PBF81

The point is that to much of being of this signing. He may not even make the roster. He ask day caused problems in KC this past season. Reminds me of our Sherfield signing. BTW, the Sherfield signing is an outstanding example of how the majority is usually correct or your earlier statement. Just sayin' ...

He sucks. ... whatever his role. Simply bc he played for KC doesn't make him better than he is.

I couldn't possibly disagree more with that. 🙂 But yes, your very much into onto something re: the emotions vs. reality angle. We do tend to get up for big games. Consider however that we lost to some real crap teams and played several others nearly losing.

My point was that everyone grows about him when he was cheap. Now we're talking about taking on a lesser version of him at greater expense. It's not complicated here. 🙂 OK, so I Guess everyone works be happy. 🙄

Great, sign him then. LOL I'm not sure how it gets less expensive than Davis tho. He wasn't even 1M/season. MVS also doesn't have Davis' talent.

Nah, I don't really care, but Davis was on a 4th round rookie contact here.

Correct, but he's worse than David in every area of complaint about Davis.

50.3% career catch%. LOL 50.0% this past season. Funny, we boot Davis and some want an even worse WR re: drops and catch% and with no particularly consistent skillset.

I guess I don't take "reality" as hard as some do. Your statements were insightful in that way. For me the analysis is just as much fun. Consider however, you said that life is short, but Allen's career is even shorter.

Thanks, and where I disagree is in that first bolded part, at least somewhat. After our Dallas game, he kept running Cook, 20, then 16, then 13 times/game, when Cook's average was beyond pedestrian, it was pathetic. It's nothing surprising that Cook's not a season-long 20 carry/game type, but we kept running him despite the lack of production. The team took a lot of heat for it right here even. Same in the playoffs where his production was low-end from a ypc perspective. But now we're crossing over into the decision to "become faster" while ditching Sing/Moss and make Cook the focus, without any inkling as to whether or not he would be up for the rigors of a full season like that. Obviously he wasn't. So now apparently they're abandoning that track and going to more of a power-running game then? Which gets us to your second bolded part. Yes, there is obviously a disconnect between our drafts and the use of our drafted players, at least somewhat and on offense in particular. There are also some disconnects in how to properly utilize Allen, which is obvious as this point. But the one thing that isn't right is simply throwing everything on Allen's shoulders come playoff time because we have no one capable of orchestrating optimal utilization of the players that we do have on offense.

I counted 52 catches on 92 targets. I watched every one at least twice and annotated the particulars of the play. Where he was when he caught the ball or when it was thrown to him, how many yards the play (and YAC by formula) he got, etc. The officials on him are 50 catches, so I'll have to go back game by game to see where I was off. But the point was not to depress you. LOL The point is to try to close the gap between reality and fantasy, the latter of which is quite often if not typically disguised as a narrative. But your observations line up with mine. But the narrative is what, it's that he's tough in traffic, can catch contested balls, great hands, etc. I didn't see that and from your post it doesn't sound as if you did either. That article I read almost immediately after the Draft, and while it's someone else's research, sites like PFF typically do at least a halfway decent job on theirs. I originally watched the video and thought to myself, 'wow, that's a lot of bubble screens and other screens and gadget plays that don't typically line up with a draft pick at the round 1/2 break. (aka late round 1, first in round 2) So I decided to catalog every play. Upon doing so it added, not detracted, to my concerns. As you say, there were a few times where Coleman made "Wow!" plays, I count three of those, and several others where he made a good, albeit not particularly unusual catch in coverage. (aka traffic) But I saw absolutely nothing on the plus side of average there, to the contrary in fact. As you realize, I agree with you on that assessment in your first para. I suppose that he could be the next Andre Johnson in fact, but I suspect that he'll be closer to the late James Hardy whom we drafted at 41st in '08. We will see. No amount of discussion here will alter that outcome. But where I'm largely thrown is that if your a team interested in him, particularly in reaching for him before almost all of the draft profiles on him had him going later than that, then wouldn't you have watched, at mimimum, the content in that video? Yet, we're expected to believe that they did and that he was their guy. Well OK, but consider, about half of those 50 plays on which he caught balls, simply don't work well in the NFL for a player of his stature. Of the otehr half his completion percentage is so low that it begs criticism. And of the single biggest asset they claimed about him upon drafting him, was his ability to catch contested balls. But as you essentially corroborated, he was problematic in tight coverage, aka "contested passes," that from the "eye test" from watching every pass reception of his. PFF does a fantastic job of putting the math behind it in contrast with the other drafted WRs. And while I may have not traded down with Carolina and gone with Legette, both Legette and McConkey add a dimension to our offense that presently is not there. What does Coleman add? Nothing that we do not already have. It's a lot of things, but all targets are not catchable balls. But the point was look at where they were playing Diggs. It's far from where he's been playing throughout his career, under Brady that is. The question is why? OK, so let's suppose that it's true, the narrative that is, that he's lost a step, what, that means that he plays in the backfield or close to it most of the time? Wouldn't he be relying on his "step" for YAC in those situations. It's a rhetorical question, but the whole thing stinks, and given how the team has lied to us repeatedly, it raises more questions than it answers.

