Bleeding Bills Blue

I just see "buffalo is 32nd, and this guys ST unit was only 18th so he's a scrub". What makes them 18th? How much better is... 5th from 18th, and how much worse is 32nd from 18th. What are things that Carolina did well, and didn't do well?

What makes Buffalo the 32nd ranked special teams unit in the league?

I think 60 is a more fair number. We aren't really running 10 screens a game, and we haven't really started using an offense that gets the ball to our backs a ton. If we do those things i think he'll be in the 60 range. Cam completed 67% of his passes this year with McCaffrey as their leading receiver, when he traditionally hovered around 59.

I'm good with the occasional scrambles for first downs, but i agree. Most of his big plays this year were with his legs not his arm. Need to see him buy time and find that receiver on the sideline etc.

What are these ranks based off of? Kicking? Punting? Kickoffs? If the kickers aren't good it doesn't really matter

QB guru who was never a formal QB coach...

For sure - but he was so bad down the stretch that he was a bottom what 5 kicker in the league at the end of the day? I'd like to bring in some competitions. As for the Punters - Schmidt and Darr were the worst 2 punters in the NFL and Bojorquez made quite a few mistakes - he shouldn't be guaranteed a job either.

Reich hired this guy, he did not hire DeGuglielmo.

Decent out after 2020 and we have no cap issues so i don't really see this as an issue.

None of this matters if we don't upgrade Kicker and Punter. 6 misses from beyond 40 isn't exactly hausch money imo. And we had the worst group of punters in the NFL.

Stork started the year on IR. Solder missed more than half the year. Cannon missed time. They had 3 rookies starting by the end of the year. And others playing out of position.

He has a 2 mil buyout on that option which would force them to franchise... at closer to 30 mil. Considering he gets more than 20mil guaranteed wherever he signs - Alex Smith got 4 years 94 million with 55 mil guaranteed and 71 mil guaranteed for injury. I'd think Foles would probably get something similar 1 year later. Maybe slightly less as Smith is a few years older, but i would think the 50 guaranteed would be a starting point for his agent.

Those are always tricky with teams. A good kicker totally boosts the number, as would a good punter. Hauschka fell off a cliff after his injury, and our punting was league worst. Coverage unit's didn't have a good year either. I don't think anyone's job should be safe between Hauschka, or Bojorguqez?. I personally like the hire. I know nothing about him or special teams coaches, but I'm glad its not some re-tread that got fired from someone else. There's a bunch of new HC's around the league and they'll be looking to fill out their staffs so hopefully this is us getting a jump on that.

Wasn't he only with Carolina after Beane/McD left?

We did try quite a few receivers out there this year - with varying degrees of futility. Benjamin had a 37% catch rate on 62 targets. Clay was sub 60.... zay was 55 (still a massive upgrade over 2017). Pryor caught 2 of 8 targets. Holmes was at 52.2. Nobody was pulling in 50/50 balls. Benjamin was dogging routes. Some of these guys had bad hands. I get that these are excuses - but in the sample size of 320 attempts (25 completions adds almost 8% to his number) they kind of add up. Inconsistent play and effort, as well as people just trying to learn the playbook. Hopefully a full camp as the starter, improved line play, and improved relationship with his receivers will boost this number.

Outside of Steve smith their leading receiver every year is almost always Greg Olsen. They finally invested in WR more with DJ moore. Benjamin/Funchess were low catch rate guys with no speed. Hopefully Buffalo is getting away from that strategy, as i think Carolina is moving on from that as well. Cam Newton is a former MVP - His team has made the playoffs in 4 of 6 years and he typically has his offense in the top half to top 10 in the league. He's probably also playing banged up more than most QBs during that period.

I think the thing he improved most before and after injury was his sack rate. Obviously he ran quite a bit on these scramble plays - but his sack rate went from about 12 (incredibly bad rookie rate) to about 3.5. Sack's aren't as bad as picks but they are essentially drive killers. 12% of drives were probably killed on sacks, and many others were probably killed with penalties or poor execution. He was able to get more comfortable in the pocket and make plays with both his arms and legs. His total lack of a run game to lean on both in college and the NFL, as well as a weak o-line at both levels makes it kind of tricky to judge from a completion percentage perspective. He's put in some pretty poor down and distance conditions by both unsuccessful running plays, countless penalties, and poor line play. He did have some trouble with what should be easy rhythm passes, so hopefully we see some improvement on that in year 2. If the defense gives those kinds of plays up, you have to take them and be accurate and precise with the throws to maximize the impact and force them to change their strategy.

That cian whatever guy is a cocky insufferable human, the worst kind of person you find on Twitter. He is literally wrong all the time and cherry picks plays to fit his narrative.

Michigan state sadly took Frank Reich's college record with a 35 point comeback over northwestern in 2006. I think Reich leading a comeback over a highly ranked miami team after getting shutout in the first half may be more impressive though.

Right? How good is he at baseball??

How do they go about keeping him? Like whats the roster strategy with keeping Foles? He has a mutual option for 20 million - and he can walk and get more than 20 guaranteed very easily. If you do franchise him or persuade to keep him on a deal, you either lock up a ton of cap in year 1, or are making a long term commit to Foles - thus forcing you to trade wentz. Wentz is also in year 4 of his deal - his 5th year option comes in 2020 so you still have to make the decision relatively soon. Philly is also projected 7 mil over the cap with foles option as it stands.

I wouldn't bring clay back. He had some pretty god awful production. Low catch rate, probably a couple drops, and isn't so good of a blocker. 4.5 mil in savings can be spent on his replacement and we'd probably have an upgrade. I don't think Shady will play to his contract, but he's still a solid contributor. He can still block better than 90% of running backs, he can still catch, and he's still tough to take down 1x1 in space. I think his days as a between the tackles 20 carry guy are over. We need an upgrade at the between the tackles runner over what i think we have on the roster. This too - i wouldn't get rid of shady without him losing his job in training camp. I can safely say that croom has pretty much passed clay on the depth chart at this point.

If tyrod was lighting it up this might matter to me at all... We had an alright team with no QB. Shocking that we didn't want to keep that all together to just ya know... Not win super bowls.

I meant as LJ's backup. Familiar with the Roman offense. Probably an upgrade over RG3 at this point with mobility. Started his career there too.

I LOL'd at that...