I'm really starting to love this WR room. We quietly got better

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

God I can't wait for training camp to start so we can stop bickering over conjecture and start bickering over observations

[oldmanfan]

5 minutes ago, FireChans said:

You won’t commit to a prediction that 2 out of 3 top weapons will be in the top 32 of receiving yards next year. 
 

What is that except for an admission that we may not have 2 productive weapons next year?

 

FYI, Kincaid was 56 in the NFL, Samuel was 65 and Shakir was 66. So I don’t blame you for refusing to commit to that take. But understand what that implies lol.

You said we will have no productive receivers.  Now that’s going to be defined by some arbitrary, capricious number?  It has to be in the top 32?  Based on what?

 

How many yards any given receiver in this offense will accumulate depends primarily on how Brady constructs the offense.  Do I think Kincaid will be top 32?  Yes.  But my guess is Brady wants Josh to spread the ball around more.  So if we throw for somewhere over 4500 yards and are a top scoring offense I don’t give a damn if we have a guy that is top 32.  If we had 3 guys at 33 would that work for you?  Or do they have to meet your and Badolbills mythical construct?
 

 

3 minutes ago, WhitewalkerInPhilly said:

God I can't wait for training camp to start so we can stop bickering over conjecture and start bickering over observations

Absolutely.  We’ll see how Brady wants to run his offense which in turn will tell us about how well our receiving corps functions.

[FireChans]

6 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

You said we will have no productive receivers.  Now that’s going to be defined by some arbitrary, capricious number?  It has to be in the top 32?  Based on what?

 

How many yards any given receiver in this offense will accumulate depends primarily on how Brady constructs the offense.  Do I think Kincaid will be top 32?  Yes.  But my guess is Brady wants Josh to spread the ball around more.  So if we throw for somewhere over 4500 yards and are a top scoring offense I don’t give a damn if we have a guy that is top 32.  If we had 3 guys at 33 would that work for you?  Or do they have to meet your and Badolbills mythical construct?
 

 

Absolutely.  We’ll see how Brady wants to run his offense which in turn will tell us about how well our receiving corps functions.

Do you think we’ll have 3 guys at 33?

 

Sorry, you just kinda sound like one of those guys who complains but won’t actually make any kind of prediction on their own.

 

If Kincaid has 900 yards and 3 other guys have 600+, we won’t get to 4500 passing yards lol.

[oldmanfan]

Just now, FireChans said:

Do you think we’ll have 3 guys at 33?

 

Sorry, you just kinda sound like one of those guys who complains but won’t actually make any kind of prediction on their own.

 

If Kincaid has 900 yards and 3 other guys have 600+, we won’t get to 4500 passing yards lol.

So you throw out some mythical standard and it has to be valid, but someone else throws out another and it’s wrong.  Sure.

 

So try reading, but what I said is how many yards guys get will depend primarily on how Brady constructs the offense.  So predicting until we know that is blowing in the wind.  We’ll know more starting this week.  But I think it is a fair assumption that the ball is going to get spread around to multiple guys including WRs, TEs and RBs vs.  trying to feed any specific guy.

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

So you throw out some mythical standard and it has to be valid, but someone else throws out another and it’s wrong.  Sure.

 

So try reading, but what I said is how many yards guys get will depend primarily on how Brady constructs the offense.  So predicting until we know that is blowing in the wind.  We’ll know more starting this week.  But I think it is a fair assumption that the ball is going to get spread around to multiple guys including WRs, TEs and RBs vs.  trying to feed any specific guy.

So you won’t make any kind of prediction because it’s just blowing wind and you don’t know what the offense looks like, but you do know my prediction of “maybe we won’t have two productive weapons in the top 32,” is wrong, even though you yourself admit that the ball is gonna be spread around and that will limit individual production by definition. 

 

lol. Lmao even. Do you ever ask yourself what your point is?

[oldmanfan]

1 minute ago, FireChans said:

So you won’t make any kind of prediction because it’s just blowing wind and you don’t know what the offense looks like, but you do know my prediction of “maybe we won’t have two productive weapons in the top 32,” is wrong, even though you yourself admit that the ball is gonna be spread around and that will limit individual production by definition. 

