HappyDays

Great protection

We won the toss and chose to receive. Interesting.

It isn't just the ceiling, it's the position. Coleman has played just 9.1% of snaps from the slot. I know a lot of people pre-draft thought he would be better as a slot but he's shown he can play outside. So his ceiling is as a high level outside WR. McConkey to me is just a high level slot if he reaches his ceiling. My feelings on both haven't changed at all from April to now. Both exceeded my expectations as rookies, both fit the roles I anticipated, McConkey unsurprisingly came into the NFL as the more finished product. If I changed my opinion now I wouldn't have any convictions to speak of.

Adams, Williams, and Gardner are all active.

So will Bishop play FS today, or Cam Lewis? I would bet Cam. Elam being inactive tells you all you need to know about how the coaching staff views his performance last week.

Then I guess I'm a fool 😁 Like I said before it's way too early to make judgments. I could have told you in April that McConkey would have a better rookie season than Coleman. Even as one of the biggest advocates for Coleman in the offseason I knew his rookie year wouldn't be pretty. Still today I would easily take the higher ceiling playing outside over the higher floor playing in the slot, especially since Coleman has if anything performed slightly better than I anticipated. Somewhat off topic but over the past few weeks I've come off the fence about extending Shakir - I'm now firmly in the camp of not wanting to extend him. I just feel the money he will get can be spent on more difficult to fill positions. So if it were up to me I would draft another slot WR next year in anticipation of Shakir leaving in 2026, but still not in the 1st round. Round 3 and beyond is perfect for that skill set.

Very close between Denver and Indy. I chose Denver because I like our chances against a rookie QB in Buffalo, versus Jonathan Taylor in a possible bad weather game. Denver's defense is better but I don't worry about good defenses beating us, I worry about good offenses beating us. Miami and Cincy both offer the same problem which is that they can drag you into a shootout and I don't trust our defense or our coaching in that scenario. So I really want to avoid them.

In Lamb's rookie year Dallas already had established outside WRs in Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup who had each gotten 1,100 receiving yards the year before. So putting Lamb in the slot as a rookie was the best way to get him on the field. But trust me if they had Quentin Johnston and Josh Palmer out there instead, Lamb would have been placed outside right away. Dallas had the luxury of getting him acclimated to the NFL at the easier position on the field. LA doesn't have that luxury. They are placing McConkey in the slot because that's where his skill set fits. You can go back and read all the scouting reports. Lamb was known to be a prospect that could play outside, McConkey was thought to be a prospect that would be relegated to a slot role. His role this year in a bad WR room cements that profile. If you want to defend the unlikely prediction that he will turn out to be more than just a slot WR, I respect that, but nothing he's done so far is making the case for you. It's all projection at this point.

Where do you get your stats from on this? This is where I get mine: https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/ceedee-lamb/ 2024 - 46.2% 2023 - 51.3% 2022 - 45.5% This doesn't appear to be true? According to that same source he was 25.4% last year and 28.3% this year. Anyways the point isn't about WRs who can play in the slot. The point is about WRs that can pretty much only play in the slot. Cole Beasley, Tyler Boyd, Christian Kirk. That's who we're talking about. WRs that can win outside can also win in the slot (which is why they will get moved around), but the opposite is not true. Again look at the top AAVs which I linked in a previous post - the top 20 is made up almost entirely of outside WRs. Some of them will be moved to the slot more than others but the point is they can win outside. They aren't spending 2/3 of their time or more in the slot. In fact now that I look at them even Kupp and ARSB are in the slot much less than I thought - 56.5% and 43.0% respectively this year.

This year he has not. 67% slot percentage is very high. As a comparison Shakir is 70.6% and everybody would agree he is a slot WR. It's certainly possible McConkey will prove he can win outside in the future. But all the scouting reports agreed that his skill set made it likely he would be pegged as a career slot WR and that's what he's been as a rookie. Funny thing is we already had this conversation around Shakir. All offseason a lot of people on here were saying he could be an outside WR if given the opportunity. Instead he was immediately planted in the slot position to start the year and that's almost exclusively been his role. The Bills never gave even a bit of consideration to moving him. It takes a certain level of strength and physical ability to win outside. Shakir doesn't have that and I don't believe McConkey does either, but like I said it's still early so he could prove me wrong.

It's not a pejorative, it's just a fact that some WRs are primarily slots. And your 2nd point isn't true. The market doesn't lie - out of the top 20 WRs in AAV only two (ARSB and Kupp) are primarily slots, ranking 4th and 10th respectively: https://overthecap.com/position/wide-receiver So yes if you are truly the very best slot WR in the NFL you can get a top tier contract (although still short of the AAVs given to the very best outside WRs). But at every WR tier the outside WRs are very clearly valued more than their slot counterparts.

Sure with hindsight if the Bills could go back now they would trade up for BTJ, no question. But that is going to be the case in every single draft every single year. You are always going to look back and kick yourself for not trading up for such and such player. It's been studied and shown that the wisest draft strategy is to stay put or trade down and maximize the number of picks you have. If you follow that process religiously it should work out more in the long run even though there will inevitably be times where hindsight makes you kick yourself. With hindsight BTJ would have been the 1st or 2nd WR off the board but GMs just have to work with the information they have in front of them. Anyways this whole conversation is happening way way too early. Coleman vs McConkey is the classic high ceiling vs high floor. Everybody knew McConkey would enter the NFL looking better than Coleman. So taking victory laps after year one is patently ridiculous. That goes for comparing any rookie WR, or any rookie player for that matter. We have to be more patient than that. Coleman has already exceeded what most of this board expected of him in the pre-draft process. He was taken as a high ceiling player that would need to rely on his pure physical ability while developing the nuances of the position which is exactly what we're seeing. Eric Moulds, Davante Adams, Nico Collins - that's the path you're hoping for with a player like him.

