The Athletic: Bills aren’t just trying to avoid 3rd & long, they are trying to avoid 3rd down altogether

[PromoTheRobot]

4 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

 

Can they also take the Stanley cup?? A trifecta…..

 

Well they have the goaltending.

 

 

 

[John from Riverside]

17 hours ago, without a drought said:

Not really,  I'm good with the way things are.

Always good to have options......see Chiefs game

[Richard Noggin]

17 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

Right so if you design every play to hit 6 or 7 yards, you avoid lots of third downs- which is what the thread topic is.

One could make the argument that an offense DESIGNED to gain 6-7 yards per successful play is more of a dink and dunk approach that would RELY upon a high 3rd down conversion rate. Usually about 2 out of 3 plays succeed, for good offenses (if we look at QB completion percentages, for example), so...there would be 3rd downs as such an attack matriculates down the field. 

 

Just saying. It's not quite as simple and implicit as you might think. I really saw those Patriots offenses thriving in 3rd-and-managable. 

[BigDingus]

On 8/18/2021 at 11:54 AM, billsfan89 said:

In years past when it was third and long I would assume it would be a greater than 90% chance that the Bills would punt. With Josh in 2020 I was pretty confident the offense would have at least a solid 40% chance to keep the ball (not sure on the actual percentages of the teams third down success but that's just what it felt like to me). I almost never feel like the team is out on a possession. 

 

On the flip side, I feel like our opponents always have a 95% chance to convert on 3rd & long lol

 

It's probably the Bills PTSD talking, but whenever I see 3rd & 12 or 3rd & 19, it just feels like no matter what happens, the opponent is going to convert. 3rd & 5 though? They got that locked down 

[billsfan89]

1 hour ago, BigDingus said:

 

On the flip side, I feel like our opponents always have a 95% chance to convert on 3rd & long lol

 

It's probably the Bills PTSD talking, but whenever I see 3rd & 12 or 3rd & 19, it just feels like no matter what happens, the opponent is going to convert. 3rd & 5 though? They got that locked down 

There definitely was some sort of issue on third and long in 2020. Especially against better offenses it was a huge issue. It was just odd since I felt like in 2019 the defense was pretty solid on closing the door on third and long. 

[FieldGeneral]

With Allen's tendency to run around backwards, 3rd and long happens a lot. Sure, the occasional NE MNF TD happens, but more often than not, bad things happen.