K-9 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Are there play calls where the running threat can help the running back? Sure. But how much does a running QB actually help? No one has quantified this effect. Bandit tried but there were only 2 games without TT in 2015 and sample size too small. The question was if TT helped the running game or not. He does; minimally, maximally, or somewhere in between. Whether it's a result of designed plays to take advantage of his legs directly or by defenses needing to account for the threat. I'm not interested in the quantitative analysis. The fact he helps at all is enough to prove the point. We'd still be an upper echelon rushing team, regardless, so I'm not sure why it's part of the TT discussion to begin with. The issue, AGAIN, is can he help the passing game to the same degree. That is far more readily quantifiable and is a far more important question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoBills808 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I meant to come back to this. 2nd easiest pass defense schedule according to what? Knowing what I know about how most football stats are calculated, I would guess they are using total yards. Which would be entirely wrong and go to prove nothing. Football Outsiders uses DVOA in their strength of schedule ratings which is a hundred times better than total yards, but they unfortunately do not keep track of pass/rush defense strength of schedule. So let me know if I'm mistaken on that but I'm willing to bet the Sharp site is using total yards. The rest of that do document is classic cherry picking. I took a quick look at some of those stats at the Washington Post advanced NFL stats tool and found what I expected, which is that those stats tell you nothing. For example Brian Hoyer leads the NFL in completion percentage in "close games." Aaron Rodgers is near the bottom So what does it tell me to know that Tyrod doesn't perform well there, without context? He isn't far All it shows is that Tyrod is imperfect, which is what we already knew. He has strengths and flaws. He has a career passer rating of 94.2. If he doesn't perform better this year he will likely be sent packing. DVOA in my opinion is the stat that controls for context more than any other so I usually defer to that. They had him 14th in DYAR/8th in DVOA in 2015, and 19th in both in 2016. And that doesn't account for his rushing either, those are pure passing stats. Meanwhile Wentz was 28th in DYAR/27th in DVOA in 2016. He was mostly abysmal after Week 4, like EJ Manuel bad for real. Going off just on-field performance so far, Tyrod is clearly the better choice for 2017, although beyond that it is harder to say at this point. I've given my opinion on FO's statistics many a time, so suffice to say I know for a fact you can't quote me their formula, and in a game as situationally complex as football metrics that compare against average and 'above replacement' are limited at best. If McCoy jukes 3 guys in the backfield and hurdle a fourth en route to a 4 yard pickup on 3rd and 2, but it's against a bad defense and in similar circumstances on down and distance the average is 6 yards gained, he gets dinged by DVOA and DYAR, even thought the actual football play and result were net positives and few RBs could have accomplished them. It's not a 'hundred times' better than anything, sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xRUSHx Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) McCoy is McCoy and Tyrod has no barring on how well McCoy does. Stupid argument Did O.J. need a running QB to be great? What about Fitz was he a better runner then Tyrod? Yet we had a great running game with him at QB. In my opinion McCoy would be even greater if we had a QB that could be a QB. Edited March 16, 2017 by xRUSHx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyDays Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 What Tyrod did on the field in 2016? He handed off well to the best RB in the NFL, something any backup can do. . If only we had some kind of sample games to look at where the backup played, we could compare that with the offense under Tyrod and see if there was a difference. Say, twice in 2015 and once in 2016. Gee that would really help our analysis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beef Jerky Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 McCoy is McCoy and Tyrod has no barring on how well McCoy does. Stupid argument Did O.J. need a running QB to be great? In my opinion McCoy would be even greater if we had a QB that could be a QB. No but OJ needed a tiny glove to beat murder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyDays Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I've given my opinion on FO's statistics many a time, so suffice to say I know for a fact you can't quote me their formula, and in a game as situationally complex as football metrics that compare against average and 'above replacement' are limited at best. If McCoy jukes 3 guys in the backfield and hurdle a fourth en route to a 4 yard pickup on 3rd and 2, but it's against a bad defense and in similar circumstances on down and distance the average is 6 yards gained, he gets dinged by DVOA and DYAR, even thought the actual football play and result were net positives and few RBs could have accomplished them. It's not a 'hundred times' better than anything, sorry. So to be clear - you don't like DVOA/DYAR because they are negatively effected by contextual details that aren't borne out in the stats... But you think total yards is important? Okay then. No statistical analysis will be perfect. DVOA is about as good as it gets. If you have a preferred metric and an explanation for why it controls for context better than FO's does, I'd love to hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xRUSHx Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 If only we had some kind of sample games to look at where the backup played, we could compare