Bills Coordinators Need To Be Much Better

[oldmanfan]

I thought Brady was a bit too predictable with his first down calls, a lot of off-tackle runs.  I also would have liked to see Davis in there a bit more.  But overall, when you score 34 points not much you can say.  And yes, a lot was because of Josh being Superman again, but when you have Superman no need to apologize for it.  Babich it's hard to say.  Obviously, the D didn't do very well in the first half, then dominated the second.  But were those alterations made by Babich or McD?

[GunnerBill]

40 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

On the Cardinals' first two possessions, the RBs had 8 carries for 15 yards (1.8 ypc). On their third possession - their final one of the first half -- the RBs had 4 carries for 14 yards.  In total in the first half, the RBs had 12 carries for 29 yards (2.45 ypc). They had a couple of gash running plays in the second half but all told, the RBs had 20 carries for 67 yards (3.35 ypc).  

Fair enough, it felt like more. But overall they definitely second half got to grips with those off tackle runs and forced Arizona to try and switch to running up the gut which is less their strength. 

37 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

Are you referring to that they stopped focusing on keeping Murray in the pocket and just went after him?

 

Yes. 

[hondo in seattle]

9 hours ago, PrimeTime101 said:

I do, Up until the end of the second quarter Josh Allen only had 2 throws and the team had 14 runs total. Unless some of those runs are 20 yard + runs, that is all kinds of wrong. 

 

Agree.

 

The scouting report on Arizona was they were weak against the run last year (but maybe improved this year) and had below average edge rushers and CBs, but strong safeties.  

 

With all that in mind, I wasn't surprised that Brady wanted to run the ball.  But I also expected more short and middle length passes to wideouts.  I especially expected more wideout involvement when the Cards started doing run blitzes, sometimes from the secondary.  I guess 12 receptions from our WRs wasn't chicken feed - and some of them were critical plays - but I did expect more.  

 

Josh Allen is your QB.  The opponent has weak CBs and a subpar pass rush.  You throw.  That's my simple logic.  

 

Edited September 9 by hondo in seattle

[dave mcbride]

5 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

Fair enough, it felt like more. But overall they definitely second half got to grips with those off tackle runs and forced Arizona to try and switch to running up the gut which is less their strength. 

 

Yes. 

I think you might be confusing runs with very short swing passes in the first half, where receivers got to the edge and did damage. The run game was basically a no-show for AZ early on.

[Magox]

Bills offense was highly efficient

 

 

[GunnerBill]

3 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

I think you might be confusing runs with very short swing passes in the first half, where receivers got to the edge and did damage. The run game was basically a no-show for AZ early on.

 

I may well be. I haven't watched back. But the Bills shut down their plays to get outside much better 2nd half. 

2 minutes ago, Magox said:

Bills offense was highly efficient

 

 

 

The Raiders - Chargers game was atrocious. Those are two bad football teams. 

[Not at the table Karlos]

2 hours ago, PrimeTime101 said:

My problem is, we took to long to let JA start throwing the ball. 2 targets, 2 completions before a few minutes left in the first half. You dont take issue with that?

No. The bills were getting chunk plays consistently on the ground at that point why go away from it? 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

15 hours ago, BillsFan130 said:

One thing that stood out to me was the disappointment in our play calling/coordinators:

 

Smiley- Anything more that needs to be said? Kick Return for a TD is unacceptable 

 

Babich- Seemed over his head today. It sure looked like at times in the 2nd half McDermott either took over play calling , or at least had an influence on what he wanted to do.

 

Brady- This is probably a bit of a hot take cause I get the bills scored 34 points...

 

But he was not good today IMO.

 

That's a bad defence, and Josh bailed him out with some incredible plays.

 

How many times did they run it on 1st down today? Seemed super obvious a lot of times.  He also needs to get Kincaid more involved.

 

Good comeback and good win, but if the bills are gonna go far I think the coaches have to do a much better job

 

Special teams:

I don't think the KR was intended to be short of the end zone.  I also think its a new kickoff style that needs to be adjusted for situations where the wind is affecting what you want to be able to do.  The short knuckle type kick seems to be something buffalo will need to work on, as well as just kickoff coverage in general.  Buffalo did have a really nice return as well (didn't cash it in), so it can't be all doom and gloom on special teams.  Bass made all his kicks as well.  

 

Defense:

We went in spying murray - and he was evading those spies on scrambles.  He also had time to get the ball out, and larger windows to throw as the linebackers were trying to not give him the middle of the field in a scramble.

