Rampant Buffalo

For players generally, value is determined by two things. 1) How important are the player's actions to the team's overall success? 2) How scarce is that player's skillset? You look at the yardage the better receivers are putting up, and it's clear they're making a big contribution to their teams' success. But is there the requisite scarcity? If the 100th best receiver is not a big step down from the 10th best, then the abundance of good receiver play would tend to commoditize it, making it less valuable. I'm very far from being convinced that the WR position is going the way of the running back position. But if it is--and that's a big if--it's because an abundance of good receivers is making any individual WR less comparatively valuable, in relation to his peers. You mentioned "yardage collection." That's very well put. We had a yardage collection guy ourselves, in the form of Beasley version 1. Haven't had a guy like that since. I like Shakir, but he's far from Beasley's equal as a route runner or at seeing the soft spots of a defense. If the Bills' experience is in any way typical, yardage collection guy are scarce. Cole Beasley was a rarity, even though he didn't necessarily have elite physical traits. The following is from Sporting News: ************************ Per then-49ers coach Bill Walsh, Rice ran the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds. That was still slower than most receivers — Walsh cited great receivers as having 40 times of 4.4 seconds or better — but as Walsh detailed, Rice's tape revealed that he played faster than he ran. "When you studied the film from Rice's college games, you saw two things different about Rice," Walsh told Rich Karlgaard of Forbes. "One: He could turn on a dime. He could run sideways faster than anyone I'd seen. His maneuverability left defenders wondering what happened. Two: Rice always finished his pass route within one foot of where he needed to be, like he had a GPS in his head. Quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young could count on him." ************************* Below are three examples of good but rare traits a WR could have: 1) Yardage collection, such as Beasley. 2) Elite maneuverability and GPS route running, such as Jerry Rice. 3) Good hands. Compare a reasonably good RB, such as James Cook, to a great RB. Let's say it's first and 10, and James Cook gets 3 yards on the carry. The great RB would have gotten 4 yards. Yeah you'd like to have the extra yard, but the lack of that extra yard doesn't fundamentally alter the drive. Now think about a plausible but flawed WR, and compare him to someone great. In a 3rd and 5 situation, the reasonably good WR doesn't make the catch. Punting unit. Whereas, the great WR makes the catch and moves the chains.

If I was to name the top 15 RB's of all time, O.J.'s name would be on that list. But I've never heard anyone outside a Bills discussion board say that O.J. was better than Jim Brown or Barry Sanders. I personally take no joy in his football accomplishments, because of the double murder.

How could this be? I was told, right here on this board, that the Bills need worse WRs!

Excellent write-up and analysis. I'd like to focus on the above-quoted sentence. I regard football as being, at least in some ways, a numbers game. You could define an elite player as one of the following: Category 1: One of your guys makes plays while using up two of the opponent's players. Bruce Smith getting sacks even though he's being double teamed. Jerry Rice catching passes even though two guys are covering him. Category 2: A player who cancels out a category 1 player. Tony Boselli getting the better of Bruce Smith, while blocking him one-on-one. Deon Sanders covering Jerry Rice one-on-one, and keeping him under control. Category 3: A player who is elite, without playing a position which lends itself to the previous two categories. An elite QB, for example. If a WR is making plays even though he's double covered, that means he's elite (category 1). That's why 3 WRs were taken in the top 10 of this draft, and why top receivers make north of $25 million per year.

I'm glad you watched the video. If you had to form an impression of Coleman, based solely off of what you saw in that video, what would that impression be?

In order to settle this, I found a couple links. The first is to Ted Washington's career stats. The second is to Pat Williams' career stats. Neither of these links give what we want most: the percentage of snaps each player played. But they provide a good consolation prize: the number of total tackles. Without better data, total tackles will have to serve as a reasonably good, but imperfect, proxy for time spent on the field. In 1997, Washington had 80 total tackles. Williams didn't play. 1998: 49 total tackles for Washington. 12 for Williams. 1999: 45 total tackles for Washington, 32 for Williams. 2000: 58 total tackles for Washington, 55 for Williams. In 1997, Washington seems to have taken all the snaps. It was an 80/20 split in 1998, and 60/40 in 1999. It was close to a 50/50 split in 2000. The article I read about Washington taking a little over half the snaps was likely written in 1999 or 2000.

