NYG requested permission to interview Daboll for OC - DENIED

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Nihilarian said:

There is no question in my view that McD and Frazier are downright brilliant at what they do on defense.

 

By the same token I think McD is literally "hands off" on offense and leaves everything to his offensive coordinator and assistants.

 

I'm hoping this off season McD takes a long hard look at the Bills offense and game plans. This seasons ending wasn't on Beane, or McD in my view. 

I don't think he's hands off at all.  That isn't in his nature.   

 

McDermott is a guy who is 100% invested in his job, whatever it is.   If his job is to play safety, he's 100% into play safety.   If his job is DC, he's 100% into being a DC.   

 

Now he's a head coach.   He knows exactly what a head coach's job is, because he's a student.  He knows he is responsible, completely responsible, for how the offense plays, and there is simply no way that he turned the offense over to Daboll on May 1 and said "good luck, fella, we'll talk again in February."   

 

I can guarantee you that McDermott is studying everything he can about offense, he's challenging Daboll about every aspect of what he's doing.   

 

It's all about getting better.  That's the process.  McDermott applies it to himself, and he applies it to Daboll.   If Daboll isn't capable of getting better, McD will replace him.   McD is evaluating Daboll all the time, and they are working on the offense all the time.   You can be sure of it.  

 

Does that mean the offense will get better, for sure?  Of course not.  But I'm sure of two things.   McDermott is working intensely to be sure the offense does get better, and if he didn't think Daboll could do it, Daboll would be gone.  

[Mr. WEO]

16 hours ago, SCBills said:

At some point, even the haters of Daboll might start to wonder why teams are interested in him?...

 

 

Yeah because if anything is true in this life, it is that NFL owners/GMs don't approach coach hiring decisions unwisely.

2 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't think he's hands off at all.  That isn't in his nature.   

 

McDermott is a guy who is 100% invested in his job, whatever it is.   If his job is to play safety, he's 100% into play safety.   If his job is DC, he's 100% into being a DC.   

 

Now he's a head coach.   He knows exactly what a head coach's job is, because he's a student.  He knows he is responsible, completely responsible, for how the offense plays, and there is simply no way that he turned the offense over to Daboll on May 1 and said "good luck, fella, we'll talk again in February."   

 

I can guarantee you that McDermott is studying everything he can about offense, he's challenging Daboll about every aspect of what he's doing.   

 

It's all about getting better.  That's the process.  McDermott applies it to himself, and he applies it to Daboll.   If Daboll isn't capable of getting better, McD will replace him.   McD is evaluating Daboll all the time, and they are working on the offense all the time.   You can be sure of it.  

 

Does that mean the offense will get better, for sure?  Of course not.  But I'm sure of two things.   McDermott is working intensely to be sure the offense does get better, and if he didn't think Daboll could do it, Daboll would be gone.  

What can McD do more "intensely" than he has for the past 3 years to be sure the Offense does get better?

[Logic]

13 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Interesting.  Can you happen to link to a handful of those scores and scores of articles about how Daboll literally asked him "what do you like? What don't you like?", and built the offense on those answers?  Would like to read.

 

 

Here are a few to start.


https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/03/josh-allen-has-bigger-voice-in-bills-play-calling-this-year/

“Last year, I don’t think I did enough, with everything going on — first year in the NFL and a lot of people pulling you in different directions,” Allen said, via the team’s website. “This year, I sat down with ‘Dabs’ [Brian Daboll] and went over what I like, what I didn’t like. And he’s trusting me in that mindset. If there’s a play that he wants to call, and I don’t like it, he’s not going to call it. So, it’s developing that trust.”


https://sports.yahoo.com/josh-allen-bigger-voice-bills-103643484.html


http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001032530/article/bills-josh-allen-taking-reins-developing-that-trust


https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/nfl/browns/report-brian-daboll-would-play-to-baker-mayfields-strengths-as-cleveland-browns-coach/95-14e8dc51-3aba-4fdd-9aea-32c926839a1d

"He has based his entire offense around Josh Allen as opposed to trying to stick Josh Allen into his principles as a play-caller"


https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/opinion/welcomed-change-josh-allen-and-air-raid-offense
That’s when things changed. Brian Daboll scrapped most of what we saw in the first half of the season and decided to implement passing concepts that better suited Allen’s strengths. It was the only way to move forward"






 

[Shaw66]

11 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

Thank you for this post as it gives some insight into whats happening with specific players in games.

