OK, armchair analysts: How do we fix this offense?

[Straight Hucklebuck]

30 minutes ago, ngbills said:

Red zone is killing this team. The inability to adjust. The inability to get Diggs the ball. He is invisible in 90% of games now. 

The Bills can't throw a slant. 

 

Steve Johnson made a career on slants. 

 

We can't do it in 2021. 

 

🤷‍♂️

[John from Riverside]

The problems cannot be fixed this season it will have to be addressed in the offseason.

 

Its not just a powerful exposive back that can catch and pass block with vision

 

Its not at least 2 more offensive linemen that want to dominate the player in front of them with a lot of nasty

 

Its both

[ngbills]

10 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

The Bills can't throw a slant. 

 

Steve Johnson made a career on slants. 

 

We can't do it in 2021. 

 

🤷‍♂️

And we have a Qb with a cannon that should be able to hit the tight window. Should be almost a gimme play. 

[cale]

I don't know why we don't promote Antonio Brown and let him carry the rock. I mean, he must be dropping balls all over in practice.

Also Todd Gurley is still out there I think. Time to bring him in.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

5 minutes ago, ngbills said:

And we have a Qb with a cannon that should be able to hit the tight window. Should be almost a gimme play. 

Nothing comes easy to this offense.

 

It’s all toe tapping, sideline diving, low throws from Allen as he’s running, it’s a miracle to get Diggs more than 6 passes a game.

 

 

[Paulus]

9 hours ago, Buftex said:

For better or worse, I don't think we will be seeing a lot more of McKenzie down the stretch.  He may not even be in the lineup.  There has to be something going on behind the scenes between he and McDermott.  If he starts benching everyone who turns the ball over, there won't be a lot of guys left to play.

 

Thanks. I believed the BS narrative, for a minute there. Yup, way deeper than just a fumble. 

8 hours ago, Just in Atlanta said:

Bench Knox and replace with him with ____? No thanks. The one drop wasn't his fault btw. Just a good defensive play. 

Replace him with Gabe Davis, IDC. ***** player off the field, good player on the field. And, Davis is a hellova blocker.

 

I mean, why was Ol' Iron Fingers even active for a game with weather like that?

Edited December 7, 2021 by Paulus

[Solomon Grundy]

28 minutes ago, John from Riverside said:

The problems cannot be fixed this season it will have to be addressed in the offseason.

 

Its not just a powerful exposive back that can catch and pass block with vision

 

Its not at least 2 more offensive linemen that want to dominate the player in front of them with a lot of nasty

 

Its both

Sounds like Trevor Penning and Breece Hall to me

12 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Nothing comes easy to this offense.

 

It’s all toe tapping, sideline diving, low throws from Allen as he’s running, it’s a miracle to get Diggs more than 6 passes a game.

 

 

Missing deep threat!! 

[Old Coot]

This is a difficult question but rests I think on the OL & that's not real repairable at this point in the season -- maybe better O line coaching?

 

Teams take away our long ball and force us to beat them underneath but that requires us to "matriculate" the ball downfield.  To do that the team needs consistently to excute and it doesn't do that.  It all starts with the OL: penalties, inability consistently to run the ball (which is mostly the fault of the OL -- RBs can't run through holes that aren't there).

 

Inability to run the ball  means the DL can focus on rushing the passer which leads to occasional breakdowns in pass protection and that causes our drives to fall short.

 

Lastly I raise a question about Josh's ball placement on his short passes to the flat.  He tends to throw behind the receiver who then must turn his back to the D to make the reception.  This gives the D more time to recover & limit the yardage.  Are QBs taught to throw behind the receiver on these plays or is this just Josh?

[Chaos]

16 hours ago, Just in Atlanta said:

No. 1 in least yards allowed. No. 1 for least points against. No. 4 in turnovers.

 

Despite the whining about this defense being soft, we just held the Patriots to one touchdown. That one TD was a run in which Poyer overcommitted to one side. This defense is actually historically good in a number of ways, with a penchant for getting pushed a bit by power run teams. 

