HappyDays

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?

I will admit to being a little entertained by this last month of laughable coaching, culminating in this rock bottom press conference. If the team isn't going to be good, they might as well be hilariously bumbling. Maybe it will even tip Pegula over the edge.

In many ways Allen has become a victim of his own success. I've seen multiple people on here say "if Allen doesn't play like he did in the Miami game we can't win." Just a perfect 158.3 passer rating. Nothing too crazy. Expectations have gotten way out of control. I don't mind individual criticisms of Allen's plays, that is part of analyzing the losses, but I don't get these bizarre sweeping narratives that come out of nowhere and don't remotely match up with the data. As usual it comes down to some people getting Bills tunnel vision and not evaluating Allen in the context of every other QB.

Cover1 was pretty harsh with Dorsey's play calling in their film review this week. Good watch:

Correct. And there has not nearly as much investment on the offensive side of the ball so it's not realistic to expect them to carry the team in shootouts. The offense could certainly be much better but trying to put up 30 points a game deep into January with no running game and Gabe Davis as the #2 WR, that's an impossible ask.

Coming back to this: This is the result of predictable play calling. CTB baits Allen into thinking he's biting on the pump fake to the low route and then scuttles back to pick off the pass. I mean Allen still should have seen that CTB had leverage and shouldn't have thrown the ball, but it's also a bad play call that has become very easy to defend because of how often we put it on tape.

Because his play calling and personnel usage has absolutely been an issue. He has put his defense in bad spots at the end of games against the Jaguars, Pats, and Bengals. Poor blitz timing has led to backbreaking conversions on multiple 3rd downs. I mean you really think the only reason that our defense is the worst in the league is injuries? No way we have the worst defensive roster in the league, I refuse to believe that even with the injuries. So that leaves coaching as a major issue.

Sure. Based on some of his press conference answers yesterday, he may have finally gotten to that points. He and the other offensive players, not to mention McDermott, sounded perplexed that they are not running the style of offense they would prefer to run. I imagine Dorsey's seat is feeling quite warm right now... Hopefully that forces a change.

Yeah I can't believe that last 3rd down play against Cincy. McDermott takes Rousseau off the field in favor of Leonard and Miller. Guess what Cincy does? Runs right at Miller. It's just a clueless substitution in that situation. End of the Jaguars game. He takes Elam off the field in favor of Ingram. What happens next? Etienne runs right over Ingram and scores a backbreaking 35 yard TD. End of the Pats game. McDermott blitzes on 1st down. Have we figured out the pattern yet? Shocking no one, a screen pass goes for 40 yards. So miss me with the injury excuse. Injuries aren't causing these clueless end of game play calls from our defensive head coach.

Sure it does, but WLB is the least important position on the defense. I can't attribute all of the ineptitude to injuries. I think a lot of it is just McDermott's play calling to be honest. We gave up two quick TD drives to start the game. Most drives featured a 3rd down conversion that came off of a terrible play call. And then from there we mostly let the Bengals move the ball down the field. We would stop them at the 40-50 or so, but that meant we lost the field position battle for pretty much the entire game. When you're chasing a team and losing field position for an entire game, that is not a recipe for success.