No, but I'm anti-PSL. I'd never pay one on principle alone.

Well yeah, but also where they were playing him. I just watched the KC playoff game and there were times when he was lined up in the backfield and even ran a sweep. I mean really? Most of the time he appeared to be a decoy, but I only saw a few deep routes. Either way, if you're interested in his game-by-game catch %, they're all in his game logs. Well, at least one of the passes (aka targets) wasn't anywhere near catchable. The others weren't all on the highlight video. Thanks, and I'd be incredibly interested in your take after watching the video. Here it is if you've got 22 minutes. If you do watch it, take note as to how many passes he touches that you consider to be catchable, particularly given the narrative that he's hands in traffic, aka "contested catches." I was simply hoping that we'd draft a WR capable of flying, if for no other reason than to give us a dimension to our passing game that it now appears we do not have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOA_jjDOCr4&t=11s I also read this piece which counters the narrative and is well supported and supports the points that I've made. In fact it was one of my sources of info. https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2024-nfl-draft-florida-state-keon-coleman-polarizing-wide-receiver-prospect Well no, but he did have QBs the last couple of seasons that weren't bad at the high-percentage stuff that he's suited to. He had more targets this and last season than everyone on our team except for Diggs in '23 and Diggs and Davis in '22. Remember, the areas where Samuel runs routes are not Allen's strong suit. Allen's pretty average if even that in that high-percentage short-medium game. That means a lot of QBs are better than he is there. Again, would love to get your opinion on that Coleman every pass video.