 

lol. Lmao even. Do you ever ask yourself what your point is?

First of all your post said two productive WRs.  Then you threw in the having two guys in the top 32 as if that has any meaning.  So, again, that is meaningless without seeing what Brady does in constructing an offense.

 

So I mentioned 4500 yards.  That would be about 260 yards passing a game.  Divide that by 5 receivers and each would need 52 yards in a game.  Do I think that’s achievable?  If Brady’s offense is constructed to spread the ball around, yes.  But we also I think can fairly predict Brady will emphasize the run game as well.  So that would also affect the total yards for a given receiver.  So let’s look at the Cowboys game last year where we ran the ball down their throats.  In your world it would be a negative because the WEs didn’t make X yards.

 

To me what is important for an offense is points scored, not some mythical construct as to how many WRs are within a given number of yards.  

[FireChans]

3 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

First of all your post said two productive WRs.  Then you threw in the having two guys in the top 32 as if that has any meaning.  So, again, that is meaningless without seeing what Brady does in constructing an offense.

 

So I mentioned 4500 yards.  That would be about 260 yards passing a game.  Divide that by 5 receivers and each would need 52 yards in a game.  Do I think that’s achievable?  If Brady’s offense is constructed to spread the ball around, yes.  But we also I think can fairly predict Brady will emphasize the run game as well.  So that would also affect the total yards for a given receiver.  So let’s look at the Cowboys game last year where we ran the ball down their throats.  In your world it would be a negative because the WEs didn’t make X yards.

 

To me what is important for an offense is points scored, not some mythical construct as to how many WRs are within a given number of yards.  

I was responding to a post about how KC had 2 receivers in top 32 last year…..

 

Did you even read along with the conversation?

If this is all meaningless discussion because we don’t know what offense Brady will run and he could run the mythical “4 WR’s and 2 TE’s all get 600 yards” offense, why are you even here discussing it?

 

I will ask again, do you ever ask yourself what your point even is?

[oldmanfan]

1 minute ago, FireChans said:

I was responding to a post about how KC had 2 receivers in top 32 last year…..

 

Did you even read along with the conversation?

If this is all meaningless discussion because we don’t know what offense Brady will run and he could run the mythical “4 WR’s and 2 TE’s all get 600 yards” offense, why are you even here discussing it?

 

I will ask again, do you ever ask yourself what your point even is?

Yes I saw Badolbills make that mythical top 33 thing, which you bought into for some reason.  And of course when drawing a comparison to KC he added in Kelce even though throughout this thread he kept droning on about how the thread only is about WRs.

 

I know exactly what my points are:

 

1.  The having to have two receivers in the top 32 is a mythical construct with respect to any degree of success for an offense, unless you show compelling data otherwise.

 

2.  How many yards any individual receiver on the Bills gains this year is going to be dependent more on how Brady constructs the offense vs. the talent level of an individual receiver.

 

3.  If you want to stick to this too 32 stuff, I think Kincaid will be in that group for all that means.

 

4.  Ultimately it is how many points an offense scores that matters, not how many WRs are in the top 32.

[GoBills808]

32 is an arbitrary boundary but it's meaningful. It relates directly to how teams are able to defend you and conversely how much pressure your offense can put on a defense.

 

If you don't understand this you don't belong in the discussion

[ToGoGo]

I think we make big splashes on offense next year. 
 

This year was about restructuring the team by letting go of the negative value players and old vets. 
 

For those that don’t realize, defense was the reason we haven’t won the SB the last few years. That was the goal this offseason and I believe we will see great improvements this year. 
 

Offense was about bringing in solid and cheap players and removing the divas and INT magnets. Next year we swing for the fences on WR. 

[BADOLBILZ]

10 hours ago, Rocky Landing said:

On paper (all we really have at this time of year) it is ugly. But not nearly as ugly as you're painting it!

