Hapless Bills Fan

Yeah, that looks like a Bad Take. Being a HOF QB doesn't mean he's a HOF talent evaluator, a HOF student of the game, expert at breaking down another team's film and conveying it to fans, or that he's right relative to another coach or player's take But anyone who has played or coached football professionally knows about 10,000% more than some random Joe on a fan board. Even played or coached at the college level, knows a lot more. Expertise matters, in football like everything else. That's from last April, right? After Josh had his "breakout season" in 2020 but before the Pittsburgh and Tenn games?

Acknowledged. But a point stands that in general, being fined for 8 weeks of repeat offenses plus a Halloween party plus commercial opportunities unvaxxed players aren't supposed to take should arguably be greater than a couple of repeat offenses in preseason. I don't think we're gonna change each others minds though so I'm done

You Can't Go Home Again Only if he goes back to sliding and avoiding the big hit, instead of running to the center of the field and inviting it. "The NFL let" What about Cam's playing style invited teams to beat the crap out of him? As you point out, he would fight for the extra yard and not slide or go down.

Leaving aside the question of what run plays/run blocking scheme they're actually trying to run in general: 1) Are they actually trying to run an outside zone play there? Different people here seem to be seeing it differently. What are you seeing that you key on to identify an attempt to block an outside zone run? I look at that play and have flashbacks to 2018 when I would watch all-22 of run plays and wind up begging people for help "WTF are they even trying to do here?" 2) Did the team actually ask Jon Feliciano to trim down? My understanding is that he said the team did NOT ask it, it was his/his agent's idea. Never a good thing for a line player (OL or DL) to decide on his own to do a major re-sculpt of his bod.

Well, Allen would agree with you. He didn't sit there distraught in his post game presser and say "I played like *****" (which I've never heard him say before) because he thought he had a passable game with a few mistakes. Eh, I don't think it was the reason for that video nor is it the reason I say I don't get as much out of Warner's breakdowns as I do out of some other. But keeping in mind that I lived in St Louis through the "Greatest Show on Turf" days and the aftermath, like 2002 when Warner threw 11 INTs and fumbled 8 times in 6 starts then 2003 where he fumbled 6 times and threw a pick in his 1 start.....while his wife Brenda went on every radio show she could to explain that the team benched her husband because he's a Christian and they didn't like that (it was interpreted the same way as OBJ's father, being his mouthpiece)....I think it's fair to say Warner does ride a narrative sometimes. And one of his narratives about the 2018 QB class was unquestionably that Allen was a big inaccurate jock who couldn't think fast on his feet, of a type that Warner saw preferred to him on multiple occasions during his career and is still salty about. He also thinks his particular strengths are something every QB should be able to accomplish and if they don't, it means they're bad. Because of his Arena Ball background, making lightening-fast decisions on where to go with the ball and being able to throw short passes with deadly accuracy while on a dead run were his bread-n-butter. One way I think about it is that Warner has a "Spider Chart" in his brain mapping out his skills and strengths, and when he's evaluating a QB it's from the perspective of how well that QB fits Warner's personal "Spider Chart" as a QB. But there are other aspects of QB play that Warner was weaker on, giving a different "Spider Chart" that can still indicate good play, and Warner seems to (in general) undervalue these. Allen is improving, but accurate short passes have NEVER been his strength and are still a developing aspect of his game. Confirmation bias is a "thing", and I think it is likely that Warner looks for aspects of Allen's play that confirm his bias vs. taking a more objective view that factors in OL play and what appears to be the play design (deep to short sometimes, and that he may come off Diggs on a short route because Diggs was his first read IF he was being covered a certain way and not if he wasn't).

That was my thought going INTO the draft, but it was with the premise that Creed Humphrey could do what Eric Woods did - play G for a year or so and then slide over and take over from Mitch Morse. But when I looked into it further, I could find absolutely no indication that Humphrey had ever played guard in college or had given any indication to scouts about his potential to play guard. And it's not a given - Morse is not a potential guard, and Feliciano said that playing C is easier physically because "you have help on both sides". So I think drafting Creed Humphrey could well have still left our biggest need this season- improved Guard play - unaddressed. If you want to look at a miss, look at the 5th round, where we "doubled down" at OT by drafting Tommy Doyle, when there were probably some OG who could help us available. An example being Trey Smith, who is starting for KC and playing so well that they told Laurent Duverney-Tardiff "OK, You May Go Now"

Good description explaining why folks upthread are saying no way could Dawkins make that block That one is not on Dawkins, it's on Boettger for not getting a piece of the guy lined up across from him and passing him to Dawkins before going out to the next level. But it's this kind of thing that makes me question the value of, for example, PFF's offensive line grades. Who are the people grading these lines and how much do they really understand about NFL level protection calls? Even people who know something can disagree about what's really going on (see this thread - misread by Boettger vs. wrong protection call for the run etc.)

