THE ROCKPILE REVIEW - Reloading

[Rockinon]

I think the Bills are going to lead the league in rushing this year. Add in the young depth at WR and TE and the Bills are going to have a nice balanced attack. Kincaid,  Shakir and Cook all put up some numbers last year and it was clear, the second half of the season, they all gained Josh's trust. There is a perception by some that we should focus more on the passing game because of Josh's undeniable passing ability, but defenses are built to defend the pass. There were times when our passing attack seemed to regress as a result. I'm not saying that Josh isn't going to sling the rock, but I do believe there will be some emphasis on the rushing attack. Not just to have a balanced attack but to build a team that can't be stopped, no matter what a defense tries to do. The RBs we picked up in the draft are no slouches either.

 

Another thing we are going to see is a lot of is pre-snap motion. When Brady took over we were surprised to see it used significantly more often. And Shaw66 is correct about a lot of crossers and occasional deep shots. One of the misconceptions about our offense is that we don't have any speed. We do. They aren't big X receivers but they are very fast. Those deep routes aren't going away. They just aren't going to be Davis or Diggs. We may see some different looks in the way routes are run and in the way plays are schemed up, but Josh is still going to put up some numbers. One thing is clear. The ball is going to be spread around and at the end of the year, we are going to see it running like a well oiled machine. It might take a few games to really get rolling with all of the youth, or Kincaid, Shakir and Cook step into larger roles and we pick right up where we left off from last year.

Edited May 1 by Rockinon

[Rockinon]

45 minutes ago, HaldimandBills said:

I am not sure about this. The Bills scores more points against the Chiefs than any other team this past season. Compared to the Niners and Ravens we were on the verge to boat racing them. Our defense let us down. 

 

A healthy interior DL and back 7 will do 100 times more wonders than drafting a second receiver in the 3rd or 4th round. Bills need to figure out how to rush the passer in the playoffs. That has been the biggest travesty for the Bills. No sacks against the Chiefs in 2021. Bengals. 2002. Chiefs 2023. It wasn't even that we didn't get any sacks. We didn't even put pressure to sniff Mahomes or Burrow.

Agreed. A healthy offensive line and skill players will also do wonders. I'm happy to see we are still adding depth to those lines.

[chris heff]

It became evident towards the end of 2022 season that something was wrong with the offense. A lot of people blamed Dorsey, he deserves some blame, but not all. There were times, watching games that I thought we had no WRs. It’s why they felt he need to bring back Beasley and Brown. The defense under Frazier only played well with a lead, no lead, no defense. They looked bad against Bengals twice. This team needed change. Other than that stretch at the end they were not good last season. They lost to the Patriots, who were bad. I’m looking forward to this season, they needed retooling.

[folz]

5 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

That's an interesting take.   I have trouble seeing Shakir and Kincaid leading the way.   They both seem like complementary pieces.  

 

Does anyone know of a good in-depth breakdown on the 2023 passing game?   First half and second half were so dramatically different.   Was it just Brady going in another direction; was Diggs slumping, or did they move away from him intentionally?   Kincaid first half/second half?  

 

Great original post Shaw. I took up your challenge from your above post...it's not the most "in-depth" dive, and doesn't answer all of your questions, but it at least gives a good overview to try and draw some conclusions.

 

 

Here are the snap counts, targets, and yards for the top pass catchers in 2023, divided into the first half of the season and the second half of the year:

 

Player          1st 8 games (snaps/targets/yards)        Last 9 games (snaps/targets/yards)

Diggs                          85%/90/748                                              78%/70/435      

Davis                          86%/47/434                                              81%/34/312

Kincaid                       55%/34/258                                              64%/57/415

Shakir                         31%/15/167                                                70%/30/444    

Knox                           68%/28/102 (7 games only/INJ)              49%/8/84 (5 games only (INJ)

Sherfield                     32%/8/44                                                  36%/14/32

Harty                           20%/16/113                                               7%/5/37

Cook                            X/22/192                                                   X/32/253

 

Overall, looking at total passing targets, the Bills averaged 33 passing targets/game over the first half of the season, and 28 passing targets per game over the 2nd half of the season. So, there is a bit of a drop. Adding up all of the QB/RB rushing attempts, the Bills averaged 26 rush plays/game over the first half of the year, and 32 rush plays over the second half. So, the Bills had a 33/26 pass/rush split,  or a 56%/44% pass/rush balance for the first half of the season, and a 28/32 pass/rush split, or a 47%/53% pass/rush balance over the back half. Obviously, end-of-the-year weather has something to do with rushing more in the second half, but it does seem offensive philosophy may have been involved as well. It was a closer balance in the 2nd half of the season, but leaned more to the run game than the pass. And interesting to note, though Cook's attempts did increase from 13 to 15 rushes per game in the 2nd half, the much larger increase in rushing was from Josh, who went from 4.75 rushes/game in the first half to 8.33 rushes /game in the 2nd half. Again, how much of that was philosophy and how much was end-of-the-year desperation, gotta get it done one way or the other, who knows?

 

As to the individual receiving players,

Shakir was the big change, going from a 31% snap count in the first half of the season to a 70% snap count in the 2nd half and doubling his targets. Kincaid saw a decent increase in snap count, but a significant jump in targets. Diggs and Davis didn't have much of a change in snap count throughout the year, so the extra snaps for Shakir and Kincaid were mostly poached from Knox and Harty. But, Shakir and Kincaid were apparently stealing targets from Diggs and Davis. D&D averaged 17 combined targets in the first half of the season, and 12 combined targets in the 2nd half. Whereas, Kincaid and Shakir averaged 6 combined targets at the start of the year, and 10 combined targets in the 2nd half of the year.

 

Looking up the stats for all of this, the one that really jumped out at me though was catch rate for the 2023 season:

Diggs           66%

Davis           56%

Kincaid        79%

Shakir          86%

Knox            62%

Sherfield     48%

Harty           74%

 

We already knew that Davis and Knox weren't the most sure-handed receivers, but that was a big drop-off for Diggs last year. In his defense, he has a lot more targets, which means more opportunities for misses too---but I don't think that 66% seems great for your #1 receiver*, especially when his playoff production hasn't been stellar, and he is unhappy. Coleman is supposed to have very good hands. I think they are making a concerted effort for more reliability in that department.

 

*For comparison to other top receivers: Lamb, Collins, Allen, D. Smith, St. Brown, Moore, Pittman are all in the 71-72% catch rate range; Hill, Chase, Robinson, Godwin have a 69% catch rate; Curtis Samuel, Jefferson, and Waddle are all around 68%.

 

And granted it was only on 45 targets (about 28% the number of say Diggs' targets), but Khalil's 86% catch rate was best in the league last year; and Kincaid's 79% was the 5th best catch rate for a TE last season (and two of the TEs ahead of him only had like 40 targets, compared to Dalton's 91).

