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Is having a #1 WR that important or just good to have?


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To be honest, if you look at videos of the offense last year, it was a miracle that Allen was able to complete any passes.

 

The WR's last year created zero separation. 

 

Hopefully that will change this year.

 

And you don't need a stud No. 1 WR to be a SB champion.

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On our team Allen can maximize the potential of an elite talent. I think Allen can inflate the production of an elite receiver by 33 to 50 percent due to his ability to laser passes from anywhere on the field to anywhere on the field. Last year we saw many great downfield throws fall incomplete due to subpar receivers. I don’t know that the players we’ve added will improve this area. Our receivers haven’t shown the ability to track down imperfect passes thus far in their careers. 

 

In essence, I think having elite receivers would do more for our team than other teams due to Allen’s skillset. Likewise, our average receivers severely limit Allen’s ability to reach his potential.

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At best it is good to have. QB makes the WR not the other way around. In order of importance, I would say it is QB, C, LT, RB, and then WR in order of importance. I listed RB as more important but they are also easier to find.  A great TE may actually be more valuable than a great WR.  But I would take a great WR over an average TE.

I favor offenses that create mismatches. RB or TE that can beat linebackers and safeties in coverage are devastating.   A truly elite WR is a rare talent but can be taken out of a game with coverage schemes. See SuperBowl XXV. 

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5 hours ago, Limeaid said:

There is an article in Foebes on WRs. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtisrush/2019/07/08/the-buffalo-bills-dont-have-a-true-no-1-receiver-so-whats-the-big-deal/#4e432bb56727

Some of it is economic:

He put Sammy in same sentence as word elite without mentioning availability or rehab and that is tough! Of course  6' 2" Robert Foster and Zay Jones will not get mentioned based on rookie contracts.

 

Some of which is percentage caught which I think is most important.

 

I think availability is also very important, when you spend most of your time being rehabbed you cannot be catching the ball  - Beasley was available 93 of 96 games.

 

If you depend on a #1 WR I think you are more vulnerable.  Andre was #1 WR for Bills but it teams slanted coverage to him too much Bills could beat teams with other players.  Unlike Cole he played a lot over the middle but he was a big WR like Foster and Jones (he was at our tailgate but he did not seem much bigger than me, maybe his body is compressing as he gets older).  He always was available playing in 234 games and missed most games year he was injured before contract year.  He also played in 21 playoff games.  If a team has a dominant #1 WR it can lose its identity without the player.

 

 

Putting someone in the same sentence, the same sentence, as something they're not has now become offensive? Come on. He said Sammy's contract was elite, and he's right. Read it again. " those contracts pale in comparison to the league's elite like Kansas City's Sammy Watkins at $19.2 million and Cleveland's Odell Beckham Jr. at $17 million ." He's saying the contract is elite, not Sammy.

 

"If you depend on a #1 WR you are more vulnerable," you say? Well, sure. But having the guy far outweighs the vulnerability. Having an elite or franchise QB makes you vulnerable too. But it's a terrific problem to have.

 

But as for whether you need one? Nah. Great to have but certainly not mandatory. All you have to do is look at a list of SB-winning teams and go through looking for #1 WRs. Maybe 20 - 30% have one. Which is about what you'd expect just based on chance.

 

 

1 hour ago, njbuff said:

To be honest, if you look at videos of the offense last year, it was a miracle that Allen was able to complete any passes.

 

The WR's last year created zero separation. 

 

Hopefully that will change this year.

 

And you don't need a stud No. 1 WR to be a SB champion.

 

 

I did go through the NFL Game Pass footage after each game. They got separation. A bit less than average, though. This year's group should certainly do better.

 

Agree with you on the #1 WR question. You need a solid group. Hopefully we've got that this year.

Edited by Thurman#1
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6 hours ago, Boca BIlls said:

Depends on who your QB is...

 

This

 

1 hour ago, Ethan in Portland said:

At best it is good to have. QB makes the WR not the other way around.

 

It really does depend upon your QB.  I think if you watch a good bit of their film, it becomes clear that Andy Dalton wouldn't have taken the Bengals to 5 straight playoff appearances without Green as his target.   Keenum wouldn't have taken the Vikes to the conference championship without Thielen and Diggs "breaking the laws of gravity".  The same is true for a handful of other QB around the league - they have lasted as long as they have because an exceptional target at WR has made them look better than they are.

Then there are truly elite QB in the league who can throw to just about any competent WR and make the WR look good, maybe better than he is. 

 

In most cases, it's somewhere in-between.

 

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You need a few elite players in order to really contend for a super bowl, and one of them is probably your QB. The QB can't do it alone. There has to be another guy or two on offense that are also elite. And on defense you need at least one elite presence as well.

 

Now what positions those guys play is not super important. You just need 2-3 elite guys on your team who make plays. If that's a #1 WR, great. If that's a TE (Gronk), great. If that's a HB, great. You just need some elite guys.

 

You can fill a team with solid players and can compete, but eventually you need those elite guys to really be good.

 

So I would say if you don't have an elite #1 WR, you need that somewhere else.

Edited by MJS
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Having a QB that makes everyone around him look better is more important. Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and a few others have made many a good-but-not-great WR rich in this league. They also won championships doing so. 

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11 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

You need guys who get open and catch the ball. 

 

So simple, and yet so misunderstood by the "we need a true #1 WR" crowd.  A good scheme, competent QB, and reliable pass-catchers are what a team needs.  Sure, it's nice to have that one guy you know you can throw it up to, but the good QBs find the open receiver no matter who it is.

