Mikie2times

Just watch the games then. Not trying to come off as a jerk either. You get some BS with just games, not much, but some. That said this is a message board during the offseason. Just about anything and everything will be discussed. I often find myself taking several month long breaks especially in the offseason. It's your choice.

In a historical sense, it's a real threat. That said, how can you defend a guy that doesn't know what he will do from play to play? Run the play, take off running, bail on everything and make throws nobody else can. Allen isn't like anybody to come out in god knows how long. That doesn't mean he is the best but his game is the definition of exotic. If teams get ahead of Daboll it could slow Josh down, but I'm confident if that happens the Bills will adjust. I expect Allen to improve despite knowing most would recede.

It shouldn't but it does. It also becomes relevant in a similar way it was in the services. If the most macho organizations in our society can accept somebody in the ways you suggest, it would show a lot of progress for society as a whole. The fact that this thread exists shows us we are not at that point yet.

We can talk about this without including our own feelings and strictly looking at it from a business standpoint. We are very deep at WR and yes, losing Cole would certainly hurt. That said if the NFLPA doesn't change it's stance on this topic I don't know how we can proceed forward with him on the roster. If you separate all the BS around this topic it really isn't that different than when companies bring in new management. If you don't want to get on board that's your right, but it's also the companies right to then decide if your presence, regardless of talent, could serve as a distraction or impact the whole in a negative way. I certainly think Cole would have a risk of doing so if we did retain him and he refused to comply to the NFLPA guidelines. I hope this gets resolved as it Cole seems like a pretty popular guy in the locker room. I respect anybody's stance to take a stance on what they feel is right regardless of how I feel. I think the Bills feel the same, but they don't have the luxury of running a business that way. For the NFLPA to really get serious about amending this they will need some big names to stand up. Quarterbacks, stars, and several of them.

I see many of the same concerns, but at the same time, he seems to close very quickly putting it into a gear he doesn't look like he has. Then once he's near you, with that frame, it's over. Really not all that different than Epenesa in the sense that I don't we see him as ready at the start of the year, but by middle, late, he very well could be contributing.

I don’t think he’s worth a 1st but he would be an improvement on 50% of the teams. Wasn’t far from a Super Bowl a few years ago, even if It was more of a defensive team.

This is great news, I know Milano will spend most of the offseason watching tape on Kelce. ☹️

Pisses me off because I don't qualify, by much....I imagine 90% of the people who don't like it won't get it.

Hmm, thank you guys.....This does have some intrigue. I mean, the Texans were pitiful last year and in theory Watts could have just been doubled almost every snap. He recovered with such force after the first injury...

Can somebody sell me on Watt? He averaged .88 sacks per game start prior to 2019 and .38 after. His production in rushing the passer is less than 1/2 the level it used to be on a per start basis. Is the thought he can be rejuvenated by a change in scenery, one more year and he will be even more healthy, playing in a 4-3 will help his production in pass rush, solid run D, play inside sometimes? Sort of like a better version of Shaq Lawson? Are we getting so excited at his name or what we expect him to bring? I'm certainly interested in this storyline. Just don't know what to make of it yet if he does sign.

Tee Higgins and Gabe Davis had the same AV in 2020 (6). Higgins had 67, 908, and 6 TD’s with career backups throwing him the ball after Burrow got hurt. Davis had the 2nd best QB in football throwing him the ball according to AV, and went 35, 599, and 7 TD’s. Devin Singletary is an 8 along with Nick Chubb and his 1000+ yards. I can do this all day and with way more extreme examples than I used. The point is over a career this stuff balances out. Over this small a sample it just doesn’t.

Over the course of a career I agree with that statement. In this small a sample it’s really more about did they play for a good team or not. I’m hitting the sack MJS, like I said. I applaud the work. I may not fully agree with how strongly you feel about it’s conclusions but I appreciate how you went about it. Look forward to future posts.

I agree AV is an excellent tool once the dust settles. But until then I can’t justify a rookie getting a larger pool of win shares to work with because his QB is Aaron Rogers. I can’t justify that the best drafting teams just so happen to all be teams that made the playoffs multiple times the last 3 years according to this list. We had the smallest representation of home grown players of any team in the AFC championship on our roster. The eye test tells me we have only drafted 3-4 players, we really want to keep. I love this type of analysis and it’s probably as close to a sabermetric philosophy as you can get and I love that as well, but it’s not something you can just drop the mic on. It has a ton of flaws. Namely, who the heck are the players that make us so elite? Tre, Josh? Who else? If we draft that well that shouldn’t be a hard thing to answer. Obviously Milano was very solid for where we landed him. You went this far. Care running number of wins by team from 2017-2020 against your final roll up? See how lopsided this gets. Team is good, therefor they draft good. You said it yourself. It follows the same concept as win shares. I can also run that data for you if you like tomorrow.

Lmao....read the link I posted. All of it. By default, any player on a higher performing unit who starts games gets more AV assigned. So by default any team that performs better has a higher AV assigned to players in that unit. Look at the correlation on his list with win% and do your own research.

Like I said, I applaud your efforts to solve what can’t be solved. But instead of using articles or partial sections I encourage you to discuss how AV is calculated in its entirety if you wish to defend against what I’m saying. Not just use partial sections. I’ve read that entire document and all the sub documents on how AV came to be a long time ago. Look at the Correlation between win % and your list, it’s very strong, now is that because they drafted well or is based on how AV is calculated? It assigns greater value to higher performing units. High performing units can be a result of one player you didn’t draft and 5 you did who are essentially role players. Those 5 players then get assigned much more value then if they played in moderate performing units. Just look at how many draft picks we started on defense since 2017 in context with it being a high performing unit. That said, who is the star? Tre is for sure, then you have Edmonds? Milano? Well, you don’t need much more than that once you throw Allen in. QB gets assigned the most points of all. This regime has a moderate draft record. It’s not bad. It’s not great. It’s certainly not the best. This analysis is causation/correlation. We are good. We have started a lot of draft picks. Most of those draft picks aren’t primary reasons we are good. They are complimentary players with only a couple qualifying as players we have to retain.

