Theory on why Allen struggles against KC

[NewEra]

10 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

Would KC's defense have to lighten up on the aggressiveness if the Bills could show we could run the ball?

 

Yup

[GunnerBill]

8 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

Would KC's defense have to lighten up on the aggressiveness if the Bills could show we could run the ball?

 

 

Absolutely and it is why I think they really tried to compared to their normal run / pass balance. It doesn't solve everything of course but it makes a pass rush hesitate if you can run into the gaps they are leaving. The problem is the Bills identity is as a passing offense. That is why they are 13-3. Not sure you can play that way against everyone else then just flip a switch when it is the Chiefs. Not easy. They need speed at running back though. They should look for a guy who is maybe overlooked because of size but who can run and accelerates fast. 

[Mr. WEO]

15 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It is this. The match up for the Bills just isn't a great one. KC defends the sort of O the Bills want to run pretty well and it attacks the sort of D the Bills want to run very well. It's a match up league. 

 

The one area where I find fewer excuses for the Bills is their protection schemes. We have protected Josh well this year even against teams who blitz a lot but we have had two awful protection games..... both against the Chiefs. They have to get that figured out. They need to work out what Spags is doing that nobody else has been able to do. That would help our receivers. Because I don't care who you are.... there is no corner in the NFL who can cover Stefon Diggs if Josh gets 3 seconds in the pocket to throw. 

 

They will need another DC to figure that out.

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, Mr. WEO said:

How much of his progression can he go through as he is running backward away from pass rush?  

 

And can we stop with the "why did we put the WR on the field, what about Stills?", etc?  Davis was legit injured.  Beasley was still pretty mobile.  Brown wasn't injured, just not able to get separation anymore.   Stills is a bum--if he was of value they would have activated him and sat Davis.

 

I think Brown is still hurt. I said before that Arizona game which was his last before IR that I thought he needed surgery. I still think he needs surgery. He has been out there not healthy IMO. 

[CincyBillsFan]

It's natural to want to find an explanation for why we lost.  But the sample size versus KC is to small to try to ID an underlining reason.  IMO it comes down to:

 

*  The Chiefs are a better team.  They are defending SB champs with the best record in football.  You tend to lose to that type of team.

 

*  In the first game Allen was dealing with a shoulder injury and in the last game 3 of the 4 Bills WR's were dealing with injury's.  When you're as one dimensional on offense as the Bills are - they depend almost exclusively on the QB to WR pass - you're in trouble when those players aren't 100%.

 

*  The way to counter what KC was doing on defense meant using players that just aren't very good.  The Bill's RB's are at the bottom of the league as pass receivers.  The Bills TE's don't exactly terrify defenses with their pass catching and YAC potential.  The drop by Singleterry on the Bills 2nd possession was huge because not only would it have been a big gain but it would have forced the Chiefs to adjust what they were doing on D. 

 

And to those saying Allen wasn't taking the check downs look at the stats.  Beasley, Knox & Yelden caught 17 passes between them all of the short variety.  And all but one of Diggs receptions was a short pass.  This year the Bills didn't have the offensive personnel to exploit the check down pass.  Only Beasley seemed to be able to make a defender miss after one of these catches.  How many times did Moss or Singleterry juke a guy out after catching a dump off pass? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Royale with Cheese]

3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Absolutely and it is why I think they really tried to compared to their normal run / pass balance. It doesn't solve everything of course but it makes a pass rush hesitate if you can run into the gaps they are leaving. The problem is the Bills identity is as a passing offense. That is why they are 13-3. Not sure you can play that way against everyone else then just flip a switch when it is the Chiefs. Not easy. They need speed at running back though. They should look for a guy who is maybe overlooked because of size but who can run and accelerates fast. 

 

We might identify as a passing offense but I think Daboll/McDermott wanted to be able to run too.  Its why we were going after Bell.

 

I think Singletary is gone and I think we will sign a north/south back with speed....Tevin Coleman?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

11 hours ago, KzooMike said:

KC, along with a great pass rush, which compounds everything, plays the perfect defense to confuse Josh. Don't let him eliminate routes and make him go through the whole progression. If you watch the first half, Josh looked confused. We haven't seen him look like that in some time. He looked like he didn't know where the ball was supposed to go and threw what was likely his easiest INT ball all year. KC just dropped it.

