The Frankish Reich
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Posts posted by The Frankish Reich
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On 1/15/2020 at 3:44 PM, John from Riverside said:
And the security of knowing you have a player that can actually catch the punt...not fumble it....and give the other team great FP
This strikes me as correct. I can't find the stat, but I know it exists and I know that teams use it: Win Probability Added. In other words, add up all the positive and negative return plays from a punt/kick returner and their effects of win probability. A truly awful return man -- think "those Chiefs players who muffed consecutive punts in the playoff game" -- may cost a team dearly in win probability (it was Mahomes and the Chiefs, so no worries as it turns out). A truly great return man will have almost no negative return plays/decisions and a bunch of highly positive ones. Roberts was good mostly because he avoided negative plays and exercised sound judgement on when to return a kick/punt and when to let it roll. He wasn't as exciting as we'd been promised (not much in the way of breakaways), but he was more than solid. But setting aside those "let it come back for a touchback" decisions, it's still only 53 returns total for him, or about 3 per game, so the impact overall is pretty modest.
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2 hours ago, BuffaloRebound said:
Tampa makes way more sense than Miami. Tampa has more pieces in place and Miami seems pretty enamored with Fitz as their bridge
Tampa makes sense. I don’t think it will work - if anything, Tampa needs the anti-Jameis, someone who protects the ball - but it’s still worth watching. I know I’m in the distinct minority when I say I kind of like Rivers and would love to see a storybook ending to his career. I doubt it, but really, what better option does Tampa have? Arians needs to win now with the formidable offensive weapons he has.
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Correct. Enough with the Mahomes thing. I am calling for the next two weeks to be dominated by “We should have traded for Jimmy G” threads.
EDIT: or could I sell folks on “we should have tanked in 2018 so Deebo Samuel would have been on the board when we picked Cody Ford? Or maybe “we should have claimed Raheem Mostert off waivers the half dozen times he was available? It seems there’s a lot of content to be generated there ...-
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1 minute ago, Success said:
I like Jimmy G, and he has played well overall. But he basically took this game off, and the 2nd half of the previous game.
If he's playing from behind & has to lead an offense in the biggest game of the year, it could be asking a lot.
It should be a great SB, though. Good matchups top to bottom.
That’s right. Some new blood in the Super Bowl, and now I’m actually interested to watch it. Thank God no Patriots.
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39 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:
Yeah it does matter. If you're here whining about the bills not drafting the guy and you didn't want him on draft day, you need to be quiet.
I hear this a lot. It makes no sense.
I am not an NFL GM! The list of NFL execs who care about who I think the Bills should draft is a list with no names on it. It doesn’t matter who I thought the Bills should draft in 2017. I can still critique the performance of the various GMs as an informed outside observer. -
14 minutes ago, McBean said:
We had Mahomes and passed.
Josh Allen will never be as good. Ban me, kick me off here, whatever you want to do but it’s downright sad we passed on him.
We passed on Watson too. Just sickening.
That’s the thing. You pass on a Pro Bowl QB (Watson), then you pass on a future HOFer (Mahomes), and nobody really cares that you drafted an excellent CB (White) and a whatever else you got (Zay Jones? Dion Dawkins?). Two huge missed opportunities, and all because we were waiting for the right guy 2 years later ....
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1 minute ago, Big C said:
They are getting away from their strengths right now - and it may be too late to get back to them.
So it was kind of simple after all: commit to stopping the run with whatever it takes, make Tannehill beat you.
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3 minutes ago, Success said:
And they were probably at Woodstock, also.
True. But if I’m the Bills GM and Andy Reid calls wanting to trade up to get Mahomes, I’m immediately thinking “I’ll go with Andy Reid’s pick myself.” He does have a somewhat better record than Doug Whaley.
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OK, PFF haters. You have a point -- they don't exactly do a good job of explaining their grading system. But it ain't that hard to find. From the wiki page on PFF:
QuotePFF grades every NFL player on every play on a scale of -2 to +2 using half point increments.[6] The grades are based on context and performance. A four-yard run that gains a first down after two broken tackles will receive a better grade than a four-yard run on 3rd & 5, where the ball carrier does nothing more than expected. A quarterback who makes a good pass that a receiver tips into the arms of a defender will not negatively affect the quarterback's grade on that play, despite the overall negative result for the team.
Furthermore, grades are separated by play type. Beyond just an overall grade, an offensive lineman receives one grade for pass-blocking and one for run-blocking.[7] The average grade is meant to be zero, and raw grades are normalized.
