Barnwell ranks offensive playmakers outside of QB

[Kirby Jackson]

Even as someone that has been down on the group, this feels too low: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49154825/ranking-nfl-teams-offensive-groups-wr-rb-te-2026-season-best-playmakers

 

Do with this what you will…

[Comebackkid]

OUCH

[MDH]

On the other side of it The Athletic Football show did offensive rankings minus the QB by Conference that accounted for play callers and talent (including OL) …and the Bills ranked 2nd in the AFC behind only the Broncos. 

[dave mcbride]

That is pretty brutal. I think the negative EPA assigned to Cook is kinda BS, and I'd love to see the "math" behind that. I never excuse fumbling -- you can't have a RB who is a chronic fumbler -- but it is the case that he only lost 3 fumbles in the regular season (which is to be expected, given that fumble recoveries are a 50/50 proposition).  

 

By way of comparison, Cook had an extremely high AV last year of 16 (PFR's version of WAR). Hard to believe you can peg him as a negative EPA player. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CookJa01.htm

 

I hope Barnwell does an o-line comparison because the Bills' line is extremely good, relatively speaking.

Edited June 25 by dave mcbride

[mushypeaches]

I think it's pretty spot on given that he's only evaluating the quality and performance of the top 5 skill position players on their own merits

 

Our offense performed at a high level because of having a Top 5 QB, a Top 5 OL, and also lots of guys outside the primary skill position players (think Knox, Hawes, Gilliam, Ty Johnson, Shavers) that got lots of snaps and made sizable contributions.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that our "6-10" level skill players got more snaps than any other team in the league

[SCBills]

Feels too low, but if Kincaid can’t stay healthy, is DJ Moore enough?

 

This why people like me want to bring back Diggs.  And I’ll admit, a big reason for that is I’m not as high on Shakir as others here.  He has a role but I want a slot WR who teams actually fear.  
 

Josh Allen and a top tier OL elevates the Offense as a whole to an elite unit, but to the outside observer, all they see is Cook, a DJ Moore who didn’t do much last year, an injured Kincaid, injured Palmer, potential bust in Keon and a good, not great, slot in Shakir. 

[H2o]

Yeah, I can't really agree with this list after skimming through it. The Panthers, the Raiders, the Redskins, and the Titans all in front of us? The colts at #14, the Saints at #13? Arizona at #6? All of that is definitely suspect. I think we should be somewhere around 17-20. 

[dave mcbride]

31 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Even as someone that has been down on the group, this feels too low: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/49154825/ranking-nfl-teams-offensive-groups-wr-rb-te-2026-season-best-playmakers

 

Do with this what you will…

I have an issue with his argumentation. He says this about Amon-Ra St. Brown (the Lions are his number one team): 

 

"While Amon-Ra St. Brown managed 1,401 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns in yet another high-end campaign, the star wide receiver will look back and rue a very unexpected problem: drops. After dropping a total of five passes across his first four seasons in the league, St. Brown had five drops in 2025 alone, including one on fourth-and-2 against the Chiefs. St. Brown's track record suggests the issue was an outlier, and even with the drops, he was still wildly productive in 2025."

 

He could say the same about Cook, but instead says he fumbles once every 81 touches over his career and leaves it at that. In fact, prior to 2025, he fumbled at a rate of once out of every 105 touches in his first three seasons, and if you include playoff touches from 2022-2024, he fumbled once every 120 touches. That's genuinely good: a fumble rate of 0.83 percent. Anyway, why isn't his 2025 season an outlier like St. Brown's? He fumbled once every 57 touches in 2025 (once every 55 touches including the playoffs), which is WAY above his cumulative average in the three years beforehand. 

 

Finally, he fumbled precisely zero times at Georgia on 297 touches.

Edited June 25 by dave mcbride

[H2o]

8 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Feels too low, but if Kincaid can’t stay healthy, is DJ Moore enough?

