Beck Water

I don't know of a good breakdown overall in depth breakdown, just little pieces. After the Diggs trade, in one of the OBD segments Greg Cosell minced no words about Diggs. Spoiler: he said Diggs was "no longer a #1 receiver physically at this time". He referred to Shakir as "their new #1". He puts some film clips behind his assessment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfWFFj1lsW8 I also put some breakdowns of Brady games into the "comes down to Brady" thread On the other hand, Devin McCourty said that "it looks like they're trying to prove they can win without him" (Diggs)" prior to the 2nd Miami game. So it may be a "chicken-egg" thing; perhaps Diggs was ineffective as the Bills had been using him, so they were trying to put him into different roles where he could still be effective, and that looked like "trying to win without him" to McCourty. Of course, we don't know why; was he suffering nagging injuries, or has he physically declined? For either reason, it appears to have been intentional. You can find a beautiful breakdown of each receiver first and 2nd half of season - in fact it's upthread here

You initially said 21 (2 rb, 1 TE) then corrected that you meant 12 (1 RB, 2 TE). But a red zone package with 2 backs may actually be a thing. Recall we have Reggie Gilliam, who is a decent receiver (77.8% catch rate) and a pretty effective lead blocker on runs as well. I think it's going to depend upon how Kincaid's blocking chops develop this season - he may be an effective red zone target, but last year he wasn't effective blocking in the compressed space of the RZ, more so blocking downfield where it's more a question of "just get in the way for a moment", he did that pretty well. So as of last year, if Kincaid was on the field in the RZ in a 12 set, that made it effectively more of a 11 set with 3 receivers if that makes sense? But if his blocking takes a step, then we could easily see more 12.

I've been digging around for breakdowns and analysis of Joe Brady's offense and this seemed like a good place to share. Breakdown of his gameplan vs Jets last fall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlsVfKrS9TQ Kurt Warner QB Confidential analyze Brady game plan Bills vs Jets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUfXEIL_N6c Cover1 on Bills vs KC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOIetvLoiM Assessment of his passing game concepts as LSU Passing Game Coordinator Cover1 https://www.cover1.net/lsu-bunch-formation-passing-concepts-film-analysis/ More concepts from LSU offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq0QNqjh5JE A look at why Joe Brady's offense failed in Carolina https://www.si.com/nfl/panthers/gm-report/a-look-at-why-the-joe-brady-experiment-failed Welcome any more finds anyone has with insight into how Joe Brady might shape the Bills 2024 offense Where I am so far: 1) don't expect LSU's offense. He had Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. We don't have Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. 2) overall thoughts seem to be Brady was too vanilla in Carolina - not enough "eye candy" or pre-snap motion. But whether one can pull that off and make it effective, ultimately depends upon the player personnel to Do Their Job, too. 3) at the end of last season, it was very clear that Brady's offense ran more. Under Dorsey, rush snaps were 42%. Under Brady, 52%. But, a big part of that were Josh Allen's rush snaps increasing from ~4 per game to ~ 9 per game. In 2022, Josh was 8 A/G; prior to that low of 6.5 high of 7.4. a) does this represent a change in philosophy to a run-first team, or b) Brady making the best use of the pieces and plays he had available mid-season? or c) trying to give Allen's shoulder sprain some rest so it could heal up? 4) Greg Cosell and others have commented about a switch to "big receivers". with Dalton Kincaid and now Keon Coleman. But we still have plenty of smaller receivers on the team - -Curtis Samuel 5'11 195 4.3 40-time -Khalil Shakir 6'0 196 4.43 40 time and 29" arms; -KJ Hamler 5'9" 178 reported 4.27 40-time (oft-injured dark horse; 2020 2nd round pick #46) -Andy Isabella 5'9" 5'8 3/4 29 3/4" arms 4.31 40-time (never-productive darker horse, 2019 2nd round pick #62) Are we switching to big receivers, or just trying to fill a gap in what we've previously had, which is a collection of smurfs and average guys? I think it would be a mistake for the Bills to try to run more. Bills finished the 2023 season #5 in attempts and #7 in rush yards. That would be an amalgam of a very pass-centric early season and a run-centric 2nd season. We also finished #8 in passing yards, which is similar to 2022 (8) and 2021 (9) vs 2020 when we were 3rd. In rush yards we were 20th in 2020, 6th in 2021, 9th 9n 2022, 7th in 2023. But a lot of those rush yards were on the back of Josh Allen, and a good fraction of Allen's runs are scrambles. I would like to see the Bills develop a more effective run game that does not involve Allen, for the sake of his longievity. Thoughts? Knowledge of what Brady did as pass game coordinator at LSU and tried to do in Carolina? More assessment of what he did last season?

