BillsVet

Gotta love this board. Latest narrative is now in place...that they had so much roster turnover in the off-season that this start is even more amazing. I can see that line getting used if there's a downturn. And then there's the old stand-by of injuries. From 2020-2022 they lost almost no significant starters beside Tre (later 2021), Hyde (2022) and Miller (later 2022). No one on offense of note was hurt last year, but you wouldn't know it because when a starter goes down you can set your clock to someone bemoaning injuries and citing it for poor play. As if one guy getting hurt (other than Josh) long-term is enough. In other words, if they play well it's incredible because of roster turnover and injuries. But if they don't, well, they had to deal with roster turnover and injuries. Tails I win. Heads you lose.

Made me think of this: "For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes, his children, robed in white stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning that all glory is fleeting." Patton (1970)

Offense is better schemed for the philosophy they developed this off-season post Diggs. Off the top of my head, there are plays the stand out, notably the Cook TD catch early against Miami. And they are attacking weaknesses...as in not throwing against Miami's corners and focusing on their safeties while running it on their front 7. Or, going against Jags' M2M looks and beating that. That's good stuff there. The Bills offense previously was focused on their top receiver, but they had little behind him. Those determining that style was wrong are premature though. Diggs got production for 4 season being the focal point without much receiving support. I wouldn't characterize the WR's as they "suck" either. They're just not downfield options, as evidenced by the 11.7 yards per catch. Now to find out whether this style is sustainable...and no one knows, but I expect safeties will eventually move up to play the run better and because their deep game (longest pass is 33 yards to Ty Johnson) is not there. Perhaps by design. I'm interested in how they respond as the season goes offensively, particularly if they don't get the big early lead like they did against Miami and Jacksonville.

I don't play fantasy football...so not sure what point you're trying to make. But let's talk about the numbers on the scoreboard and in the standings. These are the last 3 seasons' starts: 2021: 4-1 and +108 point differential / then 7-5 and +86 to finish 11-6 2022: 5-1 and +95 / then 8-2 and +74 to finish 13-3 2023: 3-1 and +84 / then 8-5 and +56 to finish 11-6 Absolutely hilarious you're claiming to take a wait and see approach, yet haranguing anyone and everyone who espouses a different viewpoint about what they did with the WR room. All anyone can take away right now is the the new-look ensemble offense has been good against 3 teams that are 2-4 against teams not the Bills and 2-7 overall.

Funny seeing people pound their chests 3 weeks into the season about the ensemble WR approach definitively being the right call. Especially because those WR's in 3 games have produced 30 catches for 350 yards (11.7 avg) 4 TDs, a long of 28 yards and only Shakir is over 50 yards per game receiving (56). Hardly the objective evidence that something is definitively working. Solid beat downs are great, but the personalities here ripping people's off-season opinions after 3 games....

When does someone here or on, say ESPN, start doing at 2024 re-draft? After all, we have so much data now gleaned from this huge sample size of 3 games.

WR isn't a priority to them as proven this off-season and in 2021-23. Lot of 1 year deal end of career types or late round picks...until they traded down twice to "nab" Keon Coleman. Always funny to me why, in 2019-20, they were focused on finding quality WR's to see if Josh was the real deal...then decided from 2021-2023 they didn't need to keep developing the position. Ironic about the defense...only Tre, Hyde, and Von Miller were lost for serious time from 2020-22 (aside from Star taking a "Covid" year in 2020). People think it's the norm to remain that healthy and it's not. They were extremely fortunate.

Buffalo's offense in points per drive: 2017: 1.57 2018: 1.39 2019: 1.63 2020: 2.80 2021: 2.56 2022: 2.52 2023: 2.37 (Dorsey - 2.45 / Brady 2.27 - regular season / reg. season and playoffs - 2.40) 2024: 2.90

Yeah...last year at a surface level it was obvious in the 9 games Brady took over that the passing game had declined and rushing game had improved...in terms of total yards. But that's obviously not a barometer to measure the offense in sum. I don't have the time to look up all these other metrics, but I would expect the rush yards per attempt (minus Josh), the YPA, and points per drive were lower. But that's not as big an issue (yet) because the defensive plan against Miami worked pretty close I'm sure to what they needed and the offense got their production from Josh versus AZ. Next tier stuff is what Warren Sharp put out yesterday...how predictable the offense has been in normal situations. I wasn't really surprised that, by their definition (whatever that is) that Buffalo was the most predictable team running it in the NFL while under center. There will be more data points to draw more of a conclusion of whether complementary football as McD/Brady/et al. desire is as much a net positive...or negative.