 

I think you can say that both Knox and Singletary were somewhat of a detriment to the blocking assignments considering both were rookies and picking up blitzes takes time to adjust to at the NFL level. Perhaps if the defense saw Singletary in the backfield they knew it was a bigger chance for a run. 

 

What does stand out greatly to me is the lack of ability to quickly make adjustments on offense during a game. Scheme, line, protections, blocking assignments. That is, if something is not working as defenses have adjusted to that scheme. Simply switch to something different that will work. The Bills literally had no answer for what Baltimore was doing on defense with that cover zero blitz. Yet, they had extra time to prepare against it. 

 

We all saw Josh Allen getting hammered by the Ravens defense...so why keep asking him to throw it? Doesn't it make more sense to keep pounding the ball even if it doesn't work all that effectively at first. To instead have the Bills RBs hammer at the Ravens defense to wear them out.

 

This looks to be another flaw in having an OC that doesn't recognize his players limitations and adjust the scheme accordingly to be able to make the offense work no matter what they throw at you.

I think its kind of crazy that the Texans had the very worst red zone defense in the league and the Bills couldn't find a way to get a TD on four of those five red zone chances. 

 

Another thing that bothers me is the way the Tennessee Titans basically destroyed the Baltimore Ravens in that playoff game in Baltimore by running the ball down their throats. While using the Bills defensive scheme to shut down that high scoring Ravens offense. Do the Titans have that much of a better offensive line? They sure do look like they were coached better. 

A couple of things about this. 

 

First, and I really do mean this, the quality of this discussion is great.   I'm learning a lot reading what you guys are saying.  And it makes sense.   

 

Second, about the Titans and Baltimore, I think the answer is yes, the Titans line IS that much better than the Bills line.   I didn't think the Bills line was very good this year.  Better than 2018, but, really, what wouldn't have been better?   I've been saying for a couple of months that I expect certainly one and maybe two new faces on the offensive line in 2020.   Singletary was the perfect runner for the Bills' offensive line, because he's good at making something out of not much.  

 

Third, the Bills are very much a work in process.  There's a lot learn about football at the level these people are performing.  Allen has a lot to learn.   Daboll does, too.  So when people say things about what was wrong in the Ravens game, as you do, I think you're right.  And I think Daboll and McDermott are looking at that and asking themselves what it was they should have done, and what changes they need to make in personnel, and what capabilities their players need to develop, to play the game differently.      It's complicated, detailed work, and what you learn today gets layered on what you learned last week, and over time you get better.   That's the process.  

 

So, while you guys are coming up with some great insights, with quality detail and examples of where and how the Bills failed, that doesn't mean that changing the OC is necessarily the solution.   Yes, it's probably, almost certainly, true that Daboll made some bad game planning judgments and some bad playcalling judgments.   It's true exactly like Allen made some bad presnap reads and some bad postsnap reads.   I expect Allen will continue to get better.  And I expect Daboll to continue to get better.  

 

Josh McDaniel has been an offensive coordinator in the same system for 15 years, except for the brief time when he was a head coach.  Daboll has been an offensive coordinator for ten years on SIX different teams.   The Browns and the Bills are the only places he's had two consecutive years doing it.   And he's done it in some pretty dysfunctional places - Cleveland and Miami.   I didn't look it up, but I'm pretty sure he kept losing his job because his head coach kept losing his.   His current job is the first time he's been an OC in a stable environment where he has the time to accumulate the talent he needs and the time to teach his system.  2020 will be the first time in his career that he has had players playing for him with two years of experience under his system.   And, in fact, Dawkins and Allen and DiMarco about the only guys who have had two years of experience with him.   

 

We can say "yes, but" he should have done this or that.   But the reality is that it's extremely difficult to do what they're doing at the level at which they're doing it.  It's easy to sit back in January and pick through the games for things Daboll should have done.   That's what he's doing now, all day long, at a level of detail that I can only imagine.   

 

Bottom line, I think we have to give it time.  We're watching exactly what McBeane told us we would get:  a building process through which they will build a team that has long-term, sustained success.  They told us they Bills weren't going to get good fast.  They told us the Bills would get good eventually and be good for a long time.   So far, they seem to be on course.  

