billsrul120 Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 I wanted to see if the numbers lined up with the eye test that the Bills have been improving on both sides of the ball so I made a plot of the 4 game rolling average in points scored and points allowed. As you can see, The Bills are have trended upwards in points scored and downward in points given up over the course of the season. Over the last 4 games, the Bills are averaging 33.75 points scored and just 18.75 points given up. Now it is just the last 4 games, but those numbers put the Bills as the highest scoring team and the 3rd best team in terms of points allowed in the league (Pittsburgh [18.2] and Miami [18.4]). This team appears to be very legit. 4 4 6
RiotAct Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 oh I thought this topic was going to be about something completely different before I clicked on it
The Wiz Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 What I really want to see is a graph Trending in the Left Direction. Can't say I've seen one of those.
WideNine Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 1 hour ago, billsrul120 said: I wanted to see if the numbers lined up with the eye test that the Bills have been improving on both sides of the ball so I made a plot of the 4 game rolling average in points scored and points allowed. As you can see, The Bills are have trended upwards in points scored and downward in points given up over the course of the season. Over the last 4 games, the Bills are averaging 33.75 points scored and just 18.75 points given up. Now it is just the last 4 games, but those numbers put the Bills as the highest scoring team and the 3rd best team in terms of points allowed in the league (Pittsburgh [18.2] and Miami [18.4]). This team appears to be very legit. Nice. I am guilty of getting a bit lazy with the analytics using numbers for the season as a total...media pundits are just as bad. With sports, trends are so important because teams are not static and evolve or devolve over a season. The eye test told me our defense was better than their season aggregate and early performance. I think we noticed more play on the other side of the LOS. With that push there has been more TFLs and better play vs. the run. Nice to see the trend line that backs that up. 2
SoCal Deek Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 So you're saying we have a chance? Sweet!
Buffalo Boy Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 This content is very Graphic. I wish there had been a trigger warning. I think it moved 😎
H2o Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 Points scored going up, points allowed going down. What does it mean? 1
Cruiserplayer Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 Not to be Negative Nancy but we are about where we were. Pitt, 9ers, Broncos D missing a lot of pieces. None of the 4 O are super scary (Herbert looks pretty good). However it is great to see our run D and middle of our D improving.
Aussie Joe Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 So we have improved in the past 4 games all won by a double digit margin?
gobills404 Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 Someone probably posted this a few weeks ago but I thought it fits here too. Wouldn't be surprised if the last 3 weeks have moved our defense into the top 5 since week 7.
Shaw66 Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 16 minutes ago, Cruiserplayer said: Not to be Negative Nancy but we are about where we were. Pitt, 9ers, Broncos D missing a lot of pieces. None of the 4 O are super scary (Herbert looks pretty good). However it is great to see our run D and middle of our D improving. Offense IS about where we were, true, but I think that's more a commentary about the beginning of the season than about progress. Like a few other teams, I think the Bills were way ahead coming out of the gate. It took the league four or five weeks to figure out how to stop getting absolutely bombed out of the park by the best passing teams. Probably a better way to think about it that the first four or five weeks of the season was preseason. In the middle of October, teams had caught on. So if you look at the offensive graph starting at week 6 or week 8, you see a serious upward trend. That's what's real, I think. On defense, the graph just confirms what everyone has been seeing. The defense has really come together in the last month. Klein came alive, Edmunds got healthy or woke up, Milano came back, the defensive line started playing better as a unit and learned how to play the run better. Everything just began to click. 1 1
SoCal Deek Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 1 hour ago, Shaw66 said: Offense IS about where we were, true, but I think that's more a commentary about the beginning of the season than about progress. Like a few other teams, I think the Bills were way ahead coming out of the gate. It took the league four or five weeks to figure out how to stop getting absolutely bombed out of the park by the best passing teams. Probably a better way to think about it that the first four or five weeks of the season was preseason. In the middle of October, teams had caught on. So if you look at the offensive graph starting at week 6 or week 8, you see a serious upward trend. That's what's real, I think. On defense, the graph just confirms what everyone has been seeing. The defense has really come together in the last month. Klein came alive, Edmunds got healthy or woke up, Milano came back, the defensive line started playing better as a unit and learned how to play the run better. Everything just began to click. Bingo....I think people underestimated the impact of not having traditional training camp and those pre-season work weeks (not the games themselves).