Quentin Johnston is not the reason McConkey has played mostly from the slot. LA would love to replace him with someone, anyone. If McConkey could play that role they would have made the switch weeks ago. McConkey plays from the slot because that's where his skill set fits best.

I wonder what Mike Gillislee is up to

The defensive scheme and play calling has produced abysmal results for weeks... And yes that includes the Pats game. Let's see if they bounce back against, Adams, Wilson, and Hall tomorrow.

I don't know about that honestly. Our scheme is very well defined at this point. We aren't suddenly going to become a bombs away downfield passing offense in the playoffs. When Cooper was producing at an elite level after Joe Flacco took over they had gone full gunslinger offense. The only time we've seen anything close to that since adding Cooper was when we fell behind against the Titans and Rams - and it's no coincidence that those were his two highest volume games. If we're playing with a lead or in a back and forth tight game, the offense will be more of the same.

Very good at a lot of things, not elite at any one thing. That's generally what defines the lower tier of #1 WRs. With Brady's offense specifically we have enough of a sample size to conclude that he doesn't get outside WRs involved all that much unless the defense is begging for it. After he took over last year Diggs and Davis fell drastically in the pecking order. Brady's scheme is designed to find the best possible matchup which often comes against LBs or safeties, or schematic mismatches created with rubs, legal picks, etc. That isn't a philosophy conducive to volume production from boundary WRs, for better or worse. Also he wants his WRs on the field to be high level run blockers which is not Cooper's game at all, and I'm sure that's a big reason why his snap count has been lower than anticipated. For those reasons I don't worry too much about Cooper's production. Criticisms of his production are a criticism of the scheme/philosophy, not of the player IMO. The type of offense we run isn't going to give him those volume stats unless the opposing defense plays us in a very specific way. The important thing is that he gives us a factor that doesn't exist without him on the roster. In an offense designed to create mismatches, we previously had no mismatch player on the boundary. Now we have one in Cooper which allows our offense to be extremely versatile and difficult to defend with scheme alone, and he gives us a legit option when we absoutely need to throw the ball downfield like on those two critical plays against KC that ultimately led to TDs. I wish we were willing to give Cooper (and Coleman to some extent) more 1v1 opportunities downfield instead of only calling those shots when absolutely necessary, but again that's because of Brady's scheme not the players themselves. And maybe it's for the best given how horrible our defense has been. Ball control and high efficiency is our only means of beating playoff caliber opponents because we have zero margin for error from the other side of the ball.

Yeah just to quash that awful take once and for all: And like you said Caleb Williams has two legit NFL WRs and a blue chip rookie. Allen had... well, the opposite end of the spectrum. The other thing about Allen's rookie year is he showed continuous improvement from start to finish. Williams to me looks like the same player he was on day one. This offseason he needs to put every ounce of effort he has into improving because as of now he's looking like a total bust, and nobody can turn that around but him.

Does that make us the shining example of investing a ton of resources in the DL, and still having league-worst defensive stats at various times over the years?

He also makes multiple plays a game that only a handful of QBs in NFL history could make. His presence on the field helps Henry more than Henry helps Lamar. Trust me I believe Allen deserves to be the MVP but I hate that the conversation always devolves to bringing the other candidates down. Lamar has been excellent this season. It is an MVP type season, it just happens to be simultaneous with a slightly better MVP season from Allen.

Lamar is 1000% the MVP of his team. Let's not be too crazy.

When Cook has less than 100 rushing yards the Bills are 7-3. When Henry has less than 100 rushing yards the Ravens are 3-5.

On the all-22 of the Pats game it looked to me like Coleman was the best separator we had against man coverage, Allen just didn't look his way very often. They probably game planned to throw away from Christian Gonzalez which I understand but Coleman dusted him a couple times. Hopefully they will see that on tape and make it a point to go to him more frequently. The conversation around Worthy on here is funny because Chiefs fans on social media regularly express how frustrated they are with him. Multiple times this year Mahomes has delivered him a perfect pass down the sideline and he hasn't been able to get both feet in. So right now he is just a glorified gadget player, and for what it's worth he's a very good gadget player but everybody already knew he could be that and that isn't enough to justify a 1st round pick. He'll need to develop his ability to win outside and finish catches downfield, otherwise he'll end up being nothing more than a plus version of Mecole Hardman.

Bills 34 Jets 27 I think we give it our all in this one. The players will be motivated to earn essentially a bye week if they win. When this offense is motivated like that they're almost unstoppable. Plus I think the team wants Allen to have a good showing to lock up MVP. So I predict us getting back on the 30+ track we were on before coming out flat against the Patriots. On defense I'm sure they will be motivated too, I just have zero faith in that side of the ball right now. The trio of Adams, Wilson, and Hall hasn't been too tough to stop for other teams but us? I need to see it before I believe it. A veteran QB with good weapons against our scheme, I think it will be pretty easy for them to move the ball. Hopefully we get a couple turnovers and dumb mistakes from Rodgers and that will be enough to keep them below 30.

Funny you say that because it was players that saved the scheme on Sunday. Rousseau and Bernard stripped the ball from Stevenson. Rousseau read and blew up a backwards pass to force a fumble. Cam Lewis read the QB's eyes and made a great INT in the endzone. All year in fact the players have been forcing turnovers at opportune times when it looked like we otherwise had no answers. I think the players are good enough to have at least an above average defense. Having a putrid bottom of the league defense like we've had in recent weeks is inexcusable.