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

[HoofHearted]

12 minutes ago, boyst said:

They're having more success than the last several years of play. Partially due to better athletes and development of DB's with the adaption of the game, at least in my opinion.

 

This could also be due to lack of quality offensive positions. OL athleticism is down to near lows, and RBs are not the best athletes any longer. 

No shot this is true.

[Big Turk]

7 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

Every instance of a spacing issue that I've seen posted on here or by people on social media is a still shot of us running mesh. That's the whole design of the concept. Traditionally it's a rub concept vs man, and if it's zone those two players will sit in the empty spaces created in the underneath zones. We run a slightly varied version that makes things even easier for our receivers running the mesh concept. Essentially they're running their mesh crossers regardless of coverage, which eliminates the post-snap read. We then sit a player in that low hole area directly behind the backers so that we have an option vs zone coverage. Essentially Josh waits for the crossers to pull the zone defenders back out with them and then hits the Spot sitting in the middle of the formation. Saw this thrown to Diggs this week, and is one of Dorsey's favorite concepts on 3rd and short to medium because it's an all coverage beater. Outside of that I haven't seen anything else that has guys running close together.

 

 

Interesting...so in your opinion, what can Dorsey do on a consistent basis to make the offense more consistent game to game and harder to defend for defenses with the personnel he has at his disposal? And how much of this is on Dorsey versus Allen not executing the concepts properly?

[Marcus Aurelius]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:06 AM, Draconator said:

yawn

 

Tired? Go to bed ...

 

[boyst]

9 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

No shot this is true.

The ebbs and flowers of football development make the next 3-4 years interesting 

[HoofHearted]

2 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

 

Interesting...so in your opinion, what can Dorsey do on a consistent basis to make the offense more consistent game to game and harder to defend for defenses with the personnel he has at his disposal? And how much of this is on Dorsey versus Allen not executing the concepts properly?

I said this in another post somewhere, but schematically I'd like to see more shifts and motions. I really liked what we were doing pre-snap in the miami game, but a lot of that was opponent specific because of all the man and man-match coverages they run. We do some good things with misdirection, I'd like to see more of that going forward - anything to get a defense moving or having to communicate as the ball is being snapped is good business for an offense. I think Dorsey does a phenomenal job of calling concepts that attack the coverages we're seeing in specific down/distance/field zone situations. The struggles with balance within series has largely been due to getting off schedule or not sustaining drives. I'd like to see him incorporate our tight ends on the perimeter a lot more than they currently are. We should be a hellacious screen team with Knox and Kincaid kicking out Corners on perimeter screens, but we haven't really utilized them a whole lot. There's been a few occasions where Josh has held the ball a little long for various reasons, but then just overall execution of the entire offense needs to improve early in games, specifically the offensive line and I think it will the longer they play with each other. Unfortunately there isn't one thing you can point to as the problem the last two weeks, but the good news is that the issues are all easily correctable.

18 minutes ago, boyst said:

The ebbs and flowers of football development make the next 3-4 years interesting 

Why do you say that?

[Big Turk]

14 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I said this in another post somewhere, but schematically I'd like to see more shifts and motions. I really liked what we were doing pre-snap in the miami game, but a lot of that was opponent specific because of all the man and man-match coverages they run. We do some good things with misdirection, I'd like to see more of that going forward - anything to get a defense moving or having to communicate as the ball is being snapped is good business for an offense. I think Dorsey does a phenomenal job of calling concepts that attack the coverages we're seeing in specific down/distance/field zone situations. The struggles with balance within series has largely been due to getting off schedule or not sustaining drives. I'd like to see him incorporate our tight ends on the perimeter a lot more than they currently are. We should be a hellacious screen team with Knox and Kincaid kicking out Corners on perimeter screens, but we haven't really utilized them a whole lot. There's been a few occasions where Josh has held the ball a little long for various reasons, but then just overall execution of the entire offense needs to improve early in games, specifically the offensive line and I think it will the longer they play with each other. Unfortunately there isn't one thing you can point to as the problem the last two weeks, but the good news is that the issues are all easily correctable.

 

That's kinda what I was wondering also, it seemed against Miami they had a whole array of various motions and shifts and then really nothing the last 2 games other than a few short motions or a back shifting from one side to the other behind Allen for protection purposes I am assuming?  

