The Bills' abject lack of a deep middle passing game

[dave mcbride]

It's now starting to make sense why the Steelers didn't cover Kincaid on his TD in the playoff game and why Shakir ran free on the second-down play on the Bills final possession in the divisional round game. The Bills proved all season that they're terrible at connecting on deep middle throws. The only success they had was the Kincaid catch in the playoff game! In the regular season, they were an unbelievable 0 for 15.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/1/31/24055184/2023-bills-season-analysis-buffalos-deep-middle-passing-game

[BarleyNY]

that’s rough. you’d think that Kincaid would eat well on seam routes

Edited February 2 by BarleyNY

[PBF81]

Davis was our only regular deep threat this season.  

 

Nearly half of Shakir's yards were after-the-catch.  

 

Our play design and play-calling, presumably in the interests of "complimentary football" clearly have something to do with it, the extent to which can be argued.  

 

Relatedly, Allen's Completed-Air-Yards/Completion are the lowest they've been since he's been here and down about 20% from last season.  

Yards-After-the-Catch for Allen's passes are up 24% from last season and also the highest of his career, spread fairly evenly among Diggs, Cook, Kincaid, and Shakir.  

Allen's Yards-After-the-Catch/Completion are the highest that they've been since his rookie season.  

 

So it would seem that it's by design.  

 

 

[dave mcbride]

1 hour ago, PBF81 said:

Davis was our only regular deep threat this season.  

 

Nearly half of Shakir's yards were after-the-catch.  

 

Our play design and play-calling, presumably in the interests of "complimentary football" clearly have something to do with it, the extent to which can be argued.  

 

Relatedly, Allen's Completed-Air-Yards/Completion are the lowest they've been since he's been here and down about 20% from last season.  

Yards-After-the-Catch for Allen's passes are up 24% from last season and also the highest of his career, spread fairly evenly among Diggs, Cook, Kincaid, and Shakir.  

Allen's Yards-After-the-Catch/Completion are the highest that they've been since his rookie season.  

 

So it would seem that it's by design.  

 

 

I get the design, but 0 for 15 is still pretty ugly.

[Old Coot]

We did not connect on may of the deep shots we took this year. Josh seemed to overthrow his receivers plus occasional drops.

 

It's execution, man. These guys are elete pro athletes. They should be better than this.

 

Josh needs to practice dropping deep balls into trash cans with a guy waving his hands in Josh's face.

[PBF81]

30 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

I get the design, but 0 for 15 is still pretty ugly.

 

Somewhat, but it's not so far off of the league mean that it should blur the core issue.  

 

 

[sven233]

2 hours ago, BarleyNY said:

that’s rough. you’d think that Kincaid would eat well on seam routes

 

He would have, but they didn't really even start to incorporate him in the offense on those types of routes until the last couple weeks of the season.  He may have run a few of those routes earlier in the year here and there, but they didn't really start utilizing him in those situations until late.  It was really strange because it was one of his biggest talents coming out of college in the first place.  I thought we'd see it more from the beginning of the season, but they never did it.

[Allen2D̶i̶g̶g̶s̶TBD]

I think one reason may be because Josh tends to exit the pocket frequently and it's very difficult (and risky) to throw across your body into the deep middle of the field. I want to see more plays with Kincaid running a seam route right up the gut of the defense to keep the safeties from shading towards our outside receivers.

[Mister Defense]

5 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

It's now starting to make sense why the Steelers didn't cover Kincaid on his TD in the playoff game and why Shakir ran free on the second-down play on the Bills final possession in the divisional round game. The Bills proved all season that they're terrible at connecting on deep middle throws. The only success they had was the Kincaid catch in the playoff game! In the regular season, they were an unbelievable 0 for 15.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/1/31/24055184/2023-bills-season-analysis-buffalos-deep-middle-passing-game

 

Do you think Dak would do better than Allen here on those throws? Just curious..

[Shaw66]

This is one of those deep dives into stats that I think is pretty meaningless.  What are we, or the Bills, supposed to do with this data?  Redesign the offense to make sure they complete some deep passes over the middle?  To what end?

 

Think about it:  First, remember that all teams have gone to defenses to stop deep throws, and against the Bills they double down on those efforts, because Allen can so deadly.   When teams have two deep safeties, throwing down the middle is the last place you want to go, because both safeties have a chance to make a play.  The sidelines deep offer better opportunities.  I would guess that deep middle throws are prone to higher interception rates.  

