Hapless Bills Fan

Never say TBD isn't educational Yesterday I learned that vaccinating Great Apes begins with a popsicle stick. The keepers train the apes to lounge their side/back against heavy wire mesh on the keeper-side of their enclosures. They show them a popsicle stick, give them treats when they assume the correct position, then poke them gently in the arm with the popsicle stick. Next they move on to poking them with an empty syringe When the apes are all "yeah, yeah, where's my banana?" the keeper vaccinates them. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisiana-zoo-animals-covid-vaccinate/ I didn't know animal vaccination has been ongoing since March: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/newsletters/article/for-great-apes-a-vaccine-of-their-own-20210304 (Apparently if you want this to keep working, you need to keep doing it after the vaccination for a while, then regularly)

Just looping back here to point out data. We actually run play action almost 1 in 4 plays, and are significantly more successful gaining 9.4 ypa on passes from play action compared to overall, 7.0 ypa. Play action passing is 2.4 ypa more successful than our average! So I think a defense should worry about that!

I've been trying to figure out (and this is steep uphill, because I don't have good football background) what the mismatch is with our run game and how it fits in with our pass game. Given how uphill I find it, I say "Good Luck, Muffin, You Need It!" to all the folks "doing their own research" from a lack of relevant background depth in other subjects. Expertise matters. That said, some facts (kinda- bunch of unknowns here): -Bills have 216 rush attempts -Allen has 57 of those 216 attempts (26%, ~1 in 4). How many of those are designed runs, and what's the blocking for them? Don't know. -Subtract out Allen's 57 attempts, we have 159 attempts. How many of them are "gimmicky formations"? Don't know, but do have data on RPOs and non-RB runs. -Data on RPOs. Allen is scored with 52 RPOs. We have run on 11 of them. Assuming 100% run options to the backs, that's 7% of our non-QB rush attempts. -I'm assuming "gimmicky" formations would included reverses, etc so looking at rush attempts by WR, FB etc - that's 7 attempts. 4% of the "non-QB" rushes. So 89% of our non-QB rush attempts appear to involve Motor or Moss and do not involve RPOs. To my eyes most of these involve straightforward run plays, maybe not enough gimmicky about them. A bit more data to inject into the conversation while I'm here: We have 958 rush yards: 562 before contact, 394 after contact -Of those Allen has 319, 33%. 232 before contact, 87 after contact. (That's a *****-ton more YAC than I'd like Allen to be getting) -Of the 639 non-QB rush yards, 332 before contact and 307 after contact. -So 48%, almost half, of our rush yards by non-QB are after contact. Contrary to the believe that Singletary and Motor go down at the first contact, if they did that we'd have only 332 rush yards except by our QB Overall, 53 of our 550 offensive plays are RPOs (just under 10%) Shotgun vs under center: 191 rush attempts tabulated: 100 from under center, 91 from shotgun. -If we assume that the majority (80%) of Allen's 57 attempts come from Shotgun, that would be ~45 RB rushes from shotgun and ~89 RB rushes from under center (I'm estimating a correction for QB sneaks on short yardage and victory kneeldowns) -Total of 134 plays from under center, 100 rushes. So 74% of the time we're under center, we rush - and it's probably higher after you subtract QB sneaks, victory formation etc. Your conclusion? My conclusion is that far from being too "gimmicky" and RPO-centric on rush attempts, we have a gigantic "tell". Shotgun: play the pass and contain Josh Allen. Under center: Key on the run.

He's got a very expressive face

He started the first 6 games last year. He was injured in game 2 and left the game; injured again in game 6. He switched sides from RG to LG in game 3 when the Bills benched Spain. I think you're fibbing if you recall him as being "just as awful" in those 6 games, because the Bills were "kicking butt and taking names" in those first 4 games and everyone gets torched by Aaron Donald. We started to notice Ford being awful against Tennessee and KC, when we needed to run and tried and he got blown up consistently. It was said to be a knee injury, but to my observation (and keep in mind I'm no OL technique guru, but this was obvious) he didn't use his hands and arms correctly. The story was that he came into the season from off-season surgery and wasn't able to fully condition. When he played, he was tricked out in some kind of arm or shoulder brace. I think he "soldiered through" some stuff for the Bills and they knew it and felt he deserved every opportunity. And he looked good in preseason (famous last words for talent evaluation) Eh, Feliciano played pretty well in 2019. Part of the problem is we changed run blocking schemes in 2020 and we seem to have a mish-mash of guys who suit different schemes.