 

Do you think Dorsey doesn't do a good enough job of building in answers when he calls a play for a specific coverage but then it ends up not being that coverage? Is that even a thing?

 

I remember we had a lot of success under Daboll on those Allen audibled "Gold Rip/Whip" screens to Brown but those have largely disappeared other than a few screen-like plays to players out of the backfield on swing passes behind the LOS, which seem to be largely WR's(Harty, Diggs, Shakir), but in general our screen game is terrible...and I don't think it should be...they have enough athletic OLinemen to make that work better.  What do you think the issue is with that? Why do other teams have such great screen games and ours is so bad?  Seems so weird we used to have the best screen game in the NFL under Gailey and now it's among the worst.  You would think the concepts would be taught the same way that there wouldn't be as huge of a difference between them...seems the Bills RBs are never open on screens and Allen has to turf it usually. Also seem to like running TE screens to Knox which often times gets turfed too since he is covered or there are a large number of bodies around him.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Big Turk

[HoofHearted]

20 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

That's kinda what I was wondering also, it seemed against Miami they had a whole array of various motions and shifts and then really nothing the last 2 games other than a few short motions or a back shifting from one side to the other behind Allen for protection purposes I am assuming?  

 

Do you think Dorsey doesn't do a good enough job of building in answers when he calls a play for a specific coverage but then it ends up not being that coverage? Is that even a thing?

 

I remember we had a lot of success under Daboll on those Allen audibled "Gold Rip/Whip" screens to Brown but those have largely disappeared other than a few screen-like plays to players out of the backfield on swing passes behind the LOS, which seem to be largely WR's(Harty, Diggs, Shakir), but in general our screen game is terrible...and I don't think it should be...they have enough athletic OLinemen to make that work better.  What do you think the issue is with that? Why do other teams have such great screen games and ours is so bad?  Seems so weird we used to have the best screen game in the NFL under Gailey and now it's among the worst.  You would think the concepts would be taught the same way that there wouldn't be as huge of a difference between them...seems the Bills RBs are never open on screens and Allen has to turf it usually. Also seem to like running TE screens to Knox which often times gets turfed too since he is covered or there are a large number of bodies around him.

 

 

Nah, typically the backside of those coverage specific routes is either a man beater or a universal concept that can win again anything. As far as the screen game - I really only like the perimeter screen game with this group. I don't think our OL are athletic enough in open space to engage blocks so avoiding those is 100% the right call. Our perimeter screen game should be fantastic though if we use Knox and Kincaid as the MDM blockers.

[3rdand12]

On 10/17/2023 at 8:56 AM, Big Turk said:

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.

yes.

 he needs perhaps, to combine horizontal and vertical out of the condensed. And even a curl to force a defend to choose to run or stop to play over the route.

 Yes its noticable and why i questioned is it poor route running , understanding of the timing with the route or just a poor play call .   i dont understand why i too see this happening 

[boyst]

43 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I said this in another post somewhere, but schematically I'd like to see more shifts and motions. I really liked what we were doing pre-snap in the miami game, but a lot of that was opponent specific because of all the man and man-match coverages they run. We do some good things with misdirection, I'd like to see more of that going forward - anything to get a defense moving or having to communicate as the ball is being snapped is good business for an offense. I think Dorsey does a phenomenal job of calling concepts that attack the coverages we're seeing in specific down/distance/field zone situations. The struggles with balance within series has largely been due to getting off schedule or not sustaining drives. I'd like to see him incorporate our tight ends on the perimeter a lot more than they currently are. We should be a hellacious screen team with Knox and Kincaid kicking out Corners on perimeter screens, but we haven't really utilized them a whole lot. There's been a few occasions where Josh has held the ball a little long for various reasons, but then just overall execution of the entire offense needs to improve early in games, specifically the offensive line and I think it will the longer they play with each other. Unfortunately there isn't one thing you can point to as the problem the last two weeks, but the good news is that the issues are all easily correctable.

Why do you say that?

Your posts are always well written with relevant context. Well done.

 

But to your question it's kind of fairytale dreamland hypothesis stuff...

 

30 years ago the best athletes were generally RB's. The gap of quality by position put most talent on offense. Somewhere in the early 00's the influence of the WR trickled over to the younger generation to produce phenomenal WR's for a solid decade. Terrel Owens, Larry Fitzgerald, Dez Bryant, Randy Moss (gosh I can't remember all that long ago) were big influences to the younger generation getting into the game and showing what big, physical athletes can do. By the mid-to-late teens we were seeing the best athletes going to DB. Honey badger, Patrick Peterson, etc. We are still seeing this now.

