The changing game? Passing yards at 193/game so far....

[Don Otreply]

8 hours ago, BigAl2526 said:

The game against the Jags will be interesting.  Their defensive coordinator is fond of man coverage.   That usually means loading the box to try and stop the run and bring pressure (blitzing) on passing plays.  It will be interesting to see how that affects the Bills' strategy on offense.

It is my hope that the offense goes with what works throughout the game, that could be the run game, or the pass game, but I suspect it will be a mix of both, as it frankly should be, one dimensional offenses are easier to counter, 

[BillsVet]

Stats don't always tell the story and, in this debate about the run-pass ratio, current NFL trends, etc. their wins have become closer games.  

 

Under Daboll Buffalo won 20 of their 24 regular season games by 8 or more points.

With Brady, 9 of their 18 games during his tenure were by the same margin.

 

Buffalo's 8 wins under Brady (and the sample size is small) 3 were by 8 or more points.  

 

No one stat proves right or wrong.  Strength of schedule factors into this, but I'm interested to see whether the trend continues of closer margin wins.     

[amprov56]

On 9/16/2024 at 11:53 PM, Sierra Foothills said:

 

I know you're being sarcastic but I've literally read dozens of posters here state that any offense that isn't built on Josh's arm is a misguided waste of his talents.

 

Personally I believe in an offense that doesn't overburden him... one that uses his superpowers only in good measure.

 

IMO, over-reliance on Josh is not a good thing.

 

Just win, run, pass, defense, or special teams just win! Too many want the pin ball wizard point machine - long bomb TD every play, appreciate the complete game!

3 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

It is my hope that the offense goes with what works throughout the game, that could be the run game, or the pass game, but I suspect it will be a mix of both, as it frankly should be, one dimensional offenses are easier to counter, 

Makes sense to me

[Mat68]

Copy cat league.  The legion of boom spawned numerous cover 3 teams.  Shannahan killed it.  Those coaching tree coaches kill it.  Vic Fangio, Mcdermott had success with 2 safties and force the offenses to play the long game.  Now many teams are pivoting to that.  Kc and Buf already pivoted to beating that style.  They also have aliens at qb.  Your average qb will struggle going 3 wide vs tighter window throws.  I think you will see the difference on Oc’s and Qbs as the year goes on.  

[TheFunPolice]

no freebies, which is the Dolphins entire offense basically...

 

Tua could have 23 yards passing then BOOM! 80 yard TD to Hill and he's over 100 yards and the Dolphins have 7 just like that. 

 

But make them drive and run plays over and over and over and you're going to get a false start, a holding call, a bad throw, a missed block, a fumble. All good for the D

 

Plus, the closer the game is the less talent differential matters. All it takes is one fumbled punt, ball knocked loose from the QB, a terrible call by the refs, a lucky long pass that connects... 

 

Keep it close, give yourself the chance to benefit from some sort of mistake

 

 

Edited September 20 by TheFunPolice

[HardyBoy]

I think getting bigger at center might be helping with screens perhaps? Either way, they have a guard’s body size wise at center now and I’m curious how that’s impacting things. 

[BigAl2526]

13 hours ago, Don Otreply said:

It is my hope that the offense goes with what works throughout the game, that could be the run game, or the pass game, but I suspect it will be a mix of both, as it frankly should be, one dimensional offenses are easier to counter, 

That is my hope as well.

[DCofNC]

The only issue I see here is our own team knows how to beat our D, run the ball.  It’s not a secret and our D is not very good at stopping the run.  I do believe there is a need for bigger LBs, love Bernard and Milano, but I’d also love to actually have the starters on the field once in a while and that’s just not happening.

[Orlando Buffalo]

21 hours ago, BillsVet said:

Stats don't always tell the story and, in this debate about the run-pass ratio, current NFL trends, etc. their wins have become closer games.  

 

Under Daboll Buffalo won 20 of their 24 regular season games by 8 or more points.

With Brady, 9 of their 18 games during his tenure were by the same margin.

