Beck Water

I've seen this argument before, and the overall numbrs are indeed relatively equal. The offensive contributions aren't helped by the fact that a number of the Bills high picks on offense - Zay Jones, Cody Ford, and Zack Moss - washed out. BUT when you look under the hood, there's a bit of a different story. Another thread linked an excellent article by Bruce Exclusive on this point: Here's the direct link to the actual actual article: https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2023/2/23/23611065/predicting-buffalo-bills-succession-problems-through-draft-capital-expenditure-research He actually goes into the POINT VALUES expended in each draft at each position and sums it up by position and by offense or defense Now there's a caveat here, that he doesn't include the roughly 200 point equivalent of trading a 1st round pick for Stefon Diggs. BUT he's talking overall about young, cost controlled talent, and from that POV his conclusions are valid: 1) the Bills have NOT spent equally on offense vs defense 2) the Bills have particularly under- spent on OL vs DL and on WR vs RB or DB 3) he points that a good bit of the Bills offensive draft resources have in fact gone towards RBs, which is considered an inefficient use of resources given that RBs are regarded as a position at which it's relatively easy to acquire production Bottom line: while your high level view is correct, when one gets into the details of the VALUE of draft picks used, it's pretty clear that in fact the Bills have over-focused on DL, LB, and DB vs OL, WR, and TE. Frankly, this kind of response shows just as much superficial "groupthink" in a different way. There are people here who think that the Bills have overspent draft resources on D vs O and in particular underspent on OL, WR, and TE who can make a specific and cogent argument, as linked in another thread and laid out above. It's really not the same as knee-jerk coach-bashing, and even there, cogent and specific arguments can and have been made.

I doubt they did. But he may have rented an efficiency apartment or a hotel room near the stadium, a bunch of guys do that.

I do think there are shots he didn't take the 2nd half of the season because he wasn't confident in his ball placement, given the elbow. So I do think that impacted the Bills offense. But overall, you're correct that the overarching issue for Allen and the Bills is mental and not physical - Josh going for the "kill shot" all the time instead of taking the sure chain moving completion. And you're also correct that when I watch film, that's what I see - Dorsey catches a lot of heat for his play design, but often the play design features open guys underneath whom Allen doesn't appear to see. It's my biggest "unknown" about Dorsey. I think his play design and play calling can improve, sure. But what I don't know is if he and Joe Brady have what it takes to rein Allen in, or if they're stuck in this "we can't get on him for failing to take the underneath throws because he has the talent to make those crazy throws work". I say, not only can you get on him, you need to get on him. That attitude eventually doomed Russ Wilson and Carson Wentz.

Sure he could say more. He could say that his Instagram model wife loves South Florida where bikinis can be modeled outside most of the year, and that they own a big house in Florida - not sure where. Of course he wants to play in Florida. Agreed

This is going to be one of those "believe it or don't" things. I reached out to Kyle Trimble on Facebook when the news came out that Josh was playing in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, sharing the concerns that were expressed on this site at the time about the effect of golfing on the UCL injury. He said he didn't think it was an issue but would delve into it and possibly write about it. After delving, he was nice enough to get back to me and said, fundamentally, nothing to write about because it's a non-issue. Said Josh can play all the golf he wants because the principal stress from golfing is on the opposite side of the elbow and the forces are much lower with a golf swing than throwing a football at NFL velocities. Again, don't have anything written publicly or tweeted, so "believe it or don't", and since he's a PT, believe he knows what he's talking about or don't. "I refuse to believe" - in the words of Josh Allen "Okay" You and Josh are aligned since he hasn't used his elbow as an excuse either. There's a lot of wiggle room in "serious". No one is going to do surgery on a partially torn UCL that can heal on its own so if you define "serious" as "needing immediate surgery", it's not serious. But there's a lot of room between "needs immediate surgery" and "can be played through, but affects the player". Not needing surgery doesn't mean it isn't "serious" in the sense of impacting the player. I'd pay attention to what @JGMcD2 had to say about UCL injuries and PRP injections in the context of baseball, since that is "his lane".