 

There is a gap where the defense had been but it's been shrinking. The running backs ignored and the style and size of the key positions has drastically changed from 10 years ago.

 

We have seen phenomenal college athletes at the running back position get to the NFL and struggle. I can't even remember all of them over the last 5-6 years but an example like Pittsburghs Harris is an example. And regardless of age Henry isn't able to offer as much on defense.

 

What I am curious of deducing and waiting to see is if it is just that the offensive lineman are still that far behind as athletes to be able to provide the support for run and pass blocking?

 

This is kind of a ramble, totally my style... But, in 3-4 years are we going to go back to the mid-90's type of OL form that was average at best at all things vs specialized? Or are we going to look at have OL specialists put in for scheme specific roles? Say a Tommy Doyle at tackle over Dion Dawkins to run a specific series of plays?

 

I want to see where the athletes are going to keep going because now I see athletes going back to RB and QB in the high school ranks. 

[3rdand12]

4 minutes ago, 3rdand12 said:

yes.

 he needs perhaps, to combine horizontal and vertical out of the condensed. And even a curl to force a defend to choose to run or stop to play over the route.

 Yes its noticable and why i questioned is it poor route running , understanding of the timing with the route or just a poor play call .   i dont understand why i too see this happening 

But i do need to upgrade my Football acumen , without question

[Straight Hucklebuck]

1 hour ago, HoofHearted said:

I said this in another post somewhere, but schematically I'd like to see more shifts and motions. I really liked what we were doing pre-snap in the miami game, but a lot of that was opponent specific because of all the man and man-match coverages they run. We do some good things with misdirection, I'd like to see more of that going forward - anything to get a defense moving or having to communicate as the ball is being snapped is good business for an offense. I think Dorsey does a phenomenal job of calling concepts that attack the coverages we're seeing in specific down/distance/field zone situations. The struggles with balance within series has largely been due to getting off schedule or not sustaining drives. I'd like to see him incorporate our tight ends on the perimeter a lot more than they currently are. We should be a hellacious screen team with Knox and Kincaid kicking out Corners on perimeter screens, but we haven't really utilized them a whole lot. There's been a few occasions where Josh has held the ball a little long for various reasons, but then just overall execution of the entire offense needs to improve early in games, specifically the offensive line and I think it will the longer they play with each other. Unfortunately there isn't one thing you can point to as the problem the last two weeks, but the good news is that the issues are all easily correctable.

Why do you say that?

How much more production can be squeezed out of this offense if the personnel stays the same? 

 

Gabe, Harty, Shakir, Sherfield are good enough behind Diggs to win 3 Playoff games? 

 

Do the Bills just "live with" Gabe seemingly going up and down? Is that going to work against Playoff defenses? Is Diggs 12+ targets a game sustainable? 

 

Is Kincaid the next player that needs development? 

 

For instance, not sure why, but Michael Mayer for the Raiders has gone from not being targeted in the first 4 games of the season, to now being utilized. I don't know the specifics of coverage and concepts other Raiders are running to free him, but against the Patriots he motioned across the formation, on snap Garoppolo goes with him and throws to him in stride left to right and it's an immediate 20 yards. 

 

Similar formation later in the game, he runs diagonally across the field (with 10 yards depth), Garopollo in stride, and he turns it up for another 20 yard gain. 

 

Athletically, I can't believe that Kincaid couldn't do that. 

 

Motion is one lever, but is the personnel good enough to score against good teams? 

[HoofHearted]

13 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

How much more production can be squeezed out of this offense if the personnel stays the same? 

 

Gabe, Harty, Shakir, Sherfield are good enough behind Diggs to win 3 Playoff games? 

 

Do the Bills just "live with" Gabe seemingly going up and down? Is that going to work against Playoff defenses? Is Diggs 12+ targets a game sustainable? 

 

Is Kincaid the next player that needs development? 

 

For instance, not sure why, but Michael Mayer for the Raiders has gone from not being targeted in the first 4 games of the season, to now being utilized. I don't know the specifics of coverage and concepts other Raiders are running to free him, but against the Patriots he motioned across the formation, on snap Garoppolo goes with him and throws to him in stride left to right and it's an immediate 20 yards. 

