Cash

From an analystics perspective, the bolded is reason for optimism for 2022. Most teams average out at roughly 50/50 in one-score games over time. Regression to the mean would suggest we're more likely to be something like 3-3 in one score games this year - or 5-3, or 2-4, or 4-3, or whatever. Point is, it's unlikely we'd go winless 2 years in a row.

Yeah, I agree with Logic that the idea doesn't sound terrible at first glance - or at least it seems like there are some positives there. But there would probably be some SERIOUS unintended consequences. As JoPoy points out, the QB and probably 3-5 members of the O-line would likely be a package deal, depending on the team. Even if that's the only starters sitting, the game in question becomes a rip-off for the fans. National TV games would still have all the stars playing for sure. (Whether officially or unofficially, the NFL would make sure of that.) So if you buy a ticket to a non-national game, that means you have a very realistic chance of not seeing either your teams' stars or the opponent's stars. Would people keep going to those games? Probably yes, at least in the short term. Would they still feel like an Event, the way games do now? I think probably not. I think the "play 16 out of 18 games" proposal would be fun for like 3 years while coaches figured out how to handle it, but once it got solved, the solution would ultimately be a worse product than what we have now.

Those were mostly routine plays for Mahomes and pretty sustainable IMO. One guy flushing Mahomes out of the pocket doesn’t do much if Mahomes has room to run. He’ll either turn the corner, pick up an easy first, and go OB without taking a hit; or he’ll reset and hit the open man in the scrabble [EDIT:scramble] drill. He can do both of those all day.

FWIW, I was Team Flutie all the way at the time, and to some extent I still am. But I have no hate for “Hot Tub Rob” - just sympathy. We both would’ve been happier if he had been better! And it’s because of him that I first started learning how big an effect the QB can have on how the O-line looks. I’ll admit I didn’t like RJ from the start and was biased against him. But he never showed me anything to change my opinion. Great at hitting open WRs when he has time to let them shake their man, and pretty good on the move, and that’s about it. And on top of that, he couldn’t stay on the field. Not entirely his fault - sure he took a lot of hits from holding on to the ball too long, but he also seemed to be impacted by the hits more than most QBs. Even if he’d cleaned up his pocket awareness, I doubt he would’ve had a long career. By the way, I was EVEN MORE biased against Josh Allen when we drafted him - I had bought the analytics arguments without ever pressure testing them, and I still have no idea how to translate his Wyoming tape to the NFL. (I haven’t watched college football in years.) But he had mostly changed my mind by the end of his rookie season. Going into year 2, I was “interested to see how he looks this year.” Going into year 3, I was “optimistic.” (Still cautiously though, because I’ll always brace for failure unless/until we win the Super Bowl.) Going into year 4, I was no longer optimistic; I was all but certain that Allen is the real deal. Going into year 5, I’m fully certain that he’s the real deal. His prime won’t last forever, but it’s here now and I’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Agreed. [EDIT: Except for the last paragraph.] I’ve aged out of their top demographic (males age 18-36), so they probably don’t care much about my opinion. But FWIW, I haven’t gotten ESPN for years and I don’t miss it. What would cause me to miss it? Exactly 2 things: 1.) Live sports 2.) Well-produced, curated highlights “#2 is stupid. You can see all the highlights on Twitter.” That’s wrong, Argumentative Guy I Made Up. Yes I can find highlights of individual plays on the internet. And for NFL specifically, nfl.com’s highlight packages the next day are pretty good! (I mean the ones that are clips from the broadcast.) But even those don’t really tell me the story of the game. Back when I regularly watched NFL Primetime, Inside the NFL, and Sportcenter, it seemed like the point of the highlights was twofold. Show all of the coolest or craziest plays in a game, and recap the game for those who missed it. There was a narrative to the highlight reel, and that’s missing these days.

Already taken by Greg Zeuerlein. I’m with others on this thread in thinking Punt God is a terrible nickname. It’s basically a pun off a pun, which I hate. And it’s completely unearned in the NFL. I don’t have any better suggestions at this time, mostly because he hasn’t played in an NFL game yet or even made the team. But I won’t be referring to Araiza as anything other than his name for now.

I remember loving that trade down. But I also wanted them to trade down again. EJ was my guy that year (meh), but he obviously wasn’t a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination. I thought we could’ve dropped into the mid 20s and still had our pick of QBs pretty safely.

