JGMcD2

I do combine it into McBeane, we know they’re in lock step and we seem to have gotten even more clarity recently that McDermott still has some roster control. I agree though we have 3 stars that we’ve drafted IMO - White, Dawkins and Allen. Plus a 4th in Diggs. But you’re more than fair and someone brought it up in another post, but KC has had 8 years under Reid to find those impact players Chris Jones, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce were all drafted prior to McBeane showing up in Buffalo... so 4+ years and KC didn’t win Super Bowl #1 until last year. That’s when it all came together. This team right now is roughly where the Chiefs were when they added Mahomes - so close to putting it together and winning it all. Needed some more experience and a few more pieces. I understand the timeline with Allen is a little different, but the point I’m getting at is they’re not significantly lagging behind the Chiefs, they just need the same amount of time get everything settled, at this point they’re outpacing Reid.

New Orleans has 2 top 10 drafts here, but also a bottom 2 draft. They had had arguably one of the best drafts in NFL history in 2017 which propels them to the top, but when you pretty much hit on an entire draft you can get away with a lot. Good point with QBs. I’m sorry you don’t understand. You can scroll back up to read and understand how it works, or I encourage you to devise another way to objectively measure draft classes. All it’s showing you is that Minnesota hit on Jefferson and didn’t do anything else with their picks. Same with KC and Snead. Buffalo might not have gotten 1 impact player but they managed to find multiple contributors. It rewards you for finding value. I also made it clear it’s better to have a few more years to get a more accurate reflection of the class, although because it’s in comparison to its own class and production it’s a little more stable.

I hope I am wrong too!

I've been on him for a bit... I really want him. REALLY want him, but I think he will be gone. He doesn't quite have Tyreek Hill's speed, but the ability to stop start reminds me a bit of him.

All I am trying to do is put context around their draft. I can't stand people just yelling "they're average drafters" or "below average drafters." Well let's try and find a way to measure that and I think this does a good (albeit not perfect) job of objectively measuring how well the Bills have done in each draft compared to their peers. You hit the nail on the head, Andy Reid has had 8 years to build the team that he has now. He's had 8 drafts to find impact players. They have Mahomes, Kelce, Hill and Jones who they've drafted over those 8 years with a bunch of other contributors sprinkled in. McBeane has had 4 drafts and they have White, Allen and Dawkins (I won't include Edmunds because he's controversial) with a bunch of other contributors they've selected themselves as well. You have to look through the lens of what the league has done, they can't be good or bad without being compared to their peers. I'd tell you this analysis was crap, but if you look closely it makes sense. 8/10 top drafting teams from 2017-2020 were in the playoffs this year!! The two that missed were LAC (regarded as one of the most talented rosters in all of football but dealt with coaching issues) and SFO (regarded as one of the most talented rosters in all of football but dealt with injury issues). Chicago and Washington are teams who are a QB away from being seriously competitive teams. On top of that, look at some of the worst drafting teams! NE, CIN, DEN, OAK, NYJ. Those teams all missed the playoffs. Only 2 of the 10 worst drafting teams managed to make the playoffs - CLE and GB. Everyone who is arguing we draft poorly is doing so because they believe that you have to draft well to have success. This supports that. It's not perfect, but the results make sense.

Adding the 2020 Draft here... still extracted value in the top third of the league in this draft, although it's a top 10 draft and not a top 5 draft. Usual suspects like IND and BAL hovering around the top. Including updated cumulative totals from 2017-2020... Bills still in the lead. Sorted by the TOT_NETAV, which is the value that the team directly benefits from (they're on top in either category though).

I mean here... But you're missing the point, you may feel like they're not extracting enough value... but they're extracting more than everyone else in the league.

It’s included. This is just Total Career Net AV and Total Career Net Drafted AV. It’s all baked in there, so for the 2017 draft class it takes into account 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. It operates the same for 2018 and 2019. I had done this before 2020 drafted players had their AV calculated, but 2017-2019 I updated to include their 2020 season. What names do I need to list? It’s publicly available information. Go to Wikipedia, NFL.com or Pro Football Reference. Stop acting like I’m hiding who teams took in the draft from 2017-2019.

Then what do other teams have if we’re extracting more value than them?