 

Similar formation later in the game, he runs diagonally across the field (with 10 yards depth), Garopollo in stride, and he turns it up for another 20 yard gain. 

 

Athletically, I can't believe that Kincaid couldn't do that. 

 

Motion is one lever, but is the personnel good enough to score against good teams? 

Gabe's fine. He has his limitations but his role in our scheme is established and he can execute it well. I wish he caught the ball differently than he does, but that's him and how he's always done it. I think what gets lost on fans is how complex our system is. There's a ton of route conversions within the concepts we run and it takes time and reps to be able to make decisions quickly based on post-snap reads. It's also what allows us to be consistently one of the top offenses in the league year in and year out. We'll be fine.

[Rubes]

1 minute ago, HoofHearted said:

Gabe's fine. He has his limitations but his role in our scheme is established and he can execute it well. I wish he caught the ball differently than he does, but that's him and how he's always done it. I think what gets lost on fans is how complex our system is. There's a ton of route conversions within the concepts we run and it takes time and reps to be able to make decisions quickly based on post-snap reads. It's also what allows us to be consistently one of the top offenses in the league year in and year out. We'll be fine.

 

I've felt like this is the reason we occasionally see receivers near each other, perhaps because they're not quite making the right decisions based on the coverage, and they just need more reps before getting it down 100%. Do you think that's accurate?

 

[HoofHearted]

7 minutes ago, Rubes said:

 

I've felt like this is the reason we occasionally see receivers near each other, perhaps because they're not quite making the right decisions based on the coverage, and they just need more reps before getting it down 100%. Do you think that's accurate?

 

The majority of times I've seen receivers close to each other has been on scramble drills where guys are just trying to run to grass to get open for Josh.

[Straight Hucklebuck]

12 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

Gabe's fine. He has his limitations but his role in our scheme is established and he can execute it well. I wish he caught the ball differently than he does, but that's him and how he's always done it. I think what gets lost on fans is how complex our system is. There's a ton of route conversions within the concepts we run and it takes time and reps to be able to make decisions quickly based on post-snap reads. It's also what allows us to be consistently one of the top offenses in the league year in and year out. We'll be fine.

His contract is up after the season, are you extending him to stay on as your #2? 

[Rew]

7 hours ago, boyst said:

i do.

 

i don't think we are disagreeing at all fwiw

 

 i think we are seeing things from a different perspective with little variance in the conclusion.

 

yes, i watched the super bowl. the defense finally caught up this year. i think we are back in a spell where good defenses will matter more than the last few seasons. new defensive concepts are out there and just being grasped. we will see if mcdermott can grasp it.

Seeing as McDermott pioneered some of the defensive concepts that other teams are trying out I'd give him a better than average chance at grasping it.

[HoofHearted]

6 hours ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

His contract is up after the season, are you extending him to stay on as your #2? 

Depends how much money he’s after.

9 hours ago, boyst said:

new defensive concepts are out there and just being grasped. we will see if mcdermott can grasp it.

What are some of these new defensive concepts?

[boyst]

1 hour ago, HoofHearted said:

Depends how much money he’s after.

What are some of these new defensive concepts?

Don't have a ton of time to get into it this evening and still seeing how cover 4 and cover 6 are being utilized to explain better. They may not be entirely new but they are being used a lot more with new wrinkles, with better athletes, and more effectively.

[HoofHearted]

8 hours ago, boyst said:

Don't have a ton of time to get into it this evening and still seeing how cover 4 and cover 6 are being utilized to explain better. They may not be entirely new but they are being used a lot more with new wrinkles, with better athletes, and more effectively.

I can explain them to you if you’d like. There’s no new wrinkles. Those schemes have been around for forever. The only thing that has been changing defensively in the NFL is teams are running more split safety coverages but MOFC coverages still dominate like they always have.

[boyst]

10 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I can explain them to you if you’d like. There’s no new wrinkles. Those schemes have been around for forever. The only thing that has been changing defensively in the NFL is teams are running more split safety coverages but MOFC coverages still dominate like they always have.

Go ahead, id like your take

 

I know the scheme is old enough but am curious how it can be used so efficiently to have no breakdowns of seams the field corner being exposed often. I think it goes back to the athleticism of the current NFL athlete.