I'll take this on. I'm trying to remember what show it was on - but basically the direct evidence we have to support this opinion comes from Josh himself. In an interview (I will keep letting it float through my mind, it MIGHT have been the Kyle Brandt's Basement show prior to the Bengals game?) Josh stated that after the injury, he had to return to a more lateral throwing motion because rotational throwing motion placed too much strain on his elbow and that it was only in the last "couple of weeks" that he'd been able to return to the mechanics he preferred. Now that might not mean very much, except in the context of interviews with Josh and others about the change in Josh's completion % between 2019 and 2020. Basically, part of the change was proper sequencing of his upper and lower body (hips firing first). Another part of it was becoming a rotational rather than a lateral or overhand thrower. There are multiple interviews where Josh has talked about this - a couple with Chris Simms, I think there's one with Fitz, some people who assess throwing motion say he changed. So basically, what Josh is saying is that mid-season, he had to return towards the mechanics of 2019 Josh, then at the end of the season try to work back to 2020. There's a second line of direct evidence supporting this, if you look up NexGen Stats charts. Unfortunately at this point they only have back as far as Week 6 and they don't have every week, but if you look at the overall completion percentage charts, there's a green area in the middle of the field between 10 and 20 yds in 2021 that's missing in 2022. It was also notable that Josh was off- target with some of his short "bunny" throws late this season. It was notable that this was a problem area for Josh in 2018 and 2019 which he improved in 2020. I don't think the Bills took out the "short game offense", but I do think it was limited after Josh's injury. As to what Dorsey did, can't tell you; my guess is that initially, Josh wasn't that clear on what impact it would have on him and played as though there was no impact, then as a couple of games went on, he and Dorsey probably had a "come to Jesus" meeting where they discussed detailed data on Josh's completion % to different areas on different plays and Dorsey may have tweeked the offense. Others may disagree, that's fine, but IME good PTs typically are able to pinpoint exactly what motions will hurt or exacerbate different injuries, much more so than MDs. That's a generalization, and based on my personal experience and that of my friends, I feel certain there are MDs who are better and PTs who are worse. He would not have insight into Josh's pain tolerance, that's true. Last, but not least, I believe there is far more to it than just Josh's elbow. There are impacts of the way Josh was reading and processing what he sees in Dorsey's offense that have nothing to do with his UCL.

The conclusion of Florio's piece is the opposite of "more trade talk". Florio is saying that it does not make sense for the Bills to trade Diggs:

$6-8M for a guy who hasn't had a good season since 2020 and is gonna be 31? Maybe the ACL recovery hindered him last season, or maybe he just doesn't have the same speed and agility. I don't think we can afford that.

Um, about that....

That's still a *****-ton of cap for a team that's currently $9M over the cap

Gentry was released from the Bills PS on January 17th. He was not offered a reserve/futures contract. So he may be tired of the Bills practice squad, but even if he wasn't, it no longer had a place for him. Edit: for anyone else curious, NFL practice squad members apparently make considerably more than typical CFL players. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/cfl/news/cfl-players-highest-salaries-list-zach-collaros/vexjkxuyehdigi1lb0btvwwm Estimated that average players make between $60,000 and $100,000/yr In contrast, practice squad players in the NFL make $11,500/wk so $207,000 for an 18-game season Significant salary cut

So looking at Spotrac, initially it appears that Rodgers is un-tradeable. $99.8M dead cap https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/aaron-rodgers-3745/ Fully guaranteed But There are these big "option bonuses". $105M of them over 3 years. Whose option?

