PBF81

That's more than most people that cite how good a draft prospect is do by a longshot, even as a geeky hobby. LOL If you haven't done so, contact the schools for the players you're interested in, tell them that you do this in a journalistic sense, and ask them for the game videos for every player for any games that you're interested in. They used to send them out on DVDs, not sure how they'd get them to you today, maybe online download or something. You'll get both views of every play that the player is on the field for, both from the endzone and the sideline. It'll save you a ton of time. You can likely even get it for that Yale tackle, if you really want, and you can ask for them by game, just contact the Yale athletic department, tell them that you're a draft profiler and that you want his video of whatever games you want. Indeed, every play does not carry meaning, but you can easily sift through the ones that do. I don't follow the Draft like you do, I only care who we draft anymore, and I'll do an "after" review for our 28th and 60th, but that's about it. I'll PM you to compare. I don't care that much anymore. LOL I file it under no sense in discussing things that aren't current or have no bearing on the Bills.

Isn't it kind of like that everywhere though? Consider here, when a player's here, he's great, much better than they typically are in reality, especially upon us signing them. When the leave, if they didn't perform, not to historical patterns, but to unfounded narratives, then they're worthless, a cancer, a detriment, "good riddance," etc. LOL That's just human nature. Trying to slice through it all is where the work is. Most people don't put in the time. I'll give one good example. Most people, everywhere, talk about draft prospects as if they know all about them, but most people merely read a few draft profiles and carry those. There's zero personal risk that way. If they're wrong, oh well, everyone was wrong, even Kiper or whomever. It takes a ton of time to evaluate a draft prospect. Back in the day you could order the offensive/defensive coaches' view video from sideline and endzone of every play that a particular player had, by player. Call/write the school, tell them you're a journalist, and they'd send them to you free of charge. I'm sure they'd still do that today. Today there's youtube, but that's far from comprehensive. But evaluating that video takes time, but it also allows you to come to your own conclusions. I love those highlight reels of some player from a Power-5 school beating up on Bowling Green, but is that a really good data point? How many players on Bowling Green are headed to the NFL, especially from that team for example. Who cares how a top prospect performed against the NCAA equivalent of a JV team. A better approach is to look at the tougher games against similar P5 competition that features opposing players that are headed to the NFL, right. But all that takes time, lots of time. By my estimation it takes a good 10+ hours to properly evaluate a player as if I were on a staff considering drafting him. But think about the ramifications. For just 30 players, at a 40 hr. work week, that's about two months of work, for someone doing it full-time. Reviewing most of the draft field is not even remotely possible for any single person. Hence, most people simply refer to the draft profiles, which are really all more or less scripted from one another in one or more forms. All of these "independent" draft sites, if you look, really don't have much different info than nfl.com's draft site, Kiper, etc. Any player can be made to look like he should be the first overall pick from highlight videos. Any player can be made to appear to be among the most overrated. That's where teams should be earning their keep, in their independent analyses. It's why, for example, anyone looking back in the day, could easily see that Mike Evans would be the far better overall prospect than Watkins. Watkins made his collegiate living as a man among boys and largely on plays that simply do not work at the NFL level. So why would it be any different simply because a bunch of draft analysts said so. And on that note, how much work, on top of all the other stuff that they do, are those analysts really putting in besides highlight reels, which again, are often against week and feeble opponents. The very first thing that anyone should look at for top prospects on highlight reels, is the helmets of the team that they playing, and how good the opposing players on that team are. The second thing is how well they performed in their biggest of games. I'm not a big Caleb Williams fan for that reason, to me he's got a high percentage to bust. BJT OTOH hits those notes. That's not to say that he's a "can't miss" prospect, but if he's there he'd be a good choice but I wouldn't trade up at the cost of additional relevant pics to get him either. Anyway, again, just my two cents.