 

This why people like me want to bring back Diggs.  And I’ll admit, a big reason for that is I’m not as high on Shakir as others here.  He has a role but I want a slot WR who teams actually fear.  
 

Josh Allen and a top tier OL elevates the Offense as a whole to an elite unit, but to the outside observer, all they see is Cook, a DJ Moore who didn’t do much last year, an injured Kincaid, injured Palmer, potential bust in Keon and a good, not great, slot in Shakir. 

Diggs in the Playoffs:

 

Chargers - 2 catches for 16 yards

Texans - 4 catches for 40 yards w/ 1 TD

Broncos - 5 catches for 17 yards

Seattle - 3 catches for 37 yards

 

That doesn't really spark any fear. That's 14 catches for 110 yards and 1 TD in 4 games. That's an average of 3.5 receptions, for 27.5 yds, and .25 TD's per game. Diggs is not the answer and the welcome was worn out before he was shown the door the first time.  

[Kirby Jackson]

17 minutes ago, mushypeaches said:

I think it's pretty spot on given that he's only evaluating the quality and performance of the top 5 skill position players on their own merits

 

Our offense performed at a high level because of having a Top 5 QB, a Top 5 OL, and also lots of guys outside the primary skill position players (think Knox, Hawes, Gilliam, Ty Johnson, Shavers) that got lots of snaps and made sizable contributions.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that our "6-10" level skill players got more snaps than any other team in the league

He also says that it’s weighted towards WR as the most important skill position. That hurts the Bills too. They have a top 5, certainly 10, RB. The TEs are in the top 1/2 of the league IMO as well. The WRs are still bad (although better than they were).

[Sierra Foothills]

26 minutes ago, mushypeaches said:

I think it's pretty spot on given that he's only evaluating the quality and performance of the top 5 skill position players on their own merits

 

Our offense performed at a high level because of having a Top 5 QB, a Top 5 OL, and also lots of guys outside the primary skill position players (think Knox, Hawes, Gilliam, Ty Johnson, Shavers) that got lots of snaps and made sizable contributions.  In fact, I'm willing to bet that our "6-10" level skill players got more snaps than any other team in the league

 

Yes, he's taking the "top 5 contributors" at WR, RB, and TE... and WRs are weighted more heavily than RB or TE.

 

[SCBills]

6 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

He also says that it’s weighted towards WR as the most important skill position. That hurts the Bills too. They have a top 5, certainly 10, RB. The TEs are in the top 1/2 of the league IMO as well. The WRs are still bad (although better than they were).

It’s projection based on health, but you could easily make an argument that the Bills have the #1 QB, top 5 RB room, top 5 OL and top 5 TE room. 
 

Man.. if DJ Moore can give us two prime years and we can get anything from Palmer/Keon/Bell.. this Offense could be the best we’ve seen in the JA era with Brady/Carmichael at the helm. 
 

Says a lot about what we had last year when we spent a RD2 and RD4 pick, along with a massive contract and are still viewed as having a bottom 10 WR room entering the season. 

[Don Otreply]

This is subject matter that has been brought up repeatedly by members here, we really only have Allen & Cook,  with a lot of okay/ solid guys surrounding them we could truly stand to have three or five guys between O & D make a jump into the truly above average level of performance, saying this doesn’t change my view that with the off season changes the team made we really do have an opportunity/ potential to do a better job of using the guys we have in better ways to make them very successful, we had in the past a lot of square peg round hole thinking, I believe that has changed for the better, 

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Don Otreply]

37 minutes ago, H2o said:

Diggs in the Playoffs:

 

Chargers - 2 catches for 16 yards

Texans - 4 catches for 40 yards w/ 1 TD

Broncos - 5 catches for 17 yards

Seattle - 3 catches for 37 yards

 

That doesn't really spark any fear. That's 14 catches for 110 yards and 1 TD in 4 games. That's an average of 3.5 receptions, for 27.5 yds, and .25 TD's per game. Diggs is not the answer and the welcome was worn out before he was shown the door the first time.  

