19 replies to this topic

[LVBillsBackr]

So are we seeing our "analytics " department at work already? Staying away from over paying for overpriced free agents may end up being the smartest thing this trainwreck has ever done. Hopefully we are waiting for the smoke to clear and have some targets. I think I will wait until Sept.1st and see how they plug these holes before I throw my Bills gear in the fireplace.  Thoughts?
LV

[RuntheDamnBall]

LVBillsBackr, on 17 March 2013 - 03:19 PM, said:

So are we seeing our "analytics " department at work already? Staying away from over paying for overpriced free agents may end up being the smartest thing this trainwreck has ever done. Hopefully we are waiting for the smoke to clear and have some targets. I think I will wait until Sept.1st and see how they plug these holes before I throw my Bills gear in the fireplace.  Thoughts?
LV

Only if later on they are found to be making good and insightful value pickups by finding undervalued assets in the market.

We can't say they look smart -or stupid - yet because they haven't given us much to go on.  Bills fans can be rightfully skeptical given past results.

[PNW_Bills_Fan]

That is my thought.  I think they are trying to make sure that they get the best QB they can either in the draft or for trade.  I also think they know they are not one player away but need to get a lot of quality players not just a couple great or good players.

[Meathead]

one thing is established, that at least four out of five times high priced free agents never play up to their contract. fans want the big splash but that usually hurts the team on the field. waiting for your value targets to hit is the smart thing to do, especially for a team in transition like the bills. i still guarantee there will be significant free agent additions to this team, just not in time to ease the early heart palpitations of impatient overreacting fans

[LVBillsBackr]

Meathead, on 17 March 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

one thing is established, that at least four out of five times high priced free agents never play up to their contract. fans want the big splash but that usually hurts the team on the field. waiting for your value targets to hit is the smart thing to do, especially for a team in transition like the bills. i still guarantee there will be significant free agent additions to this team, just not in time to ease the early heart palpitations of impatient overreacting fans

Ding!!!!!

[Marauder24]

Meathead, on 17 March 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

one thing is established, that at least four out of five times high priced free agents never play up to their contract. fans want the big splash but that usually hurts the team on the field. waiting for your value targets to hit is the smart thing to do, especially for a team in transition like the bills. i still guarantee there will be significant free agent additions to this team, just not in time to ease the early heart palpitations of impatient overreacting fans

Agreed. This is one year i am not in panic mode due to the lack of action. I want to see how the entire offseason plays out.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Meathead, on 17 March 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

one thing is established, that at least four out of five times high priced free agents never play up to their contract. fans want the big splash but that usually hurts the team on the field. waiting for your value targets to hit is the smart thing to do, especially for a team in transition like the bills. i still guarantee there will be significant free agent additions to this team, just not in time to ease the early heart palpitations of impatient overreacting fans

I don't think many of us disagree.  It's just that not having your QB on the roster (at any point in the year) and losing your starting and backup guards is a pretty rough way to begin the offseason.  If they address those by the end of April I think people will be a lot less worried.  They might not be happy with the results, but they can move on to complaining about those choices.

[Dibs]

LVBillsBackr, on 17 March 2013 - 03:19 PM, said:

So are we seeing our "analytics " department at work already? Staying away from over paying for overpriced free agents may end up being the smartest thing this trainwreck has ever done. Hopefully we are waiting for the smoke to clear and have some targets. I think I will wait until Sept.1st and see how they plug these holes before I throw my Bills gear in the fireplace.  Thoughts?
LV

Analytics?.....perhaps technically yes.  Moneyball......definitely no.

Analytics literally means "the science of logical analysis".

It doesn't take a whole lot of numbers apart from the cap figures.....nor a whole lot of logical deduction to see that we have "X" dollars that we can spend........and "Y" number of holes that we need to fill with decent players.  If we sign player "S" to a contract that costs most of "X"......we have no money left to sign "Y-1".


The "moneyball" concept that you are referring to simply means "value for money".
The cap naturally enforces the "value for money" concept in the NFL.

