DCOrange

2017: Kelvin Benjamin Jordan Matthews Zay Jones Deonte Thompson Andre Holmes 2018: Kelvin Benjamin Zay Jones Jeremy Kerley Andre Holmes Ray-Ray McCloud Comparing them this way, I'd say: Benjamin = Benjamin Matthews > Zay Last year's Zay < Kerley Thompson > Holmes Holmes > McCloud I think the WR corps pretty much got worse across the board with the exception of adding Kerley as a slot guy. I think this year's WR corps will be more productive in terms of raw output due to the scheme changes, but talent-wise, they've gotten worse IMO. Having said that, the only WR on the roster I really care about long-term is Benjamin and maybe Zay, and I think Benjamin is a far better fit for Allen than he was Tyrod and Daboll can't possibly use Zay in a worse way than Dennison did, so from that sense, things are looking up.

The way Buffalo used Sammy, especially after what they traded for him, will forever piss me off.

In my opinion, McCarron is likely significantly worse than Tyrod. Peterman is Peterman. Allen is a question mark as you said. I think he ends up starting very early and I personally think he’ll develop into a good starter but I don’t expect him to be better than Tyrod in his rookie season.

I’ll go back and check my numbers but I believe the drop rate that they calculate is based on total targets (including the uncatchable throws) whereas I only used the catchable. But I think they’ve also tweaked their numbers since I put it all together awhile back because it looks like his drop percentage is roughly 15% instead of 15.8% now. Edit: Yeah, they added 3 more catchable targets to Zay's total since I gathered his numbers. His drop rate is 14.9% now.

Really cool breakdown. I hadn't picked up on his tendency to open his hips on the throws to the left sideline before so that was pretty cool to see.

This is actually kinda intriguing; a RB with speed and hands.

From this perspective, I'm just focusing on the short-term since you're putting it in the context of whether or not this team will be better this year: 1. Worse 2. Same 3. Worse 4. Worse 5. Better 6. Same or slightly better 7. Worse On top of this, I don't think Buffalo was really a 9 win team last year. I'd say they played like a 7ish win team and are probably worse this year.

Everyone else caught Tyrod's passes far more than Zay. It isn't even remotely close to be honest. Using PlayerProfiler.com's numbers, here's the numbers (keep in mind that they eliminating "uncatchable" passes): Benjamin: 71.6% catch rate, 9.0% drop rate Thompson: 73.1% catch rate, 5.8% drop rate Matthews: 80.6% catch rate, 9.7% drop rate Zay Jones: 61.4% catch rate, 15.9% drop rate I also took the liberty of finding a bunch of WRs that could be grouped with Zay based on the average route depth, listed below: Josh Doctson Alshon Jeffery Corey Coleman Mike Wallace AJ Green Tyrell Williams Ricardo Lewis Torrey Smith DeAndre Hopkins That group's averages were 73.9% and 8.5% respectively. Everyone, with the exception of Doctson and Zay, fell within a range of 70.4% to 78.7% in terms of catch percentage. Zay and Doctson were at 61.4% and 62.5% respectively. In terms of drop %, Ricardo Lewis (20%) was the only player that was worse than Zay, though Coleman (15.6%) was close to Zay as well. Everyone else ranged from 4.9% to 10.9%. Looking at the top 10 rookie WRs in terms of targets, we're left with a group of: Cooper Kupp Juju Smith-Schuster Keelan Cole Trent Taylor Zay Jones Corey Davis Kenny Golladay Chris Godwin Dede Westbrook Kendrick Bourne In that group, the average (excluding Zay), had a catch percentage of 78.7% and a drop % of 5.2% (again, compared to 61.4% and 15.9% for Zay). Nobody is within 10% of Zay in terms of catch %, with the range outside of him going from 71.8% (Golladay) to 91.9% (Godwin). In terms of drop %, Dede Westbrook is the closest at 14.7%. Suffice to say, Zay was horrible compared to his teammates, compared to those that ran similarly deep routes, and compared to his fellow rookie class. Again, there's room for hope; I think Dennison pretty much put him in positions that played to his greatest weaknesses rather than his strengths, and he was reportedly playing through an injury as well, but he was objectively horrific as a rookie.

I'd like to get Tanner too. Best bet might be to just wait and see if he's cut/placed on practice squad and then Buffalo can scoop him up. Obviously he almost certainly wouldn't be the upgrade that Buffalo so desperately needs though.