 

11 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

Maybe some of their linebackers were moving around. But 80% of the game, their secondary was lined up in cover one press, ran a bunch of robber, or feigned robber and played cover two man press

 

They weren't that confusing pre-snap. 

They pressed and manned up on our receivers the whole game, while dialing in the blitz

 

I think, rather than theorizing, it helps to start with what information has been provided.  And I distrust theories based on "Josh looked thisaway".   Like we can perceive his mental state through the facemask and chinstrap?  When you say he's "confused" I think what you're looking at is hesitance to throw.

 

Clearly our WR were struggling against press man, which involved a bunch of uncalled grabbing-and-holding.  The Ravens did that a fair bit, but KC raised it to a whole new level.  I think what Josh looked, is hesitant to throw because he was anticipating his guys to break open and they weren't breaking as expected.

 

I would suggest listening to Josh's end of season press conference and his end of game press conference.  He says "I was pressing a bit in the first half" meaning, he had open checkdown or short routes he was passing up looking for the deep shot. In the end of season, he talks specifically about a sequence of plays that involved the near-pick.

 

He also does talk about some confusing coverage, where KC showed cover-0, he audibled, then they switched out of it pre-snap but he didn't have time to return to the original play.  I think the crowd noise did play a factor in that.

 

[ghostwriter]

He had a 2:1 TD ratio, nearly 300 yards passing and 100 yards rushing.. that’s not choking. Buffalo simply needs to build a more complete team.

[Buffalo_Stampede]

11 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

They weren't doing anything confusing on defense

 

They were pressing our receivers and mugging them downfield. can't get separation when you're being mugged and the refs are holding the flag 

 

Josh couldn't get rid of the ball because there was no open receivers downfield

 

 

Josh doesn't like to dink and dunk. That's what was there. 

[gobills404]

I think this is the main reason.

He was also pressured on 55% of his dropbacks in the first meeting.

[CincyBillsFan]

4 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Absolutely and it is why I think they really tried to compared to their normal run / pass balance. It doesn't solve everything of course but it makes a pass rush hesitate if you can run into the gaps they are leaving. The problem is the Bills identity is as a passing offense. That is why they are 13-3. Not sure you can play that way against everyone else then just flip a switch when it is the Chiefs. Not easy. They need speed at running back though. They should look for a guy who is maybe overlooked because of size but who can run and accelerates fast. 

 

Bingo and this is why Allen had so many designed runs against the Colts.  But we're not Baltimore and the fact that Allen more then doubled up the rushing yards of our RB's in 2 of the 3 playoff games is a big problem.

 

And it wouldn't take much from one of our RB's to shake up the kind of defense the Chief were playing.  If Singleterry catches that pass and runs down the sideline for 30 yards it forces the Chiefs to rethink what they're doing.  A run up the middle that busts open for 25 yards is going to give a D coordinator heartburn.  Did we have even one run of that kind the entire season?

 

Our RB's are slow and not very elusive. They have almost no power and Singleterry doesn't have good hands.  The one thing they do well is pick up the blitz on pass plays.  But Sunday we had to use Yelden to get the production Singleterry wasn't giving us. The problem was that Yelden missed the blitz pickup a couple of times resulting in Allen running for his life.  It was a case of pick your poison.

 

The good news is that IMO this is a relatively easy off season fix.

 

 

 

 

[Coach Tuesday]

Sure seemed like the Chiefs knew the playcalls and had the perfect coverage/defense every single time.

[Big Turk]

12 hours ago, KzooMike said:

In order to be good you need to know where to throw the ball, then you execute quickly and accurately. We always knew if Josh ever got to a point where he didn't have to see a player come open but rather anticipate it, with his natural talent, the sky is the limit. KC has a good pass defense, that said, we underperformed dramatically against them this year. This made me wonder if two things that stuck with me recently might tell some of the story on why we struggle vs KC.   

 

• In a recent SI article (Genius of Brian Daboll) it discusses how Daboll coaches players to remove options in the route tree based on coverage. So instead of teaching a player who is the guy, you focus on teaching him who isn't. 
• This season, Buffalo increased it's rate of motion from 2019 by 27%, that is nearly 12% more than the next closest team. Daboll had players moving pre snap at one of the highest rates in the NFL. Most the time motion is used to diagnose coverage. 
• KC is one of the best teams in the NFL at hiding coverages

 

KC, along with a great pass rush, which compounds everything, plays the perfect defense to confuse Josh. Don't let him eliminate routes and make him go through the whole progression. If you watch the first half, Josh looked confused. We haven't seen him look like that in some time. He looked like he didn't know where the ball was supposed to go and threw what was likely his easiest INT ball all year. KC just dropped it.