I hear ya. As you likely know, I'm of the mindset that Diggs was more a product of Brady's use of him than of anything else. We're expected to believe that from the Cincy game on 11/5 to the Jets game on 11/19, a mere two weeks, that Diggs "lost a step" to the extent that his production was halved. My sensibilities don't allow for such drastically unprecedented drop in performance barring some major injury. Also, as I've pointed out to others, it's Brady's use of Diggs. A great example is the nfl.com highlight reel for the week 18 @ Fins game. In that game Diggs had his man beaten twice, once badly with Allen overthrowing him in a big way on a deep fly. That would have been a TD and his stats would have reflected that. There was another deep throw that he caught, but it was underthrown, and had Allen not underthrown it, it would have been a TD too. On a bunch of other plays you can see Diggs running shorter routes near, or even behind, the LoS, while numerous other WRs run the deeper stuff. So it's not like he even has a chance on those plays. But the point is that if he truly lost a step, then it should have been and would have been most evident as more time passes, namely the last game of the season. But it was obviously not the case in that game. So that kind of stuff is suspect as well. There's complete agreement there, but consider, the fact that we're even talking about it like that is troubling. What, professional football coaches can't figure that out? It's common sense. Hell, even the announcers reference it sometimes. Ergo, questions need to start being asked. Was that Brady's inability to see through that, or was he being forced/coerced into that? Those on the critical side of the fence have our suspicions, those on the other can't possibly fathom the notion. There's some other reason, right. Well, to start, it doesn't really matter what we think anyway, we simply discuss. I'm not entirely writing Brady off either, but at the same time my sensibilities, rooted in reality, cannot allow me to insist that things improved with him over Dorsey, for the reasons stated in our exchange prior to this. The numbers don't lie, try as some may to get them to. LOL It's also pretty evident that McDefense has his MO, but it's hardly building around Allen, which then necessarily questions an OC that is under McD's thumb. As a result, and given that Brady was a familiarity hire and at best is an OJT OC, it doesn't bode well for him, particularly now with Diggs and Davis gone. And BTW, it was Davis that caught a 57-yard TD in the Chargers game w/o which we would have lost. What you said about him being creative is going to be the key to the offense this season. We don't have A+ talent at the skill positions. He'll have to find a way to have the sum-of-the-parts end up being more than the whole. I'd be surprised if he with his limited experience can do that. Pleasantly, nonetheless. I would also question whether we actually have more reliable pass catchers. Coleman's the big add there and I'm simply not seeing it in his "every pass" video that I'm in the process of editing down for both the good and the bad. I don't think that any honest person watching that video would disagree. Same for Samuel whose career Catch% is 65.4%, which is well below average, particularly for a WR whose career YPR is 10.7 and very much in the target area for the high-percentage shorter passing game. His Success% is also below average, and so is Coleman's last season at FSU. There's far too much hype over him as well. But the contrary narrative has formed, so now we're in the 8th time's the charm mode with him. As an analyst I have no choice but to go with the odds there. I also can't get too excited over Hollins, a WR that's averaged slightly over 1 catch/game and 17.8 receiving yards/game with 10 total TDs in a 7 year career. Not to mention that he's on his fourth team in as many years. Harty's profile in terms of production was similar although they're two different type of WRs, we saw how big of a factor he was. Anyway, we'll have to disagree on reliability. Who knows if we've lost much, but objectively there's not much there to suggest greater reliability. I know it's easy to get all whooped up this time of year, during Camp and in preseason, but realities are realities. In order for all of this improvement to play out, McD has to back off of breathing down Brady's neck; if that were to happen, we'd need Brady, a first time OC, to figure out how to be creative enough to overcome the better coached defensive teams in the league; we'd need Samuel to make a pretty sizeable leap in production and reliability, one that heretofore in seven seasons to date; and Coleman will have to do what he didn't do at FSU and in circumstances other than what he was primarily involved in while there. Believing that all of that will come together for the positive is a pretty substantial and blind leap of faith. Yes, I realize that. But the context was in his primary use as a short-yardage back in terms of another suggesting his optimal use. Moss was the same, with superior collegiate accolades in both, and we see how much and how they used him. Will it be a repeat? If it is, why would anyone assume that a similar RB with a lesser draft profile, and quite frankly with largely uncoachable weaknesses, would excel in such a role?

Oh yeah, not arguing anything like that, again, more discussing the team's stated approach over the past couple of seasons and the inconsistencies therein. Nothing disagreeable there generally speaking. I simply don't see that if they didn't use Singletary or Moss in that regard, or even properly per their skillsets, why Davis would fit the bill when his strengths coming out in the draft aren't even what theirs were. nfl.com has Davis penciled in for a backup RB w/ a chance of becoming a starter. That doesn't really seem to help us given our pattern of underutilizing or mis-utilizing the talents of players on offense as it is. PFF has him possibly being a starter for a downhill rushing team. That's not our identity, or hasn't been as of yet. LOL If we make that our identity, LOL, then I'm pretty sure that the fans and media will be asking tons of questions. As to Davis the prospect, one of the first things I've always looked for in trying to determine future value, is to what extent a player's weaknesses can be coached into that player. Davis' weaknesses don't appear to be of that nature, generally speaking. But you're right, maybe this draft for us turns out to be the best for any team since 2000. Who knows. But the equal if not better odds exist that it'll more mimic our drafts from '18 thru '21. Who cannot easily envision Coleman doing a combination James Hardy/Watkins, Bishop developing into an above-average starter, Carter becoming a good but not great much less elite DT, and Davis going the way of Sing/Moss. If that happens, what good would it have done for Allen and the offense. It would be good for the team to claim an identity however and stick to that. Why that identity isn't surrounding Allen and therefore doing everything reasonably possible to facilitate that is to the frustration of quite a few people. Instead, going into this season it's D, rushing, and the associated "complimentary football" all while shifting from, presumably given the evidence, from a speed to a power rushing team. A lot of people don't think that makes much sense, or for sure not the most sense.