My big issue outside of his drop issues was the way that he was utilized. In college, he was almost exclusively used on underneath stuff: screens, drags, curls, etc. and he was by far at his best when playing out of the slot. In Buffalo, he was lined up out wide and asked to be the team's intermediate/deep threat, two areas where he has always struggled. The fact that he struggled as a result isn't really a surprise. Personally, I think he was extremely overrated in the draft last year anyways, so my expectations have never been particularly high with him and I think they could have gotten a similar player far later in the draft, but Buffalo is stuck with him and should at least try to utilize him to his strengths. They didn't do that with his rookie season. In fact, Dennison used played to very few of his players' strengths last year.

A QB will go top 5-10 in basically every single draft class as long as it isn’t a disastrous one like the EJ class. He’s the best in this class at the moment IMO. Doesn’t quite have the arm strength of Josh Allen, but he has very good physical tools and is a better passer than Allen at this point. My biggest knock on him is that Missouri’s system last year was very simple. It’ll be interesting to see how he adapts to a new coaching staff this year.

I'm guessing he runs in the 4.55-4.60 range based on his film, but we'll see. Should be a really exciting season for UB fans!

Now here's a reputable source that includes all 3 of them in the top 10 of their respective positions: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2774100 Tyree as the #10 QB, Johnson as the #5 WR, and Hodge as the #9 off-ball linebacker. None of them in the top 25 though, but that's still really impressive.

That's awesome for UB but Trepasso is pretty terrible and I highly doubt any of those three guys are ranked that highly by any reputable source. Obviously things are looking up at UB though and that's awesome. Edit: If Tyree shows a lot of progress I could definitely see him rising up though; a guy with his physical tools will always get a look if they show any promise.

It comes from this Twitter thread (I'll post the highlights related to this): Edit: I think people are taking this to mean that Wyoming clearly didn't think Allen was as good as the NFL does when in reality, that take assumes that all college teams coach their teams in a perfectly efficient manner, but in actuality, few college coaches (or even NFL coaches for that matter, i.e. last year's Bills offense) adapt to their personnel the best way that they can. It's not about a lack of faith in Josh to put the team on his back; it's about the coaching staff's stubbornness not to take advantage of what they have because they're more comfortable in their own set ways. I'd have to read more from Sharp to determine if he even meant this Twitter thread to attack Allen; the way this particular thread reads it sounds more like he's arguing that the Wyoming coaches are stupid.

It would appear that if that deal was actually on the table, Dez badly miscalculated his market value. Having said that, I think he likely prefers a one-year deal over a 3 year/$21 mil deal because if he proves himself this year, he would be in line to make a lot more money than that moving forwards (at least in his head).

As another poster said, "uncertain" is a better descriptor than "worst" in this case. I'd certainly rather have the unknown in Allen than continuing to build my team around Ryan Tannehill, Andy Dalton, or Blake Bortles for example. And regarding the comparison to Cleveland, I personally prefer Allen over Mayfield, but obviously Cleveland prefers Baker and I imagine they probably prefer Tyrod over McCarron too. They were interested in acquiring McCarron a while ago, but if they felt this offseason that McCarron was better than Tyrod, it wouldn't have made any sense to trade a high 3rd round pick for the right to pay Tyrod $16 million or whatever it is when they could have simply paid McCarron $5 million without surrendering a pick.

You’re correct. Beane said that if they want to sign him, they’ll need to bring him in for a visit first and a writer interpreted that as him saying “we haven’t brought him in for a visit, which means we aren’t interested”

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. Maybe I’m too stuck on what Roethlisberger looks like now versus how he was a team Miami OH but I think the way Allen moves, the ability to make throws without his feet being clean, the way he scrambles around, the way he attacks vertically, is all much more similar to Cam than Ben IMO.

Perhaps around here, but Allen has been compared to Cam for two years now. It didn’t begin with any connection to McBeane.

To be clear, that link isn't ranking them as NFL prospects; just as college players. So far, I've put in significant film time on three QBs: Drew Lock - https://draftqbs.wordpress.com/2019-draft-prospects/drew-lock/ Justin Herbert - https://draftqbs.wordpress.com/2019-draft-prospects/justin-herbert/ Shea Patterson - https://draftqbs.wordpress.com/2019-draft-prospects/shea-patterson/ I view all 3 of them as 1st round prospects at the moment, though the latter two I'd categorize as fringe 1st rounders at the moment. I expect Lock to be a top 5-10 pick if he can sustain last year's level of play though.

I’m guessing someone has responded already but he’s in camp with the Bears after being on their practice squad most of the season last year. He looks good to me too.

I think he can potentially hang onto the #3 job with Teddy being cut/traded for fodder instead

Ole Miss with Patterson last year: 3-5 Ole Miss with Jordan Ta'amu: 3-1 (wins over Kentucky and Miss State) Ta'amu led the SEC in adjusted completion percentage. It's a really small sample size; he'll be a senior this year and those 4 starts were the first action he had ever gotten in college, but the results were pretty promising, and Brown is a pretty special talent.