Daboll...Playaction, Deep routes, Allen's running all connected...

[26CornerBlitz]

 

Orchard Park, NY - Brian Daboll grew up in West Seneca, minutes from New Era Field. He played football at St. Francis High and then the University of Rochester. 

 

A neck injury suddenly ended his career in college, but that same injury may be the reason he's in charge of the Bills offense now. 

 

Daboll recently sat down with News 8 Sports Director Thad Brown to discuss his childhood in Buffalo, how he ended up back in Buffalo and lessons learned from great coaches along the way. 

 

Thad: What were the goals and the dreams of high school Brian Daboll?

 

Brian Daboll: That's a great question. I was one of those guys that just worked as hard as I could work, tried to do as good as I could do. I think that was instilled into me by my grandmother and my grandfather at a young age. Do it the right way. Work hard and have high goals. Was it to be a coordinator in the National Football League at such a young age? I just wanted to be a success. Do right by my family. Represent my family the right way.

[Big Turk]

Daboll has come up with some interesting strategies for maximizing Allen's effectiveness since he his come back and it's starting to work really well because defense's are in a real bind with this.

 

• Playaction passes hope to get the linebackers frozen for a split second to allow receivers to get in behind them and let Allen attack 15-20 yards downfield or on go routes.
• Daboll's deeper route combinations cause defenders to be further away from the LOS covering the receivers and give more space to the receivers underneath as well. Sometimes there are literally no underneath receivers and Allen has huge amounts of space to run if he needs to with only  single MLB covering that area.
• Allen has more room to operate running the ball on scrambles as there are fewer defenders near the LOS to stop him and he can pretty much outrun anyone but corners and safeties making spies ineffective many times

 

It's actually kind of brilliant honestly and puts the defense in a bind.  If they drop further to cover the receivers, Allen can kill them with his legs.  If they stay up closer to stop him from killing them with his legs, the receivers should be open downfield on crossing routes over the middle.  I'm sure defenses will adjust over time but it will interesting to see what the adjustment is and how Daboll and Allen react to it...

 

This is why I am not buying the whole Allen is inaccurate take.  Allen has been very accurate from my point of view.  All of Allen's incompletions last week came on throws over 20 yards or throwaways except one. The other throws were pretty much right on the money and they were mostly lasers. Even that back shoulder throw to Jones that was ruled incomplete on replay review on the last drive was a great throw and he put it right where only Jones would catch it or it would fall incomplete.

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by matter2003

[1st Ammendment NoMas]

I'm with you on this. I was a bit skeptical of Daboll early in the year, but with Peterman and Anderson throwing to KB, Holmes and Zay with a patchwork OL any OC would be thinking WTF can I do?  Run Shady, hit quick precision routes. Then KB drops them or can't separate. Holmes is useless. Zay is still adapting and Peterman sh*ts the bed with the pick 6 parties. Allen takes some time to get rolling (has a great day in Minnie) but gets hurt. We know his arm is really good. Unfortunately KB can't separate or make a contested catch. Shady lost a step and has no run blocking and Clay is useless or injured. 

Finally things click with Barkley stepping in and a little bit of competent QB play opens up the offense and makes everyone around better. Zay finds his grove. Foster is re-born. Mckenzie and Thompson add more stretch speed and this formula works for Josh to run and make plays. 

 

I'm excited to see what happens next year with a full off-season, some quality OL, a stud WR and an RB to take over for Shady.  I'm loving where the D is headed and hopefully they continue to grow. With a true sack-machine DE, another stuffer at DT and a #2 CB and we are this years Bears and going to the playoffs for the foreseeable future. 

[Mike in Horseheads]

Well you told us before that you know the cure to cancer so this must be correct LOL

[Seoulofstone]

Here’s an interesting article well worth a read off one of my favorite football websites. The author gives Daboll plenty of credit for putting Allen in a position to succeed and optimize his strengths:

 

https://thedraftnetwork.com/2018/12/07/brian-daboll-is-riding-the-josh-allen-rollercoaster/

[GunnerBill]

What I like about Daboll is he obviously went to McDermott and Beane and said "if you want me to get effective play out of Allen with this talent around him I need some speed". McKenzie and Foster are not great players but they have helped the offense. 

 

I am relatively optimistic that Daboll will get significant improvement on offense in 2019. 

[BobbyC81]

My only difference of opinion with the OP is on Allen’s accuracy.  Yes, he missed on a few long ones but the balls were fairly close. I see it as when Allen just fires the ball like on intermediate routes, he’s pretty accurate.  Where he still struggles at times is on short passes and when the pass needs touch. He’s improved so much, I’m pretty confident that he will get better on those too.

[GimmeSomeProcess]

It’s a great tactic, the deep routes opens up the middle of the field. If Allen makes it past the first 5 yards, he can pick up big chunk plays. 