It would depend on the team, I'm sure. If he was on the Patriots, Dolphins, Cowboys, Steelers, Titans, or another team I don't like, I'm sure I would hate him and delight every time he failed. If it was a team I'm more neutral or positive on, I think I'd probably like him. Most neutral fans seem to agree that he's objectively fun to watch. More importantly, I'm not worried about it. Sports are supposed to be fun. It's really fun to watch and root for Allen! And it's also fun to watch and root against the players on opposing teams. I "hate" Tom Brady probably more than any other NFL player in history, but most of it is just for entertainment's sake. (The part where he's selling snake oil, and people are gushing over his "agelessness" while ignoring the PEDs in the room? Those are fairly real. But strictly on-field, it's really fun to watch him fail, and I get annoyed because he doesn't fail often enough for my liking.)

Why do I need to prove that someone’s ahead of Crowder? You seemed certain that Crowder was top-3, and I asked where that came from. Apparently nowhere? And FWIW, McKenzie is on a 2 year deal, which astute observers will note is 1 year longer than Crowder’s. That’s not much to be sure, but I don’t see why we should consider Crowder a top 3 lock before training camp even starts.

What are you basing that on? I'm not aware of any public statements by the Bills that would suggest that, but there's plenty I'm not aware of. FWIW, Crowder is on a 1 year deal worth just under $2 million total, with a $750k signing bonus. That doesn't exactly scream "roster lock" to me. Side note: You realize you're technically agreeing with me, right? We both think Crowder will make the team unless he's lost a step.

I think there’s a fairly realistic scenario where Crowder gets cut. If it’s clear to the coaches that he’s lost a step, AND Shakir looks good enough to play the slot right away, I could see Crowder not making the team. McKenzie will be in the mix regardless, but I get the impression the Bills don’t think he can hold up to full-time work over the course of a full season. I wouldn’t bet on Crowder being cut at even money, but I would think about it at 10:1.

Agreed - this is a marginal difference to be sure. I'm just thinking like a 4th down with something like 4 to 10 yards to go. If we had Jordan Stout, maybe McD thinks we can pin them inside the 5 and goes conservative. One additional thought: I know some of the HATERZ have criticized Araiza's kicks for being too much the line drive variety. That's probably a legitimate criticism. But on the plus side, a line drive typically cuts through the wind better than a moonshot. And we all know what a challenge the wind in Orchard Park can be. Haack in particular seemed to really struggle. Seems like there were at least half a dozen punts last year that looked good off his foot, but then just hung up in the air and went nowhere.

I don't, sorry. Just know it offhand because Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic mentioned it a bunch of times in his draft coverage. I think he said the Dolphins were first at something like 43-46% and the Bills were 8th at around 34%. I agree with your guess - it's hard to imagine they started playing man-to-man more frequently without Tre.

Bills were 8th highest in % of man coverage last year.

I think the Bills probably had Araiza no higher than 2nd on their Punter Big Board. (Which I'll assume is an actual physical board at 1BD until proven otherwise.) The guy the Ravens drafted has almost as big of a leg as Araiza, but looks to be much better at hangtime and directional kicking. Fair enough. But there's two plusses for Araiza from my perspective: 1.) By the time we get to midfield, we should be going for it on 4th down anyway. So having a punter who's a little shaky at the coffin corner will only encourage McDermott to trust the offense. This is a good thing. 2.) As The Dean mentioned, he likes to hit! I don't think him making tackles is particularly going to help our punt coverage, but our team thrives on emotion. Araiza making a big hit on a punt (or kickoff) could be the type of thing that gets the defense fired up, and they usually play better when they're fired up.

Totally agree with this. I’ve never been afraid of undersized LBs - Mike Singletary, Sam Mills, Zach Thomas, London Fletcher, etc. I think the key is having the right DL to keep the OL off of the linebackers. (And I think that’s key regardless of the size of the LB.) Hopefully the Bills have that DL now. I thought they did last year, but once Star went out they really took a step back, and he wasn’t the same after he came back.

Agreed. But I’m also of the opinion that McKenzie can play outside (he’s done it some for us), and that McK would start over Kumerow if Diggs or Davis went down. Possibly Crowder as well, but I’ll admit that’s a pure guess on my part.

Now I like the pick, haha. Or at least don’t hate it. I thought it was interesting that all the scouting reports raves about his foot speed when he tested that badly, so I’m not shocked that he was able to test better.

Love this pick - big time athlete for special teams. If the coaches can teach him to play LB (or maybe even S), that’s a bonus!

This is the only pick I can’t talk myself into. On paper, doesn’t look good. Too tall to play G or C, terrible RAS, short arms for a tackle, especially considering his height. I guess my hope is that he’s terrible at the technique of combine drills, so his RAS isn’t representative of his on-field athleticism. Whatever, I don’t love it but not gonna be bothered by a sixth round pick.

