The Panthers and the Bills

[GoBills808]

 

They have WRs because the Panthers made it the most important priority investing half their first and 2nd round picks on pass catchers in the last 3 drafts. Again, its a very important position to MOST quarterbacks in this league, and they havent had a 1000 yard receiver not named Greg Olsen because they need so much help at WR. Last year, how bad were the Panthers? Not very good...Kelvin coming off a major injury was not good and Funchess was still developing...no weapons and it was a major issue with that team last season. Very few can excel to their potential with a weak QB group. Not everyone is a Tom Brady. In fact, special WR's can make average QB's look really good and effective.

 

Culpepper was a stud with Moss, an after thought without him. Cunningham went from end of his career journeyman to Elite with Moss and Carter in Minny...Jeff George too. Cutler looked great with a young Marshall and got a massive over paid contract out of it. Look at how much better Kap looked with Crabtree throwing to talent like Crabtree and Vernon and how bad he was without good weapons. What about Scott Mitchell who was blessed because he got to throw to the great Herman Moore.

 

Those are just a couple simple examples, I mean the list is endless on how QB's have excelled with talented weapons to throw to and been marginal or worse without those same weapons. Even good QB's like McNabb couldn't get over the hump until he got TO, then never got over the hump again without TO. In fact, Eagles ingrained the WR position for years and just couldn't get over the hump. They finally went and got TO and poof, SB. Brady is a rare exception and is Elite with marginal weapons, but when he got great weapons in Moss and Welker, he went 16-0 in regular season and they shattered all kinds of passing, receiving, and scoring records.

 

For anyone to deny that the WR position is not that important is just crazy. Even Aaron Rodgers and the Packers who still had Cobb and Adams, plus other good young WR's struggled a lot more without Jordy.

 

So, I have to say while I respect you have your own opinion, I could not disagree with you more. There is literally an endless amount of cases that fully dispute your devaluation of the importance of talented receiving weapons.

Maybe you missed the first sentence where I acknowledged that WR is an important position. Regardless, your whole Panthers example is contradicting your point. Their worst year lately was last year when they HAD Benjamin and Funchess, and their best was when Benjamin went down with injury and Newton was throwing to Philly Brown and Ted Ginnn (Funchess was a rookie)...they went 15-1 with an awful corps of receivers.

 

As to your examples...meh. Culpepper's best season was 2004 where he broke the record for total yards by a QB, posted 70% comp and a 110+ rating...it was also a year where Moss only played 13 games, was injured, and caught 46 balls for 760 yards when he had posted 1200+ in each of his previous 6 seasons and was coming off a 1600+ yard year. Culpepper's best was in no way a product of Moss's greatness, and his lack of success after parting ways had more to do with injury than anything else. Rodgers had Cobb and Adams...they aren't that good. Neither, really, is Nelson, at least in terms of pure receiving talent.

[WIDE LEFT]

Yes it's kind of silly when these posts criticize the characterizing of the WR position as "not important". Every position is important. Every QB would love to have a stud wide receiver(s). That is all self evident. But in a cap controlled league, you have to determine where and how to allocate your dollars. Where to spend the most money. It does not really matter what I or any fan thinks, the original point is what the Bills brass thinks. And based on their experience with the Panthers, going 15-1 with mediocre receivers, it's clear to them that there are more "important" positions i.e. more critical places to spend your money. Thus the Watkins trade.

[hondo in seattle]

Thanks Hondo and same to you.

 

I just remember hearing about this offense and thinking it was a terrible fit for Tyrod's strengths. This is a quick throwing and timing offense. That has never been a strength of Tyrod.

 

A reason why Tyrod and other mobile qbs get sacked a lot is because they hold the ball and try to make plays. Tyrod's best plays aren't sitting in the pocket and making a quick throw. It's scrambling around and either running or throwing it on the run.

 

On top of that, we made our wr core slow. We have a group of WRs that would be fine with a Brady type. Possession, precision route runner guys. Tyrod's strength in the passing attack is throwing the ball down the field and we don't have a real deep threat. We have a bunch of WRs who are slot, over the middle type guys, which is the opposite of Tyrod's strength.

 

As always, I hope to be wrong on these things. All I want is to see the Bills make the playoffs once in my adult life. But if anything this preseason, it's been worse than I thought. It's still early but I'm very worried.

 

Even though Tyrod is probs let the better NFL qb, this Offense suits Peterman more than Tyrod IMO. And this thinking makes me question bringing TT back and the whole "plan."

 

C.Biscuit97, this is a really good post. For a moment you sounded like a ranting sky-is-falling type but you bring up some really good points here.

 

Maybe because I'm an ever-hopeful Bills fan, I'm not convinced we'll see Dennison run exactly the same kind of offense that he's run in the past. If I'm not mistaken, every time Rico was an OC it was for an offensive minded HC. In other words, he's never been in charge of the scheme and playbook before. It was always his job to implement someone's else scheme. Obviously he must have subscribed to a similar philosophy. But you wonder if all these years, he's been pondering, "When I run my own show, I'm going to do things a little different..."

 

On top of that, the guy has studied hours and hours of Tyrod tape. He's got to have a pretty good sense of what kind of plays Tyrod can execute and what kind of plays he can't. He's got to building his playbook with those observations in mind... Unless he thinks he can successfully correct some of Tyrod's flaws. And hopefully he's not thinking that. Or, if he is, that he's right.

 

In any case, despite your valid concerns, I simply choose to reserve judgment.