Scripted play analysis Daboll v. Dorsey (The Court Case of the Millenium)

[FireChans]

Common knowledge among the NFL is that the first 12-15 plays from scrimmage is "scripted," partly based on what the team thinks the opposing team is going to do on defense and partly based on what was worked on throughout the week.

 

I remember the Bills had a great run of having a solid script.  I think we had a streak scoring on the opening possession going at one point.

 

So I decided to do the analysis from the "Josh Allen is elite" era.  The script is probably the biggest thing the OC does from a gameplan perspective and is much easier to measure than "adjustments."

 

Let's look at the numbers!

 

2020: 7/16 games had a TD or FG on opening drive

 

2021: 11/17 games had a TD or FG on opening drive

 

2022: 3 straight to open the year, and 4 of our first 6 but ultimately 6/16 on the year.

 

2023:  2/6 so far

 

So what does this tell us?  To me, this is a clear indication that our scripted "easy plays" in film study and gameplan preparation are anything but easy lately.

 

Even more troubling is the steep decline from the first 6 weeks of 2022.  I'm sure there's something to be said for tendencies that teams look for and gather info on, so I'm not sure if that is significant or not and may have been partially buoyed by no one knowing what Dorsey liked.

 

This definitely lends credence to how laborous the offense looked through the second half of 2022 into our current season this year. Now, 4/6 was probably unsustainable, but we have really only scored on 4 opening possessions of our last 16 regular season games?  With Josh Allen at QB?

 

I'm sure I could have done some better datamining, but I think this is a good start.  Daboll's 2021 offense was clearly elite from a script perspective. Dorsey's was even better for the first 6 weeks in 2022 and has fallen off a cliff since.  What is the reason?

Edited October 17, 2023 by FireChans

[FireChans]

absolutely DISGUSTED that this post didn't do numbers.

[BillsFan130]

I was going to make a thread pointing out these slow starts.

 

Good topic and thank for for the research going back to 2020

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

I think our problem is trying too hard to establish the run on our first possession (although the Giants game does counter that trend). We have 2 first downs on opening drives this season on rushes, and 1 of those was a Josh scramble.

 

I wonder how much of it is McDermott vs Dorsey. It seemed like there was friction between McD and Daboll when he was here in regards to running the ball. McD is old school and wants to establish the run - but not via designed QB runs. Daboll was ok with calling 20 pass plays in a row.

 

Opening drives this season by play

 

Jets

pass

pass

run

run

pass

punt

 

Raiders

run

run

pass

punt

 

Commanders

pass

run

scramble 

run

pass

pass

pass

pass

run

pass

FG

 

Dolphins

run

pass

run

pass

run

run

pass

pass- TD

 

Jaguars

run

pass

pass

punt

 

Giants

pass

pass

pass

punt

[FireChans]

23 minutes ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

I think our problem is trying too hard to establish the run on our first possession (although the Giants game does counter that trend). We have 2 first downs on opening drives this season on rushes, and 1 of those was a Josh scramble.

 

I wonder how much of it is McDermott vs Dorsey. It seemed like there was friction between McD and Daboll when he was here in regards to running the ball. McD is old school and wants to establish the run - but not via designed QB runs. Daboll was ok with calling 20 pass plays in a row.

 

Opening drives this season by play

 

Jets

pass

pass

run

run

pass

punt

 

Raiders

run

run

pass

punt

 

Commanders

pass

run

scramble 

run

pass

pass

pass

pass

run

pass

FG

 

Dolphins

run

pass

run

pass

run

run

pass

pass- TD

 

Jaguars

run

pass

pass

punt

 

Giants

pass

pass

pass

punt

I don't think its as simple as run v pass and more what we have in our offensive arsenal to take advantage of opposing defenses' weaknesses and how good we are at executing it.

 

 

[Thrivefourfive]

All this tells me is that 2021 is an outlier 😂

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

16 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I don't think its as simple as run v pass and more what we have in our offensive arsenal to take advantage of opposing defenses' weaknesses and how good we are at executing it.

 

 

 

That's my point though. We're not good at running the ball, and particularly not good at running the ball with RBs early in the game. We keep wasting early plays on non creative James Cook runs up the middle for 2 yards (at best). 

[mrags]

Could you just name this thread “Dorsey sucks in more ways than previously posted”

[Draconator]

yawn

[FireChans]

35 minutes ago, mrags said:

Could you just name this thread “Dorsey sucks in more ways than previously posted”

No because there's actually some analysis here.