What’s wrong with heat maps? I work in MLB and they’re used heavily in advanced scouting...

Sad but expected that none of the negative Nancy posters are willing to even comment.

They’re only good or bad by comparison, in comparison to NFL passing offenses in 2020, they were elite. Why didn’t we? Because Baltimore and KC are arguably the two best pass defenses in the entire league. Sprinkling in our entire WR room being hurt, and our #2 option playing a with broken leg, doesn’t help either.

You can’t just assert the schedule was weak, it was one of the toughest schedules in the league, and the toughest amongst playoff teams. SOS at .512 was the highest of all playoff teams. SOV at .471 was the highest of all playoff teams The 7 seed Colts were an 11-5 football team that was a tiebreaker away from being the 4 seed. Try again.

You conveniently left out passing the football? Thanks for setting me up... we had an elite passing offense this season, it’s not even debatable. That’s what the team is good at. If you’re arguing we’re not balanced, sure. If you’re arguing they are overrated because they were REALLY good at passing the ball and average to below average at everything else an route to winning 15 games against one of the 3 toughest schedules in the league... you need to re-evaluate your stance.

Overrated based on your feelings or..?

Would be nice, not sure I’m ready to anoint him a starter, but he showed some moxie. Levi Wallace is a RFA so he will likely be back and for pretty cheap.

I agree, but to be fair we’ve been one, if not the most aggressive team all year. They’ve been better at naming some fairly significant halftime adjustments since week roughly week 6. I’m not entirely sure why there was a breakdown yesterday and we went back on some of the things that set us apart this year. It seemed like the moment was a little too big.

I mean that's fine, but considering GB has had stability in with their GM/replacing from in house from Thompson to Gutekunst in 2017 where Thompson remained involved in the day to day (2005-Present), Jason Licht has been the GM in Tampa since 2014 and Reid/Veach have been together since 2013 it makes sense that they would have more players coming from drafts still on their team... we basically got rid of everyone drafted BEFORE McBeane.

I put this together about 2 months ago, but with the season over and AV now updated, I figured it would be a good time to revisit. I agree with a lot of the posters saying that we're missing pieces. Of course we are, but I'm tired of the assertions that we need to draft better. We've objectively been THE BEST drafting team in the NFL from 2017-2019. I don't feel comfortable using a 1 year sample from 2020 just yet, but truthfully at this point it will drop the Bills 1 MAYBE 2 spots overall (I haven't had the chance to break it all down yet, but I will update when I do). I know people are going to try and rip this to shreds as stupid, but I have read numerous articles using AV as a way to compare draft classes. Many on The Athletic, like this article where they evaluate the Saints 2017 draft class using AV (my original analysis was done almost 3 weeks prior to this coming out, and yes it reflects the Saints having the best draft class in 2017 by a wide margin). Here is my methodology from the original post... Nobody really had a great way to measure success in the draft outside of their perception of a player... I wanted to make an attempt at examining this objectively. Pro Football Reference has their Weighted Approximate Value which assigns a value to a player based on their performance. It's not an all encompassing stat like WAR is in baseball, it definitely has its flaws, but PFR said it's steady to use to measure draft success. I'm going to dive into the results below on the draft, as well as some analysis I have done of the FA signings. Nothing is really over the top, I'm going to take some feedback and try to refine this. I had to do a lot of it by hand in excel and couldn't just scrape everything because different pieces were all over. I chose 2017 specifically because that is when Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane arrived. Some folks want to argue that Beane shouldn't get credit for that draft and FA, which is perfectly fine. I am in the camp that believes McDermott and Beane are in lockstep, they make up the upper management of the football department, therefore the decisions made since 2017 have been made with certain goals in mind. I don't feel the need to omit 2017 because it was scrambled, it's very clear these two are close and the decisions made were made by McBeane in some way, shape or form starting in 2017. "Sometimes, for example if you want to assess a trade or determine the top draft classes of all time, you need a metric that is capable of comparing players across positions and eras. In baseball and basketball, lots of stats have been cooked up to do this, and they can do so with a reasonable degree of precision. In football, no such stat exists. In most cases, people use "starter" or "number of years as a starter" or "number of pro bowls" as the metric when they have to compare across positions. AV is intended to be an improvement over those metrics, and nothing more. It is not Not NOT an ubermetric whose purpose is to decide once and for all who the best players in NFL history were." - Doug from PFR The career AV is computed by summing 100 percent of the AV of his best season, 95 percent of the AV of his next-best season, 90 percent of the AV of his third-best season, and so on What I did was found the average value for a player drafted in each round (1-7) in each year (2017-2019) and the calculated what I am calling the Net Drafted Accumulated Value (NETDrAV) for each pick in each round. I only compared each draft to itself. I then found the Total Net Drafted Accumulated Value (TOT_NETDrAV) for each team in each draft and ranked them against each other. Rather than just looking at how much raw value the Bills brought in as compared to the 31 other teams, this gives an idea of how much extra value they extracted in each round as compared to the 31 other teams in the league. 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. Yes, I agree that they're missing something, but this constant assertion that this regime are "average drafters" or that we "have too many busts" is flat out wrong. You are only good or bad by comparison, and they're better than the rest of the NFL. They've extracted more value than any other team in the league over their first 3 years in the NFL. This will continue to change as players perform, but right now they have a clearly performed well drafting. It's not even debatable, Buffalo, New Orleans and Baltimore have been far and away the best drafting teams in the NFL from 2017-2019. Do we need more impact players? Yes, every team does and actively seeks them out. But this notion that we don't draft well is garbage, complete and utter garbage.

