Stats, PFF grades, Thoughts on Offense, and Miami coming up

[Bangarang]

29 minutes ago, VW82 said:

One thing I’ve noticed this year is we’re putting ourselves in way more 3rd and long situations. Josh is converting them but that’s not a great way to sustain drives and score points. Eventually, it catches up to you. 

We are one of the worst teams in the league on 1st down.

[NewEra]

22 hours ago, Einstein said:

I believe the Dolphins game plan will be to negate our DL by throwing passes within a second or two of snapping the ball. 

We need to tackle well.

We need to tackle well for sure.  That’s will be key for us.  Mostert buried us last season. Milano HAS to be better tackling.    Between Mostert and Achane, the speed is deadly.  One missed tackle and it could be daylight with our slow safeties.  
 

Along with tackling, I think the key to victory will be to take away Tua’s first read.  As you said, they’re going to get rid of the ball in 1-2 secs.  We need to prevent that.  We obv won’t be able to do that all game, but we need to do it situationally.  It’s our best opportunity to force them in TOs, sacks and punts.  
 

 

 

2 hours ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

 

1. WGR has been obsessed with Dalton Kincaid. I think because collectively many fans and WGR hosts were on the weapon-train and they want that pick to be justified. They keep wanting deeper seam throws. Early on here, does Kincaid look fast? He looks like a 4.65-4.70 tight end to me. 

 

2. Another WGR obsession is Harty. Mike Schopp is convinced he is a deep threat. But he has not been the athlete he was advertised to be. I think he looks the exact same and is used the exact same as Isaiah McKenzie so far. He is the mini-gadget guy. He can catch bubble screens and run around for extended handoffs. 

 

3. The Bills best offense has been Allen to Diggs (that has never changed) but the 2nd pitch is now the run game. All the rest of the Bills pass catchers to me are guys. Knox looks the same, Shakir isn't used, Sherfield is a journeyman, Gabe has a nose for the end zone, but he's inconsistent, Kincaid is a volume possession target, and Harty gets a few designed passes at the LOS per game. The Bills playmakers lack speed (and size). Said it mid-way through the Jets game. 

 

4. I'm not ready to declare Bernard as no worries yet, and this goes for the entire Bills rush defense. I want to see their lack of size and speed be shown as not a problem against a team that wants to run it. Bernard looked tiny and got swept away when he crashed the run against the Jets. 

You need glasses imo.  Rac has always been one of his strong point. He’s not a 4.65- 4.70.  He can move with the best TEs in the league

[Straight Hucklebuck]

4 minutes ago, NewEra said:

We need to tackle well for sure.  That’s will be key for us.  Mostert buried us last season. Milano HAS to be better tackling.    Between Mostert and Achane, the speed is deadly.  One missed tackle and it could be daylight with our slow safeties.  
 

Along with tackling, I think the key to victory will be to take away Tua’s first read.  As you said, they’re going to get rid of the ball in 1-2 secs.  We need to prevent that.  We obv won’t be able to do that all game, but we need to do it situationally.  It’s our best opportunity to force them in TOs, sacks and punts.  
 

 

 

You need glasses imo.  Rac has always been one of his strong point. He’s not a 4.65- 4.70.  He can move with the best TEs in the league

Yeah I do need glasses. 
 

You’re right he’s a 4.45-4.50 athlete. 
 

I know he did say he would have ran fast at the combine. 
 

LaPorta was 4.59 so it’s possible. 

[NewEra]

36 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Yeah I do need glasses. 
 

You’re right he’s a 4.45-4.50 athlete. 
 

I know he did say he would have ran fast at the combine. 
 

LaPorta was 4.59 so it’s possible. 

👍🏻 I dunno if he’s 4.45-4.5, he might be.  I do know he’s pretty fast for a TE, has amazing movement skills and RAC.

 

Josh ran a 4.76 but he’s certainly faster than that with the ball in his hand.  That’s the problem with the 40.  Your 40

can be improved dramatically based on technique.  A technique that will never be used on a football field with pads on.  If every athlete were to have the same level of technique and coaching, the 40

would carry more weight in my eyes.  But that’s impossible and sometimes we have to trust our eyeballs when evaluating speed on the field.  

 

 

[Straight Hucklebuck]

4 minutes ago, NewEra said:

👍🏻 I dunno if he’s 4.45-4.5, he might be.  I do know he’s pretty fast for a TE, has amazing movement skills and RAC.

 

Josh ran a 4.76 but he’s certainly faster than that with the ball in his hand.  That’s the problem with the 40.  Your 40

can be improved dramatically based on technique.  A technique that will never be used on a football field with pads on.  If every athlete were to have the same level of technique and coaching, the 40

would carry more weight in my eyes.  But that’s impossible and sometimes we have to trust our eyeballs when evaluating speed on the field.  