[mrags]

7 minutes ago, FireChans said:

No because there's actually some analysis here.

Same end result tho. He just sucks 

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, mrags said:

Same end result tho. He just sucks 

Can I change my poll answer to "mrags should go?"

[mrags]

3 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Can I change my poll answer to "mrags should go?"

It’s too late. I’m here just to annoy people. 

[FireChans]

9 hours ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

 

That's my point though. We're not good at running the ball, and particularly not good at running the ball with RBs early in the game. We keep wasting early plays on non creative James Cook runs up the middle for 2 yards (at best). 

We’d have to break down the numbers from the Daboll years, but he had his fair share of Zack Moss runs for 2 yards 

[Billsfan1972]

10 hours ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

I think our problem is trying too hard to establish the run on our first possession (although the Giants game does counter that trend). We have 2 first downs on opening drives this season on rushes, and 1 of those was a Josh scramble.

 

I wonder how much of it is McDermott vs Dorsey. It seemed like there was friction between McD and Daboll when he was here in regards to running the ball. McD is old school and wants to establish the run - but not via designed QB runs. Daboll was ok with calling 20 pass plays in a row.

 

Opening drives this season by play

 

Jets

pass

pass

run

run

pass

punt

 

Raiders

run

run

pass

punt

 

Commanders

pass

run

scramble 

run

pass

pass

pass

pass

run

pass

FG

 

Dolphins

run

pass

run

pass

run

run

pass

pass- TD

 

Jaguars

run

pass

pass

punt

 

Giants

pass

pass

pass

punt

The passes are almost all invariably very short of the 2-4 yard variety, thus to me no different then a run.  Unless 6-8 yards+ down the field (or beyond the sticks) they mean very little to me.

[Big Turk]

There are a lot of times that watching Cover1 all-22 clips that the spacing looks very poor...as in there are 4 Bill receivers within 10 yards of each other and huge open spaces with nobody.  It makes the windows much tighter than they should be since all those defenders are being drawn to the same area.  

 

Seems to happen a lot when they go to those condensed formations.  Think Dorsey needs to really examine these in more detail and work on better utilizing the open space available to him instead of having players bunching up all in one area.  I know this was mentioned at times last year also, but it's even more noticeable this year since we have been using a lot of the condensed formations with 12 personnel.

[PBF81]

11 hours ago, FireChans said:

absolutely DISGUSTED that this post didn't do numbers.

 

What do you mean?  

 

As to your original post, the first thing that hit me is that in 2020 Allen, suprisingly and in no small way, took the NFL by storm.  In 2019 he wasn't even an average passer.  Then he stepped into the world of the elite the following season.  

 

So my thinking is that being the enigma that he is to a large degree, that advantage played to our favor when playing teams for the first time and for a season or two on the newness of Allen being "superman."  Not being sure which teams were the ones where we scored on our opening drives this and last season, I would be curious as to which teams we did that against this and last season, to see whether perhaps they were largely teams from other conferences and not KC, Cincy, or other division winners that have been on our schedule annually now.  In essence, teams that we hadn't played before with Allen as our QB.  

 

Again though, at least some of that, the extent to which can be argued, can be thrown at the coaching staff.  

 

 

9 hours ago, mrags said:

Could you just name this thread “Dorsey sucks in more ways than previously posted”

 

We need one of those TV preview announcers ... 

 

Previously on TSW ... 

 

 

[T master]

I'm not real sure why the out put of the Bills offense has went down but there is plenty enough tape to go over to see exactly what does & doesn't or hasn't worked as of late .

 

I think they just need to look at the past tape & incorporate more of the things that have worked & get rid of the plays that don't even if it means putting more designed runs in for Josh they have the weapons to make a difference just scheme them correctly !

[Buffalo_Stampede]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

We’d have to break down the numbers from the Daboll years, but he had his fair share of Zack Moss runs for 2 yards 

People understand a lot of these run calls are checks by Josh Allen right? He gets a look he likes and makes a decision.

 

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Buffalo_Stampede

[Big Turk]

This is of much more concern...basically Dorsey is making it simple for defenses to defend them out of certain formations because they run the same patterns/route combinations and do not give any window dressing to make it look like something different at all.  Makes it easy to know what's coming.  This is virtually inexcusable.  Motions/shifts/varied look/formation...SOMETHING to make it look different and give them something to think about, but nope, same thing every time in certain formations. He did a LOT of window dressing against Miami and virtually none in the games since.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Big Turk