 

Edited May 1 by folz

[Shaw66]

9 minutes ago, Rockinon said:

I think the Bills are going to lead the league in rushing this year. Add in the young depth at WR and TE and the Bills are going to have a nice balanced attack. Kincaid,  Shakir and Cook all put up some numbers last year and it was clear, the second half of the season, they all gained Josh's trust. There is a perception by some that we should focus more on the passing game because of Josh's undeniable passing ability, but defenses are built to defend the pass. There were times when our passing attack seemed to regress as a result. I'm not saying that Josh isn't going to sling the rock, but I do believe there will be some emphasis on the rushing attack. Not just to have a balanced attack but to build a team that can't be stopped, no matter what a defense tries to do. The RBs we picked up in the draft are no slouches either.

 

Another thing we are going to see is a lot of is pre-snap motion. When Brady took over we were surprised to see it used significantly more often. And Shaw66 is correct about a lot of crossers and occasional deep shots. One of the misconceptions about our offense is that we don't have any speed. We do. They aren't big X receivers but they are very fast. Those deep routes aren't going away. They just aren't going to be Davis or Diggs. We may see some different looks in the way routes are run and in the way plays are schemed up, but Josh is still going to put up some numbers. One thing is clear. The ball is going to be spread around and at the end of the year, we are going to see it running like a well oiled machine. It might take a few games to really get rolling with all of the youth, or Kincaid, Shakir and Cook step into larger roles and we pick right up where we left off from last year.

Interesting take.  Makes sense.  I like the look of Ray Davis.  We saw the running game beginning to emerge last season, and I can see it progressing.  

 

The point is that the offense is going to be what McDermott wants - an offense that attacks all of the real estate that possibly can be attacked - from sideline to sideline, from five yards behind the line of scrimmage to sixty yards downfield.  I think we're going to see a varied attack, dramatically varied.  Curtis Samuel IS going to run running plays out of the backfield.   Cook Is going to split wide.  Before Coleman is fully up to speed, they are going to find plays to get the ball to him, and let him do his run after the catch thing.  The objective is that it will look like the 49ers or the Chiefs - they always seem to be attacking your weakness, wherever it is.  Put another way - your defense is deployed in a way that stops your attack in certain areas, and those offenses understand how to attack the open areas.  

 

Davis wasn't versatile enough to fit into such an offense.  And Diggs wasn't emotionally able, wasn't a team guy enough to reshape his game to be versatile.   Kincaid, Shakir, Samuel, Cook all have shown they play that versatility game, and I think that's who Coleman is, too.  Brady's playing mad scientist all spring, and we can only wait to see what he cooks up.  

[Beck Water]

22 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Yeah.   There are many ways to skin the cat.  They did need a running back, and they got a guy who might have what it takes to replace Cook eventually.  And I don't particularly like a plan that says "we need a player, and we'll take two to be sure we get one who works out."  You're almost certainly not going to keep both of them, so you're using two picks to fill one position.  Not a fan of that, but I can't say it's wrong.  

 

Going your way, they would need a running back in free agency.  Going the way they did, they would need a receiver.  Kind of six of one, half dozen of the other.  

 

As someone said, Beane had a plan and he executed it The roster now looks pretty good to me.  He had a variety of other ways he might have gone, too.  Bottom line for me is that Beane knows what he's doing.  

 

So we drafted Ray Davis at pick 128 in the 4th. There were 3 WR drafted pretty promptly in the 4th - 102, 110, 113.

 

Moving up 15-26 slots is A Lot, not just in terms of draft picks - but teams don't like to give up that much freedom of choice unless the trading team makes it very juicy for them.  It may well be we tried to trade up, and didn't find a deal we were OK with.

 

The next receiver drafted, at 135, was drafted 22 slots later, suggesting teams may have perceived a talent difference.

 

Beane said in his presser that the team's evaluation of the WR we drafted and signed last year had a role in not drafting a WR in the late rounds.  It may be that they like Shorter, Shavers, Thompson, and Hamler better as prospects than anyone within reach of our picks, IDK.

[Beck Water]

53 minutes ago, folz said:

 

Great original post Shaw. I took up your challenge from your above post...it's not the most "in-depth" dive, and doesn't answer all of your questions, but it at least gives a good overview to try and draw some conclusions.

 

 

Here are the snap counts, targets, and yards for the top pass catchers in 2023, divided into the first half of the season and the second half of the year:

 

Player          1st 8 games (snaps/targets/yards)        Last 9 games (snaps/targets/yards)

Diggs                          85%/90/748                                              78%/70/435      

Davis                          86%/47/434                                              81%/34/312

Kincaid                       55%/34/258                                              64%/57/415

Shakir                         31%/15/167                                                70%/30/444    

Knox                           68%/28/102 (7 games only/INJ)              49%/8/84 (5 games only (INJ)

Sherfield                     32%/8/44                                                  36%/14/32

Harty                           20%/16/113                                               7%/5/37

Cook                            X/22/192                                                   X/32/253

 

Overall, looking at total passing targets, the Bills averaged 33 passing targets/game over the first half of the season, and 28 passing targets per game over the 2nd half of the season. So, there is a bit of a drop. Adding up all of the QB/RB rushing attempts, the Bills averaged 26 rush plays/game over the first half of the year, and 32 rush plays over the second half. So, the Bills had a 33/26 pass/rush split,  or a 56%/44% pass/rush balance for the first half of the season, and a 28/32 pass/rush split, or a 47%/53% pass/rush balance over the back half. Obviously, end-of-the-year weather has something to do with rushing more in the second half, but it does seem offensive philosophy may have been involved as well. It was a closer balance in the 2nd half of the season, but leaned more to the run game than the pass. And interesting to note, though Cook's attempts did increase from 13 to 15 rushes per game in the 2nd half, the much larger increase in rushing was from Josh, who went from 4.75 rushes/game in the first half to 8.33 rushes /game in the 2nd half. Again, how much of that was philosophy and how much was end-of-the-year desperation, gotta get it done one way or the other, who knows?

 

This is great, thank you for putting this together.

 

Question: any particular reason you broke it down as 8 games and 9 games?

 

Reason I ask is that 'last 9 games' includes 2 games with Dorsey still as OC.

 

That might matter - I put this elsewhere, but when I looked at rush % and pass % in games where Brady was OC vs games where Dorsey was OC, the difference was even more significant than you note.  The Bills had an overall 58%/42% pass/rush split under Dorsey.  They shifted to a 48%/52% pass/rush split under Brady.

A lot of that, unfortunately, was rush attempts for Josh Allen - I make it 9.2 attempts/ game including playoffs with a Dorsey/Brady split.  I really don't think we want to rely on Josh Allen as the best rusher on the team.  

 

Anyway I think looking at it as Dorsey vs Brady makes some of the differences you noted more stark.

 

And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

[Einstein's Dog]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

 

Start looking at them player by player, or at least paired:  Would you rather have Diggs and Davis or Coleman and Samuel?  Would you rather have Morse or Van Pran-Granger?  Bishop or (pick one) Hyde or Poyer?  White or Carter?  Collectively, I'd rather have the youngsters than kept or extended all of those guys.

 

Now you're stretching it.  Samuel isn't even an outside WR.  I can get behind Coleman over G Davis and take the uncertainty of a rookie vs what we had from Davis.  If Diggs was not going to be a cancer and actually try, he has to be rated above Samuel.  I like Samuel over Sherfield/Harty though.