By "2 Covid guys" you mean Kumerow and Trubisky?

It's not abnormal, but the point is, if Allen is being coached to read deep-to-shallow, he's not at fault for passing up the immediate quick shots Warner points out. And when the OL is struggling against pressure, it's time to change the order of the reads and hit the quick shot immediately.

Oh CRAP about Zimmer. I thought he was fantastic in a couple of games. Terrible break for him, I hope they bring him back. How did he injure his knee, did anyone say? As far as activating Gentry and Fromm back to the practice squad, does that mean they have to cut someone to make room? @YoloinOhio? Or does elevating Davis Webb and Cam Lewis provide the room they need on the PS?

Gabe Davis has been our best run-blocking WR. Sanders started the year strong with run blocking but of recent games he has not been getting it done. Bledsoe would get killed. Kelly would get killed. There are quick shots that Josh has been passing up, that Brady or Manning would hit. IF it's true that Josh is being coached to make his reads deep to shallow, it's not 100% "on Josh" that he's missing or not taking them, but there is a point that it's an intertwined problem - Josh trying to hold onto the ball and wait for the deep shot means he needs to buy time with his legs, but Josh passing up the quick shot in favor of the deep shot means the OL looks worse than it is sometimes.

Joe B's grades are always opaque to me. Now this makes me sad. Don't delete stuff you've written up, I can always merge the threads if you ask.

Oh, I'd forgotten that - good point Although sometimes from how they have played this season, it does seem like the Bills are NOT, in fact, focused on football.

LOL Robe and a wife-beater. I was like c'mon dude, if money's an issue at least hit a Church Sale or two and come home with a decent rugby shirt and a couple of polos. But yes, Wawrow struggles to ask concise, open-ended questions. I think like any effective leader, McDermott tries not to micromanage. But he may need to lay down more guidelines and mix it in more regularly, because left on his own it's pretty clear Daboll will revert to the philosophy of "balance is good in theory, but when you struggle with one thing you need to do less of it and more of the other"

This is true. I also think that opposing DCs have figured out how best to confuse and exploit our IOL.

Thanks!

Can't answer this. IMO we are giving Sanders a role he has not completely earned with his game performance. He and Josh don't seem to be on the same page, for whatever reason. He has caught less than 50% of his targets in 4 games, and Davis should be featured more. "Yes", but IMO it's more on the OL. It may be a scheme problem, where we're asking OLmen to work in a scheme that doesn't suit them. I'm not sure if it's coaching or play, but (for example) in a play from Erik Turner which I put up in a thread elsewhere, instead of getting a piece of the DT and ensuring the Dawkins could seal him off, Boettger moved immediately to the 2nd level for the linebacker. Dawkins failed to seal off his man, and he got into the backfield to chase Motor down for a loss. That said, on the other side of the line the OLmen were totally failing to open a hole (where I think the play was supposed to go) That's an easy one to answer. (click to embiggen). According to this, we actually run an equal amount from shotgun vs. under center. But in terms of play frequency, we're far more likely to pass than run from the shotgun. I think the stats may be skewed by Allen's scrambles. I also think we very likely have run play "tells" from under center. I'll be straight up I don't know enough about how defenses handle the possibility of a run from a pass-centric team, but recall when it's a "5 on 4 matchup" in the passing game, the defense may be using twists and stunts to overload one side of the line and to disguise who is coming. So it's not really "5 on 4", it's more likely "3 on 4" or "2 on 3" where they're overloading half the OL while the other side goes "where'd he go, that dude I was gonna block?" The Bills OL, for whatever reason, does not handle twists and stunts well at all. It's kind of like the Ravens offense. They were unstoppable in 2019, until the Bills and McDermott throttled them except for 1-2 long plays. Then Tennessee used what they saw from us and added their own twists, and shut them down in the playoffs. In 2020, they looked more vulnerable. Now they've evolved somewhat. Lamar can hit some of the passes he used to never attempt. Defenses have to cover more of the field against them. Similar thing for the Bills. Teams have figured out what they don't have to defend with us. They've figured out how decent front-7s can "steal our women and plunder our cattle" on OL with 4 defenders, by using stunts and twists. That frees them to put 2 safeties over the top and flood the middle of the field with 5 DBs/LBs to take away the crossers that Allen feasted on last season. We don't have the quality of OL that we had then, or that the Ravens have - big strong bruisers who can eat DLmen for brekkers . But yes, it's a valid question why we can't be more effective and creative in our run play design. IMO Daboll tries to be creative in the wrong way, by designing these intricate schemes we don't practice enough to pull off without burbles. It's not the 2 safeties, it's the other 5 defenders because they're creating pressure with 4 I haven't watched enough all-22 to answer this, but I'm not sure he's getting open enough to have earned the 84% of the snaps he's getting. He's definitely getting snaps at the expense of Davis and McKenzie, and I think he may benefit from less workload. See above. If McKenzie isn't on the field much, him being on the field is a "tell" for a reverse or a sweep. He needs to be on the field as a WR enough for it not to be a "tell". We're bringing him on and using him in motion, but it's actually been a decoy to get the D to pursue a sweep. I don't think the OL is "soured" with Josh, but he's justifiably frustrated with how they're playing at times. If he wasn't willing to let them have it, that would be a problem. In the Dolphins game, the coaches helped the OL adjust and they responded with strong play that gave Josh time in the 2nd half.

