One big, dirty, stat.

[fridge]

We went ground 'n pound in a passing league. Everyone knows this. We were incredibly successful running the football, but never got into a passing rhythm all season. Simply throwing more will do nothing...Baltimore was #1 on that list.

 

Most likely the solution is a better QB.

[Dragonborn10]

Only one stat kept the Bills out of the playoffs last year. The number 2.

 

As in two Ryans's screwed the defense up so bad they cost the Bills the post-season.

 

The TT complainers will at least acknowledge he protects the ball and enhances the running game. The WR injuries hurt the attempts/game but again I don't even care. They were 10th in points. They had more than enough offense to make the playoffs.

 

Ryan's defense lost no less than five games and probably more ( am not even counting the finale) - Jets, Seattle, Oakland, Miami x 2. The offense can solely be blamed for the Baltimore loss. Other than that the offense competed every game. I will give you TT and the offense crapped the bed in the second half at Oakland but it was the defense that was truly putrid.

 

Right now the Bills are + 2 in all defensive categories simply by getting rid of the Ryans

 

Right now McCoy has a huge bullseye painted on his jersey... Opposing defenses will eventually develop ways to limit his impact... Other playmakers need the ball sent their way in order to make plays... it'll take major adjustment if TT wants to be that guy... FWIW, I hope Dennison provides an offense where TT has more help, and opportunities to pass downfield...

Agree but pretty sure that bullseye was there last year when Watkins and Woods were injured. Simply having Sammy and any viable #2 WR will make the offense more difficult to defend.

[Figster]

Only one stat kept the Bills out of the playoffs last year. The number 2.

 

As in two Ryans's screwed the defense up so bad they cost the Bills the post-season.

 

The TT complainers will at least acknowledge he protects the ball and enhances the running game. The WR injuries hurt the attempts/game but again I don't even care. They were 10th in points. They had more than enough offense to make the playoffs.

 

Ryan's defense lost no less than five games and probably more ( am not even counting the finale) - Jets, Seattle, Oakland, Miami x 2. The offense can solely be blamed for the Baltimore loss. Other than that the offense competed every game. I will give you TT and the offense crapped the bed in the second half at Oakland but it was the defense that was truly putrid.

 

Right now the Bills are + 2 in all defensive categories simply by getting rid of the Ryans

two big, dirty...

[#34fan]

Dear God, get over yourself. You are not Johnnie Cochran and this isn't an LA courtroom. Yes, we do talk about statistics. We talk about them all of the time around here. Common sense tells you though that the more you run the ball the less pass attempts you will have. In the end though the only thing that matters is wins and losses, how you get there is by your respective team's own design.

 

Running the ball constantly because it's what you do well, won't equal wins either... The disparity between a #1 rushing attempt stat and a #32 passing attempt stat should be obvious... Couple that with the fact that this passer had the longest snap-to release time of any other starting QB, and you realize TT wasn't just passing less, he was wasting more of his time (and ours) doing it!

 

How could a "design" so grossly out of balance help out a struggling defense in any way?

Edited June 17, 2017 by #34fan

[Maury Ballstein]

Top 7 in offensive touchdowns.

It doesn't mean a damn how they get the points. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?

Guess we should have paid Gilleslie. That was an impressive performance

[Bill_with_it]

Guess we should have paid Gilleslie. That was an impressive performance

Tyrod taylor accounted for 23 tds, Mccoy and the rest of the rbs accounted for 23 running the ball.

[Thurman#1]

 

You've given us stats for one team in the bottom 10 where this is the case, Atlanta. Does this still hold up for Seattle, Dallas, Miami and Kansas City? Can you please provide the link where you found the quarter rushing and passing splits. I'm having trouble locating those stats.

 

 

espn.com

 

Look for the splits.

So if the reason why the Falcons were running so much was to burn the clock in the 4th then the question would need to be asked why the hell were the bills running so much in the 4th quarter if they were playing from behind?

 

 

I don't know. They just were. Ask the coaches, maybe. They thought it was their best chance with the personnel they had, maybe?

 

The reasons don't matter to me, personally. What matters is that their percentages for whatever reason were very close to the same across the four quarters.

[Thurman#1]

Top 7 in offensive touchdowns.

