Hapless Bills Fan

AH HA! Now we're getting to something! Good question: does the scheme we are running match the strengths of the players? And if not, why not? In 2019, when we had a #6 in the league run game, we were running more gap than zone runs In 2020, when our run game went AWOL most of the time, we switched to zone runs This is from Cover1's piece last season which is worth a rewatch

Probably so we could keep Spencer Long, but it's hard to tell. One of Long, Bates, and Boettger. Long had shown he could play C in the NFL and Morse was out with concussion protocol all preseason. I'm inferring it was Long who was next from the bottom on the depth chart because we moved on after that season and Bates and Boettger are still here.

Oooooh. Harsh. But clever.

Correct. He's "asked for his release" from the Raiders (who didn't bring him back when they released Ruggs) Took him 6 weeks to be signed to the Broncos practice squad, where he was elevated for 2 games, played 6 snaps per game (no targets, no receptions), reverted to the practice squad, then "asked for his release" (though he doesn't need to ask, a PS player is a FA) He just signed to the Jags practice squad, yesterday.

That would be 3 receptions including a TD. I'm not saying that's great, but if you're going to ask and be handed the info, at least process it correctly. The decision I think is more open to question right now, is Tommy Sweeney instead of Hollister. Hollister is a depth TE who can play when asked. Sweeney was kept I think because his physique in theory makes him more physical and able to block and to stay on his routes, but he has yet to prove that "can play when asked" bit. Gilliam has been playing >80% of the ST snaps and I think that's primarily why he's on the roster.

OMG Seriously? If ever there were an indictment of PFF's grading system for offensive line. That's just...offensive? What did Locked On Bills (is that Joe Marino?) say about that. It seems to me that the OP missed Big on one point: -Bobby Johnson came in after a 2018 Disaster on OL -2019 saw Dawkins, Morse, rookie Ford, and otherwise a bunch of pretty much "Just Guys" including Nsekhe, Feliciano and Spain into a serviceable OL. Run game wasn't great, but it was present: Bills were 6th in the league for rush attempts, and 8th in the league for rush yards. Singletary saw 5.1 YPC. -2020 saw a fantastic pass game emerge behind such notables as Brian Winters and Cody Ford, or Boettger and Winters, at guard, and play seemed to spark a bit when Feliciano returned. So the same guy who could coach up a bunch of guys into a decent OL in 2019 and 2020, is now totally incompetent? I'm not gonna say that coaching, or the protections called, don't have something to do with it. But it's supposed to be Bobby Johnson's fault that Dawkins, who emerged as a franchise LT in 2019 and continued to play well in 2020 after his big payday, is now playing like crap? Or that Williams, who was given a "prove it!" deal at RT in 2020 and locked it down, lost his job to a rookie who looks promising, but makes rookie mistakes and would never see the field if 2020 Williams was playing? I think there may be some nuance there being missed. I grant it as a valid point that Spain improved after moving to Cincinnati, but the improvement wasn't immediate - he didn't look so great last season and was a delayed signing to a 1 year vet minimum deal - not what you offer a "pro bowl caliber player". He's playing well now - but he's also playing for a new contract, as he did in 2019. I also grant it as a valid point that Teller has become one bodacious Hawg Mollie guard. But it's not like he played like crap under Johnson and then played better in Cleveland. He never played for Johnson, he was traded just before the season. We don't get a parallel universe to see how he would have developed here. I don't think there's an argument that the staff miscalculated the talent of the OL. They clearly made a mistake trading Teller and keeping Bates and Boettger ahead of him. I think that's a philosphical error - I think Beane over-emphasizes versatility in his developmental OLmen at the expense of them learning to "do one thing well". Ford is looking like a bust. That happens. But Dawkins, Williams, Feliciano and Boettger all played more servicably last season, so I think there might be something else going on. Maybe last season they had nothing to do but stay home and watch film and this year they're out knocking the "J" out of Jacksonville the night before the game. There was a rumor here near the start of the season that Dawkins was unfocused on football and out running around with Bennie the Butcher. Ford is running out of chances. This was supposed to be his year, being able to work on himself in the off-season. Maybe playing with an injured arm/shoulder in 2019 and 2020 really ***** him up, I don't know. It happens that players don't play up to their potential due to injuries, or yes, due to misevaluation. I thought Boettger played servicably last year. Not great, but serviceable at LG. And if we're giving Dawkins the "Covid pass", well, Boettger had Covid too.

The Patriots had a secret OL weapon for years in "Coach Scar" (Dante Scarnecchia). He started as OL coach the year before Belicheck took over in 1999 and Belicheck made him "assistant head coach" as well as OL coach. The man was a wizard. Want to know why it seemed the NE Patriots could run their OL on scrap heaps and rookies? That's one major reason why. He retired briefly in the early 2010s and was begged to come back. Part of the reason the Patriots OL never got called for holding was that he coached them to hold in ways that are harder to detect.

