Draft Analysis - We're All Debi from Depew

[Mikie2times]

5 hours ago, Einstein said:

 

I would like to see some non-anecdotal data for this assertion.

 

A few years back an analysis was run on the Bills draft record during their drought. Nearly 20 years of data. In that span, it was shown via analysis that if the Bills front office had simply followed a publicly available player ranking (think: Kiper, McShay, etc), they would have drafted more impact players than they actually did.

 

A similar one was down for Oakland I believe.

Thats right - the professional NFL front offices of multiple teams, with access to dozens of scouts, in-person interviews, and player data galore, was beaten out by a generic player ranking list. 

 

Too many people buy into the “expert” fallacy. That simply because someone does something for a living, that they are better at that job than someone who doesn’t do it for a living. It’s not always accurate. 

I think the data teams are accumulating based on movement such as playing speed along with data they're gathering with the use of video analysis tools will eventually outclass the opinions of draft experts by a significant enough margin that we won't have these conversations. That is just the tip of the iceberg as well. I'm sure we will see some pretty wicked advances in tech in the next few years. Now will this data eventually become available to the public? Probably. But I'm sure even this year they had some data points that the public did not have access to. 

[Beck Water]

7 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

The overwhelming majority of negative posts re this latest draft are reasonable critiques imo

 

op is tilting at windmills 

 

Well, now.

 

I can't say as I've gone and counted them all, but I have a pretty damned healthy ignore list nowadays - and I've still been overwhelmed by the amount of unreasonable, name-calling, insult-slinging, frothing at the mouth disparaging posts.

 

There are some negative posts that are IMO reasonable critiques and fair points well made.   I wouldn't give them a majority, much less an overwhelming one, but as I admit, I haven't actually gone and counted them all.  

 

9 hours ago, Success said:

Not to disparage anyone here - but I always crack a smile when I see someone complain about a pick because of where they had that player on "their board."

 

I'm always kind of curious, too:  how did they put their board together?  Did they scour film of a huge # of collegiate players, all day, every day of the year?  Did they go to games and workouts?  Did they rigorously compare players at various positions with others who spent as much time as them watching and evaluating?

 

Because those are the things Beane & our scouts do.  I have a hunch that most here look at mocks for a few months, and check some youtube on only the top players - and that's about it.

 

 

There are actually some guys here who take their mock drafts incredibly seriously.  They watch every game they can get their hands on, take notes, make grades, compare grades, go back and review.

 

So they definitely put a lot more effort into it than looking at mocks and watching some Youtube highlights.  I'm impressed, year after year.

 

They still don't have access to a fraction of the game information the scouts do - the gps data, the coaches film, etc etc.

Edited April 29 by Beck Water

[Beck Water]

7 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

I guess you and OP can pat each other on the back from your emotional high ground? Like what is the point of this seriously, nobody thinks they know more than an actual NFL front office. 

 

Let's just say that there appears to be no functional difference between some of the stuff people have posted in the last 4 days, and the posts someone who thought they know more than an actual NFL front office might make.

[GoBills808]

Just now, Beck Water said:

 

Let's just say that there appears to be no functional difference between some of the stuff people have posted in the last 4 days, and the posts someone who thought they know more than an actual NFL front office might make.

Welcome to the football messageboard since forever

[BobbyC81]

8 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

Yeah, I agree.  Drafting is such an inexact science that I like accumulating extra swings at the piñata.  It's true that 1st round lottery tickets are better than late round lottery tickets but I like lots of lottery tickets to improve the odds.  I'd love for the analytics guys to come up with a true equivalency and trade chart based on historical hit rates at different places in the draft.

 

If being a good GM was easy, Matt Millen would have succeeded.  In truth, Millen knows more about talent evaluation than 99.99%+ of the human beings on the planet.  Yet, despite being supported by a multi-million dollar scouting organization, he authored one of the worst 7 year stretches in NFL history.  However smart he may have been, he was still worse than the 31 other GMs.

 

I used to walk away from drafts thinking, "This is a good one," or "This is a bad one."  But I never actually had a freaking clue.  Now I turn off the TV, read the online scouting reports, and say, "Well, this is interesting.  Let's see how it works out."  

