Beck Water

It's usually not the same people.

FWIW, Shakir has seen steadily increasing snaps through this season. From 10% game 1, up to 32% vs Jags and 39% vs. Giants. That could just mean Kincaid is out, or it could mean the coaches are seeing positive developments for him in practice. But, his targets are not changing (1 per game) Kincaid, after 80% game one, has been holding steady at 50%.

Actually, Von, you can tame a mustang. I hadn't seen the full clip after Josh lit into Okereke. Gotta love the speed with which O'Torrence got there and inserted himself between Josh and trouble.

Dang, Ed Oliver DNP. Two bits of positive news there!

THIS. McDermott made it work most of last season with Jackson, Benford, and Elam. He made it work after Thanksgiving in 2021 with Jackson and Wallace. If we're making a big trade, the apparent need is on offense. Either that, or someone needs to get some "trust juice", sprinkle it into Josh Allen's eyes while he naps, and make sure the first thing he sees when they open is Kincaid, Shakir, and Harty. Group hug so you can get Sherfield in there as well. Look, I Get the sentiment, but at this point, we've not just lost our best corner, we've lost our best LB and our best 1TDT. Yet the group that's struggling, is the offense. Where can one top player make a difference? On the group where you're down 3 key players but somehow holding your own? Or on the side of the ball that's been looking inept and out-of-sorts?

Darius Slayton, Wan'dale Robinson, and Parris Campbell. It's hard to catch stuff that's not thrown to ya. Oh, yeah, and Hodgins. I wanted the Bills to sign Parris Campbell in FA. In retrospect, I was wrong.

I guess I'm 'toting a bone' here, but you sounded pretty definitive on Williams already. "We know his floor" "Lifetime Special Teamer" etc sure sounded like career pronouncements. We'd obviously be better off and Williams would not be starting if Milano hadn't been injured, but I thought he shows massive improvement in his 2nd game vs. the Giants over getting thrown in vs. the Jags, which is promising - so I'm ready to wait and see. I think he'll probably make a couple mistakes a game, but that may be better, overall, than Klein who would know exactly what his assignment is at all times and exactly where he ought to be, but won't physically be able to get there. The main "Captain Obvious" takehome for me is that with all the injuries leading to playing lesser players at DT and starting young players or rookies, the offense better get its collective head out of its rear orifice, and quickly.

I think you're conflating Kincaid's potential, with how the Bills have used him so far. He was used downfield in college. But yes, that's exactly what needs to happen - when the #2 WR is apparently best used on deep, slow developing routes, resulting in Josh fighting to extend plays, taking hits behind the LOS, and throwing interceptions - taking away targets from the double-covered deep guy and feeding the short, quick underneath option is EXACTLY what you need to do - except you don't use him as the "checkdown" after all other targets are exhausted. The idea is to use him as a quick outlet when he has grass ahead of him and can make more yards. Cook, too. In case the math hasn't struck you, short passes to the guy who can double his yardage with YAC and get 7 yds per attempt, or to the backs who can do the same or double it, moves the chains and either generates 1Ds, or puts us in 3rd and short. Exactly. Take the short throws, move the chains, and when the defense says "damn! we're being nibbled to death, we got to change up our coverage and slow this down!", Gabe will be more open deep, take your shots.

Yes, Cover2 is commonly used to take away the deep throws and keep everything underneath. Yes, it has been effective against the Bills especially when the plays called try to push it deep, or when Josh tries to force it deep against good coverage of Diggs or Davis. But this isn't novel, and it won't be consistent, just as the defensive coverage the Bills used to slow Miami isn't going to be consistent. And it won't work if Dorsey and Josh pivot, and take what the defense offers them It reminds me of a podcast Brett Kollman (The Film Room) did after the Bills-Dolphins game 3 where he revealed the KEY to slowing Josh Allen - kind of ignoring that the Bills put up 497 yds of offense in a heat-stroke game that saw one of their OTs playing snaps on a torn ACL because there was no one else left. The Bills, of course, went on to be the #4 offense in the NFL and flame out in the Divisional round, either because they were emotionally drained and suffering 1 too many injuries, or because their HC and OC should be fired (your choice) You got to remember that these guys are now "in it" to generate clicks and views, and you don't do that by being even handed and meticulous in your X's and O's knowledge. That's why we get pieces from Kollman that...um....don't age as well as the single malt he touts, like "Mac Jones terrifies me". Preach! I love me some Sledge, and I wish Gilliam would get a little more airplay, but I believe you mean Morris (and Gilliam has good hands for a FB/TE, but Morris is a converted WR and has the routes and the hands to prove it) Bernard and Williams say "hi". I mean, I own my receipts, I did it too with Bernard.

