HappyDays

I wish we had played Shakir more throughout the year. I think because of his relative inexperience he got nervous on that pass and focused too hard on catching the ball instead of just naturally letting it come to him. It was thrown well enough that he probably could have caught it and ran into the endzone. Instead he stopped and went to the ground to try and preserve the catch and ultimately lost control. Maybe if he got more reps throughout the year he would have been ready for that moment. To his credit he bounced back and made some nice plays. But it's hard suddenly having to rely on rookies in sudden death scenarios. McDermott needs to do a better job ramping them up for these moments over the course of the season. Let them get their lumps earlier when it doesn't matter as much. Like Cook for example I thought we brought along brilliantly.

This is true on every deep completion in the history of the NFL. It's really a bizarre clip, I have no clue what Kendall Mirsky(?) is trying to prove. The fanbase's obsession with checkdowns has become pathologic. We are not going to become better than the #2 scoring offense in football by throwing the ball to Singletary for 5 yards more often than we do. If Dorsey wants to get our RBs and TEs involved in the pass game he's welcome to call more designed targets in their direction, or run the ball more. Our offense has been highly successful for three years now throwing the ball 10+ yards down the field to our WRs. Allen didn't lead the greatest QB stretch in NFL playoff history by throwing underneath routes to Devin Singletary and Quintin Morris. We've become so spoiled that a 34 point performance despite untimely drops and overthrows is a reason to change the entire formula that made us a Super Bowl contender.

What is the point of this clip? That we run short and deep routes on most plays? Think I noticed some intermediate routes sprinkled in too. Very interesting.

Uh the Ravens literally sat back and kept everything in front of them for most of the game. Chase caught like a dozen stop routes with his man playing off coverage. If the Bills defense played like that you'd be calling for Frazier's head. Then the Bengals lost Jonah Williams to injury and had to shuffle their already banged up OL and they were never able to fully adjust. Similar to what happened to us against the Dolphins a few weeks ago after Morse went down.

Truest statement in the thread. There's nothing to glean about our offense in this game because we will never run into this style of defense again. I don't think it's fully settled in with Bills fans how weird the Dolphins gameplan was. The book on Allen is go 2 high and don't give him any deep windows. The Dolphins did the exact opposite on almost every snap. I guess the plan sort of worked but giving up 34 points in a game that featured numerous drops and fluky bounces of the ball that favored the defense is not a sustainable style of play.

Oh god I hope the Bengals and Chiefs leave Diggs and Davis in single coverage on deep shots all day. With those CBs? Fingers crossed our WRs don't drop 27% of those targets, we win those games going away. The Dolphins defensive gameplan was a result of desperation. They didn't really stop us or slow us down, we just had too many mistakes in critical moments. No chance we will see that defense again until we play Miami next year and that's only if Josh Boyer is retained.

You compared Josh Allen to Tyrod Tayor... lol is right

Allen completed 4 of 11 deep shots against the blitz yesterday. 3 of the incompletions hit the intended receiver in the hands. So when do you want Allen taking those shots in single coverage when his WR has leverage? Never? Oh so you just don't know what you're watching? Alright. My bad.

I worry that Rousseau has hit the wall this season. He didn't play football in 2021 and only started 15 games in college. Realistically he was never going to reach his full potential until year 3 but because of Miller's injury we've had to give him more snaps than we'd like the past few weeks. A weakened Rousseau and an uninspiring cast of pass rushers around him does not bode well for a 3 game run against championship caliber teams. But that's what we'll have to overcome.

Here's another example from the 4th quarter with a different result: The ball hits Davis's hands and bounces into the air where he then has a 2nd chance to come down with the ball. Incomplete. So I guess my question is, is Allen not supposed to throw that ball because he doesn't trust Davis to catch it? If not then what is the difference between this play and the last one I posted other than the fact that Diggs came down with his but Davis didn't come down with his? On both plays Allen sees his receiver with a step on his man in coverage and no safety help. That's a pre-defined read that he is always going to take. Do people in this thread really think he's just launching bombs again and again because he feels like it?

Yeah here's a great example of the kind of play you're referring to: It's 3rd and long. Davis is WIDE open in the flat and could probably make it to the 1st down marker. Instead Allen throws a low percentage deep pass to another WR in single coverage. I assume you think he made the incorrect throw here?

I criticized Edmunds the past couple years but he has clearly become an invaluable member of the defense. Of course he makes mistakes. I watched the highest paid MLB in league history flub an easy sack on 3rd down yesterday which may have cost his team the game. If perfection is your standard you'll never be happy. As far as doing his 1/11 Edmunds has done exactly what he's asked to do. No brainer re-signing IMO.

