How much better is Joe Brady?

[Lost]

After we went on our late season turnaround once Joe Brady took over as OC, the assumption was the offense was more efficient and we started leaning into the running game a lot more.   It's true we did run the ball more as Josh Allen doubled the amount of carries and we became more efficient in goal line scoring.  Perhaps just dumping the dreaded shotgun draw play from the 1yd line was enough to change that.   Overall however Josh's passing yds/game decreased under Brady as well as his QB rating.   Rushing averages for both Cook and Allen decreased under Brady as well.   I'm hoping brady shows off some new stuff this season but mostly all I've heard this offseason is that there really isn't a whole lot of new concepts except for Brady is letting the players have more choice in the plays they want to run.   Curious how it's gonna play out but I'm still not ready to anoint Joe Brady as the savior of the Bills offense.   

 

 

Edited September 3 by Lost

[msw2112]

The only statistic I care about is the Win-Loss record.  If I'm correct, they were 5-5 with Dorsey and 6-1 with Brady, and the schedule was arguably more difficult with Brady (and the season was on the line).  The running game looked the best it has looked in many years (again, I don't know what the stats say, but I don't really care).  I'm on board with the OP in being curious about how it's all going to play out.  I'm optimistic that it will play out well, as I believe the offense is more diverse and thus much less predictable for opposing defenses.  Although they may not have a WR as good as Diggs, assuming everyone is healthy, there are lot of options among the run game, the RB passing game, Kincaid and Knox at TE, Shakir, Samuel, Coleman, and the other guys (Hollins, MVS, etc.)  There is also more pre-snap motion, which further disguises the plays before the ball is snapped.  I believe that the Dorsey offense was far too focused on Diggs and became stale and predictable.

Edited September 4 by msw2112

[Squat_and_Clap]

Allen's stats going down isn't indicative of poor coordinating. The offense as a whole realized they shouldn't be relying so much on Allen's arm and force-feeding the ball to Diggs.

 

They needed to play complimentary football in order to win games, which they were not doing under Dorsey. They needed to have an identity and a toughness.

 

I'm hoping Allen will be more efficient and less turn-over prone, which I think he will be. They made big changes in the receiver room, adding guys who complement their new identity. We should see Allen hitting more short passes to reliable catchers and generally spreading the ball around more than usual. Regardless of Cook's personal average, the run game will be efficient and it will include Allen running because you know the offense is comfortable with that.

[ganesh]

20 minutes ago, msw2112 said:

The only statistic I care about is the Win-Loss record.  If I'm correct, they were 5-5 with Dorsey and 5-1 with Brady, and the schedule was arguably more difficult with Brady (and the season was on the line).  The running game looked the best it has looked in many years (again, I don't know what the stats say, but I don't really care).  I'm on board with the OP in being curious about how it's all going to play out.  I'm optimistic that it will play out well, as I believe the offense is more diverse and thus much less predictable for opposing defenses.  Although they may not have a WR as good as Diggs, assuming everyone is healthy, there are lot of options among the run game, the RB passing game, Kincaid and Knox at TE, Shakir, Samuel, Coleman, and the other guys (Hollins, MVS, etc.)  There is also more pre-snap motion, which further disguises the plays before the ball is snapped.  I believe that the Dorsey offense was far too focused on Diggs and became stale and predictable.

also important is the quality of the wins... Brady's 5-1 was against  KC, Chargers, Dallas, and Dolphins.  In fact the team should have won his single loss against the Eagles when they blew a 21 point half time lead.

[78thealltimegreat]

   Well if you look at Joes past he made his bones with that super offense at LSU in 2019 where Joe Burrow had maybe the best receiving corps in college football the last 20 years. 
   He then went onto Carolina where he was let go and had QBs Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnold respectively.

   He came to Buffalo and has been ok with Josh Allen as his QB.

 

In other words he’s not some offensive guru he does well when hes had a good qb and he does bad when he doesn’t. So he’s like every other OC  in the league. 

[msw2112]

5 hours ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

   Well if you look at Joes past he made his bones with that super offense at LSU in 2019 where Joe Burrow had maybe the best receiving corps in college football the last 20 years. 
   He then went onto Carolina where he was let go and had QBs Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnold respectively.

