Beck Water

Sal Capaccio's take Agree? Disagree? Discuss.

And tagging in here. Here's a screen shot from the TNF "Prime Vision" option Turner put up. This IMHO totally illustrates what some of us are saying about Dorsey's play design. Three receivers are running routes 10-15 yds from the LOS at this point, and are pretty well covered. Allen has always, all his career, looked PAST the 1st down marker. So he's been throwing to one of these guys, trusting his arm and forcing the throw at times. (Spoiler: two of the receivers are running deep crossers and Diggs, I think it is, eventually blows past his guy and comes open downfield. Given time, those routes do work) But it's not that he doesn't have options. He's got Knox (I think) who has chipped and released and has no one within 10 yds of him. Then he has Cook, who this time (thank you!) makes the right move to find the throwing lane, catches the ball, and gains about 12 YAC for a nice 14 yd pickup and the 1st down.

Since some of us were "down" on Cook for faking out his own QB and not being QB friendly last week. Here's Cook last night "doing the Right Thing". YES!!!!

No flaming from here. There are times when you change coaches or offensive coordinators and all of a sudden a guy who looked "Seriously?" becomes "Damn! OK!" Example would be Daniel Jones, who looked functional for a rookie under Pat Shurmer/Mike Shula. Then he started looking pretty clueless under Joe Judge/Jason Garrett & Freddie Kitchens. Lo and behold, Daboll/Mike Kafka and a healthy run game and Daniel Jones seems serviceable once again. You'd like him to be collecting a few more passing yards per game, but everything else (TD/INT ratio, completion % etc) you can win with. Agree, Tua would be another example of the difference a good OC and HC can make, but TBF adding Hill to Waddle didn't hurt. I would put Mac Jones in the same category - I don't find him likeable or charismatic, but give him his propers. He was able to be a perfectly functional QB under Josh McDaniel, in an offense based on making the right reads and getting the ball out in rhythm, then taking a few deep shots when they're there. Completion %, 22 TD to 13 INTs, YPG - those were all good enough QB play to win with, supported by a good run game and a top D.

Judon is a very good player. He is currently leading the league in sacks with 13. 2nd in QB hits, 8 in TFL. He's a terror. The Bills have pretty much had a Plan for him ever since 2019 when he strip-sacked Josh Allen in Baltimore for a sack-fumble TD. Leaving Sweeney to block him, leading to a holding call, was a plan I guess - but it was a Bad Plan.

Nice. A few more of Baldy's Breakdowns:

I can see where that sounds a little unreasonable. But this is what you wrote that I was responding to: "McKenzie......has made mistakes many times on his routes that hurt us this year." Now a lot of us fans can remember plays during the season that we feel really cost the Bills, be it a fumble or a dropped ball or whatever. Since you feel McKenzie has not just "many mistakes on his routes" but that specifically have hurt us this year, I just thought you might be able to remember a few of those route running mistakes as far as at least what game, what quarter etc etc. to where a fellow fan could go have a look. Because to the entirety of what you said: "McKenzie is not the answer in the slot. He is a gadget player, he isn’t a guy who can make a tough catch in traffic or get tough yards. He also is not a refined route runner and has made mistakes many times on his routes that hurt us this year." - I mean, C'mon - you're talking about a guy who followed up a 6 reception, 1 TD, 103 Y/Sc game where he mostly caught deeper balls, with a 5 reception on 5 targets, 44 yd game, where some of those yards were tough. And he's looked to me as though he's improved pretty damn well on his routes. So in that context, what you say seems to need a bit of evidence to bolster it. Yes, McKenzie has had mistakes, so have basically every skill player on the team this season. OK, so you don't want to depend on McKenzie, even though he has had good games and, to accompany his mistakes, has actually contributed 5 TD and 25 1D to go with his gaffes (and not from gadget plays). Instead you want to see less McKenzie (who has contributed) and more Shakir (who has not contributed much, yet, in the ~16 snaps he gets every game), to "develop Shakir" - even though as you point out: I think you might want to re-think this a bit. There seems to be some logical inconsistency. BTW, Davis has almost the same catch % this season as his previous seasons, and his drop % is just a bit higher. So I'm not sure where the surprise is.

The Bills do have a sports psychologist on staff, and I'm sure they've had him or her work with Allen from time to time. But the "Need to be sure every possession ends with a kick" mantra dates from 2019, or at least that's when I heard Allen saying it first.

Best tidbit from that interview: On Dorsey: "Dorsey's great..he's a fiery competitor....Still some things that we're working through in terms of how we're seeing things, and you know, as a QB you have to be an extension of the offensive coordinator when you're on the field. Takes a little bit of time, but I think we're getting to a pretty good spot."

He's the assistant OL coach, Ryan Wendell

61% of the snaps.