Our record was, in fact, improved over previous years with Rex - 8-8 and 7-9 We had achieved a 9-7 record two times previously during the playoff drought - 2004 and 2014. So there is an element of chance that we didn't get in to the playoffs in 2014 (owing to other teams in the conference having 10-6 and 10-5-1 records), sure. There are always elements of chance in sports. But as for disingenuous - it's a fact that "your blind grandpa" hasn't managed to win enough games to see playoffs all the time with some other excellent QB under center. Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, and Philip Rivers would be 3 examples of QB capable of winning championships, whose teams didn't win enough games to see playoffs. The fact is, a team needs a decent defense to win consistently, and we've Then it's a fact that Brian Daboll just won coach-of-the-year for taking the Giants to a 9-7-1 record. I guess by your lights that's not an achievement? Seems like you're pretty focused on not giving McDermott credit

The way a guy gets lots of targets is he helps his team move the chains and sustain drives. If a guy can't haul in contested balls or even drops them, he's not going to help his team move the chains and sustain drives. If the team can't sustain drives, he won't get more targets

drop 🎤 /thread

You're right, that has been seen here. There are 2 possibilities and we'll never know to what degree each is true: 1) The Bills wanted someone with a different skill set for developing young WR/managing the WR room so when Hall's contract was up, they moved on 2) Chad Hall was ready to move on from the Bills for personal reasons - he wanted a different part of the country or a team with different opportunities Baked into both possibilities is the element of dissatisfaction from either side - on the Bills side, with results this past season; on Hall's side, with the culture and organizational plan, especially on the offensive side.

Of course! But it's also plausible that if the Bills thought he was an amazing, fantastic, "he'll be a huge loss to our staff" tops-in-the-league WR coach, they would have made a strong push to keep him - give him additional developmental responsibilities, more $$, try to address any personal reasons if they can. Whereas this seems more like "thank you for your service, we wish you success in your future endeavors, NEXT!"

Might be about all my contributions are worth I'm not sure that's exactly what I'm suggesting. But different teaching and different coaching styles work better for different guys. Let's suppose, as a WR coach, Hall is excellent at coaching up some fine points for experienced WR - better release, better fake, better footwork at the cut. Let's suppose he's not so good at something else, like teaching a young WR how to identify the defense and adjust his route to find the soft spot in a zone, or how to dissect coverage tendencies and choose an option route. (Now I don't know that's the case, but on one of his shows with Ty Dunne talking about Beasley, McKenzie said that Cole had done a lot for him has a young WR, had really taught him to watch film and read defenses.) Or let's say Hall is a bit too much "one of the squad" and doesn't push the receivers to running extra drills they hate, wet ball drills with cold balls, for example. Now, with Diggs, Sanders, and Beasley - coaching the fine points is what's needed. Those guys have probably forgotten more about watching film and ID'ing a D than Hall knows. And they have hands, dry wet cold. OTOH, with Davis, McKenzie, and Shakir, maybe what's needed is something Hall wasn't as good at, coaching hard at more fundamental points. And they need to practice catching wet and wet, cold balls more. They need to experiment with different gloves. McKenzie needs to be pushed to catch with his hands. What pushes guys? Well, when there are a lot of vets in the room, the vets push the guys. They serve as both an example, and a source of practical advice. Maybe Hall's coaching strengths were a match for what Diggs, Sanders, Brown, Beasley needed, but less of a match for Davis and McKenzie and Shakir needed. I don't know that it's true, but it seems possible. If it's true that Davis and McKenzie went to Beane and asked him to bring Beasley back, that would argue they see a gap or a dynamic they hope Beasley will change. Then toss in that with Diggs, I'm not sure what you have is a true leader of men. I think there's a great big "I" in Diggs, and that he can be oblivious and not sufficiently self-aware. His tweets complaining about having to cook himself dinner on Dec 27 are an example of that. The driving ban in the City of Buffalo wasn't lifted until Dec 29th. Supermarkets and neighborhood markets are struggling to get in food supplies. People are struggling to get to markets and buy food. We're just a couple days out from conditions where some people literally died because they made a decision to walk or drive to a market and got stuck. And this guy's whinging on Twitter about having to cook for himself? DUDE! So maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure he's going to be the one sitting down with Shakir or Hodgins and saying "work on this when you release" or sitting down with Davis and McKenzie and saying "hey, run this route this way". So if that's something Hall didn't excel at, and that Beasley and Sanders or Brown did but Diggs doesn't, now you're missing something that maybe the coaches don't even know was being done. There may be more to the story, but this is a guy who is leading the team in targets - by a lot. 154 targets. McKenzie and Davis together have 158 targets. And he's complaining that he isn't getting the ball, in front of TE and WR who actually AREN'T Getting the ball when they're open - not by privately going up to the QB and saying "hey, #23 is playing me this way, but I can do this and get open" or "I'm there for you bro, I was open on 2nd down, hit me I'll make you right", but by waving his arms and yelling on the sideline. Giant "I", no self awareness. I think Dorsey had more horizontal components to his play design than folks realize. I also think he was trying to make up for the protection deficiencies of the OL by leaving in an RB to protect and having the TE chip and release, which limits what can be done downfield in a passing game, especially if Josh won't hit those short routes.

