DCOrange

My login for PFF isn't working at the moment, but I think Lindsay ranks ahead of Saquon in PFF Grade, DVOA, and Run Success Rate. It's definitely debatable who has been better as a rookie and the Broncos guy provides insanely better value.

Even if Barkley were the best RB prospect in NFL history, I wouldn’t take him at #2. The Giants are paying Saquon roughly 1,200% more than the Broncos are paying their rookie RB and the Broncos arguably have the better player. The Giants would have been far better off taking a QB, Chubb, Denzel Ward, or basically anything other than Barkley.

Yeah, I can't see Robinson or Star being cut personally. I fully expect DeSean Jackson to be. He's just too expensive for what his role is in Tampa at this point. Evans and Godwin are a great 1-2 combo and Tampa can free up $10 million by cutting DeSean. The ones that I'm personally interested in are: Robinson (but like I said, I highly doubt he gets cut) Kenny Stills Marvin Jones Demaryius Thomas And not super interested, but I could see Buffalo bringing in a veteran presence like Pierre Garcon if he's cut. I'd be fine with taking a shot on Devante Parker too.

Am I sure that McCoy is no longer a top 3 RB in the NFL? Yes. Are you actually questioning that? I honestly didn't think anyone would object to that at this point. If you think McCoy is still an above average starter, I can at least understand that even if I don't personally agree, but I don't think anyone in their right mind can argue that he's a top 3 RB anymore.

You're trying way too hard here. Obviously Allen is not an exact clone of Tyrod. Tyrod was a running QB who took deep shots but didn't force passes. Allen is currently a running QB who takes deep shots and does force passes. That is the comparison. And the comparison is being made because Tyrod was, based on PFF, QBR, etc., performing as roughly an average starting QB and Buffalo decided to move on to find a guy that was presumably more of a pure passer, which has made the comparison even more fun to look at because Allen has been the opposite so far. The other rookies were all replacing career backups (McCown & whatever the Browns had last year), guys that retired (Palmer), or were forced to play due to injury (Flacco/Lamar) so the comparisons for them aren't remotely as interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I personally think Star was a waste of a contract and I would love to hit the undo button on it, but I don't at all foresee Buffalo cutting him after one year and I don't think it really makes sense financially to do so either. They mention in the article that they think he might have been the worst FA signing of the offseason though. It seems like they think the Bills would simply improve by not having him on the team. Mills is a free agent

Yes and no. I think pretty much everybody would agree that at this point in time, the teams that took QBs are happy with their guys because they're showing flashes of what got them drafted. That's really all we're looking for. Barnwell wasn't going for that; Barnwell was trying to determine if they're playing well relative to other starting QBs, which for the most part, they are not. And to also discuss how they're progressing (though I didn't really get much of that in the article). I think it's fair and accurate to say that Allen has not been as good as Tyrod was. I also think it's fair and accurate to say that it doesn't matter right now because we really care how Allen is playing two years from now rather than right now.

Spotrac published a list of players that they think could potentially be cut in the offseason and provided some notes about whether or not they really think it's realistic that they could be cut, cap ramifications, etc. It's sorted by position so it's pretty easy to scroll down to the guys you want to read about. https://www.spotrac.com/research/nfl/potential-2019-nfl-roster-bubbles-819/ Of note, the WRs discussed: Allen Robinson Mohamed Sanu Demaryius Thomas DeSean Jackson Kenny Stills Devante Parker Michael Crabtree Marvin Jones Pierre Garcon Cameron Meredith Travis Benjamin Allen Hurns Willie Snead Bills players discussed: LeSean McCoy Chris Ivory Charles Clay Star Lotulelei

The Bills moved on from what was viewed as a roughly average starting QB after making the playoffs, and they moved on from Tyrod to a guy that's playing basically a more aggressive style of what Tyrod did. The fact that Bills fans clamored for Buffalo to move on from Tyrod because they wanted more of a passer and they have subsequently ended up with a QB that is currently more dependent on his running ability than Tyrod ever was makes for an interesting comparison between the two. The Jets moved on from a bad journeyman QB. The Cardinals moved on from a guy that retired. The Browns moved on from a collection of horrific QBs. The Ravens are running a completely different style of offense with Lamar vs. Flacco so it's difficult to really make any comparison whatsoever. It's probably more accurate to compare Lamar to guys like Kaepernick and Tyrod, which is what he did.

