DabillsDaBillsDaBills

Couple questions: 1) Has tanking ever worked in the NFL ? 2) Has a team ever tanked the year AFTER drafting their "franchise QB" ? 3) If we're tanking, why did we keep our aging veterans (Mccoy + Hughes) instead of trading them for picks ?

Like how firing Rex after <2 seasons led to a playoff berth the next year with a rookie HC ? In all seriousness though, I think we absolutely need to give McBeane one more full season after this one. The "process" was clearly to build long term at the cost of winning this year. I'm not sold on the plan and see a lot of red flags in their decision making, BUT they've shown enough to give them the benefit of the doubt for one more year. If 2019 draft + FA class work out and Allen+Edmunds turn into the stars we hope, this will be a great team.

People lack historical perspective when they ask questions like this. Teams more pathetic than the Bills: Cleveland Browns (the new team). In 20 seasons they have 1 playoff appearance (a loss). Averaging just over 4 wins per season. The team that up and left their city has won multiple SB's in the new city. Detroit Lions. In the SB era they have exactly 1 playoff win, and were god awful in the Matt Millen era. Houston Texans/Jacksonville Jaguars have never made a superbowl. Both franchises had some pretty good seasons. The peak of the Kelly era with 4 straight superbowls puts the Bills well above any of those franchises IMO. And that's just football.

On draft night I really wanted to hear "Rosen" instead of "Allen". With that said, it's pretty hilarious you are using this game as the example for why you think Rosen is better than Allen. Rosen struggled for 3 quarters before leading a 4th quarter comeback against one of the worst teams in the NFL. Allen did the same thing against a better opponent (Titans). Allen has what is probably the best game of any of the rookie QB's this year on the road against the Vikings. Based on how the other rookie QB's have played so far this year I'm actually starting to feel a lot better about Allen.

30 year old Bills/Sabres fa. Only 2 years come to mind '99 with Sabres in the finals and Bills in the playoffs. I wasn't really old enough to appreciate it fully and obviously some pretty bitter losses 2006 Sabres in the ECF. They were so much fun to watch that year and I was really into it. Of course, 4 of our top 6 defenders get hurt and we lose in game 7...

To clarify: I think Mccoy is an elite RB, and Ivory/Murphy are serviceable. Where the Bills are right now, and given that Mccoy is 30 years old (with a hefty contact), I think we're better off in the long term if we trade him now for a 3rd rd pick or better.

So we've done our best to take a ridiculously high dead cap number in an effort to help us in the future, at the cost of having a less talented team now. But we won't trade a 30 year old RB ? Much as I love Shady, now that Ivory/Murphy have shown to be capable RB's I see no reason to not trade him. Hopefully this is just the Bills trying to increase his trade value.

We gave up a 3rd+7th for this guy. Pretty serious miss by Mcbeane in both talent and character evaluation.

At least I've had a few people agree with me in this thread. I concur that the 2 blunders vastly outweigh the average yardage stats. I'm more concerned with what happened on that 'fake FG' than if he had just fumbled it or fully committed to the fake and threw an incompletion. The way he reacted I think he went into the play with the mindset that it's probably a fake, but he's not entirely sure, so if no one runs a route he's going to place the ball back down for Hauschka to kick it. The indecision baffles me. If he truly thought it was a fake why would he try to place the ball again?

1) No it does not 2) There could be a correlation there. Given the only data point I have is that Bojorquez is last in hang time and 9th in inside 20 % the anecdotal evidence would point to a weak correlation.

I did my own analysis of each play by play listed in the box score (I was bored at work...) Not sure how it compares to other punters.

The number of punts he has inside the 20 is largely due to the number of failed offensive drives the Bills have had. He has had 7 punts from the opponents side of the field, and one at exactly midfield. Every one of those SHOULD be inside the 20, or even inside the 10. Many NFL punters can do that. We should go grab one that doesn't turn the ball over every other game...

How is that relevant? The Browns+Vikings cut their rookie kickers after 1 game. You don't need to be patient with a kicker/punter when you don't need to invest draft capital and there are so many serviceable ones not on rosters at any given time.

Punters and Kickers are some of the least valuable and easiest to replace positions in the NFL (unless you happen to have one of the handful of elite guys at those positions). There are only 32 spots in the NFL for each position, and there are a lot more than 32 guys that can do a serviceable job kicking the ball. Teams will routinely cut a punter/kicker after a few bad games (or even one). Bojorquez had a disaster of a game and very nearly cost us a win. There's no reason to keep him on the roster. Go pick up a Colton Schmidt or equivalent off the UFA scrapheap.

