JGMcD2

I really enjoy when people don’t read and make assumptions as to what they’re looking at. THIS ISN’T RATING HOW GOOD A PLAYER IS. It’s rating them in comparison to the value in the round they were drafted. It’s a tool to grade GMs extracting value. Look at it this way... the 2018 first round was very talented. Jaire Alexander was a great pick, nobody is debating that, he netted them positive value. At this point he’s just not THAT much more valuable than the average player from the 1st round in 2018... because there was that much talent. Kevin King was a bad pick, he netted the Packers negative value in the round. The talent in the 2nd round in 2017 was a mixed bag, all it’s showing you is that Packers drafting King there didn’t really do all that much worse than any other team in finding value in the 2017 2nd round. Yeah, it’s flawed. Trying to quantify this isn’t easy and will never be perfect. It’s an attempt at something I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone try and do publicly. If you actually read what it was doing before commenting, it would be helpful. As I’ve been saying to everyone who says it’s flawed, help me out and provide some feedback as to how to make it better.

Again, that wasn’t your initial issue with the process. You claimed it wasn’t even meant to compare draft classes in the first place. Again, I never said it was stable over a short time period. I initially only looked at 2017. Which has 4 years worth of information on players, the Bills did well. You picked two players from the most recent draft to prove your point, I’ve already said and agreed it’s not as stable with lack of volume. But again, Gabe is rewarded for producing on a competitive team. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s important, you don’t think if they swapped places their statistic would look similar? In scouting it’s very common for these discussions to happen. I’ll use baseball as a better example. John Means is the ace of the Baltimore Orioles. He’s the ace on the Baltimore Orioles because they’re bad. If you take John Means and stick him on a playoff caliber team, is John Means still the ace? No, he’s a #5 starter on a contending team. Is he more valuable just because he’s an ace on a bad team? No, he’s more valuable as a 5th starter on a contending team. I think a player gaining SOME value because they’re starting and/or contributing on a successful team is more than valid. Gabe Davis is contributing to a better football team and there’s a difficulty in cracking that lineup when there’s talent on the roster. Generally better teams have better players at every position. Don’t get me wrong, Higgins is a great player, but is he contributing more than Davis on this Bills team? Maybe or maybe he looks about the same because he’s fighting for targets with a bunch of players on the Bills roster. I’m looking now. The Bengals had 566 passing targets. Higgins, Green and Boyd were all targeted over 100 times. After that 59 targets for Bernard and 53 for Sample. Then a bunch of guys getting anywhere from 1-20. The there’s Buffalo. 572 targets. Diggs has 166 and Beasley has 107. Davis at 62. Brown at 52. Singletary at 50. Knox at 44. McKenzie 34. More mouths to feed. Is Higgins really going to come in and have Davis’ 62 targets and then steal 40 more targets from somewhere else? On the flip side, is Davis going to walk into Cincinnati and still only get 62 targets with their lack of options? It’s likely going to be around 100 like Higgins. Which in that case he blows Higgins numbers out of the water. Give Davis the same volume of targets as Higgins and he’s 61/1,034/12. Give Higgins the same volume as Davis and you get 38/521/4. For every extreme example you find, I can find one too. That happens, that doesn’t mean the process is broken. Flawed, sure, I’m not debating that. As I’ve asked others, I invite you to find a better way to do this objectively.

@KzooMike In comparison to Buffalo, this is New England (2017-2019 as I just grabbed it quick). The worst drafting team over the last 4 years (#32). They've made the playoffs as often as Buffalo has, extremely competitive team. They actually have a better record over the last 4 years than we do, they're actually the 4th most winning team over that time span. Belichick has done an absolutely horrible job of finding any sort of value consistently. He pretty much gets 1 contributor each year, but a lot of his early picks are just horrible values. He's done better with guys like Wise (4th), Bentley (5th), Winovich (3rd) than he has with anything in earlier rounds. I'll throw in GB (#23) seeing that they've been in the conference championship the last two seasons. That's a lot success... out of the team's listed starters on Sunday, they had 8 drafted between 2017-2019. Houston (#13). Generally do a pretty good job finding some value, but really propped up by Watson. Rightfully so, he's the most important draft pick they have made and most important player on the field for them each week.

