HappyDays

The stats shown at the beginning are an indicator of bad defense and special teams. Like 5th best in TDs per drive since week 5, but only 18th in total points over that time span, that is clearly a time of possession stat. As Brett Kollmann points out, field position is another huge issue. Our offense has a middling run game and only one elite pass catcher, and it's being asked to execute perfectly on long drives with very few opportunities for explosive plays. That is not a recipe for success. Good analysis of the run game schematic issues too. @HoofHearted pointed out that 2 of our 8 called runs versus Cincy featured a schematic flaw that literally drew the defender to the spot where they made the tackle. And unfortunately I don't think the myriad of factors causing these issues are fixable at this point in the season. Pretty much our only chance of sustained success against decent teams right now is everyone on offense executing perfectly throughout the game, and that is just not a realistic ask.

What do you think causes this? I imagine that reading if it's man or zone is usually pretty simple, especially for Josh Allen who's been in the league for 6 years now. Did Lou Anarumo disguise that snap well? Did Allen just misread the coverage, or maybe had the play wrong in his head? Curious what your opinion is on this. Yeah the script has definitely flipped. When we had Diggs, Beasley, and Brown in their prime we were unstoppable against man. But Allen had trouble diagnosing zone defenses at that time, especially zone blitzes IIRC. Now he's figured out zone but we don't have the personnel or the schematic genius to beat man. Maybe someday we'll put it all together and finally see the best possible version of Josh Allen...

So I get what you're saying that there is no inherent schematic advantage there. But if you look at his 2023 splits... https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/A/AlleJo02/splits/2023/ ...he is performing much better in play action. -127.3 passer rating and a 1.7% sack percentage in play action -93.3 passer rating and a 4.5% sack percentage in non play action. So something is going on there. I notice that his under center passer rating is 130.7 and his shotgun passer rating is 93.8. I would guess most of our play action comes from under center. So maybe it isn't about play action at all, maybe that's just a correlative positive stat to under center passing? One theory I have had is that Allen is more in rhythm and comfortable throwing the ball in play action and/or from under center. It might not be a schematic advantage at all, but is it possible that Allen for whatever reason simply peforms better when going through that mechanics cycle?

Sounds like a coaching issue, yes? We talk a lot about player execution versus coaching on here, but it seems to me that the former is following from the latter. I don't believe, for example, that a seasoned veteran like Micah Hyde would be making errors like that on his own if he was being prepared the right way. Similarly I don't believe Josh Allen would take a 1v1 deep shot to Deonte Harty if he was being prepared the right away. I think on both sides of the ball there is a big lack of detail from the coaching, and a lack of understanding of each player's strengths/weaknesses, and this is leading to many of these errors that we attribute solely to player execution.

This is what I come back to every time I consider the idea of firing Dorsey. Even in a best case scenario that is just a band-aid. If we bring in an OC who schemes up an elite offense, he'll be a head coach somewhere else a year or two later. And we won't get the best possible OC to begin with because that OC will be already be a head coach somewhere. So the only real solution to getting a great offensive coach for the long term is to replace McDermott with one.

Our offense absolutely isn't built for shootouts IMO. Shootouts require explosive plays, not ball control and trying to get into manageable 3rd downs. We have no YAC specialists, no deep catch specialists, very few explosive runs. A lot of our TD drives are 10+ plays long which requires perfect execution more often than not. That is not a shootout offense. If you look at the overall investment of draft picks and free agency spending over the past couple years, our team in theory should be built on the defense and special teams making big plays and winning the field position battle while our offense slowly builds a lead before piling on at the end. That's the style of complementary football that won us blowouts in weeks 2-4. Since then the defense has fallen off a cliff and the clearly undermanned offense just isn't built to go on non-stop 75+ yard TD drives and build up enough of a lead to let the defense off the hook at the end. Our team is built to win games like the Chiefs are winning games this year, but it just isn't happening that way.

It sucks because the route he ran to get open was elite: The past couple games he has become the clear #2 in this passing offense. Next step is make Shakir the #3 and I think we could have something here.

