ctk232

Not sure I'd agree with this in all honesty - Tate has already been overpaid and has fallen flat in Philly, he wouldn't be worth the salary we'd end up paying him to under-perform in a role we expect him to fulfill. I wouldn't call Beasley an upgrade necessarily - keep Zay while he's on his rookie contract as he at least still has room to grow - Beasley isn't going to get any better, and will only get more expensive and older. John Brown snubbed us last year, and given the Ravens success this year it's highly unlikely he leaves Baltimore for anything. Honestly, our best WR options in the offseason (outside of Funchess and T. Williams - who also won't become true WR1s imo) will either come via a trade or the draft. Don't look too far into the FA pool where we would over-commit cap to a WR that would be better spent for talent along the OL via FA. Nutshell: there is no WR1 in the current FA pool this year worth the money we'd spend for the result we'd get.

And the dream scenario subsequent articles in the years to follow: "Brady Dynasty Falls, As Allen Dynasty Rises"

It's easy to say this in retrospect though, which I get is what you are doing here. But this can be done with almost any player at any position that a team trades up for. I agree, trading up may not have been the best move overall, but there's equally no guarantee the guy we end up picking next if we don't trade up pans out at all. It's also still too early to say how the rest of any of these careers will go. It's nothing new, but his age really does matter in this context - he just hasn't had the literal ability to experience as much football as anyone else in the league, how could he only being 20? But you may start to see the value committed to this pick start to reflect more in year two and three as he not only gets more experience, but is hitting his prime development years already in the NFL and with a defensive minded coach that has had demonstrated success with creating LBs. Something this made me think of, being somewhat related: popular opinion on almost every player is typically weighted based upon what it took to get them - to me, that is only as fair as you extend the blame for lack of performance to the player vs. the FO for not properly evaluating the talent, which I appreciate you doing here. For example, the Zay Jones pick - I truly think this guy has great WR2 potential and could be an absolute key piece in our corps moving forward, but given that he was a trade up pick in the second, it was immediately assumed we would hope him to become our WR1 of the future, refusing to consider his own skillset, physical traits, etc., all of which point to a slot/WR2 success. Perspective is a helluva drug. That being said, while we could've gotten a Darius Leonard in the 2nd vs. trading up for Edmunds - there is no guarantee it works out in our favor that way either.

...because the internet and television will cease to exist? It's an opinion, but I think true fans learn the team they support and likely became fans as a result of learning the history or sharing it within a family. I can only remember games from the post-kelly era, but doesn't mean I haven't seen 30 for 30 or the greatest comeback of all time. I had the family catalyst as well, but was convinced by the story.

@RPbillsfan - I'd say that's accurate, plus the obligatory depth needed for injuries. But the best nutshell is what @ScottLaw nailed. I agree that the roles both Foster and McKenzie seem to be filling provide great depth to the schemes we've seen thus far. While I don't expect either to top out at WR1, as rookies they still have a ceiling to grow within and maybe even improve on other aspects of their game and become more than single-role guys (a la KB being a big contested catch guy, but once that went so did he as a WR at all). Here's my opinion with Zay. I would like to see him in the corps next year and years beyond should he continue to improve. I think his performance is being unfairly compared to what our FO thought he was worth to trade up for, but has otherwise responded well. He hasn't shown enough to make anyone comfortable to say he's the WR1 guy moving forward, but in the games where teams still lined up their top DBs against KB (for whatever reason), Zay was able to have more productive games. He has parts of his game he needs to work on, but I can see a solid WR2 out of him with Foster. Novel of a response aside, the reason why I included ScottLaw is that I believe Zay will most certainly be that guy against zone coverage and DB2 and 3's in man/match schemes as long as we have a true WR1 threat. As ScottLaw pointed out, FA isn't really the place to find one this year. There's pipedream rumors for a Julio trade or similar scenario but wouldn't count on it. My hope is that we are able to address this either early in the second or even third rounds of the draft (though it's supposedly unlikely a WR1 will fall that far in this defensive heavy draft per what analysis is out there). I would be happy to see a Brown, Harry, Metcalf, Arcega, or AJ with that pick as even they would command top DB attention and each appear to have WR1 potential. Harry likely fits the big catch radius profile.

Yep - there's no guarantee Goff or Wentz continue this progression either, nor Mahomes fwiw. Need more consistent seasons of performing at this level to gauge this effectively at all.