Ironically the Packers have been one of the worst drafting teams over the past 4 years... That AFC Championship numbers is skewed and you know it too. Beane and McDermott traded, cut or let every player walk that was drafted by previous regimes. They have legitimately have 4 draft classes to go off of... and I count 9 players that were listed as starters in the AFC Championship game on Sunday. It's nearly impossible for them to have trotted out a championship roster after purging the roster of past regimes picks and only having 4 drafts to bring in their own guys. You may very well be underestimating how BAD some teams are at actually drafting players. It wasn't intended to be a mic drop, and I've been perfectly candid about it not being completely perfect or even THE BEST, although I argue it's better than any completely subjective argument someone presents. I've been candid about newer drafts not necessarily being stable because of the small sample size, but the other thing you're not taking into account is each draft is compared to the performance of itself. It's how much more value White provided than drafting the average value of a player in the 1st round of his draft class. So it's not completely unstable either in recent years because you're comparing players with equal time in the league to each other... I would argue that recent drafts actually may favor weaker teams because there is more opportunity for drafted players to come in and play right away... Yeah, but why wouldn't a rookie/younger player on a good team be rewarded for playing a significant amount of snaps? It's harder to gain the ability to contribute on a competitive team. A rookie/younger guy on a bad team in the short term is likely going to have more opportunities to play right away than not.

This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of value then, he lays it out. Players who start on good teams are much more valuable than players if they start on a bad team. It’s not that difficult.

I’m defending against your obviously wrong point that says AV wasn’t designed to be used to evaluate draft classes. I don’t even need to continue after that, because you’re off base. You can look at the individual years as well if you’d like... in 2017 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Chargers, Texans, Vikings, Panthers). LAC: Playoffs 1/4 times since 2017 HOU: Playoffs 2/4 MIN: 2/4 Panthers 1/4 Combined 6/16 In 2018 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Falcons, 49ers, Eagles, Lions). ATL: Playoffs 0/3 years since 2018 49ers: Playoffs 1/3 years since 2018 Eagles: Playoffs 2/3 years Lions: Playoffs 0/3 Combined 3/12 In 2019 4 of the top 10 teams missed the playoffs this year (Dolphins, 49ers, Raiders, Cardinals). Dolphins: 0/2 Raiders: 0/2 Cardinals: 0/2 Combined 0/6 In 2020 4/10 teams again didn’t make the playoffs (LAC, CAR, CIN, NYG) 0/4 this year You’ve got 16 top 10 drafts and they’ve made the playoffs 9 times out of 36 possible chances? 25% of the time they’re making the playoffs and this is favoring good teams? You really don’t think I sat down and read all of that BEFORE I put all of this together? That’s how I knew exactly where to find everything that eradicated your statement that “It’s not supposed to be used like this.”