 

To your points:

1) Robert Foster, who absolutely crapped out of the league within three years, had 541 yards receiving in his rookie year under Allen. On the other side of that coin, as has been stated numerous times in this thread, numerous receiver's yards increased significantly under Allen. Diggs' production jumped from 1,130 yards in Min, to 1,535 under Allen in his first season. Diggs went from the 44th ranked WR in '19 in Minnesota, to the #1 ranked WR in '20. Khalil Shakir's numbers jumped from 161 yards in his '22 rookie season, to 611 in '23. And that was as a #3WR. And if you don't want to accept any of those examples as "breakout star" numbers, then you will also have to admit that what you want to define as a "breakout star" doesn't occur on a team that already has an elite star like Stefon Diggs, who was ranked 1st, 9th, 4th, and 7th in his four years in Buffalo, respectively.

 

2) This is a pretty convoluted standard, and "showed great promise" is utterly subjective. Could you say that Cole Beasley, who never started more than six games in a season (and only once) in seven years in Dallas "showed great promise" before becoming the Bills' starting #2WR? 

 

3) This is the most pessimistic part of your post. The Bills have had a 1,000+ yard WR every year since '19-- Allen's second season. I'm not going to dig into every year since then, but two teams had more than one WR with 1,000+ yards last season: Miami (Hill, Waddle), and Philadelphia (AJ Brown, DaVonte Smith). Hill, and Brown obviously had 1,000+ yard seasons before arriving at their current teams. Waddle was drafted 6th overall, and Smith was drafted 10th overall. 

 

But what really makes this non-point utterly pessimistic is that it completely ignores the jump in production that numerous WRs have made under Allen by applying an arbitrary metric. 

 

4) We all know what you mean by a "dumpster dive receiver." Unfortunately, I don't believe there are any sites that post stat-lines for "dumpster dive receivers." But, there have been WRs, who had some level of production under Allen, whom once they left, went straight into the dumpster. McKenzie went from 482 yards in '22, to 81 yards in '23. I guess we can all watch what kind of numbers Davis puts up in Jax.

 

 

1) The point is that creating this caveat that a few players who had played(or would later play) elsewhere had their best season with Allen then requires the rest of their time with Allen be considered for balance.    That's the problem with cherry picking.  Foster was supposed to become the Bills WR1 in 2019 after his 2018 showing.   He fell off the map entirely.   How many players who we hoped would perform better fell short in seasons with Allen?   The answer is all of them not on the current roster EXCEPT Diggs(though his fall off under Allen with Brady bears noting).   Brown and Beasley fell off drastically and unexpectedly.   Davis and McKenzie frustratingly failed to live up to expectations in expanded roles.   Sanders, Crowder, Sherfield, Harty...........ALL of them were expected to be better than they were with Allen.   Josh Allen is not a magic elixir for WR's who suck or have lost it.   Brown and Beasley having one modestly better season than their prior career best and Diggs elevating his game while his replacement in Minnesota becomes the greatest producing young WR in NFL history with Kirk Cousins isn't exactly overwhelming evidence in support of Allen's unique ability to significantly elevate everyone around him statistically.    The reality is that Allen is an INDIVIDUAL stat monster.   Allen ran for over 2,000 yards with 28 TD's in the 3 years that this pass offense has been in decline.  That is the fiddle that's kept us entertained while the WR corps has burned.

 

2) Citing "starts" is what is "convoluted".   Beasley never "started" more than 10 games in a season in his entire career.  Because of formations.   But he played 55% or more of Dallas/Buffalo offensive snaps each season from 2015-2021.   Those are "starter" numbers.   In fact, he played more offensive snaps in Dallas in 2018 than he did in his 2020 All Pro season with Buffalo.   And his 2016 season per snap production in his 833 yard 5 TD season was almost identical to that 2020 production.    So any way you cut it,  yes Beasley was already established as both a starter AND a player who could produce.   As were Diggs and Brown.