They blather to make money. They make money because people listen to them blather. Always rely on your own assessments, ignore them completely. As to the look, it's not a good look from several perspectives. First, it was more sudden and seemingly driven by dissention between Diggs & the team. It wasn't planned this way by Beane. Secondly, despite contrary narratives, this leaves is in a hole, a big one. One that further challenges the narratives on Allen (right or wrong) and the "window." Third, it wasn't planned this way, but at the same time, Beane didn't seem to have even the slightest backup plan or contingency for the somewhat imminent diminishment in Diggs' skills at any time, and regarding the only WR on Allen's watch that has made a big impact. It's also big news and it's Diggs. It's controversy, which sells. More blather, more money. It's definitely going to be an interesting season. The emergence of Houston, our situation with the WRs, Brady, etc. Just my two cents.

LOL Let's see what everyone's take is re: Brady at seasons end. Why so vindictive? I know I'm probably the only one stepping out with that. Is there another? LOL. What, you really think that people don't think that's a foolish take right now? Of course they do. You've been on my pant leg for a couple of weeks now. Go find someone's lawn to piss on for a while.

Then why respond. 😉

Take it with a grain of salt. Allen needs WRs. But the wailing and moaning here over us not having any good WRs apart from Diggs on Allen's watch, LOL, barring us taking a WR at 28th, and assuming that one works out well as a rookie, buckle up, it's going to be a laugh riot here.

As to BJT, it's important to look at how these prospects played in the biggest of games and against competition that is destined for the NFL. Based on the write-ups it's confusing what to make of BJT. But he played exceedingly well in the bigger games. That's relevant.

Yeah, I caught that too on the nfl.com draft profile. What's interesting is, for once, the diversity in the reviews of the top WRs in the draft across the spectrum of draft sites. Typically they all say similar things, probably because they all draw from the same two or three original sources that also seem to largely be in agreement. But for the top WRs it's scattered this year. It gives pause about the talk about the WR class. Not expectedly. Aka percentage wise. Mr. Irrelevant, Purdy. But your not going to trade your day 1 & 2 picks for a dozen 7th rounders. Come on now, let's keep things in the realm of reasonability here.

Historically Thurman's correct. Trading up to get a WR is a fool's game. I might do it for Harrison this year, because Allen's rotting on the vine only, but that won't be an option. Diminishing the value of next year's picks seems fine now, but next year we'd regret it unless that player shattered rookie expectations. Beane's track record of that is zilch on top of it all. We currently only have two picks this year in the range of possibly getting NFL starters. Selling the farm and reducing that to one isn't it best strategy. Beane needs to start hitting better on draft picks however.

Seems that he regretfully made the move for the simple reason that you can't have a player that said/implied what Diggs did on the team. There no indication that this was planned much less expected, until very recently, much less that they wanted this. If it is, then they've been flat out lying to everyone for a long while.

Yes, that's how narratives work. At the same time, it's not Brady's work that put up two defensive TDs in those games in weak scoring games to prevent that from being 4-3. Playing the Chargers and their 24th ranked with another relatively weak offensive showing, with them playing without their best the players, Herbert, Allen, and Bosa, in yet another squeaker won in the last seconds, prevented that from sliding to 3-4. That's additional information that someone analyzing the situation would consider valuable. Most want the most simplistic views possible. There's plenty of data and info it there to be able to reasonably come to the conclusion that Brady's in over his head and under McD's thumb in that way. No need to argue it. I'll play the fool for now. Just saying that there's plenty of info at anyone's disposal to put together a more accurate assessment. People at large prefer the emotional approach however. Which is fine. Again, nothing we say here changes anything. Some simply see beyond the superficial.

That's the point of contention. It's also not what I observed. It also doesn't fit the particulars of team offensive play under Brady. It's a chicken/egg thing. Well get more clarity on that this season.

Well, over the past several seasons aftermarket prices have been nuts in this stadium. Maybe the riff-raff has already been cut out. It stands to reason that the riff-raff wouldn't be STHs anyway. Any trouble and they wouldn't be for long. BTW, what's this org chart comment that people are referring to, I missed it. Would like to be in on the humor.

