Mango

A lot of talk about Josh’s game changing a ton in year 2 under Dorsey. Dorsey deserves some blame here. Mostly around play calling and play design. But one thing I’m slow to come around on is Dorsey being responsible for a change in Allen’s tendencies in year 2 as OC. KD was Josh’s QB coach for 3 years, helping Josh to know when to throw and when to run. Last year Allen ran more in 16 games than any season in his career. And now suddenly in year 5 with Allen, Dorsey has gone “remember everything we talked about the last 4-5 years. Screw it. Only stay behind the line of scrimmage.” It doesn’t add up to me.

Cool, let’s have a reasonable conversation with Josh Allen’s decision making. That seems to be a problem with him this year in both the pass and run game. It’s a problem he’s had throughout his career.

Right, sometimes bad decisions are part of the Josh Allen ride. Chucking it down field when there are better options, run or pass, has always been apart of Josh’s game. Allen ran the ball more in 16 games last year than he did in 17 any other year. Dorsey has been Allen’s coach since the 2019 season. He has coached Josh’s run game for basically his entire career. All of those things combined are going to make me very slow to be convinced that Ken Dorsey woke up one day and was like “you know what Josh, do the exact opposite thing we’ve been talking about since 2019”. People act like Dorsey hasn’t been influencing Allen’s game his entire career as his QB coach, and he’s just some dude who came off the street and entered Josh’s life out of nowhere.

Josh runs on just wing it and sling it. My guess is there’s a lot going on here part is on the OL, but part of it is Josh identifying and setting the protection at the LOS.

Allen vs the Jets this year is just as much Josh Allen playing like himself as him playing the Dolphins. The “real Josh Allen” spectrum is as wider than anybody else’s in the league.

Offense: A lot of execution errors. Cook and Kincaid played well. OL sucked at times. A lot of poorly timed drops, missed assignments, penalties. Otherwise this felt like a quality game plan. Defense: Two problems: 1. Clearly missing Jones, Oliver, and Milano. We didn’t get much of anything from the front 7. 2. Poor game plan. A lot of blitzing. We almost never got home. The secondary played a very soft zone, making it easy for Jones to pick us apart. We never adjusted.

This is good info. Play calling and scheme were good yesterday. I would like to see our passing game core to be Diggs, Kincaid, and Cook going forward. And what I would love to see is a lot of snaps with Murray and Cook on the field together. I think that gives us a lot of mismatches in both the run and pass game. At that point we can use Davis, Shakir, Knox, Harty, and Sherfield as needed. I think Dorsey sees this too, but we’ve had a lot of gaffes in execution this year.

I tend to agree with this. I know I beat this drum all the time, but after 12 years of Sabres futility, the Pegula’s replacing any combination of McBean scare the shirt out of me. I wouldn’t be shocked if McD is retained but we get a DC and new OC. I do think it a proven NFL commodity like Jim Harbaugh becomes available, the Bills make a switch. I don’t think (hope?) the Bills make a change for the sake of change without being pretty buttoned up heading into the process.

I’ve been critical of Allen. I get super frustrated because I think he’s awesome, but good really level himself and his team up from an already high place. I am a bit less critical of guys in our history like Orton or Tyrod because they’re deficient and just need to be replaced. Allen is a great QB. I wouldn’t make this trade in 100 years. EDIT: I also find it super frustrating that we dealt with Brady for 20 years. Then we finally get our guy and then Mahomes exists.

Honest question, just breaking this down and applying it to the rest of the offensive output this year. To your point his coaches say “don’t do that” And for years Allen says “no”. Where else is this popping up? I don’t necessarily think this, I think Josh is coachable. Which is why I find his decisions frustrating at times. But it did create some thoughts.

This is fair. I think I have some frustration around this topic because on one hand as a board we regularly talk about “no team asks their QB to do more and carry such a heavy load”. Then when we do that the entire board goes “Let Allen cook! You can’t tame the stallion” I actually agree with posters like @Big Turk a lot, but today I find myself arguing with the plethora of commenters/topics vicariously through him. Sorry about that dude. Haha

I think there is a narrative that they’ve asked Josh to stop running. I’m don’t think that’s the case. The ask is to stop trucking LB’s. I don’t watch a ton of the Eagles, but Mahomes and Jackson do a better job of protecting themselves. I’m not saying he shouldn’t run. And I doubt the staff is either. Take the green space. But get down, get out, protect the ball. Avoid contact except for the most important moments. This feels so simple with really bad execution.

I strongly disagree with this. At an Your QB has to be able to evolve, protect himself, and protect the ball. This isn’t crazy. Carolina leaned into Cam and he burned hot then flamed out super quickly. He was toast by the time he as 28. If Allen doesn’t figure this out and evolve he’ll do the same. Either that or we have 2,3,4 years of good Allen and he’s done. My guess is McD has a bit of PTSD around this and is trying to get ahead of it. Bring somebody else in to coach the offense that’s fine. But if we want Allen to do this for a long time in Buffalo he has to be better at picking his spots.

I find it difficult to separate my frustrations with Josh’s decisions in the passing game with my frustrations from his decision making in the run game.