Your post just before the one I'm quoting was 11 paragraphs long. 😉 As far as what you posted, I'd categorize it as, accusations too vague to refute. For example, you've accused PBF81 of being biased, and of allowing that bias to influence his interpretation of stats. Maybe he's guilty of that, maybe he's not. If he is, perhaps you could provide one or two examples in which the data led in one direction, and PBF81's analysis led in a different direction due to bias. Something like that would do more to move the discussion forward, than would taking him down a notch type posts when you're not providing data with which to validate your conclusion. This is a pet peeve of mine, but the word data is always plural. The singular of data is datum. At the end of the day, I suggest you watch the 22 minute video PBF81 posted earlier: the one showing each of Coleman's targets for the 2023 season. At least for me, what my eyes told me as I watched that video was far more convincing than a typical statistical analysis would have been. Why am I not convinced by the usual type of statistical analysis? Coleman's QB threw an above-average share of passes which were inaccurate but still "catchable." That's going to make his WRs look worse, statistically, than would have been the case if they'd had Joe Montana throwing to them. A very good statistical analysis would prevent WRs from looking better or worse than they should, based on the merits or demerits of their QBs. But a more typical statistical analysis would give WRs credit or blame for factors outside their control, such as the quality of QB play. You obviously feel PB81's statistical analyses are lacking, which is all the more reason for you to do your own eyeball test of Coleman's play.

Back in the '90s, I remember reading an article about how it was just north of 50%. Perhaps my recollection of the article is mistaken. Maybe the author of the article was wrong. Or perhaps you are incorrect. Only way to be sure is to find some kind of link. I put a little time into that, but to no avail.

That is not my recollection. IIRC, Ted Washington played slightly more than half the snaps. Pat Williams played the other half. The only time Washington and Williams were on the field together was for "The Package." That formation was used only rarely.

He'll also drop some passes to hurt the team.

Back in the '90s, the Bills had Ted Washington, NT. He did an outstanding job. He'd consume two blockers. Also, if you looked at his stats, you could see the guy was making a lot of plays! Great guy to have. But that came at a cost. The cost was that for him to play at such a high level, he could only play in about half the defensive snaps. He could have played more snaps than that--but not at that level. Same concept applies to pretty much any defensive lineman.

In fairness . . . I was in the middle of describing a logical fallacy when I made that statement. 🙂

If someone is overly negative in their take of the team, there can be pushback. Sometimes that pushback involves strong feelings or personal attacks. Why is this? My personal theory is that the following is true. 1) A lot of people here have a strong emotional investment in this team. No newsflash there. 2) There is a logical fallacy which it's surprisingly easy to fall into. That fallacy is as follows. If the vast majority of people here agree on something, it's likely to be true. If someone came into this board believing something, and learned that just about everyone here believed the opposite, it's likely that person would change his or her belief. More simply: what people on this board think = reality, or at least that's how things can sometimes seem. So when you have a person posting a pessimistic perspective, sometimes it can feel as though this person is actually creating a negative reality. It's irrational when you put it into words like that, but on a gut level that's how a lot of people are going to feel. If someone starts feeling emotional about something posted about the team, I would suggest remembering the following examples. The first is Mike Williams, an OT the Bills drafted fourth overall. The vast majority of people here were excited about the pick. Williams turned out to be a bust. The other example is also a lineman named Williams. Kyle Williams, DT. When the Bills drafted him in the 5th round, few here were excited about him. He went on to become the best draft pick of the playoff drought, and his career was almost good enough to deserve Hall of Fame induction. The consensus of this board didn't create a positive reality for Mike Williams. Nor did it create a negative reality for Kyle Williams.

Stuff like that happened more often before we got Josh Allen.

Super Mario Cart was a racing game from back in the '90s. In that game, you got to choose your character. Each one had different strengths and weaknesses. Toad, for example, had good acceleration and good cornering, but a relatively low top speed. Then there was Bowser. Physically large. High top speed. But, poor acceleration, and poor cornering. Justin Shorter = Bowser. Large size, high top speed, poor acceleration, poor cornering.

Because that would make them sound too much like the Chiefs.

