Bills Have Low Percentage of First Read Pass Completion- Why?

[jethro_tull]

Unless the call is a bubble (quick pass to WR behind the LOS) the Bills have noticeable difficulty hitting the first read in pass plays.  Rarely do we see a quickly timed and complete slant, hitch or go route.  More often than not Josh winds up scanning the field, waiting for someone to get open and rolling out to avoid pressure.  The designed pass play seems to never connect in a quick, well timed precise way.  

What are the reasons for this?  It really needs to be fixed for the offense to be more successful.  

1) Play execution (receiver cannot get open, QB makes errant pass, poor route running, blocking fails, dropped pass) 

2) Play design and installation (not enough practice time or instruction of method to develop the precision timing needed) 

Others?  

Completing well timed pass plays (other teams do this, we know the ones) takes much of the pressure off of the O-Line and QB and lets the ball get out quickly and helps to move the chains.   

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by jethro_tull

[Sojourner]

You know who holds the best first read percentage on a football field and is in the Super Bowl?

 

 

This guy: 

 

[jethro_tull]

1 minute ago, Sojourner said:

You know who holds the best first read percentage on a football field and is in the Super Bowl?

 

 

This guy: 

 

This is a tracked statistic? 

[Allen2D̶i̶g̶g̶s̶TBD]

The only quick slants I've seen have been a few to Coleman that he didn't seem to be ready for.

[Sojourner]

1 minute ago, jethro_tull said:

This is a tracked statistic? 

He’s reading the tracked statistic of the tracked statistics…

[Mikie2times]

I have thought Josh is more of a see it guy for a long time. Usually people shred my a$$ for saying such things. But I still feel that way. I used to think it put a ceiling on him, maybe it does, but it’s not an easy equation. He bails from the pocket so quickly which prevents sacks and leads to the defense breaking down. Then he’s one of the best of all time taking advantage of it. Josh is just not normal. He truly is a one of kind type QB and MVP level player. So I’ve tried not to hyper analyze how he makes that happen. 

[Sojourner]

3 minutes ago, Allen2D̶i̶g̶g̶s̶TBD said:

The only quick slants I've seen have been a few to Coleman that he didn't seem to be ready for.

The Texans helmet doink still lives rent free for me lol

 

 

[jethro_tull]

1 minute ago, Mikie2times said:

I have thought Josh is more of a see it guy for a long time. Usually people shred my a$$ for saying such things. But I still feel that way. I used to think it put a ceiling on him, maybe it does, but it’s not an easy equation. He bails from the pocket so quickly which prevents sacks and leads to the defense breaking down. Then he’s one of the best of all time taking advantage of it. Josh is just not normal. He truly is a one of kind type QB and MVP level player. So I’ve tried not to hyper analyze how he makes that happen. 

I had to analyze it because I see us getting burned by other teams who can do it very well (KC, LA Rams, Detroit).  I don't blame the QB FYI. 

[Mikie2times]

5 minutes ago, jethro_tull said:

I had to analyze it because I see us getting burned by other teams who can do it very well (KC, LA Rams, Detroit).  I don't blame the QB FYI. 

I get it man. I used to throw some shade at Allen about this. I actually throwed so much shade at him I had to apologize to a few on here. I changed my view over time. I still don’t think he will ever be a guy that throws with anticipation and I don’t think that’s good. But his talent and ability to stretch plays is so rare. So he ends up completing balls that just outside the scope of reality. Nobody is like him and I’m not sure anybody will ever be like him. It’s an interesting conversation if people can keep the feels out of it. 

Edited 15 hours ago by Mikie2times

[Sojourner]

1 minute ago, Mikie2times said:

I get it man. I used to throw some shade at Allen about this. I actually throwed so much shade at him I had to apologize to a few on here. I changed my view over time. I still don’t think he will ever be a guy that throws with anticipation and I don’t think that’s good. But his talent and ability to stretch plays is so rare. So he ends up completing balls that just outside the scope of reality. Nobody is like him and I’m not sure anybody will ever be like him. It’s an interesting conversation of people can keep the feels out of it. 

I often wonder if it’s a combination of the guys he’s throwing to and the coaches he has now. 
 

Not to pound the table or wish for a Daboll reunion but during his tutelage and guidance as OC there was a considerable more amount of anticipation throws on the field Josh was making. 

[DuckyBoys]

what do you want with a offense built on low risk and with guys that cant create separation

[MJS]

That's Josh Allen. That's his preferred way to play. He likes to let routes develop. He seems to only take the quick stuff when that is the weekly game plan. We've seen him do it before, but his default mode is not that way.

