Do you think the offense was better yesterday?

[newcam2012]

4 hours ago, Big Turk said:

I think the difference is when you are in control of the game, you have less need for trying to generate big plays later in the game so you are unlikely to try for them as much since the risk/reward ratio is far higher in favor of risk.  This obviously would lead to a lower EPA/play than when you are behind and constantly trying to throw and maybe taking some chances downfield.  I think the better metric would be comparing 1st half EPA/play versus 2nd half EPA/play over the past 3 games versus last night.  The Bills offense being on fire in the 2nd half of those games and taking more risks since they had no choice and needed points fast, helped boost that number a little bit artificially, IMO.

 

IMO, if the Bills wanted to score more points, they easily could have taken a riskier approach and done so. Based on the flow of the game, it was not needed.

I think this is spot on. 

 

I'd add that the offense was way way way better than the last three games. I'm not talking about scoring points here. Of course,  that's the bottom line. As you pointed out game script had a lot to do with it. 

 

I mean come on just do a basic fan eye ball test. No need to look at stats here. The offense had a swagger, attitude, diversity, creativity, etc...To see Allen unleashed was fantastic. To see others besides Diggs contribute was fantastic. Shakir, Davis, and Kincaid all looked elite like. Even yards after the catch! The oline was very good. Cook was effective with his touches.

 

This is the kind of of offense we've been waiting for. It's the kind of offense that will be needed to beat the tough teams the Bills are about to face. I'm not getting down on them for the last few drives of the game. 

[FireChans]

44 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I don't think you know what objectively means. 

It was not that bad against the Pats =25 points. (even with Murray and Bass leaving points on the field)  Q4 against the Pats was 10x better than Q4 against the Bucs.  I did not say the offense wasn't good in either game. They ended up with similar results, because the combined combination of coaching and execution over the course of 60 minutes totalled the same basic outcome.  It is clear you don't 'got it'

 

I don’t think you understand that being up two scores is better than being down two scores

[BCAS Baritone]

I definitely thought the offense was WAY better overall last night than at any time since the Dolphins game.  Even in those late comebacks against the Giants and Patriots they did not look as good during those brief periods as they did overall last night.

 

Even the last 25 minutes when they didn't score, they looked at least decent.  The second half against Tampa Bay was way better than the first half against New England or NY Giants or Jacksonville.

 

But I still think the third and goal shotgun run in the first half was absolutely idiotic.  

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

7 hours ago, Einstein said:

I made the argument last week that the offense played 'fine'. Points are points whether they are scored in the first half or final minutes. The offense scored 25 and left the field with the lead and under two minutes to play. So I figured lets compare the two.

Week 7 vs Patriots
Points: 25

Offensive EPA/a: .16
First downs: 24

Punts: 1

 

Week 8 vs Bucs

Points: 24

Offensive EPA/a: .09

First downs: 25

Punts: 4

This weeks offense did have 88 more yards, and also involved more receiving options, though this effort resulted in 1 less point, a lower EPA/a and more punts than last week. 

We did have a large lead this week, which can contribute to taking the foot off the pedal. However, I didn't get the sense we were doing that until the very last drive. We were running 11 personnel with Josh in shotgun up until the second to last drive.

PS, our no-huddle work was magnificent:
 

 

 

 

To answer your question, did they look better?

 

First I crossed out all the stats

 

Forget the stats, they looked much better with the eye ball test against Tampa.

 

The NE game they almost won, but if they had, didn't deserve it.

Last night they won, but almost lost, but handily deserved to win.  And the difference was the offense.

[GunnerBill]

I still think our offense played in fits and starts. I thought the playcalling on the two drives in the fourth quarter where we punted inside their half was really conservative. We stopped attacking. 

 

Before that other than the bemusing goalline sequence - shovel, shotgun run, rub route against a zone - I thought Dorsey called a decent game. 

 

The Patriots loss was much more on the defense than the offense. But before that final drive we had stopped twice (until needless stupid penalties) the Buccs only got inside our 30 once in the whole game and that was when Allen turned it over. 

 

I just think at the moment the two units need to play more complimentary football. That means the offense cannot keep putting the undermanned defense in bad spots with turnovers and it means the defense cannot keep hurting itself on 3rd and 4th down with penalties that extend drives and keep the offense on the sideline. 

 

We need to be more disciplined and our execution MUST improve. There have been positives in both games on offense and there were some positives on defense in this game too once McDermott put the blitz away.