Brand J

When it comes to the entertainment industry - acting, writing, music, sports, etc. - it will always be easier to fail than succeed. Actually, that holds true in any industry. There will always be more sob stories than successes, so if you’re thinking from that standpoint, then yes, the data is largely arbitrary, it doesn’t mean much. Most of these players are supposed to fail and it might not even be their fault, there’s just too many variables to success. We can look at the numbers Allen posted in college and declare “he will be a bust, because ALL the others before him have busted,” but we know that’s not true. The data gives you a predictive outcome based on the history of that position, so if Allen proved to be an outlier - as he did in this case comparative to his peers - then I do think it’s fair to say he defied analytics and I can’t say their process is “drastically” flawed… because it wasn’t, until Allen came along. You’re more than welcome to disagree, of course.

In your original statement you said “Allen didn't defy anything. There are no analytics or statistics that said anything at all about whether Allen would be successful or not.” That was untrue. Even if you disagreed with such assessments and statistical analysis based on the body of his peers at the position, the analytics and statistics were out there. It’s predictive, not absolute. Just because all other QBs before Allen failed that came into the league with similar numbers, doesn’t necessarily mean Allen himself was guaranteed to fail, of course, but the data was gathered and used to predict an outcome. You can do this with any study, but there’s always an element of human error when going off sheer numbers because they can’t measure such things as heart and will - two things Allen has an abundance of in addition to his freakish athletic abilities. That statement you quoted about outsmarting humans and mathematics is why so many were slow to come around on Allen - they wanted to be right. They wanted him to be a bust so his data wouldn’t defy their predictive analytics. More often than not I’d say their data points would be in the right, but there are always outliers and going off the tools they used to assess his potential success, Allen is the first outlier of the sort in NFL history. Meaningless? Not quite. 100% accurate? Of course not.

@billsfan1959Heres one such article that didn’t take me long to find. Josh Allen’s 60% Bust Rate There are others that go much more in depth as well if you want to do some digging.

Myth or not, they were out there. And if you’re interested enough to go digging you’ll find them. It’s also why many of the posters here believe large portions of the media were so reticent to give Allen his due; based on their stats and analytics he was sure to be a bust and their models were proven wrong. EDIT: the nature of their predictive ability was comparing his statistics to the history of QBs that came before him. There’s a thread now comparing arm lengths of CBs and why successful shorter armed CBs are fewer in number. The data for Allen was similar (not for physical measureables but for stats like accuracy) except there were no successes.

Oh, there was a laundry list of statistics rolled out to prove he would suck, maybe you didn’t see them. One of the variances he had was so far into the negative, I questioned myself could he do something that had never been done before (all the other QBs on the list were washouts, no successes). And obviously Beane didn’t trade up for a player he didn’t believe in, that was never the question. I remember him saying at the time he would watch Darnold or Mayfield and think “what would Allen have done here?” I thought it was a dangerous approach to take, but yes, he hit a 500 foot home run.

Beane has drafted one absolute star and a host of other very good players. As others on this board have said, picking at the end of each round will be much tougher in finding true blue chip talents. Truth is, if Josh Allen hadn’t defied analytics to become the star he is today, we could very well be thinking about a new HC/GM going into the season. Hitting on the QB changes everything.

New article from The Athletic, nothing groundbreaking regarding the Bills: Well, maybe except for the implication Beane doesn’t know how to evaluate the trenches. Slow news day. Article

Edmunds. He’s around the ball a lot, he just rarely makes the game changing play. If he starts playing up to the potential we thought we were trading up to get, I think he’d have the biggest impact on defense not named Von Miller.

I’d be surprised if Beane doesn’t do his due diligence to at least see what his camp is asking for. He’d be great on a 1 year deal where he’d come to the Bills and be the best version of himself 😂

Didn’t realize Cody’s 3 cone and shuttle were so horrendous. It’s surprising he was mocked in the 1st round to some teams.

Is he subject to waivers? If so I’d imagine no team will claim him and will wait until he clears to negotiate their own contract.

You guys still want WRs? We have Diggs, Davis, Crowder, McKenzie, a rookie with potential in Shakir, and two unknowns with potential in Stevenson and Hodgins. Not to mention Touchdown Jesus. There’s no all star receiver coming in now that’ll push that group even higher so why the desire to add names like Fuller? You’ve gotta let your own play at some point.

He’ll need to learn how to rush from RDE, going against LTs, because Von’s best work comes on the left side of the formation, against RTs. I don’t know if I see Groot beating LTs off the edge for a double digit sack season.

With McKenzies old number comes his old nickname “The Face of the Franchise.” Remember the days when Brian Moorman graced the cover of pamphlets? Araiza is next 😂

I see that Araiza chose #19 (don’t like that number for a punter). What did McKenzie switch to? Nvm: saw it in the other thread. #6 for McKenzie.

Seems like they moved on from the Williams idea with the signing of Quessenberry (sp?) but I’d like to see him brought back. Same with Jerry Hughes, but I’m sure neither would take a vet minimum deal.

Believe I read he only punted for one year. He may be green as grass, but the upside is huge if that’s the case. I look forward to camp goers giving reports of him and Haack punting side by side.

Also pretty ridiculous the chart had it at a 4th and 6th rounder to move up 2 spots (with Bills losing 5 pts). They didn’t maximize their value in those 2nd round trades, ended up losing points, but at least one of those 6s landed Araiza.

No arguments from me in terms of Bojorquez’s holding. He sucked at it and Bass felt it as well. I just think Corey had a higher opinion of himself than what the Bills thought so they went a different direction. Corey never got his big payday either. Here are McBeane’s words to the situation: But anyway, just because Bojórquez could never get it right, I don’t think it’s fair to have all these reservations about Araiza when holding has really never been an issue in the team’s history. It’s not like we’re asking him to run routes against NFL DBs.

I don’t know what he made after he left the Bills, but that’s what happened when he was here. Although I should add it was mostly speculation as to why a deal couldn’t get done in Buffalo, with most believing it was because him and his camp were asking for too much, but the Bills were definitely interested in bringing him back. And Beane commented on it during and after. Bojorquez averaged 50.8 yards in his last season with the Bills, which was 4th best in NFL history, so I’m sure he had a certain value in mind for himself.

Holding for a FG only seems to have become an issue in the aftermath of Bojórquez. I think Araiza’s ability to catch and get the ball down properly is being entirely overblown. EDIT: And Cory wasn’t cut. The Bills wanted him back but he and his agent had a higher price in mind than what the team was offering. Beane then came out with the comment of re-signing players who wanted to be here.

I’ve never seen a RAS score of 1. Yikes. Seems like he didn’t try or take it seriously.

Beane is very loyal to those early round draft picks.

To be fair, most contending teams are in the “if we lose this player…” predicament. Impossible to have quality depth everywhere.

Nick Cross, the safety from Maryland would’ve been my pick in the 3rd. Big guy with some serious speed, would’ve been nice to add that to the secondary. Perhaps Bernard would’ve been available in the 5th.