FireChans

I know you say that, but you’ve weirdly pivoted to “you don’t need an elite #1 blue chip WR to win a Super Bowl,” when that’s really not an argument anyone has made to the contrary. There’s lot of things you don’t need to win a Super Bowl. You don’t need an elite QB. Trent Dilfer won one. You don’t need an elite defense. 2019 Chiefs won one. You don’t need an elite #1 WR. See your previous post. So I don’t really get it. Again, we can point to lots of teams with clear lesser QB’s that have had much more success both in production and win totals after sizable investments in WR. So why are we now talking about needing them to win a Super Bowl?

I was actually referring to Mahomes lmao. I will write a better response to the rest of your stuff later.

See last year we had this same argument, and at that time, folks said "no one has won with big spending on WR's." Now, of course, the team that wins does, and you'd think that would change the take a bit lol.

Look at the board broski.

AJ Brown has 4031 yards and 25 TDs in 3 years with Philly. Where they have been to the playoffs 3 times, the SB twice and won a ring once. Yeah, I’d say he was a key contributor and that is super production. lol.

Yeah I guess that was door #3 that I neglected to mention. Urban Meyer really had those Florida boys all together. @GunnerBill get this rube

Meh, I think too much is being stated on elite vs blue chip vs #1. Ultimately, you showed a lot of SB winning WR's that imo would get paid massive dollars in today's FA. So maybe they aren't overrated. You are discarding these guys for having less than 1000 yards, but we are sitting here debating if Shakir is worth $20M for 800+ yards lol.

Tbh, I don't think Richie was the kind of guy to have a frank discussion and work towards positive change. We didn't hear much about him in Buffalo, but I have a sneaking suspicion he was also probably the same vulgar, slightly unhinged fella. Maybe Wood was a positive influence on him or maybe he got better, but with the stories of his other outbursts post-Bills, I don't think he changed. What I think spoke the most volumes about the saga was how much Pouncey went to bat for Richie. Now, that doesn't mean Richie did nothing wrong, but there was a clear tacit approval of Richie's behavior by his contemporaries, which to me either pointed to the behavior being not that egregious (to them) or the entire locker room hated Martin and didn't care.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I ever watched one. I almost wrote Guy Pearce but caught myself at the last second.

That's not the point of the OP though. His point is the LEAGUE is overvaluing WR's. Which imo is clearly not true. The Dolphins traded a huge amount of assets for Tyreek and gave him big money. They made the playoffs in back to back years for the first time since 2001. So was he overvalued or properly valued? The Niners with Brock Purdy went from back to back NFCCG and a SB appearance to 6-11 in part because Aiyuk got hurt and Deebo got old/washed. Were his WR's overvalued or properly valued? The Eagles with Jalen Hurts went from 9-8 and a WC team to 14-3 (SB appearance), 11-6 (WC team) 14-3 (SB win) after trading for AJ Brown and paying him TWICE. Was he overvalued or properly valued? So no. Just because Josh Allen and Mahomes can make things work with relatively weak WR's doesn't mean that WR's are overrated league-round. It just means we are lucky to have 1 of the 2 guys in football who can get by without them. And like I said earlier, maybe because we have those guys, we don't need to chase a Higgins and throw him $30M. But imo we also can't take for granted Josh's greatness and give him bargain basement tools to make hay with. This take is a first cousin of "Why don't the Dolphins just make Tua as good as Josh Allen, are they stupid?"