[BILLriant]

Its simple..its a weak free agent pool..we have a solid roster, we just need a QB or we are going to keep having the same issues over and over agian

[FeartheLosing]

I'm thinking Russ Brandon has had a majority of control on the football side since Marv Levy retired, and yet the Bills greatly overpaid for a pass rusher last year. How does that equate to his new "moneyball" approach? Now fast forward to this years free agency when there were literally a dozen good pass rushers to be had for dirt cheap compared to 100 million spent on Mario.

Oh, so now that they spent so much on one pass rusher last year they decided to be more careful this year. Not really seeing how that builds a competitive team.

As far as the "moneyball" idea goes. The Bills would be wise to understand its the stars in the NFL that people come to the stadium to see, and not a bunch of scrubs. A perfect example of that is when there was a strike, and basically nobody wants to shell out big buck on Sunday to watch a bunch of no names play pro football.

Not only that, winning in the NFL requires that almost every aspect of a team being top notch, QB, offense, defense, schemes, coaches, front office, owner. The current Buffalo Bills don't excel in any of those areas that I can see, not one!

[Thurmal34]

FeartheLosing, on 17 March 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

I'm thinking Russ Brandon has had a majority of control on the football side since Marv Levy retired

Link?

[over 20 years of fanhood]

Meathead, on 17 March 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

one thing is established, that at least four out of five times high priced free agents never play up to their contract. fans want the big splash but that usually hurts the team on the field. waiting for your value targets to hit is the smart thing to do, especially for a team in transition like the bills. i still guarantee there will be significant free agent additions to this team, just not in time to ease the early heart palpitations of impatient overreacting fans

The nutshell... Mario exemplifies this.  Getting paid like he is Bruce smith, performed, at least thus far, like he is Aaron Schobel.

[mrags]

over 20 years of fanhood, on 18 March 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:

The nutshell... Mario exemplifies this.  Getting paid like he is Bruce smith, performed, at least thus far, like he is Aaron Schobel.

Doesnt Schobels best season in Buffalo = 10 sacks? If that is so, then yes, in his VERY FIRST YEAR, Mario Williams has show nothing more than the best pass rusher we've had on this team SINCE Bruce Smith. However, it was his first year, on a new team, under a new coach, in a new scheme, in an underperforming team, with an injury for the better part of 6 weeks where he only recieved 1 sack, then had surgery and accumulated 9 more after that.

Yup... He should be sent packing.

[Captain Hindsight]

RuntheDamnBall, on 17 March 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

I don't think many of us disagree.  It's just that not having your QB on the roster (at any point in the year) and losing your starting and backup guards is a pretty rough way to begin the offseason.  If they address those by the end of April I think people will be a lot less worried.  They might not be happy with the results, but they can move on to complaining about those choices.

We also signed a starting a staring LB, franchised our pro bowl free safety and signed the guy everyone wanted to start last year.

[over 20 years of fanhood]

mrags, on 18 March 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

Doesnt Schobels best season in Buffalo = 10 sacks? If that is so, then yes, in his VERY FIRST YEAR, Mario Williams has show nothing more than the best pass rusher we've had on this team SINCE Bruce Smith. However, it was his first year, on a new team, under a new coach, in a new scheme, in an underperforming team, with an injury for the better part of 6 weeks where he only recieved 1 sack, then had surgery and accumulated 9 more after that.

Yup... He should be sent packing.

Why should he be sent packing? That pretty dumb.  For all the guarenteed money he's owed they be foolish not to get some more production from him.  

As for he rest:

"Doesnt Schobels best season in Buffalo = 10 sacks?"  ***ehhhhh...Wrong****

"If that is so", ***its not*** .

"However, it was," excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse and excuse.  

$100 million should buy more than 10.5 sacks and excuses. But that's not the point, the point is these top free agents in the initial frenzy get way overpaid and they never live up to their deal.  Mario got paid more than any DE in the game and is a 5 year pro, his old team has done better without him, his new team did worse with him and the guy is  like  15% of the cap.  

These high dollar free agents rarely play as well as the big contract expectations established at the signing.

[reddogblitz]

FeartheLosing, on 17 March 2013 - 11:20 PM, said:

The Bills would be wise to understand its the stars in the NFL that people come to the stadium to see, and not a bunch of scrubs.

