in that context that the emotional state of the individuals and the team is directly relevant to the discussion. As Gunner said, the players admit they **** the bed in that game. The question is why would a team as good as the Bills be so uncompetitive? If, as I believe, the overall talent differential, if there even was one, was minimal. If the Bengals talent is so otherworldly, why did they lose to the Chiefs the next week? Don't tell me it's because the Chiefs were better, because that would mean that the Bills should have been obliterated by the Chiefs, which of course they weren't. I live in Connecticut. I'm a UConn fan. I don't know if you've watched them in the NCAA tournament, but they have been spectacular. I asked myself if they are better than all the other teams in the tournament, and I realize (1) I don't know, and (2) it's the wrong question. "Better" only helps predict the outcome if one team is clearly superior to the other. Once it's clear that no one has clear superiority, then "better" isn't very relevant. What's relevant is what they need to do to win. UConn plays Gonzaga tomorrow. Is UConn better? No idea. The relevant question is not who's better, but who will PLAY better. In January, the Bengals played better.

There's no point in arguing with you, but I have to call you out for things that you make up that are just flat out untrue. Players admit all the time that the other team was better. They say things like "they were the better team today," and "we couldn't match them on the field today," and "there was nothing we could do to stop that." We hear that every week from players around the league after losses. Those are all admissions that the other team was better, at least for that day. They are all admissions that they were outplayed. What players are notorious for is NOT talking about their emotions. They never say, "I had a bad day because I had a fight with my wife this morning," or "I couldn't focus because I had the greatest sex of my life last night," or "I just couldn't do it because my favorite uncle passed away." They don't talk about their emotions. Even so, several Bills admitted after the Bengals game that team was flat or didn't have it in them, but no one was going to come out say "you know what, the weight of the world was just too much for us." They won't because, true or not, they don't want to sound like they're making excuses, and because players rarely talk about their emotions. None of the Bills said the Bengals were a better team because the Bills don't believe that they are. Under ordinary circumstances, the Bills are certainly competitive in some absolute sense. Yes the Bengals might be the better team, in the sense that if they played 10 games the Bengals might win 6 or 7, but they aren't winning 10. The Bills are one of the top five teams in the league, and no one is beating a top five 10 out of 10. The Bills by all means can compete with the Bengals. They just didn't on that day. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl and were, in my estimation, the best team in the league. And yet, the Bills beat them. If they can beat the best team in the league, they can beat the Bengals, who weren't the best in the league.

I've seen you selling this idea, and nobody is buying. Cinci is good, but the first game was far from over when Damar went down. I mean, I understand your point of view about this, and it may be right. But there is no way to prove it's right, no matter how many times you say it.

I don't agree. There are four or five parts to every season. Preseason, Sept-Oct, Nov-Dec, end of season, playoffs. One thing that is always true is that the intensity and hitting ratchet up as you go through the various parts. Playoff football is incredibly intense and physical. If you don't match your opponents' intensity, you will not win. Intensity is an emotion. To be intense, you need to be in shape emotionally. The Bills were not in shape emotionally. That's what Saffold said after the game. Going into the Bengals game, they weren't emotionally ready in the exact same way a team isn't physically ready for a game if it has injuries. I'm not taking anything away from the Bengals; they were excellent. But the Bills simply weren't emotionally able to play with the necessary intensity. That's not an excuse; it's an explanation.

A good explanation.

This great, BL, so I quoted it. It's just so well put. And I'll add more thing. "Excuses" is a loaded word. They are explanations. They are statements of the events that happened to them as individuals and as a team, and the emotional impact of those events explain why the team could have been flat. An excuse is an explanation that someone uses to absolve themselves or someone else of responsibility for what happened. No one is saying the Bills players aren't responsible for what they do - after all, they're the only ones who could play the game; all they're saying is that it's not surprising that these human beings found it hard to perform under the circumstances. It's not surprising, because our sense is that most people would have found it hard to perform. We all glorified Allen for playing well after his grandmother died. Why did we glorify him? Because we understand that emotionally stressful events make it difficult to perform at peak efficiency. It's hardly surprising that 100 human beings, collectively, found it difficult to perform at NFL playoff efficiency after having multiple deceased grandmothers in their previous eight months.