that with the offense under Tyrod and see if there was a difference. Say, twice in 2015 and once in 2016. Gee that would really help our analysis. Look at Fitz when he was here, we also had a running game then. Is Fitz a better running QB then Tyrod? No but OJ needed a tiny glove to beat murder. Hahahaha, right on man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyDays Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Actually, it's not that I "tried, but"...I actually did quantify it. If you don't accept it based upon the sample size, that's fine, but call it like it is: the data reflect that the run game was a half-yard-per-carry better with Taylor in the game than without him in 2015. You could add in this year's Jets game too, would give you a bit more of a sample size. I know for a fact we ran worse in that game than we did in the earlier Jets game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Actually, it's not that I "tried, but"...I actually did quantify it. If you don't accept it based upon the sample size, that's fine, but call it like it is: the data reflect that the run game was a half-yard-per-carry better with Taylor in the game than without him in 2015. Yep. But I guess there are guys that think that this stable of backs was just 5.5 ypc good. The question was if TT helped the running game or not. He does; minimally, maximally, or somewhere in between. Whether it's a result of designed plays to take advantage of his legs directly or by defenses needing to account for the threat. I'm not interested in the quantitative analysis. The fact he helps at all is enough to prove the point. We'd still be an upper echelon rushing team, regardless, so I'm not sure why it's part of the TT discussion to begin with. The issue, AGAIN, is can he help the passing game to the same degree. That is far more readily quantifiable and is a far more important question. It suits you to downplay it but yeah they might be one of the leading rushing teams without Taylor...........in the same manner that Marrone's teams were. But this team SCORES because of the running game.......those teams DID NOT..........and that is very much a product of what Tyrod brings to the table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 McCoy is McCoy and Tyrod has no barring on how well McCoy does. Stupid argument Did O.J. need a running QB to be great? What about Fitz was he a better runner then Tyrod? Yet we had a great running game with him at QB. In my opinion McCoy would be even greater if we had a QB that could be a QB. There's a lot to this. A team with as good a running game as we had should have been far better in the passing game. We should have been snapping the ankles of all the safeties and LBs biting on play action fakes but it just never happened enough. I have my suspicions as to why that was, but it's a moot point and I want to see if Dennison follows suit. His offense places a premium on play action so we'll see soon enough. Yep. But I guess there are guys that think that this stable of backs was just 5.5 ypc good. It suits you to downplay it but yeah they might be one of the leading rushing teams without Taylor...........in the same manner that Marrone's teams were. But this team SCORES because of the running game.......those teams DID NOT..........and that is very much a product of what Tyrod brings to the table. I don't mean to downplay it at all as I appreciate what TT brings to our rushing offense. I just don't think it's as an important question as what he brings to the passing game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffismagic Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 You could add in this year's Jets game too, would give you a bit more of a sample size. I know for a fact we ran worse in that game than we did in the earlier Jets game. I wouldn't touch that Jets game as the team had quit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoBills808 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 So to be clear - you don't like DVOA/DYAR because they are negatively effected by contextual details that aren't borne out in the stats... But you think total yards is important? Okay then. No statistical analysis will be perfect. DVOA is about as good as it gets. If you have a preferred metric and an explanation for why it controls for context better than FO's does, I'd love to hear it. No, I'm against people using statistics they don't understand and assuming when they say things like 'Oh, but he had a good DVOA!' they understand that the 'contextual details' are often irrelevant or plain wrong in assessing whether or not a play or player or unit did something 'good' or 'bad'. If you need to refer to DVOA or QBR without being able to tell beforehand whether or not a guy's any good, he's not. Bottom line, if all you've got is an obscure 19th ranking to bolster your argument, good luck. And please continue with how total yards isn't relative to an evaluation of Taylor but offensive points scored somehow is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xRUSHx Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 (edited) There's a lot to this. A team with as good a running game as we had should have been far better in the passing game. We should have been snapping the ankles of all the safeties and LBs biting on play action fakes but it just never happened enough. I have my suspicions as to why that was, but it's a moot point and I want to see if Dennison follows suit. His offense places a premium on play action so we'll see soon enough. I don't mean to downplay it at all as I appreciate what TT brings to our rushing offense. I just don't think it's as an important question as what he brings to the passing game. I don't think Tyrod brings anything to our running game, McCoy is McCoy, they make is sound like McCoy was nothing before coming to Buffalo and playing behind Tyrod because of his mobileness. They try to point to games with Tyrod but look who we had at QB to fill in of course it stunk other teams knew our bad QBs had real limitations and couldn't throw either so stack the box. Edited March 16, 2017 by xRUSHx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I wouldn't touch that Jets game as the team had quit. Why is it so important for you to dismiss TT's impact on the running game? ANY player in the backfield that can routinely PRESSURE the edge, is a threat to a run defense and is, by definition, a force in the running game. TT is just that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldTimeAFLGuy Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 ...Dennison needs to get this offense balanced period...."run or done" again?......oh joy............