The NFL has changed drastically just in the last 5 years. You can't win without being aggressive anymore. The Patriots method of winning during their dynasty wouldn't work in the Allen/Mahomes era, I truly believe that. I'm fine if Dorsey wants to call more run plays when we're winning to chew up clock. But I don't want Allen passing up deep reads because he's decided it's time to go into a shell. The coaches dictate the aggressiveness with their play calls. Allen's job is to execute the play according to the reads.

The fumble TD was 100% on him, he misread the blitz both pre- and post-snap and then didn't control the ball when going to the ground. Huge mistake that could have cost us the game. I still contend that we should have scored close to 50 points in this game because of Allen's abilities.

I suspect we had our RBs blocking for most of the game. The Dolphins blitzed us on 52.2% of dropbacks. We kept extra blockers as much as we could. Personally I would like to see more designed passes to Cook, I'm not sure why that element has been completely missing from our offense.

We don't know what the read was. It could be that Allen is supposed to throw the deep ball in 1v1 no matter what. It happened enough times in this game that I have to think that is the case. My point is that if Brown just finishes his route no one would be sitting here today saying Allen forced the throw. Every decision looks stupid when it doesn't work.

My issue with this mindset is that a 17 point lead in the 2nd quarter isn't enough to completely take your foot off the gas pedal. There are always shorter options available on deep completions. But if Allen's read tells him the deep throw is there, he's going to take it. This wasn't like the interception in the Bears game where he forced a throw into double coverage. If John Brown finished his route either a deep completion was there to be had or they would move on to 2nd and 10. And then none of us would be sitting here talking about Allen forcing the throw. Maybe on Shakir's deep pass that he dropped there were shorter options available but everyone seems to agree Allen made a good read there despite that also being a situation where we were up 17 points. Ultimately the receiver has to hold up his end of the bargain too. I don't ever want Allen walking up to the line with the mindset of "I don't trust that my guy is going to make the play that is there." When that's his mindset is career is over. Instead of asking Allen to change his entire style we should probably just get receivers that can run downfield routes and catch the ball when it hits their hands. That's my take on it. This whole "why doesn't Allen check the ball down more?" narrative that has popped up this year is, to me, an excuse people use instead of acknowledging the real problem which is that our pass catchers just haven't been good enough this year. And that's how you end up with two past their prime off-the-street WRs making critical mistakes in a playoff game that lead to turnovers. And we have a great counterexample of this point from the games this weekend - the Chargers went up 27-0 and tried dinking and dunking their way to victory. That strategy allowed an inferior opponent to get back into the game and win.

That's how progressions work... People say "take what the defense gives you" without understanding what it means. Today the Dolphins gave us deep throws. I'm not disappointed that we took the available throws, I'm disappointed that 3 on-target deep passes hit the ground. Dorsey would be wise to put in some more blitz beating concepts when we face the Dolphins specifically because this is how they play us, but we're not likely to face anything nearly that aggressive the rest of the way through. And you can see why - the Dolphins strategy should have cost them close to 50 points. That isn't really a sustainable strategy and we didn't have the wrong counter, it's just that we shot ourselves in the foot too many times.

I don't think that was it at all. Allen just follows his reads. Most defenses don't play us like the Dolphins did today, they were in feast or famine mode on every play so our offense matched that style. If Allen's read tells him to take the deep shot against cover 0 then that is what he's going to do. I saw a next gen stat that said he threw 11 deep balls against the blitz today. 4 were completed. 3 of those by my recollection hit the receiver's hands before hitting the ground. If just 2 of those were instead caught we probably score 10-14 more points. I don't think Allen was putting on a show. He was making the throw that the coverage told him to.

The Dolphins defensive gameplan dictated that we throw the ball deep a lot. The problem is three deep throws bounced off the hands of Davis, Diggs, and Shakir, and on another one John Brown stopped running his route and it got picked. That's too many missed opportunities. We honestly should have scored like 50 points in this game and that's only because of Allen's arm talent.

Come on man. A ball that hit his intended WR in the chest and bounced in the air he was "directly involved" with? That's total nonsense. The first interception is a little ambiguous although Tony Romo seemed confident that John Brown was to blame.

I wouldn't. New OT rules mean both teams get the ball now matter what and you have the best FG kicker of all time on your side. Don't bet it all on one play with this awful collection of red zone talent.

Did you watch the game or the stat sheet?

That defensive drive makes it even more frustrating that they gave the Bengals defense a free TD. Ravens D has mostly shut the Bengals down, they just needed their offense to not screw it up for them.

If I was a coach I would tell my special teams don't even try to block the punt. The risk isn't worth it. There's no way of avoiding a hit like that unless you don't even try to block it.