Allen: "The Fumble" Context

[starrymessenger]

As has been mentioned Josh seems to have issues executing the QB sneak when the game is on the line. You can't disregard the similarity between when Simmons blew up Dawkins and Josh slipped last year and the fumbled exchange yesterday. Maybe in those situations Josh is simply too amped up and not collected enuf. In principle you'd think that with a guy like him it should be automatic. Lots of posters were calling for more QB sneaks on short yardage attempts. As for whether it was the right call or not, I could be wrong but it looked to me like there was room for him to easily gain at least a couple of yards through the A gap to his right and I got the impression that's where he was planning to go except he forgot to bring the ball. For sure there were other playcalls that should have resulted in a victory. Bills blew it.

[Livinginthepast]

The sneak is the right call if a) Allen is 100% and b) you are good at them and its a high % play in your offense and c) if your line is good at blowing up the opposition with their burst out of the snap.   Unfortunately all 3 criteria were not true for the Bills yesterday. The Bills line is awful on sneaks. They get blown up all the time in short yardage situations and most of the successful sneaks were on Allen's athletic ability. Finally Allen's elbow is iffy . Why did they ask him to sneak it? he had also been dinged on a foolish tackle on his INT which may have further aggravated his previous injury then that makes the sneak call even more dubious.

[Airseven]

2 hours ago, without a drought said:

No one was being asked to do anything that isn't basic fundamentals.

True. Except Bills have failed to execute basic fundamentals, particularly in short down and distance, plenty already this season. Sometimes you have to make a prudent play call taking your shortcomings into account.

[reddogblitz]

15 hours ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

We did. 

 

 

Sorry, but a little 2 handed push to Wonder Boy's backside ain't gonna get it done.  If you MUST run this play in that situation put somebody big back there and seriously push.

 

 

[DuckyBoys]

Bills O line sucks at run blocking straight up No clue why they ran a sneak there but it was a stupid play call

[JohnBonhamRocks]

No problem with the sneak, but (a) I think this is a situation the Davis motion doesn’t make sense as I’d rather just have the guy doing the pushing line up right behind Allen to not give away the snap timing, and (b) we should have otherwise went 4 wide to at least get some guys out of the box. 

[97bills]

11 hours ago, Gisele said:

The big problem I see is that we are doing the Gabe push way too often.  The defense knew when we were going to snap the ball because Davis stopped behind Josh.   Dorsey isn't calling anything different week to week and defenses have figured us out.  Dorsey is new and I expect this from him.  McDermott is not and he has veto power.  

I thought about that last week when they did it. I knew 💯 they weren’t getting out of the end zone, our oline gets blown up way to much. When we run on 2-1 there’s two guys immediately in the backfield. 

 

[McDeerInTheHeadlights]

21 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Morse or Allen?  Who f***ed up the most basic play involving the QB and center.  Inexcusable. 😡

 

Most people seem to point 100% at Allen, and perhaps that is the case. Yet I believe that even Morse, with his history of concussions, may get a bit uncomfortable and less fluid in his execution, being the pivot of line and knowing that a pair of 300+ lbs behemoths will essentially be trying to blow him up on those situations.

[Green Lightning]

Coaching is killing us. On the one foot line in a bunch formation with a week IOL - what could go wrong?  Snap it to Josh, let him run it out for a yard or throw it away and then do it again until your out. 45 seconds and four downs, for Crissake.

[BuffaloRebound]

13 hours ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

No problem with the sneak, but (a) I think this is a situation the Davis motion doesn’t make sense as I’d rather just have the guy doing the pushing line up right behind Allen to not give away the snap timing, and (b) we should have otherwise went 4 wide to at least get some guys out of the box. 

Great point about the Davis motion giving away the snap timing.  

A smart staff that can think on its feet would’ve put Davis in motion and had josh do a hard count when Davis got behind Josh.  Would’ve almost certainly drawn the vikings Offside.  

McDermott is elite at game preparation, but sub-par at snap decisions.  Best evidence of that is his challenge record.  

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

On 11/13/2022 at 10:45 PM, KzooMike said:

As far as I'm aware the Miracle in the Meadowlands is the only other time in NFL history a team was in position to run out the clock then preceded to fumble with the other team scoring a TD to take the lead. 

 

While I have several situations I don't care for the direction of our coaching, I don't think we should be attacking the logic on this play. 41 seconds were left, enough time for us to drive the field and tie the game. Which means enough time for Minnesota to have done the same had we taken the safety. Imagine how bad the coaching decision would have looked if we took the intentional safety, then Minnesota drove the field and kicked a game winner? One other time in NFL history this has occurred. It was the correct decision to run the sneak. Perhaps the coaching tip you hope would occur is just telling Josh not to rush. Clean handoff is priority #1, if it results in a Safety it's not the worst thing but any QB in the NFL should be expected to take a handoff and not lose yardage. It's unlikely any of us will witness something like this again.    

Exactly. If Buffalo had decided to hand it off and Singletary got tackled for a loss and Minnesota scored a quick TD for the win, this board would’ve went nuts and wondered why they didn’t call a sneak w/ 6’5 240 lb QB. It was absolutely the right call. Allen ****ed up. That’s the Bills for you..

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

28 minutes ago, BuffaloRebound said:

Great point about the Davis motion giving away the snap timing.  

A smart staff that can think on its feet would’ve put Davis in motion and had josh do a hard count when Davis got behind Josh.  Would’ve almost certainly drawn the vikings Offside.  

McDermott is elite at game preparation, but sub-par at snap decisions.  Best evidence of that is his challenge record.  

 

Worst case you move back what... half an inch? Hard count- worst case is false start or delay of game.  Best case - game.

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

On 11/13/2022 at 10:45 PM, KzooMike said:

As far as I'm aware the Miracle in the Meadowlands is the only other time in NFL history a team was in position to run out the clock then preceded to fumble with the other team scoring a TD to take the lead. 

 

While I have several situations I don't care for the direction of our coaching, I don't think we should be attacking the logic on this play. 41 seconds were left, enough time for us to drive the field and tie the game. Which means enough time for Minnesota to have done the same had we taken the safety. Imagine how bad the coaching decision would have looked if we took the intentional safety, then Minnesota drove the field and kicked a game winner? One other time in NFL history this has occurred. It was the correct decision to run the sneak. Perhaps the coaching tip you hope would occur is just telling Josh not to rush. Clean handoff is priority #1, if it results in a Safety it's not the worst thing but any QB in the NFL should be expected to take a handoff and not lose yardage. It's unlikely any of us will witness something like this again.    

I’ve been seein the same thing…I also don’t think a sneak has lost a half yard in history.  I’m not sure you even can physically lose a half yard on a sneak…they’d rule the qbs forward progress stopped long before that.  If josh was rushing he was likely looking ahead to the next play thinking ‘oh man if we lose a little bit on this sneak we might be in trouble on the next one’

[DapperCam]

A lot of people criticizing the playcall being a sneak. What difference does it make if we can’t even get the snap clean?

Edited November 15, 2022 by DapperCam

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

3 minutes ago, DapperCam said:

A lot of people criticizing the playcall being a sneak. What difference does it make if we can’t even get the handoff clean?

That’s a good point and the criticism doesn’t make sense to me either…I don’t think it’s physically possible to lose a half yard on a single sneak assuming the snap is clean.  And if they got straight up stonewalled on sneak one and lost a little bit they have the option of running a different play on sneak 2.

 

the ‘getting antsy by your own goal line so the snap went bad’ isn’t exclusive to sneaks at all

Edited November 15, 2022 by Generic_Bills_Fan