Honest question. When they do film review, and they see Allen chuck it to Diggs in double coverage when he has 10 yards of green grass in front of hi, do you think the staff is saying “great job Josh!”? I don’t. I don’t think Josh has a good feel for his run game unless he can run violently. Don’t forget he came into this league as a QB with happy feet who would leave the pocket early without letting the play develop. Josh figuring out when and when not to run has always been a rollercoaster.

He took off 7 times yesterday for 2 yards and change per carry. He wasn’t effective/ Last year Josh had the most rushing attempts of his career more or less matching his 2021 numbers in one less game. He is averaging a yard per carry more than he did in 18, 19, and 20. I feel like people are just yelling at clouds and romanticizing a past that didn’t really exist.

Whatever ownership does with this staff going forward, I think they need to pull some control from Josh. We keep signing his friends to be back up QB’s, he picked his own OC, we have his boy Knox on a bloated contract. It’s just too many things not working out at the moment. Miller, Tre, Morse, Dawkins and Knox contracts are hampering us next year. Some of that isn’t their fault due to injury. But it doesn’t change the reality of cost v production. Our secondary is aging quickly. We need at least two starting OL plus a WR or too. It’s a lot to address without much space. The Bills either had to win in the last season or two, or be a little more cautious with spending/extensions and better with getting value from their draft picks if they were going to keep the train full speed ahead. They’ll have to take a step back for a year or two for a brief reset. The true test for Beane is managing the last year or two along with the next year or two.

The defensive game plan sucked yesterday. We brought extra rushers and played soft, well off the receiver. The rush couldn’t come close to getting home and Max was quick/efficient with the ball. I wish we would have either pressed the WR off the line, or stopped sending extra guys. On the opposite side of the ball, the play calls looked “fine” to me yesterday but we couldn’t get out of our own way with drops, penalties, and poor decisions. A million execution errors.

I think there’s some nuance to the defense; for me it’s not as simple as pass/fail. We’re missing our three best players in the front 7. So I can forgive some things. But I was also really unimpressed by the secondary. I’m disliked the defensive game plan. We brought a lot of pressure that never got close to getting home, and a super soft zone that was getting picked apart. I would have preferred to either go press man, and at least give the blitz a shot at getting home. Or we stopped bringing pressure and clogged the passing lanes. I may be in the minority here, but I thought the offensive game plan was ok and yesterday was an execution issue. Granted I watched this game at a friends house, which I dislike for this exact reason I’ll have to rewatch when the A-22. But that’s my knee jerk.

Yes. He is a 34 year old pass rusher with two bad knees. I think he’ll flash a little bit here and there as we progress, but ultimately he’ll be meh. Best case is he gets through the year, skirts some NFL testing and takes some HGH in the offseason and we get an slightly better than OK year next year. Otherwise we’re just sort of waiting to clear his cap number after 2024 for a low low price of $15M.

Allen has been asked for years to stop hurdling players and taking defenders head on. The ask is for him to be smarter. Get down, get out of bounds. Similar to a peak Russ or current Mahomes. If anything Josh doesn’t have a good feel for that part of his game. It is like he only knows how to truck a LB or make an errant throw with nothing but green grass in front of him. Kurt Warner was flamed for years for doing Allen film reviews that was basically “just because he can, doesn’t mean he should” when it came to his decision making. He was right. Sometimes Allen isn’t a great decision maker. Edit: He just had 7 runs for 2. Something yards per carry. He’s not running the ball well either.

I think a big part of all the offensive talk is two things: 1. The defense is banged up and we have Josh Allen with a healthy offense. There’s a reasonable expectation to carry the load while missing Oliver, Jones, Tre, Milano. Especially vs. a bad team. 2. The offense left a lot of plays on the field. Missed receivers, dropped balls, Offside, illegal formation. The offense was capable of a lot more yesterday.

I’d like to see an effort to make the offense a three headed monster with Diggs, Kincaid, Cook seeing a majority of snaps. With a very healthy dose of Murray and Cook on the field at the same time allowing us to use Cook in the slot, and keep the defense in sub optimal packages. Granted the Harris injury makes that a little more difficult, without a good third back to spell the other two. At that point we can sub around Davis, Knox, Shakir, Sherfield, and Harty in other packages. On the A22 I’m noticing that defenses aren’t respecting our RB’s running routes. Often they don’t/barely even cover them since we rarely make the throw.

That’s Kincaid’s fault. Josh didn’t trust him, so he threw an uncatchable ball. That way he wouldn’t drop it.

I think it’s both. I can’t imagine they watch the film and Dorsey goes “great decision to hurl it to a double covered Diggs on first down when you have Cook right here”. But sometimes they make it so difficult. The Giants felt like that. Too many bunch formations bringing the defense to close the the LOS. I get the OL was getting worked but sometimes it helps to give them some space to breath and back the LBs up. Last season was Diggs least targeted season as a Bill. This isn’t new. It’s been part of our offensive philosophy since Daboll. Even with Sanders, Brown, Beasley, etc. Guys like Kurt Warner got flamed for years for doing game breakdowns where he basically said “just because he can doesn’t mean he should. There are better plays/reads”.