 

I don't think they are done, the big missing piece is the remaining WR.  I think once that is brought in we can evaluate better.  As it stands this is by far Beane's worst off-season.  The Bills have one of the strongest armed QBs ever and have surrounded him with good dink and dunk personnel - c'mon Beane.

[SoTier]

2 hours ago, TH3 said:

Haha  ….You should have said “Yes …..I remember!”

 

Not sure Billy Shaw still alive….but he did rent our house for that season….I think they were awful that year…

 

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

Billy's still alive, so far as I know.   I hope he doesn't mind that I use his name and number.   I chose the name to honor and remember one of the all-time great Bills.  

 

And yes, 1968 was an awful year.  So awful that the Bills got the #1 overall pick.

 

Starting QB Jack Kemp was injured during training camp IIRC.   Shaw was coming back from a knee-injury suffered the previous year, and the rest of the OL was trash.   The Bills ended up going through 4 other QBs in 14 games: Dan Darragh (rookie), Ed Rutkowski (eventually became Erie County Executive), Kay Stephenson, and Tom Flores.  They finished 1-12-1 and used their #1 pick on OJ Simpson.

[Shaw66]

2 hours ago, folz said:

 

Great original post Shaw. I took up your challenge from your above post...it's not the most "in-depth" dive, and doesn't answer all of your questions, but it at least gives a good overview to try and draw some conclusions.

 

 

Here are the snap counts, targets, and yards for the top pass catchers in 2023, divided into the first half of the season and the second half of the year:

 

Player          1st 8 games (snaps/targets/yards)        Last 9 games (snaps/targets/yards)

Diggs                          85%/90/748                                              78%/70/435      

Davis                          86%/47/434                                              81%/34/312

Kincaid                       55%/34/258                                              64%/57/415

Shakir                         31%/15/167                                                70%/30/444    

Knox                           68%/28/102 (7 games only/INJ)              49%/8/84 (5 games only (INJ)

Sherfield                     32%/8/44                                                  36%/14/32

Harty                           20%/16/113                                               7%/5/37

Cook                            X/22/192                                                   X/32/253

 

Overall, looking at total passing targets, the Bills averaged 33 passing targets/game over the first half of the season, and 28 passing targets per game over the 2nd half of the season. So, there is a bit of a drop. Adding up all of the QB/RB rushing attempts, the Bills averaged 26 rush plays/game over the first half of the year, and 32 rush plays over the second half. So, the Bills had a 33/26 pass/rush split,  or a 56%/44% pass/rush balance for the first half of the season, and a 28/32 pass/rush split, or a 47%/53% pass/rush balance over the back half. Obviously, end-of-the-year weather has something to do with rushing more in the second half, but it does seem offensive philosophy may have been involved as well. It was a closer balance in the 2nd half of the season, but leaned more to the run game than the pass. And interesting to note, though Cook's attempts did increase from 13 to 15 rushes per game in the 2nd half, the much larger increase in rushing was from Josh, who went from 4.75 rushes/game in the first half to 8.33 rushes /game in the 2nd half. Again, how much of that was philosophy and how much was end-of-the-year desperation, gotta get it done one way or the other, who knows?

 

As to the individual receiving players,

Shakir was the big change, going from a 31% snap count in the first half of the season to a 70% snap count in the 2nd half and doubling his targets. Kincaid saw a decent increase in snap count, but a significant jump in targets. Diggs and Davis didn't have much of a change in snap count throughout the year, so the extra snaps for Shakir and Kincaid were mostly poached from Knox and Harty. But, Shakir and Kincaid were apparently stealing targets from Diggs and Davis. D&D averaged 17 combined targets in the first half of the season, and 12 combined targets in the 2nd half. Whereas, Kincaid and Shakir averaged 6 combined targets at the start of the year, and 10 combined targets in the 2nd half of the year.

 

Looking up the stats for all of this, the one that really jumped out at me though was catch rate for the 2023 season:

Diggs           66%

Davis           56%

Kincaid        79%

Shakir          86%

Knox            62%

Sherfield     48%

Harty           74%

 

We already knew that Davis and Knox weren't the most sure-handed receivers, but that was a big drop-off for Diggs last year. In his defense, he has a lot more targets, which means more opportunities for misses too---but I don't think that 66% seems great for your #1 receiver*, especially when his playoff production hasn't been stellar, and he is unhappy. Coleman is supposed to have very good hands. I think they are making a concerted effort for more reliability in that department

*For comparison t other top receivers: Lamb, Collins, Allen, D. Smith, St. Brown, Moore, Pittman are all in the 71-72% catch rate range; Hill, Chase, Robinson, Godwin have a 69% catch rate; Curtis Samuel, Jefferson, and Waddle are all around 68%.

 

And granted it was only on 45 targets (about 28% the number of say Diggs' targets), but Khalil's 86% catch rate was best in the league last year; and Kincaid's 79% was the 5th best catch rate for a TE last season (and two of the TEs ahead of him only had like 40 targets, compared to Dalton's 91).

 

Wow!  That's really great.   Thanks.  

 

It's a lot to chew on.   I was interested that you ended with catch rate.  Last season, for the first time since he'd been in Buffalo, Diggs seemed unreliable.    Before then, if the ball arrived almost any where he could get his arms to, he was catching it.  He wasn't like that last season.  

 

I heard some media guy, maybe coach, talking one time about how on offense, the best way to be successful was to have (1) zero negative plays, and (2) have very few plays where you get zero.   That is, make every play a positive play.   For Josh, that means take the easy completion, even if it's shorter.   For the receivers, it's catch every ball.  Samuel and Coleman should be a big upgrade over Diggs and Davis in that department.

 

Also interesting that they moved toward a more balanced attack.  I would expect that balance is important to McDermott, and maybe even that he told Brady to be less pass-happy.  

 

I'm getting interested in this offense.  

1 hour ago, SoTier said:

 

Starting QB Jack Kemp was injured during training camp IIRC.   Shaw was coming back from a knee-injury suffered the previous year, and the rest of the OL was trash.   The Bills ended up going through 4 other QBs in 14 games: Dan Darragh (rookie), Ed Rutkowski (eventually became Erie County Executive), Kay Stephenson, and Tom Flores.  They finished 1-12-1 and used their #1 pick on OJ Simpson.

And, in the second-last or last game of the season, at Oakland, Rutkowski was playing.  He wasn't really a QB; he was the emergency QB and there was no one else.  Late in the game, Inside the 10, late in the game, a touchdown wins, Rutkowski fumbled and the Bills lost, thereby giving the Bills the #1 pick.   Rutkowski scores, and OJ would have been an Eagle, I think.

[folz]

1 hour ago, Beck Water said:

 

This is great, thank you for putting this together.

 

Question: any particular reason you broke it down as 8 games and 9 games?

 

Reason I ask is that 'last 9 games' includes 2 games with Dorsey still as OC.

 

That might matter - I put this elsewhere, but when I looked at rush % and pass % in games where Brady was OC vs games where Dorsey was OC, the difference was even more significant than you note.  The Bills had an overall 58%/42% pass/rush split under Dorsey.  They shifted to a 48%/52% pass/rush split under Brady.