I really applaud your efforts to evaluate this, that said AV in a sample size this small, used for this purpose, is subject to a lot of problems. It was created to be a one size fits all stat for value of a player across any time in league history and at any position. If you just read on how AV is calculated for football you would understand immediately it can’t be used nor was it intended to be used for this purpose. As a simple example, just the success of a player like Brees, never drafted by the Saints, would automatically increase the AV of any drafted player that stepped on the field for the Saints on offense. Did you not start to notice a pattern of the highest rated teams also being some of the more successful teams the last 3 years? In sum, with AV, if you have a top unit and some draft picks played on that unit, they will get more credit assigned just based on the way AV works, even if what is making it a top unit isn’t players you drafted. Further, if you draft a QB who plays on a top unit you basically go to the top regardless. That last part probably has some validity. That said, I’m certainly not labeling this regime good at drafting based on AV average or one player. You would have a hard time naming more than 3-4 impact guys since 2017. That said we have drafted droves of role players that have playing time, which certainly helps juice that AV score. Read for yourselves and decide how relevant this data is in evaluating draft classes. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/index37a8.html

Madden is such a dumpster fire I haven't purchased it for the last 2 years. Last years Madden bowl winner used a Punter at QB and ran on 100% of his plays. Great job with those exclusive rights EA!

That's where I'm at. We had solid pass pro all year and against much better teams. To me it extends past just the front four. Allen is more hesitant and it creates a delay in his release. That at least appears what it looks like to me.

I thought some of that played a role myself. He did have two of his worst games this year against this team though. Again, he also struggles against NE. Worst game of the year in the first one. Despite the most people agreeing I do think it's related to late movement on defense which is what KC is known for, what I saw, NE is known for as well.

Started from the first play. He threw it directly at KC defender in 2 of 3 of our first drives. Both should have been picked, neither was. This was well prior to us needing to chase. He actually played better when we had to chase.

Watch a couple minutes. I don't feel like doing this for the entire video. On the first 8 plays plays, 4 are disguised packages, one nearly resulting in an INT, the rest resulting in sacks or near sacks. Mostly Cover 2 or Cover One switches, one zone switch, they had the OLB bailing into a cover 2 look all game. I do understand Romo showed a lot of sticky coverage replays which would make you think they just blitzed and pressed all game. Just not the case.

How much were you watching for pre snap movement from the Chiefs? All they did was change looks from what they showed pre snap. It was about the only thing you could predict.

In order to be good you need to know where to throw the ball, then you execute quickly and accurately. We always knew if Josh ever got to a point where he didn't have to see a player come open but rather anticipate it, with his natural talent, the sky is the limit. KC has a good pass defense, that said, we underperformed dramatically against them this year. This made me wonder if two things that stuck with me recently might tell some of the story on why we struggle vs KC. In a recent SI article (Genius of Brian Daboll) it discusses how Daboll coaches players to remove options in the route tree based on coverage. So instead of teaching a player who is the guy, you focus on teaching him who isn't. This season, Buffalo increased it's rate of motion from 2019 by 27%, that is nearly 12% more than the next closest team. Daboll had players moving pre snap at one of the highest rates in the NFL. Most the time motion is used to diagnose coverage. KC is one of the best teams in the NFL at hiding coverages KC, along with a great pass rush, which compounds everything, plays the perfect defense to confuse Josh. Don't let him eliminate routes and make him go through the whole progression. If you watch the first half, Josh looked confused. We haven't seen him look like that in some time. He looked like he didn't know where the ball was supposed to go and threw what was likely his easiest INT ball all year. KC just dropped it. It almost makes you wonder why more teams don't play Allen like the Chiefs. Well, let me ask you, how would the Bills play Allen? Cover 2 Zone, we wouldn't change. Teams are stubborn to identity. This is just like asking why don't teams motion more when motion has been statistically proven to have a + EPA? We also struggle against NE. All but the last one. NE seems like a team that could care less about identity and likely employs a lot of hidden coverages. That said, the Chiefs are the best at this. Just a theory, discuss or call names....

They didn’t play as much cover 2 shell in the second half and blitzed more. As a result Hill put up just about all of his yards in the second half. I don’t think we have the scheme to match up against a guy like Mahomes or how it used to go with Brady. Our scheme is also very vulnerable to good TE’s. We plah almost all zone and good TE’s/QB’s exploit the vacated areas. We don’t have a pass rush from the front 4 to prevent that from happening. Our defense can look great against average to below average offenses, but it really hasn’t shown it can hold up to an elite passing offense yet. Mixing looks, zone / man, sure. 49ers should have won the Super Bowl last year. Almost 10 straight games this year the Chiefs couldn’t win by more than 7. Our scheme is just too one dimensional. Perhaps all schemes have major issues vs a team as talented as KC but ours is made more for beating the middle of the pack teams that will make enough mistakes to lose. KC will never be that team.

My biggest concern with this team and it's progression toward the final steps is McD. On offense we seem to be very flexible week to week in our approach. We aren't married to a system. On defense, we do seem married to a system. Against very high end QB's, it is not the optimal system to be in. With McD we will never have the players to play high end man coverage and that seems to be how you beat the best. Along with a great pass rush from your front four.