HappyDays

Yeah the Chiefs offense is like watching a different sport. The likes of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan have earned their flowers but Andy Reid is still the very best in the business. Every play they run looks completely different from the rest. Every play design puts at least one defender in conflict. I hate the Chiefs but I'm too much of a pure football fan not to appreciate what I'm watching there.

No, Josh Allen has not developed into a perfect QB that is incapable of having an off day. That doesn't describe any player in NFL history. Or any human being in history for that matter. I think it was @GunnerBill who compared it to Brady's last year in New England. I've used the same comparison. Even the GOAT struggled when surrounded with crap. Fans declared that his career was over. Well it's no coincidence that he chose to transfer to the team that at the time had the best offensive supporting cast in the NFL, and promptly won another Super Bowl with them.

In one sense he's correct. If the QB and the scheme are perfect, you can overcome bad WRs. The problem is that asking the QB and the scheme to be perfect on every single play is too much to ask. Sometimes you just need an easy button play call and read, and the downfall of not having a legit #1 WR is that those easy button plays are nowhere to be found. So I don't agree with Joe's premise that "there's plenty of blame to go around." That is unduly shifting the blame. Allen and Brady both had their faults in this game, but the poor WR room is a much more fundamental problem which compounds every mistake made by the QB and the OC.

I don't agree with that. Moore and Samuel are short field gadget players who occasionally run routes. Shaheed is a legit vertical threat. I want a bigger fish than him if we can get one, but of the secondary options I've seen he is easily the best choice. Just having him as a threat could make a world of difference in how defenses choose to play us. He's not a nuanced route runner but his speed gives him a natural ability to separate that just doesn't exist on the roster right now.

I listened to that podcast and watched the all-22 video he sends out to subscribers. I think he oversold his point a bit. He basically finds like 4 plays where it looks like Allen could have found somebody open. He uses this to disparage the narrative that "nobody can separate." Alright Joe but you didn't show any of the plays where it simply was the case that nobody could separate. And that problem does pop up repeatedly on tape. Also it's one thing if somebody separates, but if it takes them 4 seconds after the snap to separate then it doesn't help if the defense blitzes and got home. And that was Atlanta's gameplan. Blitz the hell out of us and bet that none of our pass catchers could get quick separation. That was a good bet on their part. Allen statistically was elite against the blitz when Diggs was here in his prime. That's not a coincidence. He had a guy he could trust on any given down to throw an anticipation throw downfield, and more often than not Diggs made the play. It's pretty clear watching the tape he doesn't trust Keon Coleman for example to make those plays, and why should he?

Every off game that Allen has, we lose. I mean we've even managed to lose some of his all-time best games, but his off games are guaranteed losses. And I mean off for him, relative to the rest of the league even his off games are still good. Atlanta was the first game this year which I thought was legitimately an off game for him and that capped us at two good drives for the entire game. Allen in some sense is the victim of his own success. Because he occasionally goes nuclear the fanbase has come to expect it. So whenever he is anything less than exceptional and we lose, you start seeing the posts about how "he's as responsible for the loss as anybody." I've really gotten sick of it. QBs can have an off game and their team can still win. But in Buffalo we have nobody on offense or defense that ever steps up to take the pressure off him and make the superstar play that wins the game. We don't have a coach that can adjust the offense on the fly and get them back in sync after they hit a rut. Feels like the whole team is just always waiting for Allen to put on the Superman cape.

Oh I can't wait for that. We'll be fighting for our playoff lives down the stretch which means we'll have to go all out in every game wearing down the team. Then in the wildcard round we'll inevitably lose two key defensive players. Two weeks later people on here will excuse McDermott's defense falling apart because of "bad injury luck." Then in the offseason we'll have to invest more in the defense because "they were the problem." Round and around we go. We had a chance at the easiest possible path to the Super Bowl and we blew it. If they can't get the #1 seed with this schedule and this mess of a conference, they never will.