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1 hour ago, eball said:

 

So simple, and yet so misunderstood by the "we need a true #1 WR" crowd.  A good scheme, competent QB, and reliable pass-catchers are what a team needs.  Sure, it's nice to have that one guy you know you can throw it up to, but the good QBs find the open receiver no matter who it is.

 

Yea. It is so simple and yet I confess it was only about a year ago when talking to me former NFL position coach friend / acquiantence that it really came home to me. I was talking about the makeup of the perfect receiving corps and he said that all the best personnel people he had been around did not care what "type" or receiver a guy was. They didn't talk about needing a "big guy" or needing a "slot guy" or needing a "speed guy" or needing a "YAC guy" they all talked about just getting guys who get open and catch the ball. The biggest example he gave was the Steelers. When they drafted Antonio Brown - even forgetting that he was a late round guy - he didn't meet the "profile" of a #1 receiver. Yet he became the best in the NFL. But he gets open and he caught the ball. 

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Once the season gets going we’ll see how good the top four perform.  Having two speedsters for that big arm of Allen, and two underneath should provide enough targets.  

 

With The potential #1 defense this year, Allen’s job will be easier.  It’s more about his maturation than the WR’s.

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10 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

While I wouldn't put him in as an elite reciever to this point and also another guy the Bills could've easily had over Zay Jones, Kenny Golladay is a very good reciever and had his way with Tre White late in the season.

 

Golliday was making circus catches that day.  No CB would have stopped him.  And despite that big day, the Lions still lost.  So you need more than just a #1 WR.

 

9 hours ago, Chemical said:

Why is it that we have a thread about this every couple months? Could it be that we all know the wr unit is subpar still and trying to justify it somehow

 

No couldn’t be that. Do other teams fans have threads like this or do they just agree that having the best receivers possible is important AND good to have?

 

This theory of having a bunch of complimentary guys only works if the other teams secondary doesn’t also have a bunch of complimentary guys. 

 

Even the best example of a team that doesn’t need elite WRs took one in the first round this year and took a flier on Josh Gordon last year. 

 

Honestly I don’t even understand the question being posed here. 

 

No.

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3 hours ago, Joe in Winslow said:

 

Is it though? If these guys had the impact you're talking about, wouldn't their teams be better?

 Let’s see. 

 

Cincy = Dalton. Yeah AJ Green turned him into something serviceable. But is he a top end QB. Absolutely not. 

 

OBJ = so you are going to try and tell me the Giants and or Mediocre Eli look same or better when OBJ is off the field?

 

Julio Jones = Now talk to me again about that ATL defense over his career and how they are a turnstile. 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, eball said:

 

So simple, and yet so misunderstood by the "we need a true #1 WR" crowd.  A good scheme, competent QB, and reliable pass-catchers are what a team needs.  Sure, it's nice to have that one guy you know you can throw it up to, but the good QBs find the open receiver no matter who it is.

 

There's that and yet....when I watch other teams play, the Rams, the Chiefs, the Iggles.....they all have at least one, maybe two, WR who can somehow reliably haul in that off-target throw.  They stretch, they leap, they one-hand it, they stretch out of bounds with toes pointed like a prima ballerina, they somehow find another gear to accelerate for an overthrow throw, they stop on a dime and come back for the short throws.
 

Now, "#1 WR" is almost as bad as "franchise QB" for how slippery the definition is.  But to me, a true #1 WR is the guy who's open when he's not, because he will find a way to make that high-degree-of-difficulty catch.


The Bills just haven't had that guy much less guys.  Even when they had a WR like Stevie Johnson with back-to-back >1000 yd seasons, they did not have that guy.  Bean thought Kelvin Benjamin was that guy, but Benjamin's film said "no" before he arrived.

Maybe John Brown and Cole Beasley are those guys, I dunno.

3 hours ago, Joe in Winslow said:

Is it though? If these guys had the impact you're talking about, wouldn't their teams be better?

 

This is profound.  It goes to the heart of the issue "can one have a truly great NFL player on a sub-par team?"

 

To which I say "yes.  Yes, Joe, you can have a great, impact player who is stuck on a lousy team."

 

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8 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

This is profound.  It goes to the heart of the issue "can one have a truly great NFL player on a sub-par team?"

 

To which I say "yes.  Yes, Joe, you can have a great, impact player who is stuck on a lousy team."

 

 

Someone's a bit salty.

 

The question I'm asking (in the name of clarity) is that if a #1 WR is the panacea for offensive ineptitude and the key to greatness, how come these guys are on teams that have failed?

 

Could it be, perhaps, that having a #1 of #1s isn't the big deal some make it out to be?

 

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5 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:

 

Someone's a bit salty.

 

The question I'm asking (in the name of clarity) is that if a #1 WR is the panacea for offensive ineptitude and the key to greatness, how come these guys are on teams that have failed?

 

Could it be, perhaps, that having a #1 of #1s isn't the big deal some make it out to be?

 

 

Thank you for clarifying.  However, I don't think this thread is about whether a #1 WR is "the panacea for offensive ineptitude and the key to greatness".  Perhaps that is sarcasm?


I think the question is "is it important?" (for offensive success), and the answer remains "it depends on your QB".  To a lesser degree it depends on your scheme.   QB who throw lasers with pinpoint accuracy have less need for that #1 guy than do QB with "zip code accuracy" or fading arms.  Smart QB playing schemes which are clever about scheming guys open, can also manage with lesser WR if they're skilled at reading the D and ID'ing where the open guy is likely to be pre-snap (those are usually more veteran QBs).

If you want to set up a strawman question no one else is trying to answer about #1 WR as team panaceas and keys to team greatness, Have At It. 
Please turn out the lights and lock the door when you're done.

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