I would disagree with this.  Fans come to the stadium to see WINS.  If you could win with a bunch of scrubs, people would come to the stadium to see it.  If you had a team made of all albino pygmies, if they won, fans would love it and support it.  Especially in this town.

It's hard enough to pick guys with a track record that succeed on a new team.  Let alone people off the street, which evidently, Buddy is targeting.

I'm not crowing about not signing big name FAs, I'm crowing about not signing any FAs.  Maybe that will change.  I hope so.

[mrags]

over 20 years of fanhood, on 19 March 2013 - 12:01 AM, said:

Why should he be sent packing? That pretty dumb.  For all the guarenteed money he's owed they be foolish not to get some more production from him.  

As for he rest:

"Doesnt Schobels best season in Buffalo = 10 sacks?"  ***ehhhhh...Wrong****

"If that is so", ***its not*** .

"However, it was," excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse and excuse.  

$100 million should buy more than 10.5 sacks and excuses. But that's not the point, the point is these top free agents in the initial frenzy get way overpaid and they never live up to their deal.  Mario got paid more than any DE in the game and is a 5 year pro, his old team has done better without him, his new team did worse with him and the guy is  like  15% of the cap.  

These high dollar free agents rarely play as well as the big contract expectations established at the signing.

oh, so because he's faltering paid a Tom of money he should go. I get it.

Lets be real here, you were one of the ones hitting F5 like the rest of us when we signed him last year I'm sure. He's easily the best defender on the team without question. As I said, he had 10 sacks while being injured for a good portion of the season and when he had his surgery he played very well.

I've got news for you, he's not the reason the Bills were worse with him. The absolutely horrible defense and inability to stop the run coupled with Chans refusal to run the ball himself is the reason we sucked. That and the fact that the talent in this team completely iverachieced the year before and they were not nearly as good as many here wanted to believe.

The Texas were not better because he was gone. They were better because they Didnt lose 3 QBs on their run to the playoffs. And let's not all forget that they Didnt make the Superbowl here. They made the playoffs. Just like they did last year. One could actually make an argument that IF they had Mario this year they might have had a better chance to stop the Patriots.

It's like your trying to cut off your nose to spite your face here. Your apparently pissed off because you bought one of the crappy Nike Mario Jerseys and he disappointed you or something.

Again, he's easily the best defender on this team. Without question. And you want to let him go. Real smart.

[KGUNBILLS]

I am more upset over Andersons performance. I really thought he would do more. Injury considered.

[RK_BillsFan]

There are some pretty good, extremely serviceable players that would fit our team left in FA. I would hope that we could snag a few at reasonable prices.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

mrags, on 19 March 2013 - 08:05 AM, said:

oh, so because he's faltering paid a Tom of money he should go. I get it.

Lets be real here, you were one of the ones hitting F5 like the rest of us when we signed him last year I'm sure. He's easily the best defender on the team without question. As I said, he had 10 sacks while being injured for a good portion of the season and when he had his surgery he played very well.

I've got news for you, he's not the reason the Bills were worse with him. The absolutely horrible defense and inability to stop the run coupled with Chans refusal to run the ball himself is the reason we sucked. That and the fact that the talent in this team completely iverachieced the year before and they were not nearly as good as many here wanted to believe.

The Texas were not better because he was gone. They were better because they Didnt lose 3 QBs on their run to the playoffs. And let's not all forget that they Didnt make the Superbowl here. They made the playoffs. Just like they did last year. One could actually make an argument that IF they had Mario this year they might have had a better chance to stop the Patriots.

It's like your trying to cut off your nose to spite your face here. Your apparently pissed off because you bought one of the crappy Nike Mario Jerseys and he disappointed you or something.

Again, he's easily the best defender on this team. Without question. And you want to let him go. Real smart.

Mario is definitely not part of the problem and he's definitely part of the solution.

It's gonna be something to see a real defensive coordinator utilize his talents instead of a lame brain like Wanny.

IMO, we haven't seen anywhere near what Mario's capable of and I thought under the circumstances that his play last year was fine.