A lot of that, unfortunately, was rush attempts for Josh Allen - I make it 9.2 attempts/ game including playoffs with a Dorsey/Brady split.  I really don't think we want to rely on Josh Allen as the best rusher on the team.  

 

Anyway I think looking at it as Dorsey vs Brady makes some of the differences you noted more stark.

 

And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

 

Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking of it only as Dorsey vs. Brady, but that probably would have been a better delineation, as far as trying to see if there was a style change between the two OCs.

 

I guess I just tried to cut it right down the middle---and because, as far as individual player stats were concerned (particularly for Kincaid and Shakir), that is right about where the change started to happen (mostly due to Knox's injury).

 

But yes, using the division between the coordinators might be a better place as far as looking at the run/pass balance.

[PBF81]

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

People can argue endlessly about the talent on this roster and that roster, but at the end of the day success in the NFL is going to come down to how well coached your team is.  Does your coach get your team into the strategically and tactically correct offenses and defenses year-in, year out and game-in, game-out.  Does your coach get your team physically and mentally prepared to execute those offenses and defenses? 

 

You hit the nail on the head there Shaw.  Very nice, well thought out, very well reasoned post BTW!!  

 

Regarding the above however, the primary issue with this team is that we're two different teams, one in the regular season and another in the postseason.   

 

For example, our Ds have consistently finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the league during the regular season, but over the past four years it plays more like the 20th (or worse) defense in the playoffs.  Many attribute that to precisely what you said, particularly when it comes to coaching errors, miscues, whatever anyone wishes to call them, that hand games to our opponents in one form or another, including lax defensive scheming.  

 

 

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

In terms of the quality of talent that will take the field in September compared to what the Bills had three months ago, I think I’ll take exactly where the Bills are today.  Think about the departures:  White, may still be a player, but at the very best he’s about to wind down, Morse, never the greatest physically, and his days were ending, Davis, the guy everyone loves to hate, Hyde slowing down and needs to go for his own health, Poyer, some years left, perhaps, but not his best. Diggs, may still be good, but not so good that he's worth the headache.  

 

Start looking at them player by player, or at least paired:  Would you rather have Diggs and Davis or Coleman and Samuel?  Would you rather have Morse or Van Pran-Granger?  Bishop or (pick one) Hyde or Poyer?  White or Carter?  Collectively, I'd rather have the youngsters than kept or extended all of those guys. 

 

You mention the talent in September, but the discussion needs to revolve around the talent in January and February.  

 

 

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

Would the Bills be in an even better position if Beane had managed the draft in another way?   I don’t think so.  The extra talent one of the top three receivers in the draft would have brought to the team couldn’t offset the loss of the rest of the players the Bills drafted.  Said another way:  six guys are gone, and I like my chances better if I get six new guys instead of two (the new receiver and Curtis Samuel). 

 

Here's the issue with our drafting, there's no visible plan in sight, much as game-planning, it seems to be a lot of shoot-from-the-hip stuff.  

 

To start, Drafts are not annual events taken independently, at least not for the best, best coached, and best managed teams.  There should be a year-over-year plan in place to build and create a Super Bowl Championship caliber team.  Is there any hint of any such plan in place here?  Many would argue that there is not.  If there is, it's hardly identifiable other than creating the best D.  

 

In fact, last season it was all about getting a WR that could separate.  Diggs was ejected at tremendous cost because they claim he couldn't do that anymore.  Watching the last game of the season vs. Miami seems to contradict that, where Allen badly overthrew him for a missed TD opportinity, and threw short to Knox for another missed TD opp, both plays he had beaten Ramsey and Apple, but that's irrelevant.  This year we went with a WR that doesn't do that.  There's zero visible plan for the offense in a year-over-year manner.  

 

A short-medium game doesn't play to Allen's primary skills.  Brady mastered the short-medium game.  Mahomes, Burrow, & Purdy run it exceptionally well.  Allen has not mastered it.

 

Our focus, clearly, has been on having the top-ranked D, which would be fine and dandy if it played that way in the playoffs, but it doesn't, it plays like one of the worst Ds in the playoffs generally speaking and with a pair of exceptions over the past four or five postseasons.  McD seems to model things after the '85 Bears D which ranked #1 also, but in the playoffs it allowed 10 points in three games.  We've averaged nearly three times that many in the playoffs.  

 

 

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

I like that they’ve improved the team, but I also have to ask why a group of unproven guys actually is better than the gang that just left?  How did the Bills get in the position they were in, with a group of guys who no longer were quite good enough to win, and with no backups in sight?

 

However they got to that position, I think if you asked McDermott if he likes the talent he has today, he’d say, “Absolutely!”  Can you win a Super Bowl with this talent?  “Absolutely!”  And that’s not just power-of-positive-thinking Sean speaking.  I mean, he and we thought he could win it with the talent he had last year, and if this is actually a better group, then why shouldn’t he think he should win this year? 

 

Translate this back to high school football.  It’s as though McDermott is coaching high school and has a five-star recruit at QB, several locks at D-1 scholarships (Milano, Oliver, Cook, Coleman, Torrence) and several guys who very well also might go D-1.   Considering D-2 and D-3, he has maybe 20 kids who are going to play in college.  Maybe one other high school in the state has a 5-star QB.  Some other schools might have two five-star players, but unless they have a five-star at QB, they can’t be as good together as the five-star QB he has.  Some other schools may end up with a few more D-1 guys than he has, but the reality is that doesn’t make all that much difference. 

 

Here's the thing, you mention those players, but which of them step up during the playoffs?  Coleman is all but mystery meat right now.  Torrence played very well as a rookie, but he's the only OL-man that Beane's hit on for us in 6 drafts.  

 

Oliver's shows up for three playoff games and two of 'em our D wasn't particularly impressive against backup QBs.  10 plahyoff games, 2 sacks, 5 TFLs, 8 QB Hits, with 2, 3, and 5 in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the other in that horrific defensive performance allowing 36 regulation points to KC.  0 sacks, 2 TFLs, and 3 QB Hits in the other 8 playoff games.  

 

Same for Milano.  8 playoff games, 3 sacks, 5 TFLs, 7 QB Hits, with 3, 4, and 4 of those in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the others in that miserable loss to Cincy.  0 sacks, 1 TFL, and 3 QB Hits in the other 6 games.  

 

Cook, LOL, he hasn't had a great playoff game yet and Allen has to carry the running game in the playoffs.  Despite Cook's 5.0 career rushing avg. hee's averaged 3.6 in the playoffs.  1 playoff TD in 4 playoff games.  53 carries for 192 rushing yards, 8 catches for 26 receiving yards, 1 total TD (rushing), and averages of 48 rushing yards and 6 receiving yards with TDs much less big-plays being rare.  

 

Doesn't that fall on the coaching given your post?  

 

 

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

Ask McDermott the high school coach if he likes were he is right now, and I’m sure he’ll say, “Absolutely.”  Ask him, the pro coach, and he'll say, "Absolutely."

 

I like what Beane has done since the end of the last season, and I’m looking forward to the 2024.  The Bills will be in the middle of the contest for the Lombardi. 