   He came to Buffalo and has been ok with Josh Allen as his QB.

 

In other words he’s not some offensive guru he does well when hes had a good qb and he does bad when he doesn’t. So he’s like every other OC  in the league. 

You're not wrong, but Brady went 6-1 with the same QB and players that Dorsey went 5-5 with, against a tougher schedule.  Maybe it was just because it was new and there wasn't much film on the Brady offense with the Bills, or maybe Brady did a great job.  Maybe Dorsey was just terrible and thus NOT like every other OC in the league.  We'll find out over 17 games this season.

Edited September 3 by msw2112

[SoonerBillsFan]

55 minutes ago, Lost said:

After we went on our late season turnaround once Joe Brady took over as OC, the assumption was the offense was more efficient and we started leaning into the running game a lot more.   It's true we did run the ball more as Josh Allen doubled the amount of carries and we became more efficient in goal line scoring.  Perhaps just dumping the dreaded shotgun draw play from the 1yd line was enough to change that.   Overall however Josh's passing yds/game decreased under Brady as well as his QB rating.   Rushing averages for both Cook and Allen decreased under Brady as well.   I'm hoping brady shows off some new stuff this season but mostly all I've heard this offseason is that there really isn't a whole lot of new concepts except for Brady is letting the players have more choice in the plays they want to run.   Curious how it's gonna play out but I'm still not ready to anoint Joe Brady as the savior of the Bills offense.   

 

 

We wont have a realistic Idea until the end of the season.

[FireChans]

23 minutes ago, Squat_and_Clap said:

Allen's stats going down isn't indicative of poor coordinating. The offense as a whole realized they shouldn't be relying so much on Allen's arm and force-feeding the ball to Diggs.

 

They needed to play complimentary football in order to win games, which they were not doing under Dorsey. They needed to have an identity and a toughness.

 

I'm hoping Allen will be more efficient and less turn-over prone, which I think he will be. They made big changes in the receiver room, adding guys who complement their new identity. We should see Allen hitting more short passes to reliable catchers and generally spreading the ball around more than usual. Regardless of Cook's personal average, the run game will be efficient and it will include Allen running because you know the offense is comfortable with that.

I think Diggs was still the highest targeted WR by a lot after Brady took over.

 

IMO, cutting down Diggs and Davis targets some and giving them more to Shakir/Kincaid preceded Brady.

 

Kincaid started seeing ~6-8 targets per game after NE1 and stayed basically around there for the rest of the year.

 

Shakir went from 30% of offensive snaps and 1 target per game to 60%+ snaps and 4-6 targets per game around NE1/TB and again, continued from there.

 

Even Josh running preceded Brady a bit. He had 22 rushes in the first 6 games, a little under 4 per game. He had 7 for both NE1 and TB and finished the back half of the year averaging a little over 8 rushes a game.

 

I used to think Brady cut down on Diggs/Davis and took the shackles off Josh right around Denver as well, but just looking at the numbers, he kinda just finished the adjustments that Dorsey had started to make. This actually makes me feel better about Brady.

 

[julian]

I’m starting to think “ statistics are for nerds “ might have some validity, Allen seems to have the ability to lock in and raise his level of play when all the chips are on the line, evidenced by his Nov and Dec win/loss record. Hopefully these narratives of being overrated and not having weapons and Diggs made him are the perfect storm of doubt Allen needs to lock in raise his level of play right off the rip.

 

 

[Squat_and_Clap]

10 minutes ago, FireChans said:

I think Diggs was still the highest targeted WR by a lot after Brady took over.

 

IMO, cutting down Diggs and Davis targets some and giving them more to Shakir/Kincaid preceded Brady.

 

Kincaid started seeing ~6-8 targets per game after NE1 and stayed basically around there for the rest of the year.

 

Shakir went from 30% of offensive snaps and 1 target per game to 60%+ snaps and 4-6 targets per game around NE1/TB and again, continued from there.

 

Even Josh running preceded Brady a bit. He had 22 rushes in the first 6 games, a little under 4 per game. He had 7 for both NE1 and TB and finished the back half of the year averaging a little over 8 rushes a game.