 

Two other things.   One is that if Daboll were so horrible, teams wouldn't be continuing to inquire about him.  Teams chased after McDermott for his last two or three years in Carolina.   There's a reason teams are interested in Daboll. 

 

The other is that I agree with Hapless or whoever said it about Allen on the bench.   He needs attention on the bench when things aren't going well.   He was so red-faced in the Texans game, I thought he was going to explode.   He needed to calm down.   It's another thing he has to learn.  

 

 

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

3 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

So when I look at what the Bills have done under Daboll I wonder why they didn't try to create a running game similar to what the Bills did under Roman/Lynn and a vertical passing attack to complement it.

 

In adding Brown and Beasley I believe Daboll moved deeper into his complex scheme............which had the consequence of making the previously dynamic Robert Foster,  who failed to grasp the complexity of the 2019 offense,  a non-factor.

 

Why not add to Foster and remain more vertical as they were late in 2018 after they had been historically bad during the first half of that season?

 

Because Daboll wants to run HIS scheme........whether it works or not.

 

Now WITHIN the scheme there were fixes as well, IMO.  

 

After the Cleveland game I made the very simple observation that they need to get the athletic Allen into a rhythm by increasing the tempo of the offense.

 

Days later "play fearless" became a thing and with a clearly more comfortable Allen they proceeded to pick up the pace and the offense improved greatly.

 

Then after all but clinching a playoff spot in Dallas and facing a tougher schedule...........the offense went back to what wasn't working before and proceeded to be awful and the team lost 4 of their last 5.

 

 

 

...so a couple of quick questions............

 

1. Don't GOOD coaches develop schemes that exploit their personnel's strengths versus forcing the "round peg in the square hole"?

2. Is Daboll's offense too complex, especially with NINE new starters on offense (Allen & Dawkins only returnees)? Is he the modern day version of Al Saunders, former KC OC, who Deadskins hired along with his rumored 700 PAGE playbook?

3. "Play fearless" but "coach fearful"?-maybe it's just me, but why does he get the offense in a play calling rhythm which is working, and then abruptly abandons it? Pleny of comments about McDermott reigning him in to play conservative, but is that really the case?

 

 

[Shaw66]

32 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

Yeah because if anything is true in this life, it is that NFL owners/GMs don't approach coach hiring decisions unwisely.

What can McD do more "intensely" than he has for the past 3 years to be sure the Offense does get better?

See my post responding to Nihilarian.   

 

Recognize these things:   The ENTIRE offensive team was new this year, except for bringing back the left tackle and a rookie QB.   So NOTHING McDermott taught his players in year one was still in the locker room, and very little of what McD and Daboll taught their players in 2018 carried over.   2019 was a new team.  

 

Also, as I watch the NFL, it's clear to me that the teams are all so good that everyone is looking for just little things that can give them an advantage.   You get to the playoffs, and no one is blowing anyone out - except for what KC did.   Most teams are looking for little things.   That's what Daboll is doing, too.   It isn't easy, and it isn't easy when all of your players are in their first year in your system.  

 

Give it time.  They may fail, of course, but making a decision to pull the plug on Daboll after one season with these players would be a mistake.  There's real value in continuity.  

[Logic]

41 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Interesting.  Can you happen to link to a handful of those scores and scores of articles about how Daboll literally asked him "what do you like? What don't you like?", and built the offense on those answers?  Would like to read.

 

 

I wanted to add this one. Even though PFF makes Bills fans (myself included) angry sometimes, this was an enlightening read.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-how-the-buffalo-bills-built-a-winning-offense

 

We saw how the Bills’ dropback efficiency significantly jumped year-over-year, but the reason behind that isn’t what you might think. The improvement isn’t only due to Josh Allen maturing, but it's also due to the concerted effort by Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and his staff to build an offense that enhanced Josh Allen’s real strengths instead of playing into faulty perceptions of how a strong-armed quarterback should operate.

Allen’s prototypical size and cannon-like arm make us associate him with deep passing, and the biggest concerns among draft scouts before he entered the NFL was his low collegiate completion percentage. Many, including us here at PFF, assumed the successful formula for Allen was to replicate what Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane witnessed during their time with the Carolina Panthers during Cam Newton’s 2015 MVP season: build an explosive, downfield offense that produces chunk plays.