Diggs always fell flat in the playoffs for us, hell, Dawson Knox has more post season TDs than Diggs …, 

[BillsVet]

"For all the Bills are spending at receiver, the same question still lingers: If Allen needs to throw for a first down to win a game, who should he trust to get open? Every team ranked above the Bills has at least one receiver that fans would bring up as an obvious answer for their quarterback. The Bills still, somehow, do not."

 

Beane acquired a name receiver which is an improvement from the "everybody eats" nonsense.  But they're not that far away from the ensemble receiving group.  

 

It's the price you pay for having a GM who refuses to draft them because he believes it's too risky.  And, who consistently has a defensive priority in the early rounds.  

[Einstein's Dog]

Wow, Barnwell has a much different view than I do on DJ Moore.  I'm excited about the addition of Moore.

 

And I thought Cook had a great season and is one of the top backs in the league.

[thenorthremembers]

Doesnt mean a thing until they are playing games.   Football isnt played on paper. 

[colin]

1 hour ago, dave mcbride said:

That is pretty brutal. I think the negative EPA assigned to Cook is kinda BS, and I'd love to see the "math" behind that. I never excuse fumbling -- you can't have a RB who is a chronic fumbler -- but it is the case that he only lost 3 fumbles in the regular season (which is to be expected, given that fumble recoveries are a 50/50 proposition).  

 

By way of comparison, Cook had an extremely high AV last year of 16 (PFR's version of WAR). Hard to believe you can peg him as a negative EPA player. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CookJa01.htm

 

I hope Barnwell does an o-line comparison because the Bills' line is extremely good, relatively speaking.

 

it's true, he was a negative EPA player.

 

the fumbles were extremely costly, take those away and he looks a lot better.  the other issue is the number of just absolutely doomed runs he was sent out on.  warren sharp covers every team in his book.  the bills just did not throw the ball deep at all.  shakir has the shallowest passes of a wr with 90+ targets for the past 10 years (maybe 2nd or 3rd last out of over 700 wrs).  kinkaid was magic but he had fricken 49 targets.  the only other guy we threw at a not totally shallow depth of target to (beyond a couple snaps to glass back samuel and palmer) was coleman, and his catch rate (on catchable balls) was abysmal.  so cook is to be blamed for the fumbles, literally back breaking at times (the denver one imo changed the game from a walk off to a close loss), but he ran against the heaviest boxes in the nfl and we "stuck to the run" to a fault at times.  cook had about 375 touches including the post season, and less than 40 of them were passes.  i want to see him catch 70 passes and run the ball about 225-250 times.  his epa per play will skyrocket if we can pass the ball down field and get him against deeper coverage sets (more space underneath) and running against light boxes.

 

i disagree with this espn ranking of our non qb skill people being 29th or whatever.  i think we are 8-16, in the 3rd quartile of the NFL, of course im going out on a bit of a limb with moore being good, palmer and most of all kinkaid not being a total cripple.  if we go 21 and 31 sets with shakir and moore or just moore on the pitch and brady is in his bag there aren't many Ds in the nfl that can deal with that.

[dave mcbride]

16 minutes ago, colin said:

 

it's true, he was a negative EPA player.

 

the fumbles were extremely costly, take those away and he looks a lot better.  the other issue is the number of just absolutely doomed runs he was sent out on.  warren sharp covers every team in his book.  the bills just did not throw the ball deep at all.  shakir has the shallowest passes of a wr with 90+ targets for the past 10 years (maybe 2nd or 3rd last out of over 700 wrs).  kinkaid was magic but he had fricken 49 targets.  the only other guy we threw at a not totally shallow depth of target to (beyond a couple snaps to glass back samuel and palmer) was coleman, and his catch rate (on catchable balls) was abysmal.  so cook is to be blamed for the fumbles, literally back breaking at times (the denver one imo changed the game from a walk off to a close loss), but he ran against the heaviest boxes in the nfl and we "stuck to the run" to a fault at times.  cook had about 375 touches including the post season, and less than 40 of them were passes.  i want to see him catch 70 passes and run the ball about 225-250 times.  his epa per play will skyrocket if we can pass the ball down field and get him against deeper coverage sets (more space underneath) and running against light boxes.

