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ESPN FUTURE POWER RANKINGS NEXT 3 YEARS BILLS #14


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1 minute ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

I always take ESPN ranking with a grain of salt as they usually like to troll Bills fans for clickbait most of their analysts honestly have no clue what they’re talking about especially Louis Riddick and Field Yates 

I can picture it now.  ESPN production meetings.  You guys wanna get a bunch of clicks in? Let’s good after the teams in NYC, LA, and Chicago! No way, let’s good after the really big market team: Buffalo.  Are you serious with this?

 

and Yates and Riddick are two of the best in the entire business at their jobs.  They both worked in nfl FOs and give calm, well thought out reasons. Riddick called Mahomes being a star when he was drafted; predicted Goff would rebound under McVay after a terrible rookie year; etc.  he is excellent at his job.  You couldn’t be more wrong. 

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12 hours ago, Buftex said:

I hate being that guy, but in 2018 he had, possibly, the worst receiving corp in the league. An injury riddled Charles Clay was his best option.  Look at the progress he made with the addition of Beasley and Brown, two guys who were considered 2nd tier receivers, by most.  He has been credited with 6 fourth quarter comebacks, and 8 game-winning drives in his 27 starts. I realize you aren't saying he sucks, but I think you are giving him less credit than he deserves.  Just think about that Dallas game.  There was no dramatic final seconds play, but that fourth down conversion was a career defining play in my opinion. He sets a great tone for the team. He is young, a little over exuberant at times...but he is a leader

 

Sure, there were a few times (1st New England game, 2nd half of the playoff game) where he may have gotten a little too wound up, but I just love the energy he brings to the team. I feel like we are seeing him grow up in public, so to speak.  He was raw coming out.  . He still has to get the long ball under control...and he needs to learn to hold on to the ball better....but I think those are things he can, and will improve upon. I think part of his long-ball problem was lack of confidence in his receivers. That will come as his receivers get better. Can't wait to see him mesh with Diggs.

The Dallas game was undeniably great and that was one game where he made up a very large portion of the team's offensive yards (77%, which if he had done that for the whole season, would have been #5 in the league).

 

But again, all I was saying is that examples like that are pretty few and far between to this point in his career. I've now gone ahead and added in the rushing yards for other QBs so that I can be more accurate in my statement before.

 

This past season, there were 20 QBs that started at least 14 games. Of those 20, Allen ranks 16th in terms of his share of the team's offensive yards, and he's only that high because he started all 16 games while others did not. If you adjust for the number of starts, Allen falls to 18th out of 20. 

 

If you recall, the original reason I brought this up was because another poster said that "Allen has been the entire offense the past two years". The truth is the opposite; he's a smaller proportion of the offense than most QBs and the offense that he's a smaller proportion of has been one of the worst in the league during his 1.5 years of starting games. By either of those metrics, he has not carried as much weight offensively as we should be demanding of a long-term solution. Obviously he still has a year or two to show he can get there, but he simply hasn't played to that level yet.

 

Some of the guys that ranked ahead of him in terms of his proportion of the team's offensive yards are:

  • Kyler Murray (#3 in the league as a rookie)
  • Jared Goff (generally not thought of as carrying the offense, but he was #4)
  • Dak Prescott (same deal as Goff and he came in at #5)
  • Baker Mayfield (who is a good comparison for Allen as they're from the same draft class; granted Baker was more pro-ready)
  • Mitch Trubisky (who obviously we hope Allen does not turn into)
  • Also, just because it cracks me up: Jameis Winston was #1 at 84.2%. #2 was just 79%. Obviously the results for Jameis were extremely mixed last year, but that is an absurd percentage.

 

If we specifically look at QBs that started all 16 games in one of the past two seasons, Allen ranks 27th out of 29. If you include QBs that started at least 15 games (Allen technically started 16 but barely played in one of them, though that may also be true of others), Allen ranks 30th out of 36.

