HappyDays

Jags fans have been hating on Gabe Davis all season long on social media. They (correctly) believe that the team overpaid him and they're sick of his inconsistency. And what fanbase doesn't have some fun talking trash about players that leave the team? That's part of the fun of being a sports fan. It isn't that serious. Gabe Davis is still a millionaire. He doesn't need your support, he already won.

But why did the read need to be more difficult? That's the part I'm stuck on more. I mean I know it's fun breaking these plays down from overhead freeze frames, but realistically Josh actually has to make these reads in real time within 2 seconds. This year he isn't throwing to muddy reads, he's moving on. The coach's job is to make his job as easy as possible and eliminate the muddy reads. The minute details in the planning and the execution of the route spacing is below the level of other offenses. This should have been an easy read and an easy throw for a QB of Josh's caliber.

And again here's the play for anybody that wants to watch it for themselves: This is when Allen wants to be throwing to the wheel: Don't need to be Usain Bolt's twin to get off of Coleman as soon as Allen's arm moves forward and get in the path of the layered throw. I'm guessing Coleman is supposed to be running a pick but his defender has leverage behind him so that isn't getting it done. At this point Allen wants to wait for Cook to get level with Coleman before throwing over him but Edwards gets walked back in the pocket and at that point he goes into escape mode. I'm not trying to absolve Allen of his mistakes at all, it's just a lot more complicated than people want to admit. The spacing of the pick makes no sense and makes the play way harder than it needs to be. When you watch Travis Kelce end up so wide open no one else is even on the screen with him, it's because the Chiefs plan and execute their route spacing and timing to perfection. Little things like this that you don't notice live are what separate decent coaching from elite coaching. The one play Chris Simms breaks down that I do think Allen missed on was this one on 3rd and 13: Allen playing like his usual self would absolutely rip that out to Coleman and get us to 4th and short at worst. This is a good example of what I said earlier in the thread, that Allen's internal clock appeared to be moving a tick too fast in the 1st half. Probably over analyzing the game at this point, I just can't help myself when I see people on here actually say things like "Allen was the main reason we lost this game" or "Allen was the worst player on the field." He clearly was not the best version of himself, but he also got exactly zero help from his play caller and exactly one play where a pass catcher went above and beyond for him. All of our problems got exposed by well coached defenses two weeks in a row.

I have no idea what Coleman is doing on that route. It almost looks like he's trying to block the guy with his butt to free up the wheel. There's a ton of open space over the middle and if he just ran to that space he would have brought his man with him and the wheel would be wide open. Maybe Coleman didn't have the play call right? I mean later in the game a ball bounced off the back of his helmet so that's entirely possible. Otherwise the route spacing there makes no sense.

Bills 13 Jets 10 I would have had the score flipped until Saleh got fired. I don't see this as a "rally around the interim coach" kind of move. I see this as a "WTF is going on with my team and why should I keep trying" kind of move. Like most people I'm predicting an ugly ugly football game and I kind of just trust the mentality of our team more than theirs right now so I gave us the edge. I like our defense matched up against their offense. Our strength is outside CBs so I don't see Garrett Wilson having a big day. Breece Hall isn't the kind of RB we have trouble stopping. We don't have to worry about Rodgers moving around and should have no fear blitzing him. On offense, I don't like our matchup against anyone right now, let alone with Shakir and Cook possibly out, let alone against possibly the best defense in the league. But we're not going to be shut out. I'll trust Allen to make one or two more plays than Rodgers which will be just enough to get the win.

I really didn't have a problem with the back shoulder to Coleman on 1st down. Against the Ravens that play had become automatic. The problem is Coleman looked back towards Allen way too early in the route which gave the CB an easy read. When Coleman turns his head, the CB turns his head. The rep is lost at that point. He needs to sell the route vertically for a tick longer, but that's the kind of thing that happens when you're relying on an inexperienced rookie in a critical moment of a game. Allen is already gearing up to make an anticipatory throw before the rep is lost and it's not like he's going to go through his progressions in this situation. It's one read and throw the ball because that's what the coaches called.

I appreciate that after exactly two weeks the entire board and the rest of the Bills social media sphere has flipped around to wanting us to trade for a WR. Our fanbase quietly got smarter.