[Brand J]

The guys who are first read QBs - Tua, Purdy - have such limitations that they HAVE to know where to go with the ball immediately after the snap. I bet you both could read a defense better than Allen pre-snap, but it’s because they have to. They’re physically limited in many ways. Mahomes likes to hold the ball as well, although we didn’t see much of that Sunday. The secondary was so loose that whoever he looked at was open immediately.

[Dr.Sack]

This requires time on task, reps, separation ability, and QB accuracy. I can only say what I see on the TV which isn’t much.  

[Comebackkid]

7 minutes ago, MJS said:

That's Josh Allen. That's his preferred way to play. He likes to let routes develop. He seems to only take the quick stuff when that is the weekly game plan. We've seen him do it before, but his default mode is not that way.

i could swear that during the Baltimore game they said his passes were coming out quicker than they had all season....

i get the idea brady just goes along with whatever/how ever the players want to do things.   

 

Its kind of annoying because prob 75% of all qbs are good at getting the ball out pretty quick...its a pretty basic trait.

 

a lot of times im yelling ..throw the damn ball...    i really wish they would work on that aspect of his game...i think he can do it..he 

does do it at times.    so many times the window closes because he holds the ball or looks around too long.

 

[colin]

A few factors.  Allen is better at holding for longer, we don't have great WRS for it, and we really don't scheme for it.

 

KC doesn't really have early man beating wrs (worthy seems to have to run a bit to find space), but they scheme the heck out of it and torched us with quick throws.

 

I think a better oc would mix some in to give us new wrinkles 

[Sojourner]

1 minute ago, Brand J said:

The guys who are first read QBs - Tua, Purdy - have such limitations that they HAVE to know where to go with the ball immediately after the snap. I bet you both could read a defense better than Allen pre-snap, but it’s because they have to. They’re physically limited in many ways. Mahomes likes to hold the ball as well, although we didn’t see much of that Sunday. The secondary was so loose that whoever he looked at was open immediately.

Our defense isn’t great but them being open speaks more to the coaching and play design on top of the type of players they have out there. Hollywood Brown & Worthy were their focal point. Travis got a couple of his usual freelance catch but didn’t do anything special. The only other guy who made plays in the passing game was Ju-Ju on some busted coverage. 

You know who gave up the most catches and yards? Douglas. 

 

 

Scheme is everything. Above is 3 of the better players on defense getting erased by a WR @ the LOS. 

 

Coaching matters but players showing up or disappearing is what dictates the outcome slightly more. Sean or Babich ain’t drawing up what you see above on a whiteboard. 

 

[DaVinci]

we lost by 3 pts.

[TheBrownBear]

1 hour ago, Mikie2times said:

I have thought Josh is more of a see it guy for a long time. Usually people shred my a$$ for saying such things. But I still feel that way. I used to think it put a ceiling on him, maybe it does, but it’s not an easy equation. He bails from the pocket so quickly which prevents sacks and leads to the defense breaking down. Then he’s one of the best of all time taking advantage of it. Josh is just not normal. He truly is a one of kind type QB and MVP level player. So I’ve tried not to hyper analyze how he makes that happen. 

I think this is spot on and why our offense can look so discombobulated and forced sometimes, even as it produces points. This type of tendency seemed to peak during the Dorsey era. The games where he was able to get it out quick over the years tended to be things of beauty (Detroit this season, perfect game against the Pats, etc.).  

[Mikie2times]

17 minutes ago, TheBrownBear said:

I think this is spot on and why our offense can look so discombobulated and forced sometimes, even as it produces points. This type of tendency seemed to peak during the Dorsey era. The games where he was able to get it out quick over the years tended to be things of beauty (Detroit this season, perfect game against the Pats, etc.).  

100%. Which is why I called Josh out as a reason. Which is so contested on this site. Which I get because we would have no chance of being here without Josh. On a macro level I don’t think you could ask for a better QB. He will get more wins by himself than just about anybody who has ever played the game.
 

But no OT wins in his career. Two gotta have it drives in B2B seasons and nothing to show for it. Which tends to get offset here by the critical drops, and that is true. It could have went the other way and his teammates did let him down. 
 

But on a micro level I don’t think his game translates at the level it does otherwise. Micro, singular drives, is when efficiency is everything. I just don’t see that in his game. He is not inevitable in the ways the greats were. What Josh does is hard, what the all timers did was easy. It was the exact same way for Favre and he got one, but he got 3x as many MVP’s and failed countless times in the postseason. 
 

So many other issues exist to talk about outside of this. It’s like blaming a piece of friend chicken for a heart attack with a life long smoker.
But is it part of the conversation? Sure, but good luck having anybody here acknowledge it.