It means that he's being counted on to make plays with his legs like Tyrod but he's not protecting the ball or throwing it as well as Tyrod did. It's not really that complicated. I don't think he means that they're identical players and that Allen won't develop at all, but it's pretty simple to look at the fact that Allen is literally replacing Tyrod, and like Tyrod, is currently a running QB and make that comparison. At the moment, Allen doesn't compare well to Tyrod statistically but obviously the hope is that that changes as he gains more experience. As Barnwell pointed out, Allen and Tyrod both threw pretty deep on average, with Allen averaging 10.5 air yards per throw versus Tyrod's 9.0, but Tyrod completed a far higher % and did so while protecting the ball far better than Allen has. The hope of course is that Allen will progress, which Tyrod never did, and Allen has certainly shown some improvement since returning from injury so hopefully that continues. But just because comparing Allen to Tyrod is "lazy", doesn't mean it isn't an apt comparison to make right now, and I think pointing out that Allen hasn't been as good as Tyrod was is an accurate statement at the moment, even if it's not really important in the grand scheme of things since obviously we're concerned with what Allen becomes rather than what he is right now.

I think, and I could be wrong here, that he's probably comparing Allen to Tyrod because Allen is replacing Tyrod. The fact that he happens to be running more often than Tyrod ever did only makes the comparison more obvious. There aren't many QBs in the league that run a significant enough amount to really compare Allen to and it just so happens that one of them is the guy that he's replaced.

I went with Nagy because I think the way he's covered up for Trubisky's weaknesses is just tremendously impressive. I think Reich and Reid would be #2 and #3 for me.

The article literally includes clips that he took while watching the Bills games.

The Josh Allen section is too long IMO to quote the whole thing, but it's the very first section of the article. http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25518645/rookie-nfl-quarterback-progress-reports-2018-draft-picks-shown-far

Why exactly does he need to be replaced by someone on a one year deal? I don’t think the fact that we have other needs is really all that important to be honest. The point, in my opinion, is that McCoy is a replacement level player at this point and he’s being paid top dollar. We can cut him, sign a cheap alternative, add a rookie (which we should do with or without McCoy), and probably have upgraded the position while having additional savings to spend on other needs.

The obvious answer is no. He’s paid like a top 3 RB. He simply is not that level of player anymore.

That would leave Washington spending roughly $40-50 million per year on bad QB play. I can’t see it. Same reason Jacksonville might be a long shot. Those two teams are destined for rookies IMO.

I would guess 3-4 years and somewhere between 9-11 million per year but that's just a guess on my part. In a normal year I think he'd be more in the $7-9 million range but there's more money to go around this offseason than usual and less WR options in free agency, so I'm guessing it'll inflate his price.

It's based on average target depth. Benjamin and Mike Evans rank in the top 15 in the league this year in terms of how deep their average target is. They certainly aren't the typical archetype of a deep threat, but that's the way the numbers have averaged out this year. Evans just barely snuck into the top 15. There's actually only 6 WRs in the entire league that have received deeper targets on average than Benjamin.

See above

Zay is in a group of 17. And the beauty of this is that the QB play should, in theory, not matter. Having Peterman/Anderson throw off-target passes to Zay aren't being counted here. It's only counted if he has an actual chance to catch the ball. There's definitely some limitations there, as I imagine there's at least a decent degree of subjectiveness in determining what is and isn't catchable. But for example, Zay was targeted 74 times as a rookie but only 47 of them were considered catchable. This year, he's been targeted 78 times and only 63 are considered catchable.

I mentioned this in the article, but it's based on average target depth. So in Foster's case, he's #1 in the league in terms of average target depth, so his peer group is the top 15 deep threats. Same deal with Zay; I put him in the middle of his peer group, so his average target depth on PFF is roughly 12 yards give or take. I then took the 8 above him and the 8 below him to form his peer group. So their respective peer groups are made up of guys that are roughly performing the same role as them. Foster is compared to pure deep threats (though a couple surprising guys like Mike Evans and Kelvin Benjamin are in there too) while Zay is compared to guys that are running more intermediate routes.

The reason I went in the direction that I did is because if I simply took the 15 guys around Zay in terms of PFF ranks: 1. We'd be comparing him to basically the worst WRs in the NFL, and I'm not sure there's all that much value in that 2. We'd be comparing guys that are purely deep threats or purely screen-kinda guys to Zay, who is performing a completely different role. I think comparing Foster to other deep threats and comparing Zay to other all-around WRs makes more sense personally, but to each their own. Yeah, not every pass is caught or dropped. A pass that's heavily contested and isn't caught would be deemed catchable but wouldn't count as a drop.

I did this last year to see how Zay Jones compared to his peers as a rookie and thought that it would be fun to update it for this year. I've also analyzed Robert Foster compared to some of his peers to see how he stacks up (albeit on a small sample size at this point in his career). PlayerProfiler.com is a very cool website, and one of the many things that they do (and what I'm focusing on here) is that they strip out the passes that they believe are "uncatchable", which allows us to see how WRs have performed strictly when they have an actual chance at catching the ball. The results, particularly with Foster, are pretty cool IMO. https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2018/12/12/18137664/zay-jones-amp-robert-foster-advanced-metrics

I think this is easily the best WR class we've had since the Sammy/Odell/Evans class. It doesn't have the top end talent that that class had but I think there's seriously like 20 WRs in this class that project as future starters (obviously they won't all pan out, but the point is there's an absurd amount of depth in this class).