 

Great!  Eight (8) seasons in it's well past time to get it done.  At what point does one cut bait.  (rhetorical)  

 

 

On 4/29/2024 at 6:30 PM, Shaw66 said:

GO BILLS!!!

 

GO BILLS!!!

 

 

Edited May 1 by PBF81

[Beck Water]

20 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

That's an interesting take.   I have trouble seeing Shakir and Kincaid leading the way.   They both seem like complementary pieces.  

 

Does anyone know of a good in-depth breakdown on the 2023 passing game?   First half and second half were so dramatically different.   Was it just Brady going in another direction; was Diggs slumping, or did they move away from him intentionally?   Kincaid first half/second half?  

 

I don't know of a good breakdown overall in depth breakdown, just little pieces.  After the Diggs trade, in one of the OBD segments Greg Cosell minced no words about Diggs.  Spoiler: he said Diggs was "no longer a #1 receiver physically at this time".  He referred to Shakir as "their new #1".  He puts some film clips behind his assessment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfWFFj1lsW8

 

I also put some breakdowns of Brady games into the "comes down to Brady" thread

On the other hand, Devin McCourty said that "it looks like they're trying to prove they can win without him" (Diggs)" prior to the 2nd Miami game.  So it may be a "chicken-egg" thing; perhaps Diggs was ineffective as the Bills had been using him, so they were trying to put him into different roles where he could still be effective, and that looked like "trying to win without him" to McCourty.  Of course, we don't know why; was he suffering nagging injuries, or has he physically declined? 

 

For either reason, it appears to have been intentional.

 

You can find a beautiful breakdown of each receiver first and 2nd half of season - in fact it's upthread here

 

Edited May 1 by Beck Water

[Shaw66]

14 minutes ago, PBF81 said:

 

You hit the nail on the head there Shaw.  Very nice, well thought out, very well reasoned post BTW!!  

 

Regarding the above however, the primary issue with this team is that we're two different teams, one in the regular season and another in the postseason.   

 

For example, our Ds have consistently finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the league during the regular season, but over the past four years it plays more like the 20th (or worse) defense in the playoffs.  Many attribute that to precisely what you said, particularly when it comes to coaching errors, miscues, whatever anyone wishes to call them, that hand games to our opponents in one form or another, including lax defensive scheming.  

 

 

 

You mention the talent in September, but the discussion needs to revolve around the talent in January and February.  

 

 

 

Here's the issue with our drafting, there's no visible plan in sight, much as game-planning, it seems to be a lot of shoot-from-the-hip stuff.  

 

To start, Drafts are not annual events taken independently, at least not for the best, best coached, and best managed teams.  There should be a year-over-year plan in place to build and create a Super Bowl Championship caliber team.  Is there any hint of any such plan in place here?  Many would argue that there is not.  If there is, it's hardly identifiable other than creating the best D.  

 

In fact, last season it was all about getting a WR that could separate.  Diggs was ejected at tremendous cost because they claim he couldn't do that anymore.  Watching the last game of the season vs. Miami seems to contradict that, where Allen badly overthrew him for a missed TD opportinity, and threw short to Knox for another missed TD opp, both plays he had beaten Ramsey and Apple, but that's irrelevant.  This year we went with a WR that doesn't do that.  There's zero visible plan for the offense in a year-over-year manner.  

 

Our focus, clearly, has been on having the top-ranked D, which would be fine and dandy if it played that way in the playoffs, but it doesn't, it plays like one of the worst Ds in the playoffs generally speaking and with a pair of exceptions over the past four or five postseasons.  McD seems to model things after the '85 Bears D which ranked #1 also, but in the playoffs it allowed 10 points in three games.  We've averaged nearly three times that many in the playoffs.  

 

 

 

Here's the thing, you mention those players, but which of them step up during the playoffs?  Coleman is all but mystery meat right now.  Torrence played very well as a rookie, but he's the only OL-man that Beane's hit on for us in 6 drafts.  

 

Oliver's shows up for three playoff games and two of 'em our D wasn't particularly impressive against backup QBs.  10 plahyoff games, 2 sacks, 5 TFLs, 8 QB Hits, with 2, 3, and 5 in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the other in that horrific defensive performance allowing 36 regulation points to KC.  0 sacks, 2 TFLs, and 3 QB Hits in the other 8 playoff games.  

 

Same for Milano.  8 playoff games, 3 sacks, 5 TFLs, 7 QB Hits, with 3, 4, and 4 of those in two games, one against Skylar Thompson, the others in that miserable loss to Cincy.  0 sacks, 1 TFL, and 3 QB Hits in the other 6 games.  

 

Cook, LOL, he hasn't had a great playoff game yet and Allen has to carry the running game in the playoffs.  Despite Cook's 5.0 career rushing avg. hee's averaged 3.6 in the playoffs.  1 playoff TD in 4 playoff games.  53 carries for 192 rushing yards, 8 catches for 26 receiving yards, 1 total TD (rushing), and averages of 48 rushing yards and 6 receiving yards with TDs much less big-plays being rare.  

 

Doesn't that fall on the coaching given your post?  

 

 

 

Great!  Eight (8) seasons in it's well past time to get it done.  At what point does one cut bait.  (rhetorical)  

 

 

 

GO BILLS!!!

 

 

PB -

 

This is really good stuff.   I don't agree with it all, but even where we disagree, it's getting to the heart of the matter.  

 

First, overall, I think it has to come down to coaching.  Player personnel to some extent, but coaching primarily.  In some ways, that's the point of my essay - Beane's job is to present the HC with a better mix of players than the HS coach can expect to get out of the random selection of kids in his school.  We can argue about this player or that player, this trade or that signing, but in the end, Beane's delivering a pretty good collection of players, and the coach's job is to figure out how to win.   We've pretty much all felt over the past few years that the roster was good enough to win it all, and they didn't.   Roster could have been better, but it was good enough.  

 

After listening to Beane for several years, I don't think it's possible to "plan" personnel the way you say.   There's too much that the GM can't control.  Beane's probably been thinking since October that he needed a new #1 receiver, but he wasn't thinking that a year ago.   He might have had a crystal ball, sure, but he really didn't have any way to know for sure that Diggs would go sideways in 2023 and then kind of separate himself from the team.   If he had some sort of plan for the receiver room before then, it went out the window.  So, starting in October, he's thinking about what he's going to do about a receiver. But by then, his cap situation was determined, his draft situation was more or less determined.   He wasn't going to be able to get a stud rookie.   There wasn't a stud veteran who was available.  What does he do?   He talks to the coaches about what sort of receiving help they could use, given where Shakir and Kincaid are in their development, what kind of offense they want to run, etc.   Beane comes up with some ideas, and then he does the best he can.   It's hard to stick to a plan in that kind of situation. 

 

So, he comes up with what he can, in this case Coleman, and he already got Samuel.   Pretty good choices, guys with some interesting skills, interesting personality, and in many respects they're good building blocks to work with.   They're both different from Shakir and Kincaid, and they probably make sense in terms of what Brady and McDermott said they'd like to do with the passing game.  

 

I think that demonstrates that Beane might have an overall philosophy that he's following, but it's not really a plan.   

