HoofHearted

What were some of the concepts we ran and why were they not creative? It's hard to take the word of someone saying we're not creative when the concepts are described as "shotgun runs up the middle".

I still really enjoy the "he lacks football IQ/doesn't read his keys" comments from people who have zero football IQ or understanding of scheme.

Yes, he looked confused as to whether he was suppose to crack the blitzing defender or block the receiver. Schematically I would guess he was suppose to crack that inside defender (otherwise why short motion him into the box). It also puts us in a really advantageous match-ups for Josh since he'd be reading the corner. The corner would have to honor the crack and slide inside (which he did) which in-turn makes it a keep for Allen and puts him 1 on 1 vs. a corner on a short edge. I'll take that match-up 100% of the time and feel great about it. I see what Dorsey was trying to do there - really good scheme there.

No, Josh made the right call. The defender was aiming directly at Josh with no path to even play the give to Singletary. He was solely a QB player there. You can see in that clip that Singletary gets tripped up by the Morris' guy, not the blitzing defender.

This isn't true. Zone schemes focus so heavily on RB vision because the aiming point changes based on what the defense does. The inside zone play I highlighted above for instance has the back look play side A first, but if it's filled he starts looking backside. That's what makes the scheme dangerous because if your back is really good as seeing thing develop quickly and your OL can sustain blocks you can't be wrong.

Having an understanding of the run concept and the blocking scheme helps tremendously when looking at all of this. The Bills are running zone read to Miami's Cover 1 look. In any zone read concept your are purposefully leaving a guy unblocked (this is what you are seeing the majority of the time you're seeing a guy unblocked in the backfield). Josh is reading that defender - if the defender squats at the LoS or is coming directly at him it's a give. If the defender is bending down the heel line of the offensive line to play the dive then it's a keep. Here's the alignments with the DL movement: The offensive line blocking rules are covered to uncovered to backside backer. Above you can see how it was suppose to be blocked. Morris got blown up by the slanting defender. Slow reaction and feet in order to get the reach block on him which ultimately blew up the play and forced Motor to try to cut it all the way backside. It's pretty obvious we were not running into an overloaded side - we just didn't block it. If we had it would have been a huge gain as you can see below:

That's incorrect - all the offensive line hears on a called RPO is the run concept - they are blocking whatever run concept it is tagged with 100% of the time.

Why do you think this is an issue?

I wasn't able to watch the Miami game yet, but I'd venture to guess we aren't seeing as many light boxes as we did last season. Teams had to honor our two home run threats on the outside. I don't think anyone views Gabe Davis as a home run threat worth committing help over the top to. He's not a burner, we've just done a really good job of schemeing him open on deep stuff and he's an excellent route runner for a big guy.

If Allen wasn't a run threat himself I'd bet you'd see this as we'd see more light boxes. Because he is a run threat your can't afford to give us a light box because we have an extra blocker in the box on any given play.

What is “shallow coverage”?

The days of the bell cow back are over. You just have to run enough to keep the defense honest. Allen’s threat as a runner also lends a huge hand in our success in the pass game as well so you can’t abandon that either.

The thread was “how do you stop this offense?”… I’m not suggesting we do any of this lol. As I’ve said 2 Man is the best chance to shut down what we want to do, but makes you extremely susceptible to the run game. There’s no good option to “stop” this offense which is what the OP really wants to hear.

Is that the tone you got from my response? I love our defense. Keep it simple. The less thinking the faster we can play.

Having Josh Allen is even more reason to run - QB run game you got 6 blockers for their 5 defenders.

If you don't run against 2 man then you're a terrible OC - you have a 5 man box!

He 100% isn't an eligible receiver on that play - he was covered. Ball started on the 10 - he was close enough within that 1 yard downfield range they allow on screens when not engaged for it to not be a flag.

2 man - force us to run the football.

Nah, that play to Gabe was designed to either go to Gabe or have Allen keep it on the Naked Boot. This 4th and 1 was true Zone Read.

100% he missed the block, but Byard is Allen's read. That read is telling him to give not keep.

Josh trying to do too much on that 4th and 1 - Byard attacking the mesh point just give it and let Moss fall forward for a yard.

Right, they were playing a ton of Cover 3 - still only rushing 4 though.

Denver did. Seattle did not. We run the same Tampa 2 defense that Seattle was running at that time.

Trying to hold the disguise as long as possible. Epenesa did him no favors either allowing that B gap to widen. Margin for error is next to nothing down there.

That's exactly right - he had no responsibility for that receiver. They were disguising their front - showing a 4-2 box when really they were playing 4-3 principles.