 

It doesn't mean a damn how they get the points. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?

 

 

Well, first, they're not top seven, they're in a three-way tie for seventh. But that's a quibble. Here's the main point.

 

 

 

For the third time now, I understand that they're top 7 in offensive touchdowns. And that's huge if you're looking at the performance of ... wait for it ... the offense, the whole offense. See how that works? Offensive touchdowns are produced by the whole offense.

 

Whereas .. and here's what you missed the first two times ... when you are trying to look at how good the pass game is ... you look at what the pass game produced. Not what the run game produced. See how it's kind of an equivalence?

 

The offense scored a lot of TDs. Because the run game was terrific and scored a bunch of TDs. Whereas the pass game was substandard and did not score a lot of TDs.

 

And now the architect of that terrific run game, Roman, has left and is in Baltimore. This is cause for worry that the run game might not be as good next year.

 

All is said to pee in your Cheerios was thank goodness for the run game that scored all those points. They covered up the poor performance of the pass game. I didn't say anything implying that the whole offense didn't score a lot of TDs. I understand that it did. I merely pointed out that it was the run game's doing, that the run game scored almost 2/3rds of the Bills TDs and that no other team had less than 50% of their TDs scored by the passing game. Don't know why stone cold facts like this would make you angry.

 

Unless of course you're trying to use a measure of the performance of the whole offense to come to unwarranted conclusions about a mere part of the offense.

 

So again, the offense scored a lot. Can't argue with that. But it was overwhelmingly the extremely good run game (scoring 29 of our 46 offensive TDs, 63% when no other team was above 50%. Can't argue with that either.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Thurman#1

[HappyDays]

 

Forget top 3 then. Look at top 10 and bottom 10. Four out of the top ten teams made the playoffs. Not bad. But five out of the bottom 10 teams made the playoffs. That's even better. There is really zero correlation from what I can see.

That's because there is zero correlation.

 

Two offensive stats correlate well with making the playoffs - PPG (obviously) and interceptions. Interceptions may be less obvious but I found that they are way more important than passing yards:

 

2016 - 5 of the top 10 passing yard leaders made the playoffs.

7 of the top 10 interception leaders made the playoffs.

 

2015 - 3 of the top 10 passing yard leaders made the playoffs.

8 of the top 10 interception leaders made the playoffs.

 

2014 - 5 of the top 10 passing yard leaders made the playoffs.

9 of the top 12 interception leaders made the playoffs (there were 5 teams tied at 12 interceptions, so I had to expand)

 

So in total 13/30 top 10 passing yards leaders made the playoffs (43.3%). While 24/32 top 10 interceptions leaders made the playoffs (75.0%).

 

If you're scoring points and not throwing a lot of interceptions, you're probably in the playoffs. But you need a defense stopping the other team too. Technically being a top 10 passing yard leader means you're more likely than not to MISS the playoffs. Presumably because many of those teams were simply forced to pass as a result of a poor defense letting them down.

Edited June 17, 2017 by HappyDays

[Figster]

 

More attempts from a more confident passer might have meant even more TD's... Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?... If we were 14th or 15th in attempts we could have very well won more games... TT pulled the ball down and hauled-azz on many occasions where he could have thrown downfield.... Are we still denying this after last season?

 

Every time someone speaks the truth they get attacked by TT cabana-boys defending their master... What could anyone possibly have against this stat being improved?... smh...

Cam Newton has scored 48 TD's running the football.

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Scanning available stats, I found many areas where the Bills did well... Rushing stats were phenomenal... Believe it or not, Many of our stats ranged from good to middle of the pack

 

Except one.

 

Perhaps the one that kept us out of the playoff's for the seventeenth time in a row.

 

 

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/pass-attempts-per-game

 

 

Yes, the D was miserable... But in order to be competitive this one stat MUST change... Note to our QB's -SPRAY IT, DON'T SAY IT!

He can't which is why we base our offense on the run game. If we let him rip it it would be interceptions galore like he did in the probowl.

[HappyDays]

The offense scored a lot of TDs. Because the run game was terrific and scored a bunch of TDs. Whereas the pass game was substandard and did not score a lot of TDs.