 

Your primary point however, seems to be the truly critical point:  the coaches seem to be quite good at taking what Beane gives them year to year and building a team that is successful in the regular season, but those teams never have been very successful at playoff football.  

 

My view for the past few years has been that McDermott's philosophy, and therefore Beane's player selection, works well in the regular season and not so well in the playoffs.   McDermott's philosophy is that his his team will be good at everything, able to play any kind of game, adapt from week to week.  Pass one week, run the next.  Blitz one week, defend the next.   The philosophy demands that the Bills have jack-knife players: o-linemen who can pass block one week, run block the next.   It means you have a guy like Spencer Brown at right tackle.  In the receiver room, it means you want to have five or six guys, all of whom can do a lot of things pretty well - run routes, catch contested balls, run after catch, block, etc.  And McDermott is good at running that kind of team, as we've seen.  It makes a team resilient, to use the popular word.  

 

But the playoffs are different.  In the playoffs, there may be one or two teams that are multi- like your team is, and then it's just mano-a-mano.  But there are also are teams that are very good at some things and just okay at other things.   The Bills haven't been good enough to stop what the other team does really well and haven't been outstanding enough to take advantage of what the other team does not so well.   It's like the Bills are stuck in some sort of high-end mediocrity across all aspects of their game.   It's been that way on offense some times, but it's particularly been that way on defense.  

 

What's to be done about it?   Although I've been saying for years it's primarily about coaching (and I believe it is), on the personnel side I think (as many other do) that pursuit of these jack-knife players means that the Bills roster doesn't have true game changers (other than Allen).   There's no Chris Jones.   We hoped Diggs would be one, but he never quite got there.   The safeties weren't outstanding, but they were outstanding within the system.   It's hard to be that guy from Milano's position.   They hoped Miller would be that guy, and the Bills have had bad luck with him.   Maybe he comes back.  Rousseau and Oliver are good examples - both probably top 10 at their positions, and excellent at what they do, but they're top 10, not top 3.  

 

Maybe Beane and McDermott don't think they need a standout playmaker, but I do.  On the personnel side, that's what I think. 

 

The coaching side is, in my mind, more of a problem.  I think it's really hard to get the jack-of-all-trades philosophy to win in the playoffs.  In particular in recent years, it's been necessary not just to be really good, but to raise your game to the level of offensive and defensive excellence that Chiefs have had.   What Reid has done in KC puts him, I think, way up on the list of all-time great coaches.  His teams always seem to have an answer.   It's scheme and creativity on the coaching side, and it's outstanding playmaking on the personnel side.  

 

But it's mostly coaching.  I think, and it appears that several posters here agree, that regardless of what one might think about the players Beane has assembled, they are good enough to win the Super Bowl.   The potential is there to have a top-three offense.  The defense may be a little weak.  I think a lot depends on Bishop and Edwards, and on Miller.   I'm assuming Milano and Bernard will be back, and I actually expect that we'll see some great stuff from Dorian Williams.  

 

I'm more optimistic than most, because I have more confidence in McDermott than most people.   McDermott is not about doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get better results.   His system is to examine, constantly, what works and what doesn't and to make changes.  I like to think that he knows what I've just said, and he's working at changing those things that haven't worked.  He is, for example, challenging Brady to build an offense that is feared around the league, and they have a vision of what that will look like.  He has a vision for what his defense will look like.   (On defense, I think he now has what he had in Carolina - a linebacker corps that can drive a great defense.)

 

But my optimism doesn't win football games.   McDermott 's approach may make sense, but sooner or later has to win in the playoffs.  He could use another player or two, but fundamentally it's up to him to raise his game.  

[amprov56]

20 hours ago, Sweats said:

But, if you listen to the media and some Bills fans, the team is imploding, and everyone should be fired effective immediately........UGH

Telling you, TBD attracts Drama Queens like moths to a flame. If we won a SB through the ground game and defense they would still be on the "fire everybody" mantra! I actually have a top five list that I habitually read as they are both predictable and entertaining!

[Shaw66]

13 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

 

And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

I think we can look back now and say what we saw in the second half were actually the beginnings of what Brady would like to do.   I think that's what Beane's work shows us.   If Brady (and McDermott) didn't want the shift we saw when Brady took over, if they had wanted something different, Beane wouldn't have take Samuel, Coleman, and Davis.  

 

I think Davis sends a strong signal that the Bills intend to be a serious running team.   Davis will take touches from Johnson - I think he will take over the #2 RB role, and I think he will emerge as a different but nearly equally valuable running back as Cook.   And I think having a solid #2 was important because they want to run.  

 

And Beane clearly was not looking for the killer big downfield threat at receiver.   It's exactly the discussion you and I had before the draft.  Beane's given Brady two more guys in the Shakir-Kincaid mold - good athletes who can do everything, two more guys who fit in the style that we think we were seeing in the second half last season. 

 

Now, maybe it's all just Beane, McDermott, and Brady being practical - they didn't have a stud receiver in February and couldn't expect to find one, so rather than dream about a receiver room that wasn't possible, give where they were, they are building the best thing they can with what they have.  Regardless of how they got there, however, I think the guys the Bills have added tell us something about how they intend to play.   Whether it works remains to be seen.  

[jkeerie]

Going unnoticed by many in all of their criticism of the Bills draft, 7 out of the 10 players the Bills drafted were in Daniel Jeremiah's top 150.  I did this math yesterday out of curiosity, but Chris Brown just made the point on OBL since Arizona is being touted for selecting 8 of their 12 picks out of Jeremiah's top 150.  The difference...Arizona was drafting 4th in each round and had two selections in the first round...before the Bills selected even one.  The Bills were drafting at the bottom of each round.  Now...Jeremiah may not be the be all and end all of draft analysts.  However, he is well respected and his rankings of top players are for the most part consensus.   So...even though this is a "reload" as Shaw points out...it is a well-executed, well-planned reload.

[Beck Water]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I think we can look back now and say what we saw in the second half were actually the beginnings of what Brady would like to do.   I think that's what Beane's work shows us.   If Brady (and McDermott) didn't want the shift we saw when Brady took over, if they had wanted something different, Beane wouldn't have take Samuel, Coleman, and Davis.  

 

I think Davis sends a strong signal that the Bills intend to be a serious running team.   Davis will take touches from Johnson - I think he will take over the #2 RB role, and I think he will emerge as a different but nearly equally valuable running back as Cook.   And I think having a solid #2 was important because they want to run.  

 

And Beane clearly was not looking for the killer big downfield threat at receiver.   It's exactly the discussion you and I had before the draft.  Beane's given Brady two more guys in the Shakir-Kincaid mold - good athletes who can do everything, two more guys who fit in the style that we think we were seeing in the second half last season. 

 

Now, maybe it's all just Beane, McDermott, and Brady being practical - they didn't have a stud receiver in February and couldn't expect to find one, so rather than dream about a receiver room that wasn't possible, give where they were, they are building the best thing they can with what they have.  Regardless of how they got there, however, I think the guys the Bills have added tell us something about how they intend to play.   Whether it works remains to be seen.  

 

Oh, Wow, Shaw.  I don't quite know what to say here.

