HappyDays

Demeco Ryans isn't impressing me. 3rd and 10 they call a WR screen. Not terrible, I assume they're doing it to bring up a manageable 4th down, which they do at 4th and 4. Instead he punts from midfield...

Jalen Hurts another QB that got a stupid contract that he has zero chance of living up to.

Meanwhile the Jaguars defense isn't nearly as bad as we made them look. They start the 2nd half with two consecutive 3 and outs against Houston.

They paid him $275M after losing 5 of his last 6 games... Dumb franchises do dumb things.

The Texans defense really is not playing well. Lawrence missing throws, drops, dumb penalties, the Jags are playing defense against themselves. As I type this Lawrence tries to pull a Josh Allen and escape a free rusher. Instead he runs straight back and gets taken down immediately lol

Lawrence is missing wide open WRs. Just missed a deep TD to Christian Kirk

Not entirely sure. The refs correctly called the Packers WR down at the 1, and he ran onto the field red faced screaming and threw his headset.

Wow MATT LAFLEUR just got called for unsportsmanlike conduct. That takes them from the half yard line to the 15 yard line.

Technically he does everything right, but he's not a football player. It's the antithesis of Josh Allen coming out of college.

Trevor Lawrence sucks. He isn't made for the modern NFL.

Laremy Tunsil went to the locker room after being injured. Houston might be without their LT next week.

Jaguars secondary is hopelessly bad

I see plays like this every week, a pass rusher tries to basically run away from the pocket and gets held up for a tick. The officials will never call it unless the offensive lineman continues holding on. If you let your guy go they aren't calling it. The Jags rusher knows it - he doesn't even try pleading his case. Unsurprisingly you see these plays come up most frequently against the Bills and Chiefs.

He had the edge rusher turned around when Josh went to scramble right, and for a half second had him held there. However he let go as soon as the edge rusher tried to chase after Josh and that's what the officials are looking for. If officials were calling that holding every final score would be 9-6. Offensive linemen have a right to use their hands to hold a pass rusher in place. It gets called holding only if they are clearly holding in a way that impacts the direction the edge rusher is trying to go.

Just say you don't know what a hold is! You'll fit in with 90% of fans.

Joe Mixon out again, Tank Dell too. It would be nice if the Jaguars could put up any kind of fight against Houston.

PFF does measure first read throws and beyond first read throws, but I don't have access to that data. It's for premium subscribers only.

It isn't just about the ball being thrown to the sideline, it's about WRs lining up outside and getting open. Tyreek Hill was lining up outside even on those deep middle throws. That is the part of our offense that hasn't had to be tested much yet. I will agree it is easier said than done for a defense to make our offense run through our outside WRs. None of the teams we've faced have forced the issue. Maybe we can just continue totally scheming around it.

Having an elite talent on the field can't make a team worse. That doesn't make any sense. Having a headcase loser on the field/in the locker room can make a team worse. Diggs leaving and the offense performing better is not evidence that having elite WRs on the field is worse for an offense.

Sorry that you haven't seen that stat before. The reason it's measured is that (and this goes without saying) QBs are less efficient when throwing the ball beyond their first read. Some are affected more than others of course. For example it's been a known weakness in Tua's game that his efficiency drops off a cliff when forced past his first read. For that reason it's notable that the Bills are the NFL's most efficient offense while being dead last in first read percentage. https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2023/first-read-targets-and-fantasy-football#/ As a point of reference, the difference between 7.9 YPA and 6.9 YPA was the difference between the 5th best QB and the 20th best QB last year. This is what the article concludes after some statistical analysis: I don't mean to use this stat to criticize. I commend Josh, Brady, and the OL for making this sort of inherently less efficient style the most efficient offense in the NFL. I credit the pass catchers for executing on the plays that go to them. But there is an implication here that we are not throwing to the first read a lot because of skill position talent deficiency.

There are two conversations here. The first is about Diggs the person. I advocated for moving on from him well before the Bills actually did. I got sick of his act and how he was clearly affecting the chemistry of the team. This year Josh clearly looks a lot more comfortable and a lot more free on the field. I can't say there's a 100% correlation there, but definitely there is some kind of correlation. Getting Diggs out of this locker room and out of Josh's head has been a clear improvement. The second conversation is about Diggs the WR. This is where you lose me. There is a pervasive belief on here that every #1 WR is a locker room problem and/or a ball hog. I don't agree with that at all. I've even see people say that about DeAndre Hopkins in the thread about him. Maybe I missed something but when has Hopkins ever been a locker room problem? I don't want a WR that needs to be fed the ball 170 times a season, but it's sure nice to have one that has the ability to take over games when you need somebody to. So far no one other than Josh has needed to take over a game. If or when that is needed, there is reason to doubt that the current personnel can step up to the task. But like I've said that isn't a problem until it becomes one. Maybe we'll keep threading that needle all the way to the Super Bowl. I certainly have more optimism about that possibility now than I ever thought I would.

