All-22 1st Half Analysis

[MasterStrategist]

38 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

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.  

I don't know man.  We talked about this in your thread as well.  After watching the all-22 (torture in a loss, yes), Dorsey did have alot of short options dialed up that were open for 4-5 yards.

 

We just didn't execute very well/consistent enough.  Jets sat in a cover 2 shell for a large majority of plays.  Again, if anything Dorsey could have changed was going more under center/working more of a ground attack.  

 

We had to be willing to take those 4-5 yard plays and let them stack. Jets started to take more chances with 5 man rushes when that happened, and that's when we needed to hit some bigger plays/RAC and that didn't happen either.

 

I'm not saying Dorsey is perfect either.  He can improve on sequencing these looks/plays IMO too.  Jets LBs barely moved off their spot/drop, and that's a killer when the front 4 can get a push.  We needed to find a way to move them, ie: running threat/playaction, motion, stack/bunch formations.  

 

Formationally, I think Dorsey will have to evaluate what gives Josh most comfort/see the field.  So that's where I agree with you, but I'm thinking the concept/design was still focused on shorter patterns.  Jets covered some well and Josh missed some easy ones.

[CincyBillsFan]

15 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.

For what it's worth, Aikman who is no big fan of Allen said that Davis did him no favors by not faking hard that he might take an inside path.  This allowed the guy who intercepted the ball to run hard to the spot Allen was throwing it.

5 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

I don't know man.  We talked about this in your thread as well.  After watching the all-22 (torture in a loss, yes), Dorsey did have alot of short options dialed up that were open for 4-5 yards.

 

We just didn't execute very well/consistent enough.  Jets sat in a cover 2 shell for a large majority of plays.  Again, if anything Dorsey could have changed was going more under center/working more of a ground attack.  

 

We had to be willing to take those 4-5 yard plays and let them stack. Jets started to take more chances with 5 man rushes when that happened, and that's when we needed to hit some bigger plays/RAC and that didn't happen either.

 

I'm not saying Dorsey is perfect either.  He can improve on sequencing these looks/plays IMO too.  Jets LBs barely moved off their spot/drop, and that's a killer when the front 4 can get a push.  We needed to find a way to move them, ie: running threat/playaction, motion, stack/bunch formations.  

 

Formationally, I think Dorsey will have to evaluate what gives Josh most comfort/see the field.  So that's where I agree with you, but I'm thinking the concept/design was still focused on shorter patterns.  Jets covered some well and Josh missed some easy ones.

I also thought that the Bills didn't produce a lot of the YAC needed to make the short passing game work.  Kincaid had some nice YAC as did Diggs but Harty had very little YAC and he was targeted multiple passes.

 

IMO going forward more short passes to Kincaid and fewer to Harty.

 

 

 

 

[HappyDays]

33 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

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.

 

Okay I understand what you're saying. But from my perspective it doesn't look like Sauce took away the corner route, right? He wasn't the reason the play didn't work, it was the fact that Whitehead perfectly read the play with assistance from Davis and jumped into the window. I think Josh read it as Sauce cheating to the flat and took the high throw as a result. You're saying he should have read it as a muddled high/low and defaulted to the low throw.

 

Discussions like this are what make all-22 analysis so fascinating. The truth is none of us know what Josh is being told about this play in his film review.

[The Frankish Reich]

1 hour ago, 2003Contenders said:

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

I usually don't like Aikman, but this was spot-on. It's something I wouldn't have (and didn't) notice. But coaches and QBs certainly notice it. There's more to being a top receiver than meets the regular fan's eyes. Davis still has a long way to go.

[MasterStrategist]

3 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Okay I understand what you're saying. But from my perspective it doesn't look like Sauce took away the corner route, right? He wasn't the reason the play didn't work, it was the fact that Whitehead perfectly read the play with assistance from Davis and jumped into the window. I think Josh read it as Sauce cheating to the flat and took the high throw as a result. You're saying he should have read it as a muddled high/low and defaulted to the low throw.