Yeah, that game left us with much to think about. KC's EZ fumble, Wide Right, etc. That's an interesting game to look at. It's somewhat of a conundrum. We ran 78 plays to their 47. We averaged 4.7 YPP which is low, as in bottom-dwellingly low. They averaged 7.7. Time of Possession 37 to 23 us. It's befuddling to be sure. But what was the case is that there was no shortage of short-yardage plays in that game, McD's "complimentary football" on display. Our longest completed pass on that day was 15 yards to Diggs. Murray also caught one for 15 but that was a short pass that he ran the rest for. That's Brady football as directed by McD's "complimentary football" approach. They obviously deliberately did that. It was similar the week prior vs. Pittsburgh. In both games our above-average offense managed only to match the average YPP allowed on the season by both defenses. One would think that a top-ranked offense would do better than what the opponent had allowed on average. Miami averaged the same, the Ravens 6.3 YPP. Either way, get used to that approach, because whether fans realize it or not, that's what McD wants. That's what he means when he says "complimentary football." We know that he's not wise in the ways of offense, so the issue that many of us have with that is that, again, it's not even remotely using Allen to maximize his contributions other than his rushing. Allen posted 189 and 186 yards passing in those two games. I'm not sure what anyone expects in terms of WR production when there's an average of 34 attempts in both games, and an average of 23 total completions. That's not a lot of balls for receivers to gain the kind of yardage from that everyone's critical of us not getting. Under Brady, in 6 of 9 games Allen hasn't exceeded 240 yards passing. He's averaged 33 attempts/game, for a bottom-dwelling 60.7% under Brady, his worst for any significant stretch of games since 2019. That was with receivers he's known and played with for several seasons. He's going to get worn out playing like that. Averaging 9 carries/game under Brady he'd average about 150 carries on the season. If he doesn't do that, who's going to run the ball on 3rd-downs? He took more 3rd-down carries than the rest of the team combined with 43. Those are typically the toughest yards to get. Cook had 4, all season. Murray had the second most with 20, but averaged a mere 2.0 on those. Is he still with us? Anyway, that's how we played under Brady. IMO it's not sustainable over an entire season to have your QB run that much, and now, particularly since our receivers won't exactly be inducing fear in the minds of the DCs and defenses that we face. It's easy to say that we'll adjust by doing [such and such] but it's more difficult in practice. McD isn't for being a great Adjustments coach, and will he even try to adjust from something that he's forcing to begin with is the question. We'll see if the Draft changes anything, but as of now the only significant picks that we have that even realistically sniff at a hint of making a rookie impact are 28th and 60th. The rest are day-2 fodder picks. On top of that, Beane's track record with rookie production isn't great. Kincaid did better but still didn't match the hype. Torrence was good too, but we need WRs now.

If it's that simple, why as a 2nd-rounder has Samuel not been able to exceed a career average of about 500 yards and 3 TDs/season? Don't say the QB, that's pretty abysmal for any 2nd-round WR regardless of the circumstances. We had crap WRs do as much with the litany of QBs we've had during out drought era. You're right in the sense that it's simple, ... on paper. In practice it may not be so simple. We'll find out in five months.

LOL Finding players to not step up isn't the question here. Feel free. Not interested in a straw-man statistical exercise. Any teams that win the Super Bowl and even make the Super Bowl have players that step up come playoff time. That's the only "mathematical exercise" here that matters. It's not a difficult concept or anything that's difficult to validate. Just go look at the stats from those games. Look at the teams that win them, they all have players that consistently stepped up other than their QBs. For KC the most notable have been Kelce. We can't simply waltz into the playoffs proclaiming we have Allen as if he's Superman, and go win a Super Bowl without any players otherwise stepping up. That's what we're talking about here. Not arbitrary probabilities ignoring the teams that have those players, while we do not.

We'll see to what extent that happens and whether or not it makes up for half of Allen's numbers on the receiving end. It'll be great if it's that simple. Shakir's the one we should have our eyes on. Samuel's a known quantity.

Well, the coverage will be tighter on them, so it remains to be seen how they respond when covered more tightly.