The thing is fans hear a thing and run with it. Like Keon Coleman talking about eating at Waffle House and McDonalds. He talked in the RGIII interview someone posted, about now people are saying all he eats is fast food; he said he knows how to cook and his mom and brother live with him, someone cooks most of the time and he eats fast food maybe once a week, like a "cheat day". Even some guys like Zo Alexander who were outspoken about following particular diets in an effort to take care of their bodies also talked about how after a game, he would "just eat whatever" - whatever appealed to him and made him feel good, so he had a cheat day.

Honest answer: weren't you here for the multiple threads whinging that Mahomes was having photos snapped with Hollywood Brown and some other receivers in the weight room, and talking about him throwing with the Chiefs WR and some draft picks? Voices were loud and numerous that Josh doesn't put in any football work all off season. I could have missed it, but I don't believe I saw you in those threads telling the crowds it didn't matter. But now that Beane is saying Josh has thrown with some draft prospects and calls him up to talk about them, and that Josh plans to get together to throw outside of OTAs, now here you are telling us it doesn't matter

It's not a bad thing, but when a guy is coming off an $8 AAV contract and a good year where he was the #2 receiver, if he can't get a good contract he'll at least want to go somewhere where he thinks he can get a good target share. From the Bills side, I'd like to see us go after a talented younger guy OR a proven vet - not a 29 year old Never-Was Who is begging for Zay Jones?

Oh, great, we now have the next useless metric to go along with the QB 300 yd passing game (remember when Allen sucked after we went to the playoffs in 2019 because he hadn't had one)? Stefon Diggs didn't have a 1000 yd season until his 4th season in Minny. He was still a good, proven player after his rookie year, even though he only had 720 yds or 849 yds. Cole Beasley in his 11 year NFL career had 0 1000 yd receiving seasons Now I might understand what you might be getting at. We want to see Curtis Samuel surpass his previous 851 yd best season, and not have the 650-ish he had the last 2 years. We want to see Shakir surpass the 39 receptions and 611 yds he had last year. We need Kincaid to surpass his 73 reception, 673 yd rookie year. We need production from Coleman in his rookie year. And while we're at it, would be nice if Knox would return to his 50-ish receptions for 500-ish yards of '21 and '22 instead of the <200 yds we got from him last year. We need Cook to keep up his contributions of 400-ish yards or step up a bit. 'Cuz if we get 600 yds from Coleman and 2023-ish production from everyone else, we're gonna be looking at a ~3,100 yd passing year. On the other hand, if Coleman manages 600 yds and the rest somehow manage an extra 900 yds between the 5 of them (like 180 yds apiece) then we'll be good.

This is great, thank you for putting this together. Question: any particular reason you broke it down as 8 games and 9 games? Reason I ask is that 'last 9 games' includes 2 games with Dorsey still as OC. That might matter - I put this elsewhere, but when I looked at rush % and pass % in games where Brady was OC vs games where Dorsey was OC, the difference was even more significant than you note. The Bills had an overall 58%/42% pass/rush split under Dorsey. They shifted to a 48%/52% pass/rush split under Brady. A lot of that, unfortunately, was rush attempts for Josh Allen - I make it 9.2 attempts/ game including playoffs with a Dorsey/Brady split. I really don't think we want to rely on Josh Allen as the best rusher on the team. Anyway I think looking at it as Dorsey vs Brady makes some of the differences you noted more stark. And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

So we drafted Ray Davis at pick 128 in the 4th. There were 3 WR drafted pretty promptly in the 4th - 102, 110, 113. Moving up 15-26 slots is A Lot, not just in terms of draft picks - but teams don't like to give up that much freedom of choice unless the trading team makes it very juicy for them. It may well be we tried to trade up, and didn't find a deal we were OK with. The next receiver drafted, at 135, was drafted 22 slots later, suggesting teams may have perceived a talent difference. Beane said in his presser that the team's evaluation of the WR we drafted and signed last year had a role in not drafting a WR in the late rounds. It may be that they like Shorter, Shavers, Thompson, and Hamler better as prospects than anyone within reach of our picks, IDK.