Thank you for reading my post and addressing one of the points I made. I would argue that having a superior punt coverage unit could compensate for having poor hang time. No idea how to actually 'prove' that or quantify it. Net yards on punts obviously has a lot to do with both hang-time and the coverage unit.

I like that everyone has ignored my (and PFF's) analysis. People are blinded by the inside the 20 stat and ignoring the fact that our punter is the worst punter in the league and almost cost us a game.

Random punter off the UFA scrapheap. When you have the worst punter in the league it's pretty easy to find a better one.

It bothered me when the announcers said Bojorquez has the most punts inside the 20 and is doing a great job yesterday. My personal opinion is that he has been pretty bad so far this season. Bojorquez is a little below average in terms of yards on punts (18th) and is perfectly average on net yards per punt (16th). After week 5 he has the 2nd most punts inside the 20. How could a punter with stats like that be bad? Simply put: hang-time, turnovers, and the Bills dreadful offense. He is dead last in hang time. That speaks for itself. A 48 yard punt with no hang time that gets returned 50 yards is not a good punt. We've given up 2 huge punt returns due to a lack of hang time that's resulted in FG's each time (Ravens and Titans game) He's also directly responsible for 2 turnovers. The fumble against the Ravens in week 1 in the rain has been mostly forgotten (the game was laughable by that point anyway). The "fake" FG yesterday is the dumbest thing I've seen a punter do in quite some time. He pulls up to throw the ball and quickly realizes that he's the only guy on the Bills that thought the call was for a fake and puts the ball back down to try and have Hauschka kick it (who cannot kick at this point as his timing is screwed). How does Bojorquez realize it's not a fake in <1 second and react that quickly to put the ball back down? I think he just completely panicked on that play. Lastly, the Bills dreadful offense. It's really easy to have a lot of punt yards when your offense is 31st in yards for (much longer field to work with). He has the 31 punt attempts (2nd most) in the league including 7 from the opponent's side of midfield. A punt from the opponents 47 yd line that goes out of bounds at the 19 is not a good punt, even it counts as an inside the 20. Found this little gem in a PFF article grading special team units through week 4: SPECIAL TEAMS RANK: 18 Special teams was a big reason they played above their metrics last year, and their regression there hasn’t helped much this season. New punter Corey Bojorquez has the lowest grade at his position group so far, accompanied by the lowest average hang time.

Bojorquez is a detriment to the team and should be cut. He has decent yardage on his kicks, but with terrible hang time and placement. Not to mention 2 turnovers that are entirely his fault (Baltimore game and whatever the F*** that was yesterday). He's a great example of how yardage stats don't tell the whole story. PFF special teams rankings through week 4: SPECIAL TEAMS RANK: 18 Special teams was a big reason they played above their metrics last year, and their regression there hasn’t helped much this season. New punter Corey Bojorquez has the lowest grade at his position group so far, accompanied by the lowest average hang time.

It doesn't really matter if Whaley was the one that made the EJ pick in 2013. He went all in on EJ after trading up to draft Sammy.

He's been complete garbage for the Bills. In 9 games: 1 game of 50+ yards 0 games of 100+ yards 1 TD (to be fair he did have a TD stolen from him by the refs in the Pats game) Sure we have to factor in the QB's throwing him the ball, but he doesn't pass the eye test. He doesn't get separation and he doesn't catch contested passes. He looks fat, lazy, and uninterested. The only time I've been impressed by him was the Panthers preseason game. If he continues to play like this the guy will be out of the NFL in <2 years.

Beane inherited a team that had 1 awful contract (Dareus) and a handful of highly paid vets that in general were not bad contracts. The overall situation really wasn't that bad. He greatly exacerbated the cap situation by trading away Dareus, Glenn, and Tyrod (and more, but those are the biggest hits). When a player is traded you're not really trading away their contract, you're just turning the contract into dead cap. In Dareus's case we saved a measly 2 mil against the cap by trading him.

For $50,000,000.00 I want more than a limited snap count guy that eats space.

Kelvin Benjamin?

Ravens have 2x SB in the last 20 years, a big name QB (even if he's not very good) and a big name coach. They went 9-7 last year and missed the playoffs on that ridiculous 4th down play by the Bengals. They have mostly the same roster and were rolling in preseason. It's not a stretch to think they go 9-7 or 10-6 and are looking at a wild card. Is anyone in the media claiming the Ravens are elite and a legit SB contender? I would disagree if that's the case.