I really don't think DQ's absence had anything to do with it. Oliver was back and played decently well. Walker was probably our best overall player in the game. The problem in run defense was our starting 2nd and 3rd level, same as it has been all year. Allgeier's opening drive TD run happens because Rapp takes a horrible angle coming down from depth. On the 81 yard Bijan TD run Bernard was the one turned out of his gap. Then Bishop takes a horrible angle and that's all she wrote. The pass completions and defensive penalties that extended drives weren't backups. Rousseau jumps offside, Oliver jumps offside, White commits DPI (admittedly a bad call), Benford commits DPI. Not once did I watch one of the many defensive breakdowns yesterday and think that a backup player was the guilty party. Now if you want to say the players are more responsible than the coaches for these failures okay I am open to hearing that argument, but injuries still are not an excuse for that performance last night.

Just to clarify my point on him Alpha - I agree Shakir is a very good player. But he's very good in his niche way, not in a true WR way. The first comparison that comes to mind, and I don't know how this will be received so I'll just say it, is Xavier Worthy. Not in the sense that they have the same skill set (they don't). But in the sense that they both have one special trick they excel at, and that one trick works a lot better when defenses can't key into it. Last year KC's passing offense really struggled after Rashee Rice went down. They asked Worthy to do more traditional WR things because they had no other options and he just wasn't consistent. This year they've made it a point to add more WRs, and with Rice coming back next week that will put Worthy firmly back into his ideal role and we'll see his explosive plays happen more frequently. I think Shakir is the same way. It's awesome what Shakir is able to do even when defenses know he's going to get the ball on those same 3-4 plays every week. It would look even more awesome if defenses couldn't spend any time worrying about those plays because they had more important things to worry about, like a legit outside WR that can separate and beat them over the top. You add that player to the offense and suddenly Shakir has all sorts of space to work with. Now when you throw those quick screens to him defenses are genuinely surprised and flat footed because their focus was elsewhere. That's the snowball effect of having a legit WR talent on the field. Shakir is the definition of a complementary player, and he's a great complementary player at that, but that still doesn't elevate him to the level of full time traditional WR. And that's unfortunately how the Bills are forced to use him right now.

Correct. Also Penix missed several wide open completions. I'm seeing way too many people around Bills social media crediting the defense for a good 2nd half performance. Let's be real. Penix isn't very good and they had a single pass catcher to worry about. All that in our favor and like you said they still should have put up 30+. I don't want to hear about defensive injuries either. The defense played better after losing several starters in the 2nd half. Established players have regressed, the fundamentals stink, the situational play calling stinks, the same mistakes get made week after week. All the investments this offseason and the defense has somehow gotten even worse! Even in my most pessimistic offseason takes I didn't predict that.

Watched back some of the defensive all-22 in the 1st half. On that end of half play London almost scored on, the play call is basic man. They have freaking Ja'Marcus Ingram 1v1 against London. The only guy that the defense needs to worry about, the one that's killed you for an entire half, and on a critical end of half play you have a practice squad CB lined up against him with no help. Unbelievable.

@Einstein another good blitz tell on this play is the two deeper DBs on the left are clearly hanging over the would-be blitzers. That's a tell that they are there to replace the space voided by the blitzers. I'm surprised Allen didn't spot it honestly, he's been very good statistically against the blitz and usually finds the opening. With where his eyes went looks like he wants Ty Johnson on the wheel but doesn't anticipate the edge rusher breaking off his rush to cover him. Credit to Atlanta too, it's a good call. Spencer Brown is left blocking air, they get two free rushers, the wheel is unexpectedly covered by an edge LB.

The bye week is coming at a good time. Allen needs a reset and Kromer needs a reset with his OL. If there's one coach I trust on this staff to get his unit right, it's him. The offense has at least one game a year where they get killed by exotic blitzes and can never get back in sync. I'm not too worried about them fixing that part. I am very worried about them finding ways to punish defenses who want to play this style. They just have to add a downfield weapon, there are no other possible solutions.

The pre-snap read decides the progression. I think on that play the read should have indicated to him that Atlanta might have pressure coming from his left, the 2nd level is shaded over to that side and creeping up before the snap. That is a classic beat the blitz by throwing right into it but he didn't see it. Not going to kill Allen over one play. He was getting less and less comfortable as the game went along and the frustration was definitely getting to him. I don't mean that as an excuse, it's just how it looked to me on the tape.