1) A QB can throw a pass with arc over a tall defender to hit an RB or WR in the flats. Josh has actually DONE that a few times this season, but any sort of pass to the flats was a weakness for him coming out of college and it's still not his best thing; throwing short passes with arc is something I've only seen him start to do this season. 2) Tipped passes are a function of the OL not being engaged at the point of attack with the DL to my understanding. When Eric Wood was the center, anyone who tried to jump and tip a pass would get a gutful of Wood's shoulder laying them on their ass and wish they hadn't. But if nothing is blocking the defender's path to the QB, or if the OLman has been thrown back or off balance, the DLman can jump and deflect with impunity.

Against the Steelers, the Bills played empty set (5 WR) or (1,0) set (1 RB, 4 WR) almost half the time. Knox was only on the field just over half the time, as opposed to subsequent games where it's been 79%-91% of the time. That said, last year when we were missing Knox, we had a decent backup TE in Kroft. We went into training camp with a decent proven backup TE in Hollister. Somehow they evaluated Sweeney > Hollister, and that appears to have been a mistake. This *is* the sort of thing one can look up quickly https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GillRe00.htm Yes, he has

Yeah I think this one can stay in the past

OH! So this is YOUR fault! Next time send your out-of-town guests to the Zoo or something and watch the damned game! You owe it to us!

I have two points. One is, how long the QB holds the ball is in no way a metric for OL effectiveness, when your QB is Josh. How much of that time he is holding the ball is spent trying to find a guy who is open downfield or will be coming open, while evading defenders and extending the play into scramble drills? Just like a single long run for 30 yds averaged into 9 2 yard stuffs can look like a respectable 4.8 ypc, a couple of scramble drills where the QB extends the play can skew the time the QB holds the ball. My eyes say that's happening. Second point: when we're winning and scoring high, pundits extoll that Josh is being coached, and the play is designed for him, to make his reads deep to shallow, an aggressive play design. The problem is that aggression backfires when there isn't time for deep to shallow progressions. The Bills have never developed nor expected Josh to execute a quick passing game. Maybe that needs to change, but you really need a TE who can run good routes and get open quickly and at least one other WR who gets open quickly for that. Beasley is open on every play, but he's never been a receiver who gets open quickly. His playing strength is that if you give him time, he'll lose anyone, but he needs time for that.

Yes.

Chad Pennington actually couldn't make a number of those throws. They would have been picked or deflected long before the ball arrived.

As an NFL outsider, I have no clue what the roles and responsibilities of a "passing game coordinator" and a "run game coordinator" vs an OC may be. But if the concern is design of pass plays being less effective, it seems possible to me that a new "passing game coordinator" may play a role. Or maybe not, maybe he was doing the same thing last season, and teams are just "on" to us now. I will say, that the run and pass game and blocking need to all work together so that we don't "tell" the defense before the snap whether or not we're running, and I think we both have "tells" telegraphing run or pass to the defense AND the run/pass game somehow just don't work smoothly together (these may be related problems) It pains me to appear to agree with you, but Sweeney over Hollister is in fact looking like an error in player personnel evaluation at this point.

To that last, I share your frustration, but I'll also say that many have argued with me (in previous years) that I'm espousing "drafting for need" over "best player available". I also think that Beane likes to do the "belt and suspenders" approach when addressing a need. It's easy to say "more athletic, bigger and stronger", but those traits are hard to find in the same person. Morse is a very athletic center. He's never going to be the big mauler who blows the nose tackle back 3 yards. On the other hand, a big strong OT like Orlando Brown, Jr may not adapt to the athleticism that's needed to help a QB like Pat Mahomes extend the play. Everyone wants guys who are quick off the snap and possess tremendous strength and athleticism. They're in short supply, since every team would like about 8. I've been manic-depressive about the Bills OL since 2017, when pretty much the same cast of characters that was a good OL in 2016 downgraded under Juan Castillo, and got much worse in 2018 when we lost Woods and Incognito, we signed and started Vlad Ducasse, and the line blatantly sucked. I thought then that inability to properly evaluate OL talent would be our downfall. Then in 2019, we changed OL coaches from "Teflon Juan" to the capable Bobby Johnson and did that "belt and suspenders" approach to the problem of horrible line play esp. at C which Beane likes: signed Morse as C as a big FA splash, but also signed a proven capable (not great) C in Spencer Long. Drafted Cody Ford in the 2nd round as the hoped-for Franchise RT, but also signed the capable (if long in the tooth) dark horse Ty Nsekhe to a decent FA contract. Signed Quinton Spain and Jon Feliciano as FA who had both shown they could play competently, but also traded a low draft pick for Ryan Bates and retained Ike Boettger. And the line was "OK" - not great, but passable. Beane acknowledged that he made a mistake in not doing more on OL in 2018. I breathed a big sigh of relief. In hindsight, trading Wyatt Teller while keeping Boettger and Bates was a terrible mistake. (Long got the nod because they knew he could play C, which they did not know about Bates and Feliciano at the time, and Morse spent PS in concussion protocol). I think "positional flexibility" is sometimes overvalued by the Bills on OL. Be that as it may, instead of coming back strong from injury Ford is looking like a 2nd round bust. Williams and Dawkins have both regressed to a stunning degree. Boettger has not developed into a quality starter, and apparently Bates has not either. So that either that makes the Teller trade look dumber in retrospect, or makes Bobby Johnson and his staff look poor at evaluating and developing OL talent. It's notable that Spain is playing pretty well for the Bengals now, and even Bobby Hart is looking like a capable LT while Dawkins and Williams look incompetent at T. So I'm back in my depressive phase, wondering WTF is amiss. It's not that Dawkins and Williams can't be quality NFL starters at T, they have showed that they can. Boettger, too, looked better last season. It's maddening.

