What are your ideas to fix the Bills' running game for next year?

[Buffalo Barbarian]

Better Olineman, hire greg Roman as the running game coordinator

 

 

[maryland-bills-fan]

3 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I think the first thing to do is to understand what the problem is in the run game.

 

1) Clearly at times we were able to run the ball successfully.  One of those times was vs. NE, when Daboll commented that on Friday, we practiced 50 plays and 48 were runs (190 yds rushing).  Another was vs. the Chargers, just after the bye when we'd said we'd work on the run game (172 yds).  Chopping Wood on BuffaloBills.com and Cover1 Run game vs the Chargers.

 

So our OL is capable of blocking and our backs of running successfully - at times.

 

IMO we need a change to the focus on practice and execution in the run game.  It shouldn't be "practice 48 of 50 plays" but if they need to "Dial in a little more" as Dion said, suck it up and ***** do it.

 

2) At other times, we struggled (Rams, Titans).  From some of the breakdowns available online (see Cover1 "Plays are there to be Had" for example, and some Chopping Woods episodes), when we struggled it was (as Beane said in his presser) because the OL had trouble blocking, because the TE or WR missed their blocks, or because the timing was AFU.

 

Our OL gets out-techniqued or overpowered in the run game at times.  IMO we need an upgrade at G and a transition plan at C.

 

Don't mistake Beane's comment that Morse isn't a guy who will knock the NT 3 feet backwards for meaning Morse is ineffective at run blocking.  In Morse's first 2 1/2 seasons in KC (2015, 2016, Game 1-6 of 2017, the Chiefs had a very effective run game.  He's not and will never be a power blocker.  He's a zone blocking, technique guy, and when we were rushing effectively, Morse was effective.  Morse has more dead money than cap savings this year.  In a cap strapped year, I don't think he's going anywhere.

 

IMO they ought to really push to bring back Daryl Williams.  In a perfect world, they'd bring back Feliciano, also, but if it's a choice let's lock down Williams.

Bates seemed to play capably when they gave him a chance in the NE, SEA, and 2nd MIA games.  He's signed for another year.  Boettger is a RFA and should be able to be brought back fairly cheaply.

 

But we need to address OL in the draft, more than RB IMO

 

3) the Backs.  Antonio Williams showed something vs Miami.  Maybe he deserves more look.  Maybe Christian Wade deserves more look.  I see us looking for a lower-priced FA and another RB later in the draft because, Competition, but IMO if we can fix 1) and 2) we should be able to have a more competent run game more of the time.

 

Somewhat tangential, but we know the Beane-meister loves him his draft capital.  It wouldn't shock me if he would try to trade a couple guys we're out of love with but have shown enough flashes that another team might want them, for some low-round picks he can wheel and deal with.  I see Singletary as one possible target.

".....they ought to really push to bring back Daryl Williams.  In a perfect world, they'd bring back Feliciano, also, but if it's a choice let's lock down Williams.

Bates seemed to play capably when they gave him a chance in the NE, SEA, and 2nd MIA games.  He's signed for another year.  Boettger is a RFA and should be able to be brought back fairly cheaply."...................   ..................    NO.  Sooner or later you gotta pay for what you want.    .... If you are shopping for a fast used car, you should NOT keep looking in the back lot where they keep the old corvairs.  

[machine gun kelly]

2 hours ago, Buffalo Barbarian said:

Better Olineman, hire greg Roman as the running game coordinator

 

 

 

BB, you know that’s a demotion bud from O Coordinator for Baltimore.  Good to hear from you though.  Haven’t seen you around much lately.

[maryland-bills-fan]

On 1/26/2021 at 5:37 PM, DeltaDigital said:

after watching this. the offensive line is horrible. horrible execution. cody ford is another beane whiff. 

You made me think of something that could be wrong with the Bill's draft selection methods.