 

i disagree with this espn ranking of our non qb skill people being 29th or whatever.  i think we are 8-16, in the 3rd quartile of the NFL, of course im going out on a bit of a limb with moore being good, palmer and most of all kinkaid not being a total cripple.  if we go 21 and 31 sets with shakir and moore or just moore on the pitch and brady is in his bag there aren't many Ds in the nfl that can deal with that.

I get all of this, but it is the case that in the regular season (what Barnwell's stats are based on), he lost three fumbles. Yes, he fumbled six times, but my assumption is that offenses recover roughly 50 percent of fumbles, which makes the recovery rate average.

 

His lost fumbles were harmful: a bad one one vs Cincy at the goal line (a close game); one on an otherwise nice run to the red zone vs Miami in a loss when they were down 13-0 in the second; and one vs Pittsburgh in a 26-7 win but when the game was still 0-0 (the fumble led a to Pitt TD, putting them up 7-0). 

 

I have been one of his biggest critics over the fumbles last year, but it is the case that those are just three plays. One of his fumbles that the Bills got back was going out of bounds and wasn't in danger of being lost (vs Cincy). Another was in a blow out win over the Jets, and the last one was also vs Pitt but recovered by Cook himself. 

 

It's an issue, but what I'm saying is that if you look at his prior years (going back to last year), 2025 looks more liken an outlier than anything else.

As for the EPA plays and running into stacked boxes, what that doesn't account for is how continuing to do that sets up play action later on. You can't look at those plays in isolation. There's typically a method to the madness, by which I mean a lot of early-game play designs are set-ups for different plays out of the same formation later on in the game.  

 

I agree with you about getting him more involved in the passing game. I expect that'll happen this year. Brady isn't going to coach like he did while under the eye of McDermott.

   

Edited June 25 by dave mcbride

[sven233]

In a vacuum, it may seem a little bit low, but when you break it down, we are not far away from being a disaster on offense.  Moore coming it certainly helps this WR group.  And if we finally can get a full year from a healthy Kincaid, he is a potential game changer at the TE position.  And of course, you still have Cook running the ball which he is one of the best in the league at and I still think there is some receiving production from him that we haven't tapped into yet.  So, yeah.....on the surface at full force, we should be better than last season.

 

But what happens if Moore goes down?  All of a sudden we have arguably the worst WR group in the league again.  Shakir is a great slot....a fantastic #3.  But outside of that, we are below average with Coleman who has proven nothing so far, Bell who is an unproven rookie, Palmer who never stays on the field, Sherfield, and Hardman.  If Moore goes down, we are in serious trouble at WR and we will be scrambling pulling guys off the street hoping to find a gem once again.

 

Then, you add in the uncertainty of Kincaid's health.  As you all know, there is nobody higher on Kincaid's potential than me.  I might be his biggest fan and truly believe he can be one of the best receiving TEs in the league with the proper amount of targets.  But we all know that he's a guy that, while he has played in a lot of games, hasn't been healthy a lot of his career.  Granted with Knox and Hawes there, the TE room depth is good, but with a lack of truly high end play makers on this team, we are relying on Kincaid to be one of them so he needs to be healthy.

 

So yeah, on the surface, this offense looks good on paper running through Moore, Shakir, Kincaid, Cook, and even though he is not part of the breakdown, you have to count Allen because of the other things he offers on offense outside of just being a traditional QB.  But I do have real concerns of things getting real difficult for this offense if something happens to Moore and Kincaid.  We really could use another great player in the skilled positions, but we're going to need someone that hasn't shown it yet to be that guy.

Edited June 25 by sven233