"If I get a call from Josh in the off season, it's usually him seeing some highlight, running into somebody, throwing with somebody, just something to ask me what I think about somebody, he called me at the Senior Bowl to ask what I think about a couple of guys there. He's been in the building the last couple of weeks since the off season program has started. We did give him some guys, we said "sit back there with the coaches, y'all watch them together and talk about how you'd use 'em, I'd like to hear what you see. He liked a lot of the guys, he really did, but Keon was one, I know he liked him a lot." Said Josh Facetimed him Friday at home and asked what he thought, and he (Beane) said "barring someone blowing me away, I'm going to take Keon" and he was pretty pumped." A lot to unpack there; 1) Confirms what I caught out of Josh's OTA presser, he did watch film cut ups on selected WR (and new information, with the coaches) 2) Kind of sounded to me as though Beane intended to take Keon at Pick 28 and just squeezed as much extra draft capitol as he could first 3) "throwing with somebody" But Josh doesn't throw or work out in the off season prior to OTAs because, because, I read it here on TBD!

Nah. It was about 10-15 guys (maybe 11 or 12 after eliminating some sock puppets) who complained for weeks. The majority of the board complained vehemently in 2-6 posts, got it out of their system in 3 days, then said "Oh well, He's a Bill now so we'll hope for the best!"

I see no reason it isn't plausible. I think historically, the #33 and #34 picks are very popular trade targets, being that the talent pool usually isn't very different between the top of the 2nd and the bottom of the 1st. And, the Bills had just been giving off smoke signals "we're in the market for more picks or to move up with what we have" so why wouldn't 5 teams test the waters?

I agree with the overall thrust of your post, but in his OTA presser Josh said something to the effect of he was "going down to watch film of every catch". Whether coaches or scouts were there, or how many receivers he watched, I don't know. It's probably something along the lines of 240 targets per dude, maybe 20 seconds per target - probably 90 minutes per dude, I could see Josh getting through 4-5 guys in a week easily while working out at OTAs and hanging out with the team. It just bothers me because I feel people partially quote (which in meaning, becomes a mis-quote) Josh a lot here and then fluff it up into a BFD, not saying that's what you do or are doing here, just explaining why I'm kind of picking a nit. *********************** Following this up with: in his appearance on (I think) Pat Macafee podcast - it's linked elsewhere - Beane explicitly said that they gave Josh a group of guys and told him to sit with the coaches and watch their tape together and discuss them and how they would use them.

LOL I've been trying to recall just what Josh said about Dorsey as OC when he was promoted, and it really was pretty much that positive. There was stuff about "my career changed when he walked into the building" and such like. Very positive. The thing is it didn't stay that way long, it became "I have to see the field the same way he does as OC" which in hindsight, sounds like struggling. Those are the 4 that were at or around our original pick, but I honestly don't think Worthy was on our board in the late 1st/early 2nd at all. I also think if the Bills had Legette on there it must have been significantly lower, because Carolina was NOT subtle about telegraphing their Legette Love.

I was thinking more move in with Shakir and work with Eric Moulds (gloveless), though that place Diggs used to train would also be good. I forget the name, but their motto was something like "won't get you stronger, won't get you faster, will get you open." Seriously, Shakir had a huge jump in his catch % from 50% to 87% last season, and in that "Embedded" piece he credits working off-season with Eric Moulds, bare-handed. He said that working bare handed forces you to focus on refining your catching technique, then adding gloves takes it to another level. I'm not saying that Coleman needs to improve his catch rate, but Diggs used to say that Josh's passes didn't hurt "if you catch them properly"

I mean, Josh may have said he wanted Coleman, but it was likely in some context - "we predict these 3 guys will go in the top 10 and we're not going to mortgage this draft and the next to move up there, even if we could which is not certain. We think these 6-7 guys will be within reach of our #28 pick, do you have a take?" I doubt Allen's ranking would move the Bills draft board, but if there were 2 guys they were close on it might have influenced.