 

Ford:   WOW , a first rounder who slipped to the second round. What a deal !!  What VALUE

Epensea   WOW, a first rounder who slipped to the second round. What a deal !!  What VALUE

Moss:   WOW, a second rounder who slipped to the third round. What a deal !!    What VALUE

 

 

OK lets ignore that the rest of the NFL are all stupid and passed on these guys multiple times.

Let's ignore that 10 other teams looking for a RB or a backup RB passed on Moss.

 

Is there a problem here?  What internet draft prediction site are they using?

Edited January 28, 2021 by maryland-bills-fan

[dave mcbride]

On 1/25/2021 at 12:54 PM, Nextmanup said:

Hopefully they don't dedicate much in the way of resources to a "running game."

 

Run plays, except in very specific situations, are just a wasted down.

 

 

Tell that to the 2018 Patriots and 2019 49ers. 

[BADOLBILZ]

6 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Tell that to the 2018 Patriots and 2019 49ers. 

 

 

They aren't a wasted down but Josh Allen at 8 yards per pass attempt trumps a range of 4.0-5.0  yards per rush.

 

Tyrod at 6.5 yards per pass and McCoy/Karlos/MG at 5.5 yards per rush was a different story.

[dave mcbride]

6 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

They aren't a wasted down but Josh Allen at 8 yards per pass attempt trumps a range of 4.0-5.0  yards per rush.

 

Tyrod at 6.5 yards per pass and McCoy/Karlos/MG at 5.5 yards per rush was a different story.

7.4 (always account for sack yardage lost on passing plays) but your point is taken. If you account for sacks in 2016 (Tyrod got sacked a lot) and treat the sack plays as passing attempts, they averaged 5.8 yards per passing play (vs 5.3 per rushing play). 

 

Incidentally, because of those garbage-time bombs to Davis, Barkley averaged 9.4 ypa! 

Edited January 28, 2021 by dave mcbride

[GETTOTHE50]

Go to rehab and actually work on the running game. 

 

I think the Bills were so excited and addicted with the development of JA17 that they said screw the run.

 

They were like a bunch of crack addicts, where JA passes was the crack. They loved what they were seeing, doing, and ultimately couldn’t put down the pipe. The Bills organization hadn’t felt this way in years so they rode it out as far as they could before OD-ing.

 

I don’t blame them. Hell, we were all riding the JA white lightning. But it’s time we all go back to rehab and learn that the key to life and success is balance. It’s time we put down the pipe, or atleast not hit it 45x per game. 
 

 

[SCBills]

Cut John Brown, Mario Addison, Q Jefferson, V Butler and let Milano walk to free up cap space. 

 

Lock down Daryl Williams to keep our bookend tackles.  

 

Draft a top end G/C in the 2nd Round. 

 

Hope isn't a strategy, but "hope" a healthy Cody Ford becomes what everyone thought he would be in the Draft.

 

Upgrade the TE position so we can be multiple and run 11 personnel as our primary offensive set. 

 

Upgrade the RB position and use Moss as RB2.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

9 hours ago, maryland-bills-fan said:

".....they ought to really push to bring back Daryl Williams.  In a perfect world, they'd bring back Feliciano, also, but if it's a choice let's lock down Williams.

Bates seemed to play capably when they gave him a chance in the NE, SEA, and 2nd MIA games.  He's signed for another year.  Boettger is a RFA and should be able to be brought back fairly cheaply."...................   ..................    NO.  Sooner or later you gotta pay for what you want.    .... If you are shopping for a fast used car, you should NOT keep looking in the back lot where they keep the old corvairs.  

 

Easy to shoot someone else down, now what's your plan?

 

Depth on OL is also crucially important, and the old corvairs help with that.  However, neither Boettger nor Bates are appropriately described as "old corvairs".  They are young, UDFA players who appear to have developed significantly in their 3rd and 2nd years respectively.

 

by the way the little quotation mark allows you to bring up a quote box. 

Here's my quote again - and I note that you omitted the bolded, which certainly distorts the meaning

 

Quote

Our OL gets out-techniqued or overpowered in the run game at times.  IMO we need an upgrade at G and a transition plan at C.