Indubitably This is true and count me in that number. The NFL has always had controversies over reffing, but the quality and quantity of the calls and their influence on the game has, to my impression, increased exponentially in a way that makes it very frustrating to watch.

JMO, but I don't think it's necessarily the "damaged" true long time fans that "compound every negative thing". I think the last 2 years success brought us a lot of "good time Charlies"

One factor I've been thinking about that I don't see mentioned is: The Bills promoted Ken Dorsey to "Passing Game Coordinator" as well as "QB Coach". It seems pretty clear to me that our passing game is not as well designed this year. Correlation or causation?

And to @gobills404 point: if you look at these charts for a number of games, you will see a similar pattern. There are times when Allen does go for the deep shot several times in a row when there is a chain-moving throw underneath he could hit, and that might be the better situational choice. but the blanket "won't take the quick underneath stuff" is incorrect And in general, Allen simply didn't have time to let deep plays develop

So if running the ball more is not a solution, but as you also point out it's hard to run a successful offense when you are that one dimensional, what is your idea? I'm confused It seems to me that if it's hard to run a successful offense when you are that one dimensional, we need to be less one dimensional.

To your bolded first: Did you watch the Simms thing? He laid out why you keep doing something that's not working - because it keeps the defense needing to stop it, which opens other things up. He pointed out that in several games, the Titans aren't exactly racking up the YPC, but they keep running because it forces the D to keep trying to stop it. The point is, the Bills lack any kind of an offensive threat that doesn't go through Josh Allen, and that can't be the case for a long-term successful team. The Antonio Williams thing is looking for a folk hero. Yes, he did very well in the game against Miami, but in a final game against a team that had run for the bus, we have seen other players have great days that have not panned out in "for real" games (Duke Williams, Tommy Sweeney). I don't think he's Adrian Peterson hidden on the Practice Squad. Might he be worth a look, I'll go with the guys who see him in practice. We might, too, since Moss is in concussion protocol. "Difference maker" is one of those terms like "franchise QB" - it's a constantly shifting bar of expectations. You can argue "Beasley is a difference maker" then it turns out to the person you're talking to, "difference maker" means "guy defenses fear could take it to the house on every play" not just "guy who is always open and can get you a first down" (which describes Beasley) Diggs, Sanders, and Beasley are a quality trio of WR, but something is going on with Sanders. He and Allen just don't seem to have "clicked". He had a "foot injury" that kept him out of training camp and he didn't practice the week before the first 2 games, and he clearly wasn't where and when Josh expected him to be. Then it got better but now it's worse again (Tenn and Jax), only catching half his targets. In his interview, he alluded to some exchange with Diggs about going full speed in practice. I think that was unintentionally revealing. The Bills are clearly trying to push a lot of the offense through Sanders as the antidote to teams clamping down on Diggs, and it's not working out the way they want. I think he needs to go on a pitch count with more snaps given to Davis and McKenzie, and the clear expectation laid out "you practice like you play".

It doesn't already?

In Sanders first game vs Pitts he was 4 of 8 In his second game against Mia he was 2 of 5 Now he was overthrown by Josh sometimes. Other times it seemed pretty clear he wasn't where Josh expected him to be, when Josh expected him to be there Not sure defenses are adapting and taking him away recently is the issue Also not sure John Brown is John Brown anymore. He was only just signed to the Jags practice squad.

If you are correct that these guys should be fairly interchangeable talents and that Feliciano to Boettger or Williams to Feliciano to Ford should not be a drop-off in talent, then shouldn't Daboll be able to take for granted that a re-organized line with several backups will produce the same results as the starting group?