HappyDays

Rapaport is echoing the more credible reports that Diggs was unhappy with his target share in the offense last year. Not with us failing to land Hopkins like that fake sources loser in NYC made up.

To see all of the WRs on that site you have to pay a subscription. I'm not a subscriber so I don't know where other WRs rank. But someone on Twitter posted a snippet from that article where it says that Davis has always been no higher than the 35th percentile in those metrics. So we're talking about a WR near the bottom third of route success rate. I'd be interested to know where contested catch specialists like Tee Higgins and Mike Williams fall in that percentile, but the thing with guys like that is they make catches even when covered so any flaws they have as separators they can make up a good bit of ground with their contested catch ability. Davis has not been a contested catch specialist and in fact has a much higher than average drop rate. So I just don't see anything he offers as the #2. His is a limited skill set that lends itself well to being a #3 target. I don't care where the #2 target plays - outside, slot, RB, TE, I really don't care. I just want a superior talent to Davis taking that high volume of targets. If Kincaid becomes that as a rookie, great. I'm just not counting on it.

What are you talking about man? I just want a better #2 option than Davis. Every recent Super Bowl participant has had a #2 target better than Davis, without fail. Look at the recent participants yourself if you don't believe me. So either we are the first team in recent history to break that trend, or we upgrade Davis. There is no alternative. I'm totally aware that it is possible one of Kincaid, Harty, or Shakir massively exceed expectations and become the #2 target in this offense. Merely expressing that possibility is meaningless though. I don't want a possible "in a best case scenario" upgrade, I want a definite upgrade. And even in the worst case scenario with Hopkins in this offense he is clearly an upgrade on Davis. That's all I want. I'm completely satisfied with the pass catching depth. But we are still lacking a top end piece that every recent Super Bowl participant has had. It appears to be a minimum standard and I worry that us not having it will once again lock us out of a Super Bowl appearance. If we had elite offensive coaching maybe I'd feel better about it. But instead we have a sophomore play caller working with an offense that is handicapped by a limited receiver in the #2 target role.

Diggs needs to take a step back and realize that asking for even higher target share is inviting trouble. It's introducing doubt into Allen's mind. Most neutral observers agree that the Bills offense needs to become less forced, more "take what the defense gives you." Defenses are doubling/bracketing Diggs and daring us to beat them elsewhere. In situations like that Diggs needs to understand that he isn't going to be the focal point.

We don't run him on slants and digs because he isn't competent on those routes... And that chart has nothing to do with accurate throws or offensive scheme or anything like that. It is just Matt Harmon diving into the film and charting each WR's success rate on every route they run whether they are targeted of not. If it was just Matt Harmon saying this we could say it doesn't mean much, but every objective analyst I've listened to has offered the same criticisms. Davis simply doesn't separate at a high level on the sorts of routes you expect the #2 WR to run. In that article he mentions that Davis has never once in his career been above the 35th percentile in route success rate against zone, man, or press coverage (again NOT based on catches or targets or any contextual statistic, just based on charting the film). Think about that... The presumed #2 target in our offense in our Super Bowl window is a below 35th percentile WR. And you wonder why so many of us want a legit #2 added to the mix?

Come on. There are too many knowledgeable fans on here for you to throw out this argument and expect it to land. Adams from his 3rd year on ranged from 62% to 77% catch percentage. Last year he played in a terrible offense led by Derek Carr's career worst performance and he in turn had the worst catch percentage of his career. You're reducing a career's worth of production to a single year... that isn't going to fly. Davis on the other hand has seen his catch percentage drop from 56.5% to 55.6% to 51.6% in each year of his young career. His 4% drop last year was entirely predictable - going from facing #3 and worse DBs to consistently facing #1 and #2 DBs of course brought down his efficiency. A 50ish percent catch guy is what Davis has always been. And he doesn't have a skill set conducive to suddenly jumping into the 60s like any worthy #2 target.

Yeah, the biggest issue by far was that our #2 target had a 51.6% catch rate. That's abysmal. It's basically half his targets that fell incomplete. I mean you're literally just naming players on the roster and that's your whole argument that the team has weapons.

I like the Harty signing. His potential is tantalizing. But it is a high upside/high downside signing. His size combined with his injury history makes it very questionable that he will be a consistent contributor this year. If he happens to stay healthy all year it could be a home run signing. I'm just not counting on it. Plus we have had issues with Allen throwing the ball to smurfs in windy snowy conditions. I expect Harty to be more of a regular season contributor than a playoff contributor even in a best case scenario. The point is Harty does nothing to solve the biggest problem in our passing offense last year, which was Davis getting the #2 target share. And I don't think Beane signed him expecting him to solve that problem. Every time Beane has talked about Hopkins publicly he has seemed almost exasperated. I think he was counting on Hopkins solving our #2 WR problem and is frustrated that they can't get on the same page with the contract. Beane knows it is a weakness but I'm sure he appreciates some fans doing their best to pretend it isn't.