But when we look into the characteristics of the Bills' passing scheme last season versus this season using PFF data scientist Timo Riske’s team clustering, you’ll see just how much going away from that aggressive style and towards a shorter passing game has worked for the team.

The strongest characteristic in last year’s scheme was average route depth, putting it on the same plane as the 2018 Seattle Seahawks and the aforementioned 2015 Panthers. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll built a scheme designed to take advantage of Allen’s deep passing; the problem is that making accurate downfield throws hasn’t been Allen’s strength.

Allen struggled as a rookie in those zones, just as the passing map above shows. Allen completed only 12 of his 49 attempts (24.5%) beyond 20 yards and outside the numbers for three touchdowns and five interceptions. We thought Josh Allen would thrive throwing deep, but he just didn’t last season, and he actually has similar efficiency beyond 20 yards this year.

Where Allen did succeed was in the 0-10 yard range, completing 71 of his 99 attempts (71.7%) for two touchdowns and one interception last year. 

That misperception has been corrected this season. Allen is now in a scheme similar to the one of the Eagles or Colts. The characteristics of those schemes are short passes, five-route patterns and screen passes. The Bills’ shift in offensive philosophy is particularly surprising without any year-over-year changes to their quarterback, head coach or offensive coordinator. 

(*blue is where routes are run more frequently than league average, red less frequently)

Looking at the route heatmaps from the last two seasons side by side, you’ll see that longer routes in the middle of the field and down the sideline have gone from above league average to at or below average (blue to white or red). And in the 0-10 yard range, where Allen had his best results, red has flipped to blue, giving Allen more opportunities to make successful throws.

Allen still has a tendency to throw beyond the expected target depth based on route distribution, but this year it’s within a normal range of average depth of target (aDOT) as opposed to the outlier number last season.

Though they play in a similar scheme, Allen is stretching the field more than Carson Wentz and Jacoby Brissett. Cam Newton was successful in a system like Allen’s last year, but that proved to be more of an outlier for Newton’s career than an example to model on.

 

[Coach Tuesday]

5 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Second, about the Titans and Baltimore, I think the answer is yes, the Titans line IS that much better than the Bills line.   I didn't think the Bills line was very good this year.  Better than 2018, but, really, what wouldn't have been better?   I've been saying for a couple of months that I expect certainly one and maybe two new faces on the offensive line in 2020.   Singletary was the perfect runner for the Bills' offensive line, because he's good at making something out of not much.  

 

IMO the biggest issue with the Bills' line is that they're being asked to do too much in Daboll's "multiple" attack.  They're talented.  Tennessee's line is talented, too, but they're in a much more simplified scheme.  That said, regardless of scheme, there is no excuse for letting a jailbreak happen against a 3-man rush late in the game in Houston - that was some combination of fatigue and confusion.

[wppete]

Daboll needs to stay put and continue to

develop Josh Allen. JA need continuity right now. 

[Don Otreply]

15 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

Not a Daboll fan and probably never will be.  Too Conservative and calls situational plays that sometimes make no sense.  Playing Gore for so long and holding back Duke & Yeldon were stupid decisions. Let him interview,  let him walk. Josh's long term development will be better for it.

Agree with to much Gore and not enough Williams and Yeldon, for me Josh is on the cusp of being really good or not getting much better, I so want this kid to become “The Franchise”, and make so much money he has to weigh it to find out how much he’s got, we will all know at the end of this upcoming season which path he travels, not counting outliers such as injury and other oddities...

 

Go Bills!!!

[Shaw66]

20 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

 

IMO the biggest issue with the Bills' line is that they're being asked to do too much in Daboll's "multiple" attack.  They're talented.  Tennessee's line is talented, too, but they're in a much more simplified scheme.  That said, regardless of scheme, there is no excuse for letting a jailbreak happen against a 3-man rush late in the game in Houston - that was some combination of fatigue and confusion.

First.  I don't study strategy much, and I don't know anything about Daboll's "multiiple" attack.   But I think what McD has said, directly or indirectly, is that the Bills are going to have an offense that can play any kind of game - run, pass, eat clock, score fast.   That involves the players mastering a lot, and that's why the Bills stress brains and competitiveness when they evaluate players.   If the guy can't keep up with the highest of standards in terms of mastering the game, the Bills don't want him.   