 

And for those interested in the other QBs from his draft class:

  • Baker was ahead of 2019 Allen in 2019. He was lower his rookie year due to only starting 13 games though.
  • Same goes for Darnold, who was higher than 2019 Allen in 2019 despite only starting 13 games, but lower his rookie year while again starting 13.
  • Lamar was below 2019 Allen, though he may have passed him if he had started all 16 games.
  • Rosen was a long ways behind Allen and was still behind Allen even if you tried to adjust for Rosen only starting 13 games.
Edited by DCOrange
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1 hour ago, DCOrange said:

 

  • Kyler Murray (#3 in the league as a rookie)
  • Jared Goff (generally not thought of as carrying the offense, but he was #4)
  • Dak Prescott (same deal as Goff and he came in at #5)
  • Baker Mayfield (who is a good comparison for Allen as they're from the same draft class; granted Baker was more pro-ready)
  • Mitch Trubisky (who obviously we hope Allen does not turn into)
  • Also, just because it cracks me up: Jameis Winston was #1 at 84.2%. #2 was just 79%. Obviously the results for Jameis were extremely mixed last year, but that is an absurd percentage.

 

 

On Goff and Dak specifically.... those numbers do not surprise me at all. People have made minds up about both of their guys but when you watch the film on those offenses last year Dak and Goff were the best things about them. The LA offense was a hot mess a lot of the time except for Goff and Dallas's other pieces underperformed much more than Dak did. They are absolutely the poster boys for the QB getting too much of the blame. 

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22 hours ago, DCOrange said:

For those that are interested, the rest of the rankings are as follows:

 

  1. Baltimore
  2. Kansas City
  3. San Fran
  4. New Orleans
  5. Dallas
  6. Philly
  7. Pittsburgh
  8. Seattle
  9. Tampa
  10. Indy
  11. Tennessee
  12. Minnesota
  13. New England
  14. Buffalo
  15. Green Bay
  16. Cleveland
  17. LA Chargers
  18. LA Rams
  19. Las Vegas
  20. Atlanta (tied with Miami)
  21. Miami (tied with Atlanta)
  22. Arizona
  23. Houston
  24. Denver
  25. Detroit
  26. Washington
  27. Cinci
  28. NY Jets
  29. NY Giants
  30. Carolina
  31. Chicago
  32. Jacksonville

 

Tampa and Indy have better futures with QBs at the end of the line and visibly in decline.

 

NE??  LOL

 

ESPN is garbage - yet again.

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2 hours ago, DCOrange said:

The Dallas game was undeniably great and that was one game where he made up a very large portion of the team's offensive yards (77%, which if he had done that for the whole season, would have been #5 in the league).

 

But again, all I was saying is that examples like that are pretty few and far between to this point in his career. I've now gone ahead and added in the rushing yards for other QBs so that I can be more accurate in my statement before.

 

This past season, there were 20 QBs that started at least 14 games. Of those 20, Allen ranks 16th in terms of his share of the team's offensive yards, and he's only that high because he started all 16 games while others did not. If you adjust for the number of starts, Allen falls to 18th out of 20. 

 

If you recall, the original reason I brought this up was because another poster said that "Allen has been the entire offense the past two years". The truth is the opposite; he's a smaller proportion of the offense than most QBs and the offense that he's a smaller proportion of has been one of the worst in the league during his 1.5 years of starting games. By either of those metrics, he has not carried as much weight offensively as we should be demanding of a long-term solution. Obviously he still has a year or two to show he can get there, but he simply hasn't played to that level yet.

 

Some of the guys that ranked ahead of him in terms of his proportion of the team's offensive yards are:

  • Kyler Murray (#3 in the league as a rookie)
  • Jared Goff (generally not thought of as carrying the offense, but he was #4)
  • Dak Prescott (same deal as Goff and he came in at #5)
  • Baker Mayfield (who is a good comparison for Allen as they're from the same draft class; granted Baker was more pro-ready)
  • Mitch Trubisky (who obviously we hope Allen does not turn into)
  • Also, just because it cracks me up: Jameis Winston was #1 at 84.2%. #2 was just 79%. Obviously the results for Jameis were extremely mixed last year, but that is an absurd percentage.