(...)

IMO they ought to really push to bring back Daryl Williams.  In a perfect world, they'd bring back Feliciano, also, but if it's a choice let's lock down Williams.

Bates seemed to play capably when they gave him a chance in the NE, SEA, and 2nd MIA games.  He's signed for another year.  Boettger is a RFA and should be able to be brought back fairly cheaply.

 

But we need to address OL in the draft, more than RB IMO

 

 

[frostbitmic]

Daboll has come up with a lot of creative pass plays, and this is a passing league, but it appears that his rushing plays are predictable and just a distant thought.

 

If Daboll wants to get a HC gig he's going to need to spend some time on getting creative in the run game. McCoach needs to get this across to him.

 

I also would be thrilled with Najee Harris at our spot late in the 1st.

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

13 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I think the first thing to do is to understand what the problem is in the run game.

 

1) Clearly at times we were able to run the ball successfully.  One of those times was vs. NE, when Daboll commented that on Friday, we practiced 50 plays and 48 were runs (190 yds rushing).  Another was vs. the Chargers, just after the bye when we'd said we'd work on the run game (172 yds).  Chopping Wood on BuffaloBills.com and Cover1 Run game vs the Chargers.

 

So our OL is capable of blocking and our backs of running successfully - at times.

 

IMO we need a change to the focus on practice and execution in the run game.  It shouldn't be "practice 48 of 50 plays" but if they need to "Dial in a little more" as Dion said, suck it up and ***** do it.

 

2) At other times, we struggled (Rams, Titans).  From some of the breakdowns available online (see Cover1 "Plays are there to be Had" for example, and some Chopping Woods episodes), when we struggled it was (as Beane said in his presser) because the OL had trouble blocking, because the TE or WR missed their blocks, or because the timing was AFU.

 

Our OL gets out-techniqued or overpowered in the run game at times.  IMO we need an upgrade at G and a transition plan at C.

 

Don't mistake Beane's comment that Morse isn't a guy who will knock the NT 3 feet backwards for meaning Morse is ineffective at run blocking.  In Morse's first 2 1/2 seasons in KC (2015, 2016, Game 1-6 of 2017, the Chiefs had a very effective run game.  He's not and will never be a power blocker.  He's a zone blocking, technique guy, and when we were rushing effectively, Morse was effective.  Morse has more dead money than cap savings this year.  In a cap strapped year, I don't think he's going anywhere.

 

IMO they ought to really push to bring back Daryl Williams.  In a perfect world, they'd bring back Feliciano, also, but if it's a choice let's lock down Williams.

Bates seemed to play capably when they gave him a chance in the NE, SEA, and 2nd MIA games.  He's signed for another year.  Boettger is a RFA and should be able to be brought back fairly cheaply.

 

But we need to address OL in the draft, more than RB IMO

 

3) the Backs.  Antonio Williams showed something vs Miami.  Maybe he deserves more look.  Maybe Christian Wade deserves more look.  I see us looking for a lower-priced FA and another RB later in the draft because, Competition, but IMO if we can fix 1) and 2) we should be able to have a more competent run game more of the time.

 

Somewhat tangential, but we know the Beane-meister loves him his draft capital.  It wouldn't shock me if he would try to trade a couple guys we're out of love with but have shown enough flashes that another team might want them, for some low-round picks he can wheel and deal with.  I see Singletary as one possible target.

re your point re Morse being a good zone run blocker, do you have a sense if we ever ran a lot of zone blocking schemes in the run game? 
 

if not, maybe we need to. We don’t have road graders. Seems like the way to counter that is with quickness and spacing. 
 

plus, it seems like zone run blocking is always so effective when I see teams do it. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Miyagi-Do Karate

[Logic]

I found this deep dive into the Bills’ run game by Mike Tanier to be really great.