 

 

I’ve noticed that many pre-draft mocks and evaluations quickly disappear after the draft.  They are not left for people to criticize.

 

Unfortunately for GMs, their draft history is available for everyone to evaluate and criticize.  Even though those jobs may sound fun, they have to have some thick skin.  Look what Beane had to go thru after drafting only one WR.

[MasterStrategist]

9 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

Every blue moon, an intrepid crime podcaster breaks a criminal case.  But imagine your daughter was kidnapped and you had a binary choice: (A) You can have the FBI, with all its trained investigators, forensic scientists, labs, subpoena power, police connections, and other resources handle the investigation.  (B)  You can have Debi from Depew, who views herself as an investigative reporter because she podcasts from her mom’s basement, search for your daughter.  I don’t know about you, but I’d choose A.   

 

It's part of fandom to stand by our unfounded opinions, call the GM a moron, and generally spout nonsense. But, if we want to be honest about it, we’re all - to varying degrees - Debi from Depew. 

 

Fans are notoriously lousy at assessing draft picks.  Many of us criticized Beane when he picked Josh in the draft while few of us offered up flowers when he chose Milano.  And, look, talent evaluation is hard.  Go back and look at what sportswriters said five years ago about the draft.  Their hit rate isn’t high.  Even the analytic guys, armed with their algorithms and statistical analyses, aren’t good.  They told us that if Josh became a successful NFL QB, it would shake the very foundations of all math, science, and human knowledge. 

 

I doubt if there’s anyone on this board who knows as much about scouting college players as Tyler Pratt who starts researching and evaluating players at 5:30 am each day and keeps at it until 8pm.  Tyler is an area scout for the Bills Personnel Department which includes 18 dedicated fulltime professionals, not including the admin folks, and is aided by 7 equally dedicated professionals in the Analytics & Football Research Department.  While none of us matches Pratt hours and expertise, we don’t hesitate to act like we’re smarter than Beane and his entire, fantastically resourced organization. 

 

So when someone starts spouting that Beane is an idiot because he drafted a slow wideout, a lineman with short arms, and a guy who never played football before, I just yawn.  Debi from Depew doesn’t interest me.  Beane and his team have spent millions of dollars, studied thousands of hours of tape, conducted hundreds of interviews.  I just hope the Bills FBI (Foot Ball Investigative) unit is better than the FBI units at our rivals.  Time will tell.  But I trust Beane and his team of experts far more than Debi from Depew.

Very well said, I'm 100% in agreement.

 

If anything, we can pick up on what we think the scheme is missing OR Beanes tendencies to best isolate on certain players.  Or watch enough college football to narrow in on how a player might be implemented/have success in our scheme.  But yes, total crapshoot for even the most dedicated evaluators.

 

Alot of times, it's more about a fans perspective on what changes to our teams philosophy should be made.  Ie: we need to prioritize WRs, finding a lethal 1/2 combo.  OR spend less on defense, focus on offense more in general...based on thoughts of best ways to have success in NFL.

 

Back to player evaluation....

 

In all honesty, unless a fan is watching every single down/snap these players took and dissecting how they were used/responsibilities, did they execute their role appropriately, etc...then no one should act like they know more than others.

 

It's great to "speculate" but at the end of day, even the most hard-core fans don't spend countless hours on even 1 player (let alone 10-50 at a given position).  Instead fans who are so "outspoken", rely on the Mel Kipers of the world or latest/greatest metrics or combine OR the best, looking at YouTube highlights and acting like that's gamefilm; to guide their opinions.

 

Even if someone did do all their possible film review, that's typically 50-60% of the story.  Player interviews, top 30 visits, talking with teammates, talking with prior coaches, etc...that plays a huge factor.  

 

Sometimes posters have a "connection" be it with the team, scout/otherwise, and regurgitate what they're being told.  More knowledgeable sure, still not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

 

I don't mind either side, criticism or faith.  Lots of times, this is more of a reflection of the posters personality or overall belief in team leadership morphed into over analyzing each move.  