I do think there's an element of Beane being practical - as Beane himself said, if Coleman had run a faster 40 time, he likely wouldn't have been there when we picked.  And I think he went into the draft thinking "I better come out with a S and a DT", so 4th round was the first time he thought adding an RB added value.

 

I think Shakir and Kincaid are good athletes, but not receivers who can do everything.   Nor do I think Coleman is a receiver who can do everything.  I think they all 3 have things they are better suited for, physically and in terms of skills.  Seeing the addition of Coleman and Samuel as evidence Beane "clearly was not looking for the killer big downfield threat at receiver" seems odd to me.  Beane explicitly said Coleman's role would be to play as the "X" receiver.  That's traditionally the boundary guy who is a threat downfield. 

Now maybe Beane is wrong, and Coleman can't get off press (Beane said he was good at press) and can't separate "enough" downfield, or maybe Beane is "speaking with forked tongue", I don't know, but that's what he said, and (returning to the "being practical") who was on the board who looked more like a killer big downfield threat within reach of pick 28?

 

I literally blinked and jolted back when I read  "drafting Ray Davis [at the bottom of the 4th round] "sends a strong signal that the Buills intend to be a serious running team".  I mean, it's certainly possible that Davis will take touches from Johnson.  Johnson had 37 touches in 91 offensive snaps (30 rush, 7 receptions), though, so that's kind of a low bar?  Latavius Murray had 102 touches (22 targets, 79 carries) in 351 snaps, so I think that's the production we're trying to replace, and the question is between Johnson and Davis, is that enough, or had we better add a FA who can pass protect?  The run game we showed at the end of the season also reflected an outsize contribution from Josh Allen - jumping from 4-ish to 9 rushes per game.  If we want to be a serious running team and not run our QB into the ground, I think it's reasonable to ask if a stable of Cook, Ty Johnson, and Ray Davis at RB is "enough"?

 

I mean, you may be right that the Bills intend to be a serious running team - moving on from Morse for McGovern who at least in theory, should be a better power game center at the expense of pass pro as well as Brady's actual shift from 42% to 52% rush sort of imply that.  But if they want to be a serious running team, is taking a 4th round RB really enough of an add?  

 

Time will tell I guess.

 

[PBF81]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

PB -

 

This is really good stuff.   I don't agree with it all, but even where we disagree, it's getting to the heart of the matter.  

 

Yeah, of course not.  This stuff is more complex than social media discussions in a forum, few people agree exactly.  

 

I'll comment on a few of your points.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

First, overall, I think it has to come down to coaching.  Player personnel to some extent, but coaching primarily.  In some ways, that's the point of my essay - Beane's job is to present the HC with a better mix of players than the HS coach can expect to get out of the random selection of kids in his school.  We can argue about this player or that player, this trade or that signing, but in the end, Beane's delivering a pretty good collection of players, and the coach's job is to figure out how to win.   We've pretty much all felt over the past few years that the roster was good enough to win it all, and they didn't.   Roster could have been better, but it was good enough.  

 

Agree with that in one sense, it's always been a premise of mine that a team loaded with players that play in the 6-8 range (1-to-10 scale) is more apt to perform optimally than a team that has say three or four 9 or 10s but a lot of 2-5's as well due to cap issues.  The 9s and 10s always cost a lot unless you draft 'em and get 5 years out of 'em.  Beane has generally done a good job overall, but his drafts leave much to be desired in that way.  And as to value, Beane has never, outside of Allen, gotten great value from out day 1 & 2 picks.  If anything it's been on the lesser value side.  Starters, sure, but premiere/elite, not.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

After listening to Beane for several years, I don't think it's possible to "plan" personnel the way you say.   There's too much that the GM can't control.  Beane's probably been thinking since October that he needed a new #1 receiver, but he wasn't thinking that a year ago.   He might have had a crystal ball, sure, but he really didn't have any way to know for sure that Diggs would go sideways in 2023 and then kind of separate himself from the team.   If he had some sort of plan for the receiver room before then, it went out the window.  So, starting in October, he's thinking about what he's going to do about a receiver. But by then, his cap situation was determined, his draft situation was more or less determined.   He wasn't going to be able to get a stud rookie.   There wasn't a stud veteran who was available.  What does he do?   He talks to the coaches about what sort of receiving help they could use, given where Shakir and Kincaid are in their development, what kind of offense they want to run, etc.   Beane comes up with some ideas, and then he does the best he can.   It's hard to stick to a plan in that kind of situation. 

 

That's where the crux of our differences seem to lie.  I would rephrase that to say that he's a victim of his own past decison-making.  To put that into context, I'll cite how every season one or two, sometimes more, threads go up with who would you have drafted given a certain situation, in this case for this offseason, the depature of both Diggs and Davis.   My response to that is always that I would not have allowed that situation to come about.  

 

To put that into a practical frame of reference, several examples.  First, since when has Beane ever drafted a WR in round 1 or 2, prior to this season?  or heck, even round 3.  The obvious answer is never.   Davis was the highest in late round 4.  If you're never going to draft a top WR, it's incredibly unlikely that one will manifest itself from day 3 picks.  Some of us believe that McD is dictating to Beane what not to do, we simply do not know the extent to which that occurs.  

 

So Beane goes big-bucks and assumes risks, that once again have played out here surprise surprise, when he too could have had say Jefferson instead with the pick he traded to get the now departed Diggs.  He also could have had Aiyuk, Higgins, or Pittman too, for cheap, rather than for big-bucks.  That would have allowed him to do more elsewhere.  

 

The point is, that in his "grand scheme" plan, there's never been an emphasis on WR, and until last season much at TE either.  Which is incredibly odd given that we have what will go down in history as one of the all-time great passers at QB.  

 

Same for OL to an extent.  His philosophy until Torrence last year, has been picking up 1 & 2 year signees to fill in until ..., until what, the next 1 or 2 year signee that's junk?   There's been zero obvious plan at OL.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

So, he comes up with what he can, in this case Coleman, and he already got Samuel.   Pretty good choices, guys with some interesting skills, interesting personality, and in many respects they're good building blocks to work with.   They're both different from Shakir and Kincaid, and they probably make sense in terms of what Brady and McDermott said they'd like to do with the passing game.  

 

Here's the thing about that, everyone's crying about a deep-threat, so we ditch two of 'em, and replace them with yet another short-medium specialist.  

 

Certainly there's very little high-end production in Coleman's collegiate dossier.  It's incredibly doubtful that he's going to emerge as some downfield threat as such in his rookie season.  OK, so then we'll have to wait until next year, McD's 9th.  We're pushing a decade of this playoff futility.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I think that demonstrates that Beane might have an overall philosophy that he's following, but it's not really a plan.   

 

Maybe, but the great GMs have a plan as such.  He does not seem to have one.  Frankly, IMO he's being influenced too much by McD to be able to put his plan in place, and knowing that he owes McD for the opportunity.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Your primary point however, seems to be the truly critical point:  the coaches seem to be quite good at taking what Beane gives them year to year and building a team that is successful in the regular season, but those teams never have been very successful at playoff football.  

