The Athletic - Cover 1's breakdown of the game, more Allen than Daboll. Also adding some C1 & YPP twitter clips

[jrober38]

4 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

 

I don't agree with this at all.  You just can't isolate it all on Allen.  Each game will have it's own context.  Dak Prescot played very poorly over a 3 game series earlier this season because he was missing a couple of key players on offense.  Ditto for a couple of other QB's. 

 

Allen's performance over this part of the schedule will help the Bills determine whether he's the guy but the earliest the Bills can make an informed decision on this is after the end of next season and assuming they upgrade the offensive talent.

 

IMO setting this kind of criteria is almost like setting Allen up for failure.  You know there are some tough games over that stretch and you know that the Bills offense isn't exactly loaded with play makers.  So yea lets declare him a bust if he struggles through this part of the schedule.  Maybe we can draft that Minnesota QB in the 3rd round.  He looked good against Penn State!

 

If we aren't PATIENT with Allen then we're going to have to rely on being LUCKY AS HELL to solve our QB situation.  I don't know about you but I suck at Powerball. 

 

 

 

I'm sorry but if he's the guy we shouldn't have to feel like we're setting him up for failure.

 

He's a second year QB with a returning OC playing on one of if not the healthiest teams in the NFL. We have no major injuries and are in the thick of the playoff race. Not to mention he has the #3 scoring defense in the NFL backing him up so it's not like he's being asked to do a whole lot of scoring for us to win games. 

 

Allen needs to beat beat at least a couple of those teams. If we finish the season 9-7 and he loses 4 or 5 of those games against decent defenses, and his signature win is over Tennessee in a game where their kicked missed 3 times, we've got a major problem on our hands. 

 

I'm not giving a guy who many considered a massive project with huge bust potential the benefit of the doubt. The guys who make it in this league have been showing they're really good really early in their careers over the past 10 years. If he's still at the bottom of the league in passing at the end of his second season, we should probably begin looking to hedge the bet we made when we picked him. 

[Shaw66]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

I have to say this is what I saw watching the game live - I didn't watch the all22 back until last night but there were no surprised for me. Josh played poorly Sunday. To me it was his most concerning performance of 2019 by far. The Patriots game was a day where everything kind of went wrong and he isn't the first young QB in those circumstances against Belichick to unravel a tad. But the mistakes in that game tended to be him going for things, trying to make plays.

 

I called his performance "Tyrod-esque" in the shoutbox on Sunday - I still feel that way. Even from the broadcast angle you could see open receivers that Josh was missing when scanning the field, you could see him holding the ball too long and you could see him bailing from clean pockets when he should have stepped up. Were there drops? Yes. Was there some questionable play calling? Yes - though I don't believe it was as bad as some here would argue. Did the kicker miss two FGs that at this level you expect a highly paid place kicker to make? Yes. But to me there is no getting around it and all these film review websites saw the same thing - Josh Allen did not play well. He failed to make the plays the Buffalo Bills needed him to make to win us a game and the plays most definitely were there to be made. I have questioned where our skill guys get open enough at times too - but that was not the issue on Sunday. We had plenty of open receivers. We didn't get the ball to them.

 

It is not time to panic with Josh or to bench him or even to rush to say we have to draft another Quarterback. But this was start 20. The training wheels should be off now. I get that Quarterbacks develop at different rates - but in the modern NFL you have to show what you are made of pretty quickly. As far as I am concerned now is the point where the clock is turned on. The first 20 they were a freebie. They were what any reasonable NFL team drafting a Quarterback in the first round owes him. There has been some promise in those 20 games as well.... Josh has not been this bad often, if at all, since returning from injury last season. I still go back to the first 3 games of this season and say I think he looked pretty darn good at times. Maybe there is some blame on the coaching staff. I suspect there is something in the fact that they have started to coach him to be "safe" and as a result he isn't trusting what his eyes tell him and cutting loose in maybe the way he was earlier in the season. But we have to start to see real tangible and consistent progress now towards a franchise Quarterback. I am as down on him now as I have been almost at any point since he was drafted. Sunday was just a really disappointing performance from him. Josh Allen has to be better and he has to start being better on a consistent basis soon.

I'd say this is a bit too harsh, but generally right.   A proficient NFL QB would have won that game for the Bills.   Josh isn't yet proficient.   

 

One thing about Cover 1's analysis is that although he shows what didn't work for Josh on several plays, he doesn't explain what Josh SHOULD have done to make it a positive play.  And on some, like the pass down the right sideline late in the game to Brown, Brown essentially says that Josh made the right read and the right throw but he, Brown, didn't anticipate the throw early enough to look for it and make the catch.   

 

I agree about the first 20 games being freebies.  It's the next 20 that matter.   We shouldn't be surprised that Josh had trouble when presented with blitz looks on 50% or more of the plays.  That's where all young QBs have trouble - the blitz look gives them more information to process in a short period of time and raises the level of emotional pressure the QB might feel.  It seems like Josh made the right play a lot of times when faced with the blitz, so I don't think it's a problem with what he understands.  It's a problem of raising the success rate of the entire team on the execution.   Josh has to be better more often, but Brown has to make the catch on the back shoulder throw and, as Cover 1 pointed out, Knox has to make his catch along the left sideline.  