 

If we specifically look at QBs that started all 16 games in one of the past two seasons, Allen ranks 27th out of 29. If you include QBs that started at least 15 games (Allen technically started 16 but barely played in one of them, though that may also be true of others), Allen ranks 30th out of 36.

 

And for those interested in the other QBs from his draft class:

  • Baker was ahead of 2019 Allen in 2019. He was lower his rookie year due to only starting 13 games though.
  • Same goes for Darnold, who was higher than 2019 Allen in 2019 despite only starting 13 games, but lower his rookie year while again starting 13.
  • Lamar was below 2019 Allen, though he may have passed him if he had started all 16 games.
  • Rosen was a long ways behind Allen and was still behind Allen even if you tried to adjust for Rosen only starting 13 games.

For those that are interested, the data set can be viewed here: QB Share Data

 

I also at least attempted to adjust for the number of starts by using a team's average offensive yards per game. This makes Allen's rookie season look very good, though it's possible this is partially skewed by the fact that he came off the bench for half a game. At any rate his rookie season was probably better than his sophomore season in terms of his share of the team's offense if I had to guess. It should also be noted that in 2019, he technically started all 16 games but played very little of the last game and therefore that will hurt his 2019 number.

 

I also created a second data set of QBs that started all 16 games in a season dating back to 2010. From this set of 151 QBs, Allen's 2019 season ranks 134th.

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2 hours ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I can picture it now.  ESPN production meetings.  You guys wanna get a bunch of clicks in? Let’s good after the teams in NYC, LA, and Chicago! No way, let’s good after the really big market team: Buffalo.  Are you serious with this?

 

and Yates and Riddick are two of the best in the entire business at their jobs.  They both worked in nfl FOs and give calm, well thought out reasons. Riddick called Mahomes being a star when he was drafted; predicted Goff would rebound under McVay after a terrible rookie year; etc.  he is excellent at his job.  You couldn’t be more wrong. 

 

Uhm - more like they ignore doing any real research on the Bills b/c the small market doesn't matter to them.

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2 hours ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

 

and Yates and Riddick are two of the best in the entire business at their jobs.  They both worked in nfl FOs and give calm, well thought out reasons. Riddick called Mahomes being a star when he was drafted; predicted Goff would rebound under McVay after a terrible rookie year; etc.  he is excellent at his job.  You couldn’t be more wrong. 

I don't watch much of that stuff, and I don't even know who Yates is, but I have to say I agree about Riddick.  He's level headed and has good reasons for the opinions he expresses.  I don't always agree with him, but I never dismiss as a fool.  

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25 minutes ago, BobChalmers said:

 

Uhm - more like they ignore doing any real research on the Bills b/c the small market doesn't matter to them.

And this is true.  These guys' jobs depend on being entertaining, not on being right.  All their bosses care is that they say things that keep people from turning them off, things that are likely to bring people back.  

 

Nobody ever goes back and demonstrates how totally wrong they may have been six months earlier.  In theory, an expert gets things right.  These guys are billed as experts, but they don't have to get anything right.  They just have to sound good. 

 

So, what does that mean?  It means they have to say things that sound right now, even if with analysis you can see they're wrong.  That is, it has to sound right to most of the fans.   So that means they have to say Mahomes is the best QB and the Chiefs are the best team, because that sounds right to most fans.  And because most fans think the Bills are horrible and always will be horrible, they have to dis the Bills in discussions like this.  If someone says the Bills should be #5 on the list, even though he might be right, most fans turn the guy off because, really, as far as they're concerned there's no way the Bills ever will be that good.  

 

These guys just give the public what they want.  

