JGMcD2

Right, but you made the implication that the Chiefs have done an outstanding job the last 4 years getting difference makers through the draft... because this is a thread about the draft. They have more difference makers of course... they’ve been at this roster building thing a little bit longer... that matters... I know there are some... but objectively what teams have drafted more difference makers than Buffalo dating back to 2017? How many difference makers should a team be drafting per year? Indianapolis, Baltimore and New Orleans stand out... but who else? First we probably have to agree on the definition of what a difference maker is... in my mind it’s a player at a core position (QB, LT, WR, DE, CB) that excels in all situations... clearly can take over portions of the game on their own... or it’s a player at a position of less importance (TE, LB, G, DT, S) that is clearly elite and can change the outcome of a game. Let’s agree on a definition first.... I would consider Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen a difference maker... I would not consider Baker Mayfield a difference maker. I would consider Myles Garrett a difference maker... I would not consider Montez Sweat a difference maker. Travis Kelce is a difference maker... so is Kittle... Gesicki is not.

Okay.. so you’re upset with McDermott and Beane for not having more difference makers like KC? Thats your gripe... But you’re leaving out that Kelce and Hill were drafted 4 and 2 years before Beane even arrived in Buffalo. Then throw in Clark, Mathieu and Chris Jones who were drafted in 2015, 2013 and 2016... also before Beane arrived in Buffalo. I’m not even going to entertain CEH as a difference maker - queue you telling me about how he ran all over Buffalo. So your ultimate point is McBeane are bad at their jobs for not jumping in their time machine and getting hired in Buffalo sooner... that’s what you’re telling me? Also you were referring to the last four years because your post said this specifically .. I don’t need charts, and WAR, and heat maps to tell me that the Bills have drafted solid contributors that past few years, but have not been getting true difference makers outside of say Josh Allen, Tre White, and Dion Dawkins(the last two were McD picks, not Beane). I value the “eye test” a hell of a lot more than analytics, and the Bills got their asses handed to them against the Chiefs because they have too many ok contributors and not enough true difference makers like the AFC Champs. Maybe you should use a timeline or something to sort this all out... but that’s technically a chart and you don’t need those... As for heat maps... you know nothing about heat maps at all... other than one experience that I have no exposure to... which occurred 2 years before I even signed up on this forum... and use that as an insult against me?

You tell ‘em Hap!!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Thanks for clarifying... there were some reports that Childress, Nagy and evening Greg Olson (yikes) were the lead candidate. I know Ken Dorsey interviewed too. I guess all I was getting at is it’s kind of bizarre to jump all over McDermott for upgrading his staff over time and different coaches become available. Everyone has different length contracts, teams value certain coaches differently, etc. You can’t just pluck everyone you want whenever you want. I do think he did a good job identifying some younger coaches that he eventually promoted into more prominent roles over time... that’s a good thing. He’s developed some of his own coaches in his time here and that’s encouraging. Chad Hall now the WR coach Bobby Babich now the S coach Jim Salgado now the Nickel DB coach Marc Lubick now assistant WR coach and game management... which just shows McDermott’s commitment to getting better because his game management left something to be desired so he appointed someone to help him with that in some capacity on game day.

Yes, I think that’s what he did best as well. But you’re 100% right... it’s a concept I’ve talked about before... a player may be a contributor on a non-playoff team... but what do they look like on a contender? Do they make the same impact... that’s how you have to measure players... I brought it up a few times in the never ending Logan Thomas debate haha

IIRC Whaley made a lot of moves that were popular with the fan base. Outside of EJ Manuel. I always thought his drafts and signings were an example of what would happen if the geniuses on BBMB ran the Bills for a few years.

What are you even talking about? First it was Whaley’s scouts whose information was used to make the draft picks... but now apparently it was only Whaley’s scouts who made the GOOD draft picks... and then McDermott and his coaches made the BAD draft picks? Rick Dennison... the guy who was like his 8th choice for OC? It’s documented that he was not the primary target. He wanted Nagy or Childress amongst others and Reid promoted them a year prior to co-coordinators to block a lateral move. Not every person you want to hire is immediately available nor are the just allowed to get up and come work with you when you request it. He hired Chad Hall on that initial staff too and I believe John Butler as well... and Bobby Babich... and Rob Boras... and Jim Salgado... and Marc Lubick EDIT: Butler came over after the 2017 season. Everyone else was hired in 2017.

This is true. I thought Whaley was fine for the most part on the personnel side of things... but he wasn’t fit to run an entire organization. With that being said, it seems like the rest of the NFL believes he isn’t even fit to run a scouting department seeing he’s been out of the league for ~5 years now.

Absolutely, I agree with this 100%. It needs to be a combination of both and there’s no debating that at all. Absolutely zero debate. We can agree on this, and likely agree on more than that. Probably just talking past each other before by accident.