LOL, yes, clearly, but for different reasons. They're entertainment to me as well, but so are stats, so they're of equal entertainment to me. Otherwise, yes, probably best for neither of us to debate on these topics with each other. Go Bills!!

Yeah, agreed. I also won't believe anything that Legends puts out. They're not "Buffalo," have no affinity for the region, and probably don't care at all about WNY-ers. Why would they. It will be much more interesting once they've gone through a majority of STHs and put out info as to how many of the new seats & PSLs have sold, and where.

Thanks for your candor. That's fine, but then don't ask me to repeat info purely at your personal behest when it's already been provided with much supporting evidence. Imagine if you wrote a post explaining your position with all sorts of detail and supporting documentation, I only skimmed it, but then commented, "challenged assumptions," and otherwise argued your points which were fully contained and outlined in your post? How would that sit with you? ... or if I commented on one of your posts during an interaction between you and someone else, while taking something entirely out of context to "argue" your position? We all do that once in a while, but you do it as a rule, at least with me. Otherwise, it's also quite a bit hypocritical to challenge the well annotated and well reasoned out arguments of others, while providing little if any actual info much less factual data yourself to the contrary and to arguments that you stand by. And again, I've offered several times now to go through game video in detail to illustrate for you, upon your not only challenging but also arguing points, to validate them one way or the other and investigate further, and you've refused every time. Even just one game to give you a glimpse. That's also a bit hypocritical.

Indeed, those would be coveted seats no doubt. The lowest priced heated seats according to their survey are that one and these; Location: Mezzanine level end zone Coverage: Significant Heating: Above seats Annual price per seat: $820 One-time PSL: $2,100 Location: Mezzanine level corner Coverage: Significant Heating: Above seats Annual price per seat: $1,090 One-time PSL: $1,750 After those, the next "reasonably priced" heated seats in their survey were these ... Location: Mezzanine level between 40-yard lines Coverage: Significant Heating: Above seats Annual price per seat: $2,080 One-time PSL: $5,950

Yeah, it's interesting, the first time I went to one of those stadiums it was a little concerning, but as with you no doubt you get used to it. The view more from the top than the side is also a plus.

And of course better for our fans to ride the railings after knocking down a few.

If you're not going to read my posts that explain all that, then there's zero sense in us communicating in this manner. I'm getting tired of shagging your foul balls. So for that reason I'll simply give you a thumbs up in the future and ignore you. I understand if you don't want to read the longer posts of mine, which is fine, but then don't comment asking questions, "challenging assumptions," or otherwise responding when what you ask for is provided in them. Granted, they're not for everybody. I spend a LOT of time researching and cataloging data and info. To ignore it is insulting.

Constantly disagreeing with me while offering little if any substance to the contrary is not challenigng assumptions, it's stalking. I've asked you several times now what that offensive plan is, you've said/provided nothing. I've offered, based upon your "challenging of assumptions" if we can legitimately call it that, to go through a single game highlight reel, or more, and provide the answers to your challenges, but you refused and defaulted to the let's just wait and see "argument." Otherwise, when I engage with another poster that claims that the plan may be to use Davis as a short-yardage RB, per your quoting of me two of your posts above, and you leapfrog that entirely and inject narrative nonsense, yeah, I'd say that's stalking. I've offered quite a bit of my time in answering your questions, going through video, etc., but you constantly shut that down. Other times you've challenged facts, not assumptions, then went on as if they didn't exist. So again, yeah, at this point I consider it to be stalking. The context was the offense. There were a slew of statements back then. Read into them as you wish, but it was clear that he was referring to the offense. It's also not as if it's a big secret. But hey, if you believe that McD has solutions on offense, who am I to argue. And I'm sure he does, just not effective or knowledgeable ones, and the continued underachieving of our offense spells something out, a something that presumably could be argued. McD is also an expert at scapegoating reasons for our failures. Reading here I think we're the only team in the league whose ultimate performance does not rely upon its head coach.