 

Discussions like this are what make all-22 analysis so fascinating. The truth is none of us know what Josh is being told about this play in his film review.

You're exactly right, that we don't know what Josh was reading exactly/what he's being told.

 

However, a very similar situation happened against the Jets LY....Sauce sitting in cover 2 dropped off the flat route and picked off the corner route. 

 

Just something to consider, perhaps why Josh held an extra second and ball placement wasn't as expected.  

 

Hindsight is 20/20, but we are sitting 3rd and short, with a clear cover 2 shell defense.  This is where as an offense, we have to be able to convert on the ground more often.

[HoofHearted]

15 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

Okay I understand what you're saying. But from my perspective it doesn't look like Sauce took away the corner route, right? He wasn't the reason the play didn't work, it was the fact that Whitehead perfectly read the play with assistance from Davis and jumped into the window. I think Josh read it as Sauce cheating to the flat and took the high throw as a result. You're saying he should have read it as a muddled high/low and defaulted to the low throw.

 

Discussions like this are what make all-22 analysis so fascinating. The truth is none of us know what Josh is being told about this play in his film review.

Yeah, Sauce played in no mans land in between both routes which muddied the read. Josh should have just taken the sure thing underneath. In reality it was a culmination of a bunch of bad. Josh didn't read it well, Davis ran a lazy route, and Josh threw a ball low and behind his receiver on an out breaking route.

Edited September 13, 2023 by HoofHearted

[Scott7975]

3 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

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)

 

I mean there is film on a ton of throws. Why you cross off safety?  The safety is the guy that jumped the route.  A better route and a better throw and it doesn't get jumped because Davis would be in position to not allow that.  Sauce could just as easily jump Kincaid. He is closer to and already headed there. Maybe not intercept because of body position but definitely to break up the pass.  Doesn't really matter that the Sauce abandoned Kincaid since at best he could have tackled Davis or pushed him oob after the catch.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

This is what fundamentally needs to change.

 

Two things need to fundamentally change and they have nothing to do with Dorsey:

 

1) Allen has to trust his OL. This was by far his biggest problem on Monday night. Bailing empty pockets, anticipating pressure, etc. I believe this more than anything led to most of his mistakes.

 

2) Allen needs to stop turning the ball over. Full stop.

 

We can't run a functional passing offense when our QB doesn't trust his OL (for no good reason I might add) and heaves downfield throws into bracketed coverage.

 

If anything else needs to change outside of Allen, Kincaid deserves more targets and I wish Brown was just plain better. But none of that will matter if Allen doesn't get his head on straight.

[Alphadawg7]

2 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:

I don't know man.  We talked about this in your thread as well.  After watching the all-22 (torture in a loss, yes), Dorsey did have alot of short options dialed up that were open for 4-5 yards.

 

We just didn't execute very well/consistent enough.  Jets sat in a cover 2 shell for a large majority of plays.  Again, if anything Dorsey could have changed was going more under center/working more of a ground attack.  

 

We had to be willing to take those 4-5 yard plays and let them stack. Jets started to take more chances with 5 man rushes when that happened, and that's when we needed to hit some bigger plays/RAC and that didn't happen either.

 

I'm not saying Dorsey is perfect either.  He can improve on sequencing these looks/plays IMO too.  Jets LBs barely moved off their spot/drop, and that's a killer when the front 4 can get a push.  We needed to find a way to move them, ie: running threat/playaction, motion, stack/bunch formations.  

 

Formationally, I think Dorsey will have to evaluate what gives Josh most comfort/see the field.  So that's where I agree with you, but I'm thinking the concept/design was still focused on shorter patterns.  Jets covered some well and Josh missed some easy ones.