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1 hour ago, DCOrange said:

For those that are interested, the data set can be viewed here: QB Share Data

 

I also at least attempted to adjust for the number of starts by using a team's average offensive yards per game. This makes Allen's rookie season look very good, though it's possible this is partially skewed by the fact that he came off the bench for half a game. At any rate his rookie season was probably better than his sophomore season in terms of his share of the team's offense if I had to guess. It should also be noted that in 2019, he technically started all 16 games but played very little of the last game and therefore that will hurt his 2019 number.

 

I also created a second data set of QBs that started all 16 games in a season dating back to 2010. From this set of 151 QBs, Allen's 2019 season ranks 134th.

 

This is the issue when you just go by analytics...  We all know Allen doesn't rank high for those who value number/stats above all else, and I don't bemoan anyone who does that because in the end, scores are numbers and you need to score more than your opponent to win.  Numbers/Stats do matter... to an extent. 

 

We also watch our games, and it's VERY evident that many who just go by analytics DO NOT.   You can tell they don't by the criticisms they put forth to justify their opinions.  

 

-We know that Allen had one of the worst Offensive rosters in the league around him in Year 1 and a very mediocre-at-best Offensive roster around him in Year 2.   

 

-We know Allen's WR's were amongst league leaders in drop rate.

 

-We know that Allen led the league in non-checkdown throws.  

 

He absolutely has things to work on, but too often analytics folks don't account for his sub-par surrounding talent, drops and pushing the ball down the field.

 

The Playoff Game was the ultimate example..  Allen was quite literally, our entire Offense, that game.   He made mistakes, he showed his issues, but he also should have led that team to a Playoff victory.  He can't force Duke to catch a TD, Brown to toe-tap and OL/TE's to block LB's.   If he had the talent I saw every other playoff QB have... Allen easily could have put 300 yds passing and 100 yds rushing in that game and our offseason convo's then look VERY different.

 

The great news is Year 3 should provide a lot of clarity.  We have a winnable division, tougher (on paper) opponents and a lot of talent around him. 

 

If Allen has it in him to be a Franchise QB, it should be very evident this year.  Both to the fans/critics and the analytics folks. 

 

 

 

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20 hours ago, Charles Romes said:

Didn’t we destroy Dallas at heir house?

And we got obliterated by the Eagles at our house. It happens.

 

Look at more data - The Bills were 1-5 vs teams with winning records and the one win was vs a bad Tenn team, before they turned it around. 

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1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't watch much of that stuff, and I don't even know who Yates is, but I have to say I agree about Riddick.  He's level headed and has good reasons for the opinions he expresses.  I don't always agree with him, but I never dismiss as a fool.  

I respect this and I wish more fans were able to do this.  Of course, you aren’t going to agree with someone all the time and they will be wrong.  IMO, Riddick is the best guy in evaluating talent on TV.  Too often, rather than argue the point, it is attack the messenger. 

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23 minutes ago, SCBills said:

 

 

 

The Playoff Game was the ultimate example..  Allen was quite literally, our entire Offense, that game.   He made mistakes, he showed his issues, but he also should have led that team to a Playoff victory.  He can't force Duke to catch a TD, Brown to toe-tap and OL/TE's to block LB's.   If he had the talent I saw every other playoff QB have... Allen easily could have put 300 yds passing and 100 yds rushing in that game and our offseason convo's then look VERY different.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the problem right here. The bar is WAAAAAYYYYYYY too low. You look at that game as an example of Allen being the entire offense. Many Bills fans that desperately want Allen to be the guy may think the same. Most people would watch that game and say the opposite. A young QB that hopefully learns from that game and gets better. Josh would admit to you he was not good enough. He wishes he can have a do-over. The coaches know this. But he is young and has a ton of upside. He will get smarter and the game will slow down. Hopefully he can get control over his arm and learn how to make the throws that he is struggling with as a young QB. 