Um.... (click to embiggen) It's notable that Shakir, Harty, Knox and Kincaid all have more YAC than YBC. Sherfield is 4 yds off an even split. Now a large part of that, of course, is how Diggs and Davis are used, but to say that Diggs "is the only WR really effective in that area" or to imply that's the reason we're reliant on him, is simply not correct.

You realize this is becoming a campaign - multiple threads, multiple posts beating the same drum? Most people can understand this part of my post is actually justifiable criticism of Josh, one that I've made several times where merited: If you can't take the time to process and understand that, what does that say? It says to me you're campaigning and crusading. Criticizing Josh is fine, having a mistaken opinion that calls a scored drop "95% on Josh" for not making a throw "a HS QB could make" is your right, but going on and on and on about it in double-digit posts now in 4 different threads while manufacturing a non-existent conspiracy/unwritten rule where it's supposedly off limits in this forum to criticize Josh (despite the fact that reasonable and reasoned critique of 17 is all over the forum) - that's getting to be a bit much. It seems that the zebras will give the benefit of the doubt to "oh their feet just got accidentally tangled" wherever possible. A trip pretty much has to be "I stuck my foot out in your path just as you got there".

Gonna try to put in his assessment of Josh's pick: This seems to me to be an example of where I question, not the play design per se, but the details of how the routes are being executed. It seems to me (and I could be way off) that if the idea is to target Knox, he ideally needs to run upfield a few more yards before he makes his cut. That would force 41 to backpedal and give Knox a bit more separation. It seems to me it would also get Murray and Knox more in sync. The whole idea of that route combination as I understand it is to put Okereke in confliction between covering Murray and covering Knox. Now partly, I think Okereke is playing on inside knowledge of Josh's tendencies - Daboll knows that Josh hates the checkdown and seldom takes it. But even if he weren't, it seems to me the routes aren't coordinated properly, and Okereke has no need to be worried about Murray at the point where Josh throws. Again, I'm going off what I see, and I could be mistaken. And the receivers could be coached to run shorter routes because they are quicker, so there's that.

https://buffalonews.com/sports/professional/nfl/bills/jim-kubiak-bills-gave-up-on-what-they-are-known-for-to-do-what-they/article_20169eda-6d43-11ee-834a-9b13caabb97c.html#tncms-source=login The good news is, we had a run game to turn to. Warning: while I like Kubiak and currently subscribe to TBN (reconsidering), when I went to read the article I got a stupid pop up window playing Nick Wrong. 🤮 TBN needs to lose that, or I'm gone. They used to have a trial available cheap....worth looking at IMO.

It is a little weird, but on the other hand teams aren't required to provide an injury report until today so why would he offer information he doesn't have to? A lot of players are seeking treatment on Monday and "Get Right Day" (Tues) and it can be hard to distinguish limiting injury from "just sore" until a couple days have gone by.

You do realize that people have answered that very point for you, more than once? What is your understanding of the explanation that has been offered? 'cuz I see no point in reiterating without at least understanding what has/hasn't gotten through Appeal denied. Distinction without a difference in this context

It's just sort of a peeve of mine about the analytics trend fueled by the popularity of Fantasy Football. People come up with all sorts of stats, and pronounce "this good, that bad" without looking carefully at whether it's positively and tightly correlated to meaningful sorts of success (scoring points, winning games). So yeah, I bet you're right, there are a couple of other factors that, if combined with this stat, would correlate neatly with success, but by itself, it doesn't look as though it means too much.

I'm on record as not being one of the "Davis is not a #2 WR" club. Different offenses have different styles of #2 WR and he fits one style. However, people who know more football than I do (and Davis record) point out that he is not a "safety valve" receiver. He is not the guy who is reliably always open against any coverage. He does seem to have a limited route tree. So I'm kind of curious, what leads you to say Davis needs more, not fewer, targets? I would agree that the offense would benefit by having Diggs target load re-distributed. But I think it needs to be re-distributed to guys who can reliably get open quickly and gain YAC. I would nominate Kincaid and Cook as key beneficiaries of re-distribution attempts, with honorable mention to Shakir (provided he proves he can catch when targeted more, Sherfield or Harty if he doesn't).

The PR sell has certainly been "maybe he was hampered by injury last year".

I know this isn't the point you're making (I take that point to be: people are looking at "Daboll as OC" with rose-colored, revisionist glasses when many of the same complaints were raised in real time). Valid point, IMO. But I find this chart puzzling. Being a simple little beck running downhill over the rocks, seems to me if running on 2nd and long is "shooting themselves in the foot", you would think that the teams who do it a lot are bad, and the teams who don't do it are good. But when we look at playoff standings, we see that the Titans (a few steps up from the bottom) and Bills (near the bottom) were high in the standings. Tampa and the Cowboys, who top the chart, were high in the standings, but the Panthers (#2 on the chart) sucked, and other teams near the top (Seattle, the Jets) were mediocre that year. So I'm kind of wondering if this "run on 2nd and long" is as overall detrimental to the whole point of offense (winning) as the tweet implies.

There's some good explanations here: https://weeklyspiral.com/2021/06/21/draw/ https://weeklyspiral.com/2021/05/10/duo-concept/ https://weeklyspiral.com/2021/06/07/inside-zone/ To my understanding (and I feel certain I shall be set right if I'm mistaken 😃), the distinction with a "draw play" is the whole set up of the play is designed to "draw" the defense into defending a pass play. It's sort of the reverse of play action (where the set up is to look like a run, but then pass). This is done by having the OLmen in a pass set for blocking, the QB take the snap and act as if it's a pass play (either from under center or shotgun), the RB scan as though he's gonna be pass blocking and oh yeah, take the handoff and run. It's not a necessary feature of a draw play to have a QB in shotgun - a draw can be run from under center - nor is it necessary to have the QB take the snap in shotgun and hand the ball off to a stationary RB. In fact, I think in a draw play the RB would usually move towards the QB and try to "sell" as though he's scanning in pass pro, although that usually wouldn't mean "building up steam" as in an undisguised run play. Anyway, a key difference identifying a draw (again to my understanding) is how the OL is setting up their blocks and what are their blocking assignments, which explains why to a lot of observers, the distinction between a draw play and other run plays is obscure. That's also what @HoofHearted and @GoBills808 and others are talking about when they bring up DUO, ISO, Inside zone, etc. - they're talking about the blocking sets and assignments It's part of the confusion of learning about run plays in football that there's terminology that applies to the back or backs (blast, counter, slant, pitch, reverse, off-tackle) and terminology that applies to the run blocking scheme, and then slang terms that apply to the combination of what the back does and what the blockers do. But all run plays from shotgun where the RB does not run towards the QB for a handoff are for sure, not draws.

Allen is always going to take the blame in public. Possibly more than he should in private, as well. But when a guy throws an ad hominem like "any criticism of Allen is met with irrational revisionist insanity" into discussion, it's usually a sign that he's defending an indefensible position and turns to the personal attack as a substitute for facts or persuasion. Just sayin'. OK, I sit corrected then. From the film clips I've seen I would have thought it wasn't. You're correct on Knox drops though. Not only is it a reasonable expectation, it's one he met in 2020 and 2021.

That's not a HS QB throw, and it was accurate enough that a top-notch receiver should get there and hang on to it, but I also think it's not scored as a drop by Knox either. Scored drops are "incomplete passes where the receiver should have caught the pass with ordinary effort"; that dive was not "ordinary effort". Knox is a puzzling case because after early issues with focus and eye-hand coordination, he went to that specialist in the 2021 off-season and really upped his pass catching game. Brought his catch % up from mid-50% to 69-74%, brought his drop % down from 20% to 9% to 5.6%-6.2%. But this season, I don't know - maybe he decided he was "cured" and didn't need to keep catching his ping-pong balls or whatever it was he did, because his catch % is back where it was his first 2 seasons, and his drop % is up where it was his first 2 seasons. But aren't you the guy who has a source that says Knox is playing with a damaged ligament in his hand and possibly a fracture? (odd that he isn't on injury report if that's true). I can't disagree with giving more targets to Kincaid, though he does need to become more physical dealing with 'sticky' coverage (and to sell the DH and DPI better) It seems to be a general problem for the Bills that we have a bunch of receivers who do well enough with ordinary on target throws, but who seem to struggle to bring in the off-target, too high, too low, but makeable catches which (confirmation bias) I seem to see other team's #2 and #3 receivers pulling in on the regular.

I've said this before, I'll put it out here again. I enjoy Cover1. I learn stuff, and Erik Turner is one of the guys I learn stuff from. He's played, he's coached, he knows ball. I'm sure he's forgotten more than I know. That said....at the end of the day Erik and the other Cover1 guys are not football professionals. Erik played in HS and DIII college (St John Fisher), and was (is?) a coaching assistant at a local HS. We have guys who post on this board whose football background and experience are stronger - they played at a higher level in college, they have more experience scouting professionally, they have more experience coaching. You can probably figure out who they are. Again, I watch Cover1, I learn, I enjoy - but sometimes they're mistaken in what they see or how they interpret it. And they're human like the rest of us, they form an opinion and suffer the same confirmation bias we all suffer where they fit information into their opinion. So my $0.02, take them with a little grain of salt and don't consider them more definitive than some of the folks with a contrasting views here. I do think there are some issues with route running - for whatever reason, I don't think routes are always being run at the optimal depth to create confliction for defenders, and it's possible that sometimes when there are option routes, the receivers aren't choosing the correct option. That's probably on the WR coach, possibly on the way Dorsey is drawing up the plays and possibly it's being done that way for a reason at times (quicker routes?)

And one more. Evidently Quintin Morris has a high ankle 😥 sprain: Apparently he caught the TD pass on it.