I can appreciate this analysis. Here's the play for anyone that wants to watch it: Last year some of Allen's INTs came when defenders that weren't covering the intended target were able to read the play and uncover from their man to get into the passing window. Good example would actually be Bernard's INT against Stroud in this game. Stroud makes technically the right read but Bernard is right there and recognizes it fast enough to make the play. Something I have noticed this year is that Allen is intentionally trying to avoid that scenario. So yeah I think it's very possible on this play he sees Coleman's defender with eyes on Allen and doesn't trust that the window will be there if he throws it before Cook gets behind Coleman. Like you said I don't know if that's a good or a bad decision, but it's better analysis than "Allen doesn't know what he's seeing" so I appreciate the attempt to figure out why he didn't make a throw that he has never hesitated to throw before. Allen obviously had an off game in the 1st half, I'm not going to dispute that. His internal clock seemed to be moving a tick too fast which led to the somewhat jumpy appearance of his play, before he settled down in the 2nd half. I have no doubt that trust issues with his OL and pass catchers influenced his internal clock, but he owns some of that himself either way. But my biggest concern coming out of the game is that when Allen has an off half of football (which is guaranteed to happen several times over the course of a season) the offense looks completely non-functional. I mean there is just nothing in the play design or the skill sets of his pass catchers that gives us any kind of margin for error, especially without Shakir. Like okay let's say the throw to Hollins was a tad overthrown. If Hollins has even average NFL speed or body control that is still a catch. Deep completions are not typically pinpoint accurate and they're as much about timing as accuracy. I couldn't tell you what our bread and butter plays are. Or even what our offensive identity is in general. We came into this game not having the necessary personnel to execute the proper game plan for Houston's defense, and not having the crispness of play designs and execution that the elite offensive coaches bring to the table. Allen will be fine. The other problems won't be. That's the takeaway that actually matters here IMO.

The plays I'm seeing they're not doing anything. It's mind boggling. They're standing still or moving in the opposite direction. Case in point: Look at all that space available for Hollins to sit down and make himself an easy target. Instead he cluelessly continues running across the field in the opposite direction of Allen's scramble. This should be an automatic conversion with Allen's skill set.

I've brought this up in a couple threads but the WRs need to do a way better job in scramble drills. In the past Allen has had WRs like Beasley and Diggs that knew how to make themselves available. A lot of our past 3rd down conversion success was Allen just making magic happen but he needs his pass catchers to be on the same page. Shakir is the only one that has done a good job of this. Against Houston alone there are plays on tape where MVS, Hollins, and Samuel each failed to do anything to help their QB during a scramble drill on 3rd down. Needs to be a focus of the coaching moving forward.

Joe Buscaglia's take: He also breaks down the almost INT that Allen threw back across his body. It highlights the issues I've noticed with our WRs on scramble drills. On that play while Allen breaks the pocket right, MVS continues running in the opposite direction and never tries to come back to make himself an available target. Meanwhile Samuel is just standing still way downfield letting himself be covered. Compare that to Shakir against the Ravens where he leaked behind the coverage and we got a big play. Something has to change. No answers exist on the roster. Getting Shakir back will certainly help but it's not enough to take this team where it wants to go.

It is alarming that we are running so often on 1st down but still not finding good success when we occasionally pass it. Defenses should be keying in on the run giving us easier opportunities to pass it based on these splits.

It hasn't been a solution in the last two games: I'm still of the opinion that as a fanbase we are searching for solutions that don't exist with the current personnel. Defenses know that there are very few things we can do well and it isn't hard to shut those things down when we have no counterpunch.

He's always going to hover around 50ish% of his throws coming from outside the pocket, just like the other stylistically similar QBs. IMO you don't ask those QBs to change. You build the offense around their skill set and make sure every single pass catcher knows how to respond when they break the pocket. Sometimes it will be an unnecessary escape. So be it.

Allen is responsible for some of it for sure. But like Simms says when an extremely talented QB has a historically bad passing performance it speaks to more fundamental problems in the offense. Not that that's breaking news or anything.

I think Chris Simms and Mike Florio nail it here: I'll admit what Simms says about possibly adding Davante Adams does give me pause. He says even if we add him, do we have enough else on the roster to really make a championship run? I'm naturally a very impatient person so I have been all in on doing whatever it takes to add Adams (or some other legit WR) to the room. But I can see the argument that the season is a wash no matter what so save your resources and push in your chips next year.

Yeah I know what the tweet is trying to say but I don't buy it. We didn't just "re-shape" the personnel. We failed to invest enough meaningful resources into the personnel, and the resources we did invest ended up being an overpayment pretty much across the board.