 

3) About 25 teams every year have a 1,000 yard "wide receiver".   Carolina even had one last year.  That's a very low bar when you have the 2nd best QB in football, is it not?   If you are going to pretend it is then you need to "dig into every year".    The Bills 1,000 yard receiver is GONE.   The Bills highest ranked WR in terms of yardage from 2023 is the lowest such leader of any team in the NFL except Arizona(who just drafted a guy everyone assumes will put up 1,000+ in Marvin Harrison Jr.).    I'm not pessimistic.   I'm realistic based on probability.  Given the data we have, the Bills "wr corps" projects to be among the worst.

 

4) The common thread among the WR who have left Buffalo and then played worse.........is that it was clear that they were circling the drain when they left.  The Bills even brought BACK Beasley and Brown when nobody wanted them because their own WR corps was THAT needy.    Gabe is the only one who has left with any promise of production........but even he is departing on a down turn with woeful passer rating numbers the past two years and 12 INT's thrown his way.   His lack of development/improvement with Allen has been a devastating blow to the WR corps because they thought he was going to be a star and kept their eggs in that basket for too long.

 

 

Edited July 20 by BADOLBILZ

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

1.  The having to have two receivers in the top 32 is a mythical construct with respect to any degree of success for an offense, unless you show compelling data otherwise.

Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. 
 

No team has made a SB with less than 1 in the top 32 in the last 4 years.

Of the 8 teams that did make the SB, 6 of them did have 2 in the top 32.

 

The exceptions?
 

Tampa had #18 and #36 in 2020, with a weapons group of Evans, Godwin, AB, Gronk.

 

The Rams in 2021 had #1 and #44, with Kupp famously having arguably one of the greatest individual seasons of all time in the NFL with 145 catches, 1947 yards and 16 TD’s.

 

So unless we are as good as that 2020 Tampa unit or have a Kupp ready for a 2k yard season, we are probably not gonna be an exception to that statistic.

 

10 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

2.  How many yards any individual receiver on the Bills gains this year is going to be dependent more on how Brady constructs the offense vs. the talent level of an individual receiver.

Ok so no reason to discuss production. Yet you have the third most posts in this topic lol.

 

11 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

3.  If you want to stick to this too 32 stuff, I think Kincaid will be in that group for all that means

See #1.

13 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

4.  Ultimately it is how many points an offense scores that matters, not how many WRs are in the top 32

Do you think there’s no correlation with points scored and the production of your offensive weapons?

Did the Bills jump from 23rd in points in 2019 to 2nd in points in 2020 for no reason?

[FireChans]

8 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

32 is an arbitrary boundary but it's meaningful. It relates directly to how teams are able to defend you and conversely how much pressure your offense can put on a defense.

 

If you don't understand this you don't belong in the discussion

I like 32 because of the greater point it illustrates.

 

you have arguably the best QB in football. if you surround him with guys who are high 30’s to low 40’s in talent, you should see around top 32 production. 

If you surround him with guys that are in the 60s or 70s or 80s, you won’t. 

 

John Brown managed to be 21st in yards in 2019. Beasley was 23rd in 2020.

If these guys fail to crack 32 in 24 then it’s a complete failure on the organization to help Josh out. 

[Chaos]

There is no problem with the offense the last five years as far as advancing in the playoffs that would be solved by Reallocating regular season passing yards to focus more on two players.  This would  not have fixed any of the weird defensive collapses or odd coaching decisions in the playoffs.  

[FireChans]

Just now, Chaos said:

There is no problem with the offense the last five years as far as advancing in the playoffs that would be solved by Reallocating regular season passing yards to focus more on two players.  This would  not have fixed any of the weird defensive collapses or odd coaching decisions in the playoffs.  

Here I thought the Bills lost in the divisional round last year because they didn’t outscore their opponent when they had the chance to, instead having to settle for a tying FG. 

[GoBills808]

12 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I like 32 because of the greater point it illustrates.

 

you have arguably the best QB in football. if you surround him with guys who are high 30’s to low 40’s in talent, you should see around top 32 production. 

If you surround him with guys that are in the 60s or 70s or 80s, you won’t. 

 

John Brown managed to be 21st in yards in 2019. Beasley was 23rd in 2020.

If these guys fail to crack 32 in 24 then it’s a complete failure on the organization to help Josh out. 