Okay... so you’re throwing out an entire model, that does a really good job of objectively showing you something because Atlanta and Cleveland were essentially flipped? If you look at just raw value that PFF shows.. Cleveland is far outpacing Atlanta... but when factoring positional value and where Cleveland was making their picks... they drop off a bit. You’d rather trust your “sniff test” which is far more flawed than data because it’s completely subjective solely because it’s comfortable? That’s the exact definition of bias and why so many organizations inside and outside of sports use numbers to eliminate that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re arguing with me that one particular ranking inside of a model doesn’t make sense, in favor of what comes down to essentially just guessing...

Well if other teams really are bad at drafting... its it plausible that the Falcons are slightly better than other really bad drafting teams? The teams that come after ATL... it’s not like any of them are hitting home runs in the draft year after year after year either. Detroit Cleveland Jacksonville Green Bay Giants Seahawks Chargers Patriots Broncos Dolphins Texans Eagles Bengals Raiders Cardinals What you’re saying about Singletary and Moss... PFFs model legitimately sifts through that for every team. It’s outcome is rooted in positional value and round drafted. A marginally contributing RB drafted in RD3 isn’t swaying anything in favor of the Bills in this model. Can you answer my questions please? You named 3 true difference makers drafted in the last 4 years for Buffalo... how may true difference makers have the AFC Champs drafted in the last 4 years? How many difference makers do you expect a team to draft per year? How many difference makers have other teams drafted in the past 4 years? You keep referencing heat maps as if they’re bad... can you explain to me why those are bad? Like in baseball they’re used in advanced scouting to help give pitchers an idea of where hitters struggle and what pitches they struggle with... is there another way with the naked eye to determine that and communicate it more effectively?

Subjective eye test > objective numbers... that’s just willfully ignorant but it’s your choice. The “eye test” has been proven by psychologists as just confirming biases that you’ve created for yourself over time in day to day life. Fine, we’ll completely ignore numbers and science in favor of our gut. You’re allowed to mix both you know...? You named 3 true difference makers drafted in the last 4 years for Buffalo... how may true difference makers have the AFC Champs drafted in the last 4 years? How many difference makers do you expect a team to draft per year? How many difference makers have other teams drafted in the past 4 years? You keep referencing heat maps as if they’re bad... can you explain to me why those are bad? Like in baseball they’re used in advanced scouting to help give pitchers an idea of where hitters struggle and what pitches they struggle with... is there another way with the naked eye to determine that and communicate it more effectively?

Other teams are also really bad at drafting is my guess...? It seems like they have some decent guys they’ve found in later rounds... nothing special, but maybe enough to separate them from the pack slightly... this is just from me looking at names? A lot of their higher percentile outcomes were later round picks, some early round picks were decent outcomes but not spectacular... and almost all of their misses were early round picks indicated by a larger dot in the graph. A lot of the teams after them have been quite atrocious as well. It doesn’t really say the Falcons have been good at all.. it just says they’re slightly better than other teams.... this is actually what I initially set out to prove with my analysis. People here are so fixated on the Bills and how “bad” they draft that they don’t realize you can only be good or bad by comparison and compared to the rest of the league they’re better. I wish I could interact with the plot... because it looks like Buffalo has a nice mix of early and later rounds there... but most their misses have been in the early rounds... which we all seem to agree on... they’ve had some guys that haven’t necessarily generated a great ROI.

Gunner, the bolded just isn’t true for PFF’s model. I highly encourage you to go read the article explaining everything in detail. My model using AV I guess inadvertently did incorporate playing time (it’s part of the formula for assigning the value) but it was my only option... I made it very clear the model wasn’t perfect and quite frankly if I had the resources that PFF does it would look something more like what they created... but they’re a large company that does this for a serious profit and I’m one person that works in professional baseball and has zero private football resources. Alas, I’m a fool for trying to measure something objectively rather than everyone have a dick swinging contest about what they know about football even though it’s rooted in personal bias. PFF’s system is much more complex than a guy starting. It’s based on all of the possible outcomes at that pick and positional value. They give some really good examples in there that I think you would like. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-historical-draft-success-for-all-32-nfl-teams

Lol I know... which made me like it even more. “I’m just here to let you know that if you get one more, you’re going to be out for the game. That’s all.” **Walks away** **Turns around** “Oh and 17, I love that swagger baby!!” I hate it solely because I don’t want to hear other fans complain and say Josh is a bad dude or whatever. It just gets annoying and is far from the truth.

I believe Josh was the best man in his wedding... may be wrong. I believe he was at least in the wedding party. I love to hear things like this.. it backs up everything I’ve heard about Josh from people who have had first hand experience with him. Kid definitely has a mean streak though... from being so competitive. Part of me didn’t love spinning the ball in the Chargers DBs face or throwing the ball at Okafor’s head... but at the same time I absolutely love it. He’s got a fire to him... I loved that about Fitzpatrick... like when Brandon Spikes launches himself at his head and Fitzy’s helmet came off and Fitz went RIGHT after him with no helmet... there’s a great photo somewhere...

Lol... what did I say... no matter what you’re shown... you’re going to say you’re right. My methodology was not highly flawed... it’s definitely not perfect and it doesn’t have the same capabilities a model like PFF just created has...I made that very clear the minute I posted my initial analysis. Oddly enough it’s similar to an analysis PFF did last year that I just found linked at the top of the new article.. It was an attempt from someone to quantify something, rather than just behave off their biases. I know that’s a foreign concept to you. One guy decided to argue with me saying that surplus value isn’t a real thing... although oddly enough PFF mentions it routinely in that article. So if that’s you’re barometer for things being “highly flawed” sure. I know surplus value is a foreign concept to many, but folks that work in pro sports know all about it. You just proved to me that you have zero desire to actually learn something new, you’d rather just say you’re right... because nowhere in PFF’s methodology did they mention anything about using playing time or salary in their model. Absolutely nowhere was playing time or salary factored in. Funny enough playing time and salary wasn’t factored into my model either... Let me continue to hold your hand and show you what PFF said... hits on high draft picks are valued higher and hits on more valuable positions are valued higher... A 90th-percentile hit in the top 10 is obviously much more impactful for a franchise than a 90th-percentile hit in the seventh round, as the former would generate almost 2 WAR over four years, while the latter separates from his peers by simply making the roster and generating roughly 0.2 WAR over four years. This sounds intuitive, and it’s supported by hard data: When correlating the average percentile of a team's top-100 draft picks over the last four years to point differential in a season, the result is much larger than when we do the same with draft picks beyond the top 100. The New Orleans Saints turn out to be the top team in terms of draft consistency, mostly because their busts came in later rounds — almost entirely inconsequential for a franchise. This explains why the Saints won the NFC South four times straight after going 7-9 three years straight before 2017. As I have already mentioned, we described draft success as teams might think about it. When a guard at No. 6 becomes a three-time All-Pro player after three years, it’s as good a pick as one could imagine. However, since offensive guards have relatively low value compared to other positions, Nelson lands in “only” the 93rd percentile when compared to the full distribution of all players selected in his range. Of course, this is still exceptional, but it’s a small difference and illustrates that the absolute ceiling for a top-10 guard seems to be the 93rd percentile. After all, it's hard to imagine a better guard than Quenton Nelson. When we measure draft success by comparing each draft pick (non-quarterbacks) to the distribution of outcomes of all players drafted in the same range, we reward the selection of valuable positions. When doing this, we get a pretty good impression of why the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl. If you’re gonna sit here and call me out... get your facts straight. You’re the type of guy that reads a headline and pretends he knows the whole story. Although I don’t even know if that’s true because you couldn’t read the title on a graph.

It’s not my fault you don’t understand... and I’m not about to explain it all over again here when it’s already been done in another thread... that’s why the thread was included. You can either read my methodology in the other thread and that will explain what those numbers mean... or you can read the title on the damn graph in the Tweet and that will explain what those numbers mean. Something tells me that regardless of what any data tells you, you’re just the type to think you’re always right. Do you really need me to hold your hand? EDIT: I’ll regretfully hold your hand and attach the article explaining the tweet too... I did this really difficult thing where I googled the title of the graph and the first result was the article. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-historical-draft-success-for-all-32-nfl-teams

Colts Twitter put this up today. Curious to see how it aligns with my analysis that I did a few months back. To the naked eye, it looks like most teams remain in the same bin in this analysis that they did in my analysis.... for all of the Beane is a bad drafter folks and the “you’re an idiot your numbers don’t make sense” folks. Link to my follow up analysis...

I mean I don’t disagree they’ve overpaid based on their production and yes it is kind of annoying with all the former Panthers... but the supply is limited... if you want to get players at certain positions... you’re likely going to have to overpay. We did just go to the AFCCG using that approach... obviously whatever they’re doing is working. I’m not attributing their success to former panthers at all lol...

I’m a really dumb person, especially when it comes to sports... but don’t most free agents get overpaid? You’re also assuming, in a free market where supply is limited and demand is high that other teams aren’t making comparable offers.... You’re behaving as if the Bills are the only team pursuing players and just making offers completely out of left field. Out of the DE, LB, DT and CB available last off-season... let me know which ones you would’ve gone after in a limited market and done better contract wise with? Seriously curious...

So sorry for your loss.

Great read as always!! Definitely an extreme result at the end... but that’s not a bad thing. This portion I quoted above is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. So many posters are convinced he’s a horrible bust. Nice to see someone who has actually spent the time to watch him realizes he’s a pretty effective player.

Josh Allen would absolutely eat if this came to fruition. The man loves 4th and 15+. Sometimes I think it’s easier for him to convert than 4th and 1.

I’ve been saying Wilson is the QB1 in this draft for awhile... not that it matters at all what I think lol. A lot of reports coming out that some teams have Wilson as QB1 in the draft as well. It’s no knock on Lawrence, Wilson is just THAT good. Point being... it’s not very extreme.