Tomorrow at 4 pm is the deadline for FA signings to count in the 2025 comp pick formula, so nobody significant being signed before 4 pm tomorrow. If there's a guy out there Beane wants to sign, he can make some cap moves and do it, though. As far as Zay Jones, though, Zay Jones had a $10.7 cap hit this season, of which $7.5 M was new money (salary and workout bonus). That slots him in at Mike Williams/Adam Thielen/TiktokBoi range. Williams has been a consistant 70-ish YPG guy his last 3 years. Thielen, fell off a little in 2022 Minny but other than that, very consistant 55-60+ YPG guy since 2016 (3rd year). Jones has hit 50+ ypg once in his career, 2022, behind Christian Kirk. He's gonna want to wait a minute and see if someone else will pay him the way Jax did, or close, and I don't think he's got that ROI for that. As far as the Bills, to that. We're better off hoping for another 40 ypg season from Mack Hollins like he had with an OK QB, Carr, throwing to him in Vegas (but behind Devante Adams). Hollins seems to be a unique (and entertaining) guy with a great work ethic, which I think is more than you can count on Zay Jones to be.

I think we do need other receivers, yes. It's a position at which injuries are common. So far Shakir has been durable, but he's also not yet seen more than 50% of the snaps. Samuel has been durable the last couple years but again, last year ~50% of the snaps. Remember 2022 where the plan going into the season was evidently to platoon Crowder and McKenzie? Then Crowder broke his leg, and it was all up to McKenzie. That meant when Davis got dinged, we had Jake Kumerow, Isaiah Hodgins, and Tanner Gentry seeing playing time, and after we lost Isaiah Hodgins to an injury-crunch at DB waiver move and Kumerow went down, we were hauling Brown and Beas off the sofa (our WR equivalent of bringing in Klein). So yes, I agree with you that last year's bottom-of-roster WR and Cephus are competing for #5 and possibly #6 on the roster, but the quality of those guys can really make or break a season - just like the quality of the LB at the bottom of the depth chart. And I'd really like an upgrade there. I'd like to see Shakir-Coleman-Samuel-better receiver-Hollins-better receiver, albeit it's possible we only keep 5 WR on the roster and more TE depending upon what kind of offense Brady wants to run, in which case yeah, #6 is gonna have to be a guy we can keep on the practice squad. But we still need one more guy, and not persuaded Quintez Cephus is The One rather than a chap competing for #6 with the rest of them. I'm also not persuaded that Beane sees it that way, in which case Shades of 2019

I'm on record as agreeing that we did not do enough at WR. I'm a little puzzled as how you see us having a realistic bite at Thomas, who was drafted at 23? We'd have had to go up at least 6 slots - would Philly have been willing? Detroit took a DB at 24 and Baltimore at 30 (so might have hopped up). Then there's the cost - in Beane's 2 recent 1st round trades, it cost him a 4th rounder to move up 2 spots. So what would we have had to pay for 6? The trade value chart suggests maybe a 3rd round pick - we didn't have a 3rd round pick. Our 2nd round pick, and maybe get a late 3rd or early 4th as change? I don't know if that's realistic. And of course, there's the question of whether Thomas juice would have been worth that squeeze - sometimes when there are 2 or 3 really strong prospects, the 4th choice gets a bit of a "halo effect" bump-up (Kadarius Toney or Jameson Williams, anyone?) The bottom line is, the Bills didn't have Mitchell or Franklin high on their board, or maybe on their board at all. We could have taken Leggette or McConkey sure, but that's instead of Coleman, not a double dip - and if we'd gone up for Thomas, we would have had probably no 2nd round pick so we're still not double dipping. So who is our realistic double, that was apparently on our board? Tez Walker we could have had - but not if we stayed pat in the 1st or traded up, because we wouldn't have had our 3rd rounder. It's possible Beane tried to trade up in the 4th using some 5th round picks, and possible the reportedly "thin" draft left other GMs disinclined to trade. And are we really persuaded, the 4th round talent in this draft is so very much better than last year, or next year? I think there were guys Beane could have drafted in the later rounds, but I think it's a reasonable question if the late round talent was truly significantly better than previous years? I understand your points, but at the same time it somewhat seems to me more like a different way of saying "Beane didn't trade up the way we wanted, or draft the guys we thought he should draft" vs. mapping out a path where Beane could realistically have traded up or kept our 1st round pick to draft one of those guys, AND made a double-dip that was early enough to be part of the clearly superior part of the WR talent.

