Why did Isaiah McKenzie fail as starting Slot WR?

[boyst]

3 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Proof he can catch.

 

 

That trips stacking we would do was amazing. We barely used it but it was so successful. I can't figure out why we abandoned things that worked every week.

[Snappysnackcakes]

Watch the hands!

When he completely dropped the kickoff return without contact, his time in Buffalo getting any meaningful PT came to a close. He couldn’t be trusted. 

 

And it sucks because he’s exactly the kind of person everyone wants to pull for…especially in Buffalo. 

Auto fill got me

Edited June 2, 2023 by Snappysnackcakes

[BADOLBILZ]

3 hours ago, Einstein said:

What those clips actually showed is how valuable Brian Daboll is.

 

I forgot how well he would scheme players open.

 

Like night and day from last season.

 

 

With regard to McKenzie.........he didn't do much when Daboll was with the Bills.    He was the same low IQ, clumsy idiot........which is why they wouldn't keep him on the field.   A dose of speed once in a while and then back on the shelf.   That's all he was worth.

 

And the lamenting of Daboll is .   He is just one of those hit or miss play callers.   His previous jobs his offenses were always ranked 30-32.........which is why he got fired so many times as an NFL OC.   As I've said many times.......he's a current day version of Mike Mularkey or Sam Wyche.   When it's good you think he's special.   When it's bad you want him fired out of a cannon because it's terrible.   Dorsey may or may not cut it.......time will tell........but they were more consistent offensively with less talent and more injuries last season than they had been with Daboll at the helm in 2021.    Certainly weren't any 6 point showings versus the worst team in football like Daboll in Jacksonville 2021.  

[Mr. WEO]

he had no honor, he had no code

[Rigotz]

I don’t know if this will make sense, but here’s the easiest way for me to summarize…

 

For great players, the game slows down during plays. They think faster, react faster, and instincts set in.

 

For Lil’ Dirty, that happened in exactly one game and the rest of the time, the game just seemed too fast for him. He was constantly tripping, dropping passes, and making huge mistakes when the pressure was highest. I wouldn’t want that on my team, as much as I love the guy and think he has raw tools.

[NickelCity]

4 hours ago, JohnNord said:

He made some big mistakes…I wouldn’t call him awful.  They just needed more from him at slot WR and he didn’t deliver.

 

I watched the season again and, man, he was even worse than I remember. I stand by awful when situation/context is taken into consideration. 

[Richard Noggin]

3 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

Proof he can catch.

 

 

 

Thank you for this. Hilarious.

 

While he DID have a career day against NE man coverage, including some truly great catches, this highlight reel doesn't quite have the shine it once teased. Should have included a reel of him against Miami in that week 17 laugher to drive the point home. 

[Richard Noggin]

32 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

With regard to McKenzie.........he didn't do much when Daboll was with the Bills.    He was the same low IQ, clumsy idiot........which is why they wouldn't keep him on the field.   A dose of speed once in a while and then back on the shelf.   That's all he was worth.

 

And the lamenting of Daboll is .   He is just one of those hit or miss play callers.   His previous jobs his offenses were always ranked 30-32.........which is why he got fired so many times as an NFL OC.   As I've said many times.......he's a current day version of Mike Mularkey or Sam Wyche.   When it's good you think he's special.   When it's bad you want him fired out of a cannon because it's terrible.   Dorsey may or may not cut it.......time will tell........but they were more consistent offensively with less talent and more injuries last season than they had been with Daboll at the helm in 2021.    Certainly weren't any 6 point showings versus the worst team in football like Daboll in Jacksonville 2021.  

 

I don't have quite enough evidence to offer my unqualified assessment of Dorsey's play-calling, yet, but Daboll was SO bad at marrying the pass and the run and putting defensive players (esp. pass rushers) on their heels throughout a game. Just NO sequencing. It was always so deliberate and pre-meditated with him. He installed and built upon a really nice scheme of passing concepts, but often, to my eye, failed to keep things balanced in a way that helps offensive linemen, for example, do their jobs well.

[The Wiz]

2 hours ago, Lagoon Blues said:

For the life of me I don't understand why we stopped doing the Jet Sweep with him

Well there was one specific thing that changed from 2021 to 2022 and it wasn't anything on the field.

[Einstein]

1 hour ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

With regard to McKenzie.........he didn't do much when Daboll was with the Bills.    He was the same low IQ, clumsy idiot........which is why they wouldn't keep him on the field.   A dose of speed once in a while and then back on the shelf.   That's all he was worth.

 

And the lamenting of Daboll is .   He is just one of those hit or miss play callers.   His previous jobs his offenses were always ranked 30-32.........which is why he got fired so many times as an NFL OC.   As I've said many times.......he's a current day version of Mike Mularkey or Sam Wyche.   When it's good you think he's special.   When it's bad you want him fired out of a cannon because it's terrible.   Dorsey may or may not cut it.......time will tell........but they were more consistent offensively with less talent and more injuries last season than they had been with Daboll at the helm in 2021.    Certainly weren't any 6 point showings versus the worst team in football like Daboll in Jacksonville 2021.  