That's not playing to his strength however. That's fine, but are we really getting what Allen's capable of by forcing him into that game-managing role? Is that wise. As to our running game, on 3rd-downs it's pretty much Allen. Cook doesn't get the ball on 3rd-downs. Four times all of last season for Cook, once every four games on average. Allen had 43 3rd-down carries, Murray 20, averaging 2.0, and Harris 7. Allen had more than the rest of the team combined. Without Allen our running game is below average. Without Allen's rushing TD production we'd have ranked tied for DFL. As to those "two high defensive shells," do you see that happening with the current cadre of WRs that we have, namely a lot of deep coverage? Few do. Unless Shakir as a 5th round pick and no longer benefitting off of coverage directed to other WRs given that he's our best WR at the moment, steps up, that's not likely to be the case often. For as shrewd as everyone seems to think that McD is overall, with emphasis offensively here, without a reliable deep threat(s), our running game is going to be pressured more than it ever has.

Anything's possible. Carolina could win the Super Bowl, it's possible. You cavalierly laid it out as if it's quite likely. It's not, not with this coach and roster given what we've seen to date over seven seasons. Could it happen? Sure, but it'd be entirely anomalous. There's no logical basis for it happening. The only people thinking otherwise are a subset of active posters here. All I'm doing is discussing our strengths and weaknesses in light of expectations posed by some. The question is what's likely based upon the evidence that we have before us, which includes trends, patterns, current roster contrasted with past rosters and performance thereunder. It's a somewhat complex analysis, not a Twitter sized assessment. This has been pointed out scores of times here, but absolutely no one but Allen has consistently stepped up in the playoffs and even he's had his gaps. No one. I've repeatedly asked people challenging this to name the players, particularly on D, that have consistently stepped up during the playoffs. There are none. This is particularly true of McD's vaunted top defenses, which everyone that's so optimistic is relying upon for this success as laid out. In the playoffs our top-ranked D has played more like the 25th ranked D and among the worst defense in the playoffs generally speaking. We're statistically at the bottom of defensive playoff performance over the past four seasons in that regard. Holding teams led by Mac Jones and Rudolph Mason down in points, at home, in a rabid playoff environment shouldn't fall under the impressive category from a team perspective. It's expected. Back in the '90s we went to the home playoff games knowing that we were going to win. It wasn't even a thought that we'd lose. Levy took us to the AFC CG in his second season, with Kelly at QB, then to the AFC CG in five of his first seven seasons, and to the SB in four. ... with Kelly and defenses ranked 3rd, 5th, 6th, 14th, and 19th. Not 1st or 2nd even. But we had players step up come playoff time. You simply cannot go into the postseason without some of your players, even backups simply having as string of well-timed great games at least, posting impact play. The teams that advance have those players. Others here have said this repeatedly as well. The teams that win Super Bowls absolutely have them. We don't have them, and now at least everyone's realized it with Diggs, but it's no different elsewhere. And who on our roster right now is that player among skill positions? What, Shakir? Samuel? Cook? Kincaid? It's all on Allen. And now, seemingly, the narrative is that we're taking away his deep-game in favor of what he doesn't do best, namely the short game. We're essentially asking him to become a game-manager. That's ridiculous. So why on earth is all of a sudden the sixth or seventh time going to be the charm for the D, and particularly after we just lost key players in our secondary. There is no logical reason. It could happen, sure. Or with Allen out of his element. It's funny, when I used to point out that Diggs was inconsistent in the playoffs, and typically failed to step up in the playoffs while he was on the team, I was routinely slammed. It didn't matter, he was drawing coverage, etc. I was lectured. Now that he's gone that's the going narrative, that he sucked in the playoffs. LOL Honestly, ... Is it really that difficult to separate ourselves from our fan status to see reality. On top of that, despite Diggs having essentially provided far beyond what any WR to date has provided on McD's team, Bills Mafia slams and hammers him. OK, so it wasn't on the best of terms, but he played his heart out here. We'll see how this season plays out. As I always comment, there's absolutely nothing that's going to change because any of us say or don't say something here. We're stuck with the hand that's dealt us as fans. But it's frustrating to see the team being managed with underwhelming results come playoff time, and now Allen on the cusp of being shoe-horned into a role that is his weakness with his use more aligned with how Baltimore uses Jackson. Apparently all that talk when we drafted him of his big arm and strongest arm in the NFL isn't going to be put to use or matter much. That makes little sense and it shouldn't make any sense to anyone.