 

In the 2nd half they brought more pressure from the interior.  Force him to get the ball out quicker, or at least muddy it up so he can't escape.  Considering they had some sacks and how much less success murray had, it was a nice adjustment.  If he was evading, most of the time it was backwards so you force the play to one side of the field and its harder for him to hurt you.  I think he still had one or two nice 2nd half scrambles, but he's probably their most elusive playmaker on offense.

 

Arizona had 80 yards in the 2nd half, 1 turnover, 2 3 and outs, and scored 3 points.  

 

Offense:

Predictable, probably somewhat boring, but only 1 turnover.  Buffalo had greater time of possession in a game where they barely had the ball in the 1st half, so the 2nd half game plan was deliberate to getting control of the clock and game flow.  Not their best 3rd down game, but 2 of the failed 3rd downs led to short 4th down conversions.  

 

Would have been interested to see more from samuel, but I'm not sure he's 100% quite yet.  I think more of the motion with him can really create some additional gaps for the backs in the run game, while also utilizing some of his speed to get around the edge in certain situations.  

[Logic]

A team with this many new faces and two new coordinators were ALWAYS going to get off to a bit of a slow start and have some growing pains.

A team down Matt Milano and Taron Johnson on defense were ALWAYS going to have some struggles stopping passes to the middle of the field.

With that said, after a forgettable first half, both coordinators had an excellent second half.

As the Bills' scoring production (and the EPA metrics) show, the Bills were very good on offense. All the more impressive when one considers the completely revamped receiving corps and OL with new starters in two spots. Defensively, the Bills allowed THREE points in the second half. Three. To a team with Kyler Murray, Marvin Harrison Jr, and Trey McBride. 

When an offense with so many new faces scores 34 in their first outing and a defense down two key starters limits its opponent to 3 second half points...I dunno. I just can't agree with griping about the coordinators AT ALL. I thought both of them had great days, all told.

[amprov56]

2 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

Special teams:

I don't think the KR was intended to be short of the end zone.  I also think its a new kickoff style that needs to be adjusted for situations where the wind is affecting what you want to be able to do.  The short knuckle type kick seems to be something buffalo will need to work on, as well as just kickoff coverage in general.  Buffalo did have a really nice return as well (didn't cash it in), so it can't be all doom and gloom on special teams.  Bass made all his kicks as well.  

 

Defense:

We went in spying murray - and he was evading those spies on scrambles.  He also had time to get the ball out, and larger windows to throw as the linebackers were trying to not give him the middle of the field in a scramble.

 

In the 2nd half they brought more pressure from the interior.  Force him to get the ball out quicker, or at least muddy it up so he can't escape.  Considering they had some sacks and how much less success murray had, it was a nice adjustment.  If he was evading, most of the time it was backwards so you force the play to one side of the field and its harder for him to hurt you.  I think he still had one or two nice 2nd half scrambles, but he's probably their most elusive playmaker on offense.

 

Arizona had 80 yards in the 2nd half, 1 turnover, 2 3 and outs, and scored 3 points.  

 

Offense:

Predictable, probably somewhat boring, but only 1 turnover.  Buffalo had greater time of possession in a game where they barely had the ball in the 1st half, so the 2nd half game plan was deliberate to getting control of the clock and game flow.  Not their best 3rd down game, but 2 of the failed 3rd downs led to short 4th down conversions.  

 

Would have been interested to see more from samuel, but I'm not sure he's 100% quite yet.  I think more of the motion with him can really create some additional gaps for the backs in the run game, while also utilizing some of his speed to get around the edge in certain situations.  

Great post

1 minute ago, Logic said:

A team with this many new faces and two new coordinators were ALWAYS going to get off to a bit of a slow start and have some growing pains.

A team down Matt Milano and Taron Johnson on defense were ALWAYS going to have some struggles stopping passes to the middle of the field.

With that said, after a forgettable first half, both coordinators had an excellent second half.

As the Bills' scoring production (and the EPA metrics) show, the Bills were very good on offense. All the more impressive when one considers the completely revamped receiving corps and OL with new starters in two spots. Defensively, the Bills allowed THREE points in the second half. Three. To a team with Kyler Murray, Marvin Harrison Jr, and Trey McBride. 

When an offense with so many new faces scores 34 in their first outing and a defense down two key starters limits its opponent to 3 second half points...I dunno. I just can't agree with griping about the coordinators AT ALL. I thought both of them had great days, all told.

Another great post

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

Just now, Not at the table Karlos said:

No. The bills were getting chunk plays consistently on the ground at that point why go away from it? 