Thanks! And yes, I would agree with you there. Otherwise you really said a mouthful, perhaps without intending to. We could discuss this for pages as there are numerous complexities beyond high-level stats and "eye tests." That's a good topic for discussion. Is it a fair way to make the comparison? (BTW, I get 25.0 PPG, not 26.6. Did you remove the STs and D TDs in the NE & Miami games?) If it is a fair way to make the comparison, then here's what I noticed about that. You broke it down by the first 4 games and the last 6 games. But our first game, season opener, on the road, was far more like one of Brady's late season games than much else. I'd say games 2-4, then games 5-10, then games 11-14, and if we're going to apply the same standard, per your "unsustainable bump" comment above, and in fairness to the trend/pattern under Dorsey that began after four games, games 15-17. That's to start, but let's create an order for discussion here. We as a team have a history of "unsustainable bumps" in our season-long performances. We're typically very strong at the home-opener, and in the case of some games, typically at home, that are huge games. The Dallas game fell into that category last season. After our defensive collapse vs. the Eagles in allowing them their 2nd best offensive game on the season, a pall was cast over all things Bills. But then next week, if for no other motivation, we beat our nemesis the Chiefs, which offered a renewed albeit slim hope for making the playoffs much less winning the division. So we got up bigly (LOL) for the Dallas game and dusted them. But then things kinda fell apart from a performance perspective despite the fact that we won the next three games, entirely unimpressively it can be added. Take the Chargers game. We barely beat the Chargers and managed only 24 offensive points, while allowing 22 points to them. First, this was a team fielding Easton Stick at QB, and to make matters less impressive, Ekeler at RB, and with two rookies, Derius Davis and Quentin Johnston at WR, perrenial 3/4 WR Palmer, journeyman Alex Erickson, and roster-bubble WR Jalen Guyton as their WR corp and with no TE of any significant consequence. That's an offensive skill position roster that makes our WR cadre look like an All-Pro team. So was the defense holding that unit to 22 points and 273 yards, with Easton going a very efficient 23 of 33 for 215 passing yards, and another 25 rushing yards and a TD there, impressive? Consider as well, that we allowed more points to that Herbert-less Chargers team than any of the other four teams that played them. Additionally, five other teams held them to fewer points, a lot fewer in most cases, against the team when it had Herbert and Keenan Allen. 20, 17, 17, 10, and 6 there. So was that defensive performance really impressive? ... or something to be regarded as something other than underachieving for a 4th ranked D? I won't go into the same detail, which also has mitigating circumstances per the above, like Zappe playing QB for NE, or the fact that the TD pass to Sherfield in the Miami game involved a lot of luck for that batted pass to end up where it did with Sherfield making a phenominal play after doing absolutely nothing significant all season. But let's break it down by those last three games however using the same metrics that you used above. Brady Last Three Games: 363 YPG 32:46 ToP 19.3 PPG What sticks out there? Similar YPG. Marginally but relatively insignificant reduction in ToP. But what, a near TD/game drop in production. So here's how I look at that and see more cause for concern than I do for hope. With an average advantage in those three games of 82 YPG, 5:32 in ToP, 3.7 more 1st Downs, not to mention Allen v. Schtick & Zappe in two of those games, yet only a .3 PPG advantage? That's attributable to the offense. In short, ball movement was similar, but our ability to put points on the board diminished significantly, very significantly in fact. 19.3 PPG would have been good for 26th in the league that's how poor it was. And, at a time when every game was needed to simply make the playoffs. Moreover, it's not as if any of those defenses were any good. The Chargers ranked 24th, NE 15th, and Miami 22nd. So getting back to the question, is how you presented it a fair way to make a comparison? Is it comprehensive? Obviously not. I attribute it to the second bolded part, an unsustainable bump for a new coach, and, the meddling of a defensive-minded head coach who seemed to believe that the rushing from Cook in the Dallas