HappyDays

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.

Seemingly all of our offensive linemen have taken a step back the past couple weeks. They were all playing quite well together, I'm not sure what happened. Here's PFF offensive grades from this game: 3 of our bottom 4 graded starters were OL in this one. Man am I sick of the same issues still holding this offense back. Poor pass protection. No run game. Zero production from our #2 outside WR.

His production against TB was a mirage. They ran a bunch of crazy off coverages and gave him free access that he never normally gets. On his TD it was a busted coverage.Davis does not separate in short areas if the defense makes an effort to stop him. But the Bucs defense is a joke.

10 weeks in and the coaching staff still hasn't figured out that Harty is not the player they thought they signed. What is Dorsey thinking sending him on a shot play when he has done nothing to inspire confidence that he will get open? Did Dorsey not realize the type of game we were in? Every down mattered.

I actually think this is a good example of what Erik Turner broke down the other day... In Dorsey's offense the route timing doesn't match up with the progressions. Dorsey just calls individual coverage beaters, there's no fluidity to anything. Allen is reading the defense pre-snap and if the coverage is different than anticipated or the read is taken away, he has to go all the way back to the other side of the field. In this case and a lot of cases the routes on the other side of the field are not timed correctly to make this full field progression matter. By the time he gets back to Knox it's too late. Ideally in a crisp offense read 1 should take your eyes to read 2 should take your eyes to read 3. After watching the Cover1 video on the Bengals game I've become convinced that this issue is why our offense looks so disjointed for long periods of time. The routes being called have no cohesiveness. Players aren't being schemed open. Here's the video I'm referencing:

It wasn't a hitch and re-load, he was pump faking towards Diggs to try and get CTB to bite towards the flat. The throw more than the read is what bothered me. You can't throw that on a straight line, it has to be up and over or leading Davis further upfield so that worst case scenario it falls out of bounds.

2-3 seasons?? Come on man. It's not the 70s. NFL teams can turn around fast under the right guidance. The roster change out is coming anyways on defense. If you're going to switch coaches, now is the time.

Why does an NHL hire from a decade ago have any relevance to this conversation at all? I don't watch hockey but even I know that managing NHL teams is entirely different from managing NFL teams. This is just fishing for reasons to keep McDermott around. Like honestly what do you think is going to happen, Pegula will shock the world and hire Hue Jackson? It isn't that complicated. The formula for hiring a head coach in the modern NFL has been established. I'll admit Ben Johnson sways my opinion in this discussion. Knowing that he is likely available this offseason makes this an easy call IMO. Given such an attractive and obvious candidate, there would be overwhelming support for that hire from everybody Pegula consulted. So I think it is the exact right offseason for Pegula to make this move without us having to worry about him screwing it up. If Ben Johnson ultimately fails as a head coach I can live with that. At least we'll have tried.

Like I said I don't think getting the head coach right would be difficult. These days you hire the next up and coming offensive mind and give them total control of the team. Pegula might not know that, but the people he hires to lead the search will. Ben Johnson is an easy choice, if he wants to be a head coach. I would give Bienemy real consideration. I'm sure there are others along those lines. To me the worst case scenario is we stick with McDermott and then Ben Johnson ends up with the Chargers, and our position in the AFC dwindles further.

McDermott was actually hired to do a different job than the one he has now. Seriously. He was hired to turn around a moribund franchise, and he succeeded with flying colors. I'll never lose my gratitude to him for moving mountains to pull us out of the drought years. Whatever consulting firm recommended him for that job, I'd happily take their recommendation again for the next one. But now his job is to turn a very good team into a Super Bowl winner. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the two jobs require different skill sets. Even in the corporate world there are guys that specialize in turning a flailing company around, before handing it off to a steady management team to take it the rest of the way. I think that's the stage we are at now. Also I think this hiring process would be relatively easy. One of the richest owners in the league offering the opportunity to coach the back half of Josh Allen's career, with a couple years still left of Diggs in his prime, a budding star in Kincaid, and a defense full of older players that can easily be switched out with preferred players for the new DC's scheme. It would be the most attractive head coach opening since Denver in 2015. The public pressure would be high to hire an offensive coach and Pegula would have his pick of the litter. I'd be shocked if it ended up a total disaster. To me the obvious answer would be Ben Johnson and I suspect that Pegula would eventually land on him as well. If nothing else, getting some new voices in the building next year might do wonders for the malaise that everyone on the team is clearly feeling. The new regime takes Diggs in a room to vent for an hour and promises to make changes. They sit Allen down and design a system around his strengths, remind him how much fun he used to have playing QB, and he enters the offseason feeling like a man on a mission. Just totally hit the reset button with all of the drama and BS that's bubbled up over the past few years and I bet it ignites a spark in the team. You don't think that possible outcome is worth a little risk?