 

Second, if the Bills were reasonably successful on the 15 deep balls they threw in the middle, that's like 40%.  So that's six more completions on the season, and if each was for 30 yards, that's 180 yards, or on average 10 yards per game.   Now, I'm just as interested as the next guy in getting 10 yards more per game, but how much time should Bills invest in deep middle throws to get those ten yards? 

 

Third, has anyone looked at the stats?  I haven't, but I'm sure some other team had an abysmal record on deep left throws, and some other team did on deep right throws.  These throws are a sliver of the offensive attempts in a game - one or two plays out of fifty, and that smaller of a sample size is always going to generate interesting - but not meaningful - outliers. 

 

I would expect that the Bills have seen this data, and I expect that they are studying it, like everything else, to see whether anything meaningful is behind.   But as I said, if there were something meaningful and if it were corrected, at best it's going to have incidental impact on production.   Yes, of course, the team should improve in every area, but this hardly should be a focal point. 

 

Fans wanted to get rid of Tyrod Taylor when he had bad numbers throwing into the middle middle.  Should we now move on from Josh Allen because he has bad numbers in the deep middle?   

 

Slicing and dicing data into smaller and smaller pieces rarely leads to any useful knowledge.

[mannc]

5 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

It's now starting to make sense why the Steelers didn't cover Kincaid on his TD in the playoff game and why Shakir ran free on the second-down play on the Bills final possession in the divisional round game. The Bills proved all season that they're terrible at connecting on deep middle throws. The only success they had was the Kincaid catch in the playoff game! In the regular season, they were an unbelievable 0 for 15.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/1/31/24055184/2023-bills-season-analysis-buffalos-deep-middle-passing-game

wasn’t the TD pass to Shakir in the second Jets game a “deep middle” throw?

[SoonerBillsFan]

6 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

It's now starting to make sense why the Steelers didn't cover Kincaid on his TD in the playoff game and why Shakir ran free on the second-down play on the Bills final possession in the divisional round game. The Bills proved all season that they're terrible at connecting on deep middle throws. The only success they had was the Kincaid catch in the playoff game! In the regular season, they were an unbelievable 0 for 15.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/1/31/24055184/2023-bills-season-analysis-buffalos-deep-middle-passing-game

We have no effective speed.

[dave mcbride]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

This is one of those deep dives into stats that I think is pretty meaningless.  What are we, or the Bills, supposed to do with this data?  Redesign the offense to make sure they complete some deep passes over the middle?  To what end?

 

Think about it:  First, remember that all teams have gone to defenses to stop deep throws, and against the Bills they double down on those efforts, because Allen can so deadly.   When teams have two deep safeties, throwing down the middle is the last place you want to go, because both safeties have a chance to make a play.  The sidelines deep offer better opportunities.  I would guess that deep middle throws are prone to higher interception rates.  

 

Second, if the Bills were reasonably successful on the 15 deep balls they threw in the middle, that's like 40%.  So that's six more completions on the season, and if each was for 30 yards, that's 180 yards, or on average 10 yards per game.   Now, I'm just as interested as the next guy in getting 10 yards more per game, but how much time should Bills invest in deep middle throws to get those ten yards? 

 

Third, has anyone looked at the stats?  I haven't, but I'm sure some other team had an abysmal record on deep left throws, and some other team did on deep right throws.  These throws are a sliver of the offensive attempts in a game - one or two plays out of fifty, and that smaller of a sample size is always going to generate interesting - but not meaningful - outliers. 

 

I would expect that the Bills have seen this data, and I expect that they are studying it, like everything else, to see whether anything meaningful is behind.   But as I said, if there were something meaningful and if it were corrected, at best it's going to have incidental impact on production.   Yes, of course, the team should improve in every area, but this hardly should be a focal point. 

 

Fans wanted to get rid of Tyrod Taylor when he had bad numbers throwing into the middle middle.  Should we now move on from Josh Allen because he has bad numbers in the deep middle?   

 

Slicing and dicing data into smaller and smaller pieces rarely leads to any useful knowledge.

He had bad numbers THIS YEAR and not because he’s bad at it. He’s had tons of great throws in that area over the years. But if you are 0-15, that’s not marginal, and it’s a big part of the field to surrender. 

[ScotSHO]

You can throw the ball in the middle of the field?  

[SoCal Deek]

So if I under, it’s not a lack…but an abject lack. Thats a big lack! 