Edited by ngbills
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1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

And this is true.  These guys' jobs depend on being entertaining, not on being right.  All their bosses care is that they say things that keep people from turning them off, things that are likely to bring people back.  

 

Nobody ever goes back and demonstrates how totally wrong they may have been six months earlier.  In theory, an expert gets things right.  These guys are billed as experts, but they don't have to get anything right.  They just have to sound good. 

 

So, what does that mean?  It means they have to say things that sound right now, even if with analysis you can see they're wrong.  That is, it has to sound right to most of the fans.   So that means they have to say Mahomes is the best QB and the Chiefs are the best team, because that sounds right to most fans.  And because most fans think the Bills are horrible and always will be horrible, they have to dis the Bills in discussions like this.  If someone says the Bills should be #5 on the list, even though he might be right, most fans turn the guy off because, really, as far as they're concerned there's no way the Bills ever will be that good.  

 

These guys just give the public what they want.  

And I totally disagree with this.  If there was some bias against the Bills and small markets, why would be ranked so high in other categories?  
 

Some of you (not pointed directly at you) are so protective of Allen.  At the most important position, we have a guy who has been a subpar passer since he started playing football.  No one questions his physical skills but if he wasn’t a Bill, some of you would see the flaws more clearly like you do in MVP qbs (which is so wild).  And the absolutely best part is Allen can prove them all wrong.  
 

 

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1 minute ago, ngbills said:

Here is the problem right here. The bar is WAAAAAYYYYYYY too low. You look at that game as an example of Allen being the entire offense. Many Bills fans that desperately want Allen to be the guy may think the same. Most people would watch that game and say the opposite. A young QB that hopefully learns from that game and gets better. Josh would admit to you he was not good enough. He wishes he can have a do-over. The coaches know this. But he is young and has a ton of upside. He will get smarter and the game will slow down. Hopefully he can get control over his arm and learn how to make the throws that he is struggling with as a young QB. 

I think he carried a very heavy load in that playoff game, but it would also be accurate to say he wasn't able to carry the team very far in that game. Definitely had some let downs from teammates at particularly bad times (like the John Brown toetap for example), but at the end of the day, the defense gave us an opportunity to build an insurmountable lead and all we could muster were a bunch of field goals against one of the worst defenses in the league.

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9 minutes ago, ngbills said:

Here is the problem right here. The bar is WAAAAAYYYYYYY too low. You look at that game as an example of Allen being the entire offense. Many Bills fans that desperately want Allen to be the guy may think the same. Most people would watch that game and say the opposite. A young QB that hopefully learns from that game and gets better. Josh would admit to you he was not good enough. He wishes he can have a do-over. The coaches know this. But he is young and has a ton of upside. He will get smarter and the game will slow down. Hopefully he can get control over his arm and learn how to make the throws that he is struggling with as a young QB. 

 

I would say that his mini-meltdown was clearly a problem, but for 3/4 of that game, he was a beast.  If the other players step up for him, we never see the meltdown.  Of course, it happened, and his critics use that as the baseline for that game, whereas others take the positives we saw in a 2nd year QB's first playoff game, with a rookie RB and street FA WR and his go-to weapons that day.  

 

Allen wasn't good enough last year, but i've seen enough from him on talent-devoid offenses to be optimistic that he rises to the challenge this year with the talent level on this offense and two years of experience under his belt.   If he's still not checking down, making smart decisions/correct reads, missing deep balls all day on this offense, with this talent around him, then I will be singing a very different tune next offseason.  

 

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2 minutes ago, ngbills said:

Here is the problem right here. The bar is WAAAAAYYYYYYY too low. You look at that game as an example of Allen being the entire offense. Many Bills fans that desperately want Allen to be the guy may think the same. Most people would watch that game and say the opposite. A young QB that hopefully learns from that game and gets better. Josh would admit to you he was not good enough. He wishes he can have a do-over. The coaches know this. But he is young and has a ton of upside. He will get smarter and the game will slow down. Hopefully he can get control over his arm and learn how to make the throws that he is struggling with as a young QB. 