We should have smacked the Patriots by 14 points easily. Mac Jones threw three passes. The Bills are simply way more talented. And, yet, we got whipped by a team we knew was going to run and we couldn't score in the redone save one time. 

The problem clearly is the offense. 

 

I watch Josh in the pocket and he amazes. Stands tall. Solid mechanics. Makes any throw. Escapability. Grit. Passion. Size. And physical toughness. He literally has it all. 

 

We have a tendency to romanticize last year. There were rough spots for sure. But most games this offense was a damn video game. It was historic. This was at least in part thanks to the now-maligned Daboll. 

 

This year, we have: A top 3 WR1 in Diggs - such an instinctive natural receiver. He's Randy Moss-esque. 

 

A top 3 slot receiver: Beasley just gets open. He catches everything. And he fights for the YAC. 

 

But, yes, watching McDaniels/Belichick call runs compared to us is night and day. And we have no rhythm, no push, we struggle in the red zone, and I have no faith we'll find any magic when we're down in the 4th. That last one is the biggest bummer. 

So, what's changed? And how can we improve this so we can at least make a Wild Card?

 

---

 

PS: Please no vapid "Fire Daboll / McD sucks" comments and please offer an actual fix. 

 

(EDIT)

"Pushed a bit"  lol

7 hours ago, Brandon said:

It seems to me to be relatively straightforward.  They're one dimensional.  The front office lost their gamble on the RBs stepping up this year,  and at the same time,  an average interior OL from last year has regressed significantly this season.  They keep trying to establish the run on first down and their inability to do so is putting Allen and the passing game in unfavorable down and distance situations.  Several first down runs by Moss were particularly ineffective last night and it took the Bills far too long to realize it.  

 

There's not much they can do about it for the rest of this season,  except to substitute short passes and screens for a running game. In the off-season,  they need to make major investments in the guards and RBs. 

The average poster on this site realized this problem weeks ago.  Should not even have been part of the game plan. 

9 minutes ago, Old Coot said:

This is a difficult question but rests I think on the OL & that's not real repairable at this point in the season -- maybe better O line coaching?

 

Teams take away our long ball and force us to beat them underneath but that requires us to "matriculate" the ball downfield.  To do that the team needs consistently to excute and it doesn't do that.  It all starts with the OL: penalties, inability consistently to run the ball (which is mostly the fault of the OL -- RBs can't run through holes that aren't there).

 

Inability to run the ball  means the DL can focus on rushing the passer which leads to occasional breakdowns in pass protection and that causes our drives to fall short.

 

Lastly I raise a question about Josh's ball placement on his short passes to the flat.  He tends to throw behind the receiver who then must turn his back to the D to make the reception.  This gives the D more time to recover & limit the yardage.  Are QBs taught to throw behind the receiver on these plays or is this just Josh?

Its just you. 

[4BillsintheBurgh]

5 hours ago, pocoboy said:

 

Any idea when they used top draft capital on one? Or do you just want to argue that a 3rd/5th/7th are a veritable OL haul?

Well, they pulled teller out of the late rounds and brown seems good. Anderson was good enough to get picked off our ps. Cody Ford was a second rounder. He didn't work out, they don't all.  And yes, starting caliber IOL seem to be plentiful in the later rounds. Are you saying we need OT's too?

 

Given our timeline with a rookie qb, seems like veteran oline to start makes sense, don't you think?  Someone on this board mentioned they bumped into morse's dad and he said this was Mitches last year. So you have that going for you. To my untrained eye, Beane structured the veteran contracts to be able to get out of them and they seem to end when a lot of the big contract numbers from our core players kick in. 

[Just in Atlanta]

5 hours ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

The Bills can't throw a slant. 

 

Steve Johnson made a career on slants. 

 

We can't do it in 2021. 