 

If at the end of next season Josh still plays like he did Sunday, there's reason for concern.   At this point in his second season, I'm not all that troubled.  I'd like to see a little more out of him consistently, but he's doing okay.

[Logic]

5 hours ago, CincyBillsFan said:

 

The Browns are not a bad defense against the pass though.  They have a stud pass rusher and one shut down corner and another decent corner.  Our TE's & RB's present almost no threat as pass receivers and our inability to execute simple screen passes really limits this offense.  We do not field a single PROVEN game breaker on offense.  No D-coordinator is losing sleep preparing for this offense once they set things up to keep Allen from running for a 100 yards. 

 

BTW, I'm for sticking with Daboll as continuity is important in developing a young QB.  Just like Allen is allowed to have off days in his 2nd year so is Daboll who is working with a talent deficient offense.  It's hard to design & execute effective offensive game plans when you don't have a single explosive skill player and are relying on a 2nd year project QB.

 

I think that as frustrating as it is for us, the operative word here is PATIENCE for both Allen & Daboll.  

Great post. Especially the bolded.

[BarleyNY]

On 11/12/2019 at 3:28 PM, Luka said:

Cover 1 is so full of *****. It's Allen's fault that on a 3rd 3 where the Browns are almost definitely going to blitz, his shortest route option is 10 yards down the field? Daboll knows teams are going to blitz Allen yet here we are, still calling the same, long developing passing plays. You know how you mitigate the pass rush? Run the ***** ball. Call screen passes. Make teams think twice about calling that blitz.

Wouldn’t it be on the QB to call a hot read in that circumstance?  And why would the Browns definitely be going to blitz on a 3rd and 3?  If anything they’d be thinking about jumping short routes on that down and distance.  It’s certainly not optimal for a blitz.

[ctk232]

On 11/12/2019 at 12:22 PM, njbuff said:

Seeing Lamar Jackson's success in Baltimore has only enraged Bills fans ire over Allen. But I remain patient.

Slightly tangential to your intention here, but the comparison to Lamar Jackson has all the same trappings of the constant lamenting over Mahomes and Goff, and how we should be able to expect an MVP by year two. 

 

If you look at those three young QBs that have all had substantial success in the league thus far on their rookie contracts, the only constant thread among them is an OC and scheme that perfectly matches their already established skillsets, physical strengths, and understanding of the game. In Jackson's case, I feel it was more Greg Roman finally found his Kaepernick 2.0 with a bit more to his repertoire, accompanied by a great roster and coaching staff but not surprising to see his previously successful scheme succeed again now. I still would like to see any one of these three QBs under a different OC/coach and scheme just to compare where the immediate impact and success stems from, but it seems to be a combination of the two from recent seasons. Jackson has proven he can pass, but his entire game is predicated on the success of the RPO in Roman's system opening the pass - we saw enough of it here to know. Goff benefits/ed from the no huddle, condensed 11/12/21 personnel packages and Gurley, where McVay could just leave his roster on the field, let Goff learn within those handful of packages, and stay on the helmet talk through most of the pre-snap reads. Mahomes' air raid thrives on the depth of roster talent and mismatches that Hill, Kelce, Watkins provide. He's inherently talented and simply completes the same scramble throws that Allen was criticized for making, Mahomes just completes them at a higher percentage. His edge is that he's able to read and make adjustments based on his experience in the system. All this to say, I doubt you see the same results with any one of them here or on most any other team.

 

What this all says about Daboll and Allen I'm not sure - Allen's made marked improvements over last year, but he looks to be forcing his current game versus playing more naturally. I'm clearly no expert on what's better/best for Allen, nor do I feel Daboll's scheme is the entire reason for our offensive issues. We could benefit more from not under-utilizing Singletary and the run game against known poor run defense teams like the Browns and some situational playcalling, but his playcalling isn't the entire reason. But on some level we do seem to be lacking in the QB/OC combination realm that has seen Mahomes/Goff/Jackson success. 

[ColoradoBills]

I was hoping this thread would give some stats on the long ball.

Does anyone have access to Josh Allen's current "heat map" of all his throws.

I would like to see how many deeper throws he has attempted.  I believe he has 0 catches.

 

I can't find one and I think it would be interesting so see where he is succeeding and failing so far.

 

[reddogblitz]

In regards to Josh's problem with the blitz I have a question for some of the more savy Xs and Os guys than me.

 

I usually hear that on a blitz a QB will check down to a hot receiver and throw it to him pretty much as soon as he gets the ball to beat the blitz.  Is this a true statement?  And if so, why doesn't Josh do it?  Does he not see the blitz coming?  Do Dabol plays not have a hot receiver?  Seems like Beasley would be that guy.