JGMcD2

I should add that I really enjoyed this mock draft. I’ve been poking around on here for years, but I’ve somehow never seen any of your mocks. It’s a shame, because this is impressive. I absolutely love content like this. I look forward to the rest of the series!

The more I read about this guy @GunnerBill, the more I’m falling in love. I didn’t think I wanted a CB in RD1, but I’d be extremely happy with Newsome at 30. Unfortunately, it looks like you’re right and he’s catching some helium in media outlets and across the league.

It’s BPA related to the Bills draft board. Not your draft board, ESPN, NFL.com, etc. Whether you believe they’re following the strategy they have laid or not is your prerogative, but without knowing what their board looks like how can you make any assertion one way or the other? Although, if you’re trading up to take a specific player wouldn’t he be the best player on your board? I can’t think of many instances where you’re trading up and taking a player that you have grades lower than others...

That’s what all the people I know who grew up in Maryland say... it seems like everyone else loves Old Bay because they heard it’s the #1 seasoning. Interesting.

Old Bay or J.O.’s on your crab?

At first I didn’t think this guy was a diva.... then all of a sudden he was grand standing after the AFCCG loss to KC... now he’s wearing a Raiders shirt. I can’t believe I was wrong this whole time... he’s starting to position himself for a trade to Las Vegas.

So he’s a distraction based on the amount of money? I really don’t understand? Diggs wasn’t supposed to be a distraction because he was acquired when cap was lush and was younger? I didn’t realize contracts and age were the determining factors in a player being a distraction? Normally when people claim a player is going to be a distraction it’s because of their behavior...

Nobody is (likely) signing Watt for more than two years - not sure how what we’re paying him these next two years has anything to do with the caliber of player he is when his contract would be up? Truthfully in free agency in any sport you’re always paying a player what they’re worth based on past production and not future production. That’s just how it works... In what world is it a distraction? The same world that Diggs was going to be a distraction?

Reich would be looking for a new job... or Wentz?

Boy, oh boy. You didn’t read a lick of what I wrote did you? Stop focusing solely on results. It’s quite possibly the worst thing you can do. Sacks are a made up metric too. If you’re going to give me grief for talking about numbers... don’t bring more numbers into the conversation. Lacks candor. Sacks are out of the control of the player at the end of the day. The total is reliant on 10 other guys on the field executing to allow 1 - 2 guys to make that play for a loss on the QB. Beating your man or in Watt’s case more often than not, your men... is not. It’s measuring something a player can control... and if replicated over and over again will likely lead to your desired result... sacks. The horror. Would you prefer your defensive ends not get off blocks? I talked about Watt’s injuries. He just played a full 16 games. Over the last 3 seasons he played 40/48 games and oddly enough the year he missed time (2019) he came back in time for the playoffs and seriously disrupted the game... I forget who that was against? Excuse me if I don’t want to heavily weigh him coming back too quickly from back surgery in 2016 and then fracturing his tibia in 2017. Those aren’t even in the top 5 when it comes to common/reoccurring injuries in the NFL. The torn pec is concerning but he came back in the same season, blew up Josh Allen and then proceeded to play a full 16 games the next season. I made it fairly clear his injuries are part of the reason he’s not (or shouldn’t) get more than $12-13M and age is another. If injuries weren’t a concern he’d be making $17-$20M.

I appreciate your willingness to admit you’re wrong, really do. It would be easy to dig in and fight back. Thank you for that... seriously. I want to unpack you text there though, and think about it just in the context of that post. It says only 4 players who were in the top 10 in double teams ALSO were in the top 10 in pass rush win rate. They are Myles Garrett, Joey Bosa, Chase Young and JJ Watt. This is just one comparison obviously and cannot be seen as the sole measure for how much he has been paid, BUT I think it’s very illuminating. To be double teamed that often AND beat your double teams tells me you’re creating issues for the opposing offense. Due to that, I want to illustrate what those 3 other players are being paid. Joey Bosa has the largest contract for a DE. 5/$135M with an AAV of $27M. Myles Garrett has the 2nd largest contract for a DE. 5/$125M with an AAV of $25M. Chase Young has the 15th largest contract (rookie deal). 4/$34M with an AAV of $8M. That’s a lot of coin... on average $20M. Now you’re in the right to be concerned about Watt being older, he’s 32 and those guys are 25 or younger. You’re right to be worried about injuries with him as compared to those guys. If that’s your concern, I understand. The root of it is, Watt at 32 performed similar to them and we’re talking about $8M in savings associated with that type of production due to various factors such as age and injury history. Healthy and you have an absolute steal, hurt and you have a signing that really can’t be much worse than Trent Murphy. I think it’s really a snap call with where the Bills are right now. They need an elite pass rusher, he still is, and those guys aren’t growing on trees. If that type of guy is available it’s because they have some warts, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Let me follow the train of thought here... You think people are getting caught up in the name and aren’t thinking analytically. Then numbers (analytics) are brought to your attention to illustrate that he’s still a very impactful player. Then you say that the numbers don’t matter anymore and you’re just going off of gut? Tighten it up.

