HappyDays

That wasn't versus Sauce Gardner though. Sauce tried to get involved in the play at the last second because he realized what was about to happen, but Shakir did not outright beat him on that play. And Shakir was in the slot on that play:

I know PFF tracks stuff like this, I don't have access to it but I'd be surprised if it's true that he's getting successful targets against press coverage outside. I mean he only has 14 targets on the year so very small sample size but I don't see him as an inside/outside versatility guy at all. He's an elite efficiency and elite YAC receiver when you get him favorable coverage looks which primarily happens inside. I don't want us to try and make him anything more than that.

Love Shakir. But I don't understand what Matt Harmon is talking about. Shakir has taken 75% of his snaps from the slot this year. That isn't inside/outside versatility.

He's been working back from an MCL sprain. 27% of snaps in W1, only 44% and 46% in W2 and W3 respectively. This past week he parlayed that relatively low snap share into 6 catches on 7 targets for 73 yards and 1 TD. That blows our outside WR production so far out of the water.

4th quarter, 2 minutes to go, we're down by 6, in the AFCCG against the Chiefs. Everyone in the stadium knows we have to pass the ball and their defensive formation is daring us to beat them outside. Does anybody really trust Hollins, Coleman, or MVS in that situation right now? So yes give me a guy that's proven time and time again he makes big plays in those critical moments of close games. Trading for Hopkins is an ideal move to get us over the hump.

@Mikey152 was saying Curtis Samuel will replace Stefon Diggs production in this offense. I remember him extrapolating Samuel's yards per target to mean that he could rack up 1,400 yards in this offense. (Sorry for the call out Mikey, feel free to call me out for the fact that I didn't know if the Bills offense could be a top 10 scoring offense with this receiving group.) Every WR right now is meeting the expectation I had. The sole exception is Samuel who is coming in well below my expectation. The surprise of the season is not that the Bills WRs are performing above their weight class, but that the offense as a whole is efficient as can be despite having such middling WR production. To me the three biggest reasons for that in order are Josh Allen taking his game to another level, the OL being stellar in pass protection, and Joe Brady leaning on his players' strengths and actually gameplanning for his opponents. The WR room is definitely still a weakness overall. But I can't say it's an insurmountable problem until it becomes one on the scoreboard.

Bills 31 Ravens 20 I'm lazy today so I'm gonna copy and paste a post I made in another thread.

This is a person that hasn't watched a single snap of our team. They probably haven't even looked at the box score. Four entire quarters this year, literally 1/3 of our total game time, we have not actively been trying to score points. Gee I wonder why we've been running the ball so frequently? This is like people who throw out that stat that teams who have more rush attempts tend to win more often. They have the correlation backwards. The Bills haven't embraced any particular style of offense. The Dolphins are weak up front so we went with a run heavy game plan. The Jags have a poor pass defense so we passed on 75% of plays in the 1st half when the game wasn't over yet. The only thing Joe Brady has embraced is high percentage plays and gameplanning for the specific opponent. Blows my mind that people like this get paid to write this stuff. You'll find better analysis from any random poster on this board, for free.

I said this earlier in the offseason - any generic football cliche sounds like it's a slight against Diggs. "Unselfish players." "Team leader." "Wins matter more than individual stats." These are generic soundbites that every team spouts off during their mandatory media time. It speaks to Diggs' negative character that all of these clichés sound like criticisms of him. But I agree none of it is intentional.

Like I've said Brady isn't changing the game or innovating. He doesn't have to. He's just layering play calls and putting his players in position to succeed.

I love how every QB axis chart I've seen has Josh Allen living on his own island way out of reach from everyone else. This one is showing that he faces blitzes at an average rate but demolishing defenses when they try them. Looks like he's at roughly 0.8 EPA per play on blitzes. In other words, when defenses choose to blitz him they are adding almost a whole point to our side of the scoreboard.

They have cheaper ownership that isn't willing to pay as much cash up front like Pegula is. It's one legitimate advantage we have over them.

You haven't been the same since we lost Scottlaw forever. What is Abbott without his Costello?

I'm not sure he'll be quite as expensive as people think because he is still purely a zone corner IMO. Teams don't value that as much. But he's a perfect fit for our defense so I would absolutely pay him a market value long term extension as soon as the season ends. I heard today he has a 14.6 passer rating on throws against his coverage this year. As a point of reference, Nate Peterman's passer rating in that one game (you know the one) was 17.9.

Remember when Brian Daboll made Josh Allen? And then when Stefon Diggs made Josh Allen? Can't wait for next offseason when people say Mack Hollins made Josh Allen.

Yeah the one lingering concern is 4th quarter two minute drill and we're down by 6 points. Do we have the talent to win in that situation? I suppose the solution is don't end up in that situation to begin with, which is entirely possible if the offense continues performing as well as it has.

