Bills Offense - Why it Frustrates- Why Total Productivity is Not Likely to Improve (there will Math)

[Chaos]

Josh should do this, Ken Dorsey is not good enough, we need more run balance,  blah de blah de blad de blah.  

In measuring an offense, the most important statisitics is points per drive.   In football drives alternate.  Each team gets the exact same number in a game within 1 drive. A drive that turns the balls over on downs on the opponents five yard line is exactly the same out come as a punt that goes out of bounds at the opponents five.   Emotionally fans want to hurl something at the tv in the first case, and want to talk about how great their special teams are in the second case.  Emotions aside, the drive ended in zero points with the ball on the opponents five yard line and now the other team has the ball. Exactly the same outcome.

 

In 2023 there were five offenses that were more than one standard deviation above the average from the rest of the NFL.  Three of the five made NFL championship games. Lions and Bills were the other two.  The Bills were second overall, trailing only the Chiefs.  But the frustration for fans comes from the fact that the Bills are 16th in redzone point production.  The Bills turn into an average NFL team in the redzone, it would appear.  While frustrating, the Bills offense was still the second most efficient in the NFL per drive in 2023.  If the Bills could improve the redzone offense to the Chiefs level, while maintaining the dynamic big play offense they have, they could be come the top offense in the NFL in 2023.  But staying in the elite group of being more than 1 STD deviation above the average is a more realistic goal (same for all the others already in that group).  There just is not much juice left to squeeze out in the TOTAL regular season points lemon.  I love the Bills off season moves on online and drafting Kincaid.  But the end regular season result (if as fans we are lucky) is that the Bills will achieve the same excellent results overall, just in a different way. 
 

In the first paragraph I set motions aside in terms of statistics.  However emotions do have impact in an individual football play or individual game.  If one combines the Red Zone averageness together with the Bills playoff averageness , one might surmise that there is a pattern of a problem to close.  The psychological inability to close is a real thing, and this is the main area the Bills need to work on.   If the Bills revamped offense, becomes top 5 in red zone offense in the regular season in 2023, it could mean that they have improved in the ability to close the deal, which might bode well for a deeper playoff run.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Chaos

[GunnerBill]

Linked to the psychological closing issue is the number if games the Bills lose by 1 score where our offense has the ball last. All 3 defeats last year in the regular season fall into that category and over the last 2 years it has been a recurring issue. That shouldn't be happening with an elite QB and it may well be partly mental.

 

However, I think both - redzone and end of game - are the situations where the pressure rachets up on our pass protection and it invariably has failed.

[Chaos]

8 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

Linked to the psychological closing issue is the number if games the Bills lose by 1 score where our offense has the ball last. All 3 defeats last year in the regular season fall into that category and over the last 2 years it has been a recurring issue. That shouldn't be happening with an elite QB and it may well be partly mental.

 

However, I think both - redzone and end of game - are the situations where the pressure rachets up on our pass protection and it invariably has failed.

I agree with the point.  But I think failure in those games is not limited to the last drive.  It is the Bills putting themselves into that position in the first place.  Some of those were games were Bills should have been in a position to be in victory formation in those final drives.  Tom Brady had his heroics.  But Bellichek always put his foot on the opponents throat the entire game once he had a lead and mostly did not need final drive heroics. The Bills don't have seem to have that ruthless instinct. 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Chaos

[GunnerBill]

6 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I agree with the point.  But I think failure in those games is not limited to the last drive.  It is the Bills putting themselves into that position in the first place.  Some of those were games were Bills should have been in a position to be in victory formation in those final drives.  Tom Brady had his heroics.  But Bellichek always put his foot on the opponents throat the entire game once he had a lead and mostly did not need final drive heroics. The Bills don't have seem to have that ruthless instinct. 

 

Yea but the NFL is a parity league. There will be 5 or 6 games every year where it comes down to the end. There were years Brady had to pull late game heroics even against bad teams. Of course everyone knows the Bills made mistakes earlier in some of those losses. But they had the ball with a realistic chance to win in all 3 and didn't get it done. They have to be better in those sceanrios.

[Matt_In_NH]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

Linked to the psychological closing issue is the number if games the Bills lose by 1 score where our offense has the ball last. All 3 defeats last year in the regular season fall into that category and over the last 2 years it has been a recurring issue. That shouldn't be happening with an elite QB and it may well be partly mental.

 

However, I think both - redzone and end of game - are the situations where the pressure rachets up on our pass protection and it invariably has failed.

I dont think the bolded is real.  The Chiefs lost 3 games last year, in two of them Mahomes threw an INT to end the game.  You dont win all your games, no one does and many times  you end the game with the ball.  2021 is an anomaly.....Allen has been great against Mahomes in money situations.  The difference is lack of super bowl's.

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

But the frustration for fans comes from the fact that the Bills are 16th in redzone point production.  The Bills turn into an average NFL team in the redzone, it would appear.  While frustrating, the Bills offense was still the second most efficient in the NFL per drive in 2023. 

 

I have been saying this  all offseason...fans are upset because yeah the offense scored points but it did not look easy enough.   I think the "look easy enough" correlates with the redzone numbers.  I agree, they can improve but the overall output isn't likely to change much.  At this point it is Super Bowl or bust with this team, the expectations are sky high and they should be.  Does not really matter what happens in the regular season if they lay an egg in the playoffs.

[Saint Doug]

Statistically, the Bills offense does not need to improve. There are 2 things holding the team back. The inability of the defense to close out a game (see Vikings game) and offense taking games off (Bangles). These are the types of things that don’t show up in offensive season averages. 

[Augie]

I can’t wait for football to start. 