 

Im saying those underneath short throws need to be the primary hot reads more often, not options found in 3rd and 4th progressions

[MasterStrategist]

1 minute ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Im saying those underneath short throws need to be the primary hot reads more often, not options found in 3rd and 4th progressions

Right, yeah I understand.  I'm just saying I think they were the primary read (short passing) most of the night. The Jets were sitting in a cover 2 and left some open holes and Josh for whatever reason just didn't see them fast enough/a bit hesitant.

 

But yeah, hopefully Dorsey adjusts too.  Because if his QB is struggling, maybe they need to consider different route combinations/formations. 

 

It will be interesting to see what Dallas does against that defense.  I expect they'll stay under center alot more and pound the ball/playaction, which is more their style.  Perhaps food for thought for Dorsey, next go around.

[Alphadawg7]

15 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

Right, yeah I understand.  I'm just saying I think they were the primary read (short passing) most of the night. The Jets were sitting in a cover 2 and left some open holes and Josh for whatever reason just didn't see them fast enough/a bit hesitant.

 

But yeah, hopefully Dorsey adjusts too.  Because if his QB is struggling, maybe they need to consider different route combinations/formations. 

 

It will be interesting to see what Dallas does against that defense.  I expect they'll stay under center alot more and pound the ball/playaction, which is more their style.  Perhaps food for thought for Dorsey, next go around.

 

I obviously am not in the headset or have the playbook, but from a spectators point of view, Josh doesn't seem to be dropping back very often where the hot read is the short routes because its not very often where he takes a quick drop and fires.  We too often take deep 5 to 7 step drops where his eyes are first downfield.  

 

That is where I think the issue is...whether its Josh or Dorsey, they more often need to scheme plays like the first play of the game.  Drop back and fire on a quick slant to Diggs for an easy completion on an elite corner even.  But these 5 and 7 step drop backs, so often in the Gun, etc where Josh is giving deeper routes time to develop is prohibiting Josh from taking the shorter field stuff too often.  If Josh sees an opening downfield he is proving he will take it, even if there is a safer throw he has not yet gotten to in his progressions.

 

See that is the key factor here...where are these short routes in his progressions really?  If they were early or priorty he wouldn't be taking 7 step drop backs, bouncing on his feet looking downfield first so often.

 

So I would like to see a shift in style to where we prioritize the short attack as a significant part of our attack the way KC does to scheme things easy for Mahomes.  Mahomes has a higher level efficiency because KC attempts a substantial amount more safe and controlled passes near or behind the LOS and leads the NFL in yards from this by a 2 to 1 margin to the 2nd QB.  

 

Its also why KC is sooooo good near the goaline, redzone, and 3rd downs.  Yet we on 3rd and short Monday we had 5 targets, where the 4 WRs ran 15 yard routes with only the RB running in the short area for the first down range.  We didn't convert.

 

Im not removing all responsibility from Allen, but the OC needs to help him by calling plays where they are designed to be quick drops and fire type plays.  We don't do enough of it, and Allen is too competitive and confident in his arm to not take those downfield chances if he even sees a sliver of a window or try and make a play with is legs if he doesn't trust the pocket anymore.  He makes many of those plays, but they are higher risk plays with lower probability, so when he is off like he was Monday, its bad.  

[Alphadawg7]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

Two things need to fundamentally change and they have nothing to do with Dorsey:

 

These things below are not wrong per se, but they also do still relate to Dorsey too, not just Allen.

 

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

1) Allen has to trust his OL. This was by far his biggest problem on Monday night. Bailing empty pockets, anticipating pressure, etc. I believe this more than anything led to most of his mistakes.

 

Stop having Allen work mostly out of the Gun, especially when over center was so effective.  Stop with so many 5 and 7 step drop backs and looking downfield first that require the OL to hold longer.  Quick drops and fire short need to be MUCH more involved in our pass attack.  We have a mamoth of a QB, he doesn't need to be in the gun so much or taking long 7 step drop backs to see the field and get the ball out, he isn't Drew Brees where he needs more space to see over lineman.  

 

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

2) Allen needs to stop turning the ball over. Full stop.