I don't know. Nobody was ever saying "the Bills offense needs to be built EXCLUSIVELY to beat cover 2 shell." The thought was that we needed some kind of answers built in to win against that coverage, while still retaining the ability to beat any other coverage. There has been a pervasive thought here and elsewhere in the Bills social media sphere that teams would just always let us get away with cheap yards over and over again, and as long as Allen remains patient we'll be unstoppable. It turns out well-coached defenses aren't going to just lay down and die for us. They're going to force the issue until we prove we can beat it. For two weeks now our personnel and our scheme haven't proven they can beat it. So the trend will continue.

Well and also Joe Staley's speciality was defense and their defense was legitimately terrible. Saleh's defense has been elite, probably the best in the league this year. So what improvements is Ulbrich supposed to make? Hackett is still there so the offense isn't changing. There's really nothing positive that can come from making the change now.

I don't think this is going to be a traditional "interim head coach" bump. That usually comes after everybody on the team knows the season is over and the change sparks some kind of excitement. This feels like the opposite. They are five games in with a chance to take control of the division on primetime and suddenly the rug gets pulled out. I think the team will be demoralized if anything. I was planning on predicting an ugly Bills loss but now I predict an ugly Bills win.

Feels like that takes the Saints off the list.

Just speaking for myself here, I have never been one to say a coach should always be aggressive. I think coaches that always go aggressive hurt their teams as much as coaches that always go conservative. You have to weigh each situation in the moment and make the appropriate decision for that moment in that game. On the whole I've actually been very happy with McDermott's 4th down decision making for several years now. I would say it's a strength of his, knowing when to go for it and when to take the points. The Ravens game was the first time in a while where I thought he wasn't aggressive enough at certain points but every coach has those moments so I won't rake him over the coals. As far as the end of this game - it doesn't bother me as much as it did in real time. I understand that the reactionary media is always going to latch onto the final seconds of the game. I just feel very nonchalant about the whole sequence. Kind of the same way I feel about the end of the divisional round actually, where the only thing anybody wants to talk about is the missed throw to Shakir in the endzone and for me that play barely registers in my mind when I'm thinking about reasons that we lost. Part of my feeling is that I never truly felt like this was a game we were going to win. Houston (Stroud in particular) made several very goofy mistakes that gave us any kind of chance at all. Obviously I wish we had made it to OT but can I say I felt particularly confident that we would have won it there? It felt more like a game that Houston tried to hand to us and we did the courtesy of handing it right back. Nothing about that final sequence strikes me as a microcosm of why we lost the game. I can't find any one moment in that final sequence where I feel the coaches let the team down when I really reflect on it. I'm more interested in how the rest of the game exposed pretty severe vulnerabilities in our offensive personnel and coaching.

Since this has turned into the semi-monthly Fire McDermott thread, here's what I'll say - I think we will know by the trade deadline if McDermott and Beane feel any pressure about their jobs. If they make a trade for a legit WR that will tell me they feel some sort of pressure to turn things around. If instead they keep the status quo which means Mack Hollins continues to be a regular part of the offense which ensures Josh Allen getting the snot beat out of him for the next three months, that tells me they have been told they have nothing to be worried about. The arguments on McDermott have been hashed out a million times and nothing that happens this season is going to change anyone's mind. But there's only one person in the entire world whose opinion on the subject actully matters and I am very curious to know what that messaging has been like.

Honestly I don't have a great answer. I think defenses figured that system out and our offense grew stale. But of course I am in favor of having more pass catching talent. The players will always outweigh the scheme. So I don't look to Daboll's scheme as the primary engineer of that 2020 production, I look to the players (and partly defenses at the time not being prepared to defend that type of offense, whereas every defense now is built specifically to stop it). It's a very rare group of offensive coaches out there that can seemingly make it work with almost any group of talent. Andy Reid has modified the Chiefs scheme several times since taking over. With Tyreek Hill they had almost an air raid offense. Defenses adjusted and they traded Hill so he changed to a short passing/run heavy offense. And I don't even know what I would call the scheme that they were running last night. So there is not one specific scheme I am in favor of. I'm in favor of having either an elite offensive coach or having elite offensive talent that an average coach can work with. And then you let the talent determine the scheme.

No the only thing I ever hear is injuries and the occasional free agent signing.