Does Alabama have a more talented offense than the Bills?

The fun thing about a lot of sports talk is that we never have to worry about getting it wrong. We can compare teams or players from one era to another, for example, and shout at the top of the list who is / who has been better, and we can be convinced that there is at least a chance that we let's be right.

We can also compare teams from different levels of a given sport, confident in the same. A few years ago, when the Jacksonville Jaguars were the foundation of the National Football League, the Internet was entertained to debate a whimsical match between Jags and Alabama. The more the Jaguars had deteriorated, the more the opposite side of the discussion became reasonable.

And let's be clear: if you thought that the purple tide would have a chance to do more than a shocked miracle, you were on the wrong side of the discussion.

Alabama loses and this is not really close. Each of the four NFL teams without a win would have more than a 90% chance of winning and, on average, defeat Alabama by more than three touchdowns.

As a reminder, the most likely consecutive win of the NFL season came in the Jacksonville @ Seattle match, where the Seahawks had a 95.0% chance of defeating the Jaguars. Jacksonville @ Denver will likely exceed that number in two weeks. So, Alabama, or any college team, against the worst teams in the NFL, is like watching the Jaguars play against the Seahawks or the Broncos.

The worst NFL team is still made up of former US college football players and all of the colleges that have benefited from X years of professional training and training. This is a world in which 1 out of 100 annoyances occur once in 100, so anything is possible on a given Saturday (or would we play this game on a Sunday?), But the professional team wins almost every time, usually by draw. significant margin.

Seriously. And that has little to do with Alabama.

Because of the offensive boom is going on somewhere else in the league, one could say that the Bills are currently further behind the offensive curve than almost any NFL team that has ever existed.

The Bills are in another galaxy compared to the rest of the NFL fortified offensive in 2018. At present, the average team is gaining 5.7 yards per game. Arizona is 31st at 4.4 yards per game. Buffalo is 3.7 yards per game. It's even worse if we look at the number of yards per pass. The NFL average is 6.6, and Arizona is 31st at 5.1. Buffalo is in free fall with 3.8 yards per pass. … Gather everything and return to the general offensive environment of the 2018 season, and Buffalo now has the second worst offense we have ever followed in six games.

Last spring, the Bills selected Josh Allen, one of the most "raw and needy quarterbacks" in the history of the first quarter shifts. It would probably have been well served to make a red shirt for a year. But the expected player, AJ McCarron, was injured, then traded. For the second consecutive year, his replacement, Nathan Peterman, who must be good in practice, imploded when he set foot on the field in a real match.

So, that left Allen bombing in real time. And bomb, he did it. He averages 3.0 yards per net attempt per pass attempt (ANY / A), and if he has to prove one day that you actually have can exceed your university production in the pros … well … let's say it'll take a while.

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY HUI Sports

Allen, by the way, is indefinitely coming out with an elbow injury. Instead of restarting Peterman, Buffalo will call on veteran buddy Derek Anderson, who has started four games in the last seven years.

You can argue that things could actually stabilize with a more experienced hand. At least you could do it until you looked at the cast, which did not help Allen, not even a little iota.

It's mortifying. The Crimson Tide destroys his opponents on a more ferocious level than normal, outperforming them by 54 to 15 on average. And although they have not played against elite teams yet, they played against three teams in the top 40 of the S & P +, at least. Tua Tagovailoa finishes 72% of her passes, which is in fact down of last week – he completed only 12 of the 22 runs against Missouri while he had injured his knee.

By the way, these 12 finishes have won again 265 cursed yards. And he still has not taken a photo in the fourth quarter. Alabama is second in Off. S & P + for the moment, the first of the 129 teams that are not Oklahoma.

If you were interviewing 1,000 college fans about their choice of quarterback, their team – Tagovailoa or Josh Allen's 2017 version – about 975 of them would choose Tua, and the other 25 would just be bitter fans of Auburn, LSU or the state of Ohio. Admittedly, Allen has benefited from a few months of professional training, but it is reasonable to think that Tagovailoa remains a better quarterback at the moment. But let's go to the tale of the band to see if the tide as full to have the best offense.

Buffalo's defense is excellent – the main reason the Bills are 2-4 instead of 0-6 – and would likely ensure that Buffalo would win a series with the best of seven against Nick Taban's Tide in five games. maximum, six with something fuzzy.

Quarterback: Josh Allen vs. Tua Tagovailoa

Advantage: Alabama, for all the reasons listed above.

The Revers: The Sean McCoy and Chris Ivory vs. Najee Harris and Damien Harris

McCoy has undoubtedly been one of the best backs of the last decade. But he is 30, and although he's averaged 4.6 yards per career, he's only been through that average since 2013. Ivory, for his part, is an average of 2.5 yards per race. Horrible.

Harris and Harris (no relation), meanwhile, are both former shredders of almost identical size to Ivory and McCoy (Najee, a sophomore, is 6, 230, and Damien, a senior, is 5 "11, 215). They have propelled a racing game that ranks # 1 in terms of marginal efficiency at the moment. While Alabama did not always dominate their opponents, McCoy and Ivory did not really get the upper hand.

Advantage: Buffalo, if only because of McCoy's aura. It's almost a thumbs up.

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY HUI Sports

Wide Receiver: Kelvin Benjamin, Zay Jones and Andre Holmes vs. Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III and DeVonta Smith

Benjamin is about the size of a college and remains an imposing specimen. He averaged 11.6 yards per target while catching Jameis Winston's passes in the 2013 Florida State Nationals campaign.

He also checked.

Benjamin captured 10 of his 32 passes for 146 yards as the fourth highest paid player in Buffalo. Jones, a man of prolific college possession, has a better catch rate (16 versus 29) but still averages only 6.9 yards per target.

Benjamin was really great at college. But the top four off Alabama all have an average above 13 yards per target for the moment, which is totally crazy. Jeudy caught 26 of 35 balls for 705 yards. Smith – who has as many last-minute shots and national title wins in his career as Benjamin – took 21 of 31 for 409.

Alabama has the best receiver corps in the country and I'm not sure it's close. Admittedly, they catch Tagovailoa's passes (against the university DBs) and not Allen (against the NFL DBs), but I know where my vote is going here.

Advantage: Bama.

Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY HUI Sports

Tight end: Charles Clay vs. Irv Smith Jr.

Clay is almost certainly the best tight end here, as inefficient as it can be (6.0 yards per target as the secondhighest paid player). Bama's passing game is better, all right, but I'm going to give Buffalo another advantage in this game.

Advantage: invoices.

Offensive line

This is where things go wrong for Alabama. The Tide may be the best offensive lineman in college football at Jonah Williams, and Buffalo has one of the two or three worst NFL lines. Nevertheless, without going too much into the details, I'm willing to believe that this is one of the places where jumping from college to professional makes huge difference.

No matter how effective it is against professional lines of defense, the five Bills start-ups (Dion Dawkins, Vladimir Ducasse, Russell Bodine, John Miller, and Jordan Mills) are probably much better than Bama's, Lester Cotton Sr., Ross Pierschbacher . , Alex Leatherwood and Jedrick Willis Jr., although they have a professional size and a better recruitment ranking. We will grant this.

Advantage: invoices.

So the Bills have undoubtedly the best game in the race, but football is a smuggler game at the moment, and Alabama has almost certainly the best passing game.

If you want to believe that there is a big leap forward, or that his manhood is challenged to play against a collegiate team, the team of professional players is called, whether it's a stultification or whatever, I can not prove you wrong. Once again, this is the glory inherent in a debate like this.