And then who do the Browns have that are elite? Garrett, Ward and Chubb? You conveniently left out some very good players on the Bills but that’s cool too.

I mean is Dorsey going to say they drafted him and his teammates hate him? What else is he supposed to say... It is a relative of a player... came over from another team with a top tier QB and said Baker doesn’t put in close to the same amount of time as the other QB does and it was frustrating for him to see.

I know you’re not going to believe this, but I know someone who is directly related to a Browns player and said they’ve been told Baker is extremely me first.

Yes, they have elite pieces. I’m still not sold on Baker as anything more than Ryan Tannehill, but that isn’t an insult. I personally just don’t feel like he can flat out win a football game week in and week out on his own if he needs to. Not many QBs can - I still think he can win a Super Bowl in the right scenario. The important thing will be if they can take the next step against (on paper) a more difficult schedule.

I’m just calling it how I saw it. Don’t put words in my mouth, because you don’t know what I would have said had that been Buffalo. I likely would’ve said the same thing I’m saying now - it was more the other team imploding than Buffalo doing anything special. I have no ill will towards the Browns, I like Stefanski, so much so that I talked all my Browns fan friends off a ledge when he was hired. They thought it was awful and wanted someone else. I said if he did a solid enough job he’d be a COTY contender. He’s done a good job building a culture there, but he has a lot of strong personalities that are more “me than we.” It’s an uphill battle, I had some ties inside the locker room at one point it’s exactly that... a lot of strong individual personalities.

Pittsburgh gave Cleveland the ball 4 times on it’s first 5 drives in their own territory and it was still a two score game late in the second half. Cleveland capitalized on the opportunities given to them, but it’s not like they did anything extraordinary. A fumbled snap to start the game has nothing to do with Cleveland and Ben staring down his receivers and forcing throws doesn’t either. I understand it was a huge monkey off the Browns backs to beat Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh but that game was more Pittsburgh imploding than Cleveland dominating.

By what metric is Ertz a better weapon than Beasley? Genuinely asking... like how are you making the determination?

You can’t just create extra targets? The range is somewhere between roughly 950 - 1100 plays on offense. We were at 1034 plays. Let’s say we hit that upper limit and run 1100 plays. With a 59/41 run pass split that’s an extra 39 targets to go around... really not that many spread across an entire offense... but the spread would like look something like the current target share... so guys are picking up around 5-6 extra targets on average. Stats could very well increase, but it means someone else has their numbers declining. If Brown is healthy for 7 more game, Davis’ numbers are not the same.

Huh? Beasley shouldn’t get more than 4 Tgt/G? Explain?

I didn't say it was guaranteed, but a full season worth of opportunities tells me a decent amount about Knox. It will take some time, but I can look into how increase in targets leads to decrease in efficiency overall. My hypothesis is that is doesn't move very much.

No. It's assuming that Knox performs similarly with increased targets... a sample size of 16 games makes you fairly confident that's how the player will perform. Obviously it's not perfect and there are other factors. @Hapless Bills Fan keeps beating the horse that Knox was open a lot and just wasn't targeted.. likely because Josh's first read in his progression more often than not is Diggs, followed by Beasley, followed by Brown, followed by Davis before he even gets to Knox. In Washington it was McLaurin followed by Thomas or McKissic as a check down option. Situations are not all created equal and that's what needs to be recognized. There are a limited amount of plays to go around (the average team over the last 10 years runs 1023 plays per season on offense) and target share isn't created equal. Knox as the 5th option in Buffalo and Thomas as the 2nd option in Washington is drastically different. Looking at their rate stats is a decent albeit not perfect way to compare them had situations flipped. If you have a better way I am all ears.

There is probably room for some extra plays based on this here. I threw it together real quick... just a boxplot of Total Plays each season. Going over 1100 plays is pretty rare and generally an outlier. Quick summary stats for the total dataset from 2011-2020 Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. 878 994 1018 1023 1052 1191 2020 Bills were above both slightly above the median and the mean with 1034 plays. There aren't significantly more plays on the table, at least not typically, you would have to have a season that would be an outlier to have significantly more plays than we did this year. Another real good season with an increase in plays to get to that Q3 and you're at around 1052 plays... so we run 18 more... that's not enough to spread around... even if we're split 50/50 pass and run to support a guy like Logan Thomas who needed high volume to put up the 72/670/6 line he did. I'll concede we're not at the upper bound, but there is not a lot of wiggle room.