Saw that after I posted, my bad - edited should be up

He's also doing it because it's part of Daboll's offensive scheme at present - I need to track down the article (likely from Cover1), but it was mentioned that Daboll is employing a lot of vertical concepts and looks (as Allen has the arm for these to be a threat every single time) in combination with Allen's physical ability to run. That is an absolute nightmare for defenses, especially LBs - just ask Kiko who looked confused pretty much the whole game. Because of his arm, it forces secondaries to stay honest with the speedy deep routes, and LBs will often get sucked into that vortex deep enough from the LOS that Allen can easily pick up 8-10 yard chunks, and likely more given his physical ability. In essence, it's a built in contingency that can often provide win-win scenarios if a defense can't counter it effectively. Not discounting Brown's assessment here, as Allen absolutely trusts his ability to run. However, on the plays where he does decide to run, most appear to have limited options in terms of open receivers and only after he's gone through his progressions will he begin to look for escaping to the running lanes. He has tucked and ran too early on certain downs as well, where a throw may have resulted more positive yards - but I'm more okay with that this year as long as the overall progression is toward him becoming more comfortable in trusting his arm. But I do think the reason we see him running as much as he is is primarily due to the fact that Daboll has instituted this as a fundamental component of our offensive scheme.

To be fair he was never really drafted to be our LT and never really played the position in college. He was more of a mobile power pulling guard and I would still like to see him in that role. He's absolutely been serviceable as an LT, but if we want a stout line protecting Allen for the future, I agree we could likely do better at the LT position and maximize Dawkins ability in the interior. I'd be curious to see what he could do at RT as well should we need to replace the Mills turnstile, and certainly with the Tackles available in FA vs. the draft - it's likely we draft a Tackle and address the interior in FA, given where the FA talent is falling this year for OL. For now though, Dawkins has shown that he can be successful in the league at LT, but shows more to say that he is a guy we can have along the line in years to come wherever he ends up fitting in. I really wouldn't mind seeing him line up at RG with Teller opposite if we manage to address Center and LT/RT in FA and the draft, and miss out on the guards in FA.

I've had Golladay all season with much success - granted I had Jones Jr. and just lucked out on which weeks I started either, but Golladay produced better when the top DBs were covering Jones and Tate. With Jones down Golladay was seeing some top DB coverage and had a bit of a learning curve but is now showing he is the receiver for them. Also affected by the RB carousel in Detroit of Kerryon Johnson, Blount, and Riddick - despite what we saw yesterday, with Johnson out especially, the lions rely on him for both handoffs and screens and live off both opening up the passing game. Without it they could only really rely on Golladay for postive yards yesterday.

Oh I know, but even so it's still likely he still goes BPA (defense or offense) even if we win those two games. While our offense is clearly of greater need, there are still pieces to fill in on the defensive side of the ball in the secondary and along the line, maybe even LB depth given that Edmunds and Milano are likely to miss more time in the future with concussions/injuries. Not that the latter would be worth the first round pick, more so the DL and Secondary with BPA. Depends on a lot, but I wonder where two wins would land us in the order - even middle to late first might be reaching for a receiver or OL if Little and Williams are already off the board by the time we pick.

While not as dynamic of a receiver, I would like to see McKenzie and Foster become long term staples of the corps, whether it be depth/role receivers or top threat. Both have shown more motivation and desire to compete than any other receiver on the team this year. Zay too, but still would like to see him be more aggressive to the ball and consistent with his hands - but love the steps he's taken in this down season overall.

It's more likely they go BPA with their first pick, whether that be defense or offense, based upon Beane's last public comments regarding FA and the draft. It was posted in another thread that I'll need to track down, but if it isn't smoke and mirrors, it appears Beane would like to address as many needs (primarily offense based as they fall) through FA so they aren't shackled by needs come draft time, and can pick BPA per his preference. That being said, I wouldn't discount Beane entertaining trading back in the first and accumulating more picks, but don't be surprised if we draft a defensive guy in the top 10 should that be where we fall.