 

Second, the jailbreak.  I was in a thread where that was discussed, and watching the video and reading explanations from people who seemed to know, the jailbreak was on Allen or Morse.  Someone misread what was going on and called the wrong blocking scheme, because the entire left side of the line looked to the center of the defense for rushers, and there were none.  It was obvious that those guys were doing their jobs, and someone told them to do the wrong thing.  You can blame that on complexity if you want, but they aren't the only coaches that ask their team to run a complex offense.   Whoever made the mistake (I think it was Allen, because he seemed totally surprised when he realized he had pass rushers to deal with), he has to learn how to make that read.  

 

It's another example of why patience is required.   They're all learning.  

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, Nihilarian said:

Thank you for this post as it gives some insight into whats happening with specific players in games.

 

I think you can say that both Knox and Singletary were somewhat of a detriment to the blocking assignments considering both were rookies and picking up blitzes takes time to adjust to at the NFL level. Perhaps if the defense saw Singletary in the backfield they knew it was a bigger chance for a run. 

 

I think one point of the no-huddle offense the Bills were running is that we were using the same personnel every play, so the personnel on the field weren't any kind of a "tell" to the defense.  Otherwise, yeah, I believe defenses all season were keying on personnel - "Roberts is in inside the 20, probably to block, gonna be a run play".  Daboll then tries to end- around that by using personnel in unexpected ways, like having Lee Smith and Pat Dimarco line up wide and run routes or throwing a TD pass to Lee Smith or D-Dawk.  Sometimes it works. But overall, I think it's less effective than he believes.

 

Quote

What does stand out greatly to me is the lack of ability to quickly make adjustments on offense during a game. Scheme, line, protections, blocking assignments. That is, if something is not working as defenses have adjusted to that scheme. Simply switch to something different that will work. The Bills literally had no answer for what Baltimore was doing on defense with that cover zero blitz. Yet, they had extra time to prepare against it. 

 

I completely agree here, and I think that's one reason the Bills backed away from the no-huddle after the Baltimore game.  In his 17 Weeks Uninterrupted podcast, Beasley talked about the high burden of memorization the offense had while using it... with everything encoded in one word, I think it took away flexibility to substitute personnel or change things up as much.  But that's really no excuse.  Offenses have to be flexible enough to adjust on the fly.

 

This is another place where I think Daboll gets too caught up in X's and O's.  The simplest way to beat Zero Blitz is to hit a deep post.  Nobody's home!  Beat your guy and go!  I bet Allen hits that routinely in practice, bam bam bam bam (if he doesn't hit it in practice and that's what they call anyway we are so SOL).  But it's different when the OL is getting pushed back in his lap.  He reverts to poor footwork.  Maybe he and Brown aren't on the same page about what route variation he's gonna run.  There are other ways to beat Zero Blitz, but we didn't seem to have a backup plan, because that simple thing was gonna work!  Hit it and win this, YEAH!

 

Quote

Another thing that bothers me is the way the Tennessee Titans basically destroyed the Baltimore Ravens in that playoff game in Baltimore by running the ball down their throats. While using the Bills defensive scheme to shut down that high scoring Ravens offense. Do the Titans have that much of a better offensive line? They sure do look like they were coached better. 

 

I've been staring at the next-gen run charts.  Attention to week 4,5,8,10,14,15,16.  I think what it means is we really couldn't run between the tackles, certainly after week 5 or so.  How much of the fall-off was Gore, and how much was our OL? 

Gore https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/frank-gore/GOR411171/2019

Singletary https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/devin-singletary/SIN186919/2019

 

Yeah, I think the Titans really do have a better OL.  Saffold is a Brute.  Conklin and Lewan are 1st round bookend tackles who have both matured well.

Henry's a brute, but he's able to do a lot of damage straight up the gut.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/player/derrick-henry/HEN602843/2019

 

I don't think Spain nor Morse are particularly great run blockers and apparently Mongo and Ford were 1-arming it.  I think our OL improved from "awful" to "acceptable at times"

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I don't think he's hands off at all.  That isn't in his nature.   