I agree that something is missing when it comes to some positions on the field, no doubt there’s a need to upgrade or supplement. We’ve objectively been one of the top 3 drafting teams in the league since McBeane got here. You can’t miss on as many picks as you’re asserting and that be true. You’re only good or bad by comparison and the Bills have consistently been one of the best drafting teams in the NFL under this regime. They’re a top 5 team in the league, with their core coming from the draft, their drafting is not killing them. Not true, must be compared to peers and this regime has objectively drafted better than 29-30 other teams.

Lol because the one time all game we tried it they immediately threw a flag. Obviously not the reason we avoided it, but I just found it funny.

We’ve objectively been one of the top drafting teams over the last 4 years. I’ll post the information tomorrow. I get you’re upset but suggesting to jettison a HC that has changed the perception (and reality of Buffalo) after decades of misery seems a little foolish. He had us a game away from the Super Bowl today and has consistently improved each year as a coach. The reality is very few coaches outside of Belichick and now it looks like Reid have been pumping out SB year after year, if you keep chasing that with no direction it’s useless.

You hit the nail on the head with the roll outs. I’m generally not a fan, unless it’s on a broken play. Some seemed to be designed to flow to the right and I just think it severely limits the QB’s options. Josh has progressed enough where he can stand in the pocket, make a read and a throw to either side of the field. Although, I guess his instinct is to roll that way to escape pressure and that’s all he saw today. I still can’t get over how poorly the o-line played. Part of me is wondering if things significantly change if after we went up 9-0 and if Jones had gotten ejected (like he should have, I have no idea why that’s not radioed in by NY) if it would have changed the game. I felt like just 1 more thing needed to break our way to hold the chiefs back, and their best defensive player getting himself tossed might have done it. It’s just pure what- if from me, and probably doesn’t make a difference. Josh is a stud and is really the only QB in the league that can carry an entire offense by himself, and I’m by no means discounting what Daboll has done with him, but I really feel like Daboll did not put Josh in a position to succeed in any of the playoff games. Any positive plays were a result of Josh making them happen. If he doesn’t make some insane throws against IND before the half we’re 1 and done. Those were purely backyard football plays too. You’re right, I’m wondering if they just accepted that KC was going to score and were expecting the offense to keep pace? I have no clue. I think McDermott has grown so much and this year has done a really good job in all aspects, but he failed today. I still feel strongly he’s a top 3-5 coach in the game, we just DO NOT match up well with KC/he didn’t have an answer/the players seemed like the moment was too big for them. I was encouraged to see his comments after the game with something along the lines of “everything we do this off-season will be with the mindset of how do we beat that team.” I trust they’ll make the adjustments. I feel like this team was constructed to beat a Brady-type QB and then things changed real quick and Mahomes popped up. Time to adapt to the new standard.