 

This ties into the above.  Stop calling QB runs, he isn't a fullback.  Stop always pushing hard downfield and build a short area attack like KC where Mahomes gets like 30% of his passing yards on throws near or behind the LOS.  KC doesn't run the ball a ton either, but they supplement it with their short pass attack that is really hard to defend.  

 

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

We can't run a functional passing offense when our QB doesn't trust his OL (for no good reason I might add) and heaves downfield throws into bracketed coverage.

 

While this isn't wrong, this statement doesn't address the "why" these things happen.  Allen isn't calling the plays, Dorsey is.  Dorsey called a play with 5 targets for Allen on 3rd and short where the 4 WR's ran 15 yard routes and the RB was the only short option on the play call.  It doesn't matter if there are 5 targets and 2 of them are short, if they are late in the progressions of reads on the play, then Allen may not reach them before he has decided to throw or run if doesn't trust the OL to hold.  

 

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

If anything else needs to change outside of Allen, Kincaid deserves more targets and I wish Brown was just plain better. But none of that will matter if Allen doesn't get his head on straight.

 

Again, you are fully blaming Allen for Kincaids lack of targets, but you can't say how many plays were even called to get him the ball.  More often than not, he looked like a safety net route based on the deep drop back and downfield looks first while Kincaid often ran in the shallower areas on many of those plays. 

 

Allen 100% deserves the criticism he earned from this game, it was a poor game for him.  But that doesn't mean there are not other things that contribute to these issues, and Dorsey IMHO has not shown at all to be a good OC last year, and week 1, his offense looked the same as it did last year in how he called the game and used his personnel.  Good OC's tailor to their QB's strengths and weaknesses...Daboll has shown to be substantially better at that so far than Dorsey has with Allen.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Alphadawg7

[Captain Hindsight]

6 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

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)

If Dorsey is smart, Gabe turns this upfield in the rematch and Josh Hits him after a pump fake

[MasterStrategist]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

I obviously am not in the headset or have the playbook, but from a spectators point of view, Josh doesn't seem to be dropping back very often where the hot read is the short routes because its not very often where he takes a quick drop and fires.  We too often take deep 5 to 7 step drops where his eyes are first downfield.  

 

That is where I think the issue is...whether its Josh or Dorsey, they more often need to scheme plays like the first play of the game.  Drop back and fire on a quick slant to Diggs for an easy completion on an elite corner even.  But these 5 and 7 step drop backs, so often in the Gun, etc where Josh is giving deeper routes time to develop is prohibiting Josh from taking the shorter field stuff too often.  If Josh sees an opening downfield he is proving he will take it, even if there is a safer throw he has not yet gotten to in his progressions.

 

See that is the key factor here...where are these short routes in his progressions really?  If they were early or priorty he wouldn't be taking 7 step drop backs, bouncing on his feet looking downfield first so often.

 

So I would like to see a shift in style to where we prioritize the short attack as a significant part of our attack the way KC does to scheme things easy for Mahomes.  Mahomes has a higher level efficiency because KC attempts a substantial amount more safe and controlled passes near or behind the LOS and leads the NFL in yards from this by a 2 to 1 margin to the 2nd QB.  

 

Its also why KC is sooooo good near the goaline, redzone, and 3rd downs.  Yet we on 3rd and short Monday we had 5 targets, where the 4 WRs ran 15 yard routes with only the RB running in the short area for the first down range.  We didn't convert.

 

Im not removing all responsibility from Allen, but the OC needs to help him by calling plays where they are designed to be quick drops and fire type plays.  We don't do enough of it, and Allen is too competitive and confident in his arm to not take those downfield chances if he even sees a sliver of a window or try and make a play with is legs if he doesn't trust the pocket anymore.  He makes many of those plays, but they are higher risk plays with lower probability, so when he is off like he was Monday, its bad.  

We didn't take 5-7 drops from the gun, that often this game. Josh just held the ball.