My biggest concern all along was the WRs. Honestly the WRs are performing almost exactly as I expected them to, for better and worse. Shakir is good for ~4 targets per game and is extremely efficient with that sort of volume, and is a YAC monster. Hollins is good for 1 catch a game but is a great run blocker. Coleman is being brought along slowly as he should be. MVS is the same guy he was with the Chiefs. Samuel has actually been worse than what I expected, almost a non-factor so far. Most impressive thing for me across the board from the WRs is that there have been zero drops that I can remember. I don't take this for granted. A passing offense that lacks a lot of explosive pass plays has a low margin for error, and the WRs to their credit are not committing errors. All of that being said I was 100% totally wrong about the offense being capable of performing at a top 3 level with a relatively middling group of WRs. Three thoughts from me on why I was wrong: 1) Josh Allen is playing better than I've ever seen him. It's Tom Brady with an occasional flash of the Superman cape. Since making one mistake on his first drive of the season he has been as close to perfect as could be reasonably expected. 2) I way underrated the importance of the OL in my offseason analysis. Any group of pass catchers will get open eventually when the QB is kept clean long enough. It's not even just about how little pressure they're giving up, it's how clean the pocket is on almost every throw. I did not even consider that the pass protection could be as good as it has been, which was a mistake on my part. 3) I'm a broken record on Joe Brady at this point but I love the way he keeps it simple. Daboll was too cute, Dorsey was too scattershot. Brady just asks his players to do what they do best and gameplans based on his opponent. That formula sounds so easy but 90% of coaches somehow get it wrong. I hope he never develops an ego. He isn't concerned about the offense looking sexy, just doing the right thing on every down based on the personnel and the opponent. All of these factors tie together in a way that is just so smooth. Allen playing this well and getting the ball out quick means Brady's job is easier and the OL doesn't have to hold up for too long. The OL protecting well means Allen's throwing mechanics are always clean and he hasn't looked flustered or out of control a single time this season. Brady using his personnel well and mixing up play calls keeps the offense on schedule and avoids game changing mistakes, and Allen is the beneficiary. Tougher tests to come but who can reasonably have a complaint about this offense right now? Very clean execution from everybody across the board in a way that I didn't really think was possible.

Also our role players are actually just playing roles now. I still contend that Gabe Davis's best year was as a rookie in 2020 where he was doing nothing but taking advantage of broken coverage downfield and making sideline catches against DBs far down the depth chart. We tried to make him a #2 WR and it just didn't work. Mack Hollins isn't being asked to be a #2 WR. He's being asked to make 1 catch a game and otherwise block his tail off. Shakir isn't being asked to be Cooper Kupp, he's being asked to make a few catches in space and create with his legs. Nothing too complicated about why our offense has been successful. Everyone is being asked to do only what they do well and we are actually gameplanning against each individual opponent. I feel like 80% of coaches somehow miss these two simple ingredients. Doesn't hurt that we have an all time QB playing at the top of his game but credit where credit is due to Brady for getting Allen to play this well in a style that you wouldn't think naturally suits his skill set.

Kromer is the one guy on the coaching staff that I feel confident in saying he is the very best at his job in the entire league. For a style of offense that really relies on its OL, we are extremely lucky to have him. I worry that if Brady gets hired as head coach somewhere he will take Kromer with him as OC.

I have been on Cook about his drops but that is a very tough catch for a RB. It is nothing like some of the lollipops he was dropping last year. That's the only one he's dropped this year so I really can't complain. Just keep catching the easy ones.

Josh Allen still has his septum intact so I find this hard to believe

This is a game Rousseau's skill set was made for. The ultimate edge setter, the ultimate contain rusher. The Ravens are weak up front so I don't expect Lamar to have easy escape lanes anywhere. I don't know, I get nervous about every game but nothing about the Ravens particularly scares me. Basically just don't let Derrick Henry take over the game and don't make dumb mistakes on offense and we win by multiple scores.

There are no new concepts. These are old concepts, called and executed to perfection. If defenses want to stop it, it will have to be through an elite front four performance against our stout pass protection. That or just hope for an off game from us. Because when these boys are executing like they have since their 2nd drive of the season, no one is game planning their way out of it.

I have to eat crow on Tyler Bass. I called him out for the missed XP. Having now seen the All-22 of the play, it wasn't on him. The kick was high enough. Tylan Grable got walked back on his block and his man got leverage to jump up and get a handle on the ball. With that in mind Bass has only truly missed one kick so far this season and I think on that one he slipped or never got his footing right. He has been sufficient this season. Still don't trust him in a critical moment but he isn't actively hurting the team right now.