Changes to Bills Scouting Staff

[GunnerBill]

5 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

To be fair very few GMS are themselves great talent evaluators 

 

Most GM's job is to put the most competent staff around them to make his decisions the easiest... Not necessarily rely on his own evaluation

 

But pay professionals to give him the best information 

 

Yep. Totally fair. Beane's strength is strategy and building a good staff and I think those are probably stronger foundational skills for the long term as a GM than being a great scout. 

[Buffalo716]

4 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yep. Totally fair. Beane's strength is strategy and building a good staff and I think those are probably stronger foundational skills for the long term as a GM than being a great scout. 

And then pure scouts like Whaley... Had zero strategy about how to build the team 

 

Now beane has also been schooled in scouting but I think he's way bigger on the personnel

[Rampant Buffalo]

10 minutes ago, Buffalo716 said:

And then pure scouts like Whaley... Had zero strategy about how to build the team 

 

Now beane has also been schooled in scouting but I think he's way bigger on the personnel

 

My understanding is that Doug Whaley came from the pro personnel side, not from the drafting side. When I ask myself which Doug Whaley draft pick had the best career, the two names which come to mind are Sammy Watkins and Nickell Robey. Maybe Shaq Lawson. That's an extremely disappointing draft record. But if you look at his free agent signings, those guys worked out reasonably well. He did a better job in the area where he had experience, than the area where he didn't.

[Buffalo716]

2 hours ago, Rampant Buffalo said:

 

My understanding is that Doug Whaley came from the pro personnel side, not from the drafting side. When I ask myself which Doug Whaley draft pick had the best career, the two names which come to mind are Sammy Watkins and Nickell Robey. Maybe Shaq Lawson. That's an extremely disappointing draft record. But if you look at his free agent signings, those guys worked out reasonably well. He did a better job in the area where he had experience, than the area where he didn't.

He did a lot of work in the pro personnel department in Pittsburgh but also did regional scouting

Edited May 19 by Buffalo716

[finn]

14 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

He builds great staffs. There is zero doubt. Some of that is the Pegulas money too, but Gaine, Shoen, Morgan have already been taken to be GMs off Beane's staff. TG is a definite candidate for jobs too. Beane is not himself an elite talent evaluator, but he knows how to spot and hire one. He is a great builder of a FO staff.

I would be curious to hear their process described, particularly the retrospective, "Where did we go wrong?" analysis several years out. How they missed on Boogie Basham and (evidently) Elam, for instance, or how, like everyone else, they overlooked Puca Nacua. Drafting players has to be fertile grounds for all sorts of cognitive biases. Even if you're totally objective, which is pretty much impossible, how do you account for one player, like Diggs or Nacua, being fantastic, when dozens of other players with pretty much exactly the same measurables, pedigree, work ethic, and temperament, are either busts or JAGs? 

[GunnerBill]

22 minutes ago, finn said:

I would be curious to hear their process described, particularly the retrospective, "Where did we go wrong?" analysis several years out. How they missed on Boogie Basham and (evidently) Elam, for instance, or how, like everyone else, they overlooked Puca Nacua. Drafting players has to be fertile grounds for all sorts of cognitive biases. Even if you're totally objective, which is pretty much impossible, how do you account for one player, like Diggs or Nacua, being fantastic, when dozens of other players with pretty much exactly the same measurables, pedigree, work ethic, and temperament, are either busts or JAGs? 

 

Yea agree would be interesting. Boogie I think was just a flat out misevaluation. My theory is they needed edge badly that year and were talking themselves into guys to take at the end of round 1. They expected Groot to be gone and they were convincing themselves "there are still guys after Groot, Phillips and Paye (conensus top 3 that year) who can play." So they had grades on the 2nd tier edge guys that were artificially inflated because of their need. So when Boogie got to the end of round 2 he looked like he was sticking out, when in reality he shouldn't have been. 

 

Elam I think they thought they could take the clay and mould him to their scheme. Ultimately that has failed.

[Rampant Buffalo]

11 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yea agree would be interesting. Boogie I think was just a flat out misevaluation. My theory is they needed edge badly that year and were talking themselves into guys to take at the end of round 1. They expected Groot to be gone and they were convincing themselves "there are still guys after Groot, Phillips and Paye (conensus top 3 that year) who can play." So they had grades on the 2nd tier edge guys that were artificially inflated because of their need. So when Boogie got to the end of round 2 he looked like he was sticking out, when in reality he shouldn't have been. 

 

Elam I think they thought they could take the clay and mould him to their scheme. Ultimately that has failed.

 

I still have a certain amount of hope left for Elam. He was affected by injuries this past season. Is it likely he'll be the player they hoped he'd be when they were drafting him? Perhaps not. But if healthy, I could see him giving the Bills' secondary some quality depth. He'd get beat more often than one of our starting CBs would have, but he'll also have the occasional moment when he reminds us why he was drafted in the first round. At the end of his rookie contract, we risk losing him to some other team who plays man more often than we do. (And hence would be willing to pay him more.)

[Old Coot]

Belichick's dad Steve wrote a book on scouting old school. I've often wondered whether Belichick's ability to draft well (mostly at the end of the various rounds) for so long (for example, Brady and Edleman not drafted until round six) and his ability to trade vets just at the cusp of their future decline was learned at the feet of his dad and honed by Belichick's experience on the coaching side of the NFL.

[PromoTheRobot]

On 5/18/2024 at 2:24 PM, DJB said:

Maybe they are just adding and not subtracting?

 

Terry is cheap.

26 minutes ago, Old Coot said:

Belichick's dad Steve wrote a book on scouting old school. I've often wondered whether Belichick's ability to draft well (mostly at the end of the various rounds) for so long (for example, Brady and Edleman not drafted until round six) and his ability to trade vets just at the cusp of their future decline was learned at the feet of his dad and honed by Belichick's experience on the coaching side of the NFL.

 

All those smart moves happened when Scott Pioli was the Patriots GM. When Bill and his dog were in charge, his draft record wasn't good.

[GunnerBill]

18 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Terry is cheap.

 

All those smart moves happened when Scott Pioli was the Patriots GM. When Bill and his dog were in charge, his draft record wasn't good.

 

They actually drafted pretty well until about 2015. After that it was a disaster zone. I don't know whether the league changed and Bill was still drafting for a league that no longer existed or if there were other influences in senior personnel positions that changed. It was about the time Bob Quinn moved on but he was more pro side anyway from memory.

[ngbills]

Dont over think it. Anyone that is gone from the department sucked. The new ones are all way better. 

[Rampant Buffalo]

7 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

They actually drafted pretty well until about 2015. After that it was a disaster zone. I don't know whether the league changed and Bill was still drafting for a league that no longer existed or if there were other influences in senior personnel positions that changed. It was about the time Bob Quinn moved on but he was more pro side anyway from memory.

 

Suppose you were to make a list of the successful draft picks they had prior to 2015. Then ask yourself, are there any guys on that list, who would have been unsuccessful in a post-2015 NFL?  Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone who'd fit that description.

 

But, your suggestion about the league changing could be correct in other, perhaps more subtle ways. Perhaps there was something they were looking for in players which became less common. Or maybe there was something they should have been looking for in players but weren't, which became more common.

 

If I had to guess, I would guess that there may have been at least some changes in their front office, which may have influenced the quality of their results on draft day.