 

Buffalo's 8 wins under Brady (and the sample size is small) 3 were by 8 or more points.  

 

No one stat proves right or wrong.  Strength of schedule factors into this, but I'm interested to see whether the trend continues of closer margin wins.     

I completely agree, I would be interested in our efficiency, are we scoring more per drive, more yards per drive that type of thing

[Gigs]

It was only a matter of time before defenses caught up to the offense. Everything ebbs and flows. Today the game is about speed, until one offense deploys big boy unstoppable RBs and FBs and 2TE offenses that other offenses adopt and then defenses will get bigger and more stout. Then offenses will sling it again and get faster, and then the defenses will get more athletic and smaller, until the end of football. 

 

'Tis a story as old as the game itself...except for the early pre-Teddy Roosevelt days when players died on the field or ended up in the hospital with broken legs and arms, and necks and cracked craniums. 

1 minute ago, Gigs said:

It was only a matter of time before defenses caught up to the offense. Everything ebbs and flows. Today the game is about speed, until one offense deploys big boy unstoppable RBs and FBs and 2TE offenses that other offenses adopt and then defenses will get bigger and more stout. Then offenses will sling it again and get faster, and then the defenses will get more athletic and smaller, until the end of football. 

 

'Tis a story as old as the game itself...except for the early pre-Teddy Roosevelt days when players died on the field or ended up in the hospital with broken legs and arms, and necks and cracked craniums. 

Edit: honestly it's a tale as old as humanity

 

Edit 2: I just woke up and quoted instead of editing, my bad y'all 

Edited September 21 by Gigs
Oopsie

[BillsVet]

9 hours ago, Orlando Buffalo said:

I completely agree, I would be interested in our efficiency, are we scoring more per drive, more yards per drive that type of thing

 

Yeah...last year at a surface level it was obvious in the 9 games Brady took over that the passing game had declined and rushing game had improved...in terms of total yards.  But that's obviously not a barometer to measure the offense in sum.  

 

I don't have the time to look up all these other metrics, but I would expect the rush yards per attempt (minus Josh), the YPA, and points per drive were lower.  But that's not as big an issue (yet) because the defensive plan against Miami worked pretty close I'm sure to what they needed and the offense got their production from Josh versus AZ.      

 

Next tier stuff is what Warren Sharp put out yesterday...how predictable the offense has been in normal situations.  I wasn't really surprised that, by their definition (whatever that is) that Buffalo was the most predictable team running it in the NFL while under center.  

 

There will be more data points to draw more of a conclusion of whether complementary football as McD/Brady/et al. desire is as much a net positive...or negative.  

[BillsVet]

Buffalo's offense in points per drive:

 

2017:   1.57

2018:   1.39

2019:   1.63

2020:  2.80

2021:   2.56

2022:  2.52

2023:  2.37 (Dorsey - 2.45 / Brady 2.27 - regular season / reg. season and playoffs - 2.40)

2024:  2.90

[Doc Brown]

On 9/20/2024 at 9:43 AM, BillsVet said:

Stats don't always tell the story and, in this debate about the run-pass ratio, current NFL trends, etc. their wins have become closer games.  

 

Under Daboll Buffalo won 20 of their 24 regular season games by 8 or more points.

With Brady, 9 of their 18 games during his tenure were by the same margin.

 

Buffalo's 8 wins under Brady (and the sample size is small) 3 were by 8 or more points.  

 

No one stat proves right or wrong.  Strength of schedule factors into this, but I'm interested to see whether the trend continues of closer margin wins.     

Daboll had peak Diggs, Beasley, J. Brown, and Gabe Davis as the perfect WR4 in 2020.  They then substituted Emmanuel Sanders for J. Brown in 2021.  What ever happened to McDermott's you don't want to lose your fastball?  Frustrating they ignored WR in the draft for so long.

 

As for Brady, when you run the ball more (Cook was better than any RB Daboll had) and the defense is scraping by with backups you're going to have closer games. 