 

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/upgrading-the-buffalo-bills-offense-running-backs-do-matter/
 

Tanier essentially points out that Moss and Singletary aren’t the problem, and that the run game configuration and play calling is primarily to blame, with a bit of blame going to the blocking as well. He does NOT believe that spending premium assets on another running back is warranted. Nor does he necessarily think we need an O-line overhaul. He seems to believe Daboll is the primary culprit.

 

Lots of great stuff in there that I don’t want to copy and paste too much of, as I’m on a phone and it’s cumbersome. I recommend reading it.

 

“The Bills don’t have to bust out the 1977 tactics or trade up to draft Clemson’s Travis Etienne to improve their running game. In fact, they should not do either of those things. They should, however, rethink the configuration of their running game on first downs to improve their efficiency. That includes whether the box is stacked or not.“

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Logic

[maryland-bills-fan]

On 1/25/2021 at 5:34 PM, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

Maybe looking at improving RB doesn’t necessarily mean more run plays. They had a RB on the field almost every offensive play this season.  

And they were 3rd round picks that nobody else drafted.  You get what you pay for.  10 running backs were selected before Moss.  Most of them were drafted as backups.  So we went to war with a 2nd level backup as our RB weapon.

6 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Easy to shoot someone else down, now what's your plan?

 

Depth on OL is also crucially important, and the old corvairs help with that.  However, neither Boettger nor Bates are appropriately described as "old corvairs".  They are young, UDFA players who appear to have developed significantly in their 3rd and 2nd years respectively.

 

by the way the little quotation mark allows you to bring up a quote box. 

Here's my quote again - and I note that you omitted the bolded, which certainly distorts the meaning

 

 

 

Do you really think that a slow running back with little burst can dominate in the nfl?

 

[maryland-bills-fan]

7 hours ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

They aren't a wasted down but Josh Allen at 8 yards per pass attempt trumps a range of 4.0-5.0  yards per rush.

 

Tyrod at 6.5 yards per pass and McCoy/Karlos/MG at 5.5 yards per rush was a different story.

You should learn a bit from history.   You need a balance.  Do your really think that they have been playing football for 150 years and now you have the ultimate answers?   Look how KC handled the Bills in the AFC game.  Other teams will do the same. They have the blueprint just like they did and started to counter the Seattle run/pass QB. The counter to the Bills all-pass offense is to punish the WR (ours were all gimpy by the playoffs), get 3 good CB's for man coverage, play one LB, and do a hard pass rush with a DB blitzer coming from odd directions a lot of the time. The Bills will see this, especially from their divisional opponents.  If you think that they are stupid and will not draft the people and play the scheme to make this not work.... well, what can I say that is kind. .... We need to get a balanced attack. .. The quickest route to this is a fast, good RB to make them play 1 or 2 run-defense type linebackers and a RB who is also a threat in the running game and as a mis-match against a LB, when he works as a wide reciever.

 

[LABILLBACKER]

Are Moss and Singletary ever going to be dynamic pass catchers. Probably not? I know our OL has issues blocking but I watch how easily Devin gets tackled and it drives me nuts. Moss has a little more "Dog" in him as far as physicality. I just don't trust Singletary anymore. And it's not because of that huge drop. If Najee is there @ 30 I take him in a heartbeat. He bigger and faster and a better pass receiver than 26. Daboll kinda quit half way thru this season on our run game. He got swept up in the Josh production. Andy exploited this.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

56 minutes ago, maryland-bills-fan said:

Do you really think that a slow running back with little burst can dominate in the nfl?

 

McDermott and Beane have stated a goal, to improve the run game.

 

The thread is titled "what are your ideas to fix the run game?"

 

You omitted key phrases in quoting me and shot it down.  OK.  I'll say again:

"Easy to shoot someone else down, now what's your plan?"

 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

1 hour ago, maryland-bills-fan said:

And they were 3rd round picks that nobody else drafted.  You get what you pay for.  10 running backs were selected before Moss.  Most of them were drafted as backups.  So we went to war with a 2nd level backup as our RB weapon.