If you have multiple guys in the top 32 it means that ON AVERAGE you will have more productive offensive players going against less talented defensive players

 

For anyone who understands the game it's basically a metric for determining favorable matchups

[Mikey152]

50 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. 
 

No team has made a SB with less than 1 in the top 32 in the last 4 years.

Of the 8 teams that did make the SB, 6 of them did have 2 in the top 32.

 

The exceptions?
 

Tampa had #18 and #36 in 2020, with a weapons group of Evans, Godwin, AB, Gronk.

 

The Rams in 2021 had #1 and #44, with Kupp famously having arguably one of the greatest individual seasons of all time in the NFL with 145 catches, 1947 yards and 16 TD’s.

 

So unless we are as good as that 2020 Tampa unit or have a Kupp ready for a 2k yard season, we are probably not gonna be an exception to that statistic.

 

Ok so no reason to discuss production. Yet you have the third most posts in this topic lol.

 

See #1.

Do you think there’s no correlation with points scored and the production of your offensive weapons?

Did the Bills jump from 23rd in points in 2019 to 2nd in points in 2020 for no reason?

Let’s state this all another way.

 

if the Bills don’t have any receivers in the top 32, Josh Allen probably isn’t the quarterback we think he is.

 

if you look at the top 40, the distribution among teams is pretty high.  Most teams have one or two (correlates to targets I posted earlier). Odds are high we have one guy in the top 20 and/or two guys in the top 40 and/or 3 guys in the top 50.

 

if that DOESNT happen, something went horribly wrong, like Josh got hurt.

[FireChans]

4 minutes ago, Mikey152 said:

Let’s state this all another way.

 

if the Bills don’t have any receivers in the top 32, Josh Allen probably isn’t the quarterback we think he is.

 

if you look at the top 40, the distribution among teams is pretty high.  Most teams have one or two (correlates to targets I posted earlier). Odds are high we have one guy in the top 20 and/or two guys in the top 40 and/or 3 guys in the top 50.

 

if that DOESNT happen, something went horribly wrong, like Josh got hurt.

 

Not having one would be catastrophic, but it would be the worst case scenario, just like the group being good would require the best case scenario.

 

To have zero in the top 32 would mean that Kincaid ends up a bust, Coleman is a bust, and every other lotto ticket is a complete flameout or the entire group is basically hurt all year.

 

If the Bills distribution ends up the way you have it there, I would expect a bad offense relative to our expectations and an early playoff exit in our future. And having a bunch of guys putting up top 40-50 production with Josh Allen throwing them the football would be reprehensible. That distribution is “one guy is better than Gabe Davis and everyone else is worse.” GROSS.

 

I don’t want to see Josh have a regular season like Mahomes did last year. I don’t think that is the way to succeed, because we don’t have the horses to turn it on in the playoffs and we don’t have the defense like they did last year. 

[Mikey152]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

Well, here’s what I’ll tell you. 
 

No team has made a SB with less than 1 in the top 32 in the last 4 years.

Of the 8 teams that did make the SB, 6 of them did have 2 in the top 32.

 

The exceptions?
 

Tampa had #18 and #36 in 2020, with a weapons group of Evans, Godwin, AB, Gronk.

 

The Rams in 2021 had #1 and #44, with Kupp famously having arguably one of the greatest individual seasons of all time in the NFL with 145 catches, 1947 yards and 16 TD’s.

 

So unless we are as good as that 2020 Tampa unit or have a Kupp ready for a 2k yard season, we are probably not gonna be an exception to that statistic.

 

Ok so no reason to discuss production. Yet you have the third most posts in this topic lol.

 

See #1.

Do you think there’s no correlation with points scored and the production of your offensive weapons?

Did the Bills jump from 23rd in points in 2019 to 2nd in points in 2020 for no reason?

Here's the point you keep seem to be missing, so I will try one last time then I think it is time to move on from this thread.