You know I love Coleman but yeah that TD was more about the scheme and the blocking than his individual play. Deep mesh against a blitz in single high safety is a no-win scenario for the defense unless the blitz gets home. The concept is that at the mesh point the CBs in trail coverage will get thrown off their line of direction just a tick which might as well be an eternity on an NFL field. The route combination created the separation. Hilariously the single high safety didn't even commit to one of the mesh routes, he just hung out alone in the deep middle. It wouldn't have mattered if he did. The defense would have been wrong either way. James Cook is the unsung hero of the play standing up his blitzer and giving Josh enough time to get the pass off. This play is actually a perfect example of what we're saying - the scheme and Josh's throw and the pass protection make the play work more than the WR's individual talent makes the play work.

I didn't say the players are producing as I expected. Production as you note is volatile and highly context driven especially with such a small sample size. I said they are all performing the role that I expected. You're conflating offensive performance with WR performance. As I've admitted quite a few times I was wrong to believe that the offense couldn't perform at a top level with middling WR talent. I was skeptical that Brady could make it work. I was wrong. He is taking WRs with somewhat limited skill sets and he is putting them in positions where those skill sets shine. Also just keep in mind this conversation is relative to the entire NFL. I am not saying the WRs we have are untalented. Nobody that makes an NFL roster and gets on the field is untalented. We are looking at it within the scope of the entire league. Mack Hollins and Keon Coleman would never be on the field together for like 90% of offenses out there because there would be other players above them on the depth chart. The impressive thing is that Brady has found a way to put them on the field and draw up plays that work for their skill set.

This is an underrated talking point and should be brought up more. The best thing the Bills offense is doing is limiting mistakes. I would consider big mistakes as turnovers, drops, and offensive linemen getting beaten off the snap. We had Allen's fumble on the very first drive of the season. Other than that I can't remember a single play that I would consider a big mistake. We knew coming into the season the Bills offense would be predicated on executing on relatively long drives, and an offense like that has to avoid mistakes more than anything. I give Brady credit for this maybe more than anything else. Limiting mistake-prone plays was the best thing he did when he took over last year and it's only gotten better. In this respect, losing Gabe Davis really was addition by subtraction.

"Bad" isn't the right word. I would say they're doing fine. Nobody can come in here and post 30 all-22 clips showing that the WRs aren't really playing above the scheme (the notable exception being Shakir after the catch). Here's a stat that I think at least implies that notion though: So Allen is dead last in the NFL at throwing to his first read, only 55.6% of the time. It's an interesting stat that can probably be interpreted in a few different ways. What it tells me is that our WRs are not getting quick separation. Allen is having to move on but luckily he has been going though progressions at an elite level, the OL is holding up long enough for him to do that, and Brady's schemed route combinations are working well enough that somebody is eventually coming open along the natural progression. It's unicorn caliber that we're the NFL's most efficient offense while going to our 1st read barely half the time. That sort of thing just doesn't happen, but Allen and Brady are finding a way, and the WRs are executing just enough to make it work. I know you don't believe those of us who say the WRs are meeting our offseason expectations, but it really is the case. I expected Shakir to have 4-5 targets per game and have elite YAC production. I expected Hollins to be mostly a blocking WR. I expected MVS to replicate his role with the Chiefs. I expected Coleman to be brought along slowly and only contribute here and there. Shakir I'll say has moderately exceeded my expectations only because a 100% catch rate is ridiculous and I have to give him some flowers for that. Samuel on the other hand has moderately fallen short of my expectations. So across the board I would say the room as a whole has met my expectations. What has really exceeded my expectations so far are Josh Allen (improbably), the pass protection, and most of all Joe Brady. Those specific ingredients have been so good that they are masking the deficiencies. I'm not going to hedge myself and predict that the offense will fall off. I am flat out very impressed by the whole operation and I see signs that it is in fact sustainable and is in fact championship caliber. Still I stand by my view that the WR room specifically is below average relative to the rest of the league.