 

Correct, because the players he's chosen, apart from Allen, simply dont' step up come playoff time.  Whether that's coaching (AHEM, it seems to be) or not, the core reasons are not being corrected.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

My view for the past few years has been that McDermott's philosophy, and therefore Beane's player selection, works well in the regular season and not so well in the playoffs.   McDermott's philosophy is that his his team will be good at everything, able to play any kind of game, adapt from week to week.  Pass one week, run the next.  Blitz one week, defend the next.   The philosophy demands that the Bills have jack-knife players: o-linemen who can pass block one week, run block the next.   It means you have a guy like Spencer Brown at right tackle.  In the receiver room, it means you want to have five or six guys, all of whom can do a lot of things pretty well - run routes, catch contested balls, run after catch, block, etc.  And McDermott is good at running that kind of team, as we've seen.  It makes a team resilient, to use the popular word.  

 

Yes, exactly.  More on that below however.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

But the playoffs are different.  In the playoffs, there may be one or two teams that are multi- like your team is, and then it's just mano-a-mano.  But there are also are teams that are very good at some things and just okay at other things.   The Bills haven't been good enough to stop what the other team does really well and haven't been outstanding enough to take advantage of what the other team does not so well.   It's like the Bills are stuck in some sort of high-end mediocrity across all aspects of their game.   It's been that way on offense some times, but it's particularly been that way on defense.  

 

Again, yes, pretty much exactly, but the reason is clear.  It's in the playoffs where you find the best coaches and the best teams.  Being "good enough" is relative.  The coaches in the secondary (post wild-card) rounds are the best, and can see what we've done and do and successfully scheme us to their advantage.  How else does anyone explain the fact that we take a #1 or #2 regular-season defense into the playoffs where it plays like a mediocre, at best, defense.  

 

In short, we've routinely been outcoached in the playoffs.  

 

The narrative is that Reid/Mahomes are simply too good.  What a defeatest attitude.  Other teams have beaten them in the Super Bowl and D and C rounds.  Only we can't.  Let's find someone that can.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

What's to be done about it?   Although I've been saying for years it's primarily about coaching (and I believe it is), on the personnel side I think (as many other do) that pursuit of these jack-knife players means that the Bills roster doesn't have true game changers (other than Allen).   There's no Chris Jones.   We hoped Diggs would be one, but he never quite got there.   The safeties weren't outstanding, but they were outstanding within the system.   It's hard to be that guy from Milano's position.   They hoped Miller would be that guy, and the Bills have had bad luck with him.   Maybe he comes back.  Rousseau and Oliver are good examples - both probably top 10 at their positions, and excellent at what they do, but they're top 10, not top 3.  

 

Again, they're nowhere near even top-10 come playoff time, whereas our counterparts, that's not true.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Maybe Beane and McDermott don't think they need a standout playmaker, but I do.  On the personnel side, that's what I think. 

 

The coaching side is, in my mind, more of a problem.  I think it's really hard to get the jack-of-all-trades philosophy to win in the playoffs.  In particular in recent years, it's been necessary not just to be really good, but to raise your game to the level of offensive and defensive excellence that Chiefs have had.   What Reid has done in KC puts him, I think, way up on the list of all-time great coaches.  His teams always seem to have an answer.   It's scheme and creativity on the coaching side, and it's outstanding playmaking on the personnel side.  

 

But it's mostly coaching.  I think, and it appears that several posters here agree, that regardless of what one might think about the players Beane has assembled, they are good enough to win the Super Bowl.   The potential is there to have a top-three offense.  The defense may be a little weak.  I think a lot depends on Bishop and Edwards, and on Miller.   I'm assuming Milano and Bernard will be back, and I actually expect that we'll see some great stuff from Dorian Williams.  

 

Agree with some of that.  But again, it's paramount to distinguish between the drastically different levels of play for Bills Regular Season Football, and Bills Playoff Football where Allen does everything, more so than during the season as the other top players all routinely disappear with rare exceptions.  That's without question a coaching thing.  Will it change?  Why would it?  

 

 

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm more optimistic than most, because I have more confidence in McDermott than most people.   McDermott is not about doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get better results.   His system is to examine, constantly, what works and what doesn't and to make changes.  I like to think that he knows what I've just said, and he's working at changing those things that haven't worked.  He is, for example, challenging Brady to build an offense that is feared around the league, and they have a vision of what that will look like.  He has a vision for what his defense will look like.   (On defense, I think he now has what he had in Carolina - a linebacker corps that can drive a great defense.)

 

But my optimism doesn't win football games.   McDermott 's approach may make sense, but sooner or later has to win in the playoffs.  He could use another player or two, but fundamentally it's up to him to raise his game.  

 

Many including myself are not nearly that optimistic and have seen enough.  I could not disagree more on Brady building an offense that is feared aroiund the league at McD's behest.   To the contrary.  McD's stuck on this '80s/'90s Run/D/Ball-Control gig, hence his "complimentary football approach.  He's trying to turn Kelly into Aikman.  That will not work nor does it play to Allen's strengths.  

 

If McD really wanted to do what you're saying, he'd have invested in some serious offensive braintrust on his staff.  He's taken the opposite approach, put in people that he can control to get the offense to match his extremely conservative philosophy.  As to Beane, if that weren't the case, our drafts would be littered with WRs and OL-men in rounds 1 & 2.  

 

McD knows defense.  He knows nothing about offense.  How can anyone possibly expect a coach with a mind like that know what's best for the offense, and given that we have Allen, for the team.  Last season scoring under Brady was down and horrifically low-end to finish off the season.  (Last 3 games)  

 

Either way, he's entering his 8th season with only one D-round playoff win.  Not one coach considered to be great has such a dubious distinction, namely only one D-round or better playoff round win in 7 seasons.  

 

Furthermore, it's ridiculous to consider that many coaches considered anything but great, that coached teams to 7, 8, 9, or 10 wins regularly, with Allen wouldn't be doing at least what we're doing in the regular season.  Allen is easily worth at least 4 wins/season, easily.  

 

We'll see what happens.  But this configuration of WRs is not within Allen's primary skillset.  We'll see if "deep threats" develop or not.  We'll also see how tight the choker chain around Brady's neck is.  

 

A lot of people have a disheartening premonition about this season, myself included.  

 

Thanks for the civil, hearty, and quite engaging back-n-forth despite the notion that we agree on much.   

 

Go Bills!  

[Sweats]

20 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I think that teams that believe the Bills can't get deep will be looking at the backside of Samuel, Shakir, Coleman, and Cook.   I think receivers are going to be crossing all day long, with one or another slipping deep on various plays.    

 

Someone will go over 1000 yards.  Samuel, Shakir, Kincaid, or Coleman.  Three others will get between 600 and 800.  Cook and Knox will add a few hundred yards each, and there'll be miscellaneous other guys contributing.  Allen will get comfortably over 4000 again this season.  

 

 

 

 

I watched some interesting stuff on NFL network a couple of weeks ago. They were talking about the Bills WR needs for the upcoming draft and they mentioned that the only real time the Bills had any success at the backend of last season was through slants, crossing routes, etc and you know, the more game footage i watched, i couldn't even argue cause it looked like they were spot on........so i expect a heavy dose of middle work every week.