[BADOLBILZ]

7 hours ago, dave mcbride said:

It's now starting to make sense why the Steelers didn't cover Kincaid on his TD in the playoff game and why Shakir ran free on the second-down play on the Bills final possession in the divisional round game. The Bills proved all season that they're terrible at connecting on deep middle throws. The only success they had was the Kincaid catch in the playoff game! In the regular season, they were an unbelievable 0 for 15.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/1/31/24055184/2023-bills-season-analysis-buffalos-deep-middle-passing-game

 

 

Don't tell this to all the people who thought "2nd and 9" was a good call because it was there and just should have been completed.

 

Imagine choosing a 6% success rate(1-16?) throw at such a critical juncture.

 

The decision for that call........with Shakir being the 1st option on a longer air yards throw than he had caught all season........is sketchier than the 13 seconds sequence in my opinion.

[artmalibu]

JA was 4th in the league in passing yards and 5th in passing TDs, so I dont care where he did or didnt complete passes.🤣

[djp14150]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

This is one of those deep dives into stats that I think is pretty meaningless.  What are we, or the Bills, supposed to do with this data?  Redesign the offense to make sure they complete some deep passes over the middle?  To what end?

 

Think about it:  First, remember that all teams have gone to defenses to stop deep throws, and against the Bills they double down on those efforts, because Allen can so deadly.   When teams have two deep safeties, throwing down the middle is the last place you want to go, because both safeties have a chance to make a play.  The sidelines deep offer better opportunities.  I would guess that deep middle throws are prone to higher interception rates.  

 

Second, if the Bills were reasonably successful on the 15 deep balls they threw in the middle, that's like 40%.  So that's six more completions on the season, and if each was for 30 yards, that's 180 yards, or on average 10 yards per game.   Now, I'm just as interested as the next guy in getting 10 yards more per game, but how much time should Bills invest in deep middle throws to get those ten yards? 

 

Third, has anyone looked at the stats?  I haven't, but I'm sure some other team had an abysmal record on deep left throws, and some other team did on deep right throws.  These throws are a sliver of the offensive attempts in a game - one or two plays out of fifty, and that smaller of a sample size is always going to generate interesting - but not meaningful - outliers. 

 

I would expect that the Bills have seen this data, and I expect that they are studying it, like everything else, to see whether anything meaningful is behind.   But as I said, if there were something meaningful and if it were corrected, at best it's going to have incidental impact on production.   Yes, of course, the team should improve in every area, but this hardly should be a focal point. 

 

Fans wanted to get rid of Tyrod Taylor when he had bad numbers throwing into the middle middle.  Should we now move on from Josh Allen because he has bad numbers in the deep middle?   

 

Slicing and dicing data into smaller and smaller pieces rarely leads to any useful knowledge.

I generally agree. I don’t know what the yardage cut off is between short and long. Teams played a deep center shell against the Bills and Allen scrambled which changes where he throws.

[CincyBillsFan]

3 hours ago, Mister Defense said:

 

Do you think Dak would do better than Allen here on those throws? Just curious..

Who cares.  Dak is an inferior QB to Allen and it's not close.

 

To put this data into perspective the Bills ran more then 1000 plays this season on offense.  They were 0 - 15 on this particular play.  That represents 1.5% pf all the offensive plays they ran.  That is a pea on an elephants back.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

On Wild Card weekend they went 1/2 on those.

 

I also wonder about what is meant, precisely, by "middle."  My guess is that some people mean between the numbers and others between the hashes. Maybe others attempt to divide the field into equal thirds.

 

The guy in the article is probably referring to between the hashes. It's easier to quickly check that way.

 

In week 3, Allen hit one that went 26 air yards and was in the middle of the field. (NextGenStats).

 

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/charts/single/pass/team/2023/3/josh-allen/ALL529264

 

In Week 5, he hit one that was 45 air yards in the middle third was completed.

 

Week 10 21 yards in the middle third completed but not within the hashes.

 

I also think this isn't really a fair comparison without looking deeper.

 

If one guy threw 20 passes to the deep middle, 80% of which were between 20 and 25 yards long, and another guy threw 20 passes to the deep middle, 80% of which were over 40 yards, the fact that the first guy was more accurate than the second doesn't mean he's a better thrower to the deep middle. It just means he threw passes that were easier to complete than the 2nd guy did.

 

It's an interesting stat. Worth a further look, probably, but I don't have more time to do that.