Well this is too simplistic Thurman. Tyrod was responsible for 63.6% of the Bills total offensive yards. Our rushers weren't going right from our 25 to the opponent's end zone, there was plenty of ground to cover in between. Just because we chose to run more in the red zone doesn't mean the pass game wasn't also responsible for the TDs. And the Bills had the 8th best passer rating in the red zone so Tyrod was absolutely a contributor.

 

And why wouldn't we run in the red zone? The zone read option inside the 20 was as efficient as any play we ran last year (I don't have stats on this, just going off of memory).

Edited June 17, 2017 by HappyDays

[H2o]

Running the ball constantly because it's what you do well, won't equal wins either... The disparity between a #1 rushing attempt stat and a #32 passing attempt stat should be obvious... Couple that with the fact that this passer had the longest snap-to release time of any other starting QB, and you realize TT wasn't just passing less, he was wasting more of his time (and ours) doing it!

 

How could a "design" so grossly out of balance help out a struggling defense in any way?

I have not been a Tyrod supporter. I like the guy as a person, he seems like good people, but he isn't the answer at QB. Can we win with him? Yes. If our defense gets back to top 5 then we could make some real noise. The Ravens won with Dilfer and the Bucs with Brad Johnson. It can be done. The offense is just tailored to the strength of our team, which isn't the passing ability of Tyrod Taylor.

[HappyDays]

He can't which is why we base our offense on the run game. If we let him rip it it would be interceptions galore like he did in the probowl.

Man you could have just glanced at the stats to know this is badly wrong.

 

Tyrod has had 30+ pass attempts in 11 games with the Bills. In those games he has thrown 8 TOTAL interceptions, and 3 of those came in one game Week 2 in 2015.

 

Just looking at 2016 he had 6 games with 30+ pass attempts and only threw 3 interceptions in those games. In the other 9 games he threw another 3 interceptions. Does that sound like a QB that throws interceptions galore when the pass attempts go up? Nope.

[Maury Ballstein]

Here's the point.

The offense as a whole, was good enough.

The defense was not. They blew, they were, more times then not the reason the team lost more games then it won.

The OPs post is a joke.

If you omit the Ravens, Patriots, Bengals, Dolphins 1, Oakland, and Pittsburgh games this would be true.

[HappyDays]

If you omit the Ravens, Patriots, Bengals, Dolphins 1, Oakland, and Pittsburgh games this would be true.

You definitely can't count the Dolphins or Steelers. Both games featured a 200 yard rusher, and I looked at every game from 2013-2016 that had a 200+ yard rusher. Only found one game where a team was able to defeat an opponent with 200+ rushing yards and it was New England beating Denver 34-31 in 2013. So basically the best result against a 200 rush yard opponent was the best QB of all time beating his opponent by 3 points in a shootout. I'm gonna go ahead and say blaming the offense for any game with a 200 yard rusher is disingenuous.

 

Here's where I got my info:

 

http://www.footballdb.com/stats/100-yard-rushing.html?yr=2016

 

I mean there's only like 10 of those games total but still (and HOW did our defense let that happen THREE TIMES last year alone??). Doing a quick skim it's pretty rare for 150+ yard rushers to lose, it does happen though. But 200+ yard rushers losing is almost impossible.

Edited June 17, 2017 by HappyDays

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

I mean there's only like 10 of those games total but still (and HOW did our defense let that happen THREE TIMES last year alone??). Doing a quick skim it's pretty rare for 150+ yard rushers to lose, it does happen though. But 200+ yard rushers losing is almost impossible.

 

One of the other rare times it happened was all the way back in 2002 when our own Bills beat the Dolphins and Ricky Williams who had 228 yards rushing. But two Miami QBs combined for only 55 yards passing that day in the snow. Bledsoe went for 306 yards and Henry added 151 on the ground with a whopping 35 attempts.

[Thurman#1]

Well this is too simplistic Thurman. Tyrod was responsible for 63.6% of the Bills total offensive yards. Our rushers weren't going right from our 25 to the opponent's end zone, there was plenty of ground to cover in between. Just because we chose to run more in the red zone doesn't mean the pass game wasn't also responsible for the TDs. And the Bills had the 8th best passer rating in the red zone so Tyrod was absolutely a contributor.