He talks about using it in the exact context you’re saying it’s not supposed to be used. “Essentially, AV is a substitute for --- and a significant improvement upon, in my opinion --- metrics like 'number of seasons as a starter' or 'number of times making the pro bowl' or the like. You should think of it as being essentially like those two metrics, but with interpolation in between. That is, 'number of seasons as a starter' is a reasonable starting point if you're trying to measure, say, how good a particular draft class is, or what kind of player you can expect to get with the #13 pick in the draft. But obviously some starters are better than others. Starters on good teams are, as a group, better than starters on bad teams. Starting WRs who had lots of receiving yards are, as a group, better than starting WRs who did not have many receiving yards. Starters who made the pro bowl are, as a group, better than starters who didn't, and so on. And non-starters aren't worthless, so they get some points too." I am also pretty confident you didn’t actually read what I wrote. I’m not doing anything based on a team’s AV average. It’s based on how much better a player has been graded via AV than the average player drafted in the same round as them nor does it say they’re good at drafting based on drafting one player. I think you’re really missing the point, sure they only have 3-4 impact guys since 2017... how many teams have drafted more than that? I’m going to go out an a limb and say not many, and if they have it’s only 1-2 more. And why wouldn’t a team be rewarded for getting value out of the draft? They’re not role players if they’re starting on a Playoff Caliber team... look at excerpt above. Starters on good teams, as a group are better than starters on bad teams. You’re dismissing the concept of finding role players, but other teams simply don’t do that well. You can’t take for granted the value of finding contributors. While I concede you need impact players, you cannot expect to get them with every pick. The better you do finding contributors in the draft, the more options you have as an organization. Accumulating a lot productive talent with no non-productive talent is better than accumulating some productive talent and some non-productive talent. That’s unbelievably common in professional scouting... just because a player is getting playing time on a bad team and putting up numbers doesn’t mean he should be rewarded greater than a player on a good team who is facing challenges for touches but is still producing at a high level. The player producing moderately on a great team is more valuable than the player producing well as the only option on a bad team. There are only so many touches to go around. The final point is that a gave a point of caution to the small sample size and how drafts that the 2017 draft is a much more accurate reflection of the value than 2020, as the 2020 draft is really just a snapshot in time at this moment. EDIT: More Excerpts Which teams have done the best jobs of drafting? To answer this, we'd need a tool that measures value across positions. Likewise, this post about how teams are built could be made more accurate. Instead of simply counting a starter as a starter, we could weight the more important starters more heavily, and we could include the non-starters as well. In other words, instead of saying things like "Team X got 4 of its 22 starters in the first round", we could say more meaningful things like, "Team X got 31% of its contributions from first round picks." The value approximation method is a tool that is used to make judgements not about individual seasons, but about groups of seasons. The key word is approximation, as this is the one tool in our assortment which makes no attempt to measure anything precisely. The purpose of the value approximation method is to render things large and obvious in a mathemtatical statement, and thus capapble of being put to use so as to reach other conclusions. Win shares is a top-down approach which starts with the number of games a team won, and then attempts to assign credit to players, proportionally based on their statistics. It’s not identical to win shares, but it uses the same methodology.

Thanks, this is very well thought out. Related to your second step, I did find a measure of determining a player's contribution irrespective of draft position. I did use Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value metric in order to create this. I don't mean to be rude, but you told me you fully understood everything that was laid out in this analysis, but you didn't know that I used AV? What I did was found the average value of a player drafted in each round (I'm toying with switching to median for several reasons). The average value won't be the same each draft, because teams are only selecting from a limited pool of players. What I am trying to do is to see how GMs perform against other GMs in extracting value from the round compared to their peers. After I found the average value of 1st round pick, 2nd round pick, 3rd round pick, etc. I subtracted the player's AV from the average value of a player picked in that round to determine the TOT_NETAV. This is how much better that player was than the average player picked in the same round as them in their draft class. The Chiefs netted positive value from all their picks, outside of their 3rd rounder who opted out, because he was drafted high and didn't contribute, it penalized the Chiefs pretty significantly. Had he just been Net 0 the Chiefs draft class would have graded out better than Buffalo. It's likely over time, with more data (which makes things more stable) things will lean towards the Chiefs. I do like the idea of using the draft trade points, but if I am not mistaking those points are based on all-time draft value. I don't necessarily think that fits what I am trying to do, because I believe each draft is its own world. I may try and find a way to incorporate it, and it's something that crossed my mind but I couldn't determine the best way. My issue is the talent level varies, so GMs shouldn't be penalized for drafting an average player in a weak draft, when compared to their peers selections in that same draft, they actually found more value with their picks. Basically each year, GMs can only work with and select the talent made available to them in the draft, historical value of those picks isn't necessarily predictive of what players in a given draft class will do. I can definitely do something with UDFA the more I think about it, it's just harder for me to accumulate the information that I need to. I will have to do most of it by hand.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You’re sharp man, it was good going back and forth with you and I did pick some things up. I think it’s unfair you’re throwing this out because it does a good job with more data. I said this year wasn’t very stable because the sample size is small. I would still love some suggestions on how to fix this so it’s not stupid.