WideNine Posted December 21, 2020 Posted December 21, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Shaw66 said: Offense IS about where we were, true, but I think that's more a commentary about the beginning of the season than about progress. Like a few other teams, I think the Bills were way ahead coming out of the gate. It took the league four or five weeks to figure out how to stop getting absolutely bombed out of the park by the best passing teams. Probably a better way to think about it that the first four or five weeks of the season was preseason. In the middle of October, teams had caught on. So if you look at the offensive graph starting at week 6 or week 8, you see a serious upward trend. That's what's real, I think. On defense, the graph just confirms what everyone has been seeing. The defense has really come together in the last month. Klein came alive, Edmunds got healthy or woke up, Milano came back, the defensive line started playing better as a unit and learned how to play the run better. Everything just began to click. All true Shaw66, but another angle is the one that McDermott has been preaching around complimentary football. The Titans had a scheme to take advantage of the Bills both offensively and defensively. Run the ball against our porous run defense, maintain possession, limit opportunities for Allan and the offense, take the lead, and get Allen and the offense to press and play out of character. They then used layers of zone, cover 3, and went away from the blitz and cover 0 looks Allen was tearing up early in the season. It worked, Allen pressed because we were behind, the offense sputtered, and the more guys we committed to stopping Henry the more the subs and injured backer core was exposed defending passes over the middle. Teams quickly copied the Titans blueprint, game after game Allen saw 2 deep zones and just 4-5 man rushes. This forced him to hold onto the ball longer trying to find receivers breaking deep and exposed our offense to more incompletions and negative plays. Teams also focused on running on us just like the Titans... the Chiefs came in and we expected some kind of air raid offensive showdown between Allen and Mahomes, but Andy Reid is a smart coach - they ran and ran and ran. Their TOP in that game was ridiculous. On top of that our Special Teams seemed to find ways every week to let teams down punts near our goal line, or taking deep kickoffs out of the end zone to be snuffed out behind the 20, or our rookie kicker was missing kicks, our punter was shanking punts when we needed to flip the field... Things had to change, Bills coaches had to step up and do a better job game planning and preparing, finding the right players and putting them in positions to succeed. Allen, Daboll, and the QB room did a great job of self-scouting and gaining an understanding of what teams were doing to smother our offense. They started focusing on exploiting the matchups beneath the sticks, remembered they had that Beasley guy and that Diggs is not too shabby either at finding the soft spots in zone as well. Josh worked at being patient, better recognizing and exploiting zone coverages and calling the right protections. Ford was hurt, but other guys stepped up and we got Mongo back and our offensive line has been clicking better as a unit. With offensive production and moving the chains, our offense did not put our defense in as many bad positions. With more scoring and time of possession came a defense that was more rested, but they knew too that they were still letting their offense down by pissing away late leads and they still had to improve stopping the run. They have tried a lot of different combinations in that 1-tech DT spot and seem to have settled on rotating Jefferson and Butler with Oliver and Horrible Harry manning the 3-tech spot - usually... Leslie has them doing a lot of pre-snap shifting to make it harder for teams to coordinate iso and double-team blocks. Zimmer who came on for us for a while has been the odd man out. Leslie also figured out the best ways to use Klein and Edmunds gradually has gotten healthy and has been less timid about sticking his shoulder into tackling... still would like to see him shed blockers, keep the pad-level low, square-up and wrap up better, but not denying the improvement in his game. There were key new pieces in this defense and they were not playing as a unit, the loss of the leadership that the Lorax provided was keenly felt earlier in the year. It was clear that they were going to have to find their new chemistry and have others step up as leaders - I think they have. Murphy rode the pine and Frazier went to Epenesa and Johnson in the DE rotation. Milano has gotten healthy so we have that linebacker who can cover the middle and skate with those TEs and larger receivers working the shallow crossers. With all the changes the Bills began to see results. More push, more run stops, and more TFL, they were able to make more teams punt, fall behind, and become one-dimensional passing. With that we could dial up the pressure which has lead to multiple turnovers. I still think that our defense is still susceptible to a strong run game (would not want us facing Henry again), but if our offense can score they put pressure on teams to keep up on the scoreboard and that leads to our defense facing more pass attempts and they are less exposed to defending a run-heavy game play by the opposing team. Through all this our Special Teams brought their game up to a higher level, when we needed it we got that good return, that punt that flipped the field, that tackle on that kickoff that pinned our opponent, and our rookie kicker found his zone. Edited December 22, 2020 by WideNine
Over 29 years of fanhood Posted December 22, 2020 Posted December 22, 2020 (edited) 6 hours ago, billsrul120 said: I wanted to see if the numbers lined up with the eye test that the Bills have been improving on both sides of the ball so I made a plot of the 4 game rolling average in points scored and points allowed. As you can see, The Bills are have trended upwards in points scored and downward in points given up over the course of the season. Over the last 4 games, the Bills are averaging 33.75 points scored and just 18.75 points given up. Now it is just the last 4 games, but those numbers put the Bills as the highest scoring team and the 3rd best team in terms of points allowed in the league (Pittsburgh [18.2] and Miami [18.4]). This team appears to be very legit. so based on this they should win the Super Bowl 37-18 😉 Edited December 22, 2020 by Over 29 years of fanhood
SageAgainstTheMachine Posted December 22, 2020 Posted December 22, 2020 6 hours ago, The Wiz said: What I really want to see is a graph Trending in the Left Direction. Can't say I've seen one of those. I assume in places where the dominant language is read from right to left they do graphs this way too.
BuffBills51 Posted December 22, 2020 Posted December 22, 2020 I decided to take a look at the past 4 games to look at the stats to see how dominant the Bill have been. The passing numbers are skewed for the opponents because we gave up a fair amount of garbage time yards to the 49ers. This team could of gone two ways after the bye. Teams in the past would of folded and gone on a losing streak against tough opponents especially under the prime time lights. But not this team, they have taken the anger of the last second play against the Cardinals and turned into the most dominating team in football these past 4 weeks. There is not a team right now that wants to face the Bills with the way they have been playing. Bills Opponent Points per Game: 33.75 18.75 Passing Yards per Game 281.75 231 Rushing Yards Per Game 134.75 87.25 (3.775 yard per attempt) Average Time of Poss 33.5 minutes 26.5 minutes 1
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