[Lost]

We need to work on the Pat Mahomes special...naked bootleg shovel pass into the EZ.

[Nextmanup]

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

the drive ended in zero points with the ball on the opponents five yard line and now the other team has the ball. Exactly the same outcome.

Do me a favor, call up McClappy and try to teach him this very simple concept.

Actually, he has gotten BETTER with this sort of thing over TIME, but man, we have all paid for his learning curve.

 

And in other similar areas, he's still very much in the dark.  

 

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

The psychological inability to close is a real thing, and this is the main area the Bills need to work on. 

Some would agree with this (including me) a LOT of others would NOT.

 

Very much a debatable point.

 

PS:  You are shoving a season worth of data into 1 stat; that's misleading with the Bills' offense last season IMO, in the sense that we can be such a volatile offense, and there can be such a diversity in opponent strength, that some games we pad the numbers, while in others we really struggle.

 

To boil it all down and say "we are no. 2" sounds amazing, but misses the point that we struggled MIGHTILY in some of the biggest games of the season, and were most certainly NOT functioning as the league's second best offense.

 

 

[GunnerBill]

41 minutes ago, Matt_In_NH said:

I dont think the bolded is real.  The Chiefs lost 3 games last year, in two of them Mahomes threw an INT to end the game.  You dont win all your games, no one does and many times  you end the game with the ball. 

 

Of course you don't. But the last two season the Bills have lost too many times with the offense having the ball last. They have to be better. I think that starts up front, but there may be a mental element to it too.

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Saint Doug said:

Statistically, the Bills offense does not need to improve. There are 2 things holding the team back. The inability of the defense to close out a game (see Vikings game) and offense taking games off (Bangles). These are the types of things that don’t show up in offensive season averages. 

They do show up in the playoffs though.

[Artful Dodger]

My statistics are a little rusty, but since you're hitting us with math, shouldn't one standard deviation above the norm put a team in the top third of all offenses?

[Heavy Kevi]

I read this a different way.

 

Bills were 2nd in pts/drive despite being average (quite literally) in the RZ.

 

RZ production took a big nosedive last year. With Allen, Bills have been near the top of the league in RZ production until '22.

 

Ergo, if RZ production returns to normal (top 10 at least), Bills will be significantly better (and probably first in the league in pts/drive)

 

Furthermore, the Bills had the fewest amount of drives in the entire NFL last year (close to CIN, because one less game), and even though this is an averages chart, another 8-10 bites at the apple might yield different results.

 

The long and the short of it is this: Bills were better than they looked like last year, and scored alot early in the season, which left a bad taste in fans' mouth. They still finished 2nd in pts/GM while all hell broke loose. Wait until the stars align. If a team is this good, even under crazy circumstances of last year, just have fun and watch...

 

...because one of these years we will get the bounces to go our way, and this team/Josh is good enough to bring one home.

[JerseyBills]

I think it's impressive and encouraging we're able to rank 2nd in ppd with such poor rz execution. 

I just think that's very fixable issue with the right play calling and hopefully way better run game, I'm guessing we were bottom of the league in rush attempts in the rz .

[GoBills808]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

Linked to the psychological closing issue is the number if games the Bills lose by 1 score where our offense has the ball last. All 3 defeats last year in the regular season fall into that category and over the last 2 years it has been a recurring issue. That shouldn't be happening with an elite QB and it may well be partly mental.

 

However, I think both - redzone and end of game - are the situations where the pressure rachets up on our pass protection and it invariably has failed.

2/3 of the Chiefs regular season losses last year where 1 score games where their offense had the ball last

[Shaw66]

I agree with Chaos and Gunner.  I think the red zone issue isn't all that big.  If you're second in points per drive, that's enough be a winner.

 

But I've felt the psychological piece ever since the Houston playoff game.  There are too many games where it just feels like the Bills aren't in charge when they should be, and I do equate it to some kind of killer instinct.  At the end of the game, Rodgers and Brady are emotionally draining for the opponent.  They make you feel like they're making the blood run out of your veins.  Josh and the Bills don't do that.

 

As I watched last season i was glad the Bills had Miller, because he sucks life out of the offense.  When the time comes to win the game, he makes plays. And the biggest problem I had with Edmunds was the opposite - when the time came to make plays, he played like he was 5'5" instead of 6'5".

 

It's a complicated thing.  It's on the coaches AND the players.  McDermott has that fire personally, but I don't know that he ignites his team.  It's also a reason I'm glad Frazier is gone.  No fire that I could see.  

 

Not sure what the answer is, but I do think this a fundamental problem with this team.

 

[SoCal Deek]

Or the Bills could just run the goal line play where the TE sneaks out the opposite side of the formation only to be standing wide open in the back of the end zone…like every other team has learned to do for decades now. But nope! We’re gonna live and die by the 50/50 ball fade route even if it kills us! 😉

[NewEra]

Enter Kincaid

[Big Turk]

5 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

Linked to the psychological closing issue is the number if games the Bills lose by 1 score where our offense has the ball last. All 3 defeats last year in the regular season fall into that category and over the last 2 years it has been a recurring issue. That shouldn't be happening with an elite QB and it may well be partly mental.

 

However, I think both - redzone and end of game - are the situations where the pressure rachets up on our pass protection and it invariably has failed.

 

I have a hard time putting it on Allen when he has repeatedly given us leads late in games that the D can't hold with under 2 minutes left. If anything, the defense lacks clutch ability, Allen certainly does not.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Big Turk

[GoBills808]

6 minutes ago, NewEra said:

Enter Kincaid

I have hopes for this kid but in the redzone where space is compressed and being able to diagnose leverage quickly against NFL pros...that's not where I'm expecting him to really shine tbh