I've watched the offense all-22 and there was not much to be had out there. Only play that stuck out which I think Allen genuinely missed was this one: I think his eyes need to start left where Atlanta is showing possible pressure and if he does then Shakir is wide open on the rail. This is the only play I watched back where I thought Allen made a legit pre-snap or post-snap error. There's a couple passes he turns down which you could quibble on. Mostly it's guys blanketed downfield in combination with Atlanta fooling our OL with exotic pressure looks. Quick pressure without quick separation, you do the math. Once Palmer went down we had zero ability to even threaten downfield.

It was better but we can't keep coming into these games with the totally wrong game plan and making basic fundamental errors all game long. The Jets horrid offense is the only one we've stopped. So basically any offense better than historically bad we are spotting them 21 points. That can't be the minimum every week, not when we've put so much investment into that side of the ball. Babich has to be a lot better. I didn't really expect a change but I was hoping for one. I think he is way out of his depth.

No changes coming yet:

This is interesting:

I don't think Brady is the problem but he's not the solution either. His simple system would work better if we had legit WR talent on the roster. He doesn't support the talent and the talent doesn't support him. You need either the play caller or the talent to be top tier to have a Super Bowl caliber offense, and currently we have neither. One thing I would tell him is please for the love of God stop calling mesh on every 3rd and 4th down. I get it, it's our most consistent play given the lack of real WR talent, but it is way way too predictable and easy to defend at this point. Atlanta beat it a couple times just sending extra rushers and playing basic zone, which is an automatic win against that route combination.

Yeah and I have questioned that on both sides of the ball. It never feels like we are attacking a weakness or game planning to take away a strength. We're too stubborn about playing "our offense" and "our defense." Even back when the defense was good in the regular season, that was our problem in the playoffs. McDermott has established a culture here but I've never been convinced he knows how to game plan.

I actually see the new stadium as a possible catalyst for him making the move. It's the last year of Highmark and as of now it's likely that no playoff games will be played there. The fanbase is going to be restless. Having a new regime around Allen is an easy marketing tool when you're trying to sell tickets at the new stadium.

I also have questions on our game planning. Last week we left Diggs 1v1 and he punished us repeatedly. This week the only WR they had was Drake London and we let him just keep finding soft spots in zone or ending up 1v1. How does a professional coaching staff let that happen? Why aren't we game planning to take away what the opposing offense does well? If Kyle Pitts and Casey Washington beat you, okay you can live with that. But how can Diggs and then London have career days when you know they are the only guys that can beat you?

I wanted to trade for Jeudy back when the Browns did, so yeah I would still take him. I'm not convinced he is enough though. He's more a very good #2 and what we need is a legit #1 IMO. It sucks but DK Metcalf was the easy answer to this question. He is the prototypical WR this offense needs. A legit #1 that can separate outside and downfield. We took his draft pick and money and spent it on TJ Sanders, Rousseau, and Bernard. Does anyone still think that was the right use of resources? One star > two good players. Olave is the only realistic option that gives our offense what it needs. I'm not going to pretend he's better than he is. He has a smaller frame, injury concerns, and not great hands. He is a lower end #1 but he IS a #1 and that's good enough for me. Allen just needs someone he can trust on critical downs to get open outside, and defenses won't be able to sell out as much if they have to worry about that threat.

On one hand I understood those fans. They were correct that the defense was the biggest problem last year. Their mistake was assuming that just throwing a bunch of resources at that side of the ball would fix it, and that the offense would pick up right where it left off. As I expected none of the investments have made any sort of difference on defense, and a historically mistake-free offense is reverting to the mean.

My take in the offseason was that if you're going to run an offense without a true #1, then your #4 and #5 WRs become that much more important. You can't have no #1 and also have your depth WRs be completely useless. Moore and Shavers are not rosterable NFL players and we were forced to try and rely on them in the 2nd half last night. It's inexcusable roster mismanagement.