It's a fair point. The difference is those other teams you mentioned have good to great defenses. We have one of the worst defenses in the league so our offense is being pressed into shootouts. So that reality means every piece of the offense is going to be scrutinized.

I don't know if I would go that far. As bad as it looked at times, if not for the Kincaid fumble I believe we would have punched it in the endzone there and gotten back within one score with plenty of time remaining. It took us way too long but I think our offense figured it out in the 4th quarter. The next time we play them I hope we stick with what was working.

You have quickly become the most valuable resource on the board. Thank you for all that you do. I have to mention that this... ...is an insane thing to say about our WR2. I think they need to make Davis the #4 option from now on. Kincaid #2, Shakir #3. Also it seems like they are having repeated issues when Allen goes to the man coverage option he likes instead of following the progressions. I'm not blaming Allen, like you have said this is built into the offense. But I'm wondering if they should remove that option from the scheme entirely and stop relying on these guys to win 1v1s, because it just isn't happening frequently enough. Until we get better weapons, I don't think trust throws should be a major part of our arsenal. On the OL, have you noticed a difference since the start of the year? Earlier there were metrics showing we were a top 5 OL in pass and run blocking, but in recent weeks I have noticed a major drop off there. I wonder if coaching is an issue here? Everybody appears to be playing worse as the season goes along. Our coaches misevaluated Wyatt Teller when they traded him away for nothing. It's been a huge issue for years now.

Bills 27 Broncos 14 I don't really have a good feel for this one. But I think our offense will probably go back to up tempo based on the comments made by players and coaches after the Bengals loss. Kincaid has proven enough to be our full time #2 pass catcher. So I expect our offense to rebound this week, with a couple issues popping up in the red zone that keeps us below 30. As for our defense, I think Russell Wilson still sucks. I know his stats aren't too bad, but every time I have watched the Broncos this year he is missing simple throws and scares nobody as a runner at this stage of his career. I feel much better about our run defense now with Linval Joseph in the middle. Rasul Douglas will be up to speed. Overall I think the Broncos are a good matchup for us on both sides of the ball and the team will be focused coming off of a disappointing loss.

Yeah this is almost certainly why the eye test doesn't seem to match up with the analytics. We're generating a lot of the positive EPA/DVOA in the 4th quarter when trailing. But of course that production still counts. To use the buzzword "complementary football," a big issue we're having as a team is that the offense and defense are faltering when the other side needs them to show up. The defense will hold teams out of the endzone for a few drives while the offense stumbles. Then when the offense finally puts it together and gets back into the game, the defense gives up a backbreaking game ending drive. This exact sequence happened at the end of our losses against the Jags, Pats, and now Bengals.

A couple things on this: 1) Careful with the win probability calculator in general. It isn't always entirely accurate IMO, and certainly not always instructive. To use one example that actually works in favor of your argument, removing >90% win probability eliminates pretty much the entire 2nd half of our Bucs game. I'm sure you agree our offense in the 2nd half was not sufficient and being >90% win probability was not a good excuse for most of that half. The same thing is happening in reverse when you remove <10% win probability. Using this formula, you would say for example the Patriots team that won the infamous 28-3 Super Bowl had an abysmal offense in that game. TLDR: Don't confuse high/low win probability with garbage time. I don't think anyone would agree that we have played any measurable amount of garbage time over the past 4 weeks outside of end of game kneeldowns. If you disagree, let me know what garbage time you think we've played in recent weeks. 2) Our offense is getting no help from the defense or special teams. This was especially true in the Bengals game for example. When we lose field position and time of possession that badly, even a decently efficient offense is going to have trouble scoring a lot of points. To be clear I don't think our offense is performing as well as it could, but the efficiency stats are what they are. Everything has to be evaluated within the right framework of context.

For sure, but when players like Diggs and Davis are making these mistakes fairly regularly, that tells me it is an issue beyond time on task. I don't think other NFL offenses rely on those so much, right? Or if they do I rarely see cases where the QB and pass catcher are not on the same page. I don't know what the fix is here, it's just bothered me for several years now. I've been very impressed with Kincaid in this regard though. I don't have a good enough eye for football to tell if he is running a lot of choice routes, but in general I notice that he has an innate feel for how to work open based on the leverage and spacing of the defenders in his area.