So, after they do that, here's what the total scores add up to (from PFF's own twitter):
QuoteThe Player Grading Scale:
100-90 Elite
89-85 Pro Bowler
84-70 Starter
69-60 Backup
59-0 Replaceable
So PFF is what it is. It's not scientific, or "analytic" in any meaningful sense. It may not be better than a pro scout's impressionistic grades. But I find it useful in the way advanced defensive metrics are in baseball: I watch the games, I have a seat of the pants idea of how good a certain player is, I check PFF and it either confirms that or causes me to take a closer look if it doesn't. What it tells us here is that although a lot of Bills fans were thrilled (me among them) with how we upgraded our receiving corps, it's still just ordinary overall (worse than ordinary if we consider TEs). And while we were positively ecstatic about the improvement in the O line, it really just went from historically awful in 2018 to ordinary crappy in 2019; there's ton of room for improvement there.
EDIT: Thanks to the OP for compiling this. I don't subscribe. One comment: Nsekhe was not "great" by PFF's rating. He was a lower-end starting quality RT. But Ford was so, so bad that Nsekhe was a huge upgrade whenever he was on the field.
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PFF haters should also note that they had Harrison Phillips rated very highly (the highest rated defensive lineman on the Bills in 2019) in his limited pre-injury action this year. And Kyle Peko rated as, well, kind of sub-replacement level. Those ratings make sense to me. Jordan Phillips had a nice season, but he's still erratic -- he'll impress with the "damn, that big guy's got some moves" moments, then follow by having his 330 pound body bulldozed on runs right up the middle. Jordan is worth keeping at a reasonable price, but I think he'll get a bigger offer from somebody than what his overall body of work warrants. Thanks, PFF, for helping the Bills avoid making a mistake ....
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On 1/6/2020 at 1:26 PM, ScottLaw said:
A good WR makes that catch.
In fairness to Duke: I don’t think anyone makes that catch. The DB was falling into Duke’s arm as the ball arrived. That’s a tremendous amount of force applied at a critical time. It’s the old “sometimes everyone does everything right but the other guy just makes a play” situation.
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Just now, Z-Mann said:
Yea, sorry, that's what I meant - a 3 win team in 2019, dirty math. may get around 5-6 wins in 2020. Make sense, good rule of thumb.
Thanks. And that’s exactly what it is - a quick rule of thumb. But I think it does give us a sense of where we and our competitors stand right now with respect to true talent level. For us, that’s a good team! Very few teams actually project as 11 wins or better. There’s just too much variability and luck involved.
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Just now, Z-Mann said:
So for teams under .500, you would improve them 50% to the mean of 8-8?
No. If a team wins 6 this year, the best guess is that they’ll split the difference with .500
and win 7 next year. Again, that’s before rosters are settled, etc. While my prediction now would be that the Pats go 10-6 next year, if Brady leaves and Stidham is the QB, obviously that goes down.
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9 or 9.5 wins should be the over/under assuming no huge roster changes. It’s just a much tougher schedule. Folks are focused on the outside of the division opponents, but the Dolphins and Jets won’t be easy next year.
My general Quick and Dirty rule (if your formula works better, please share it): take last season’s record and regress it 50% to the 8-8 mean.-
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10 minutes ago, thebandit27 said:
In the pantheon of crazy QB posts, this one is an all-time doozy.Taysom Hill is an upgrade over Drew Brees, and can do all of the same things as Josh Allen. I have definitely read it all.
Yup. That one is special.
I will say that in light of Baltimore’s success, I wouldn’t put it past some team to give Hill a big contract with the expectation of having him start at QB. That team isn’t the Saints. But the Jags? Titans if they don’t re-sign Tanny? Dolphins? Bucs? Even Steelers (they did this once before with Kordell)? It would be fun to watch. -
46 minutes ago, Rico said:
Too bad Brad Smith is 36 now.
? you beat me to it. By the way, Taysom Hill is 29. I’m guessing we just saw Peak Taysom.
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9 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:
People must have short memories of how crappy the line was in 2018...
Still some ways to go though..
Exactly. I think I can honestly say that the preseason game McCarron started last year included the worst offensive line play I've ever seen in the NFL. And it got only a little bit better in the early season. By the end of last year the line was functional, but probably only better than the truly awful line fielded by the Cardinals. And this year? It wasn't good -- probably in the lower half of NFL teams overall -- but it wasn't awful. So that's progress. But LG and RT need major work, and let's be honest: only Morse and Dawkins are keepers here.