Appreciate the write up as always! Re: 2 and 7 - I really want to know how much input and impact Castillo has on the run game, as he supposedly is the run game coordinator. Something he completely flopped as in both Philly and Baltimore. If you want to see immediate results in all aspects of our offense, the OL and coaching staff behind it need an overhaul. Beyond his work in the run game, I can't seem to understand the blocking techniques we use for certain passing downs in congruence with the play call. I've been beyond done with seeing our OL flop on cut blocks, but to see a cut block on a PAP? I have a hard time understanding that one. I really do think that a good amount of our struggles in the run game have been due to Castillo, as have our issues at Center, and the right side of the line. I was skeptical on Daboll and I'm still sticking to reserving judgment on him until next year. My initial concerns were only held back by the sheer uncertainty surrounding what was actually going on with our offense. While the bungled QB situation likely hurt our ability to fully judge Daboll's offense, the overall talent of the roster left very little efficacious data to fully evaluate Daboll. In the games where he's had Allen as his QB, I've enjoyed the schemes he's created to maximize the strengths of Allen - you're seeing vertical routes to combine with his threat of scrambling, which is a complete nightmare to counter. He's developed concepts within the PAP and jet sweep packages to both help Allen with his pre-snap reads, and provide a familiar foundation for him to develop and build upon. The playbook he is running seems to be limited by the current talent of the roster, though I do think he is prone to overthink his concepts in certain plays. However, I do believe that when we start to see our offense get filled out, especially along the OL, we'll start to see the modern playbook we've been dying to see. Re: 3 and Frazier - the Jets kept an extra blocker in on most passing downs to help protect sammy. I would have liked to have seen more blitzes in response, as Sammy has shown he has equal issue with pressured throws considering his league leading INTs, even while being out for three weeks...the game plan was to generate pressure with our pass rush, but we couldn't generate any pressure to affect sammy's throws. Officiating and ST woes aside, we should have been able to generate more pressure on passing downs.

I had similar questions. You could poke holes in methodology all day long with most of these articles, too - including what parameters they are using to define "uncatchable." Or how often they might be targeted as a guy with 3-5 targets will likely have different percentage grades than a guy with 10-15 or more. The comparison to similar receivers is laughable to me on so many mathematical and logical levels - nowhere does it account for differences in scheme, or variance in QB performance. To extend the above percentage discrepancies, a QB that is incredibly inaccurate may only provide 2-3 actual "catchable" targets per game, vastly impacting the resulting percentage. They do highlight certain pieces though that either agree or conflict with most people's eye test, but more often than not highlight whether a player is actually playing to their role (i.e. the whole Star debate and his PFF rating...guy is a stud at the one tech eating double teams and getting off the ball quickly, doesn't grade well in the sexy stats columns though).

It's the emphasis the league has placed on the QB position. While good QBs have always had some advantage in contract negotiations by virtue of their position, in a passing/offense driven league, it's easier to overpay or overextend for guys who are, by all measure, good or average QBs in the NFL. While I'm not sure I'd include Cousins or Stafford in conversation with Ryan and Flacco, I was never convinced any of the four were worth the contracts they were given, but especially with Cousins. The overhype on the Cousins sweepstakes made me so happy we didn't land him as it seems Cousins is no better than an 8-8/.500 QB. To me, he never did, and still hasn't turned the page in his development to establish himself as a top QB, but again, people seem to think otherwise so time will tell.

You're not wrong, but our Special Teams have been a persistent issue all season long, especially on coverage - the recent move in the past three weeks to off load personnel and promote young talent may account for our recent struggles, but it doesn't account for the ST issues prior to then. And while having a new OL coach won't fix the personnel issues we have on the right side of the line - Castillo has a proven track record of failing as a run-game coordinator and installing less than effective blocking schemes (a la Philly and Baltimore). While Miller has certainly regressed, there is far too much confusion on assignments and execution that extend far beyond the skill level of the players - it's also a coordination issue, and that happens to be Castillo's job. Address the right side of the line by all means, but bring in someone actually capable of galvanizing an OL for our future franchise QB.

Something about this play bugs me - I noticed the DB and LB blitzes to Allen's right side on potential PAP downs throughout the game, and it seemed to be the Jets bread and butter PAP counter. While I've seen him fake the handoff and turn to throw without rolling out, I understand the reason for him to bootleg after faking the handoff as well, to give him time to read the defense after turning his back and escape an already timed out pocket, in some cases. Pre-snap, the Jets do a fairly good job of disguising the DB blitz in a cover 1 man under look, and it's likely Allen thinks the DB will trail the slot wr/te and the read is to DiMarco in the underneath out. What gets me is that if Allen knows the routes are an out post and out route underneath to the right, those will likely be his hot reads off the play action flood concept. Instead of rolling out right, I'd almost rather see him try and pivot around and immediately read the out-post route and check down to the underneath out route. Granted, with the blitzing DB there's no guarantee he gets either throw off without rolling to his right, and I really want to see DiMarco try and at least chip the blitzing DB here on his route to give Allen as much time to throw as he can. But if he turns and reads his immediate routes, I see a 15 yard+ pick up and a dagger to what appeared to be the Jets main scheme counter to the PAP concepts with Allen. Of course everything looks better/easier on Monday, but I wonder if this becomes the achilles heel to the PAP scheme with Allen, as it still forces him to confront his blitz beater reads and decision making. That being said, having an actual right side of the OL would likely do wonders for this as well, and maybe help him to not have to roll out on every PAP. Thanks again for the all22 posts, 26!