I used touches for a reason. It’s ok man, you don’t understand how numbers work. If you decided to try and learn rather than push back, it would likely benefit you. Takes names out of it. You’re telling me every GM in the league would rather have 217 touches 1,100 yards and 5 TDs over 162 touches 1,175 yards and 12 TDs? I’m taking SUBJECTIVE concepts out of this here and looking at things OBJECTIVELY. It has nothing to do with how Bass compares to a kicker... it has to do with how he compares to the value in the board when the team picks in that round. It’s how well the GM does given the value available at that pick. You’re rewarded or penalized. Now you’re using draft pick points? Come on man. Pick 86 and 128 cost 204 points and pick 32 cost 590. Who got more value for their production?

Yes, Epenesa was clearly out performed by Danna and the Chiefs were rewarded for that. I don’t understand why you keep bringing up postseason stats, it’s a limited sample size. It’s important in the entire scope of things, but in predicting things you can’t just go off of one game. Nobody in sports analytics incorporates playoff data into anything because it’s so limited. Saying that because CEH’s team has gone further in the playoffs, therefore that makes him a better player is... flawed. It’s like saying Tremaine Edmunds is a better linebacker than Darius Leonard because Tremaine’s team went further and he was a starter. Once again, I’m not valuing rookie classes in valuing draft classes. If you would like to present a way to evaluate UDFA or a better way to evaluate draft classes, be my guest. You’re still failing to do so, while yelling about yards, sacks, touchdowns and whatever else. The ironic part, is that those numbers are used to calculate Approximate Value. If you give Zack Moss the same amount of touches as CEH, he produces nearly the same. If Moss touches the ball 217 times he puts up 1000 yards and 9 touchdowns to CEH touching the ball 217 times with 1100 yards and 5 touchdowns. It’s as much about opportunity as it is performance. Buffalo got more yards and touchdowns on less touches for a 3rd and 4th round round pick than KC got for their 1st round pick. It’s not a nebulous concept. It’s a concept used in finance, it’s used in baseball (See MoneyBall) as well as various other places. Just answer this question... You can spend a 1st round pick and you receive the following... 217 touches, 1,100 yards and 5 TDs or You can spend a 3rd round pick and a 4th round pick and receive the following... 162 touches, 1,175 yards and 12 TDs Which would you rather have? What’s a better bang for your buck? It’s the exact same concept Billy Beane used when replacing Jason Giambi.

@MAJBobbyI hate that the season is over, but this series you do is outstanding. I genuinely look forward to reading your breakdown. It’s very well thought out and insightful. Amazing contribution.

Yeah, maybe I can phrase what I’m looking at here better. I totally agree with you, but I’m more concerned with how they’re evaluating and selecting college talent and getting value from it than I am with what they’re getting from trades for professional talent. In my mind they’re kind of two different processes with different kinds of information available to you.

It does not. It only includes the value extracted with the picks you use to draft a player.