 

It almost makes you wonder why more teams don't play Allen like the Chiefs. Well, let me ask you, how would the Bills play Allen? Cover 2 Zone, we wouldn't change. Teams are stubborn to identity. This is just like asking why don't teams motion more when motion has been statistically proven to have a + EPA?

 

We also struggle against NE. All but the last one. NE seems like a team that could care less about identity and likely employs a lot of hidden coverages. That said, the Chiefs are the best at this. Just a theory, discuss or call names....   

 

The issue is something the Bills are not doing well up front.  KC is NOT a great pass rush team by any metric.  However, they consistently in both games generated a LOT of pressure both when blitzing and via only rushing 4. It is really inexcusable to allow a team that is poor by NFL standards to basically look like the Steel Curtain when pass rushing you. Whatever their issues are they need to get them cleaned up. Cannot continue to play that poorly on offense against a team that you have no real reason to.

8 minutes ago, gobills404 said:

I think this is the main reason.

He was also pressured on 55% of his dropbacks in the first meeting.

 

Its inexcusable.  KC is NOT a good pass rushing team by any metric.  Bills OLine really needs to go to work on figuring out what went wrong because it is embarrassing to let a team that is not good at something normally just make you look silly in both games.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Big Turk

[GunnerBill]

15 minutes ago, gobills404 said:

I think this is the main reason.

He was also pressured on 55% of his dropbacks in the first meeting.

 

Agree. When I get the time I am going to just sit and focus on those pressure downs. The drop off between our pass pro against everyone else and our pass pro against KC is definitely puzzling. 

[Big Turk]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Agree. When I get the time I am going to just sit and focus on those pressure downs. The drop off between our pass pro against everyone else and our pass pro against KC is definitely puzzling. 

 

I agree and it is inexcusable.  It would be one thing if KC was actually good at this normally but they aren't.

[djp14150]

12 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I was watching the game highlights today from the Bucs/Chiefs game to see how they defensed Brady. it was pretty similar.
 

How did Brady handle it? Check downs. Gronk and Jones had huge days on simple crosses and dump downs. 
 

I think those were there last night and josh didn’t take them. I also think the little crosses to Knox were there all night— but were rarely called. Once, I think. The chiefs can’t cover those very well. Other teams target their LB’s and Sorenson in coverage on those.

iirc KC built a big lead so they played softer.

[dave mcbride]

12 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

I was watching the game highlights today from the Bucs/Chiefs game to see how they defensed Brady. it was pretty similar.
 

How did Brady handle it? Check downs. Gronk and Jones had huge days on simple crosses and dump downs. 
 

I think those were there last night and josh didn’t take them. I also think the little crosses to Knox were there all night— but were rarely called. Once, I think. The chiefs can’t cover those very well. Other teams target their LB’s and Sorenson in coverage on those.

As I said, he refused to take a lot of easy gainers throughout the game. Josh didn't play well on Sunday night, especially with regard to decision making. He'll get better.

[Big Turk]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Absolutely and it is why I think they really tried to compared to their normal run / pass balance. It doesn't solve everything of course but it makes a pass rush hesitate if you can run into the gaps they are leaving. The problem is the Bills identity is as a passing offense. That is why they are 13-3. Not sure you can play that way against everyone else then just flip a switch when it is the Chiefs. Not easy. They need speed at running back though. They should look for a guy who is maybe overlooked because of size but who can run and accelerates fast. 

 

Here is the issue tho.  Why did it not matter in the vast majority of games this year?  We played much much better pass rushing teams than the Chiefs, blocked them up well and shredded them. No excuse to allow a poor pass rushing team against every other team in the NFL to look like the 85 Bears both games against us.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Big Turk

[Jrb1979]

I really wonder if crowd noise had an affect on Allen.  Playing with no noise probably helped a lot. 

[GunnerBill]

18 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

Here is the issue tho.  Why did it not matter in the vast majority of games this year?  We played much much better pass rushing teams than the Chiefs, blocked them up well and shredded them. No excuse to allow a poor pass rushing team against every other team in the NFL to look like the 85 Bears both games against us.

 

As I said not really had a chance to dig into the tape yet and compare the way KC rushed us to the way others did.