 

The best WR aren't always the ones with the best stats, because WR stats are heavily situational. Rashee Rice wasn't the 28th best receiver in the NFL last year...he was just the #1 WR on a team with Andy Reid as a coach and Patrick Mahomes as a QB. There are probably 50 guys in the NFL that could have done as good or better in that situation. I mean, Juju's stats the year before were identical and he is pretty much a JAG at this point.

 

The Bills are gonna throw the ball 500 times, at least. Josh Allen is their QB. So either somebody is gonna catch some passes, or Josh is gonna have a terrible season and we are gonna start to question if he is really the guy.  Honestly, if he needs to be surrounded with probowlers to win and throw for 4000 yards, he isn't the guy I thought he was.

12 minutes ago, FireChans said:

 

Not having one would be catastrophic, but it would be the worst case scenario, just like the group being good would require the best case scenario.

 

To have zero in the top 32 would mean that Kincaid ends up a bust, Coleman is a bust, and every other lotto ticket is a complete flameout or the entire group is basically hurt all year.

 

If the Bills distribution ends up the way you have it there, I would expect a bad offense relative to our expectations and an early playoff exit in our future. And having a bunch of guys putting up top 40-50 production with Josh Allen throwing them the football would be reprehensible. That distribution is “one guy is better than Gabe Davis and everyone else is worse.” GROSS.

 

I don’t want to see Josh have a regular season like Mahomes did last year. I don’t think that is the way to succeed, because we don’t have the horses to turn it on in the playoffs and we don’t have the defense like they did last year. 

I don't know...Green bay did pretty well with that model. Jordan Love threw for 4100 yards and almost led the league in TDs...their leading receiver had 800 yards.

Edited July 20 by Mikey152

[FireChans]

Just now, Mikey152 said:

Here's the point you keep seem to be missing, so I will try one last time then I think it is time to move on from this thread.

 

The best WR aren't always the ones with the best stats, because WR stats are heavily situational. Rashee Rice wasn't the 28th best receiver in the NFL last year...he was just the #1 WR on a team with Andy Reid as a coach and Patrick Mahomes as a QB. There are probably 50 guys in the NFL that could have done as good or better in that situation. I mean, Juju's stats the year before were identical and he is pretty much a JAG.

 

The Bills are gonna throw the ball 500 times, at least. Josh Allen is their QB. So either somebody is gonna catch some passes, or Josh is gonna have a terrible season and we are gonna start to question if he is really the guy.  Honestly, if he needs to be surrounded with probowlers to win and throw for 4000 yards, he isn't the guy I thought he was.

I’m honestly confused at your point here. 
 

Are you of the contention it doesn’t matter if great QB’s have good weapons or not?

 

The history of the NFL proves that not true.
 

Patrick Mahomes last year had his worst year in the regular season of his career. He has a HoF coach and HoF TE. The TE played worse than his usual standards and the rest of his weapons were horrible and their offense was 16th in points scored. That’s average in the NFL but bad for a Pat Mahomes team. Is he not the guy or were his weapons kinda ass?

 

The 2019 Pats team was devoid of offensive talent. It was Edelman and a bunch of nobodies. They finished 7th in points and 15th in yards. Had the #1 defense in the league. And they got punked in their first playoff game by the Titans. Brady had the lowest TD% of his career and an 88 passer rating. There were real questions if he was done. He went to Tampa and led the 3rd best offense in points to an SB win, posting the 3rd best TD% in his career and a 102 passer rating, his best since 2017. Was Brady not the guy, or were his weapons in NE kinda ass?

Yes, someone is going to produce, because someone has to. But if the weapons are kinda crappy relative to the league, you are going to get a down year from your QB. 
 

I don’t expect Josh to throw for 2900 yards and 18TD’s. That’s impossible for a QB of his caliber.
 

Could I see Josh with sub 30 passing TD’s?

 

Yep.

 

Could I see Josh with his worst passing metrics since 2019?

 

Yep.

 

Could I see the Bills offense be barely in the top half of the league when they have the second best QB in football?

 

Yep. 
 

That’s really what folks struggle to see here. The Chiefs offense last year WASN’T GOOD. They struggled.  They had the hardest path in the playoffs. That’s not the recipe for success.