I’m differentiating between draft class and UDFA because this is strictly looking at draft classes, so UDFA are irrelevant. I’m just looking at the draft class, that’s why I differentiated between the two. You’re talking about Townsend holding kicks and Wharton, I’m telling you they’re not included in this. I haven't spent the time to put it together and figure out the best way to lay everything out for UDFA. It’s not saying he’s a more productive pick, it’s saying they got surplus value from Milano in RD5 as compared to White in RD1. It’s not showing you production, it’s showing you value extracted from each round. I’m not sure what’s hard for you to understand about that. We’ve been going back and forth all day and you still haven’t taken the time to understand what you’re looking at, you continuously misquote what it’s showing you. I find it hard to believe you’re a dumb person, at this point I’m starting to believe your ignorance is intentional to rile me up. I’ve asked you politely multiple times to show me a better way to do it, or even provide feedback on how to improve. I’ve said many times it’s not perfect, but you’re behaving as if it’s wildly off base because you’re a Chiefs fan. I’m here trying to be productive and respectful, but you’re just being rude. Let me try and explain a different way one more time. Clyde Edwards-Helaire had a great season, everything you stated is absolutely true. The reason his surplus value isn't very high, is because of the draft pick that the Chiefs spent on him. It doesn't mean that he was less valuable than anybody, it just means that there was only a certain amount of value extracted from him because his production was only slightly above average for a 1st round pick. I'm not saying he's not a better player or didn't produce more than Gabe Davis. I'm saying the Bills got a better bang for their buck drafting Davis in RD4 and getting the production they did out of him than the Chiefs got drafting CEH in RD1. While production is factored in, so is the expectation that comes with where the player is drafted. Moss was drafted about a round and a half later than CEH. No, he didn't produce like CEH did. He had less yards and the same amount of TD in the same number of games his Y/A was about the same and his Y/R was about 1 yard less. Nobody would argue that Moss was more valuable than CEH this year. All this is saying is the Bills got more value getting the type of production they did out of Moss by taking him in RD3 than the Chiefs did by taking CEH in RD1. They're almost equal in terms of surplus value, it's basically negligible. If the Chiefs were to have taken Moss in RD1 and gotten the production out of him that the Bills did this year, they would have extracted negative value because he didn't live up to 1st round value. Heck, if they took Gabe Davis there and got the same production from him that Buffalo did they would have been penalized as well. It's not trying to tell you that it would have been better for KC to take Moss or Davis in RD1, it's just saying the Bills got a better value taking Moss in RD3 or Davis in RD4. It incorporates production AND where they player is drafted. Davis and Moss aren't more valuable if they're drafted earlier, CEH is EVEN MORE valuable if he some how slips and gets drafted later. Say the Bills take Epenesa in RD3 as opposed to RD2, they would still have gotten penalized for the selection because he wasn't very productive. But the penalization would be less severe because he performed closer to the level expected from a 3rd round pick than the level of a 2nd round pick. The last thing I want to point out is it's not really fair to compare Buffalo's draft class to KC's draft class just using yards, sacks, INTs and what not. You're using rookie class as your line of demarcation which is fine if that's how you're going to break it down for your purposes, but KC had 5 defensive rookies compared to Buffalo's 2 defensive rookies. So yes they had 8.5 sacks and 3 Ints to Buffalo's 1 sack and 1 Int, but you have more players to out there playing and producing than Buffalo does. It would be better to look at that all on a per snap basis or per game basis. Just like comparing CEH total yards to Buffalo's rookie class is tough to do. KC had 1 offensive rookie and BUF had 2. Yes, he had 1,100 yards of total offense on 217 touches and 5 TDs compared to Davis and Moss who had 1,175 on 162 touches and 12 TDs. That's more value out of one player, he also out touched them by 55 touches. Volume and opportunity matters, so again it would probably be better to look at these numbers on a per snap basis or per game basis. Again, as it's laid out above, all I am showing you is the value extracted. Nobody is saying Moss is more valuable than CEH, he would have been a bad pick at 32. His production was just good value for Buffalo in RD3.

My gut tells me the guy who stood on the field crying while talking to his QB and then was on the field watching the other team celebrate and didn't leave until his HC came out to console him and bring him into the locker is more concerned about being a great teammate and winning, rather than the biggest pay day. Instead of realizing that, we have people claiming he was grandstanding and making it about himself... now on top of that he's going to hold out for a new deal after we already gave him more money up front?