Stats don't always tell the story and, in this debate about the run-pass ratio, current NFL trends, etc. their wins have become closer games. Under Daboll Buffalo won 20 of their 24 regular season games by 8 or more points. With Brady, 9 of their 18 games during his tenure were by the same margin. Buffalo's 8 wins under Brady (and the sample size is small) 3 were by 8 or more points. No one stat proves right or wrong. Strength of schedule factors into this, but I'm interested to see whether the trend continues of closer margin wins.

Mahomes through 2 games has an 8.3 ypa this season. That's in-line with previous seasons save for 2023 And one thing I've learned here is you can draw conclusions after 2 games.

Jauron had an inordinate say into that roster, so he deserves more than his share of blame for those teams. Of course, it didn't help that those late RW years were notoriously cheap and solid players were replaced with high draft picks. Agree on the skilled personnel deficit on offense...which is now being built against Josh's strengths. This is what you want to believe. For example in 2022 according to Warren Sharp's analysis, Josh was t-12th in completion percentage of passes over 20 yards at 38%. Mahomes was 10th at 41% with Geno Smith leading the league at 49%. I'd say his accuracy is underrated and yet, still developing. Brady had better offensive weapons, especially after '07 with Moss, Welker, then Gronkowski, et al. which made throwing short to intermediate passes a whole different advantage. It's why I get tired of seeing posters who sympathize with McD's emphasis on a more risk-averse strategy. Yeah, throwing the ball downfield is more risky than say running it 50-55% and throwing short more. But it makes you predictable and defenses adapt.

I think far too often posters are talking past each other because we have different perspectives. I've noticed a penchant for people to review what's happened and use that as evidence things will be as good or better. That's not necessarily my approach. Not saying you're only that either Alpha. I see others who review games with the added focus on trying to anticipate what's coming. One way I look at a team is their talent...and that's what prompted a 100+ page thread about the WR room which discussed this ad infinitum. My anticipation is...I'm primarily concerned about the boundary WR talent because it'll likely become a focal point of the offense. And that is because I anticipate that teams will work to take the run away. They'd be less likely to do so if there was a dynamic passing offense that stretched the field. Yet, their primary receivers who would be running deeper patterns, i.e. intermediate or beyond, at this moment (and the latter in their careers) (EDIT: do not) represent the type of threat to make a defense think twice. Scheme only gets you so far...and eventually you gotta win 1 v 1 battles. That's the challenge when the scheme isn't so fresh to opponents. The offense will be tested and we're going to find out if their offensive philosophy within the complementary football approach is sustainable. I don't believe it is.

They had Diggs in '21 and '22, yet fell into deep slumps both seasons, particularly on offense. What I love about TSW is people who go from...here is the problem...to the cause almost within a few seconds. And then those providing some detail in perhaps historical perspective or decent statistical analysisl to illustrate it ain't that simple...get responses like yours here. Just surface level / knee jerk / narrative / bullet point conclusions. But it's a long season...and fast starts aren't always a harbinger of things to come.

Worth noting that the last 3 seasons Buffalo has started off hot...4-1 in 2021, 5-1 in 2022, and 3-1 last year highlighted by the 48-20 romp vs. Miami. In each of those starts they were good scoring (over or near 30 points per game). Then came the mid-season 8 game swoon where suddenly what was working isn't anymore. And each season to overcome that, they needed Josh carrying the ball even though it was a priority at the start of the season for him not to. That's the script 3 years running and there's a likelihood it repeats itself this year except this year, there's no Diggs to catch passes.

Yeah, but are they using just stats or another criteria for these grades?