Stevenson: Legit NFL acceleration, top speed, and ability to cut at speed. Everything else, I don’t have enough info to evaluate. The Bills’ WR coach and OC and HC hopefully do, though. How did he do last year in practice at picking up route running? Learning the playbook? Accepting feedback from coaches when he makes a mistake, and working on improving? When they do film study, does he pay attention? Further, does he actually get what they’re showing him, or do his eyes kind of glaze over? Etc, etc. That’s the kind of stuff that makes the difference between a guy who develops vs a guy who never improves beyond his rookie year. I have zero visibility to any of it, so it could be amazing, terrible, or anywhere in between. If it’s decent or better, I have confidence in this coaching staff to get real improvements out of him. If not, well those are the breaks. Hodgins: Everything above applies to him as well, with the difference that his positives are size and contested catch ability. I fully expect him to be cut this year, because I tend to think if he had something, he would’ve shown it by now, and at least earned some public praise from McD or Daboll. But since Hodgins is such an unknown, there’s still a reasonable chance that he’s just had bad injury luck, combo’d with better players above him on the depth chart and not being on ST. As an outsider, I put that chance at like 10%. But the Bills should have a much better read on it - they probably think it’s either 0.1% or >50% with the info they have. Hodgins is probably more of a known quantity for the Bills than Stevenson, because they have a much better idea about how Hodgins handles the off-season. Anyway, I’m not counting on anything from either of those guys. But as long as the Bills don’t acquire anyone new, I’ll hold out hope that the Bills think either (or both!) can succeed if given the opportunity.

Acceleration, top end speed, ability to cut at speed. These are all very desirable traits that are hard to find in the NFL, and very hard to improve. And yes, he made some dumb rookie mistakes. No *****. At the speed of the NFL game, decisions have to be made on an instinctual basis. Being a half-second late on a cut can make a huge difference. Plus, most rookies take some time to adjust to the level of competition. The stuff that used to work for them stops working, and they have to both get better and adjust. And guess what? That’s where the coaching staff can help! Do you even Growth Mindset, bro?

Good post and well-written, even though I don’t really agree. I’ll respond point by point: 1. You have a point, but it think you go too far. By this logic, Tom Brady in the 4th would’ve been a bad pick. That’s obviously nonsensical, so therefore there’s an issue with the logic. The fact is, it’s unknowable where Bernard would’ve gone if the Bills didn’t pick him. The Bills clearly disagreed with the consensus. If they were the ONLY team to disagree, then it was indeed a bad value pick. But if even one other team also disagreed, it might’ve been the only spot they could get Bernard. Now, they still need him to pan out for it to be a good pick. 2. I mostly agree here, except that I think LB depth is about equally important. We had basically nothing behind our 2 starters prior to last night. 3. I think you were just mad at this point, because “go draft another Milano in the 5th” is basically saying, “Hey, you won the lottery a couple years ago - why not just win it again?” I’m guessing they think the dropoff at LB was pretty steep after Bernard, but the dropoff is pretty shallow at other needed positions. Maybe they can get a G/C in the 5th who’s almost as good as Parham, but Bernard was the last LB in the draft that they thought could step in and start if Edmunds or Milano got hurt? Beane said that Bernard could play both spots and would bounce around. Go Bills!

Yeah, the two wildcards that none of us have any clue about are Stevenson and Hodgins. Hodgins has played so little, he plausibly might be one of the first cuts in training camp, or easily could wind up the top backup outside. I loved Stevenson coming out of the draft last year, and thought he showed a lot of promise. Some dumb rookie mistakes to be sure, but those are learning opportunities. He could e primed for a big jump this year. Or not! Without insider access, we have no way of predicting. Bottom line for me is that the FO has earned my trust. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, and maybe they’re making a big mistake by not prioritizing WR depth higher. Time will tell, but I’m choosing not to worry about it untill I have to.

I’m nowhere near Gunner on this stuff, but I wasn’t too far off in my younger days. There won’t be any super-reliable statistics on this stuff, because “pan out” is very subjective. Back when I was an amateur draft analyst, my general conclusion was that the more premium the position, the higher the bust rate in the first round. My hypothesis is that teams are more willing to take a chance on a premium position, because they’re just hard to get. So they’ll draft QBs/DEs/CBs/WRs/OTs with some red flags, but they won’t do the same for safeties or guards or run-stopping DTs. I once did my own QB analysis with basically the criteria you laid out, and found that about 50% of first rounders “made it”, then down to around 20-30% in the 2nd, about 10-15% in the 3rd, and dropping from there. Only outlier was the 6th round, which was better than the 5th due to Tom Brady and Marc Bulger.