 

Exactly.  They also had the ball twice and had only run 13 total plays at that point.  Drive 1 they ran 2 runs and 2 passes and were on the cardinals 19 yard line when they turned it over.  2nd drive they were gashing in the run game, and actually scored a TD that was wiped out by penalty.  There were 3 pass plays called on the drive including one on first down that was wiped out by a defensive PI on coleman.  

[Logic]

15 minutes ago, Magox said:

Bills offense was highly efficient

 

 

[GunnerBill]

2 hours ago, PrimeTime101 said:

I do, Up until the end of the second quarter Josh Allen only had 2 throws and the team had 14 runs total. Unless some of those runs are 20 yard + runs, that is all kinds of wrong. 

 

He only had two throws (that counted) but there were 6 called pass plays out of 16 total. 2 completions, 2 sacks, one Allen scramble, one incompletion negated by penalty on AZ. The 10 runs were averaging 6 yards per play and that is including a couple of short yardage runs where they were just calling plays to get 2/3 yards a first down. 

 

If it becomes a pattern that they struggle to get Josh going early its a problem. As it was yesterday the bare numbers obscure the facts a bit. 

 

 

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

15 hours ago, BillsFan130 said:

One thing that stood out to me was the disappointment in our play calling/coordinators:

 

Smiley- Anything more that needs to be said? Kick Return for a TD is unacceptable 

 

Babich- Seemed over his head today. It sure looked like at times in the 2nd half McDermott either took over play calling , or at least had an influence on what he wanted to do.

 

Brady- This is probably a bit of a hot take cause I get the bills scored 34 points...

 

But he was not good today IMO.

 

That's a bad defence, and Josh bailed him out with some incredible plays.

 

How many times did they run it on 1st down today? Seemed super obvious a lot of times.  He also needs to get Kincaid more involved.

 

Good comeback and good win, but if the bills are gonna go far I think the coaches have to do a much better job

Brady had a great day. I’m not sure what you mean. Buffalo was getting destroyed on TOP during the first half, but they took advantage of every opportunity they had. Martin punted only twice. 
 

I’m not sure how Josh Allen bailed us out. He had the plenty of help from the run game which was utterly dominant. The 0-line was bullying the **** out of their d-line and all 3 backs were getting massive running lanes. McGovern is an upgrade from Morse and Edwards looks to be a steal at 6 million a year. This makes me extremely hopeful. Give Allen a run game and he is unstoppable which was proven today w/ 250+ all purpose yards and 4 TDs. 9 different guys caught balls and I didn’t see any drops which plagued us last year. Although not a huge statistical game, Coleman is passing the eye test so far out-muscling DBs and showing great athleticism. 
 

 

[Bermuda Triangle]

The halftime defensive adjustments clearly worked, so props to Babich/McD for that.

 

ST continue to be a mess - I believe that's now 2 KR TDs allowed in the last 4 games (not counting pre-season).  There have been other ST foibles during that time period, and to be fair, Harty did have a massive PR TD in that stretch as well.

 

The interior DL needs to be better.  I barely noticed Ed Oliver at all.  DaQuan had a batted pass, but I didn't see much else from him.

[BillsFan130]

24 minutes ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

Brady had a great day. I’m not sure what you mean. Buffalo was getting destroyed on TOP during the first half, but they took advantage of every opportunity they had. Martin punted only twice. 
 

I’m not sure how Josh Allen bailed us out. He had the plenty of help from the run game which was utterly dominant. The 0-line was bullying the **** out of their d-line and all 3 backs were getting massive running lanes. McGovern is an upgrade from Morse and Edwards looks to be a steal at 6 million a year. This makes me extremely hopeful. Give Allen a run game and he is unstoppable which was proven today w/ 250+ all purpose yards and 4 TDs. 9 different guys caught balls and I didn’t see any drops which plagued us last year. Although not a huge statistical game, Coleman is passing the eye test so far out-muscling DBs and showing great athleticism. 
 

 

On 1st down bills ran it 16 times to 5 passes.

Shakir and Kincaid their two best weapons had 5 targets combined.

 

The bills stubbornly ran it 5x in a row before the last field goal. That's unacceptable when you have Josh Allen . You give him a chance to ice the game.

 

Point being: I thought the play calling was predicable,  conservative and they didn't involve their top two weapons nearly enough.