 

Nah, Daboll is legit.

He proved that when he turned that terrible QB of the Giants into a decent player.

[Doc Brown]

Scouting report weaknesses via nfl.com.  Just couldn't overcome them and the Bills backup plan (Crowder) broke his leg so they were more or less stuck with him.

 

Diminutive frame

Arm tackles can end his run immediately

Has small hands and a minimal catch radius

Body catcher allows the ball to bang against his frame

Shows below average hand-eye coordination and overall concentration 

Contested catches are an issue for him

Routes lack sharpness expected from smaller, quicker wideout

Takes time to gather into his breaks and is slow to accelerate out of them

Able to uncover vertically much better than horizontally and struggles to uncover in short area

Production bolstered by jet sweeps and swing screens

[Process]

1 hour ago, Gugny said:

I actually think this sums it up. 
 

Clearly capable of being great, but he simply could NOT be consistent. 
 

And from my couch, it looked like a lack of focus.  
 

Perhaps he was overthinking or trying to anticipate too much.  Who knows?

 

I will say that I don’t think it was a lack of effort, care or work ethic. 
 

I enjoyed him as a Bill and I hope he has a great career. 

Clearly capable of being great? He's had over 300 yards once in 6 seasons. 

 

He's just not a good football player, by NFL standards. No need to overcomplicate it. Had no business being a starting slot WR. That's on Beane, not him. 

[hondo in seattle]

3 hours ago, folz said:

He could make some plays in the slot against man coverage because of his speed, but he wasn't good against the zone, finding the spots and making himself available for his QB. He didn't have that knack/feel that most good slots like Beasley, Crowder, etc. have against zone coverage. If Crowder stayed healthy, they might have been a good tandem, but McKenzie couldn't do it on his own. Teams knew how to cover/eliminate him. 

 

And I think Josh lost some faith in him as the season wore on as well.

 

Agreed.  Beane said that the Bills drafted Kincaid because they needed someone to work the middle of the field.  He added that Crowder was supposed to do that job last year but got hurt.  Reading between the lines, it seemed to me he was saying McKenzie couldn't effectively work the middle as the slot guy.  Supports what folz said.  

 

 

[Gugny]

5 minutes ago, Process said:

Clearly capable of being great? He's had over 300 yards once in 6 seasons. 

 

He's just not a good football player, by NFL standards. No need to overcomplicate it. Had no business being a starting slot WR. That's on Beane, not him. 

He wasn’t a WR1 or a WR2. 
 

Did you expect him to get 1000 yards/season?

 

I’m not overcomplicating anything. 
 

Your personal bias seems to be the problem here. 

[JohnNord]

1 hour ago, NickelCity said:

 

I watched the season again and, man, he was even worse than I remember. I stand by awful when situation/context is taken into consideration. 

I don’t get what you mean by situation/context.  Give me some examples…

[JohnNord]

3 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Is this more like a thread to make excuses for him?… pretty sound and accurate that you seem to want to rebuttal.

Not at all… he clearly didn’t work out.  I’m just wondering what happened - is it Isaiah?  Or was it the way he used being used?

[Jay_Fixit]

By not being good at it.

[Process]

2 minutes ago, Gugny said:

He wasn’t a WR1 or a WR2. 
 

Did you expect him to get 1000 yards/season?

 

I’m not overcomplicating anything. 
 

Your personal bias seems to be the problem here. 

No I didn't expect that. But I'm not the one that said he's "clearly" capable of being great lol. In six years He's never come close to showing that. Forget great the guy is a fringe NFL player. That's why he just signed a 1 year deal at the NFL minimum.

 

[Beck Water]

4 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

I think it’s interesting they have paid Harty twice as much as Dirty,,,

 

They must be quite high on him..

 

It will indeed be interesting to see what they get out of Harty, and yes, they paid him quite a lot of their limited FA budget (not quite twice what McK earned last season, but significantly more)

 

Whatever folks say about McKenzie not being able to catch, the facts are he caught 64.6% of the passes listed as targeting him (2nd on the Bills team to Diggs and 15 percentage points higher than Shakir for whom folks here clamored).  He was durable - missed something like 2 games due to injury in the last 3 seasons. 

 

Harty has a better catch % over his career, but he's missed something like 25 games over the last 3 seasons.  So I don't know what we'll see.

 

I've gotten "thumb down" or X'd in another thread for pointing out that Beane has a bit of a track record for spending significant $$ of a limited budget on potentially high-ceiling contributors who have not worked out - Corey Coleman, OJ Howard etc. 

 

I just hope Deonte Harty isn't this year's version.  (Note that I'm not suggesting we should have kept McKenzie, who clearly wasn't able to be on the same page as Josh against zone for whatever reason)

Edited June 2, 2023 by Beck Water

[NewEra]

Idk why, but he’s too dam small and his arms to too dam short to be a good target.

 

nice guy though