Yes and no. No: One reason we've been running less 3 and 4 and 5 WR sets is that it would take Knox off the field. Is there real argument that Knox has been a success story so far, or desire to put him on the field less? No: As far as going back more to what worked last season....you "can't go home again". Teams have decided on a strategy to defeat or hamper that, and it's worked, starting in Week 1 where Daboll clearly decided to run 4 and 5 WR sets and empty backfields to "burn" Blitzburgh, but Pittsburgh flooded the middle of the field with defenders instead and made Allen's life hell with stunts and overloads on one or the other side of the line (that's how they got home with 4 or 3 defenders most of the day). The reason we aren't doing "what worked last year" is that when we try, it doesn't work, because we don't get the defensive coverage that made it work last year. Yes: Sanders....IMO Sanders was supposed to be an improvement on Brown, someone almost as fast who is also a shiftier route runner and a more physical player who can not be neutralized as easily by press man coverage. The whole idea of Sanders IMO was to have someone who would burn teams bad when they doubled down on Diggs. Has it worked? IMO, not well enough. His overall catch % is 55%, which sucks. 50% in the Pittsburgh game, 33% in the first MIA game - the story was "he and Josh need to get on the same page" because he missed playing in preseason and even practicing the first couple weeks with his "foot" injury. Washington, Houston, KC: he looked great and caught most of what was thrown his way. But when we've needed him, 2nd MIA game and JAX, even TENN - he's been missing. He also started out the season blocking well and last couple games, he has whiffed. IMO we need to see less Sanders and more Davis and McKenzie. You can't tell me that a 34 yr old guy who couldn't practice in preseason and early season because of his foot, who has a history of foot and ankle injuries, is a-OK and going 100% while taking 84% of the offensive snaps - 92% vs Tenn, 77% vs MIA, 99% vs JAX - sit the man ferchristsakes and let Davis and McKenzie take part of the load. So in that sense, I think we should "go back to SOME of last season.

You know, that was exactly my thought. I don't think the Soviets ever troubled to assassinate character. I don't think it's the "naughty words" that did it for Gruden. It was what he said about Goodell. Show me a business, anywhere, anytime, where it was acceptable to "piss in the Boss's Wheaties" like that. I'll hang up and wait. No, I lie; I won't wait, because you can't. It's never been acceptable, any time, any where, and it's a "fairy story" that it has anything to do with "society we've become". If anything, we're now more tolerant of disrespect towards authority.

Last year we were running more 5, 4, and 3 WR sets. Other than that I leave it as an exercise for the reader. We have a somewhat different cast nowadays with Sanders on the field almost all the time and Gabe Davis fighting for reps

What does "healthy" mean? I don't think a guy who has had surgery and been unable to strength train/condition normally is going to be "healthy" in the same sense as a guy who has had a full off season of strength and conditioning training. And whose accounts are "All"? Feliciano said in off-season interviews/articles that he didn't feel strong all last season. Let's say they weren't at "optimal health" I think it's fair, especially if the viewpoint of the Bills S&C staff after last season. In hindsight, Yes of course, the Bills FO and Beane appear to have placed too much faith in Ford and Feliciano.

Thanks. So the play action % is now 23.5%: 75 out of 319 pass attempts. It is evidently reasonably successful for us because it says we have 705 of our passing yards on PA, 9.4 ypa. That is 31.5% of our 2236 passing yards I would say that not only are we running PA a good amount, the data at your link show that it is MORE effective for us than other pass attempts (23.5% of the attempts, but generating 31.5% of the yards) So evidently perception, or the "eyeball test" is a bit deceptive. I've seen us attempt Jet sweeps a few times, and more often just put McKenzie in motion across the formation. I don't have data, but I see that a fair bit. I think we use pre-snap and post-snap motion more than people are perceiving us as doing. And again, when McKenzie is only on the field 15% of the time this season, if we run them more often teams will understandably key off him - and if we want him on the field more, we need to address "who comes off?" Of interest to me in that dataset you linked is the RPO. We apparently run RPOs 12% or 16% of the time (depending upon whether the run choice of an RPO is scored as a pass attempt). However, when we pass, we gain 7.7 ypa which is less effective than play action although a bit more effective than our overall 7 ypa. Passing from RPOs is apparently not particularly effective for us, perhaps because we only run out of the RPO about 1 in 5 times. So teams diagnose RPO and think "pass!"

Links or it didn't happen! 😃

I saw this, but the first three guys on their list are coming off serious injuries and may not even want to play, ditto for the last (at least, not for bargain wages) Not guys to back up the Baby Brinks for IMO. Fluker and Sweezy might have something.

Get on it, Beane!