 

Josh bailed out Brady this game in my opinion. If you disagree, 100 percent all good

[Mat68]

1 hour ago, oldmanfan said:

I thought Brady was a bit too predictable with his first down calls, a lot of off-tackle runs.  I also would have liked to see Davis in there a bit more.  But overall, when you score 34 points not much you can say.  And yes, a lot was because of Josh being Superman again, but when you have Superman no need to apologize for it.  Babich it's hard to say.  Obviously, the D didn't do very well in the first half, then dominated the second.  But were those alterations made by Babich or McD?

Early down they had some tendencies.   Also, they had early down success running it.  To generate big plays you do need a level of tendency created to break.  Get the team to guess wrong and take advantage. 

[ColoradoBills]

2 hours ago, SoTier said:

 

Point 1:  Brady is the offensive coordinator, not a position coach, so the penalties on the OL weren't on him.   He designs, selects and calls plays.

Point 2: The point of designing a game plan is to take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses and maximize your team's strengths.  That means that your opponents dictate a lot of what your team do.  It's likely that the Cards concentrated on Kincaid.  The Bills ran the ball a lot because Arizona was poor against the run.

Point 3:  On the last drive the Bills were trying to close out the game, so playing conservatively on offense is what smart teams do to win games. 

 

So true about the penalties.  1st games can get sloppy so let's hope they get a handle on the OL penalties.

 

NFL players have been playing football since peewee.  They know the rules.  It's mostly on them.  The only real retribution coaches have

is benching players who are penalized too much and that seldom happens.

[GunnerBill]

52 minutes ago, BillsFan130 said:

On 1st down bills ran it 16 times to 5 passes.

Shakir and Kincaid their two best weapons had 5 targets combined.

 

The bills stubbornly ran it 5x in a row before the last field goal. That's unacceptable when you have Josh Allen . You give him a chance to ice the game.

 

Point being: I thought the play calling was predicable,  conservative and they didn't involve their top two weapons nearly enough.

 

Josh bailed out Brady this game in my opinion. If you disagree, 100 percent all good

 

On the first point - I agree. It worked yesterday, but going forward that balance needs to even out some IMO. 

 

Shakir they maybe could have used more. I think the Cardinals zeroed in on trying to take Kincaid away. 

 

On the final FG I have to think they were trying to protect Josh. I know, non-throwing hand, but they didn't want him dropping back in the pocket risking him being him and landing on it again. Although I think the third down call was a called QB run, which does pose a risk as well so maybe slightly inconsistent. 

 

Overall I don't think the play calling was too predictable. I thought there was some nice creativity in their design of the passing game. There wasn't a lot to the outside. It was all middle of the field. There were four outside throws all day, three to the right and one to the left. But I think you are gonna have to get used to that. That is a result of the talent they have. They don't have guys who are going to win consistently outside. It limits what they can do there. That isn't a Joe Brady problem it is a Brandon Beane problem. 

 

In terms of superman plays for Josh yesterday, the two rushing touchdowns were one called run and one scramble I think... but beyond that and the one early 2nd half where he rolled out right and made a great throw on the run to Cook which were the plays where he was bailing the design out? I think generally the design was pretty good yesterday. They schemed some nice opportunities up. 

[BillsFan130]

30 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

On the first point - I agree. It worked yesterday, but going forward that balance needs to even out some IMO. 

 

Shakir they maybe could have used more. I think the Cardinals zeroed in on trying to take Kincaid away. 

 

On the final FG I have to think they were trying to protect Josh. I know, non-throwing hand, but they didn't want him dropping back in the pocket risking him being him and landing on it again. Although I think the third down call was a called QB run, which does pose a risk as well so maybe slightly inconsistent. 

 

Overall I don't think the play calling was too predictable. I thought there was some nice creativity in their design of the passing game. There wasn't a lot to the outside. It was all middle of the field. There were four outside throws all day, three to the right and one to the left. But I think you are gonna have to get used to that. That is a result of the talent they have. They don't have guys who are going to win consistently outside. It limits what they can do there. That isn't a Joe Brady problem it is a Brandon Beane problem. 

 

In terms of superman plays for Josh yesterday, the two rushing touchdowns were one called run and one scramble I think... but beyond that and the one early 2nd half where he rolled out right and made a great throw on the run to Cook which were the plays where he was bailing the design out? I think generally the design was pretty good yesterday. They schemed some nice opportunities up. 

Fair points.

 

I just felt like there were way too many 2nd and 3rd and longs yesterday.

 

And the reason for that I think was because of the predicable running on 1st down.

 

Im not sure what the play action percentage was, but I hope to see more PAs on 1st down and on 2nd and shorts