Beck Water

Well, they lost out on Tik-Tok Boy, they have to sign someone.

Scientific knowledge is as scientific knowledge does. There are plenty of people who have scientific degrees who choose to work outside the field of science. There are also plenty of people who work in science and engineering fields who, unfortunately, aren't very good scientists. "Familiar" doesn't mean "Utilizing correctly" I've read the publicly available link at their site. Know what it lacks? Information about the details of the actual grading rubric being utilized that would enable an independent, reasonably competent practitioner to reproduce the grades, much less the empirical-sounding "adjustment made to the “raw” grades to adjust for what the player is “expected” to earn given his situation on the field". That's the part that's critical if you want to claim something is "absolutely scientifically valid". You have to be willing to open the books and let someone look under the hood and Just look at the little graphic you put in. "Awful throw that should be intercepted" "Eli Manning's Incredible Game Winning Throw". It reeks of subjectivity. It totally lacks any objective criteria for distinguishing between the two that someone could utilize to reproduce the grade, much less any objective criteria for assessing whether the grade is accurately predictive of player contribution. That doesn't mean PFF grades aren't useful - obviously tons of fans who are in to fantasy football or podcasts etc find them meaningful and pay for them. But useful or not isn't what we're discussing here. We're discussing your claim that PFF's grades are "absolutely scientifically valid". You haven't presented a thing to support that contention. You didn't post their model methodology. You posted a link to a high-level general description of what they're trying to do and how they do it. It's equivalent to me saying "active pharmaceutical ingredients are produced by carefully following a validated manufacturing process under cGMP and occasionally adjusting for individual manufacturing circumstances by using data to support a standard FDA deviation reporting process". Good luck cooking that stuff! As for the first - if PFF's hypothesis isn't that a player's past performance is reflective of what they're capable of contributing and predictive of their future results, what exact purpose do you believe their grades serve? For what purpose do you believe they are marketing them? Never mind. I'm out of here. I knew from your past performance that the likelihood of an actual discussion was negligible, and you're true to type. You can go off and thump your chest and claim you won if it suits you.

Dang! Who called this in the backup QB thread? They should take a bow. I wanted someone like Jacoby Brissett, but when I saw the contract he got I backed out of the room and shut the door very quietly

That's a really good question. So reportedly (for example, per Taron Johnson who covered Beasley and who covered them both in practice), the thing that Crowder had was that Beasley-like ability to get on the same page with Allen as far as how they read the defense post-snap and to find the gaps or seams in zone coverage whereas McKenzie's thing was "speed, mostly". Allen is on record saying that McKenzie is really really good at getting open against man, but the Bills don't see all that much man coverage (I'm sure someone here knows the % man we faced last season). McKenzie is on record as saying he can get open against zone, but evidently he and Allen either aren't on the same page or Allen doesn't trust him to read it the same way or their timing was off or something. Shakir to my eyes was not reading zone correctly most of the season - he would throw up his "mail flag" when I'd look and say "oh, no, dangerous throw" (this is just what I saw, I didn't see his every snap). I haven't seen enough of Hardy to even know where he played - I would assume lining up in the slot, because he seems very small to be able to get a free release off the line - much less how he fared against zone vs man coverage. In his best year, 2021, the Saints were being QB'd by Siemian, Winston, and Taysom Hill and their WR corps did not inspire a lot of fear, I think, so I'm guessing he faced a lot of man, but it's only a guess.

I like a chap with a positive outlook!

That sounds like a "you" problem Because "vague comments" and insinuations that something is ongoing and happens a lot are just so much nicer than past misbehavior that the people involved have themselves acknowledged and moved on from 5 years ago.

No, Bright Eyes, they don't. One of the hallmarks of the scientific method is transparency and reproducibility. I do an experiment, I need to be able to share my methods in sufficient detail that any reasonably skilled and knowledgeable practitioner can reproduce them. Does PFF share details of their grading system and etc. publicly such that anyone following those details could reproduce their grades? C'mon Man. Don't go throwing around terms like "scientifically valid" and "follow a scientific process" unless you understand them. Or maybe I understand that data modeling is only as scientific as the data it uses and the methodology it employs. Predictive models can be scientifically sound - if the methodology used to develop them is transparent, and if they can be demonstrated to be predictive. You really wanna go here? Have PFF's results - say, their OL grades - been demonstrated to be predictive of performance? I'll hang up and listen.

Eh, I'll give it props for having a methodology, albeit not a transparent one. But it's not science, and it's not "scientifically valid".

Yes. Wonder what's going on with Singletary? Haven't heard a peep.