So instead of a metric that takes into account an entire season’s worth of performance, you’re going to focus on the performance from one game to make a determination? The metric isn’t stagnant either, as time goes on it will change as player perform, but as of right now it shows that Buffalo got more contribution from their draft class in 2020 than KC over the 16 game regular season. I made it clear early on that 2020 was pretty unstable and shouldn’t be looked at too heavily, I only included it because someone asked for it. The drafts with multiple years are much more reliable, you’re hyper focused on this year and throwing out that it does a pretty good job with previous years drafts. You’re also listing two players for the Chiefs that they didn’t draft this year... Wharton and Townsend were UDFA. I’m not debating that CEH, Gay, Sneed and Danna were contributors, but I can probably tell you why at the moment it liked the Bills draft class just slightly more. In just raw AV for the season the Chiefs class came in at 18 and the Bills draft class came in at 15, but when I did this initial analysis a month ago it became very apparent it wasn’t the most accurate way to see how much value you extracted from a player, I felt the best way was to compare AV to the value of a pick in the round the player was drafted. Admittedly it’s not perfect, and I want to continue to improve things when I have the time. CEH has a very good season. He finished with 8 AV and netted the Chiefs positive value in the round at 2.1 It looks like Gay was a rotational piece/hurt for a majority of the year. He needed the Chiefs positive value at 0.2 but because he rarely played more than 20% of the snaps he wasn’t able to do enough to be valued as a major contributor. Niang was net -2.4 net value because he didn’t contribute this year at all. Not getting any value from a 3rd round pick hurts. This obviously changes long term. Sneed was netted then positive value at 1.6... it looks like he REALLY started coming in at the end of the season after coming back from an injury in the second half of the season. AV can only account for the games he played, so the longer he plays and makes an impact, the more likely it is that he’s accurately reflected here. Danna netted them positive value at 0.8 it seems like he was just a rotational piece but did make some plays so he gets them positive value because it’s more than a 5th round pick was expected to do. Last pick was Keyes and he netted them 0.3 in positive value. Seems like he was up and down off the PS all year and got a nod for playing fairly well against the Chargers in week 17. That’s have you arrive at the +2.6 TOT_NETAV for the Chiefs in 2020. Like I said, it’s not perfect and will undoubtedly change the more this draft class changes. That’s why this year is pretty unstable, but right now it reflects what the team gained over the course of 16 games. The Bills draft class breaks down like this... Epenesa was negative value for the Bills in round 2 at -1.8 He didn't do enough this year as a rotational piece and his performance at this point wasn't worthy of a RD2 pick. Moss was positive value for the Bills in RD3 at 2.6 He was a solid contributor and have 5 AV on the season, his production wasn't quite that of CEH but in 13 games he put up decent numbers with 576 total yards and 5 TDs for the Bills. Although CEH had the better season and that was reflected, this takes into account draft position and the Bills get decent value here for taking a RB with half the production 2 rounds later than CEH. Gabe Davis was pretty big in RD4 with 4.6 net value. 35/600/7 from a 4th round pick is pretty good value here, so the Bills are rewarded for that. Jake Fromm in RD5 dings the Bills -1.2 for obvious reasons Tyler Bass gets them 1.6 in positive value in RD6 4th highest scorer in the league, gives them modest value here. Isaiah Hodgins in RD6 dings them -1.4 in RD6 because he didn't play Dane Jackson in RD7 gets them 0.3... very similar situation as Keyes. Up and down but got a little reward for slight contributions. That is how you arrive at the Bills 4.8 TOT_NETAV. The further you can go back it does a good job of reflecting value in 2017 and 2018. It’s not stagnant.

I VERY much agree with this. I don’t think they’ve been in the position to do this, and have a good job finding contributors. Like you said with Josh, they took a home run hack and connected. Now they need to continue to do that. I personally feel they wanted to build a winning culture (which is important) and needed to fill so many holes they had to be somewhat safe (thank God we weren’t safe and took the right Josh). Ultimately I think you need 1 star at every level of the defense. DT/DE, LB, CB/S and then on offense you need a star QB, OL and at least 1, but probably 2 skill position players. Right now I think we have 4/7. QB: Josh Allen WR: Stefon Diggs OL: Dion Dawkins CB: Tre White SKILL: Missing DT/DE: Missing LB: Missing (Maybe Edmunds puts it all together) The good news is that those 4 listed are locked up long term. We MIGHT have a 5th on the roster with Edmunds and it’s a big stretch but MAYBE Oliver can do that for us as well. But at the moment we need another elite offensive skill player, a DE/DT and LB. If we can get 2/3 and maybe even all 3 this off-season we’re in fantastic shape. At this point I would prioritize DE, LB and Skill. We need a DE who can disrupt the game more than anything else. We need a LB who can take pressure of Edmunds and just like him use his physical traits. I think we have enough good talent on offense we don’t have to prioritize a skill player, but in a dreams scenario we’d have another electric playmaker that would scare defenses. It’s me being overly picky and sensitive at this point, but the drafts aren’t average. Average would be getting average value, they’ve done better than that. I think your analysis is correct, but that’s not average, at least in the NFL Draft. That’s all I’ve every really been trying to get at. You can check my other posts in here to see my stance on things, but I agree that we need to land 2-3 more star level players. To your RB point, I believe Singletary and Moss forced the most missed tackles in CFB when they came out. For whatever reason that seems to be what they value. I think that’s what they viewed as their best trait. I don’t necessarily understand the logic enough to comment on it, I’d be curious to actually hear them explain the thought process. But the point remains, neither have an elite physical trait. It’s easier to have success with elite physical tools, but it doesn’t necessarily mean success.