I'm not conflating the two in my statement, and I don't think the current state of the line is all a result of Castillo. Clearly it's devoid of depth and certainly consistent talent. That being said, I don't think Castillo would maximize an OL should we even have the personnel to begin with, and if nothing else would detract from any OL we do end up building. The issue is both with our current personnel and the coach responsible for their development and performance for separate and mutual reasons. I would have liked to have seen Castillo dropped the day after he was hired if I'm being honest - there isn't much to say his issues from his time in both Philly and Baltimore have gotten better. Especially considering his track record at run game coordinator, the position he was hired for along with OL coach, and how our current run game has fared. Our blocking technique is horrifically inconsistent, and worse yet, blocking schemes are inconsistent with the play call itself. It's speculative correlation, but I wonder how much of Miller's regression is on Castillo - while I believe it's all within Miller's control, I do wonder what affect Castillo has had on him. Again, for more reasons than just Castillo, but wouldn't you like to give your players the best chances to succeed, and employ equally skilled coaches to assist? Also, I've been close to losing it each time I see another flopped cut block, just stop.

Speaking of which, the Jets had a pretty effective counter to the PAP schemes we typically draw up with Allen, and fooled the Jags and Kiko with last week. Would like to see if all-22 covers this, but there was almost always an OLB/safety (usually Adams) up on the left edge of the defense, and would almost read blitz to the ball. As the ball was snapped, the blitzer would start for the QB with eyes on the back for the handoff, but the Jets were almost otherwise committing a whole defender for Allen on the fake handoff to disrupt the PAP timing. Worked well on some key plays in the first and second quarters to stall drives and the passing game, but after our OL continued to disintegrate the pressure started to come from everywhere. Curious to see how much of that was intentional on the Jets part, and how effective it really was in countering those plays.

I've been wondering this the whole season...I like Dawkins and think he's been great for us. He was never initially meant to be a tackle, nor did he ever really spend much time there. Especially at LT. For a guard asked to cover the rookie's blindside through PAP concepts and Allen's own knack at times to hold onto the ball, I think he's done a great job. But I also wonder how much of his play at LT has stood out within the context of a rather piss poor OL, and that he's simply a big fish in a small pond. Now the part that I've wondered was whether we really want Dawkins at LT moving forward - or if we actually might help ourselves by moving him inside and getting a strong LT/RT? I like the idea of Dawkins/Center/Teller as both Dawkins and Teller are mobile enough to swing and get to the second level on pulls and screens. They both bring the physical aspect to that dimension as well. For the immediate future, I believe the way FA falls will determine this. It will certainly determine how we approach the draft, and while Beane looks to be going BPA there, who knows, maybe we end up with Jonah Williams or Greg Little. But it might be the case Dawkins stays at LT given what might potentially fall our way this offseason. This was, in fact, the issue early in the season when he was the starter, no? Could very well be the case yesterday. Anytime a Center goes down you see a change in the OL play and coordination to varying extents for obvious reasons. As the QB of the OL you're going to see more issues. While Bodine isn't anything to write home about, it could just be Groy is that much of a step down at the Center position.

Everyone keeps talking about player moves, but I still think our very first move of the offseason should be letting go of Castillo, Crossman, and Culley. In that order. Though Crossman is certainly making a push for #1.

Agreed, and while I think our defense is good and certainly the strong point of this team, there's something to be said for our "red zone defense." Everyone is eager to brag about our 2nd ranked defense, but often neglect the fact that it's 27th in the red zone, and still has plenty to improve on (i.e. pass rush, linebackers hitting gaps/timing to stop the run, secondary inconsistencies in coverage, zone integrity, etc.). Our ST certainly gave them every extra rung up on the ladder yesterday, but the defense couldn't hold in the red zone or in key situations when it needed to. The reality of the situation is all three aspects of the team lost the game yesterday, Special Teams just carried the flag.

You aren't wrong - but our defense didn't do us any favors yesterday in coverage or in terms of pressure. Shaq had a great game blocking passes, but I'm curious if we just couldn't generate pressure or Darnold just got the ball out quickly.

eh to be fair, our team is 4-9 (this "offense" and paltry special teams included), not our defense. on the other hand, while they may be ranked 2nd, they certainly didn't play like it yesterday (ST woes aside).