Outstanding post. There were some accuracy issues, but those have mostly resolved (assuming we have the elbow back). But when a throw is made matters as much as where. It's not just Allen skipping the "gimmees" to heave it deep, it's Allen taking the "gimmees" but only AFTER he's really had a good ol' look to see if he really can't find a deep shot. By that time two defenders are closing, and not only are possible YAC minimized, but the ball becomes a much harder throw and catch and sometimes becomes a catch where the receiver will have to take a lot of punishment.

LOL Allen in the post-game TNF interview. Tony Gonzales asks him about getting down "has there been any talk about maybe preserving that, and saying OK we need you in the long run?" Josh says "Oh, there's been a lot of talk about that"

Just FYI, I think people are looking at scored drop %, in which at one point Gabe was leading the league. (He's down to 9% now, from a high of 17%) Scored drops are a bit subjective and differ a bit between the services who are scoring them, but it's "a ball which a receiver should be able to catch with ordinary effort", which, in fact, does exclude throw aways or uncatchable balls. If it hits his hands, we want him to hang on to it, even if it's contested. He has made some great catches.

This is what one commentator described as a "that *****in' guy!" play where the DC slams his clipboard. The defense basically did everything right, and Josh Allen still made the play.

That's Josh Allen. You don't wanna bet on that.

4, 6, 10, 4 and 23 snaps in his 5 games. Beautiful 21 yd catch last night. Any chance you could offer a bit of an explanation for those of us in the back of the class?

I thought the ball was in Poyer's arm and stayed in his arm as he hit the ground. I didn't think the rule was that the ball couldn't shift or touch the ground at all, just that it couldn't come out of the receiver's grip. I thought the ball stayed in Poyer's grip. But, It Is What It Is. I'm more concerned about the zebras missing the DB who pinned little Dirty's arms long before the ball got there (both announcers were looking for a flag) and the DB who kicked Diggs in the helmet while he was on the ground right in front of them.

Should have been. There also should have been at least one, IMO more personal foul penalties on DB covering Diggs.

Take aged well. 🙄 Tell me about McKenzie's route running mistakes this year - what games, what routes? I'll go look. I can think of one. I can think of another where someone made a route running mistake (or, it was a crap route design that spaced the receivers too close) but based on how routes are usually structured I think it was Gabe. Based upon what evidence? Shakir had a promising game and 1/2 second half of Ravens and vs. Pittsburgh with McK out. But since then, he's had a steady 16 snaps per game. Looks like teams got a bit of film on him and figured him out. If he's preferable to have out there on a key 3rd down, he would surely have more than 3 catches on 7 targets in his 122 snaps during the last 7 games. I mean, the coaches get GPS data on speed and acceleration and separation from other players in addition to film. They see the players in practice. What is this whole "I would rather see player B instead of player A" based on? I will grant you this - I would rather see Hines or Cook taking handoffs in the backfield than McKenzie. My evidence is that McKenzie is smaller and slighter and I think they're both better able to protect the football and get YAC.

I actually think Beasley was sent packing exactly for reasons related to football (declining performance on field, speed, and injury factors). However to be fair, as Shady McCoy pointed out there is a performance vs nuisance ratio, where top performers get more tolerance for off-field shenanigans than lower performers, so it's probably fair that off-field stuff factored into it. But if his performance were still 2021 grade, I believe they would have kept him. McKenzie had a nice game, and unlike Detroit where a number of his catches were deep, his receptions yesterday were all short slot routes.

Why are you replying to your own post where you say you'd prefer Shakir to McKenzie and McKenzie can't play in the slot? I understand that. But PS players also have certain expectations placed on them, such as taking on "opponent look" roles for the scout team during practice and often playing ST if they are called up. Beasley wasn't into that, apparently, so when placed back on the PS instead of being signed after his 2nd game, he went home. Why folks think he'd like those roles any better here in B'lo has me bemused. Bea-mused?

After watching the game and looking at the snap counts, I'm pretty sure this is what happened. Elam is still "progressing" in learning to be a zone corner. I'm pretty sure the Bills were playing a lot of zone. Not only that, from the snap counts they were moving their corners around. Rhodes played 87% of the snaps, Tre White 61%, Dane Jackson 52%. The Bills didn't play the D I expected them to play. I thought they would play some base 4-3 - Nope, Not a single snap. Then, last time they played the Pats IIRC, they swapped Siran Neal in at times to give us a "heavy nickle". Nope. Not once. So I think "better matchup against passes to Rhamondre Stevenson and the run, better fit for the zone D we want to run for this game" is the answer. People love to get all mystery/conspiracy minded but I don't think that was it. I think it was a matchup decision based on wanting to play nickle and zone against a run-heavy offense with a lot of passes to the RB and wanting to throw a lot of different "looks" at Jones in a hostile environment. Elam needs to progress as a zone corner still and as a sure tackler of a tank like Stevenson.