 

McDermott is a guy who is 100% invested in his job, whatever it is.   If his job is to play safety, he's 100% into play safety.   If his job is DC, he's 100% into being a DC.   

 

Now he's a head coach.   He knows exactly what a head coach's job is, because he's a student.  He knows he is responsible, completely responsible, for how the offense plays, and there is simply no way that he turned the offense over to Daboll on May 1 and said "good luck, fella, we'll talk again in February."   

 

I can guarantee you that McDermott is studying everything he can about offense, he's challenging Daboll about every aspect of what he's doing.   

 

It's all about getting better.  That's the process.  McDermott applies it to himself, and he applies it to Daboll.   If Daboll isn't capable of getting better, McD will replace him.   McD is evaluating Daboll all the time, and they are working on the offense all the time.   You can be sure of it.  

 

Does that mean the offense will get better, for sure?  Of course not.  But I'm sure of two things.   McDermott is working intensely to be sure the offense does get better, and if he didn't think Daboll could do it, Daboll would be gone.  

Are you aware of any situations where McDermott seemed to have a blind spot and was months behind in making decisions that were obvious to others? 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

I wanted to add this one. Even though PFF makes Bills fans (myself included) angry sometimes, this was an enlightening read.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-how-the-buffalo-bills-built-a-winning-offense

 

We saw how the Bills’ dropback efficiency significantly jumped year-over-year, but the reason behind that isn’t what you might think. The improvement isn’t only due to Josh Allen maturing, but it's also due to the concerted effort by Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and his staff to build an offense that enhanced Josh Allen’s real strengths instead of playing into faulty perceptions of how a strong-armed quarterback should operate.

Allen’s prototypical size and cannon-like arm make us associate him with deep passing, and the biggest concerns among draft scouts before he entered the NFL was his low collegiate completion percentage. Many, including us here at PFF, assumed the successful formula for Allen was to replicate what Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane witnessed during their time with the Carolina Panthers during Cam Newton’s 2015 MVP season: build an explosive, downfield offense that produces chunk plays.

But when we look into the characteristics of the Bills' passing scheme last season versus this season using PFF data scientist Timo Riske’s team clustering, you’ll see just how much going away from that aggressive style and towards a shorter passing game has worked for the team.

The strongest characteristic in last year’s scheme was average route depth, putting it on the same plane as the 2018 Seattle Seahawks and the aforementioned 2015 Panthers. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll built a scheme designed to take advantage of Allen’s deep passing; the problem is that making accurate downfield throws hasn’t been Allen’s strength.

Allen struggled as a rookie in those zones, just as the passing map above shows. Allen completed only 12 of his 49 attempts (24.5%) beyond 20 yards and outside the numbers for three touchdowns and five interceptions. We thought Josh Allen would thrive throwing deep, but he just didn’t last season, and he actually has similar efficiency beyond 20 yards this year.

Where Allen did succeed was in the 0-10 yard range, completing 71 of his 99 attempts (71.7%) for two touchdowns and one interception last year. 

That misperception has been corrected this season. Allen is now in a scheme similar to the one of the Eagles or Colts. The characteristics of those schemes are short passes, five-route patterns and screen passes. The Bills’ shift in offensive philosophy is particularly surprising without any year-over-year changes to their quarterback, head coach or offensive coordinator. 

(*blue is where routes are run more frequently than league average, red less frequently)

Looking at the route heatmaps from the last two seasons side by side, you’ll see that longer routes in the middle of the field and down the sideline have gone from above league average to at or below average (blue to white or red). And in the 0-10 yard range, where Allen had his best results, red has flipped to blue, giving Allen more opportunities to make successful throws.

Allen still has a tendency to throw beyond the expected target depth based on route distribution, but this year it’s within a normal range of average depth of target (aDOT) as opposed to the outlier number last season.

Though they play in a similar scheme, Allen is stretching the field more than Carson Wentz and Jacoby Brissett. Cam Newton was successful in a system like Allen’s last year, but that proved to be more of an outlier for Newton’s career than an example to model on.

 

 

Thanks.   This is some of the Good Stuff PFF puts out, probably verging on some of the stuff teams buy from them vs. their "special secret sauce" statistics.