[26CornerBlitz]

13 hours ago, 26CornerBlitz said:

 

If you’re like me, you enjoy putzing around on the wealth of stats sites available for the NFL. I’m talking PFF, Football Outsiders, NFL Team Stats, SB Nation’s advanced stats, and more. I can’t watch every game — I don’t want to watch every game, for goodness’ sake — so I rely on secondhand information to get a feel for the weekly lulls and swells of the NFL. That includes the film analysts I trust, as well as the sites that present player and team performances numerically. It’s like metal detecting on the beach: mostly, you get what you expect. But when you get something you didn’t expect, it’s uncharted, exciting, and worthy of investigation.

 

I’m wearing a deerstalker as we speak.

 

Here’s a great example: I haven’t been watching the Bills recently because…well, because they’re the Bills. And as such, I had no idea that this was a thing:

 

 

That piqued my interest immediately.

 

You don’t just start hitting absurdly high numbers in intended air yards without a concerted offensive effort to do so. Put another way: this can’t just be Josh Allen deciding to bomb every single pass, regardless of what his offensive coordinator Brian Daboll wants of him. No, this must have been a deliberate move; a decision between the head coach, the offensive coordinator, the QB coach, and the quarterback. We’re going to start pushing the ball deep. A lot.

 

But it’s even more than that!

 

 

 

Excellent breakdown with credit to Daboll: Brian Daboll Is Riding The Josh Allen Rollercoaster - The Draft Network

Edited December 8, 2018 by 26CornerBlitz

[NoHuddleKelly12]

3 hours ago, Seoul_panther said:

Here’s an interesting article well worth a read off one of my favorite football websites. The author gives Daboll plenty of credit for putting Allen in a position to succeed and optimize his strengths:

 

https://thedraftnetwork.com/2018/12/07/brian-daboll-is-riding-the-josh-allen-rollercoaster/

Great article with some decent analysis, thanks for posting

[LeGOATski]

4 hours ago, Seoul_panther said:

Here’s an interesting article well worth a read off one of my favorite football websites. The author gives Daboll plenty of credit for putting Allen in a position to succeed and optimize his strengths:

 

https://thedraftnetwork.com/2018/12/07/brian-daboll-is-riding-the-josh-allen-rollercoaster/

Nice read. We were talking about this after the Jags game. Josh Allen has no check-downs. The run is his check-down.

[Magox]

That article got me to thinking that is could be a long-term offensive strategy for Allen.   He arguably has the best arm in the league and elite QB level mobility/speed.  Just imagine Receiver routes for the most part running intermediate to deep routes down the field with the RB staying in to help chip block and then letting loose on delay freeing himself up with 1 on 1 coverage with LB's in the middle of the field with the threat of Allen running.  I think this is the perfect approach for Allen at this stage because it opens up the field and allows him to make reads easier than a bunch of bunched up receiver routes within 20 yards of the LOS.   

 

I may be going overboard but if we can get some speed weapons to compliment this approach this could revolutionize the league in a way that only a select few QB's could pull off.  

 

Allen has what it takes to do this because he has the mobility to buy enough time to allow receivers to get open on those sort of routes and the arm to make the 30-40 yard throws on a rope so that the DB's can't make the plays they normally can when the ball has to be lofted with more airtime.  

 

That article was eye-popping for me and I certainly hope that is something they continue to try to develop.

[Jerome007]

I still feel Daboll and McD are often winging it more than structured coaches. Still, from the get go, I liked that Daboll adjusts to his personal, not trying to fit them into his coaching stubborn philosophy like too many coaches out there. And he had to learn about the players more than other 1st year coaches as a lot of them are rookies or inexperienced. He has become better and better over the year. To the point that you feel this year (for it being a 4-8 year so far!) is really positive.

 

In an ideal world I'd like Shady, Kyle and Lorax to be back next year to provide their leadership and enjoy the resurgence, but the the rest of the group will be there, most likely better from experience, and now they've got money to build a real roster for Daboll and co to play with. Allen is for real. So are Milano-Edmunds-White. The future seems so damn positive. The most in years and years. I've rarely felt this good and again, they are only 4-8 up to now! Crazy. Well, us fans often live on hope but this time it seems so real. If they dratf well in the next two years the Bills could be back to domination mode for 5-10 years!

[Big Turk]

6 minutes ago, Magox said:

That article got me to thinking that is could be a long-term offensive strategy for Allen.   He arguably has the best arm in the league and elite QB level mobility/speed.  Just imagine Receiver routes for the most part running intermediate to deep routes down the field with the RB staying in to help chip block and then letting loose on delay freeing himself up with 1 on 1 coverage with LB's in the middle of the field with the threat of Allen running.  I think this is the perfect approach for Allen at this stage because it opens up the field and allows him to make reads easier than a bunch of bunched up receiver routes within 20 yards of the LOS.   