I think one idea is that Breida might give us more of a home-run threat in the short passing game I thought the knock on Breida was that he couldn't run up the gut

When a lot of things are wrong, you have to prioritize and make educated guesses about which problems might be internally correcting and which might not be. They had lost Ford to injury partway through the season and let Feliciano come back early from injury. They believed that Dawkins, Morse, and Williams would at least stay the same. They believed Ford and Feliciano would take a step due to being healthy; Boettger and Bates would possibly take a step due to more experience; and FA additions Forrest Lamp and Jamil Douglas would give them a couple of hungry FA reclamation projects who would playing hard for a new contract. They figured between those 6, they'd come up with 2 guys to give them improved guard play. Right now it's looking as though all those beliefs were mistaken, but it's sort of a "WTF?" moment to be wrong on all counts especially Dawkins and Williams. They thought that between our WR corps hampered by injuries, the OL being at least no worse and probably better, and adding Sanders to give us a guy who could both run the routes Beasley runs AND Get open deep, we'd have enough if Knox took a physical step as a pass catcher and route runner, and Allen took a mental step further along the path of "take what the D gives you" So they focused on D and figured the O would take care of itself. Bad choice.

He's just parodying the click-bait headline

Brissett thought he could play. He was seen on TV on the sideline simulating dropbacks and footwork, he gave the trainer and coach a thumbs-up, he grabbed his helmet and started for the field and was called back.

Certainly we have more success running against some teams than others. That was the observation last season - that we simply didn't have the guard play to run against the best DLs. So it's disappointing to have that be the same story this season, after supposedly Motor and Moss "reset" in the off season. Buffalo is rumored to have an unusually large playbook. My understanding is that from a playbook, a team pulls somewhere between 50-100 pass plays and 15-25 running plays for the gameplan each week. Some of these are related to each other. Some of these are unique, 1-off trick or gadget plays. They all have to be practiced. There's obviously a balance here - diversity is good up to a point, but if practicing gadget plays takes away from perfecting "your fastball" or the core plays your offense thrives on, then less diversity and more focus might be good. I tend to agree with your last, and to that point, I think Daboll may believe he understands how a team will try to stop us and how he should attack - and may focus the game plan on that perceived weakness to the point where when it turns out the team is playing us totally differently, he might not have enough in the week's gameplan to adjust and counter. Example: Pittsburgh, I believe Daboll expected them to be Blitzburgh and play man and we were gonna shred them like Weetabix. So when they rushed 3 or 4, flooded the center of the field with 7 or 8, and disguised both their coverage scheme and their rush, we didn't have as many counters as we would have liked. We couldn't run 2 TE sets, Sweeney was inactive. We couldn't run Moss up the middle at them, ditto. I think something similar occurred with Jacksonville. You could tell pretty quickly that our plan was to play from shotgun and sling it at them all day, and when that wasn't working, what else?

Perhaps they wanted Brissett to take the L and look bad if they were gonna get the crap kicked out of them. Then when it was a close game, let Tua look good and get the credit. Sucks to be Jacoby Brissett

Somehow I read this and I get a mental image of the NFL's legal team popping Viagra. Does this mean I have a sick mind?

OK, but see my point in the post you're responding to. McKenzie needs to see the field other than for jet sweeps. Otherwise they'll be getting stuffed in the backfield and we'll all be saying "too predictable, whenever he's out there teams go here's that Jet Sweep or fake Jet Sweep again" Overall we're running fewer 5, 4, and even 3 WR sets. So how do you adjust, to put McKenzie out there enough that he's not just a "Fun Size" Jet-Sweep "Tell"?

Kyler Murray can pass, I give him that.

I would think PA would be effective for us from under center, because we run 75% of the time from under center. And when we do pass, it's reasonably efficient (60% completion) and we get 2.6 more YPC than we do from shotgun (9.5 vs 6.9 ypa) - perhaps that's the play action? McKenzie's snap counts have dropped from 25% to 16% this season. That's significant, because a jet sweep or reverse can't be effective if the only time he's out there is when you're running one. Otherwise, it's a gimondulous tell. And, we're running fewer 4WR and 5WR sets. So who to take snaps from to put McKenzie out there more? Davis snap count is also down, even accounting for the fact that he was an injury replacement for Brown and close to a full-time starter for half the games last year. Beasley is getting about the same number of snaps, 66% last year 68% this year. Knox snap count is up, from 58% to 78% of the snaps. Based on his results so far, it's hard to say that's not a well-deserved change. Manny Sands is getting 84% of the snaps. On paper, he's a more accomplished WR and deserves them, but he's rocking like a 54% completion rate on the season. IMO lacking pre-season and perhaps something about practice, he and Allen are just not fully on the same page. Not advocating that he get less, but one thing the Bills might want to look at is whether he should get a bit less work to keep his 34 year old legs fresh, while Davis and McKenzie get more.

That was just weird. As was said during the game, if Tua is healthy enough to be a capable backup, wouldn't he be healthy enough to start? Kudos to him that he played and got them the touches they needed to get for the W, but Man! Watching those rainbows he puts up and some of the passes he throws, how the hell is he not intercepted more often?