This issue happens way too frequently with us. I don't get it. I don't see other offenses regularly throw the ball to nobody because the WR and the QB didn't read the play the same way. With us it's at least once a game, sometimes more. I don't exclusively blame Dorsey because I had the same complaint when Daboll was our OC. I wonder if we are over relying on these option routes in our scheme? Or is the coaching not preparing the players properly to read these plays? With all the other issues our offense has, that issue in particular feels very annoying because it should be an easy fix and we're instead going on year 4 of the same problem.

Putting aside all of McDermott's coaching issues, there is also clearly a malaise hanging over the team right now. That alone is good enough reason to make a change IMO. Get a new persona in the building to invigorate the team.

I've criticized McDermott for a lot of things. Wanting a balanced offense is not one of them. A balanced offense beats the Bengals on Sunday night. Five years of shuffling around different RBs, offensive linemen, schemes, and they've never been able to get the running game right.

Defenses have learned how to contain him in the pocket. Other than poorly coached defenses like the Bucs, teams are not giving him free lanes to run through. I think the whole "Allen needs to run more" thing is way overblown. The angles to scramble away just aren't there anymore.

Worth noting: It isn't just us. Every offense is in a lull at times this year. Defenses have figured it out.

So to recap: DVOA has our offense 3rd best over the past 4 weeks, and our defense dead last over that time frame. I'll admit the analytics and the eye test don't match up to me either, but that's what the data shows. But I think I know where the discrepancy lies between analytics and the eye test. Offense across the league is down. So even though we feel like ours isn't performing as well as we could, neither is any other offense. On the flip side, our defense appears to be doing decently well for the most part, but defenses across the league are performing better than in years past. So I think what's happening is we are comparing the current offense with our 2020/2021 offense, instead of evaluating it in the context of the league as a whole. For one reason or another defenses have found a way to punch back against the offensive explosion this year. They're forcing offenses to grind out long drives with a low margin for error, and we are managing to do that at a top 3 level. But our defense is NOT punching back. We're letting the opposing offense rack up season high metrics against us. Everything in the NFL has to be evaluated within the context of other teams.

Do you agree with some of the coaching/schematic concerns noted in this thread and others? Lack of cohesion to the route progressions, failure to layer concepts of top of each other, failure to scheme players open, predictable scheming etc. Or do you think it is still more player execution than anything? I just can't figure out how we'll go 5+ drives at a time looking like a completely hopeless offense, sandwiched in between unstoppable drives.

Yeah it's a hole shot that Allen hits a lot. The margin for error is low and the risk factor is high, but when you have a QB with the ability to make those throws you're going to call them from time to time. As to why this one was underthrown, I would guess his mechanics off the pump fake were not right. He kind of rushed the throw after pump faking, perhaps because he realized too late CTB still had leverage towards Davis. In a perfect world he would have recognized at the last millisecond that the play wasn't going to be there and take the 3 yard completion to Diggs underneath. But when you're relying on your QB to regularly make one of one throws just to keep your team in the game, you're always going to live on the edge and these sorts of mistakes are going to pop up. I believe the Chiefs and Mahomes are running into the same problem right now. If people are trying to hyper focus on plays like this as a primary reason for the offense's problems, that is the definition of missing the forest for the trees.

Chris Simms has brought this up a bunch too. He said it again yesterday when talking about our loss to the Bengals. He has heard from many people in the NFL, a couple in Buffalo even, that everybody knows too much is put on Josh Allen here. Our only identity as a team is Allen making magic happen. We have nothing else in our bag.

Yes. All of his production came late when the Jaguars defense went to sleep. When we needed someone, ANYONE, to make a play for the offense earlier in the game, Davis was MIA. Somehow my opinion of him has gotten even lower this year. I'm starting to think my comparison to Marquez Valdes-Scantling was too kind.

Two years in a row now where the offense started off explosive, at times looking like the best offense in football, and then suddenly dropped off into a more middling area. And we know injuries aren't an excuse. So yeah that does leave me at coaching. Other teams are figuring us out, and we're not reciprocating.