 

They say "The Bills’ shift in offensive philosophy is particularly surprising without any year-over-year changes to their quarterback, head coach or offensive coordinator."  I don't think it's too surprising; unlike last year, this year we actually have WR who can run those routes reliably.   Allen's completion percentage on these routes increased,  and he also improved markedly in the 10-20 yd range.  Part of that is due to better receivers, a lot of it is work Allen put in.  I also believe that contrary to "efficiency similar to last year" on the deep routes, Allen did improve once we got past Week 4 and he figured out that INTs are not tolerable - but he still struggles in the middle of the field, the exact place he needs to go to beat a Cover 0.  I won't paste the advanced stat charts in again (I put them up elsewhere) but here's the link.

 

I have not noticed the Bills running many screens, certainly not with great success.  What am I missing?

 

I don't want to pick a nit, but I'll note that this assessment of Allen's strengths and what worked contradicts somewhat some of the links you posted earlier, as far as I've had time to get into them.

[reddogblitz]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I can guarantee you that McDermott is studying everything he can about offense, he's challenging Daboll about every aspect of what he's doing.   

 

Some of the greatest offensive minds in the history of football started out on the D side of the football. Tom Landry immediately comes to mind. 

 

Makes sense.  How can you be good at defense if you don't understand offense?

[Coach Tuesday]

2 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Are you aware of any situations where McDermott seemed to have a blind spot and was months behind in making decisions that were obvious to others? 

...he asked the witness, holding pictures of Nate Peterman and Kelvin Benjamin he was about to mark as exhibits for his cross-examination.

[reddogblitz]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

Two other things.   One is that if Daboll were so horrible, teams wouldn't be continuing to inquire about him.  Teams chased after McDermott for his last two or three years in Carolina.   There's a reason teams are interested in Daboll. 

 

True.  But lets look a the teams that are asking about him.

 

1. Cleveland - A Clown Car
2. NY Giants - 1st pick in the 2020 draft

 

Better than nobody I guess but not a ringing endorsement IMHO.

[Shaw66]

7 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

 

True.  But lets look a the teams that are asking about him.

 

1. Cleveland - A Clown Car
2. NY Giants - 1st pick in the 2020 draft

 

Better than nobody I guess but not a ringing endorsement IMHO.

It's not about the teams.  It's always the bad teams that are looking.  Good teams aren't replacing their OC.   

 

The Bills were a bad team when they hired McDermott.   Not exactly a ringing endorsement.   But that's no what it's about.  People knew about McDermott.  He was a hot item.  

 

We may not see why, but Daboll is one, also.  

 

The point is that the people in the league, the coaches and the GMs, know through the rumor mill who gets it and who doesn't.   Certain names keep coming up, and that's because coaches and GMs know.  

[reddogblitz]

1 minute ago, Shaw66 said:

It's not about the teams.  It's always the bad teams that are looking.  Good teams aren't replacing their OC.   

 

The Bills were a bad team when they hired McDermott.   Not exactly a ringing endorsement.   But that's no what it's about.  People knew about McDermott.  He was a hot item.  

 

We may not see why, but Daboll is one, also.  

 

The point is that the people in the league, the coaches and the GMs, know through the rumor mill who gets it and who doesn't.   Certain names keep coming up, and that's because coaches and GMs know.  

 

Fair enough. 

 

However the Bills were .500 over the 3 previous seasons before McDermott arrived.  Not great but not a "bad team" either.  And it was a pretty stacked roster at WR and OLine and DLine and RB and DB.  If Rex coulda coached D we would have been in the playoffs.

 

Rams, Broncos, Bears, and Eagles all hired new OCs.  They all have prolific offensive head coaches and they didn't talk to Daboll. 

 

I hope you're right that it all just needs  one more year to bake in.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

21 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

It's not about the teams.  It's always the bad teams that are looking.  Good teams aren't replacing their OC.   

 

The Bills were a bad team when they hired McDermott.   Not exactly a ringing endorsement.   But that's no what it's about.  People knew about McDermott.  He was a hot item.  

 

We may not see why, but Daboll is one, also.  

 

The point is that the people in the league, the coaches and the GMs, know through the rumor mill who gets it and who doesn't.   Certain names keep coming up, and that's because coaches and GMs know.  

 

Actually, the Bills were a mediocre team when they hired McDermott.  9-7, 8-8, 7-9 last 3 years.