 

 

Has he had a catch so far where his speed was on display? 

[appoo]

Honestly the Bills OLine played better than I thought, but I thought they'd lose 55 - 65% of their battles. That;s a quality DLine they went up against. I also think the offense was dialed back because McDermott felt the Commanders offense didn't have much pop against the D, and the only way they were gonna lose is with turnovers

1 hour ago, Bangarang said:

We are one of the worst teams in the league on 1st down.

There's some caveats to this, because they played the Jets and Commanders, who own 2 of the 5 best DLine in football. 

[NewEra]

3 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Has he had a catch so far where his speed was on display? 

Speed, no.  Quickness, on a sideline chip and leak vs the raiders and also on a pass over the middle where he juked 2 guys.  
 

mostly just comebacks, digs and curls from my recollection. Prior to last week he was 6 amongst all pass catchers in separation per route @ 4.2 yards per route run iirc.  

[Special K]

Tyreek Hill..........a guy who if he didn't run really fast, would probably be in a jail cell instead of on a football field.

 

Its bad enough he's playing in the league, no need to glorify him.

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

On 9/25/2023 at 1:03 PM, Einstein said:

• Don’t let the incredible play of the defense distract you from the fact that this was not the best game for the offense. The starting offense scored 24 points, which feels low considering the defense forced 5 turnovers and continuously gave the offense the ball. The starting offense's last three series were Interception, Turnover on Downs, Touchdown. They ended the day with 322 yards and 5.9 yards per play.  We actually had 386 yards on 65 plays and played our backups.To put this into perspective, the Broncos put up 399 yards and 6.4 yards per play against Washington. The offense will have to be better against Miami. On first down, we ran 7 plays that resulted in 1 yard or less, 9 plays that resulted in 2 yards or less, and 2 plays that resulted in negative yards.

 

• I feel confident writing that Bernard is a good Middle Linebacker. No qualifiers needed. No comments such as "he is good enough" or "better than expected". He is a good player. Period. He is good defending the pass and he is good at defending the run. He FLIES through gaps on run downs and is very physical for a player of his size. And we have seen his athleticism on back-to-back game interceptions. He is just plain good.

 

• Torrence had the highest pass blocking grade against the Commanders. Brown had the worst. Dawkins had the highest run blocking grade. Torrence had the worst (PFF graded him abysmally in run blocking).

 

• The Bills have the lowest blitz % in the NFL. As I mentioned in the offseason, I do not think this defense will be called much different than Frazier did. I'm sure we have all seen some differences, but it is remarkably similar to Frazier's defense.

 

• People hate calling an early season game a “must win” and I understand why. But this Miami game is, without a doubt, a very important early season game. If Miami wins, they go to 4-0 and we fall to 2-2. Miami’s next two opponents are 1-5 combined: the Giants (1-2) and Panthers (0-3). Any given Sunday, but in all likelihood, they would be 6-0. We need to hand them a loss.

 

• Kaiir Elam has done well against the Dolphins. He had an 88 coverage grade against them in the playoffs, and a season average of 75 against the Dolphins. That is the highest grade of all our cornerbacks against the Dolphins last season. By a lot.

 

• It’s a long season, but as of now, Harty seems like a miss. Beane signed him to a 2 year, $9.5M contract, which I thought indicated that we planned to use him heavily. We did draft Kincaid too, but even when Kincaid is not on the field, Harty has no real role.

 

• NextGenStats records player speed in every game. The 5 fastest times this season are ALL Miami Dolphins. Every. Single. Spot is taken by a Dolphin. Hill, Mostert and Achane have all reached speeds of 21MPH with Hill reaching 22MPH. Miami trading for Hill was such a great move. You can’t teach speed. I was hoping the trade would blow up in their face but it was honestly worth every pick they gave up and every dollar spent. As Robert Griffin III said yesterday, Hill has something that no other player in the sport has - INSTANT SPEED. This is so incredibly dangerous because he can be open within 1 second, which completely negates the defenses pass rush. Then they team him up with Waddle and turns into “pick your poison”.

 

• Fans can denigrate Tua all they want, but he is an incredibly accurate and quick thrower of the football. He will always have limitations due to size, arm strength, and height, but his incredible accuracy and quick delivery makes him lethal. YardsPerPass noted on film that he will rarely (if ever) throw to the far side boundary - likely due to arm weakness - so smart teams (such as the Patriots) are playing a lot of Cover 3 while clogging the middle of the field and forcing short side throws. The Broncos didn’t get the memo.