 

What gets annoying is the "over the top" bravado, or high opinionated folks that think there crap doesn't stink/can't ever be wrong or even willing to admit it.  

 

Yes it's a message board, express an opinion to your hearts content, just realize Beane/staff have access to a TON more info than a common poster and spent more time in 1 day than most on here have done in 3 months leading up to draft, reviewing players.

[Beck Water]

18 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

Welcome to the football messageboard since forever

 

Been here far longer than you, yung'un - at least under your current screen name.

 

You were saying "nobody thinks they know more than an actual NFL front office. "

 

My point was, on this message board (which is one of the better around the league as far as I've found) - sure they do.

[HerdMentality]

9 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

It's not a self-deprecating post. That's an odd label to put on it. It's a reminder to practice humility.

It's a smarty-pants, holier-than-thou, finger-wagging post.

[SoTier]

11 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

The Chiefs are a poor example for a myriad of reasons that can be boiled down to two things:

 

1) Their offense was in fact worse last year, primarily because their WRs mostly stunk. It's like everybody forgot about this because they won the Super Bowl. It was by far their worst offense of the Mahomes era. For the first time they had to play on the road in the playoffs solely because their offense wasn't talented enough.

 

2) There are a number of factors about their team that allow them to overcome flaws no other franchise can overcome. I'm not going to take time listing all of those factors, they are plainly obvious after a minute of thought.

 

We shouldn't be mimicking the Chiefs strategy. We should be trying to overwhelm them and the rest of the NFL with pure offensive firepower. The first window's strategy didn't work yet the second window is starting off with the same exact strategy. I really don't understand how anybody can point to the unicorn franchise of this generation and act like that means the strategy isn't flawed.

 

If a team is going to copy cat another team, shouldn't it be the best one, not another also-ran?   The Chiefs have won back-to-back Lombardis since they traded away Tyreek Hill.   Plain and simple, teams paying an elite QB cannot afford really top end WRs not on their rookie contracts, so their WR rooms are going to be of modest quality.

 

What has Miami won with all their vaunted speed on offense ... aside from being able to beat up on lesser teams?  They won only 1 or 2 games against teams with winning records in 2023.

Edited April 29 by SoTier

[ProcessTruster]

19 hours ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

You give these guys way too much credit.  

 

Like Billy Beane said in Money Ball " You don't know" 

 

These scouts and GMs are more experienced than us. No doubt. But they are not infallible and who is to know if they are even good at their job. I have to be correct 100% of the time in my job. What is the success rate for these guys? 

 

I mean how many first round absolute busts do we have to list to realize GMs just don't know.  The list of HOF QBs is far far less than the list of first round busts.

 

Most on here were ok with Coleman. Some wanted another guy. What my guess is the vast majority of us wanted was another WR. Because at the end of the day these guys don't know. And two chances to be correct is far better than one chance. 

kinda hard to go wrong with Josh throwing the ball.  Coleman hit the jackpot.   Marvin Harrison has a 5ft tall QB who won't be able to see him, Odunze has a raw rookie QB will no O Line who will be getting his head kicked in for the next couple years, and Nabers will have g-d knows who on the Giants throwing the ball (and also getting his head kicked in for a couple years) 

 

It's all good.   

[sunshynman]

12 hours ago, Watkins101 said:

I keep seeing people comparing fans’ reactions to the Coleman pick to the wrong Josh outcry when Allen was drafted. This seems utterly ridiculous to me, as their situations are pretty far apart. Josh Allen was as boom-or-bust of a prospect as they come. He was most likely to either be a star or a complete waste of a pick, and there was unlikely to be any Inbetween. Whereas Coleman, his ceiling according to most is a 2, and his floor is a depth receiver, a red zone threat with good hands, but not enough impact in the middle of the field to be a starter. Really am not seeing the comparison at all.

Situation not the same, but the reaction from fans were. They Wanted AD or Worthy or BTJ...etc so Coleman is going to bust because of it. I heard groans more than excitement, just like when we selected the right Josh. 

