Beck Water

I'm really struggling with this. Hodgins is a very very different type of WR. Also, I'm kind of missing the slowly part here?

"Big upgrade to McKenzie" OK - What does McKenzie look like for the same time period by the same metrics, did Cover1 say? Maybe this guy is a big upgrade. In his 4 full years with the Bills, McKenzie saw 451, 270, 257, and 555 snaps, during which he proved himself able to stay on the field. In his 4 years with the Saints, Hardy saw 66, 169, 298, and 24 snaps, during which he didn't prove himself able to stay on the field. So Hardy only has one season of comparable #s of snaps. The rest is a small data set. Cover1 tried to adjust only looking 3 years back, so that takes out the smallest data set. OK. In the last 3 years, from available numbers I can crunch, McKenzie has more yards, more receptions, more TD and more 1D and it's not close, because he's been on the field consistently. What about per route? I don't know, but the bottom line, Hardy has 1 year of better production when he saw comparable snaps (298), which is great - but it's 1 year. In addition to sharing your injury history concerns .... it's great that this guy has all these YAC. But we all know the biggest factor in enabling YAC is a QB who can and will hit the underneath guy quickly and accurately, in-stride. You and I have discussed this before, I believe - a big factor in our WR and RB not having good YAC has been Josh Allen hanging onto the ball waiting for something downfield to open up, then dumping off when it's clear to both him AND the defense there's no alternative so they close quickly. There's some other things, like McKenzie has much higher 1D/tgt - but that likely again reflects the QB, Josh doesn't like to make a throw that doesn't have a chance to convert a 1D. McKenzie's cap hit is $2.5M. If this guy's cap hit is $3.7M, that's a 50% increase. In theory, if he lives up to his best year 2021 and stays healthy AND Josh uses him appropriately, he could produce more. But as said elsewhere, "hope is not a good plan" and neither is theory.

I'm with you on this. It's reported as $3.7M

Concur. It's not just last season, it's that he's ended 2 of his 4 seasons on IR and has missed 2, 7, 4, and 13 games. If this move is because the Bills want to hand off the KR/PR responsibilities to this guy and keep Hines focused on the offense, I'm not sure they picked the right guy. I feel like half the board is hailing every signing of a small fast guy because they want to get rid of Isaiah McKenzie, their right, but this doesn't seem like it fills any of our significant needs on the team. We have a good KR/PR in Hines. We have a fast smurf who has far more playing experience running routes in McKenzie. We need a big-bodied guy who can't be taken out of the play by physical DBs, who can bring in jump or off target b alls, and who is available, not spending a lot of time on IR or injury report, IMO.

https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/bills-deonte-harty-heading-to-buffalo/ Missed 13 games on IR with a toe injury last season. I hope it's at least contingent on him passing a physical. McKenzie is a Smurf at 5'8" 178 lb Hardy is a SuperSmurf at 5'6" 170 lb "The Best Ability is Availability" Hardy has played in 14, 9, 13, and 4 games Same stretch McKenzie has played in 15, 16, 15, and 15 games. If the Bills intended to cut McKenzie this spring, it's surprising to me that they haven't already done it so he could be on the market during the first burst of FA. That would be the usual courtesy to a guy who has gone hard for them: give him the maximum chance to get out there, but perhaps "things have changed" Hardy has been most active as a KR/PR

Um, this is the "legal tampering period". Technically, Poyer is still under contract to the Bills (last year's contract) until the new league year starts Weds. So no, he's not a UFA - yet - and he can't sign with any team other than the Bills until the new league year starts later this week (he can agree in principle to a contract, but not sign one)

Post-June 1 only applies to a player who is cut (I learnt yesterday it can't be applied to the accelerated dead cap resulting from a trade. In any event, it most certainly doesn't apply to signing a player; the rule is, you got to have the cap available before the deal goes through.

It's not totally impossible that McKenzie knows something we don't - but I doubt it, unless it happens to be someone he's friends/former teammates with and in communication (and yes, Gabe Davis would fall into that category and no, we are not trading Gabe Davis for Nuk Hopkins) My best guess is that he's looking at what we're looking at - the fact that the Bills restructured both Allen and Von Miller, and after re-signing a few of our own "glue" guys, still basically have all of that cap space available (spotrac still doesn't show the impact of Milano's extension, so a lot of small re-signings are covered by that). It doesn't make sense that Beane would restructure Von Miller unless he's trying to swing a trade or sign another FA. Unlike restructuring Josh, it's not a good or even neutral move for the Bills. It's a move to clear cap quickly. So I think McKenzie's intent is cheering Beane on, like when he tweeted about Trevor Lawrence "Trevor Lawrence Prove them Wrong Then" during the Jags @ Chargers game. "Beane After Dark", hopefully it works (Lawrence won, 31-30 after all) JMO

Good point - Cover1 follows 7.5k accounts, but has 29.1k followers This guy follows 1.4k, has 1.9k followers.