 

And why wouldn't we run in the red zone? The zone read option inside the 20 was as efficient as any play we ran last year (I don't have stats on this, just going off of memory).

 

 

I'm not arguing that Tyrod wasn't a contributor. He certainly was. But the bottom line was that the run game was the best in the league and the pass game was sub-mediocre. That's not all on Tyrod, but a lot is.

 

If you're going to give the QB credit for running yards, you can't give him credit for all the passing yards. It's certainly not 100% Tyrod's yards when he throws, say a screen pass to Gillislee who fakes a guy out of his jock and scores a 45 yard touchdown. So I'd say that stat you're trying to use is also a bit simplistic. He's not responsible for 63.6% of their yards, not unless you're willing to say that Sammy Watkins is responsible for zero percent of their yards.

 

Why wouldn't we run in the red zone? I agree. And that's the point. The run game was really good and the pass game wasn't. Why not run in the red zone and out of it? And you're assuming that all the running TDs came in the red zone, and that's not true.

 

Oh, and a QB generally ought to have a higher QB rating in the red zone because it's gonna tend to be easier to get TDs there than elsewhere on the field. It's also true that in the red zone he completed 60% (40.9% from inside the 10) and had a 4.8 YPA.(2.2 inside the 10). And the nature of red zone passing attempts surely affects those numbers too. Not sure that particular stat (and I like passer rating) should be used in that kind of a split.

 

People keep wanting to say that we had a lot of offensive TDs and therefore the passing game was good. And this doesn't logically folow, especially when you have such a terrific run game.

[Maury Ballstein]

You definitely can't count the Dolphins or Steelers. Both games featured a 200 yard rusher, and I looked at every game from 2013-2016 that had a 200+ yard rusher. Only found one game where a team was able to defeat an opponent with 200+ rushing yards and it was New England beating Denver 34-31 in 2013. So basically the best result against a 200 rush yard opponent was the best QB of all time beating his opponent by 3 points in a shootout. I'm gonna go ahead and say blaming the offense for any game with a 200 yard rusher is disingenuous.

Here's where I got my info:http://www.footballdb.com/stats/100-yard-rushing.html?yr=2016

I mean there's only like 10 of those games total but still (and HOW did our defense let that happen THREE TIMES last year alone??). Doing a quick skim it's pretty rare for 150+ yard rushers to lose, it does happen though. But 200+ yard rushers losing is almost impossible.

Easily can count both games.

 

When the offense has 70 yards passing through 3 qtrs vs Pitt or offense gets shut down by dismal Dolphins defense over and over they get no pass.

 

Hopefully next year is better on both sides of the ball.

[Thurman#1]

Here's the point.

 

The offense as a whole, was good enough.

 

The defense was not. They blew, they were, more times then not the reason the team lost more games then it won.

 

The OPs post is a joke.

 

 

 

OK, if that's your point, I withdraw that particular objection.

 

But I'm afraid I have a different objection. Which is this: there's a reason they rank teams offensively by how many yards they get rather than how many points they score.

 

And the Bills were 16th in offensive yards. They did not provide the defense with good field position. Last year's offense made the defense look worse and the defense made the offense look better. The offense had the 11th best average drive start field position in the league while the defense had the 23rd best.

 

Yards far better separate offensive performance from the defensive and STs performance. Whereas points have a much larger proportion of responsibility for the whole team.

 

Both yards and points are important but yards better isolate each unit from the others.

 

 

 

Oh, and I'd also say, "good enough"? Good enough for what? Good enough to make the playoffs? Yeah, probably, as a fodder team. But to be competitive for a Super Bowl victory? I don't think the offense was good enough. To win a Super Bowl with that offense, I'd argue you would have to have an absolutely sensational defense and a lot of luck and good timing besides.

 

 

 

I have no objection to calling the defense bad. They were. But the offense wasn't as good as some Bills fans believe. Ask around the league where they rank and you'll find tend to find people ranking them 16th, not 7th, and thinking that's a pretty reasonable representation. We fans who watched the games might argue we know better and crank them up a few spots but I don't think too many reasonable non-Bills-fan observers would say they were the 7th best offense in the league.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Thurman#1