 

 

Sorry may have had inferred too much there. 
 

My point literally was, don’t let a desire to not call more running plays be the reason not to consider investing in an upgrade at RB, because even if you want to pass, let them be a threat. 

[maryland-bills-fan]

11 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

McDermott and Beane have stated a goal, to improve the run game.

 

The thread is titled "what are your ideas to fix the run game?"

 

You omitted key phrases in quoting me and shot it down.  OK.  I'll say again:

"Easy to shoot someone else down, now what's your plan?"

 

My plan is to pay the draft capital to get a much better running back.  That was my plan before the last draft as well.   In general, we need to use a pick in the top 50 to get an adequate running back.   This year there seems to be maybe 3 players who could fall into being worthy. (Last year was rich in RB's.  There was Taylor,  Gibson (a surprise), Dobbins, Swift, Hilare, Dillon and (borderline)Akens available.  We took a guy last year who was 44th in rushing yards  and who just beat out Bryan Hill. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2020/rushing.htm

 

I am NOT a professional NFL scout and NFL analysis so I can just guess where those top 3 players might be drafted and what is a fair draft cost (pick #) for them.  I do think that many teams are happy with the players they took in the first 2 rounds and early 3rd last year, so there might be less competition for drafting them.  We pick at #30,  several "mock draft experts" have the top two (Entienne and Harris going in the top 25),  but more have them going in the early 2nd round.  I would not trade up for them.  My idea is that a good strategy would be to trade down from our #30 and up from our #62 to get those to picks within the top 50 players.  (I have a magic wand that does this).   We should than be able to get one of Entiente, Harris or Gainewell with that higher pick in the 2nd round. https://walterfootball.com/scoutingreports.php

 

Etienne is very fast, like #10 from KC.  He could be used as a quick hitter through the line in passing downs with a potential for a breakaway run (slows the pass rush), somebody with the speed to get around the corner (keeps DB's and linebackers honest and containing), and, by lining up wide, a mismatch with a linebacker or heavy safety.

 

Harris is  a fast power back and can get to the outside better than our Moss/Singletary.  He also can power for the 5-9 yards between the tackles rather than the 2-4 yards we often have been getting this year.  He is smart and a good enough receiver for the short screen & dump off passing game. (We lacked this from the TE/RB). A good point for the Bills is that he is big and agile enough to probably develop into a good pass blocker or chip-and-then catch guy.

 

Gainwell is fast and shifty will a lot of good opinions on him. He is an underclassmen without a lot of film and played in an average college football conference.  His floor is much higher than Moss or Singletary.

 

 

As to revamping the offensive line?   We don't have the draft picks, trade chips or cap space to do very many things.  We do have a group that pass blocks well and Josh Allen. It would be a BAD idea to (never the less) try to turn this bunch into a bunch of bulldozers to change to a smashmouth style.

 

[maryland-bills-fan]

OK, here is another thing that the Bills should be anticipating.

 

Allen and our passing game was great for most of this year.  But the following type of move: countermove always happens.  We put out a very accurate passer and 2 great receivers and 1-2 good receivers.   What happened in the KC game is that KC basically doubled up on our best two, AND put good quality DB on the other two.  6 good DB and 5 in the box.  Plus, they put on a heavy pass rush, with 4 or 5 rushing and no gap control.  They shut down our offence.

 

Right now, most people agree that we should build our team around what is needed to beat KC, who are the biggest barrier to getting to the SB.  BUT do not forget that for Miami, the Pats and Jests, we are their first obstacle preventing them from getting to the playoffs and also, we play them twice a year.   Expect them to build their teams to take us on.  I will be interested to see how they draft DB's in 2021.  Miami has 4 picks in the first round and can easily change that into 5 + by dealing their #3 pick. 

 

With that expectation, we have to get "ahead of the curve" and their plans as well.  We are too one dimensional and they can work on stopping that.