HappyDays

Nah man he's the greatest to ever do it. I have no shame in admitting it. He's better than Allen, Mahomes, or anyone else. He just never made any mistakes and always threw the ball to the right place. The GOAT in terms of pocket presence, reading the defense, and accuracy. Underrated arm strength too. And somehow he was playing the best football of his career in his mid-30s after tweaking his mechanics. If this post nets me a ban I accept my punishment.

His command of the offense was very impressive, definitely a bit concerning. And he hasn't even gotten his chemistry down with Garrett Wilson yet. Their connection was off a few times last night, once they get that going their offense could be legitimately scary. I will say Sauce Gardner doesn't look as impressive as he did last year to me, their run defense is susceptible, and I think their coaching staff is bad. Still they will be a tough out if Rodgers stays healthy.

The Pats offense is as bad as what Allen had around him as a rookie. They might as well keep Maye on ice this year. Nothing to gain from putting him behind this group of turnstiles.

Nothing pedestrian about the way he's running this offense tonight IMO.

Not just scheme but Brady has done a great job of asking his players to do what they do well. It's cut down on the mistakes by a lot and the whole offense looks a lot less janky than it did in Dorsey's final few games. One thing from the Dolphins game that I just can't shake though is the first drive coming out of halftime. That was the offense's chance to put the game away. Instead they punted after converting just one 1st down. The key play was 2nd and 7. Dolphins are showing a loaded box and the game situation is practically begging for play action. I think it was the easiest call of the night. Instead we handed off to Cook for 0 yards and two plays later we're giving the ball back to Miami. I was incredibly nervous at that point, knowing that the Dolphins were one TD drive away from pulling us back into a tough game. That whole sequence gets washed away because of Tua's idiotic pick six on that next drive, but it really bothered me and in the immediate aftermath of the game I was harsher on Brady than I should have been because that sequence was fresh in my mind. I know, I know, all coaches have a bad series of play calls from time to time, I just hated how we threw away a chance to shut the door on the Dolphins comeback. Can't have that against better opponents. It's also the second game in a row where I thought we missed good opportunities to mix in some play action after the defense adjusted to stop the run. Hopefully Brady mixes it in more as the season progresses because Allen is absolutely lethal on those plays. TL;DR I'm impressed with Brady's handling of his personnel, I'm less impressed with his situational play calling so far.

Bills 28 Jags 20 The Jags just don't have a lot of top tier talent right now. Josh Hines-Allen is really the only player of theirs that you can say is in a class of his own. Arik Armstead has approached that level in the past but not so far this year. Their best DB Tyson Campbell is on IR. Trevor Lawrence is a great technical passer but not a great football player. I think they are better than their 0-2 record would indicate but they just don't have a lot that scares me. We have the better coaching staff and the much better QB. The key on defense is to stop Brian Thomas Jr from getting his 1-2 explosive vertical catches per game, because other than that specific play their offense has been a slog. On offense Brady needs to have his man beaters dialed up (unlike Dorsey in the London game last year who somehow couldn't figure out this basic concept) and I think Josh will have to use his legs some to move the chains.

Huh? This hasn't been a problem at all this year.

I think it's more on Brandon Beane than Joe Brady. We don't have the vertical receiving talent to take advantage of his arm, unfortunately. The volume rushing/high percentage pass play offense that we've been seeing is exactly what I expected given the personnel. Admittedly it has been more efficient and productive than I expected though.

Likely going to be a good test for our WRs this week. But Josh can also run against man coverage so maybe he'll frustrate them enough to pull them out of it.

This is really good stuff. And remember Coleman comes from a basketball background. His natural inclination is to create contact and box out his man. We've only given him one opportunity in that scenario and he delivered a big catch.

Yeah he is having an elite start to the season. Almost unbelievably good. In the 2nd tweet, look at Ja'Marcus Ingram just behind him. Say what you will about Sean McDermott, he is the best DB coach in the league.

It was gameplan specific too I'm sure. Bills fans severely underrate Jalen Ramsey, probably because Allen has had some of his best performances while facing Ramsey in coverage, but make no mistake he is a very good to elite CB. The Bills wanted no part of the Coleman vs Ramsey matchup, not when the Dolphins defense has plenty of other vulnerabilities to exploit. I think at this point Coleman's ideal usage is a couple of targets on schemed free releases per game, and throw in an occasional contested opportunity in 1v1 coverage when he's facing an average or worse CB. There's no need to force targets to him. If defenses start clogging the middle of the field then we can adjust and see if he's ready to take on a bigger role.

I feel like I'm too biased to have an intelligent conversation about this, seriously. It's one of the few discussions where I have to admit that I'm too close to the situation to analyze it properly. There are times where I allow myself to consider what you posted. What I've ultimately come to in my mind is that whatever difference exists between Allen and Mahomes is negligible, and certainly not the primary reason for the Chiefs success versus the Bills success since 2020.