I agree with questioning the concept that this WR class is a WR draft to end all drafts. Two parts to that: 1) are the WR really all that and a bag of chips at the NFL level? Experience suggests "maybe not" 2) is the class talent really something that won't be seen for years? Example: 2018 was said to be one of the most talented QB classes in years. 5 QB were drafted in the 1st round. 2 were offered 2nd contracts, with a 3rd who has shown some ability to play. 2020, which seemed to have less fanfare, had 4 QB drafted in the 1st round and 1 in the second - of whom all 5 are still starting in the league and have shown the ability to play well, 2 having played in (and lost) the Superbowl. Anyway, 2020 was a great year for WR with 6 drafted in the 1st, 2 more at the start of the 2nd; of those 7, the 1st and the 4th drafted didn't work out and the 2nd is only OK, maybe hampered by his QB. 2021 saw 5 drafted in the 1st, top 3 look great (drafted 5,6, and 10 overall) but so does some guy drafted midway thru the 4th. 2022 saw 6 drafted in the 1st plus another at the top of the 2nd. Top 3 look great, but so does some guy drafted at #52, halfway through the 2nd. It just seems as though pretty deep talented WR drafts are coming along pretty regularly, and that drafts where one position is super-hyped may not wind up producing the expected number of successful NFL players.

Good post. The bottom line is Beane has a mixed track record with the out come of these kind of statements (or with just putting players who have been in a secondary role, into the lineup). He made comments about Cody Ford being hampered by injuries and "his best football is ahead of him"; next training camp, Ford was traded away. Nothing was said, but obviously Davis and McKenzie were expected to step up at WR in 2022; that didn't work out very well. In contrast, MLB worked out splendidly and there have been some other instances - I think Beane expressing confidence in Damar after Hyde went down, and Damar played decently enough "until". FWIW, I started a thread on this after Beane made a comment about "sometimes the answer is already on the roster" with a reference to last year's MLB situation. Basically my conclusion is pretty much the same as yours, except I included Bryan Thompson, an UDFA last season who quietly spent last season on the PS, just as Shavers did. I do think KJ Hamler has a better set of physical tools to start with than Isabella did - longer arms, bigger hands, similar size and speed - but I think the real Achilles heel for both of them is lack of ball-tracking skills and hands. And when a guy has been injured as repeatedly in different body parts (hammy, ACL, pec, pericarditis), you kind of got to wonder if his body is just not made to hold up to football. I think it's notable that of the Isabella/Shorter/Shavers/Thompson pack, Isabella is the only one who got the call and spent time on the active roster last season. As far as Coleman mentioning Hamler, Hamler attended IMG for HS and trained at EXOS pre-draft - so perhaps they encountered each other training in Florida?

Not a surprise

Well....we had a solid WR room in 2020 and made reasonable changes in 2021, but since then, you're not wrong. Last two seasons, we have counted on WR to step it up who didn't or couldn't. I don't feel good about our WR room at all, myself. But the huge unknown (to me anyway) is just what DOES Joe Brady want our offense to look like? Because judging by personnel, he clearly has something different in mind than Daboll did or Dorsey did.

Wouldn't they want to try Waffle House? They serve pork chops at Waffle House, did you know that?

I think they must appeal to a certain demographic, by which I mean the guys who grew up watching Bradshaw as a QB and admiring Jimmy Johnson as a coach. Fox wants to stick with that demographic, while CBS wants to update from Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason.