JGMcD2

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.

More than fair in Houston... but wouldn't that be a plus for Shanahan in regards to Slaton? I wasn't mocking it... he just wasn't a household name and not someone I think about when I think of potent. He was a rookie in '08 when Shanahan took over and he got that type of production from him in what ended up being his best season. It's not like he was out there with household ready made superstars... he was 28 with a pretty solid QB in Schuab, a great WR in Johnson and a rookie RB. When Schaub played they were significantly more productive, but he was injured and Sage Rosenfels had to play 5 games. They were #17 in scoring, 4th in passing and 13th in rushing... the year before they were 12th in scoring, 11th in passing and 22nd in rushing. He did a fairly decent job that first year and then the next year without Slaton improved their scoring and passing production while taking a big dip in rushing (I would say because he had a revolving door of RB until Foster broke out). I definitely agree that he and his Dad deserve blame and probably deserve to be fired for their handling of RG3, but this is a really good example of him being in WSH and building up the offense like you stated you wanted to see him do. He took over that personnel group and improve it from Y1 to Y3 and it fell apart when RG3 fell apart and that's their fault, but he's still sitting there younger than 35 with all of this experience, and some pretty significant success coordinating and improving in Houston and then building things up in WSH. While they did ruin RG3, part of the reason that they got fired was because they wanted to move forward with Kirk Cousins as the guy and it's well documented that they didn't even really want RG3 in the first place, but they managed to build an offense around him and have some really good results that first year. “”[Redskins owner Dan Snyder] knew I wasn’t very happy about what we did, but he wanted everybody to celebrate how smart we were, so we jumped on his plane and met the other owners on his yacht,” Shanahan said. “Everyone was celebrating. I just didn’t think it was very smart to give up that much for a guy who we didn’t even know if he could drop back and throw. “When I finally sat down with Dan, I said, ‘Hey, you own the team. We can work with him and do some things. But we haven’t seen anything on tape that warrants giving [up] this type of compensation.’ To me, it was absolutely crazy. But I told Dan that if that’s what he wanted to do, I’d make it work.”” Definitely have to take that statement from Mike Shanahan with a grain of salt, but Dan Snyder is easily the worst owner in sports and many coaches have cited issues like this in the past. Not to mention the toxic culture there. Yeah they got fired, but in my opinion it was more because Snyder was upset RG3 fell apart and wanted coaches who would agree to continue to work with him because of the resources invested in him. Mike and Kyle get blame there obviously, but they also have to get credit for getting the most out of RG3 by designing an offense to put him in a position to succeed. I think it's premature to anoint Flores as a top 10 head coach, or even above Shanahan. I actually personally really like Flores a lot, but he has more questions surrounding him in my opinion. He was a defensive play caller for 1 season after spending a decade with various personnel groups such as ST, in the secondary and with the LBs. His decision making has been subpar on several occasions as the head coach in MIA... he's absolutely a great motivator of men... but then again where was that week 17 this year against the Bills? Their whole season on the line, playoffs right there for them... all they have to do is win and they're in. They got beat by the Bills first stringers in the first half but continue to get smacked around by their backups in the second half. The team just completely folded in the biggest moment. That was Brian Flores' Super Bowl to date and he absolutely choked. You can get on Shanahan for choking with ATL and SF in the Super Bowl, but at least he has shown capable of making the decisions to get to that point. Flores choked in his biggest game yet and it was just to get into the playoffs. He also completely botched his QB situation with Fitzpatrick and Tua in 2020. That first year the roster was definitely really very poor and he did a great job getting to 5-11 but this year they poured a ton of money into their team and midway through the season people were saying they were AFCE favorites and going to knock the Bills off... they had plenty of talent and resources invested into their team and I'd argue Flores potentially held them back from take a bigger leap forward this year by flip flopping between Tua and Fitz... and he still had a crack at getting things right and the team straight up just folded despite him being a great motivator of men, which truthfully is his only calling card at this point... he doesn't have anything else to really fall back on. Never been a HC, only called defensive plays for 1 season... I guess maybe the fact he comes from NE.... but that coaching true is full of horrible failure so I wouldn't want to rely on that (I will say he's definitely different than the other guys who have come from NE, he's on record saying he needs to care about his guys and has to be himself and not a Belichick clone... which is really great self awareness). You're excited about Flores taking a severely undermanned team to a 5-11 record in 2019... I think that's great too... but where's the love for Shanahan taking a team where he had nearly $80M in cap space on the IR to a 6-10 record, starting 3 different QBs, missing his top offense weapons at various points during the season, major pieces on his D-LINE (combined 7 games played from Bosa, Ansah, Ford and Thomas) hurt for pretty much the entire season and having to move and play home games at a different stadium in a different state because of COVID.... which required tremendous leadership ability. The only argument for saying Flores is a better head coach is that he's gotten good results from a bad roster... Shanahan just went out and had a roster arguably as undermanned as Flores had in 2019, paired with even more difficult circumstances and he managed to go 6-10.

