All-22 1st Half Analysis

[GoBills808]

1 hour ago, Scott7975 said:

 

This is the point that Allen decides to throw to Davis on that Int. It doesn't look like a bad read to me. He isn't really throwing into double coverage like people are crying about.  It just ends up that way due to route, time, and ball placement.  Sure he could throw to kincaid here who would get nailed by the time the ball got there by the same guy that is "double covering Davis."  He could also throw to Diggs, who Allen hasn't even looked at because he read Davis. Diggs would also be nailed by the time Josh looked his way and the ball got there.  Look at the space towards the sideline.  Thats a play that could have and should have happened IMO.  It just didn't.  

 

I'll blame Allen for the Int here but I am not going to blame the decision.  He isn't "double covered."  A better route and ball and thats 15-20 easy yards.

this is what they mean when they say reads are deep to shallow

[Scott7975]

3 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

this is what they mean when they say reads are deep to shallow

 

Yeah and my opinion is the read is fine. Davis should be open.

[Simon]

8 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Yeah and my opinion is the read is fine. Davis should be open.

Multiple professionals disagree with that assessment and believe Kincaid for the first down is the right option.

In real time, I thought Diggs' drag was the right read.

Both were better options than trying to squeeze that thing into that coverage

[buffblue]

1 hour ago, Scott7975 said:

 

This is the point that Allen decides to throw to Davis on that Int. It doesn't look like a bad read to me. He isn't really throwing into double coverage like people are crying about.  It just ends up that way due to route, time, and ball placement.  Sure he could throw to kincaid here who would get nailed by the time the ball got there by the same guy that is "double covering Davis."  He could also throw to Diggs, who Allen hasn't even looked at because he read Davis. Diggs would also be nailed by the time Josh looked his way and the ball got there.  Look at the space towards the sideline.  Thats a play that could have and should have happened IMO.  It just didn't.  

 

I'll blame Allen for the Int here but I am not going to blame the decision.  He isn't "double covered."  A better route and ball and thats 15-20 easy yards.

Out of Allen's interceptions the throw to Davis was the least egregious. A bad result, but not mind bogglingly stupid where there was room to scramble or just deciding to chuck it deep into double coverage 

Edited September 13, 2023 by buffblue

[Motorin']

52 minutes ago, Simon said:

Multiple professionals disagree with that assessment and believe Kincaid for the first down is the right option.

In real time, I thought Diggs' drag was the right read.

Both were better options than trying to squeeze that thing into that coverage

 

Sauce was breaking on Kincaid, he didn't have Davis covered. Davis telegraphed his route the whole way and rounded his cut, which gave the S the time he needed to break underneath. 

 

Had Davis froze him for one step and made a sharp cut it was an easy completion. 

[Scott7975]

52 minutes ago, Simon said:

Multiple professionals disagree with that assessment and believe Kincaid for the first down is the right option.

In real time, I thought Diggs' drag was the right read.

Both were better options than trying to squeeze that thing into that coverage

 

Well they all smarter than I am. (Not sarcasm.) What I see though is Davis is not double covered.  I believe Sauce is the trailing guy. He is actually headed towards Kincaid in this moment. There is a ton of space between Davis and the sideline. That throw should be there.  Especially with a deep to shallow read.  That would make Davis the first read... if the throw is there it would be taken.  By the time he got back to him the route would be over.  JMO.

Just now, Motorin' said:

 

Sauce was breaking on Kincaid, he didn't have Davis covered. Davis telegraphed his route the whole way and rounded his cut, which gave the S the time he needed to break underneath. 

 

Had Davis froze him for one step and made a sharp cut it was an easy completion. 

Yes this. Thank you.

[MasterStrategist]

I don't agree with those blaming Gabe on his route.  

 

First thing to remember, Josh faced a similar situation LY.  Going off memory, early 2nd half at their own 30ish, Josh forces the smash concept (corner route) into a cover 2 zone.  Guess who made the INT? That would have been Sauce, dropping and playing the deeper route (which is taught if you read #2s vertical breaking into a deep out/corner).