Diggs is gone and entertaining otherwise hypothetical situations is not worth the time. I think they only wanted a bigger catch radius guy like Coleman because they also passed on some other smaller to average size WRs. But it's also a reactive response to last season's offense...although Coleman isn't close to being a bonafide starter, and as others like @Kirby Jackson have mentioned, they needed more from a 33rd overall pick. They needed a starter and looks like he has a longer runway than Rashee Rice had last season, who seems like a top-end NFL WR beginning mid-2023 and continuing last night.

It isn't so much that Buffalo missed on Worthy...it's that they weren't in a place to take him schematically. Bills have gone from wanting smaller, shiftier type separation receivers to back to wanting catch radius guys. And that's fine, but as KC has proven...you need both to be an explosive offense. KC OTOH has size drafting Rice last year, has Kelce, and then they add Worthy, who has to be used appropriately given his size...but the speed is there.

It's funny because the McD passing on Mahomes thing has quieted down a lot. And now there's Beane being so...Billsy with the WR decisions.

Keep falling back on the hyperbolic....which further confirms you lack the ability to make a coherent argument.

I am concerned with their ability to identify and draft offensive skilled talent, particularly as compared to defensive. They've found some good starters in the latter, but the former has not been good save for Josh. They haven't developed a top end WR or TE from 2017-2022. Maybe Kincaid is that guy, but the WR group doesn't reflect anyone unless Keon earns the comparisons to perhaps Davante Adams. They really gotta up that part of the game because shelling out big bucks on UFA WR's isn't a long term solution. Might produce immediate results but means taking on a big cap hit and/or a contract extension as with Diggs.

If you believe WR's are interchangeable...well there's a bridge in Brooklyn for for sale that you might be interested in.

It's clear.at this moment you are absolutely confident in Curtis Samuel, Khalil Shakir, Mack Hollins, MVS, and Keon Coleman as a WR group. And that an ensemble cast of them with Kincaid and Knox is not only sufficient...but better than people realize. Most are not and I'll file this post away for the regular season when it becomes (once again) abundantly clear that they are, collectively, a bottom of the barrel group and Josh Allen can't change that. And Josh is excellent. They are if they're all slot-receivers. And it's looking like Samuel, Shakir, Coleman (if used correctly) are slot-receivers. The others - Hollins and MVS - are not.

Hollins...didn't get 2.25M to be a blocker. And he's listed at the top of their depth chart so he'll likely get significant PT. Does it really need to be said that in a post-1960 NFL, your WR2 has to be something of a threat beyond 1.7 catches and 21 yards per game over his last 4 seasons? He's a strong candidate for 2024's version of Harty and Sherfield...on the cheap WR's who won't help Josh much. And a lot of solid TSW posters have observed what I'm saying: that Mack Hollins and MVS are nowhere near the caliber of starting NFL receivers anymore. They shouldn't even be primary depth and especially not when Josh Allen is your QB.

Don't make assumptions. Do you quantify that based on the 105 catches he has for 1,340 yards and 9 TDs...over his last 63 games (4 seasons) played or on a different measurement scale? Because Davis had 163 catches for 2,730 yards and 27 TDs...over his last 64 games (4 seasons). And it was pretty clear he wasn't up to par for a NFL WR2 even with Josh. Cannot be serious comparing the Chiefs WR group in 2022-23 to Buffalo's this year. Absolute non-serious take. They had future HOF'er Travis Kelce both seasons, and solid production first from JuJu S-S and then Rashee Rice who both exceeded 900 yards. @BADOLBILZmakes mention of this and people skate by it like it's nothing. The Bills have a WR2/3 in Samuel, then a bunch of cast-offs (Hollins, MVS) combined with the as-advertised rookie Coleman and another slot-receiver in Shakir who is likely to be a slot-only guy. There's Kincaid who averaged 9 yards per catch and the hands-challenged Knox. That's the group. Little proven veteran depth and rookies people assume will just step right in seamlessly. The biggest challenge on this board is people the lack of a global, i.e. NFL-wide view of how the league acts. Even if you include Diggs, they've spent 3 top-100 picks in 8 off-seasons on WR's...a position where 2 and often 3 will line up. They haven't signed a decent UFA WR since Brown and Beasley 5 off-seasons ago. Do yourself a favor and see how other teams have addressed WR and compare Buffalo. I am absolutely positive you'll see there's a serious drop-off in using premium assets at the position.