That’s just the point, I’m trying to throw out people’s perceptions of how the draft class is and stack it up against other draft classes. You might think it’s bad. But nothing is really good or bad other than by comparison. A lot of teams aren’t even finding starters in their drafts, it’s a hard thing to do. I totally agree we need more impact guys, that’s the next step, but we can’t take for granted the ability to find contributors. It wasn’t too long ago we were begging for that. These guys have continued to improve, so there’s no reason to believe they won’t take the next step and find stars (they have done it before too). This is the difference between the values. TOT_NETDrAV is the AV that a team has benefitted from directly on their team as compared to players and teams in their draft class. TOT_NETCarAV is just the pure amount of value that players drafted by a given team have produced as compared to players and teams in their draft class. The one I’m primarily using in discussion is TOT_NETDrAV. Which is only reflects the value that the drafting team has received from the players they drafted. This doesn’t reflect Teller’s value while playing in Cleveland, because it didn’t occur while in Buffalo. I do include TOT_NETCarAV as I find it interesting how teams have done just drafting pure talent. That’s why this value is higher for the Bills, because it includes how valuable Teller has been, albeit for the Browns.

I can’t say I disagree with much here, if anything at all. I like your point on patching areas of need. My stance has been that there were so many holes it was probably best to try and avoid big misses in the draft and target guys with the ability to contribute without the chance of busting big. Although, it may have been better served to target different positions in the draft and use FA to do what I just described. I mentioned it earlier, but I think that Beane has shown he’s willing to take risks and swing for high upside. It’s arguable that Josh Allen was one of the single biggest draft risks... ever (the entire process to move up for him was bold as well). The trade for Diggs using draft capital was bold. He’s definitely capable of doing it, but felt like he needed a foundation place. I REALLY hope that now that we have that foundation in place (yes there are holes, but every good team has holes) that he starts taking more swings more often. It’s what the next step is. He has to be more bold. There is a lot of talent, I won’t get into how absurd NFL hiring practices are, but it’s fair that they did not get hired to lead their own franchise, so they need to continue to do more. You’re exactly right on your last point. I also said it above, but I feel like this team was created to beat the Brady lead Bills because they were the standard in the AFC East and the conference as well. Now the standard is the Chiefs lead by Mahomes, it’s time to construct a team with the goal of beating that team. They’ve already said the right things in regards to that, and this regime has proven their ability to learn from mistakes and grow. I really think this was a blessing in disguise, they’re going to be laser focused on doing everything necessary to take that next step. If we squeaked by the Chiefs this year and lost/won a Super Bowl I’m not sure we’d do the proper things to beat KC long term.

Not necessarily, it takes into account the value found in that round and if you can extract more. You can definitely benefit from having more picks and hitting on all of them minimally or you can benefit from having very few picks and hitting 1 big and missing on the others. It really just rewards you for extracting as much value as possible, without just looking at raw AV which doesn’t really tell a story as to how you drafted. So, a first round pick would help, if that pick performed well for us. If they didn’t, it would hurt the value.

