PBF81

Unloading Allen would be the dumbest thing that this team did from a historical perspective. However, he is not efficient at the high-percentage passing game, and he will need to be given this cast. As it is, his passing metrics dropped significantly under Brady, which means we're far from getting the most out of him in the passing game. That's due to McD and his misplaced "complimentary football" MO, how he defines that. Allen's really going to have to be at the top of his short-medium game if this is too work out optimally. Unfortunately that's not playing to his strengths. Poor and inexperienced coaching on the offensive side is holding him, and therefore the team, back. There's zero creativity on offense, which should have been and be the strength of it team while Allen's our QB. But instead it's the defense.

Having said all that, why the lack of high-end production in college, against weaker DBs than he'll see in the NFL. A rhetorical question.

It's about the QB and building around him according to his skillset. Brady rarely had what would be considered a "#1 WR" in his Championship seasons. His top WRs in his SB winning seasons were Brown, Branch, Givens, and Edelman (Gronk) for three of them. His best WR was Moss and and then Welker. They won nothing with them. We have no plan with Allen. Just cut him loose and watch him go no matter how inefficient or lacking in optimization the offense is. Why, because we have no creative mind on that side of the ball. Having great WRs obviously helps, particularly when you're playing without a plan and playground-ball like we do. Otherwise, it can be overcome, but as with Belichick defensively, you have to have someone that can conjure up the total being greater than the sum of the parts. So far out total's been less than the sum of the parts.

Travis Kelce-Swift

Good post. I know that there's at least a few people including myself that think that we're not very original offensively. From where we sit, we see, for instance, McD/the-team, trying to "do what KC's doing," namely feature their TE as their top receiver. If true, whether that works with Kincaid v. Kelce remains to be seen, but it's not original. What many of us are looking for is some originality in scheming the offense, and it should be incredibly possible with Allen while not merely having Allen play schoolyard ball. To start, until Allen starts utilizing his short-medium targets far more optimally, which have typically been wide open often due to Diggs & Davis going deeper (until Brady took over), we leave quite a bit on the table offensively for games. Running the ball and relying on your D is great when it works, but there should also be a serious effort made to optimize the passing game. It gets frustrating watching Allen go deep when there's a guy wide open in the flats or to the short outside where if he hit that guy we'd have a 1st-down and possibly a big play there. Sometimes the downfield stuff works, other times it doesn't. The point is that we can extend drives and score (TDs or FGs) more often than we do with far more efficient offense. As to the 7-1, that's the narrative, but the truth is a little different. Yes, "we barely threw to the WRs in that stretch," but we also hardly won decisively. The results look far more impressive than they actually were. For example ... We barely lost to Philly, but Philly went 1-5 after that, 1-6 if we count the playoffs, and were incredibly overrated as many had said. We then beat the Chiefs who were without Pacheco, and beat Dallas decisively. But after that we struggled despite going 3-0 against the Chargers, Pats, and Fins. Against the Chargers who were without their three top players (Hebert, Allen, and Bosa) we beat them in last-second fashion with a FG. Our top D allowed Easton Stic to play a pretty decent game with WRs/TEs in that game that were worse than our top-5 WRs/TEs right now. We barely beat a crap NE team on the merits of a defensive TD, not offense. We also barely beat Miami on the merits of a STs TD return. If we struggled to beat teams of that caliber at those times, and largely due to anemic offense, it's hardly a feather in anyone's cap on the staff. People can dislike this post all they want, but the reality is that we could just as easily have gone 2-4 over that stretch. You'll see what I'm referring to this season I'd guess if our play like that continues. If that happens, then the discussions here will be incredibly interesting. If we really want to be great, then we need someone that can see what Allen does best, figure out how to conform the rest of the team around him offensively, and have Beane draft around that. So far that's been far from the case, which is the reason for most peoples' frustrations. We also do not have anyone on staff that's suited to doing that and don't expect McD to hire anyone like that, because it would conflict with his "complimentary football" regimen, and which would fine if it actually worked, but the reality is that it held our O down, and that's hardly the ticket when you have a QB like Allen. It's like taking a Ferrari to a go-cart track.

At the end of the day we all want a championship. Keep in mind though, the same things have been said about all of our prior GMs at one point or another also.

Yeah, I know you were. Just horsing around. LOL

It hasn't been. Is it even definable, identifiable. Which is a problem IMO. It changes from season to season, almost as driven by what the narratives are or will be and to please the media & fans.

That's fair and I definitely appreciate your enthusiam for the new look. I'm hopeful, but my point has been about a mismatch. A mismatch between that and what type of QB Allen is. Allen has always struggled with the high-percentage passing game. It's questionable as to whether or not he knows it but simply has such enormous confidence in his arm that he ignores the impulses to simply mount longer more consistent drives. All I'm saying is that if Brady's vision for the O is going to work, Allen's going to have to change his passing game, not in a small way either. And from there of course the discussions ensue as to whether or not we'd be better off with personnel, either only on the Offensive side or altogether, with people that understand that better and know how to get the most from the generationally talented tool that they have, rather than trying to force-feed some alternate vision into the mix that is an uphill battle to optimization of the Offense. We will see. We're all hoping!

I hear ya. you dont know pain. You talkin' about from the seats at the Rockpile? LOL, just the '90s version otherwise. Some '80s, but the expectations were low then.