A couple of us were having an argument in the Shoutbox about this play. One person who shall remain nameless contends that Singletary had a hole to cut into, seen at 4s just after handoff, and that Singletary sucks because he doesn't make a nice cut as the Colts RB does, into said hole. I contend that what they see as a hole is because Dawkins defender is already in the backfield charging towards Singletary, and all that trying to cut into that open space would accomplish is let that cat get his mitts on him faster. In contrast, the Colts back has a hole the size of the State of Indiana to cut into. Also I agree with this: Your input please @Buffalo716, anyone else?

Bruce is the obvious answer, but with all the protections on the QB and rules against roughing the passer these days, I feel Bruce would have a steep learning curve to avoid penalties. Hmmmm. Jim Ritcher or Pete Metzelaars. Jim Ritcher, because there goes any problem with LG Pete Metzelaars because he was a great blocker, and didn't get a lot of targets vs. the other guys but he could catch.

Oooh. Beasley says "huh"

I can't understand a word he's saying. Not sure if that's good or bad

No reason to disbelieve this, but it's weird Given the struggles in run blocking and pass protection, one might think a little (2,1) with Gilliam as a HB or (1,2) with an extra OL blocking would not be amiss It's almost as though at times Daboll doesn't even have those plays in the gameplan for the week.

My intended point was that someone asking a question could have asked "has the Bills offense become too QB dependent, and does that jeopardize our success?" and McDermott could have said something that amounted to "yes", but since I can't hear the questions, I didn't hear it that way.

Maiorana's points about mis-evaluation of OLmen are germaine. As part of that, I feel Beane recognized the issue but felt that Feliciano and Ford were both highly probable to improve with an injury-free off season and that Forrest Lamp was a good "plan C". Misevaluation. But I don't think he could have predicted both Dawkins and Williams taking a big step back. I know at the DC/OC/HC level, everyone has an Ego and part of being a successful HC is being able to work with Ego. I don't know how the dynamics of TBD work behind the scenes, obviously. My frustration is that McDermott has to have been able to see that there's an issue starting before the Pittsburgh game - his reaction suggests that he knew beforehand that there was an issue, and regretted not having tried to address it. Well, he has to have known there's an issue at least rolling back to the Titans game where our backs gained 51 yards on 13 carries. So why not address it then? It's almost like McDermott feels he can't lay down the law and say "fix this" until something shows up as clearly and beyond all argument broken. But then, as with the run game after the Patriots and Chargers games last season, does he feel he has to back off again and it slides back to the "same ol"? In my opinion, one of the major problems with the run game is that Daboll is like the CDs my bank offers: they both have a "low interest rate". And it's not in Daboll's interest (see what I did?) to stay in that mindset, because as @JayBaller10 pointed out above, every QB is better with a functional run game. Brees, Rodgers, Brady, can't think of one where that isn't true.

https://apnews.com/article/nfl-sports-sean-mcdermott-new-york-jets-new-york-6e5ab725e9f6b6b974231d06d3f9842a I didn't quite hear it that way, but Wawrow was there and I was not, and I can't hear the questions Wawrow points out the Bills have now lost 2 of their last 3 games - that ain't good folks! Wait, it's Allen's job to call plays? We all know Allen is loyal and isn't going to publicly throw his guys under the bus, but he has to see on the film that they're making mistakes in front of him.