[BillsVet]

10 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Daboll had peak Diggs, Beasley, J. Brown, and Gabe Davis as the perfect WR4 in 2020.  They then substituted Emmanuel Sanders for J. Brown in 2021.  What ever happened to McDermott's you don't want to lose your fastball?  Frustrating they ignored WR in the draft for so long.

 

As for Brady, when you run the ball more (Cook was better than any RB Daboll had) and the defense is scraping by with backups you're going to have closer games. 

 

WR isn't a priority to them as proven this off-season and in 2021-23.  Lot of 1 year deal end of career types or late round picks...until they traded down twice to "nab" Keon Coleman.  

 

Always funny to me why, in 2019-20, they were focused on finding quality WR's to see if Josh was the real deal...then decided from 2021-2023 they didn't need to keep developing the position.  

 

Ironic about the defense...only Tre, Hyde, and Von Miller were lost for serious time from 2020-22 (aside from Star taking a "Covid" year in 2020).  People think it's the norm to remain that healthy and it's not.  They were extremely fortunate.    

[RunTheBall]

It’s always going to be a pass first league but KC realized first that with defenses playing much more 2 high shell to take away the long ball, the need for #1 WR (i.e. Hill) is much less. We’ve started our own evolution by getting bigger on the O-line which started 2 years ago with McGovern, then drafting Torrance, then moving on from Mitch and putting Edwards at guard, and a much higher use of 6 O-lineman and 2 TE sets.

 

We finally have an O-line that can maul opposing defenses in the run game and provide solid pass protection. Combine that with a good RB, WRs who don’t drop the ball,  and nearly mistake free (low penalty) football and you have the recipe for a highly effective and efficient offense.

 

It’s going to be interesting to see how we play against more man coverage, assuming Jax sticks with what they’ve been doing. It will be a test of the evolution of our offense. I think you’ll see much more from Samuel and Kincaid, some longer shots to Coleman when available, hopefully more play action, and Josh is going to run (the hand won’t stop him, he’ll just slide more instead of lowering the shoulder which is a good thing).

 

 

[Rockinon]

Jax is playing man coverage 50% of the time. This could be the game we see our WRs getting more involved. I have no doubt Jax is going to throw everything they've got at Buffalo. Josh is going to be pressured, but teams that are this desperate for a win, make mistakes. I think on defense Josh will have opportunities to exploit an over aggressive pass rush. I also think that our own pass rush and back end is going to be a real problem for them. They are going to need the run to open up passing opportunities. Will they do it though? Jacksonville seems to be much better than their record would indicate. 0-7 over their last 7 games, though?....

 

The difference is Buffalo has shown that they can be a balanced offense and win, and Jax has not. Also, our fans are going to be merciless on this team.  I think they are going to continue to shoot themselves in the foot with penalties and inconsistent play. To me it looks like all the pieces are coming together for a blow out win.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, RunTheBall said:

It’s always going to be a pass first league but KC realized first that with defenses playing much more 2 high shell to take away the long ball, the need for #1 WR (i.e. Hill) is much less.

 

The Chiefs have been investing a lot of resources to try and find a #1 WR though, and they seem to have found one in Rashee Rice. Over his last 8 games he's averaging 87 YPG which would be 1,479 yards over a 17 game season. Those are Stefon Diggs in his prime numbers.

 

Using Khalil Shakir as a point of reference, even if I'm charitable and remove last year's Dallas game from the equation he is averaging 57 YPG over his last 8 games, which is 969 yards over a 17 game season.

 

It is a total myth that the Chiefs traded Tyreek Hill because they decided having a top WR is a waste of resources. They traded him for one simple reason - money. Their ownership has been subtly running a cheap operation over there, nothing like Pegula who has been writing blank checks that allow Beane to structure contracts in a way that kick the cap implications down the line. Under Chiefs ownership they had no means of keeping Tyreek Hill for the money he wanted. But the organization immediately started throwing ample draft picks at the position to try and find his replacement and those investments have finally paid off.