Buffalos#1Fan Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 The Bills are better because of depth and because they have no superstars. I just saw the movie Moneyball and I see an astonishing resemblance. The Oakland A's lost their 3 supposed best players yet they won. Buffalo let go of their starting QB (Trent) which was to some shocking, Marshawn, then Lee and they are winning. As an aside I have always thought that any QB who brings cookies to the team is not a starting QB, just like a QB who takes paperclips from the front office is very dubious. (Tod Collins one of the pretenders) HOW MANY YEARS WHERE WE LOOKING FOR A SECOND RECEIVER TO LEE EVANS? Maybe its better to have four above average receivers (plus Chandler) than two superstars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlackMamba Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 the a's didnt win anything but their their division. they made it to the alcs 2x and ended up losing to the yankees. the bills have won 3 games. settle down there, billy beane... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Billy Beane is still in Oakland; how are they doing? (it's a rhetorical question) The Bills have good players and good coaches -- better than the "experts" thought. Just enjoy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach Tuesday Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 (edited) Moneyball is an economic philosophy: see what the market is undervaluing, and allocate your resources to buy more of whatever that is. In the early 2000's, the MLB market was undervaluing things like On Base Percentage, and Beane started buying it. That is not what the Bills are doing, at all. But they should. As I've said repeatedly here, the Bills would do well to use a Moneyball-like approach, and allocate their scare resources to areas that are undervalued and/or cheap. Why not build the best strength and conditioning program in the NFL? I bet it would cost less than $2M, and the ROI would be enormous. Why not build the best scouting department in the country? It would still be much cheaper than a single high-profile free agent. And you could apply the concept on the field as well, although it would take some real analysis - for example, if the entire league is shifting back to a 4-3, then linebackers should be cheaper, so the Bills as a small market team are better off staying in a 3-4. Something along those lines, but again, I haven't studied it. In any event, the Bills aren't doing it. Edited September 28, 2011 by Coach Tuesday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SF Bills Fan Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I was talking with some other Bills fans this weekend about this. I think the Patriots follow the this type of philosophy to some extent. They are quick to get rid of high priced players and pare salary and stock up on middle round draft picks which they use effectively. They don't always go for players that are considered blue chip either. I don't know what kind of stats they look at, and football is probably not nearly as easy to quantify as baseball, but they seem to get quality players that other teams would pass on that fit perfectly into their system. The Bills get rid of players in an effort to trim payroll and keep costs low for the bottom line. The Pats seem to make savvy moves and get rid of players at the perfect time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach Tuesday Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I was talking with some other Bills fans this weekend about this. I think the Patriots follow the this type of philosophy to some extent. They are quick to get rid of high priced players and pare salary and stock up on middle round draft picks which they use effectively. They don't always go for players that are considered blue chip either. I don't know what kind of stats they look at, and football is probably not nearly as easy to quantify as baseball, but they seem to get quality players that other teams would pass on that fit perfectly into their system. The Bills get rid of players in an effort to trim payroll and keep costs low for the bottom line. The Pats seem to make savvy moves and get rid of players at the perfect time. Good point. The Pats have stocked up on 2nd and 3rd round picks over the past few years, because those picks were the best value in terms of salary-to-cap prior to the new slotting system. It's definitely a Moneyball-type approach. I wonder if their approach will change due to the new slotting system. There are a couple of franchises out there that purport to employe a Moneyball-like system. The Falcons use a secret, proprietary player evaluation system that I would assume accounts for economics in some way (i.e., how the market values particular skills). The 49ers tried something similar - unsuccessfully - prior to firing Singletary. I'm not sure if they're still doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I was talking with some other Bills fans this weekend about this. I think the Patriots follow the this type of philosophy to some extent. They are quick to get rid of high priced players and pare salary and stock up on middle round draft picks which they use effectively. They don't always go for players that are considered blue chip either. I don't know what kind of stats they look at, and football is probably not nearly as easy to quantify as baseball, but they seem to get quality players that other teams would pass on that fit perfectly into their system. The Bills get rid of players in an effort to trim payroll and keep costs low for the bottom line. The Pats seem to make savvy moves and get rid of players at the perfect time. Recent proof please. It's time we stopped repeating things just for the sake of repeating things, without the data to back it up. Even Jerry freaking Sullivan admitted he'll give Chan and Buddy the benefit of the doubt on the Evans trade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SF Bills Fan Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Letting Lee Evans and Marshawn go would be the kind of classic moves the Patriots would do. If it were the Pats it would be heralded as genius because it would seem those players were expendable because of Jackson and Spiller and Johnson and several other recievers. Everyone knows the Pats are a "have" type team and could afford the players if they wanted. Because it is the Bills, it looks like a pure salary dump by a "have not" team. We will not know on Evans until we see the type of player we get for that draft pick. As you said, I would really like to understand what a team like the Pats or Falcons look at when they consider a player. Billy Beane was big on the OBP. Somewhere out there, there has to be hardcore statisticians that feed some of these teams numbers. Given the Bills recent draft history, it is clear our system was awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts