HappyDays

Word is getting out. It was just confirmed to me again Norman and Isabella will be active tonight, Elam will be inactive. No Joel Wilson. They're comfortable with Gilliam as TE2 if they need him.

It's really hilarious the weird narratives that form because of what the broadcast footage doesn't show.

Buccaneers 27 Bills 21 😥 It's unfortunately just how I feel about this one. I don't trust our defense at all, and our offense has not shown the ability to blow this style of defense out of the water. So I'm expecting another frustratingly close and gritty game where we fall just short at the end. I've picked a win each of the last three weeks though so maybe this will reverse jinx us.

My thought is that if they're making him inactive in favor of Josh Norman, maybe want to keep him healthy so they can trade him. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense.

Posted this in the Bucs game thread too, but I was told Josh Norman will dress over Elam for tomorrow's game.

Here's a weird bit of info I got from my source - Josh Norman will apparently dress for tomorrow's game over Elam. I won't lie, this is so out there that I almost don't believe it, but that's what I was told. Also Andy Isabella has a good chance of being elevated for this game. Desperate times call for desperate measures...

I would just go all in on offense at this point, make a trade for a WR at the deadline. The defense can get better as the injured players recover, the young players get experience, and McDermott stops blitzing like a maniac. The offense on the other hand really has no route to improve without adding to the WR room.

Again, offense has not really been the problem. Streakier than you'd like but on the whole it is still a top 5 offense. Defense is now bottom 5. For our offense to become good enough to make up for that they would have to be a historically amazing offense, and we just don't have the personnel for that. Just sucks that after all the investment on defense this is the efficiency we're left with. I know the injuries are what they are but a lot of free agency dollars, draft picks, and coaching decisions have been spent on underperforming players. Meanwhile the offense needs to pick up the slack but hasn't had enough investment at key areas to do that.

I completely agree a superior outside WR, preferably Hopkins, would be the best possible move we could make right now. That doesn't mean we shouldn't look for other ways to improve the offense though.

But our offense was at its best when we had Beasley in his prime and could stay in 11 personnel constantly. Right now we're trying to use 3 players for that one role and it's making our offense a lot less smooth than it should be. Too many substitutions, too much having to adjust play calling to match the personnel on the field. Diggs/Davis/Renfrow/Kincaid/Cook or Murray is a solid group for 11 personnel that you could keep on the field for an entire drive if you wanted to. Allen has always been better when our offense is up tempo. We just don't have the personnel right now to run that style of offense.

He is apparently actively seeking a trade. I imagine it would be cheap, although there are several other WR options I would be more interested in.

It has to be Hopkins if anything... last thing we need is another RB.

I suspect if the coaching staff had an issue with his blitz handling they would have addressed it by now. He has never once been a "hot route" kind of QB. He can lean on his elite physical abilities to create explosive plays in those situations and his escaping the blitz takes a coverage defender completely out of the play which creates running lanes and advantages downfield. To use the same example play, in my mind (and I believe the coaches' minds) it is more likely that we will score a TD with him rolling out than it is if he hits Shakir for a 3 yard gain on that play. 3rd and 2 in a goalline situation is not really a favorable look for our offense. Allen rolling out of the pocket towards Diggs in single man coverage at the front corner of the endzone on 2nd down is a very favorable look. If we want to celebrate the successes that those plays often bring, we have to live with the failures too.

Nobody has any clue who the hot read is, or if there even was one on this play. Nobody knows the reads or the progressions or the built in checks or the protection scheme on any given play, let alone how any of that can change based on what happens pre- or post-snap. It's just people creating takes out of thin air. After a game where Allen scored 3 TDs and left the field with the lead there are people saying he's lazy, he doesn't care any more, he's lost his fire, he's gone Hollywood, etc. It's nuts. Did Allen go Hollywood immediately after putting up 48 on the Dolphins? He lost his fire in week 1, regained it for 3 weeks, then lost it again? That's the only narrative you can believe to reconcile some of these ridiculous takes. I don't know if it's the Mahomes effect or what but expectations for Allen have gotten WAY WAY WAY out of control. If he isn't the best version of himself in every game then he's the main reason that we lost. Obviously Allen missed some throws and the interception was just plain awful, but other than that a lot of the analysis out there is based on guesswork or straight up misevaluation.

Also that play is how Allen always handles free rushers. He never hits a hot route in those situations, especially one that is short of the sticks. People forgot how he plays QB I guess? He usually evades the free rusher and then runs for a big gain or tries to complete a pass in a scramble drill. In this case he hit Diggs at the goal line but Diggs didn't make the tough catch. These broken plays often become explosive gains or TDs which is why defenses historically have not blitzed him much, they've learned that he burns them more times than not. Here the blitzer did a good job taking away his escape route angle to the right, but Allen rolling out of the pocket even to the left is a really dangerous situation for a defense to put themselves into. They're lucky Diggs didn't corral that one in, like he has a dozen times before. I don't know, a lot of analysis I'm seeing today is people evaluating Allen as a traditional QB in a traditional offense and that just isn't how it's ever going to be. Instead of complaining about it or trying to take away what makes him special, we should be hoping the team leans into it and surrounds him with weapons that fit his skill set.

Well that's an interesting comment.

That's not it. @HoofHearted who I trust more than anyone on here has said we are running the same exact plays in the 2nd half, just executing them better. So I'd like to know why it is taking 2-3 quarters before we start executing over the past 3 games. I'm guessing this entire thread is people complaining about Josh Allen's play. I don't have it in me to even skim those posts. I just want solutions. I suggested in another thread maybe the best way to get off to a better start is make Kincaid and Cook the primary reads more often earlier in the game. I heard Chris Simms say the other day we should try to become the "best short passing team in the league" as a cure to our offensive woes. I know Allen can execute that kind of offense. We just have to get everybody in rhythm early on. Unless we suddenly trade for a legit starting WR, getting Kincaid and Cook involved early is probably our best avenue. And that starts with the read progressions.

What I've seen historically is that Allen will hit his hot route when it creates a 1st down but not when it is short of the sticks. He has learned that he can evade free rushers with ease and a lot of times those busted plays turn into 15+ yard completions. So I think for better or worse this is how he has chosen to play in those situations. Do we want to accept a 5 yard gain on 2nd and 10 every time, or do we want to risk an incompletion against possibly getting an explosive play past the sticks? Also keeping in mind that throwing a 4 yard route over the middle to short armed Shakir has a higher potential of being intercepted. Since Allen has always played this way against the blitz I suspect the coaches have chosen to live with it. It is not some new phenomenon for him.

Here's my question - @Big Turk mentioned in another thread that in our last 9 2nd half possessions (going back to the Jags game) we have scored 7 TD, 1 missed FG, and a turnover on downs when Knox dropped the ball against the Pats. So why do we think Allen and the offense as a whole is suddenly putting it all together in the 2nd half of these games? All of a sudden he is just reading the defense better or finding his hot routes?

You're saying we should never run from under center in 12 personnel? That would be the definition of predictable. I don't have the splits but from my own eye test I would guess the run/pass play calling in that formation is pretty balanced for us this year. Defenses are going to load the box a bit more when we show that formation so they will have more success against the run. That isn't because of predictability though, it's just a natural outcome of that schematic answer. And we can then use it against them in the pass game. I don't really understand what your critique is here.

I doubt that. It is probably because defenses are playing the run more when they see us under center especially in 12 personnel, so naturally we will not be as effective. But like the previous point, that also opens up opportunities in the pass game. I wouldn't mind seeing Dorsey make a concerted effort to make Cook and Kincaid the 1st read on more plays, especially in the 1st half when we have had trouble getting into a rhythm. It's the only schematic solution I can think of to our slow starts on offense.

He is saying that 12 personnel pulls defenses out of cover 2 shell which in turn gives better opportunities for Diggs (and other WRs) to get open downfield. 12 personnel isn't just about feeding the ball to the TEs, it's about opening up more options in the run and the pass game.

I mean I don't know what to tell you. Diggs didn't have his best game against the Patriots either. Could have caught this deep pass: Could have caught the throw at the front corner of the endzone. Could have caught the final throw of the game to give us a shot. But when I evaluate reasons for this loss, Diggs doesn't even come to mind. He is an elite player that missed a few plays he sometimes makes. That's exactly how I feel about Allen's game. A lot of this discussion is just displaced blame from people that think QB is worth like 80% of the team's success, and that's never been true. If the defense had merely stopped the worst offense in the league when it counted at the end we'd be having an entirely different conversation today. We'd be concerned about the slow start, but also ecstatic that Allen turned it on when it mattered. I've seen that exact script play out with Mahomes and the Chiefs a dozen times. But instead the Patriots easily sliced through our blitz happy defense so now people want to retroactively place blame somewhere else. It's not that complicated. When the numbers show you a clear narrative, believe them:

Really? He has played his best football at the end of games over the past 3 weeks, pulling a rabbit out of his hat to get us back into the game or take the lead at the end. His defense choked in crunch time against the Jags and Pats, and almost against the Giants too.