What I am trying to say is that outside of two dynasties, SB winners are so rare that drawing ANY sweeping conclusion because of what has or hasn't happened is kind of silly. Like "the Pats and Chiefs won most of their Superbowls without a #1 WR." That's true. Does that mean a #1 WR would not help you win a Superbowl? No. AJ Brown just helped Philly win one and got to two with him. Do we think if the Bills traded a 7th round pick for Justin Jefferson tomorrow, their SB odds for 2025 would get better, get worse or stay the same? I think we all agree get better. Yeah, "not needing" vs "don't want" is the debate here. The Chiefs and Pats also competed for multiple Superbowls with HoF coaches, maybe the best two to ever do it, and HoF QBs, maybe the best two to ever do it, and HoF TE's, maybe the best two to ever do it. So I agree with your argument. The history is very clear, if you have a arguably top 2 HC, TE, and QB of all time, you don't need a traditional #1 WR to win a Superbowl. I'm not sure we have those other 3 ingredients, maybe QB. What we do know however is that Tom Brady posted one of the best years in his career in 2020, with maybe the best WR group of his career, including a traditional #1 in Mike Evans. After posting one of the worst years of his career and an early, disappointing playoff exit just the year before. Of course, he won a SB that year as well. So Brady did, 100%, benefit from having a stable of great WRs and it culminated in his 7th ring. So I think there's a clear distinction between the Bills and the league. For teams like the Bills, who have an all-world QB, sure, having a superstar WR is nice but is much less needed for your all-world QB to be all-world. For the rest of the league who don't have that level of guy at QB, a superstar at WR may be the difference between a Dak Prescott playing good enough for 8-9 vs 13-4. It's the difference between Tua winning 8-9 games or winning 11 and making the playoffs. It's why the Bengals debate is so interesting. If Joe Burrow is really that dude on Mahomes' and Allen's level, IMO, he shouldn't need 2 great WR's. It would be nice, but team-building won't allow it. We all saw what Brock Purdy looked like this season with Aiyuk out and a washed Deebo. They went from back to back conference championships to missing the playoffs and picking like 10th? So an adjusted take that I would put forward to you would be "WR's are overvalued by the rest of the league in comparison to a team like the Bills." To which, I would completely agree. We don't have a Sam Darnold under center who likely needs JJ, Addison, Hockenson etc etc to play at a high level. All that being said, I think there is a floor to that take. We simply cannot show up to another camp with the same caliber of WR that we did in 2024. A WR group that we needed to ship out a valuable pick to try to salvage in October.

I think this analysis is also faulty. No one has ever won a Super Bowl with a QB from Wyoming. We should trade Josh for JJ McCarthy because Michigan QB’s have a better track record. You were closer to the mark with “every team is different.” I don’t think the 2007 Pats lost because they had Randy Moss. Do you? I will say, my take that had emerged earlier this year is that the dead zone of WR6-20ish are not worth paying. You have to be a Chase, Jefferson etc to be worth paying in the market for the Bills. I’d rather pay those dudes $30M than a Shakir, who is a nice piece but that’s it, $20M. Where has AJ Brown gotten his team in the playoffs?

Um he just helped make Sam Darnold look competent for 17 games and had the second best record in the NFC and made the playoffs? You know, the Sam Darnold who was 21-35 as a starter before last year? The Sam Darnold with a career TD/INT ratio of 63-56 prior to last year. He went 14-3, threw more passing TDs than the MVP, and had a TD/INT ratio of 35 to 12. you may not have heard.

I mean, if you think it’s the correct strategy to have Josh put his body on the line every season, resulting in multiple injuries, including breaking his hand week 1 that limited him for half the season, that’s your prerogative. I think it’s a complete and utter mistake. Josh won MVP in large part because he brought this group where he did. Because HE was the offensive engine. There was once a QB who had his best season, an MVP season, with a diminished stable of weapons. 2 years later, he was a shell of himself. “We don’t really need a Jamar Chase, our offense was great without him” is really really shocking to hear. Just expect Josh to carry the JAG brigade and never turn it over and throw himself over linebackers forever. That’s totally fair. I wouldn’t touch Shakir at $20M AAV though, would you?

Yeah it’s not the same level. You take a good to great punter or running back, I’ll take Justin Jefferson. We’ll see what QB looks better.

You’ve never heard gang-related East Londoners make rude and disrespectful comments about each others’ mums? Have Guy Ritchie movies been lying to me?