 

🤷‍♂️

One route on the route tree is not the reason we’re losing. I am 100% confident 

the Bills can throw a slant. My flag football QB can throw a slant. 

 

 

 

 

[Kelly's Heroes]

Keeping it simple

 

1 Get a OC, Daboll is horrid

2 Get an OC See #1

3 Get a OL coach with a resume, I think our guy cut his teeth in the Arena league or something.....

4 get better metrics for draft evaluation

 

 

Gonna be difficult with every dollar we have invested in Allen to build a line and Skill on offense..... We are gonna need to do it through the draft. 

 

Players to Retain: Allen, Davis, Knox, Dawkins, Brown, Morse,  Millano, Bass, Punter,  Poyer, White, Wallace, Johnson, Phillips

 

Player to move on from

-Diggs (cost vs production)

-Sanders ( was a waste)

-Oliver , too small for interior and too slow for end, last night on th ebig run he quit on the play.....See the play Judon got hurt on He got beat at the line but then made the tackle  9 yards down field. 

-Hughes ( tooo old no porduction)

-Hyde ( I just think we can spend the money somewhere else or on a more physical player...

-Singletary (not a starter)

-Moss ( no vision several  times he could have bounced it but never does)

-Breda? why was he brought in? Guy is out of football after this season no hands

-Ford BUST

-Felciano no good on the IR

-Star......under achiever

-Sweeney ( nice story but brings nothing to an NFL roster looks JV

-Neal ( does nothing for me) gets called for holding when put into action

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SectionC3]

10 hours ago, goldenboy81 said:

If the bills were so worried about the wind,why didn't they run no huddle in the 2 quarters they had it

Thank you.  I said the same thing standing in the stadium last night.  Maximize snaps with the wind.  

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

At this point I think I'd give up trying to run and just pass, but need to get Allen to buy into short 5 yard passes to force defense to come up, then can open up entire field.

 

Think that was part of the difference from last year, by year end, were mainly passing, but defenses hadn't figured out yet how to defend it.  Now they have, but 5 yard passes should work.

[Milanos Milano]

We need to get drop some Knox to practice with this for a few days. 
 

 

[ngbills]

1 hour ago, Just in Atlanta said:

One route on the route tree is not the reason we’re losing. I am 100% confident 

the Bills can throw a slant. My flag football QB can throw a slant. 

 

 

 

 

And my flag football wr can get open on that slant in man coverage with no help. 

1 hour ago, SectionC3 said:

Thank you.  I said the same thing standing in the stadium last night.  Maximize snaps with the wind.  

You must have heard me yelling from my house the same thing. 

 

[Scott7975]

As much as I criticize Daboll, the game plan was sound yesterday.  Players didn't execute.  Breida fumble.  Knox with 3 drops that killed drives.  Diggs not catching the TD (was a tough catch with the wind but still.) Moss not bouncing outside with a complete open field.  McD trying for a FG instead of a TD.  McD wasting two timeouts. Those reasons are the reasons we lost the game last night.

 

As for fixing the offense... nothing is going to fix it this year.  They have to play better.  McD has to stop messing around with benchings and rotations and just put the best players on the field.  

[Milanos Milano]

Draft Penning and Faalel. Start there. 

[Locomark]

Notice this year we don’t use motion, we don’t use any misdirection on our run plays, no more jet sweep motion, we don’t seem to pull our guards anymore which was successful over the last few years, and lastly we consistently stopped using our sneaky good inside players (Davis, Beasley,Mckenzie) because we think other teams have figured us out.
 

Just use your best talent and do what you do best and stop concerning yourself about how other teams will scheme you. Get out of our own way and let our players play!!   Our coaches are the problem.  The K gun was 25 plays run over and over to perfection. Just beat people with your talent at the skill positions! 
 

As an aside they have some awful players on this field right now at times in Tommy Sweeney and Cody Ford who both can’t block my grandma and should be sitting on the practice squad at most. Just use an OL as a blocking TE since Sweeney doesn’t run any patterns anyway. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Locomark