Stefon Diggs may not be demanding a trade or anything crazy like that (and the Bills would take way too much dead cap to trade him) - but his brother Trevon Diggs is certainly banging that drum "til he got blisters on his hand"

Negative, I heard that interview, and I'm pretty sure that's not what Cosell was talking about at all. I believe what Cosell was talking about would be we'd have man-beater routes on one side and zone-beater routes on the other, but the timing of the reads wouldn't match up OR Josh would start his reads on the wrong side (zone side if it was actually man, man side if it was actually zone) - either way, guys weren't coming open in sequence as the reads progressed, so that by the time Josh would get to the other side of the field receivers who had uncovered were covered again. I think a better interview on it was one McKenzie did where he talked about he and Davis having "option routes" where they could both choose their routes based on defensive coverage provided they didn't interfere with each other. But, either the two of them weren't on the same page about route choice or how the routes were run so that they DID interfere with each other, or one or both of them weren't reading the defensive coverage correctly (thus not choosing a good route for the coverage), or, something else - but it clearly wasn't working correctly and they would wind up in the same area of the field, bringing defenders with them. OK, now maybe he can chart how often Shakir faced single man coverage? Because I think he faced a lot of zone (the Bills in general faced a lot of zone), and he wasn't open too much there.

Yes, that stood out to me as well

Definitely agree with you there!

I absolutely don't think trading a young CB on a cheap contract is a good move. CB is a high injury position, and as both this season and last season showed, the team is only a play away from losing a player for a game or a good part of the season. So quality depth at CB is far from a luxury. I believe both Beane and McDermott mentioned looking at moving Christian Benford to safety, which is definitely not a position where we have a surplus, especially with Hyde coming back from a neck injury and a lot of question marks in Damar Hamlin's playing future. I think the right player to trade is a guy who is either on a high-priced contract or about to become a high-priced contract. Ed Oliver, for example, if he is intriguing to another team.

You might want to distinctly revamp and revise your distinct remembrances because this guy has played zero, no, nada, 0, snaps on defense for the Chiefs in the last two seasons. Therefore, he can not have been burnt by Josh nor chased our receivers into the end zone. Therefore your memories are...mistaken Yes, he's an add with special teams in mind, and possibly also for some brain-picking about how the Chiefs prepare and pre-game for playoffs. Now that's a possibility. He's bigger (6'2", 206) than Jaquan (5'10", 191) and in fact was a "tweener" who played both LB and safety in college.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayne_Anderson Mostly practice squad guy for the Chiefs last 2 seasons 4 games in 2021 with 0 defensive and significant (60%) ST snaps, played in playoffs 3 games in 2022 with 0 defensive and significant (69%) ST snaps, did not play in playoffs Decent athleticism - 4.44s 40 yd dash, 34" vertical, 10 ft broad jump. HS All-state as a sprinter (Utah) Nothing about being a baseball player, McDermott values baseball outfielders at Safety because of their ability to track the ball. STer or depth guy would be my guess.