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10 hours ago, billsfan1959 said:
I am not depressed today. I was disappointed last night and let it go.
OK Boomer. Seriously though ... Since you're "billsfan1959" I'll assume you're roughly of my generation. Younger fans, that's a nice part of getting older: it's a game. It's entertainment. It's fun to follow a team, to enjoy the ups and downs, and (for me) to stay connected to a city I left as a kid. It's not real life. It's a diversion. Watching every game this season (well, half of the meaningless final Jets game) gave me roughly 50 hours of entertainment during games and probably 200 hours of time talking to people I have little connection too anymore other than an irrational connection to 53 guys from everywhere but WNY who put a helmet with a bison on their heads every Sunday.
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10 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:
I’m a lawyer.
For the answer to this question, please Venmo me a $50,000 retainer.
I'm one too (a lawyer, that is). I know you're kidding, but it saddens me that there are many of our colleagues who actually would take someone's money to file a frivolous lawsuit like this. And then issue a press release to get publicity for their firm.
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This was a very solid team this year. Competitive against everyone, including the playoff teams.
But it was also roughly an 8-8 team that got to 10-6 thanks to an incredibly weak schedule. Nothing to be ashamed of there, but it is important to understand this going forward, and I'm quite sure Beane and McD do understand. The 12-4 Bears last year are about as good a comparison as you'll find, and they found their true level (8-8) as they put basically the same team on the field in 2019 but faced significantly better competition.
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51 minutes ago, LOVEMESOMEBILLS said:
Asking your young QB to pass 46 times, run 9 times and go out for a pass 1 time(Was our only TD) while calling for only 21 hand offs in his first playoff game on the road no less while leading or tied for almost the entire game is a recipe for success, yes? 56 plays he was directly involved vs 21 hand offs, is down right criminal given how the first 2 2/3 quarters went. Where were the play-action passes that help young QBs out or max protection when they started to get pressure on him every play or screens where were they? Daboll's first 15 scripted plays and the player's execution were very good after that Daboll called an garbage game. 372 total yards out of our 425. 11 for 21 on 3rd downs with several coming on passes to very tight windows on the run. More drives(FGs included) ended because of bad play calling & offensive line penalties that put us behind the chains.
Here's my issue with Josh ... I like him, and I think he made great progress this year, but ...
... the offense really only clicks when he is using all that athletic skill. That means running, rolling out (and going out as a receiver yesterday), etc. Basically a Lamar Jackson Jr. type offense, or maybe a Kaepernick-era 49ers offense. But we already know he's not Russell Wilson or Lamar Jackson when he's running and playing with abandon; they seem to have that innate ability to avoid clean hits. If Allen plays cautiously, he kind of sucks; if he plays aggressively, he gets hurt.
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1 hour ago, 4merper4mer said:
Pick one new guy you think will be on the Bills in 2020. It could FA, draft, trade or player awarded from the Pats due to them getting caught cheating yet again.
Just pick one.
I will go with Marcus Mariota as our backup QB. It's a bit of a surprise but I can see us looking for a backup, he is a dual threat to an extent and I just can't see him getting a starting job.
I like it. And he could go all Tannehill on us in an interesting role reversal.
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2 hours ago, wiseman3 said:
So far, Josh has had a better performance than any other QB not named Watson (and he still out gained him by a considerable margin of total yards). Brees, Brady, Tannehill, and Cousins have all been pretty bad. I guess my message is that the playoffs are an entire different beast. Allen gets absolutely ripped apart for his mistakes, yet when you compare him to all others so far, he may have had the 2nd best performance of the playoffs. Get him some weapons and another legit RB, and we're in business.
Wiseman3, how appropriate ... I just had an epiphany. Josh can invite you over to watch Kirk Cousins and the Vikes against the 49ers next Saturday.
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True "Franchise QBs" that have emerged in the last 3 seasons -- guys that, if this were baseball, would be getting 8 year/$300 million extensions right now:
- Deshaun Watson
- Patrick Mahomes
- Lamar Jackson
That's it.
Early last season it looked like Jared Goff had entered that category (and he did get the money to prove it). Late last season it looked like Baker Mayfield might be moving into that category. Early this season it was Dak Prescott. None of those guys would get that kind of deal right now.
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Chargers moving on from Philip Rivers after 16 years
in The Stadium Wall Archives
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Count me among the small group of fans who believe the Chargers would have been considerably better with Tyrod starting at QB this year. Really, sometimes all you need to do is not put your team in a hole with bad turnovers and wait for some of your playmakers to make plays.