 

Fast forward to a VERY similar route concept in this game.  Josh stares it down and absolutely makes sure Sauce isn't dropping.  This results in a late throw/poor mechanics, which puts the ball placement inside when that pass should be on the sideline.  

 

Did Gabe round his route? Sure/somewhat.  The safety is also sitting on a fairly heavy inside technique, Gabe still gets to his spot.  It's a poor decision to throw into a tight window and Josh either should have delivered it underneath to Kincaid OR immediately got his eyes on the next progression (Diggs crosser)

[sven233]

3 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

 

This is the point that Allen decides to throw to Davis on that Int. It doesn't look like a bad read to me. He isn't really throwing into double coverage like people are crying about.  It just ends up that way due to route, time, and ball placement.  Sure he could throw to kincaid here who would get nailed by the time the ball got there by the same guy that is "double covering Davis."  He could also throw to Diggs, who Allen hasn't even looked at because he read Davis. Diggs would also be nailed by the time Josh looked his way and the ball got there.  Look at the space towards the sideline.  Thats a play that could have and should have happened IMO.  It just didn't.  

 

I'll blame Allen for the Int here but I am not going to blame the decision.  He isn't "double covered."  A better route and ball and thats 15-20 easy yards.

 

This was one of the plays I mentioned in my breakdown in another thread.  What this comes down to for me is it's a poor decision based on down and distance and game situation.

 

In a vacuum, you can see what Allen is looking at and see that the read he is making to Davis isn't the worst decision he made last night.  He's made this throw countless times in the past.  But, where I have the problem is the decision based on game situation.  Moving the chains should take priority over anything else when lining up for this play.  Allen's first read should be Kincaid, and when he sees him running open, the ball needs to get to him immediately.  Yes, Davis should be in his progression and may even be his secondary read from low to high.  Allen chose on this play, and several others in this game, to bypass the easy completion in hopes of hitting something deeper.  He needs to know the situation and realize moving the chains is the most important thing on this play.  So, when lining up, he should be thinking that if Kincaid is open, hit him right away.  If he's not, he has to know Diggs is coming into his line of sight on a shallow cross and could also pick up the first down easily.  Know the point of the play.  You want to try this throw to Davis at another point in the game?  Sure....I get it.  It's not the worst read in the world and does make sense in a lot of cases.  Just not when you need a couple yards to move the chains.  Davis could have been a lot better on this route, though.  If you insist on going to Davis here, though, ball placement needs to be better.  It needs to be thrown to the outside right on the boundary.  Don't leave the defense a chance to make a play on the ball.

 

Again, you see what he sees and can almost understand why he would make the choice he did.  But the level of difficulty on that throw is much higher than taking that free cheese to Kincaid who would have picked up the first down easily.  This is about Allen understanding game situations and what the goal of the play should be before even taking the snap.

[HappyDays]

3 hours ago, HoofHearted said:

Except he’s throwing a Smash concept into Cover 2. Corners are taught to play that too down essentially bracketing the Corner route Davis ran. He should have just taken the underneath to Kincaid.

 

I know you're literally a professional so maybe I'm out of my depth here or misunderstanding you, but isn't a corner/smash route on a high/low concept classically a cover 2 beater? Like fundamentally that is the best way to beat cover 2 outside the numbers?

 

Just to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass I found plenty of articles that indicate the same. Here's one that explains it best:

 

https://www.espn.com/ncf/columns/davie/1437187.html

 

Quote

The most common way to attack Cover 2 is to high-low the corner who has the outside fifth or flat responsibility. The outside wide receiver runs a post-corner route. In other words, he fakes as if he will run a deep route, which freezes the safety, then breaks back outside to the corner. He knows the safety must stay inside and protect his inside one-half and not allow the receiver to cross his face (which means getting inside of him). The corner tries to sink and help defend the hole between he and the safety to his outside. The offense will then release a tight end or running back into the corner's fifth to create a high-low stretch.

 

To the section I bolded, Davis totally failed to do that. He did not fake a vertical route which means he did not freeze Whitehead which gave Whitehead easy access to the ball. Allen sees Sauce cheat towards Kincaid so he throws the high concept to Davis. The pass itself was not as far to the sideline as you'd like but to me this was more a failure of Davis to run his route properly.

 

Again I know you do this for a living so let me know if I'm missing something.

[HappyDays]

11 minutes ago, sven233 said:

In a vacuum, you can see what Allen is looking at and see that the read he is making to Davis isn't the worst decision he made last night.  He's made this throw countless times in the past.  But, where I have the problem is the decision based on game situation.  Moving the chains should take priority over anything else when lining up for this play.  Allen's first read should be Kincaid, and when he sees him running open, the ball needs to get to him immediately.  Yes, Davis should be in his progression and may even be his secondary read from low to high.  Allen chose on this play, and several others in this game, to bypass the easy completion in hopes of hitting something deeper.  He needs to know the situation and realize moving the chains is the most important thing on this play.  So, when lining up, he should be thinking that if Kincaid is open, hit him right away.  If he's not, he has to know Diggs is coming into his line of sight on a shallow cross and could also pick up the first down easily.  Know the point of the play.

 

So my problem with this is that on one hand you have people saying "Allen needs to play within the structure of the offense and trust his pass catchers to make plays," and on the other it's "no, in this particular instance Allen should ignore the structure of the play and trust Kincaid over Davis." And I don't necessarily disagree that there are times where ignoring the structure of the play is good, but finding a perfect balance there is impossible.

 

To me this play is actually fairly simple the more that I watch it. Diggs motions pre-snap and based on how the defense re-aligns Allen correctly reads it as zone. Diggs I'm guessing is his man beater read. The high/low concept between Davis and Kincaid is his zone beater read. So he goes to the zone beater and sees the CB cheating towards the flat, which means his read in that concept is to Davis. Unless I'm totally misreading this play Allen follows the concept exactly as designed. But the post corner route was not run correctly so the safety has an easy read and breaks on the ball.

 

So do we want Allen to trust his playmakers and trust the structure of the play or not?

 

Personally I'm much much more concerned about him bailing clean pockets, lazily heaving the ball downfield into double coverage, and getting so mentally shaken that he carelessly fumbles the ball on our side of the field. We can admit that Allen was by far the biggest problem with the offense and still place blame on some of the players around him.

[Beck Water]

13 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

 

This is the point that Allen decides to throw to Davis on that Int. It doesn't look like a bad read to me. He isn't really throwing into double coverage like people are crying about.  It just ends up that way due to route, time, and ball placement.  Sure he could throw to kincaid here who would get nailed by the time the ball got there by the same guy that is "double covering Davis."  He could also throw to Diggs, who Allen hasn't even looked at because he read Davis. Diggs would also be nailed by the time Josh looked his way and the ball got there.  Look at the space towards the sideline.  Thats a play that could have and should have happened IMO.  It just didn't.  

 

I'll blame Allen for the Int here but I am not going to blame the decision.  He isn't "double covered."  A better route and ball and thats 15-20 easy yards.

 

He isn't throwing into double coverage, but the safety DB is in position to jump the route.  Snce there's film of that being the route and Josh taking that throw with the rest of the routes being run on that play, I don't think it took much for the DB to abandon Kincaid like a stinky sock.

 

Part of the problem may be play design, with reads designed to go deep to shallow.  It needs to be (see coverage) (throw immediately to Kincaid)

Edited September 13, 2023 by Beck Water

[Beck Water]

11 hours ago, Simon said:

In the second half he went from maniac to bumbling buffoon.

My initial take was that he looked like he had suddenly been possessed by JP Losman. 

It was really, really bad.

 

Props to your wife's prescience...

 

I don't normally look at the gameday threads these days

But I popped into the second half thread to say:

 

"Josh Allen is an Idiot.  There.  I said it".

[Beck Water]

8 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

So my problem with this is that on one hand you have people saying "Allen needs to play within the structure of the offense and trust his pass catchers to make plays," and on the other it's "no, in this particular instance Allen should ignore the structure of the play and trust Kincaid over Davis." And I don't necessarily disagree that there are times where ignoring the structure of the play is good, but finding a perfect balance there is impossible.

 

To me this play is actually fairly simple the more that I watch it. Diggs motions pre-snap and based on how the defense re-aligns Allen correctly reads it as zone. Diggs I'm guessing is his man beater read. The high/low concept between Davis and Kincaid is his zone beater read. So he goes to the zone beater and sees the CB cheating towards the flat, which means his read in that concept is to Davis. Unless I'm totally misreading this play Allen follows the concept exactly as designed. But the post corner route was not run correctly so the safety has an easy read and breaks on the ball.

 

So do we want Allen to trust his playmakers and trust the structure of the play or not?

 

Personally I'm much much more concerned about him bailing clean pockets, lazily heaving the ball downfield into double coverage, and getting so mentally shaken that he carelessly fumbles the ball on our side of the field. We can admit that Allen was by far the biggest problem with the offense and still place blame on some of the players around him.

 

Bottom line up front: I agree with your final para, but that's sort of a "cleanest dirty shirt".

 

I don't think throwing to Kincaid would be outside the structure of the play, but I do think you're right about the read order, which to me says that the play design is not helping Josh.  The thing is, the CB have seen that play before, and I believe Josh always goes to Davis (or the WR running that route, usually Davis)

 

I've been thinking about this, and I believe part of the problem is the deep-shallow reads and the fact that the Bills have been "going to the well too often" on the same plays executed by the same personnel.  I do think that many QB (Orlovsky for example) would take Kincaid, but I also think their reads would usually be designed shallow to deep.  

This is the sort of thing where some "looking off" would potentially help.  But perhaps we really need better self-scouting and some play design shake up?

Davis is a sloppy route runner who only occasionally runs a crisp, deceptive route.  He's been a sloppy route runner for 3 years now, so if the plan for avoiding interceptions is to have Davis run a crisp, deceptive route - maybe that's a Bad Plan.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Beck Water

[The Frankish Reich]

9 hours ago, sven233 said:

But, where I have the problem is the decision based on game situation.  Moving the chains should take priority over anything else when lining up for this play.  Allen's first read should be Kincaid, and when he sees him running open, the ball needs to get to him immediately. 

Situation: you are playing Zach Wilson, not Aaron Rodgers.

That seemed to be lost on the coaching staff and Allen all night long.

[Bferra13]

13 hours ago, EmotionallyUnstable said:

Allen was 9/10 with 55 yards before he threw his first INT...took the check downs all first quarter. After that, the Jets just out-willed him with patience and he got agressive and spiraled. First drive looked good actually, minus a 1st down penalty. 2nd drive was fine and stunted with a botched play in what looked like a miscommunication in an RPO....crazy how fast Allen just goes from methodical to maniac. 
 

 

Throughout the first quarter, the OL actually held up quite well against the pass rush. The JFM sack was Allen holding the ball too long on a ton of pump fakes, and the other 3rd down scramble was messy but he could have stood in and sorted through the junk if he wanted to.

 

idk what happened in the 2nd half. My wife made me turn off the tv 🤷 

One thing I dont see brought up here on the boards is the concussion conspiracies that are floating out there on the internet. Now I don't necessarily agree with them. But man that first idiotic hit he took on that read option looked bad. That's about the time everything fell apart too. Hope that's not true but I was pretty shocked he wasn't taken out for a look by the spotters.

[2003Contenders]

9 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

I know you're literally a professional so maybe I'm out of my depth here or misunderstanding you, but isn't a corner/smash route on a high/low concept classically a cover 2 beater? Like fundamentally that is the best way to beat cover 2 outside the numbers?

 

Just to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass I found plenty of articles that indicate the same. Here's one that explains it best:

 

https://www.espn.com/ncf/columns/davie/1437187.html

 

 

To the section I bolded, Davis totally failed to do that. He did not fake a vertical route which means he did not freeze Whitehead which gave Whitehead easy access to the ball. Allen sees Sauce cheat towards Kincaid so he throws the high concept to Davis. The pass itself was not as far to the sideline as you'd like but to me this was more a failure of Davis to run his route properly.