game was sustainable over the long haul when there's absolutely nothing historically in his dossier that even remotely suggests that could even reasonably be the case. Right? In fact, they talked about Allen running too much, then increased Allen's rushing load under Brady, going from 4.8 carries/game and 24.6 rushing yards, nearly doubling to 9.0 carries and 39.7 rushing yards. Is that really where this team with Allen needs to go as he ages? Cook under Brady, apart from that single outlier Dallas game, saw his YPC avg. plummet to 3.6 YPC with not a TD to be found. Is that sustainable? One might say that's why we drafted Davis. Well, OK, but that also involves an entirely different offensive mindset than pitched by McD a year ago and after ditching Moss, who once again, had a notably more prolific career both rushing and receiving than Davis did in college. Moss' draft profiles are greater than Davis' as well. So we'll see there, but honestly, why the hope there? True, which is why I prefer as much info as possible. I would say that the offense looked fantastic in games 2-4 and in games 11, 12, and 14 under Brady and similar to Dorsey's fast start, as both seemed to settle into, not even mediocrity, but well below-average production otherwise and considering that we have Allen. In our 11 other games we averaged 20.5 PPG, which on a season would be good for 20th on the season. So while it's nice that we can dust poor teams like the Raiders, the Skins with their league worst D, a hapless Jets team by the time we played them, a very overrated Eagles team, and even Dallas who came off of an emotionally draining huge Sunday night game the week before, and of course Miami, who all but literally cannot beat us since we've had Allen, it's the steady-stated that matters. As to the two playoff games, our staff being out of answers on how to maximize our offensive roster, once again just stepped out of the way allowing Allen to do everything including running the ball, which they wisely said they wanted to get away from a year earlier thereby confusing matters even more, to the tune of over 40% of the rushing plays and all three rushing TDs. That unsustainable seems to apply here as well. Lastly, as to your statement where the offense looked unstoppable at the beginning of the season and then very out of joint at the end of the season. Why do you think that is? Do the other teams that win their divisional round games suffer from the same, year in and year out? Thoughts? Neither do you. What we do know is what they say is not what they do. Acquire Hines as a prolific pass catcher out of the backfield, then don't even remotely use him in that capacity. All's well with Diggs when they've known or a while that it isn't. Need a faster offense with a Cook type RB. Now we're going in the complete opposite direction. Draft Davis, someone with a worse draft profile (nfl.com and pff et al.) than Moss, with Moss having been more prolific at everything with similar build and style. There's more, but to start. Otherwise, what is their plan? Is it evident? Otherwise feel free to quit stalking me. Come on now, McD openly stated in a press conference that he has zero answers as to solutions for our offense midseason last year.

I'd have qualms if Davis supplants Cook and ends up playing like Moss did here. LOL What the team says can't be trusted or relied on. What every fan should have qualms over is the blatant lack of a year over year MO on offense. As to McDefense, he's already admitted that he doesn't know about offense. No help there. As to Brady, all we can do is wait and see what Brady does as we're merely helpless observers, and hope that he has enough room to change things as he sees fit. But his body of work is detailed in that post, it's obvious that he's taking direction from McD, and due to both the lack of a year over year perceptible plan offensively, from both a draft as well as tactical approach, coupled with the type of skill-position talent we now have on offense, it seems pretty clear that whatever comes out of that door come September, it's not going to be what we've had up to now, much less playing to Allen's strengths. Right? Here's another quasi conundrum. On one hand the false narrative is that our offense improved under Brady for to the changes that he made. But once the evidence is presented that demonstrates that false conclusion, then the same arguers will say that Brady really didn't make any significant changes as he has to work with Dorsey's offense generally speaking. LOL.