Unless you guys have solid info, why don't you STFU? You want someone talking trash on any women in your life - sister, GF, wife, mother - based on rumor and 'cuz you think it's funny to dis on a beautiful woman? "Oh she's gorgeous, everybody wants a bite o' them peaches, she must be a slut" Bull Crap. Yeah, there was some admitted stuff, not rumor 5 years ago - that she cheated on Poyer with AB in 2017 before they got married, Poyer was a big party boy and hooked up with a side chick (for which she left him) in 2018 shortly after they married. I rolled my eyes at the time and said "uh, oh, here come Miko Grimes levels of Drama, where will this end?". But she was 20 then. It seems as though with some advice and influence from others on the team - reportedly 'Zo Alexander and Hyde - they both grew up and got it together and have been pretty good spouses to each other and parents to their kid. Maybe there's something but it seems like it's been kept quiet and drama-free. So unless you really know something, why flail around with this?

Heh somehow one way or another, most people don't forget her

Edmunds is a big "minus", so we got to replace him somehow. We also need at least one more 3TDT.

Question: who are "all the other teams that were trying to sign" Hardy? I agree that not every great player was drafted in the first round. Math can show this - only about 30% of players drafted in the 1st round become solid NFL players, let alone stars. And, the observation is that while players who are drafted in the 1st 3 rounds typically show something in their 1st or 2nd year, sometimes guys who are drafted later take longer to succeed, if they're going to. On the other hand, what are the odds that a guy who played 4 years on his first team, was only available to play for 60% of those games, and has accumulated 793 yds total in 4 yrs becomes a "great player" in his 5th year on his 2nd team? There's a lot of space between "not every great player was drafted in the 1st round or became stars on their first team" and a guy who's played 4 years as a WR and has yet to break 1000 yds or 80 receptions. Are there even any examples of a guy in those circs blossoming into a star at WR? Don't get me wrong, he's a Bill now so I hope like hell this works out. And it entirely fits Beane's MO of being willing to take a flyer on a high ceiling/low floor guy almost every year, to the tune of $3.5M or so. But I don't think people can be blamed for some healthy skepticism and concern.

They do already own a house (nice house, on some body of water) in S. Florida IIRC and live there off-season.

Who TF is Julie Poyer and how is she related (if she is) to Poyer or his wife Rachel Bush?

Kansas City, not Detroit. KC much further from Orchard Park - ~980 vs ~270 miles. The players pay state taxes where the game is played for their salary, and where the team is based for their bonuses. Primary residence doesn't matter, it's where the money is earned.

Of course he is not. He's a troll. Tuck him in your ignore file and enjoy the improvement to the board.

The Missus will not be happy to have to keep her bikinis packed Sept thru January, but I've always thought in the final run Poyer does not let her keep his balls in her purse where professional decisions are involved.

It seems to me there's been a lot of talk on this board since the playoff exit, criticizing Beane's drafting and player personnel decisions. Somehow the Bills have managed to have a #2 or #1 defense 3 of the last 4 years with horrible personnel management and currently, no players on defense who would fetch a 2nd round pick. Go Figgur. I didn't understand the euphoria about Hines myself. Some people on the board were reacting as though he was our Budget Christian McCaffrey. I looked at his record with Indy and thought he was a signing for ST and as an injury reserve for Cook and for McKenzie, given that Shakir seemed to be struggling a bit to master the slot and get open and was not "all that and a bag of chips" as a KR/PR. Hines filled that role. Allen misses short options because his brain edits them out when he scans the field like the new Smartphone photo software, and Dorsey/Brady seem less able than Daboll/Dorsey at smacking some sense into him.

Well, he played with Drew Brees 9 games in 2019 and 8 games in 2020, if you want to count that. Last 2 years with the Saints of course were an unholy brew of Siemian, Winston, Dalton, and Hill. Harty's best year to date was 2021, 5 games with Winston, 6 games with Sieman, 1 game with Hill

I think it's quite possible McKenzie doesn't make the 53 man roster, but the Bills bring him into camp to compete with this guy and others. JMO. If this guy wins out, McKenzie will pocket $350,000 in new money (roster and workout bonus), the Bills will use his $1.87M salary and per-game roster bonuses to cover the expansion from 51 to 53 + PS McKenzie may then retire and plan his wedding and run his restaurant, and this board will look for a new whipping boy. OTOH, if Hardy gets injured in camp or doesn't work out as they wish, the Bills will take their lumps like they did with OJ Howard and keep McKenzie, like they kept Morris and Sweeney. That scenario sees it as a $2M-$5M gamble. Viewed that way, it's entirely consistent with Beane's MO: Corey Coleman for $3.5M in 2018 when we needed better OLmen desperately, OJ Howard for $3.5M in 2022, now this.

That sounds impressive until you realize he only had 6, and 2, respectively

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.