So you tell me it’s a terrible metric, but you STILL don’t understand how it works. It’s based on the value on the board in the round that the player was drafted. You also don’t even have enough insight to tell me about a draft class you brought up specifically. I never said it was perfect, I said it was better than what you’re doing above. Putting your own context on the Chiefs draft class. It takes subjectivity out of the equation and uses AV, a metric that‘s used by people who get paid to cover football, use to compare players. It goes a step further and shows how much value you’re extracting from the draft. I once again invite you to come up with a better way to objectively measure performance in the draft.

I mentioned it earlier. They’ve been very good against WR. Their excel there. They don’t do very well against TE or RB. Those are the positions that gave them the biggest issues this year down the stretch after guys like L’Jarious Snead emerged and made a significant impact in their pass defense.

Yes, I agree. As much as I’m sad we didn’t take advantage of a great opportunity this year to reach and potentially win the Super Bowl, I feel like yesterday’s loss is actually a good thing for us. As much as this regime has been running things better than pretty much every other organization, they still need to improve. This is going to force them to go back again and dig deep to fix these issues and plug the holes. The one thing that I think they’re actually “elite” at is fixing their mistakes and improving their decision making. I remember early on them saying this team was being constructed to beat the Patriots (with Brady), and they were so close last year. I think this year they got to that point and would’ve beat a Brady lead Pats team. The issue is, the measuring stick is no longer the division, it’s the conference. In the past that was the same thing with Brady at the helm, but now the conference runs through Mahomes. They need to construct a team to beat the Chiefs lead by Mahomes. McDermott’s comments along with a few players give me every indication they realize this and will do everything in their power to execute it.

Fair point on KC, but Andy Reid does have full roster control and Veach has been with him since he arrived in KC. Dorsey and Veach both have significant say, but it’s the Andy Reid show. That’s why I don’t think it’s dishonest to use 8 years when referencing the Chiefs. It doesn’t worry me at all. I personally believe that McDermott and Beane are as close to being one as you can be. I actually just came across this nugget when looking to confirm Reid’s full control... it is from when Beane was hired so I feel comfortable using the same methodology to combine Beane and McDermott’s drafts 2017-2020. “The Buffalo News has learned that the Bills’ model will pretty much replicate that of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs’ GM, John Dorsey, has a significant say in the assembling of the 53-man roster, but there is no mistaking that coach Andy Reid is in charge of the entire football operation and has final say. Besides the Bills and Chiefs, the only other team that has a coach calling the football shots for the organization is the New England Patriots, who do everything the Bill Belichick way.” Sean let’s him handle the draft, but he has final say on the picks, much like in 2017. They’re both heavily involved in the process and executing the same plan. I am fairly certain the draft would have been nearly identical had Beane been brought in for 2017. The rumors about getting intel from Carolina in that draft don’t shock me at all. I agree with your assessment of Beane, he’s shown that he can take a swing for a star and connect. He took an absolute risk on the most important position and hit it out of the park, but he put his balls on the table there. Obviously McDermott had to approve but Beane had to say he was the guy as well. Up to this point I do not think we’ve been in a position to take a swing for the fences very often. If you try to think about it from their perspective starting in 2017, they felt the need to gut the roster and also remain competitive, so they can’t swing for a star because if they miss, they don’t have enough contributors elsewhere to remain competitive. Then they took a risk with Josh, but couldn’t keep taking risks elsewhere for 2 reasons. 1) Josh needs all the steady support he can get to develop properly 2) If he doesn’t develop properly then you have solid contributors on the roster to plug a new QB into. If you don’t fill the roster with contributors in this phase you put yourself in a tough spot to readjust. Then he took another aggressive swing with his draft capital to acquire Diggs... because he felt like he needed to add a star. He’s not afraid to do it, but in my opinion he feels like he can’t do it all the time. Personally I feel like that’s the right approach, and I think we’re going to see him up the aggressiveness slightly, but not enough where he risks severely missing. I believe he’s been one of the best executives since being hired in 2017. I think he’s a safe drafter and can consistently find value, but for him to take the next step and the Bills to take the next step as well, he does need to take a few more swings. The good news is I think the organization is now in a position where it can support that. Whether it be a high ceiling/low floor guy, a character concern, a small school project, etc. I think the foundation now exists to support that.