Great, let's see how Brady does. Again, the point is that I'm not sure we need Allen to do that when his skillset doesn't match that directly.

Why would we not? LOL Oh, no reasons. And no, you don't need the best roster in the league to win the Super Bowl. If by this, You just need to win 3-4 games in a row at the end of the season, you mean the postseason, yes, that's correct. And that's all, huh. LOL But in 7 seasons with our current head coach, we've strung two wins B2B in the postseason only once, and the first of those games we nearly lost to a notably inferior team with inferior talent and Reich as the head coach. After those two games our coach gave the game away. So yeah, that's all we need to do, but if it were that easy then we wouldn't be having this exchange. Right. I'll put it another way, with one of the most prolific WRs in the game and top defenses, we've failed to do that. Now with a new C/QB pairing, WRs absent a true #1 (pending the draft and then only a rookie) and possibly even a #2 given the takes on Davis, an all but completely new secondary, the expectations are similar? Well, OK. We all have our opinions. As I've expressed to another, I'm envious of people thinking like that. None of the circles that I keep offline are nearly as optimistic. Hell, some think I'm overly optimistic. LOL

LOL, it doesn't matter. Giving credit to Brady and the O for two of those six wins that came at the hands of both rare and unreliable defensive TDs is disingenuous. What, will Brady need a third of his games to have defensive TDs in them to win this season? That's the implication. Also, getting so lucky as to have played the Chargers without Herbert, Allen, and Bosa, ... LOL, imagine if we had to play without Allen, the excuses that would be flying left and right like chips from a woodchipper for our losses. There needs to be some consistency in these discussions. Constantly heralding the unlikely and rare as likelihoods isn't reasonable or honest.

You've mistaken me for someone else there. As to the rest of your post, all I'm doing is positing. Asking the tough questions. We'll see how it plays out. If we don't take a WR in round 1 that puts up like Rasheed Rice did last season, or Nacua, I'll be thoroughly impressed if we do more than narrowly win the division in week 18 or advance past the Wild-Card round. It's pretty unfathomable under any circumstances that we fail to make the playoffs barring Allen getting injured. What's funny and interesting here is that everyone's great and up-and-coming until they're not. Then all hell breaks loose. LOL I was responding to a poster that claimed that Allen ran more under Dorsey. Context

Thanks for a decent response!! It is a somewhat complex analysis to be sure, with a bunch of variables. Here's the thing, that's not Allen's strong suit. Wouldn't it seem logical to play to his strong suit in the interests of getting all that we can from him, instead of trying to turn him into a game-managing ball-control passer? That seems patently illogical. Last season, 9 of Allen's TD passes were 20+ yards. Without looking, and knowing stats from years of analyzing the NFL, I'd venture to say that easily that's more than any QB playing today and likely even way back. 15 of his 29 were 15 yards+. 19 were double-digit TDs. Let's contrast that with Mahomes, considered to be the best in the game today and since Brady. Mahomes had 3 of 27 over 20 and 5 in double-digits. It doesn't add up. Call it The Process or whatever, but things are not aligning with what they've said since they drafted Allen. They drafted him for his athletic ability and ability to make every throw and for his strong arm, right. But you're suggesting that they're now trying to turn him into something contrary to that. Call me crazy, but good coaches take their strength(s) and figure out how to shove them down the opponents' throats. Belichick didn't try to put a cap on Brady, neither is Reid trying to put a cap on Mahomes. But it seems that McD, via Brady now, is trying to do that with Allen. The types of receivers we have, whatever their design by McBeane, are what we have because that's how we've planned. Just as they say your as good as your record says you are, so too, your roster is as good as you've made it. In desperately looking to find some sort of plan or methodology here, all that anyone can offer is to blindly trust The Process, but seemingly not realizing that this Process isn't even identifiable for the most part and has otherwise never been articulated as to what it is. And now on the cusp of us going from one of the league's best passing teams to some version of the Ravens. Allen's better than Jackson, but not if he's not going to be used to his strengths. We seem to be taking a square peg and trying to force it into a round hole.