 

I used to think Brady cut down on Diggs/Davis and took the shackles off Josh right around Denver as well, but just looking at the numbers, he kinda just finished the adjustments that Dorsey had started to make. This actually makes me feel better about Brady.

 

Probably because Josh, Brady, and McD were stepping in on the decision-making of the offense when things started getting desperate.  

 

Leading up to Dorsey's firing, you know they didn't just leave him be until the week of...

[FireChans]

3 minutes ago, Squat_and_Clap said:

Probably because Josh, Brady, and McD were stepping in on the decision-making of the offense when things started getting desperate.  

 

Leading up to Dorsey's firing, you know they didn't just leave him be until the week of...

That's certainly a plausible explanation. I don't know how much Brady would have been a driving force of such a change compared to McD.

[strive_for_five_guy]

I mentioned this in another thread.  Ran into an ex-Bills player a few weeks back and asked him what he thought about the state of the Bills.  His response was the best thing that happened for the team last year was the firing of Dorsey and promotion of Joe Brady to OC.  Said Brady operates a much more functional running game which will bode better for the team.  Seeing that this guy actually played in the NFL, I’m hopeful he knows what he is seeing and talking about.

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

will need a full season under his belt before one can make a real good assessment. he did pretty well with the second half of the season.

 

we shall see...

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I think this is an issue of small sample size and one game overly affecting the stats.  In the Dallas game Cook rushed for 179 and Johnson added another 54. Allen only passed for 94 yards.  That is not a normal game for most NFL teams.  If Josh has a normal game of 250-270 yards instead of the 94 yards then his averages per game are nearly identical with Dorsey vs Brady. 

 

 

[Dr. K]

1 hour ago, msw2112 said:

The only statistic I care about is the Win-Loss record.  If I'm correct, they were 5-5 with Dorsey and 5-1 with Brady, and the schedule was arguably more difficult with Brady (and the season was on the line).  The running game looked the best it has looked in many years (again, I don't know what the stats say, but I don't really care).  I'm on board with the OP in being curious about how it's all going to play out.  I'm optimistic that it will play out well, as I believe the offense is more diverse and thus much less predictable for opposing defenses.  Although they may not have a WR as good as Diggs, assuming everyone is healthy, there are lot of options among the run game, the RB passing game, Kincaid and Knox at TE, Shakir, Samuel, Coleman, and the other guys (Hollins, MVS, etc.)  There is also more pre-snap motion, which further disguises the plays before the ball is snapped.  I believe that the Dorsey offense was far too focused on Diggs and became stale and predictable.

They went 6-1, not 5-1, after Brady took over as OC. 

 

Then went 1-1 in the playoffs. 

[ngbills]

I have conclude that people will believe what they want here. Since Brady is the current and Dorsey the fired, most want to just say Brady is obviously better. Reality is we dont really know. Brady did a few things different that helped the team win. But a lot of the better O was simply a lot of Josh Allen because the Bills needed wins. He also benefitted from D playing much better. Lastly, they both had a lot of ugly O games. But Dorsey took the lumps of some McD blunders - Jets return for TD loss after giving up 10 points in the 4th, McD not holing lead vs NE in final minute, and the DEN debacle. 

[Bruffalo]

I think situational play calling is lost in the numbers here and I think that's the biggest difference between Dorsey and Brady.  Brady's offensive playcalling just doesn't leave me wondering "WTF was he thinking?" nearly as often as with Dorsey. 

 

Whether or not this translates to more success moving forward remains to be seen. 

[hondo in seattle]

I think the 2024 version of Joe Brady won't be the same as the 2023 version.  He's had the whole off-season to rethink the scheme, retool the playbook, reorganize the meetings, and reset the culture.  

 

According to reports, he's done all that.  But will his work result in a better product on the field.  Who knows?  I hope so.  

[corta765]

EPA Dabolls last year was like 13 +

Dorsey was -2 has last year

Brady was +8

[GoBills808]

i would encourage you folks to go and watch some panthers 2020 offense before you get too excited

 

it wasn't just laughably bad and predictable, it was boring af