I should preface all of this by saying... I’m enjoying the discussion too. It’s all very thoughtful and I am rethinking some things here. Shanahan was the OC in Houston for two years... not one. First year was a split between Schuab and Rosenfels at QB, next year he had a full season of Schuab. Left Houston to go coach with his Dad in Washington... lateral move... He was the OC in WSH for 4 seasons and not 3 seasons like you said... then was fired and immediately hired to be the OC in Cleveland which only lasted 1 season because he resigned after they were trying to force him to start Manziel.... that’s when he went to ATL... left ATL to become the HC in SF. Also, out of curiosity let me know who was on these potent offenses in HOU. His lead back was Steve Slaton and his #2 WR behind Andre Johnson was Kevin Walter. Washington he’s out there with Ryan Torain, Roy Helu, Santana Moss and Jabar Gaffney I’m not really sure what “building the offense“ has to do with anything. I don’t know many, if any OC that are given the responsibility of building an offense? I mean sure, they have input in the process but don’t have final say. Did Brian Daboll build the offense in Buffalo? He didn’t trade for Diggs, Draft Josh Allen or sign Beasley and Brown? Does he not get credit for having success with the pieces he has? Building a team belongs to the GM and HC. He can’t be penalized for working with what he had... he coordinated top offenses with the talent given to him in HOU, WSH, ATL and SF (where he finally had a stronger say in things and after building up his offense and coordinated another top 5 offense). I don’t think he’s being given the responsibility at 28 years old, of being a HC unless he’s capable of leading and seen as a rising coaching talent. He had been in HOU for 2 seasons prior and teams were looking to poach him to be OC... that’s why Kubiak promoted him. You’re quick to dismiss him in the instances he has talent and then quick to judge him in the instances it’s clear he’s severely lacking talent. You’re quick to give so much credit to Gary Kubiak and Mike Shanahan for Kyle’s success... but when it comes to placing blame for the Falcons collapse it’s on the OC Kyle Shanahan and not the HC Dan Quinn? That’s kind of confusing to me? When it’s convenient to reward the HC, Shanahan doesn’t get any credit. When it’s convenient to blame Shanahan, the HC Dan Quinn doesn’t factor into the equation. Isn’t Pete Carroll the same guy who was surprised that the Bills threw the ball so much against them and prepared for their run game? Carroll decided to throw the ball rather than use Beast Mode at the goal line the Super Bowl... that’s a pretty egregious error. Didn’t Flores’ team crap the bed in the biggest game he’s coached to date and half it was against backups? LaFluer has collapsed twice in back to back years in the NFCCG? Andy Reid has a reputation as a notorious choker, just did it again this year. Why do they all get a pass... two of them haven’t even proven capable of making a Super Bowl... one even capable of making the playoffs. The other two didn’t win their first Super Bowl until they were 60+ years old and choked in all of their other opportunities prior? I agree that being a good OC doesn’t mean you’re a good HC. I think that’s extremely true and often overlooked... but a bunch of those coaches you listed have made plenty of egregious errors themselves that are more inflammatory than Shanahan not running the ball enough up 28-3 with 20 minutes left in the game... And just for the sake of the exercise I would rank them like this personally... Belichick Reid Harbaugh McDermott Reich Payton Tomlin Shanahan McVay Carroll Arians LaFleur Vrabel Flores