I only watched it once, and it sounds like my numbers were a little bit off. Like you, I noticed a lot of completions on short passes. Passes which would be very easy for a normal person to catch. I noticed those passes more later in the video than I did early on. Sometimes, if an OC is having trouble generating production for a particular WR through the normal method, he can resort to stuff like that as a way of getting the ball in the WR's hands. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but it is a possibility. The primary effect of me watching that video was to significantly lower my expectations of Coleman. Is that a good thing? If Coleman goes on to become a quality starter for the Bills, we'll all be happy. Sometimes, the check in the mailbox that you weren't expecting makes you happier than the check you knew was coming. If on the other hand Coleman is destined to be the next James Hardy, perhaps it's best to get my disappointment out of the way now instead of later. The counterargument to that is: life is short. If, for a time, you can make it just a bit more pleasant with high hopes for Coleman, why take that away? I don't know if Coleman will be good or bad, and I don't know if it makes sense to have high expectations of him or low. All I know is I was unimpressed with what I saw in the video.

Okay, that was depressing. I just finished watching the video and reading the article. First, the numbers. I counted 94 targets for Coleman, with 58 catches. A 62% catch rate. Also four drops, and one fumble after the catch. Coleman's non-catches were usually because of a defender being right there, breaking up the pass. Also Coleman's QB, Travis, threw a decent share of inaccurate passes. If a pass was far from Coleman, I didn't count it against his targets. From the article: "[Coleman] caught only 22.7% of his contested targets in 2023." That was consistent with my subjective impression. There were times when Coleman made impressive contested catches. But far more often, when a defender was right there with Coleman, that defender was able to use his athleticism to break up the pass. After watching a player, you get a subjective feel for him. This is purely my opinion, but my feel for Coleman was that there was nothing special there. Let's say you're using a scale from 1 - 10. If a guy is special as a college player, you label him a 9 or a 10. If he's a JAG, maybe you label him a 3. On a scale like that, I'd put Coleman at about a 5. A step up from a JAG, to where you'd say he was better than average for a college WR. But just watching him, it's not as though I ever thought, this guy's star shines so brightly, he's clearly got a great career waiting for him at the next level. By no means am I writing Coleman off. If he improves, particularly with his route running, he could be a solid player for the Bills. That being said . . . if we had to do that draft over again, and if I was the one making the call, I'd take Ladd McConkey. 3 catches on 8 targets, for 21 yards, means someone messed up. That's 2.6 yards per pass attempt: a truly abysmal result. If you see a number like that, sometimes the culprit is the QB, for throwing inaccurate passes. Other times it's the WR, for not catching passes he should have caught. But I don't know how the culprit could be the offensive coordinator. If Diggs is lined up in the backfield or running sweeps, that shouldn't push his catch percentage below 50%, right? You reach a point where the QB throws the ball, and the WR catches it. Or doesn't catch it, in the particular case of Diggs.

Come again? I was unaware that there had been any discussion of the WR position, on this particular forum! 😮

No WR can control the number of targets he gets. But he can control his catch %, at least up to a point. I suspect Diggs may have experienced a decrease in his catch % as the season progressed. What I do know for sure is that in the playoff loss, Diggs had 3 catches on 8 targets, for 21 yards. Clearly, the reason for the low production in that game was the low catch %, rather than any lack of targets. While Allen is a great QB, he sometimes overthrows or underthrows deep passes. But that weakness of Allen's is not new, and shouldn't cause a change in Diggs' stats. That's a fair point, and is a legitimate knock against Brady. Agreed. It is frustrating, when coaches don't appear to see things that are glaringly obvious. It sounds like your analysis of Coleman was far more in-depth than what I've done. Your more pessimistic view of him could well be correct. My guy was Ladd McConkey, and I was sad when the Bills didn't take him at 33. One thing I will say in Samuel's defense. He didn't exactly have All World QB play, so that's going to push down his completion % through no fault of his own.