 

• 70 points is impressive, but make no mistake, the Broncos gave up in that game. They were also incredibly inept. Look at the carnage in this photo.

 

 

 

 

[newcam2012]

4 hours ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Has he had a catch so far where his speed was on display? 

No

[newcam2012]

8 hours ago, NewEra said:

Speed, no.  Quickness, on a sideline chip and leak vs the raiders and also on a pass over the middle where he juked 2 guys.  
 

mostly just comebacks, digs and curls from my recollection. Prior to last week he was 6 amongst all pass catchers in separation per route @ 4.2 yards per route run iirc.  

After three games Kincaid has played well but he hasn't been a difference maker. He's mostly an afterthought in the offense. The Bills schemes for him are dink and dunk passes. Not his fault at all. I had envisioned longer and deeper  passes. Similar to routes like Gronk or Kelce. He's nowhere near being a bonafide WR2. I hope he can get more involved and has a bigger impact as time goes by. He seems to have the talent. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by newcam2012

[Coach Tuesday]

4 hours ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Has he had a catch so far where his speed was on display? 

If you re-watch the Davis TD from Sunday, Kincaid is running a parallel route with him stride for stride.

[Teddy KGB]

On 9/25/2023 at 1:22 PM, Einstein said:

I believe the Dolphins game plan will be to negate our DL by throwing passes within a second or two of snapping the ball. 

We need to tackle well

 

 

Empanada can just knock Tua out early again. 

[NewEra]

13 minutes ago, newcam2012 said:

After three games Kincaid has played well but he hasn't been a difference maker. He's mostly an afterthought in the offense. The Bills schemes for him are dink and dunk passes. Not his fault at all. I had envisioned longer and deeper  passes. Similar to routes like Gronk or Kelce. He's nowhere near being a bonafide WR2. I hope he can get more involved and have a bigger impact as time goes by. He seems to have the talent. 

Play calls have a big part to do with a player being a different maker….. don’t you think?

[GoBills808]

14 minutes ago, Coach Tuesday said:

If you re-watch the Davis TD from Sunday, Kincaid is running a parallel route with him stride for stride.

Yes but I don't think that's as much an indication of his speed as it is an indication of how you're supposed to run that route combo to high low the safety

[Bangarang]

5 hours ago, appoo said:

There's some caveats to this, because they played the Jets and Commanders, who own 2 of the 5 best DLine in football. 

We averaged less yards per play on 1st downs against the Raiders than we did the Commanders. 
 

We are just not good on 1st down as an offense so far. We’re currently 28th in the league in yards per play on 1st down. 

 

 

[newcam2012]

2 hours ago, NewEra said:

Play calls have a big part to do with a player being a different maker….. don’t you think?

I agree. That was my fear with drafting Kincaid. Not really the player more Dorsey and his play calling. 

 

To be fair, opposing defenses have a lot to do with that too. They seem to be taking away the longer passes. 

 

Personally, I would like to see the Bills offense being more explosive. Seems like they have to work too much to score. 

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, newcam2012 said:

I agree. That was my fear with drafting Kincaid. Not really the player more Dorsey and his play calling. 

 

To be fair, opposing defenses have a lot to do with that too. They seem to be taking away the longer passes. 

 

Personally, I would like to see the Bills offense being more explosive. Seems like they have to work too much to score. 

I just wanna see this guy run some slants and option routes.  With his separation, length and hands…..Allen just needs to hit a spot and the defender likely won’t be able to distrust the pass.

 

Regarding your last paragraph…..  this has been the topic of discussion for over a year now.  Teams are cover 2 shelling us to death because they know Josh wants to be more explosive.  In order to pull them out of the shell, we have to pound them underneath like KC did last season.  We have the roster to make that happen. We just need the scheme and concepts.  

[Big Blitz]

Miami only scored 24 points at New England.
 

 

 

We’re going to beat the ***t out of them.  
 

 

 

[Richard Noggin]

22 hours ago, 27yanks said:

Bills  Rushing defense:  56/Carries  332/Yards  5.9APC

Better shore it up or we're going to get gashed Sunday!!    

 

This deserves emphasis. 

 

The real secret to Miami's exponential offensive explosion is being balanced, multiple, and dangerous through the air and on the ground. It's difficult to defend that kind of attack. If Miami can gash a defense on the ground, then whatever they do through the air becomes so much easier. The middle of the field, especially, really opens up as LBs and even safeties/slots get sucked towards the LOS. 

 

Defense has to be incredibly disciplined and physical, and tackle very well. Cannot over-pursue or over-commit against the run. Ends have to stay home, etc.