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I don't think Tyrod brings anything to our running game, McCoy is McCoy, they make is sound like McCoy was nothing before coming to Buffalo and playing behind Tyrod because of his mobileness. They try to point to games with Tyrod but look who we had at QB to fill in of course it stunk other teams knew our bad QBs had real limitations and couldn't throw either so stack the box. Like I said, any player that can routinely pressure the edge of the defense with his running ability, adds to the running game. TT is one such player. He is a threat that DCs have to account for. That's not taking anything away from any of our running backs, two of whom ALSO can pressure the edge on any given play. TT is a force in the running game no matter how you slice it. That is the definition of "bringing something to our running game." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xRUSHx Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 ...Dennison needs to get this offense balanced period...."run or done" again?......oh joy............. How is he going to get it balanced with a QB that has problems being a QB? I just don't see any different in the offense, I see teams forcing Tyrod to be a QB and all that will do is make the last Pitt game really stand out, negative 1 yard per play after a full half and that was after our D got 3 turnovers for Tyrod to capitalize on and of course he couldnt. Captain 3 and out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebandit27 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 No, I'm against people using statistics they don't understand and assuming when they say things like 'Oh, but he had a good DVOA!' they understand that the 'contextual details' are often irrelevant or plain wrong in assessing whether or not a play or player or unit did something 'good' or 'bad'. If you need to refer to DVOA or QBR without being able to tell beforehand whether or not a guy's any good, he's not. Bottom line, if all you've got is an obscure 19th ranking to bolster your argument, good luck. And please continue with how total yards isn't relative to an evaluation of Taylor but offensive points scored somehow is. I like you, and think you're a good poster; the above seems abnormally short-sighted for you. Raw data vs. data with context is an argument that can always be put forward. If we simplify the discussion to only a fact-based argument, then what we have is an offense that finished 10th in points scored (7th in weeks where Taylor was at the helm) and 16th in yards from scrimmage. Largely bolstered by the run, the passing offense did enough to produce what was, by any metric, a total offense that was in the top 1/2-1/3 of the NFL. IMO, the discussion begins there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 "In my opinion McCoy would be even greater if we had a QB that could be a QB." There's a lot to this. A team with as good a running game as we had should have been far better in the passing game. We should have been snapping the ankles of all the safeties and LBs biting on play action fakes but it just never happened enough. I have my suspicions as to why that was, but it's a moot point and I want to see if Dennison follows suit. His offense places a premium on play action so we'll see soon enough. If someone HONESTLY thinks that you could nurse 5.5+ ypc out of any stable of backs on that volume of carries with a better "passing QB" they simply don't understand how hard that is to accomplish. It is very common for teams with outstanding passers to have mediocre running games.........the pass game does not necessarily facilitate the run......the defensive approach to both in the NFL now is the same......stop the run on the way to the QB. That's where Tyrod throws a wrench in the works.......teams are much less aggressive wrt wrecklessly shooting gaps and a spy typically plays off the ball. As for whether the Bills should have had more success throwing the ball..........if they had better options in the passing game Taylor would have had more success. Tyrod is a cautious passer..........add in the fact that there was a PALPABLY LOW margin for error on this team and what you got was a QB that was ULTRA cautious.....and sure as hell not throwing 50/50 balls to Walter Powell or Brandon Tate. So in lieu of the kind of performances we saw late in the season versus Miami........we got a QB that was about to lead an offense to an NFL record for fewest turnovers in a season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xRUSHx Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Like I said, any player that can routinely pressure the edge of the defense with his running ability, adds to the running game. TT is one such player. He is a threat that DCs have to account for. That's not taking anything away from any of our running backs, two of whom ALSO can pressure the edge on any given play. TT is a force in the running game no matter how you slice it. That is the definition of "bringing something to our running game." Teams will stack the box and take that away and that's where he will be 3 and out again.Make him be a QB and that edge your talking about it shut down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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