 

It's going to take a few years to find out if Coleman is good enough. But they took a football player, rather than the hyped fast guy ever. Those track stars are bad football players. We learned that lesson with Goodwin. All the other guys had their flaws. And Coleman has game speed, I don't care what his 40 time was. 

[Utah John]

The thing is, there's a lot that goes into a player's success than the player himself.  Take a great athlete with superior football IQ and amazing toughness, and put him in the wrong situation and he'll look like a bum.  OJ Simpson did nothing his first few years until Saban returned and built the offense around him.  Was Simpson a bust?  That description would be a tad harsh for one of the very best players ever in the league. (off-field crimes notwithstanding)  Bruce Smith didn't do all that great in his first year or so, then he woke up, started taking training and preparation seriously, and turned into a monster on the field.  

 

Or take a moderately talented, not very athletic guy who gets into the right situations and has a long and happy career.  Ryan Fitzpatrick, I'm looking at you.  Kaiir Elam is an outstanding athlete and could well be a top-notch CB if playing in a different system, but he's gone nowhere with the Bills with their coaches and their system.  Zach Moss looked like a good player coming out of college, didn't do much when with the Bills, and has flourished with the Colts.  

 

And always there are injuries, some career-ending, but many just bad enough to keep the guy from playing to what used to be his potential.  

 

There are so many variables that go into a player's success, and most of them aren't anything the draft evaluators can take into account.  You just hope for the best, and try not to do anything really stupid (Boogie Basham instead of Creed Humphrey or Torell Troup instead of Rob Gronkowski).

[cale]

On 4/28/2024 at 8:48 PM, hondo in seattle said:

 

I haven't read the book but am familiar with the concept.   

 

I don't think any individual fan can compete with a pro scouting department.  But I think the idea of a collective group of smart fans competing with a professional scouting department is interesting.  For example, could the fans on this website collectively make better picks than Beane and his staff???   

 

I went to college 40 years ago and remember little, but I do remember this...  In a psych class, the professor handed out a list of random items and asked us to list the ones we would want with us if we were astronauts faced with an emergency situation in space.  Then we did the same exercise in 6 person groups.  I was cursed to be grouped with the most unscientific, illogical clowns in the class.  Or so I thought.  To my shock, our group list more closely resembled the official NASA list than my personal list.  Amazingly, every group list was better than any individual's list.  Collective intelligence is a remarkable thing.  

 

But it has limits too - group think, for example.  

 

So now I'm curious...  Do you think a large mafia group can draft better than Beane and his staff?  

 

 

You know. I’m not sure. But I’d like to try. Say the 5th or 6th round. Every other year for 5 years. So we have a reasonable data set. Statistically. I think we’d do better.

[cale]

Also on someone somewhere is going to develop AI software to do this. Then sell it to franchises or the league.

[Rampant Buffalo]

On 4/28/2024 at 12:56 PM, hondo in seattle said:

Debi from Depew doesn’t interest me.  Beane and his team have spent millions of dollars, studied thousands of hours of tape, conducted hundreds of interviews. 

 

Your post isn't specific to Beane in particular. It's defense of pretty much every NFL front office for the past few decades.

 

With that in mind, I'd like to take a trip down memory lane, to the 2006 draft. Marv Levy was the Bills' GM, Dick Jauron was the head coach. Levy/Jauron used the 8th overall pick to draft Donte Whitner, SS. Then, they traded back up into the first round, to take John McCargo, DT. Nick Mangold, C, was drafted one pick later.

 

A number of fans decried these picks. Many wanted the 8th overall pick to be used on Ngata, a defensive lineman. I personally wanted the Bills to take Jay Cutler, QB. Many, including myself, wanted the Bills to take Mangold.

 

Whitner was not a bad player, but he never came anywhere close to living up to his lofty draft position. Ngata had a great career, and was much better than Whitner. Cutler played well for the Broncos for a number of years. When they finally traded him away, they received 2 first round picks, Kyle Orton, and some other stuff. That's two more first round picks, one more Kyle Orton, and one more instance of other stuff than the Bills received for the departure of Whitner. Whitner went first-contract-and-out. McCargo was a bust, and Mangold was the NFL's best center for a long number of years. The Bills made do with a backup caliber center, in the form of Melvin Fowler.

 

In the late '70s, during the middle of a game, Notre Dame benched their starting QB. They put in a backup instead. The crowd started cheering. "What is going on?" asked a reporter from the opposing team. "We just put Joe Montana in the game," a Notre Dame reporter replied. "Now you guys are going to lose." The fans recognized what Notre Dame had in Joe Montana before the coaching staff did.

 

Excessive knowledge is not a substitute for insight. Sometimes, the fans are right, and coaches or front offices are wrong. Beane is a better GM than Levy/Jauron, and he's not going to do anything as boneheaded as drafting Donte Whitner 8th overall. But even Beane can make avoidable mistakes. If or when a GM or coach makes an avoidable mistake, it will often be pointed out by at least some fans. To broadly label all fan criticisms "Debi from Depew" demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the last 20 years of this team's history. 

[Matt_In_NH]

On 4/28/2024 at 1:05 PM, Solomon Grundy said:

Is Debi a hottie? 😎

I heard she just got back from Dallas

[SoMAn]

We all develop opinions, often different than someone else's. 

The experts with 6 or 7-figure salaries whose job it is to analyze prospects probably have a better handle on who will fit and succeed.

 

Very deep. Great insight.

[Billy Claude]

5 hours ago, Rampant Buffalo said:

 

Your post isn't specific to Beane in particular. It's defense of pretty much every NFL front office for the past few decades.

 

With that in mind, I'd like to take a trip down memory lane, to the 2006 draft. Marv Levy was the Bills' GM, Dick Jauron was the head coach. Levy/Jauron used the 8th overall pick to draft Donte Whitner, SS. Then, they traded back up into the first round, to take John McCargo, DT. Nick Mangold, C, was drafted one pick later.

 

A number of fans decried these picks. Many wanted the 8th overall pick to be used on Ngata, a defensive lineman. I personally wanted the Bills to take Jay Cutler, QB. Many, including myself, wanted the Bills to take Mangold.

 

Whitner was not a bad player, but he never came anywhere close to living up to his lofty draft position. Ngata had a great career, and was much better than Whitner. Cutler played well for the Broncos for a number of years. When they finally traded him away, they received 2 first round picks, Kyle Orton, and some other stuff. That's two more first round picks, one more Kyle Orton, and one more instance of other stuff than the Bills received for the departure of Whitner. Whitner went first-contract-and-out. McCargo was a bust, and Mangold was the NFL's best center for a long number of years. The Bills made do with a backup caliber center, in the form of Melvin Fowler.

 

In the late '70s, during the middle of a game, Notre Dame benched their starting QB. They put in a backup instead. The crowd started cheering. "What is going on?" asked a reporter from the opposing team. "We just put Joe Montana in the game," a Notre Dame reporter replied. "Now you guys are going to lose." The fans recognized what Notre Dame had in Joe Montana before the coaching staff did.

 

Excessive knowledge is not a substitute for insight. Sometimes, the fans are right, and coaches or front offices are wrong. Beane is a better GM than Levy/Jauron, and he's not going to do anything as boneheaded as drafting Donte Whitner 8th overall. But even Beane can make avoidable mistakes. If or when a GM or coach makes an avoidable mistake, it will often be pointed out by at least some fans. To broadly label all fan criticisms "Debi from Depew" demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the last 20 years of this team's history. 

 

Sure you can always find instances where the fans are right and the "experts" are wrong but how many times have fans called for the backup QB to start and how many times did it turn out that the backup wasn't playing because he stank. I bet a lot more times than the opposite way.  

 

Edited May 7 by Billy Claude

[Low Positive]

Debbi from Depew? What I really want to know is the opinion of Don from Dunkirk, but unfortunately he’s tied up all day in high level business meetings.

[ColoradoBills]

On 4/28/2024 at 2:45 PM, Pine Barrens Mafia said:

Honestly? I prefer Carrie from Cheektowaga

 

Leave my goddaughter alone!