I think there's plenty of blame to go around for that. I start with Diggs. He played well in September and October, but his play significantly declined as the season progressed. That's something largely outside of Joe Brady's control, which is going to make him look bad through no fault of his own. Also, Brady was using someone else's playbook. That said . . . I think there was an opportunity for Brady to do a better job than what we saw. If your #1 WR is no longer catching the ball, then maybe focus more on the guys who were catching it, such as Kincaid and Shakir. But that wasn't what happened. You look at the Dallas game. The Cowboys defense was selling out against the pass, while daring the Bills to beat them with the run. You run it all day long against a defense like that. Which is what Brady did. Fine. He did the right thing. But then in subsequent games, he went run heavy when there was no particular reason to do so. It's one thing to run the ball all day when your running game is lighting it up, as it did against Dallas. It's another thing to run the ball all day when your running game looks like James Cook up the middle for a 2 yard gain. I'm not writing Brady off, but I'm not sold on him either. With an offseason to prepare, with more reliable pass catchers for our WR corps, and with the chance to create his own playbook, hopefully we see a little more creativity from him this season.

This past season, the Bills had two defensive coordinators. The really good defensive coordinator was named Sean McDermott. The terrible defensive coordinator was also named Sean McDermott. The really good defensive coordinator called the plays for the first half of the Eagles game. He did a great job, and the Eagles had only scored 3 points going into halftime. But in the third quarter, the terrible defensive coordinator took over. He knew exactly what he needed to do. Soft zone defense. He had the brilliant idea of simply allowing the Eagles to complete 8 - 12 yard passes. Easy throws, easy catches. The defense simply allowed that, passively. After the game, one of the Eagles players said that when he saw how the Bills defenders were lined up, he knew his team would score a touchdown. I was hoping that after Frazier took his year off, the soft zone/prevent defense would die a much needed death. But no. In the first half of the Eagles game, we saw the defensive coordinator that Andy Reid had hoped he was hiring. In the second half, we saw the defensive coordinator Andy Reid fired. In the playoff game against the Ravens, the Bills got the good version of their own defensive coaching staff. In the playoff games against the Chiefs and Bengals, they've generally gotten the terrible version. The terrible version generates two stops per game max. That's one third the effectiveness of defenses of the Steelers, Bengals, or 49ers in their postseason games against the Chiefs. If the Bills defense is only doing one third or less of what others are doing, that isn't much of a chance for the team to win.

Is it factually accurate? Yes. It is accurate to say that there is a limit to the number of years Allen has left. We don't know what that limit is. Andrew Luck is an example of a franchise QB who retired early and had a short career. Tom Brady is an example of arguably the best QB ever, who had a very long career. Even if you want to go full bore optimist, and make the argument Allen's career will be as long as Brady's, that's still an upper limit on the number of years Josh has left. As for "hysteria" about Josh's window: there hasn't been any in this thread. Maybe there's been some elsewhere? As for the impact of a holder, I agree with you.

Good. One box checked. All he needs to do to make the final roster is 1) Convince McDermott he trusts the process, and 2) Spend some quality time as a member of the Carolina Panthers.

One way I look at the performance of a defense is by the number of stops it generates over the course of a game. (With a stop defined as a punt or a turnover.) Look at what happened during the year of 13 seconds. The Chiefs' first playoff game was against the Steelers. The Steelers defense forced six defensive stops. Their next game was against the Bills. The Bills defense forced two stops: one in the first half, the other in the second. Their third playoff game was against the Bengals. The Bengals defense forced six stops, including a stop in overtime. (The Bills defense was also given a chance to generate a stop in overtime, but we all know how that went.) All this happened when the Chiefs still had Tyreek Hill. Joe Burrow and the Bengals were barely good enough to get the win against the Chiefs, with those six defensive stops. Josh Allen's defense gave him only two stops--one third of what Burrow received. With those two stops, Allen took his team to within 13 seconds of winning. Under McDermott, the Bills defense has never generated more than two defensive stops, in a playoff game against the Chiefs or the Bengals. In the most recent Super Bowl, the 49ers defense forced seven stops against the Chiefs. That's 3.5 times better than McDermott's best. After the McDermott/Frazier soft zone/prevent defense inevitably collapses against the Chiefs in the playoffs, do you know what we hear? We hear a song and dance about how Allen will never win a postseason game against Mahomes. We hear that Mahomes is better, which is why he always wins. Nothing at all is said about the fact that Josh Allen's defense is only 1/3 as effective as the other postseason defenses Mahomes often faces.