 

I'm not trying to be rude, but in your own thread you said we didn't even run "12 personell" enough. Where we ran it the most of any NFL team week 1.

 

Not saying I'm right/you're wrong on all of this, I think you have good points.  But the point remains that Josh had quick reads/guys open short.

[Alphadawg7]

23 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

We didn't take 5-7 drops from the gun, that often this game. Josh just held the ball.

 

I'm not trying to be rude, but in your own thread you said we didn't even run "12 personell" enough. Where we ran it the most of any NFL team week 1.

 

Not saying I'm right/you're wrong on all of this, I think you have good points.  But the point remains that Josh had quick reads/guys open short.

 

The 12 personnel thing is a bit misleading though, they are just counting the times that both Knox and Kincaid were on the field at the same time where Kincaid was more lined up as a WR and wasn't as much in the sense of a traditional 12 personnel formation.  Like Beane said, more like a 11.5 formation.  Which is great, but still only 8 targets combined.  

 

And all good man, good counter points, thoughts and stuff, I don't find you rude at all.  For me, it just felt like Josh would drop back and look downfield far too often and our game plan didn't prioritize attacking those shorter areas of the field to open up the downfield more.  

 

For me, if Josh has time to hold the ball and look down field then it doesn't feel like the primary or hot read was the short underneath that was open or he would have looked there first and fired.  So either Dorsey is calling it and Josh ignores it often, or these shorter routes are too often later in the read progressions.  Just doesn't feel like the quick strike and short throws have been a consistent part of this offense since Cole was here under Daboll.  Not saying we never do it, but it doesn't feel like its often enough to me.  

 

I could be wrong and more of it is to come, but it just felt like the same Dorsey from last year.  Calling long routes on down and short, running Cook and Allen on draws, not involving our TE's more.  Kincaid and Knox were on the field together for 64% of the snaps, but each only had 8 total targets.  If you are going to line up a TE at WR that often with another TE on the field, then it should be to exploit those mismatches and they should be the priority or hot read to the point to get more than 8 combined targets.  

 

Just my 2 cents...and hey its just one game where Allen played poorly, so hard to make any concrete conclusions anyway until we see more.  But I went into that game with keen eyes on both our coordinators and how the offense and defense might look different from last year.  And came away feeling good about McD and still concerned about whether Dorsey is the right fit for this gig.  But its one game, not gonna panic either, just he didn't do anything to alleviate my concerns and of course Josh Allen did him no favors either.

[GoBills808]

3 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Two things need to fundamentally change and they have nothing to do with Dorsey:

 

1) Allen has to trust his OL. This was by far his biggest problem on Monday night. Bailing empty pockets, anticipating pressure, etc. I believe this more than anything led to most of his mistakes.

 

2) Allen needs to stop turning the ball over. Full stop.

 

We can't run a functional passing offense when our QB doesn't trust his OL (for no good reason I might add) and heaves downfield throws into bracketed coverage.

 

If anything else needs to change outside of Allen, Kincaid deserves more targets and I wish Brown was just plain better. But none of that will matter if Allen doesn't get his head on straight.

I would argue there's very good reason not to trust the oline lol

[GunnerBill]

Just now, GoBills808 said:

I would argue there's very good reason not to trust the oline lol

 

Based on the past 2 years, yes. They really did not play badly on Monday. But the fact it has gone in Josh's head after 2 years of pretty shambolic offensive lines... I can't blame him for that. Beane has mismanaged those oline decisions. 

[HappyDays]

13 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

I would argue there's very good reason not to trust the oline lol

 

But he can't drop his eyes and look at the pass rush. He can't start every 3rd down play thinking "I'll need to take off." He has to stand in there and trust his OL and trust his instincts to get out if pressure gets there. If pressure gets to him before his reads are open that's on the OL. But he can't be anticipating that to the point that he is bailing out of a bunch of clean pockets.

