NoSaint Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 And quite a few TDs. He was a key part to this running offense. And was excellent in short yardage. Best in the league with many opportunities for a role player last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 MG loss could be a killer, and was totally unnecessary. Belichik is very happy again about our stupidity and loves his farm team. That said, if we get quality from last years 1 and 2 picks and some of the rookies perform, I wouldn't bet against the playoffs. Another quality receiver (Maclin?) would truly help. LOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDogg20 Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Let's see how it plays out. 95% of us thought we would feel some pain from losing Karlos Williams. Also, IF we get 16 games from Sammy, that alone would cancel out the loss of Gillislee, Woods and even another player. And are they considering Goodwin one of our top three receivers? I guess technically true, but his production will be replaceable by one of the new free agent acquisitions. I 100% agree. I didnt think td mike could handle the load once kw was gone. I was wrong. I think jw will be fine now that he's back in game shape and feeling healthy. If not we'll find someone who can take those carries. I guarantee it(in gentlemens wearhouse voice) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Turk Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Maybe, maybe not...coaching will go a long way to determining that...if they get measurably better coaching than last year,they can be in the wildcard hunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldTimeAFLGuy Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 And quite a few TDs. He was a key part to this running offense. ..valuable as needed but you're overplaying the card as in catastrophic loss....easily replaceable numbers..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JM2009 Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 Get Maclin and I say 8-8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooseTooth Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Maybe. I just don't see the logic. Defense we are worse on paper for sure. Actually, without Rob Ryan on the payroll, any defense is considerably better on paper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racketmaster Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I just don't see us being worse. For starters the two most important elements of a team (Head Coach and Quarterback) should be improved over 2016. McDermott > Ryan Times have changed and the NFL has been trending toward analytics, situational football and efficiency with limited practices. Ryan lacked in all 3 areas and McDermott should help the team improve upon things like discipline, opposing team tendencies and situational awareness.The change at head coach is very important (eg. SF before and after Harbaugh). Taylor 17 > Taylor 16 The improvement comes down to coaching, scheme and the likelihood he will be surrounded with better weapons. Taylor was running a Kaepernick style offense that Roman brought to Buffalo and there was a change after week 2 (which is usually never a good thing). Lynn introduced some new concepts to the offense but it could only be modified so much without an off season to practice. Taylor liked the Kubiak/Dennison offense in Baltimore and Kubiak/Dennison seemed to believe Taylor was a great fit as well. Being under center more and more bootlegs should help. Plus, Taylor is likely to have much better passing weapons at his disposal in Watkins, Jones, Holmes etc. I expect about a 15-20% improvement in passing numbers by Taylor. In addition to the HC and quarterback, wr should be better. Watkins was basically irrelevant last year. If he cant come back healthy, this will likely be his best season. He is a dynamic playmaker when healthy and was missed last year. I see Jones/Holmes as a slight upgrade over Woods/Goodwin. A healthy Watkins will be the biggest difference here. TE and OL should remain relatively constant as I don't expect much of a change in overall play at those positions. What about the defense? Let's add Shaq Lawson into the mix as he was basically a non-factor last year. The biggest addition should be Dareus as he missing in action last year due to the 4 game suspension and then subsequent injury. LB may be a slight decline with Zac Brown leaving but it should not be a noticeable change. Corner should be a slight decline with Gilmore leaving. However, White appears to be a plug and play cb and the scheme change should take some of the pressure off our corners. Darby having a bounce back year may be able to compensate for the loss of Gilmore. Safety could be a slight improvement. I like Hyde a lot and he should be a great addition. Poyer is interesting but a bit of a mystery. Safety was an issue last year with Williams going down. Hyde alone should give this group a slight boost but there is not much depth here. 3-4 to 4-3. Scheme change could be as big a plus as anything on the defense. Going back to the 4-3 should help our dl get back to top 5 status. Special teams: The biggest change here is Hauschka in place of Carpenter. Carpenter lost confidence and had a difficult time with both extra points and field goals. He also did not have a very big leg and his range was limited. In comes Hauschka who is the 3rd all-time field goal kicker in terms of percentage. Sure he had a bad year in 2016 in terms of extra points. But he is a much more consistent fg kicker and will give us more range. Having a clutch kicker will be important in close games. Sure, injuries could hurt us and the schedule could be tougher. But overall, I am very optimistic that the 2017 Bills will be better than the 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hondo in seattle Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 (edited) These sorts of analyses don't take coaching into account. I'm hoping the switch from Rex to McDermott alone is worth a few wins. I firmly believe we should have been in the playoffs last year. We needed to not have three 200 yard rushers last year, that's literally the only difference between playoffs and not. If the scheme makes our run game better we should be in a good spot. Still not sold on McDermott. But that will be the deciding factor. Yep. Some of the analytic guys put on a number on each player and then add those numbers up to put a value on a team. But a team is more than the sum of it's parts. Plus players will perform better or worse in different schemes under different coaches. Analytic guys also say that unit performance (offense, defense) remains fairly constant from year to year. That isn't true, though, when there's a change in QBs or coaches. There's no analytic model out there that I know of that can account for how the Bills will perform with a new coaching staff, a new offensive scheme and a new defensive scheme. If the football analytics guys want to be taken seriously, they need to develop more sophisticated models that account for more variables. Edited June 5, 2017 by hondo in seattle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts