Beck Water

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.

Nevah Mind

sooooooo.......what QB are we gonna be facing? Apparently, his first name will start with the letter "M" https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/bill-belichick-comments-on-malik-cunninghams-role-moving-forward/ar-AA1ijVDi Such a surprise that Belicheck didn't give a concrete answer. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/17/sports/do-patriots-have-master-plan-regarding-malik-cunningham/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I hesitated to link it in this thread because Eric Wood doesn't start talking about the Patriots matchup until 14:45, and I don't want to turn this into "Giants Recap Part 11" or something. But in his OBD piece this week, Eric Wood said something surprisingly blunt about all the screen shots fans are posting on twitter showing how open various receivers were. He caveats, saying from a screenshot, you don't know whether they're open at the right time in the progression. But then he points out (paraphrasing): "if these guys are that wide open and Josh is passing them up to throw to Diggs, it tells you one thing. It tells you Josh doesn't trust them." Ooof.

FWIW, Banged Up Bills analysis of injuries "stinger" for Cam Lewis Concussion/neck sprain for Damien Harris He thinks Allen has AC Joint sprain He points out that Allen's completion percentage dropped when he was recovering from an AC joint sprain on his non-throwing shoulder in 2020. But, he expects Josh to get pain control and tape/bracing and play through it.

Was Epenesa hurt during Sunday night's game? Snap counts are out (scroll down), and very low for Epenesa (27%) It will be interesting to see tomorrow's injury report Lawson was even lower on the snap counts at 17%.

So in general, of course this is true. But question: how does law enforcement on the stadium grounds work? Isn't the stadium owned by Erie County and leased by the Bills? Would that give Erie County LEO jurisdiction? If not, would the Bills have an agreement with Erie County or with Hamburg police giving them jurisdiction?

OMG I'm dying. Orca sploodge shakes for the Win.

OK, we need someone with better knowledge here to take this on but I'll have a go. Wink Martindale loves him his stunt blitzes. More, he loves him his delayed stunt blitzes. See here for good assessment: Allen doesn't set protections against that, because it's not the look he sees pre-snap (it may not even be the same look he and the OL saw on all the game film watched, because "special sauce for each OL" is a Wink Martindale hallmark). So then the OL default to protection rules, and the issue is that the entire line has to be on the same page and in sync about what rules they're following (which may change with the base protection) AND able to make whatever pass-offs they need to make smoothly and quickly, which is a big ask. If I remember correctly, the Bengals were doing similar delayed stunts in the playoffs. So what's the answer to the delayed stunt blitz stuff? 1) RUN. Stunt blitzes create havoc on sound gap integrity in run D 2) The QB has to know where his quick answer is, and take it. In the first half, we had 9 run plays to 18 pass plays - and Allen was not taking his quick answers. He was 8 of 18. In the second half, we had 20 run plays to 12 pass plays, and it worked - Allen was 11 for 12. The passing yardage gained was ~= 1st and 2nd half, despite fewer pass plays. I don't know if Morse or Allen is setting the protections now, but either way doesn't matter, setting the protections against the pre-snap D is not the issue. IMO.

11 Harty 10 snaps (16%) - that's a season low for him. typically closer to 20-25% 16 Sherfield 22 snaps (36%) - his snap counts vary all over the place, from the teens, to pushing towards 50% 10 Shakir 24 snaps (39%) - that's a season high for him. he's been trending steadily up through the season. I'm not sure what you mean by "Davis disappeared". Do you mean "was benched"? Because that's not the case. He played 57 out of 61 snaps.

Sounds like injury or examination for injury. Played 95% of the snaps so apparently came back in after being examined. Or as Hyde was caught on mic'd up saying of a similar throw to Gabe Davis: "Don't throw it, Don't Throw It, DON'T THROW IT, Good Throw!"

McDermott agrees with you completely Especially maybe don't drive your sore right shoulder into a LB. Even if it's Okereke, who roughed you up and picked you. I don't understand why at least a couple of those Giants players weren't tossed. IMO, the Giants targeted Spencer Brown, not just between the whistles but for extra-curriculars because they knew he has a medical history of back problems and they were hoping to knock him out. And I think that's one reason why Daboll got the brush-off handshake from McDermott.

The Pats team once knew great Success Right now they're a bit of a mess Their coach, named Bill B ruled football with Brady "It's harder with Mac", he'll confess

I commend to you the excellent breakdown of our first half passing plays by @HoofHearted in the "Anyone at the game or with all-22" thread Diggs is not double covered on all of those plays, and when he is double covered, it doesn't mean that he isn't open. Diggs is often the first read. He is also (deservedly) the first player Josh looks to when the play breaks down and its scramble rules. Josh is not "going rogue" and "playing hero regardless of the call". He does sometimes wait a bit too long for a deep option to develop (not always to Diggs), or work to extend the play, when he could and probably should take his outlet receiver - one could call that "playing hero". He doesn't do it as often or as consistently as he used to, but he still does it more than I'd like. I guess, to me, if you're saying that the offense is one very good receiver named Diggs and nothing much behind him, it follows that the QB will be locking on to that very good receiver named Diggs too much. I can't tell if this is a semantic issue between us, or if you perceive a very real difference that isn't clear to me?

Actually.....by midseason last year, it was being said that the Bills offense was one very good receiver named Diggs and nothing much behind him. Which is of course why in the offseason, Beane swapped McKenzie for Harty (theoretically a higher-ceiling and more versatile upgrade), swapped Kumerow for Sherfield (again, while not a great receiver, an upgrade as Sherfield can actually play WR), and drafted Kincaid.