 

To Gunner's point it might take him time to get used to having a decent OL. It starts with his mindset though. Maybe Dorsey can call some designed roll outs early, get him comfortable and get him used to throwing from a pocket even if it's a moving pocket. I don't know what the exact solution is but it has to change.

[WideNine]

22 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:

I wanted to take a closer look at the 1st half & review the all-22 footage.  Comments/screen-shots below, just on specific plays & players that stood out:

 

Offense:

 

Cook/running game: few BIG opportunities that went by the wayside

 

• Series 1: this is from our 40 on 1st down - looks like a big hole about to develop behind Morse/McGovern.  Cook dances a bit too much/indecisive & it gets shut down.  I think he cleans this up & it's a big gain

 

• next play - Torrence doesn't fire off the ball/DT blows him up OR this was set-up to be another HUGE gain on the ground (Dawkins pulling instead collides w/DT & Torrence, instead of kicking out the end)

 

• Series 2: at our 40, Cook gets the delay/outside draw.  Kincaid totally whiffs on his block (CB-Reid, who makes the tackle); otherwise this might be a HOUSE call.  For those calling out Cook for "not breaking tackles", he actually made a few guys miss in holes & would have had a huge 1st half on these last 2 plays alone

 

 

 

•  

 

 

To me it seems like they were just a bit off with the timing and leverage and so close to breaking some long ones.

 

The more this O-line works together and can stay healthy they will clean that up and I am pretty excited about our run game.

 

Cook will have to be more decisive on the runs between the tackles, but power gap runs are probably less natural for him than zone/stretch runs.

 

He will get better.

 

The pass pro from Brown is abysmal as I was expecting him to get beat with speed and he showed that he can get forklifted into Allen's lap too.

 

Cyrus is playing really well for a rookie, we have not seen his best yet and that is going to be fun to watch.

 

 

 

 

[FireChans]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

The 12 personnel thing is a bit misleading though, they are just counting the times that both Knox and Kincaid were on the field at the same time where Kincaid was more lined up as a WR and wasn't as much in the sense of a traditional 12 personnel formation.  Like Beane said, more like a 11.5 formation.  Which is great, but still only 8 targets combined.  

 

And all good man, good counter points, thoughts and stuff, I don't find you rude at all.  For me, it just felt like Josh would drop back and look downfield far too often and our game plan didn't prioritize attacking those shorter areas of the field to open up the downfield more.  

 

For me, if Josh has time to hold the ball and look down field then it doesn't feel like the primary or hot read was the short underneath that was open or he would have looked there first and fired.  So either Dorsey is calling it and Josh ignores it often, or these shorter routes are too often later in the read progressions.  Just doesn't feel like the quick strike and short throws have been a consistent part of this offense since Cole was here under Daboll.  Not saying we never do it, but it doesn't feel like its often enough to me.  

 

I could be wrong and more of it is to come, but it just felt like the same Dorsey from last year.  Calling long routes on down and short, running Cook and Allen on draws, not involving our TE's more.  Kincaid and Knox were on the field together for 64% of the snaps, but each only had 8 total targets.  If you are going to line up a TE at WR that often with another TE on the field, then it should be to exploit those mismatches and they should be the priority or hot read to the point to get more than 8 combined targets.  

 

Just my 2 cents...and hey its just one game where Allen played poorly, so hard to make any concrete conclusions anyway until we see more.  But I went into that game with keen eyes on both our coordinators and how the offense and defense might look different from last year.  And came away feeling good about McD and still concerned about whether Dorsey is the right fit for this gig.  But its one game, not gonna panic either, just he didn't do anything to alleviate my concerns and of course Josh Allen did him no favors either.

Dorsey has no counter punch. He proved it the other night. 
 

He hasn’t been able to add a single wrinkle or adjustment to this offense since last year. An offense that admittedly has still been pretty good. But it’s a gigantic flaw.

 

Go back and watch our dismantling of the 49ers in 2020. It looks like a different team. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by FireChans