 

Again I know you do this for a living so let me know if I'm missing something.

This is what Aikman said during the game too. He blamed the INT on Davis.

[Alphadawg7]

I think Dorsey is also a big part of this problem.  

 

Watch Josh drop back...its clear as day the short and underneath routes are not early in the progression of reads.  We have a monster arm QB who can get the ball anywhere, and that is compounding the issue.  Josh drops back and looking downfield first, and with his arm he is going to see tight windows he knows he can make and not be afraid to fire it like other QB's might be and never reach his open guys later in his progression that are short easy completions.  

 

This is what fundamentally needs to change.  Dorsey needs to draw up plays more often like the first play of the game on the quick strike easy completion slant to Diggs right on Sauce.  That was where the read was.  But most of the game, Josh is doing these deep drop backs, patting the ball and looking downfield.  And when our average or worse OL doesn't hold up real long, Josh gets happy feet and needs to get out of there and then it becomes more playground ball and Josh knows he can fire the ball still downfield when guys break-off routes.  

 

Until we start making the short reads the hot route or early in his progressions, Josh is never going to consistently get to those easy throws vs taking higher risk throws downfield.  We need to use our guys like Diggs, Knox, Kincaid, Cook, Harty, etc to attack these short area zones and move the chains and look for RAC opportunities.  

 

There is a reason Mahomes is so efficient, its because he gets something like 30% of his production off throws near or behind the LOS.  KC isn't a big rushing team either, but they use the short pass attack as essentially part of their run game.  

 

This obsession of large chunk plays needs to be reduced because they are lower percentage and easier to defend as they take time to develop downfield allowing guys to get in position and also more time for the defensive front to get through the OL.  

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, Beck Water said:

I've been thinking about this, and I believe part of the problem is the deep-shallow reads and the fact that the Bills have been "going to the well too often" on the same plays executed by the same personnel.  I do think that many QB (Orlovsky for example) would take Kincaid, but I also think their reads would usually be designed shallow to deep.  

 

I don't think this was a deep to shallow read. Allen is just reading the CB. If he cheats to the flat, which he did, the corner route is the read. I'll give credit to Whitehead for figuring out what was happening and making a play on the ball. The concept doesn't work if the safety isn't worried about Davis running a vertical or post. Also the pass was not precise, it was a little behind Davis and in a tight window that makes a difference between incompletion and interception.

[HoofHearted]

10 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

I know you're literally a professional so maybe I'm out of my depth here or misunderstanding you, but isn't a corner/smash route on a high/low concept classically a cover 2 beater? Like fundamentally that is the best way to beat cover 2 outside the numbers?

 

Just to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass I found plenty of articles that indicate the same. Here's one that explains it best:

 

https://www.espn.com/ncf/columns/davie/1437187.html

 

 

To the section I bolded, Davis totally failed to do that. He did not fake a vertical route which means he did not freeze Whitehead which gave Whitehead easy access to the ball. Allen sees Sauce cheat towards Kincaid so he throws the high concept to Davis. The pass itself was not as far to the sideline as you'd like but to me this was more a failure of Davis to run his route properly.

 

Again I know you do this for a living so let me know if I'm missing something.

It is because it puts the Corner in conflict. It's a great concept against what the Jets gave us, Josh just threw it to the wrong guy. The Corner will play the concept top down (take away the corner and force the ball to be thrown underneath), which is exactly what happened. The throw should have went to Kincaid.

[HoofHearted]

27 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

I don't think this was a deep to shallow read. Allen is just reading the CB. If he cheats to the flat, which he did, the corner route is the read. I'll give credit to Whitehead for figuring out what was happening and making a play on the ball. The concept doesn't work if the safety isn't worried about Davis running a vertical or post. Also the pass was not precise, it was a little behind Davis and in a tight window that makes a difference between incompletion and interception.

This is correct. Specifically in this concept you are reading the defender - not working a receiver progression. If the corner sits you throw the over, if he bails you throw the under, if it's murky you throw the under because it's the safer of the two options.