I just jumped in here and was reading some of the recent posts. I'm really in no position to say what all this means on the oline, especially because we can only speculate about the draft. I think the reason we've seen these moves on the line is all of the above. Some of these people ARE going to turn to have been only camp bodies. Some of this collection will emerge as starters - maybe even as a starting right tackle. Some will be versatile interior line all-purpose depth. And even some of those camp bodies may show up on the roster if there's a bad string of injuries. The objective here is to have 10 or 12 guys, all with a role to play, and to be good at oline however the pieces are mixed and matched. I've never been convinced that this all-purpose oline approach is the best way to go, but it seems to be what McBeane believe in. Morse was their only big-time player on the offensive line, draft, trade, free agent (and Cody Ford).. The versatile role players can be had more cheaply than the studs.

Did I fall asleep and just wake up on April1?

I couldn't agree more about the adjustments. I simply do not think that Dorsey had a very good year. It was as though he came out of the gate with Daboll's offense and then didn't know what to do with it as defenses around the league adjusted, not just to the Bills but to all the good passing teams. In my view, either Dorsey needed a rookie year in the job or he just isn't good enough to do the job. He got the running game going a bit later in the season, but that too was something Daboll did. That's why I've been saying over and over - Oline and Dorsey. As for that video, it's actually not as bad as I feared. There are maybe 15 plays in there, and three of the drops were excellent plays by defenders knocking the ball out of Davis's hands as it arrived. I can look at those, and Davis can too, and say "should have had it," but the reality is that those are tough catches. They beg other questions, like what kind of route leaves him so covered, why is Allen throwing to him instead of someone else, etc. In fact, on some, Davis is double covered. Then there's one that was an Allen express and Davis was a split second late on it. We've seen everyone, including Diggs, miss those occasionally. The last replay on the video is a ball where Allen led him too far - as the ball is going through his outstretched hands, Davis's foot is about to step out of bounds. As I said before, I think all the detailed data can be misleading. Thanks. As I said, I don't know any of these guys, but it's good to know that there are oline prospects worth taking in the first round. Im my perfect world, I wouldn't mind a tackle at 27 and a trade up in the second to take a center. One think about taking someone to replace Morse is that he perhaps could displace Bates in his rookie season, let him play beside Morse for a year and eventually move over. Two birds with one stone.

I don't follow the draft until it actually happens, and I don't even know who Avila and Schmitz are. I had to look them up. I'm all on board with this. I've never been a huge Morse fan, and his days are numbered, so let's get someone solid there. And a tackle. Or a premier guard, but tackle is the greater need.

Yeah, I completely agree about Davis's reception numbers. They are completely puzzling to me, but I don't think they necessarily mean what we think they mean. Someone would have to take a deep dive into the film to understand it. Purely anecdotally, I remember that Davis had more drops on easily catchable balls than I thought he should. I also remember Allen making some desperation throws to him that were targets, yes, but not very catchable balls. I've seen enough of him to know that he can be a very reliable receiver catching catchable balls. He seemed to do that less well last season. But these are stats that the Bills have analyzed already and to the extent any underperformance exists, adjustments have been developed and will be installed in the coming months. That's what the coaches do this time of year. And that's why it's up Dorsey. Diggs is great and Davis is a very good number 2; the job is to get them open and to give Allen time to get the ball to them. They have talented guys in the slot. They have talented running backs. They have an all-world quarterback. Upgrades in skill position talent are always nice, but they don't need any upgrades beyond where they are right now (barring Injuries) to be a top-5 offense once again in 2023. They need an offensive line and an appropriately creative offensive coordinator.

Got the agree to disagree. I look for production of the offense, not for little nuanced stats like contested catches or catches when Diggs is bracketed. All I have said and continue to say is that the production that Davis gives the Bills is good #2 production, and the solution to the problems on offense (real or perceived) is not to get a receiver who will get you 200 more yards per season. Having a #1 receiver playing behind your true #1 receiver is not a sustainable plan for the offense. The solution to the offense is to improve the offensive line so that running backs have consistently better opportunities and so that Allen isn't forced out of the pocket so much. That's what will improve the total offensive production in a sustainable way.