 

I may be going overboard but if we can get some speed weapons to compliment this approach this could revolutionize the league in a way that only a select few QB's could pull off.  

 

Allen has what it takes to do this because he has the mobility to buy enough time to allow receivers to get open on those sort of routes and the arm to make the 30-40 yard throws on a rope so that the DB's can't make the plays they normally can when the ball has to be lofted with more airtime.  

 

That article was eye-popping for me and I certainly hope that is something they continue to try to develop.

 

Well, I think it could be a good long term strategy as well because with so few defenders around and lots of open space, Allen can take off, pick up big chunks of yardage and then get out of bounds or get down without taking many hits.

 

The spy isn't fast enough to effectively spy him as he can just run away from them most of the time unless a team starts using a safety.

 

While it could be a great strategy for us with Allen I am not sure how revolutionary it would be because there is literally no other QB in the league that has his combination of speed, athleticism and arm strength. He is one of a kind, possibly in the history in the NFL.

 

 

[CaptnCoke11]

To run this system to its full capabilities we need a strong OL.  Guys gotta be able to hold blocks longer to give Allen just that extra bit of time.  Right now our OL folds too quickly.  

[26CornerBlitz]

5 minutes ago, Jerome007 said:

I still feel Daboll and McD are often winging it more than structured coaches. Still, from the get go, I liked that Daboll adjusts to his personal, not trying to fit them into his coaching stubborn philosophy like too many coaches out there. And he had to learn about the players more than other 1st year coaches as a lot of them are rookies or inexperienced. He has become better and better over the year. To the point that you feel this year (for it being a 4-8 year so far!) is really positive.

 

In an ideal world I'd like Shady, Kyle and Lorax to be back next year to provide their leadership and enjoy the resurgence, but the the rest of the group will be there, most likely better from experience, and now they've got money to build a real roster for Daboll and co to play with. Allen is for real. So are Milano-Edmunds-White. The future seems so damn positive. The most in years and years. I've rarely felt this good and again, they are only 4-8 up to now! Crazy. Well, us fans often live on hope but this time it seems so real. If they dratf well in the next two years the Bills could be back to domination mode for 5-10 years!

 

Given the state of the OL along the lack of experience at QB with Allen and the WR corps he has to be flexible in his approach.  There is nothing that can be counted on as the staple of the offense as a go to concept or play.   I expect that to change in 2019 and beyond. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

19 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

 

Well, I think it could be a good long term strategy as well because with so few defenders around and lots of open space, Allen can take off, pick up big chunks of yardage and then get out of bounds or get down without taking many hits.

 

The spy isn't fast enough to effectively spy him as he can just run away from them most of the time unless a team starts using a safety.

 

While it could be a great strategy for us with Allen I am not sure how revolutionary it would be because there is literally no other QB in the league that has his combination of speed, athleticism and arm strength. He is one of a kind, possibly in the history in the NFL.

 

Cam Newton just called for you on Line 1.

[peterpan]

Daboll has had great game plans all year but bc our QBs have often been so terrible fans were complaining about him when they shouldn't have been. 

[Mrbojanglezs]

Honestly the best way to beat Allen is probably heavy blitz packages. He hasn't been good against the blitz and is less accurate when he is rushed

[Nihilarian]

5 minutes ago, CaptnCoke11 said:

To run this system to its full capabilities we need a strong OL.  Guys gotta be able to hold blocks longer to give Allen just that extra bit of time.  Right now our OL folds too quickly.  

Well said. Mike Martz ran a mid to deep passing scheme and it worked brilliantly until the Rams lost their star players on the O line. 

 

Running a mid to deep passing offense is a big reason as to why this team is currently 4-8. At the start of the season Peterman nor Allen could read a pre snap defense very well or set protections properly and when the team got behind in points at the start of the game the OC went pass happy with his mid to deep routes.

 

The problem here was that the QBs didn't have time in the pocket to make those throws thus the 6 sacks against Baltimore, the 5 sacks against the Chargers. The next game against the Vikings the Bills got the lead, found the run game and never looked back. Still, 3 sacks allowed. Against Green Bay the next week it was a blowout loss as the team got behind in points, went pass happy and allowed 7 sacks. 

 

The point is you need a balanced offense in one that can run and pass the ball without putting the QB under constant duress. Josh Allen looks like a Can Newton clone only with a worse offensive cast. The Panthers fired their previous OC and hired Norv Turner to get Newton out of that run frame of mind and into a stay in the pocket and pass frame of mind as running QBs usually don't stay healthy in the NFL. 

 

The 2018 Buffalo Bills are currently 13th in rush yards mostly because the QB has a 6.8 YPC avg with 4 rushing TDs. I only hope Allen survives the season at this point.