It's even worse - only one AFCCG appearance. I mean that's truly an awful resume for an elite QB. Arguably the greatest QB playoff stretch of all time ended in the divisional round because of a major coaching blunder. It seems obvious to me that if we again fail to reach the AFCCG that should be the nail in the coffin for McDermott. It would be four years with an elite QB and exactly one AFCCG appearance and no Super Bowl appearance. That would be more than enough evidence that he isn't going to get us over the hump.

Speaking from personal experience, no. You may have more withheld from your paycheck for bonuses, but when it's time for tax returns you will get back anything over what should have been withheld. I'm guessing when it comes to NFL payouts it is probably a lot more complicated but either way your final gross income has an exact tax rate that doesn't change regardless of how the income was made. Anyways I don't think it matters. Unless I'm missing something, I'm almost positive NFL players can't stop a team from executing a restructure that is written into their contract. Because the terms of the contract don't change at all, it's just a tool to modify how the team is allocating salary towards their salary cap year over year.

I wouldn't trust a report that starts with a falsehood - Diggs didn't have to ageee to his restructure. It was an option that Beane could do with or without his approval. My understanding is that players like when their contracts are restructured because they get more money right away. Also Carton has a history of making up crap. He was throwing a bogus report out there that Aaron Rodgers was thinking of going to the 49ers before he approved the trade to the Jets, and several other reporters quickly made it known that that report was BS.

This matches up with something my source said today. It sounds like the Bills want to move more towards a structured offense with less freestyling/choice routes. Diggs likes the freestyling though. So he isn't happy with how much input he has in the direction of the offense. One example that was shared to me was a 4th down play against the Bengals in the red zone which fell incomplete. I don't have a video on hand. But it's the play very late in the game where Diggs looked visibly frustrated after the ball fell incomplete to Davis. Apparently on that play the structure of the play said that Diggs should run outside. But the CB was shaded outside so he freestyled and ran inside instead, right over the top of Davis's crossing route. Allen didn't throw him the ball and Diggs was frustrated that Allen didn't follow his freelance on that play. In his mind he's always been able to freelance in situations like that and he doesn't like that Allen followed the structure of the play instead of Diggs' freelancing. Hopefully I explained that well enough. Whatever the messaging from the team is, it appears that the issue really is as simple as Diggs wants the ball more and wants his voice heard more in terms of the design/structure of the offense. Personally I take this all as bad news. Even if the issue is resolved for now it's the kind of thing that can easily blow up again if Diggs still isn't happy with his role midway through the season and we've suffered a couple disappointing losses. If our offense comes out hot and we are winning I think everything will be fine, but at the first sign of adversity I worry about how Diggs will handle it.

I listened to the whole episode and I don't have a problem with anything Florio and Simms said. They're exactly right - McDermott was in damage control in his Wednesday presser. The messaging was not consistent from one day to the next. The QB had an awkward 11 minute press conference where he had to try to diffuse the situation. It was a major PR blunder from a regime that has been much more buttoned up in the past.

No I don't think my source ever found out. Seemingly nobody has been able to find out.

My source described this information as "laughable." It sounds like Michael Lombardi is giving his opinion here, not any sourced info.

This meshes with every criticism of Davis. He only runs a small selection of routes at a high level. Anything that requires separating in small spaces he does at a below average level. That is not the skill set of a true #2 IMO. And it's been a problem his whole career. From the article: "He’s never cleared the 35th percentile in success rate vs. man, zone or press coverage in any of his three NFL seasons." We have a less than 35th percentile WR as our full time #2... It's a HUGE limitation in this offense. The only hope is that Kincaid or someone else steps up and takes a bunch of Davis's targets away.

Huh? You're the one that said we took a step forward since 2020. We actually have regressed since then. And yeah I do blame the coaching for having an awful game plan against Cincinnati.

They came a long way from getting stomped in the AFC Championship by getting stomped in the AFC Divisional?

You'll never guess who!

I'd be less unhappy that he signed with the Patriots, and more unhappy that he didn't sign with us, if that makes sense.

This thread has had it all. A broken "o" key. Some loser posted a picture of their W2. We unmasked a former mod. Someone needs to post their nudes and then we can shut it down.

I don't think Kincaid will get 1,000 yards as a rookie. You predicted less than 18 yards per game and less than 2 catches per game. You still haven't told me what history you are basing that on?

Kyle Pitts was a TE too. He had over 1,000 yards as a rookie. Beane has already said they envision Kincaid as the big slot. That's basically how he was used at Utah. None of your "history" means anything about this specific player in this specific situation.

What history is that? It's a big slot drafted in the 1st round going to a pass heavy offense led by a top 3 QB and featuring just one top tier pass catcher to share targets with. There's no history to lean on. The context of his specific situation means much more.