You know Alpha I don't inherently have a problem with a run heavy offense. I have never been one to say that when Josh Allen is your QB it means you have to always pass 35 times a game. I've seen people say Allen needs to throw the ball early and often to get in a rhythm and that a run heavy game plan would lead to him making more mistakes. Instead so far this season we've seen the run game help keep the offense on schedule which keeps Allen under control playing boring football until the situation calls for Superman and he dons his cape for a play or two. That formula does require mostly mistake free football across the board but so far the supporting cast has delivered. I am not a believer in pass first or run first philosophy, I'm a believer in coming into every game with a specific plan to beat that week's opponent and executing that plan. Week 1 the Cardinals have terrible run defense and bad outside CBs so that's where we attacked. Week 2 the Dolphins are soft up front and over the middle, and strong in coverage on the boundary, so we gameplanned accordingly. This has been my favorite aspect of Brady's coaching so far - he doesn't stubbornly insist on trying to follow the same game script every week, he has shown a willingness to do the simple thing and attack his opponents at their weakest points. Some weeks that means Allen will only throw the ball 20 times and I have zero issues with that. I like that so far we are asking Allen to pull a rabbit out of a hat 2-3 times a game instead of 10 times a game. At this point it's about sample size and sustainability. You can't argue with the efficiency. There are just certain game situations the offense hasn't been exposed to yet and we'll need to see how they respond when those situations inevitably come up.

I know the point here is to show the similar ranking, but the raw numbers themselves are pretty remarkable. If I'm reading those charts correct, after averaging 0.20 EPA per play last year Allen is now averaging 0.51 EPA per play through two games. So his efficiency has gone up 2.5x. That isn't going to be sustainable over 17 games considering the leader last year didn't even eclipse 0.35 but it is notable. The eye test says Allen is playing even more efficient ball this year and the stats back it up.

I won't lie, I was not 100% confident the Bills would end up a top 10 scoring offense. I looked at the Chiefs offense last year, they ranked 8th in YPG, 14th in PPG, and 8th in DVOA (which is my preferred ranking measurement). An offense led by Mahomes and Andy Reid ending up with those metrics because of a depleted receiving corps made me wonder if we would ultimately end up a top 10 offense. As of now I am cautiously optimistic that we will in fact exceed the Chiefs offense from last year, with a big emphasis on cautiously. Through two weeks we rank 2nd in offensive DVOA. The obvious caveat being that it's an incredibly small sample size. Every year under McDermott the whole team has had a midseason slump, can we avoid it for once? I am still worried about the sustainability of an offense that features a bottom quartile outside WR group (which is probably a generous description). Naturally I'm worried that none of the regular season stats will matter at all anyways when we inevitably face the Chiefs in the playoffs. But I'm willing to step back on some of my offseason concerns and say that at the very least I'm more optimistic than I was and I'm interested to see where it goes from here. I really wish we played the Chiefs before the trade deadline. That would be a great barometer of where our offense is at relative to a championship caliber level and might have given Beane the push he needs to make a "cross the finish line" type of move.

His metrics are elite. Basically this chart shows him top 3 in passer rating allowed and top 8 in yards allowed per snap. You can find Sauce Gardner all the way in the bottom left.

I never understand this mindset. I hope they're desperate. It causes teams to press and make mistakes. It's been the Chiefs advantage in recent years - every matchup they enter no matter how big the stakes, all the pressure is on their opponent. When their opponent is pressing they make dumb mistakes like jumping on a WR early on a 4th down pass that probably isn't catchable. So the Chiefs are always playing with house money. If we go into that SNF game 3-0 against an 0-3 Ravens squad we get to be the ones playing with house money. Give me that all day.

Rookie WR separation win rates through two weeks:

I'm not sure the Ravens have a great running offense though. Which is crazy to say with Lamar Jackson at QB. But Derrick Henry is not in his prime anymore and the interior OL kind of sucks. They are for sure a better coached team than the Cowboys. That will have to be enough to make up for a clear talent discrepancy.

I heard a stat yesterday. Over the last five years the Ravens have 10 losses where they held a 7+ point lead in the 4th quarter, the most of any NFL team in that timeframe. Letting a bad Raiders team win in that fashion is just embarrassing honestly.

For me the conversation has actually changed though. A month ago I was worried about us being even a top 10 offense. Now having seen the running game and seen the OL and seen Allen elevate his game even further I think we are one legit outside weapon away from being a top 5 offense. I no longer see this as a throwaway rebuild season. I see it as a legit championship contention year and I'm all in on trying to capitalize on it. That's what the trade deadline is for. Go rescue DeAndre Hopkins from his dead end team, or something like that.

For some reason the Bills passing offense dominates the conversation around here. I can't imagine why.

I don't know, usually I make my points and then others make theirs and I let the conversation end. I only feel the need to respond again when someone says something like I've gone off the deep end.