FMIA Some good Bills info

[TPS]

Peter King's first installment of the new season has some interesting info on the Bills' pass rush from Next Gen Stats:

Quote

On this play late in the first half, the Bills lined up, left to right, edge-rusher Miller, interior players Daquon Jones and Jordan Phillips and defensive end Epenesa. The Rams countered with their five-man front. Smartly, they chose to block Miller with the right guard and right tackle. That left Epenesa on left tackle Joe Noteboom, Phillips on left guard David Edwards and Jones on center Brian Allen.

NGS has a cool device, pass-rush get-off time, that, through the tracking devices secured in player jerseys, clocks how long it takes the shoulder pads of rushers to cross the line of scrimmage after the snap of the ball. The best rushers combine snap anticipation and acceleration at the snap, and the fastest/quickest players average about 0.8 seconds. Here’s where the four Bills were on this rush:

Miller, 0.62 seconds.

Epenesa, 0.62 seconds.

Jones, 0.92 seconds

Phillips, 1.02 seconds.

Collectively, that’s very strong. On the edge, it’s absolutely superior. The Rams needed every bit of their two blockers to neutralize the speed of Miller on the offensive right. On the left, the quick get-off of Epenesa worked well; he ducked inside the block of Noteboom while Phillips ran an outside stunt around Noteboom. Jones bullrushed Allen. All three rushers met at Stafford, enveloping him for a nine-yard sack. This will be an embarrassing play to review inside the Rams’ offensive film room.

A lot of talk in the preseason about Epenesa, and that get-off time = to Miller's is impressive.  The pressure rates were impressive too:

Quote

On Stafford’s 48 pass-drops, he had an average of 2.70 seconds to throw, per NGS. That’s worse, but not a lot worse, than Stafford’s 2021 average of 2.80 seconds to throw. But the story of his night was the pressure coming from the Bills’ front. One Ram (Aaron Donald, three) had three or more pressures in the game. Five Bills did. Those players, with the percentage of pressures to pass-rushes, per NGS figures: Phillips six (26.1 percent), Miller five (20.8 percent), Epenesa five (18.5 percent), Jones four (12.9 percent), Rousseau three (9.4 percent).

There's some other Bills info in the link and some really good stuff on Dabol's decision to go for 2:

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/09/12/saquon-barkley-giants-peter-king-fmia-week-1/?cid=fmiatw

 

Favorite part of it was "Tweets of the week" with this nugget...

 

[scuba guy]

Interesting how fast epenesa is compared to Miller.

 

Tbdembers say he was going to be a camp cut

[BillnutinHouston]

Good stuff, thanks!

[Sierra Foothills]

1 hour ago, scuba guy said:

Interesting how fast epenesa is compared to Miller.

 

Tbdembers say he was going to be a camp cut

 

Let me preface this by saying I wanted the Bills to draft Epenesa in 2020 and was super happy when we did.

 

Just a reminder that Epenesa had his best game of the season in week 2 last year and didn't do anything for the rest of the year.

 

So IMO, AJ has a ton to prove, or put differently he's proven nothing yet.

 

[billybrew1]

I think our Three Kids are alright!

 

and they had a great offseason! Special thanks to Von and Brrrrrruuuuuuccccce….

[Warcodered]

1 hour ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

Let me preface this by saying I wanted the Bills to draft Epenesa in 2020 and was super happy when we did.

 

Just a reminder that Epenesa had his best game of the season in week 2 last year and didn't do anything for the rest of the year.

 

So IMO, AJ has a ton to prove, or put differently he's proven nothing yet.

 

So what I'm getting from this is he'll be even better next week.

[John from Riverside]

6 hours ago, scuba guy said:

Interesting how fast epenesa is compared to Miller.

 

Tbdembers say he was going to be a camp cut

I thought for sure he was going to get traded I will be very happy to be wrong if he ends up being a solid rotational guy for us or more

2 hours ago, billybrew1 said:

I think our Three Kids are alright!

 

and they had a great offseason! Special thanks to Von and Brrrrrruuuuuuccccce….

There was a lot of scuttlebutt people asking why in the world we were going with rook corners And DaneJackson is only in his third year in the system

 

When you can get consistent pass rush upfront not just pressure but really get after the quarterback consistently you can play younger players because they don’t have to cover as long

[Aussie Joe]

burnt toast