If I was running the show, would be a high value position. CB, OT, EDGE, WR. we just drafted Ray Davis and he was fine.

This is a symptom, not a cause.

They are faced with the same decision next season, so yeah? They get a third, and they don’t have a gigantic RB contract bound to be a waste. In a vacuum, would I rather keep Cook? Of course, he’s a nice player. But would I lose sleep over $15M and a third instead of him? Not for a second. Because RB’s still don’t matter much.

What you are missing is that having good to great WR’s helps the most important position on the field. Despite Barkley and Henry having career years, in both of their team’s final games of the year, they didn’t do much. It came down to the QB passing. Does anyone think Jalen Hurts is a good enough QB to play in 2 SB’s in 3 years without an absolute elite WR1 and WR2? Does anyone think Tua is a playoff QB without Tyreek and Waddle? Does anyone think Brock Purdy is a multi conference championship QB without his gaggle of weapons? Sure, the OL matters a lot too, but that’s a 5 position group so their numbers get spread out. But LTs and to a lesser extent RT’s get big bucks too. The other thing is efficiency. Jamar Chase had a great 9.8 yard per target. Barkley and Henry had 6.0 and 6.1 yards per touch. You are quite literally getting almost 40% more yards just THROWING AT CHASE, not even necessarily completions, than handing off or completing passes to backs.

I bet Shakir re-ups in Buffalo for $19-20M AAV. Which at that price point is a mistake. IMO.

It’s been close to a decade so I’ll allow it. His client list is a who’s who of guys who were problems with the Bills. Peters, Byrd, Sammy etc

Meh, I’m okay with trading Cook because I think selling high on a running back I’m not sure I want to pay is just good business. The off the field or social media stuff is irrelevant except for the number he supposedly wants. Getting Cook with a late second, him having two great years, then moving on and getting a third round pick is tremendous value to me. Two years of borderline elite RB play to move down a round?

He’s been extended but his cap hit is still low in part because they added void years, but also because he is still technically in his rookie deal, which ran through 2024 with his fifth year option in 2025. It’s the same reason Josh had a $10M cap hit in 2021. His extension didn’t really kick in from a cap hit standpoint until this season.

Good food for thought. Here’s the challenge though. If you are basing your analysis off being paid, rookie contracts by definition are going to be excluded. So the entire GB recieving group is of course eliminated from this analysis. Devonta Smith isn’t included because his extension hasn’t come in yet. Devonta Smith is a great WR. His cap hit this season is only $7M because he’s still playing on a rookie deal. The argument that the running teams make the playoffs more is no different than folks arguing a decade ago that the teams with the highest passing yards sometimes missed the playoffs, ergo, we don’t need a QB. It’s faulty analysis. I would bet heavily that the teams that the teams that threw the least in 2024 also had near tops in the league time spent with a lead. The teams that passed the most, like the Bengals, were forced to. That is not necessarily the reason they were bad. Correlation =\= causation. Let’s play your analysis back a different way. 5 of the top 12 running backs by rushing yards did not make the postseason. Does this mean that running the ball well is ALSO not really strongly correlated with success? Or, more likely, does that mean that it’s quite a bit more complicated than “x out of the top y didn’t make the postseason?” 5 out of the 10 top QB’s by AAV didn’t make the postseason in 2024. Does this mean that paying QB’s is a mistake and doesn’t help you win? Of course not. The argument I would make about WR’s is that while they are getting paid big bucks now, more and more talented athletes will play WR and enter the draft, and with an artificial ceiling on spending, they will dilute the market. Their value won’t continue to explode because of market forces. Make no mistake though. WRs are very important. Justin Jefferson is a big reason why Sam Darnold revived his career. Stefon Diggs was a big reason that Josh exploded on the scene as a superstar. They will continue to be important. The “middle class” of WR’s like Shakir will be overpaid, but the truly elite guys are going to be worth every penny.