Having said all of that, isn't it also their (McBeane's) responsibility to get coaches that align with what they're doing. Short answer, yes, it is. So why three different OCs in as many years, all with significantly different philosophies. That's a more complex question as we get into behind the scenes stuff, but to address the issue. As to the bolded, I would ask you, what is Beane's vision of the offense? Does anyone truly know? We do know that what he's said was different last year than it was this year. That might be some critical insight. Secondly, who's the driving force behind the methodology of the offense? What's their experience? Track record of success? That's all I'm hinting at.

Super Bowl baby! And right from where we like 'em, the 5th round.

Please stop with the childish fire everybody stuff. It's beneath you, particularly when you say that you don't get emotional. That's purely an emotional response. As to the rest, I don't get emotional either. It's difficult finding people to discuss with that do not. Where we differ is that I'm not merely content with an amusing season anymore. I'd like to see a championship. At the very minimum I'd like to see our best in the playoffs, but that's far from what we've gotten, particularly with a top-ranked defense during the regular season and one that plays like a bottom-10 ranked D in the playoffs, yes, statistically. Have a great week as well!

Entirely agree with you there. What we do know is that the approach and methodology employed via this draft is once again different than prior statements of intent from the people conducting the draft. We need a WR to separate. Now we don't. On top of that, Allen's easily the biggest long-ball TD pitcher in football, easily. Now we have a cadre of WRs that excel at the underneath and short-medium stuff. That's not Allen's game. Can he adjust to the extent that he excels in the high-percentage passing game? He'll always be great, but will we have this Offense running at 100% is the question. That's more the game of a Burrow, Purdy, or other QBs. We want to go speed on Offense which is why we jettisoned Sing & Moss. Then we draft all but a Moss clone. No OL help. Suppose, as in it's very likely, that we do not have the same injury fortunes that we had last season with zero injuries to our OL. Day 3 OL-men going to cut it? As you say, we'll see how it turns out.

Who knows. None of us are privy to their personal discussions. Keep in mind, Beane is only here because of McD, you know that. I'll lean to the side that says if we had a Ben Johnson here, our drafts would look considerably different.

Like we do in the playoffs. If regular season is your thing, great. Otherwise, I would agree. When you're one of the worst defenses in the playoffs perenially it's an issue. The solutions can be argued. But arguing that it makes more sense to build around a D than it does around Allen is dubious and questionable at best. Imagine if Purdy, Burrow, Tua, Goff, and Prescott didn't have the WRs that they do. Better yet, imagine Allen in their offensive situations. Or not, your call.

And drafting affects free agency, which it could be argued is more important. Free agency is the most expensive way to aquire talent. Filling gaps with top-notch players is the least efficient method to assembling talent. Some positions you're fine at with a 6-7 caliber player (1-to-10 scale) on a bargain, others not so much. When you have Allen, WR is not so much. Consider, Jefferson vs. Diggs as a mere example.

Ahhh, so now it's Diggs' fault. LOL

I had to look to see which year this post was from.

Draft. Focus.

As you realize, I'm no McD fan, but he's good at getting more from our defensive roster than otherwise would have been gotten. Not saying that there aren't holes or issues, but worrying about the D shouldn't be a concern. Besides, it's continually the D that fails us in the playoffs. Offense is where any concerns should lay. We'll see how their methodology takes root, or not, this fall.

Too much of a reach for you to consider that if we had some actual offensive braintrust on this team that our offense might be significantly more consistent and therefore better?

That's a bit of a reach Gunner. While what you say may be true, even you have admitted that McD influences Beane's choices. McD is pure D, zero O. Even he's essentially admitted as much. The identity of this team is clearly D-First apart from Allen. As you pointed out in a post after this, only 1 WR on days 1 & 2, and it's a guy that leans more like Davis than any other productive WR we've had. There is no strategy in building the O. Consider, we threw Singletary and Moss overboard with the statements that we wanted to get faster on offense and highlighted Cook. Then we turn around and draft all but a Moss clone in round 4 this season. None of our offensive strategy makes much sense and there certainly is zero consistency from season to season, either in coaching or in methodology as to what our Offense is supposed to look like, ... other than for letting Allen be personally responsible for 75%+ of the production. That's at the heart of the pro/anti-McD debate. On the anti side are those that think we should be focusing on offense like McBeane have focused on the defense. That makes the most sense to anyone that knows football besides McD apologists. It should be a no-brainer, when you have a generational talented QB like Allen, you do everything possible to build around that QB. We've not done that. In fact, we've done everything to build around McD's defense, often ignoring major needs on the Offense. I realize that you won't agree, that's because you're on the pro side, so that's understandable, just sayin' otherwise. We can argue and bicker, but not one of us has the ability to alter what happens. LOL Go Bills!!

LOL, you've gotta admit that that last meme is hilarious, who it's directed at notwithstanding. What will really matter is how we play them at home here, and again in the playoffs if that happens. If Worthy is a factor in those games we'll never live it down. If he isn't it'll be water under the bridge. At this point the schedule release can't come soon enough.

Ya think? If we had someone in charge that chose to build around Allen rather than his pet D it's a tough argument to suggest that we wouldn't be a better team. No?