Bills fans have watched so much bad offensive football that we might have the lowest expectations in the league.  It shouldn’t be a major accomplishment to score 20 points or pass for 200 yards.  This is stuff most teams do every week.  
 

It has never been easier to be a NFL qb than right now.  If this was the 80s, it would different.  But I hate to break it to some of you, but a guy who averages less than 200 yards passing and completes 56% of his passes is going to be viewed badly by non Bills fans. 

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6 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Bills fans have watched so much bad offensive football that we might have the lowest expectations in the league.  It shouldn’t be a major accomplishment to score 20 points or pass for 200 yards.  This is stuff most teams do every week.  
 

It has never been easier to be a NFL qb than right now.  If this was the 80s, it would different.  But I hate to break it to some of you, but a guy who averages less than 200 yards passing and completes 56% of his passes is going to be viewed badly by non Bills fans. 

 

I don't think Allen fans, at least not myself, wonder why he's viewed the way he is by his critics.   I completely understand his criticisms, especially by those that don't watch him and see a sub-par completion percentage by a guy with accuracy questions, leading a struggling offense all last year.  

 

I would ask you though, did you watch the other Playoff Games?  Did you not witness the grand canyon sized difference between the talent Allen had around him on offense and the talent the other QB's had?  It was, without a doubt, the number one thing that stood out to me.   Every. Single. Game.  I saw plays made for QB's that I never saw anyone make for Allen.... and with reason, Allen went to war with a #2 WR, a slot WR, a street FA and a rookie RB/TE as his weapons behind a mediocre OL.   

 

Every single level of our offense should be improved either through talent at the skill positions or experience/continuity on the line.  No more excuses in Year 3, but when I watched the other teams in the Playoffs, I was disgusted by what we went to battle with in our WC Game.

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5 hours ago, DCOrange said:

I didn't want to track down every starting QB's individual numbers, but if one QB ran for enough yards to pass Allen, then the statement of accounting for less of his team's offensive yards than most other starting QBs is true.

 

The yardage numbers are on Pro-Football-Reference. Some math is required.

 

Ok, I made a spreadsheet. I added up rushing and passing yards for the top 32 QB's from 2019. I also added up passing and rushing TD's. I then compared that to their respective team's total offensive yards and TD's. Here's how Josh Allen fared:

 

Share of Total Offensive Yards: 19th (68.1%)

- League Average: 66.3% (There are some low outliers though)

Share of Total Offensive Points: 1st (55.4%)

- League Average: 40.4%

 

Josh Allen didn't play the last game, but plenty of QB's missed games, so I didn't attempt to account for that.

 

Josh Allen accounted for a higher percentage of offensive points for his team than any other QB in the league. I don't think, therefore, that it is accurate to say that he was not a primary factor in the team winning games. His yardage is a little less than average, though.

 

Share of Offensive Yards Top 5:

1- James Winston (84.2%)

2- Phillip Rivers (79.0%)

3- Kyler Murray (78.0%)

4- Jared Goff (78.0%)

5- Ryan Fitzpatrick (76.0%)

 

(Interesting that ALL of these teams missed the playoffs and were not good teams. Not sure what, if anything, that means.)

 

Share of Offensive Points Top 5:

1- Josh Allen (55.4%)

2- Deshaun Watson (52.4%)

3- Russell Wilson (50.4%)

4- Lamar Jackson (48.6%)

5- Ryan Fitzpatrick (47.1%)

 

(With the exception of Miami, all of these were good teams. Again, not sure if this means anything. Allen, Watson, Jackson, and Fitzpatrick were the top 4 rush TD scorers in the league. Wilson was tied for 9th in rushing TD's, although all but 3 QB's in the league (Allen, Watson, and Jackson) had 4 or less rushing scores.)

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