So this is kinda like the Dolphins version of Cover1 Network? Eh, sometimes those guys know something

Doubtful. They were very thin on punt returners with Crowder and Hyde on IR, and Shakir wasn't 'all that'

Tre' White coined it

Source on Twitter? 'cuz I was just searching Rapaport and Schefter and etc and none of them have it. With a "big cheese" like Rosenhaus as his agent you think they'd know

Whoaoa, Isn't that leaving it a bit late? Matsko has an OL coaching pedigree reaching back to the St Louis Rams in the days of the "Greatest Show on Turf" and their SB win (1999-2005)/strong offense - 4 out of 6 years #1 or #2 offense. Definitely a WCO based on the timing of the QB footwork and the routes matching up, correct reads and accurate throws, although Martz did demand extended protection of the OL for a vertical passing game. Then after a bit of moving around, he stuck with Rivera and the Panthers from 2011-2019, basically Newton's entire tenure as starter (during which they had 4 playoff appearances and a Superbowl loss, and I never thought Newton had a good OL). Then he moved to Washington with Rivera. Wonder what happened there? Did he finally tell them they were asking him to make chicken ***** into fried chicken on the OL?

Right. Well, I guess technically OBJ wasn't one of his weapons in Green Bay, but... If Rodgers doesn't like Garrett Wilson and Tyler Conklin, the Bills could take them off their hands.

If you're not confused and you know how it works, then why are you confusing the data teams pay for, and the PFF grading system? If you read carefully what I wrote, nothing I said refutes the idea that former players and coaches do work at PFF - just the contention that they're intimately involved in the play by play, game by game analysis that produces the PFF player grades. Listing names does not argue that point. Nor does saying the initial analysis is QC'd. How carefully is each play QC'd and by whom? I'm outta here. Your choice of screen name is too ironic for me.

Last season, the R side of our OL could be summed up as: Not Good Enough (actually, so could our L side but) So basically, your thinking is that Beane is just moving air molecules around when he talks about protecting Allen, and there will be no real effort to improve upon the weaker side of the line?

Can you identify what you're keying on for us? He's so indistinguishable that...wait for it...some put him in an ignore file and never respond to him

Dude, I think you are mixed up about a bunch of things. PFF provides all kind of data. Some of it is relatively raw data - what formations a team uses in different down and distance situations, what formation was used against it, success rate. Catch % of different WR on different routes. Coverage tendencies on ST given game situation and distance. They are very good at that data. It is indeed impressive, and it's widely used by teams. Then there are the player grades. Especially for OL and DL, the PFF graders are NOT primarily comprised of "former NFL players, coaches and scouts". They are comprised of low-level grunts, many of whom have never watched football and are being introduced to it for the first time (being a UK based company). They get some training on what to score and are then turned lose to do it. Their scoring is reviewed by people who know more, but it's far too much weekly data for the higher level experts to review in depth So, the PFF player grades are variable in how useful they are. They can see, for example, that two receivers have run routes and end up very close to each other, which probably wasn't what the play desired - but which of them ran the correct route? They can see that coverage broke down - but who missed the assignment? They don't know. It gets even worse with OL and DL play because they're guessing what the blocking assignments were on OL and what the gap assignments were on DL. They may be educated guesses, but they're just guesses. If you think they've got a former OLman or a former OL coach or a former DLman or a former DL coach breaking down every play based on expert knowledge of that specific team's schemes and tendencies, guess again. Then you have situations where Milano graded very poorly in a game against KC - but he clearly excelled at what the Bills had asked him to do, which was spy on Mahomes and attack once he was flushed to one side. Anyway, the player grades are primarily a tool designed for fantasy football and marketed to the general public. I would be astounded if teams based their evaluations of their own OLmen, or OLmen they sign, on PFF grades, and nothing you've quoted above provides any evidence that the ydo.

Why, on "love to see Mitch"? Canonically, we want a backup who can come into a game or start a couple games and give us a 50/50 chance to win. Overall, that's what we had with Keenum. Statistically, that's what we'd have with Mitch, but frankly, he played like a Lost Boy for Pittsburgh last season. Did not look like a guy who can lead a team at all, whereas I had a sense that the team would have followed Keenum, they knew he couldn't make the throws that Allen could but they trusted his head for the game.

That's pretty faulty logic. The Cowboys have McGovern ( a 3rd round pick) penciled in as a backup behind Zach Martin, their highly paid right guard and Tyler Smith, last year's 1st round pick. Like any team that's paying their QB 12% of their cap and then a couple other guys well, the Cowboys operate on a "Stars and JAGs" model. "Good backup we can't afford" behind a very promising 1st round pick and a top guard they're paying as such, is not the same as "not a good player". There's also the relativity factor. DaQuan Jones on the Redskins was a backup, behind Daron Payne on the depth chart. He was a very good player for us last season. Is he a star, No. Is he potentially a good player, better than "very average", Yes. He could, actually. I won't type the names, but we have had LG who have been worse than Saffold in the last 5 years. That is depressing. See above. It is certainly possible to be worse than Saffold. But I will be very disappointed if signing a backup G/C from the Cowboys is the extent of our OL investment, just as signing Saffold was pretty much the extent of our OL investment last season. Not Enough.

Could be. Though Dawkins struggled in 2020 after he caught Covid, until he was playing next to Boettger then Bates. And I thought Brown played better next to Williams in 2020 than he did last year next to Bates.

To be fair, the people who think PFF OL grades are crap and the people using them to support their opinions are not necessarily the same. In fact, I think they're pretty much a disjoint set. I thought Bates played better on the L side in 2021 than he did on the R side in 2022.

I guess they had to make some kind of gesture what with paying Mike White 2 yrs/$8M