Bocephuz

If nothing else Orton is very good at pre snap recognition and getting the ball out of his hands quickly. This should definitely help the O LIne look better ( kind of like Fitzy did).

He did leave a few throws on the table that someone like Manning or Luck would not miss... and I have to think this was one of his best games so I agree about still needing to draft a stud QB for the long term. Of note.. from my observation most of the off throws he had were on intermediate and deep routes.. he is very accurate in the short game

based on what I saw in that Dallas / Philly game last year Orton is certainly capable of at least being an average QB this year for the Bills as long as Hackett doesn't have him taking 5 or 7 step drops all the time

As a companion piece to the breakdown I wrote up about EJ vs. Texans last week http://forums.twobil...nforced-errors/ I've done the same analysis watching NFL REWIND All 22 for Kyle Orton in his Week 17 Game against the Eagles last year This is not intended to be an overall analysis/comparison of EJ and Kyle as it is a small sample size.. however.. it does compare their two most recent performances so take it for what it's worth. I would say I may have missed a play or two but my numbers here should be 95% accurate. KYLE ORTON WEEK 17 2013 TOTAL PASS PLAYS - 48 LINE BREAKDOWN - 7 snaps or 15% of pass plays ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and Kyle did not have much of a chance) - (EJ was at 29%) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 41 snaps or 85% of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and Kyle had time to throw) – ( EJ was at 71%) UNFORCED KYLE ERROR - 8 snaps or 20% of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as Kyle having time and having unforced accuracy issues) ( EJ was at 34%) SUMMARY : Orton's protection was much better compared to EJ protection in the Texans game. It is also worth noting that Orton gets rid of the ball very quickly so he helps himself out tremendously.. somewhat negating what the line is doing on most throws o His percentage of unforced errors is much less than EJ's number from the Texans game. Orton did have several inexcusable throws... - DECISIVENESS - I would say Orton immediately delivered the ball when hitting the last step of his drop ~75% of the time. He's obviously good at reading the coverage pre-snap and he knows where he wants to go and gets it there quickly o This does result in a lot of dink and dunk.. however.. there was the occasional long ball - LONG BALL SKILLS - He is very sharp on the deep seam route ( he hit two beautiful 20 yd plus seam routes in this game) and not very sharp on the fly route down sideline. - SPECIAL NOTE Kyle Orton made the Eagles jump on a hard count 4 TIMES! This is huge... will be a definite plus for the Bills having a veteran with presence of mind and ability to do hard count

We have some serious YAC potential ( Spiller, Freddy, Watkins.. )

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/929jackfm.com/files/2011/12/JP-Losman-121611.jpg http://imageevent.com/publicgallery/sportsandhobbies/vintagewwfcolorpromophotos19841998000?p=159&n=1&m=-1&c=5&l=0&w=4&s=0&z=9

Thanks ... glad to hear the post was appreciated. I'll do my best to try and post more stuff like this if people find it useful.

Agreed.. the WRs need to be more engaged and could do more to bail him out.. however.. EJ could help himself the most by not throwing at their knees and behind them on a regular basis

Thank you .. and that is a good idea. NFL Game Rewind is a subscription service from NFL.com that shows the All 22 coaches film ( I think you have to wait until Tuesday afternoon for it to be released) and that may be a good thing to look up. I think I would try to isolate those 32 plays where he had time and then see who was open and then compare that to the choice he made

My basic criteria is that once he hit the final step of his drop that he wasn't moved off of his spot and that he had a chance to get the ball out of his hands without being disrupted. There were several throws where he was hit as he was throwing or took a massive hit right after he let it go ..on those ones I counted them as an O-Line breakdown The one with Chandler seemed to be a good play by the LB to knock the ball out

He actually did a decent job of getting rid of the ball on most of those 16 hits ( I think he was only sacked twice) . One of them was his final pass play that was an interception. He gets hit right as he's releasing the ball there so tough to blame him on that one. Very few instances of him holding the ball to long from what I saw. Freddy definitely missed one badly that I remember seeing

I considered adding in drops.. but after re watching.. there was only one true "drop" by Watkins where EJ made a decent throw and Watkins just wasn't aggressive enough to snatch it. I can recall one throw on a crossing route to Watkins where EJ had a clean pocket and he threw it at Watkins' knees and a little behind him. Sure.. Watkins had a chance to make a great catch.. but really it's on EJ as he had plenty of time to throw and I put the onus on EJ as an unforced error. There were a couple of other ones like this.. and also a few that could have been considered "drops" but in reality the defensive player got his hands in on the throw to bat it away. Great point.. seems like Sammy was running his routes a yard or two deeper than EJ was expecting on some plays.. but it's hard to judge if the WR is at fault sometimes. No doubt EJ and his WRs need to build more rapport..

Is it EJ? Is it the O Line? What is behind the inaccurate throws? I watched the NFL rewind and here is my unofficial count of how the O-Line did / How EJ did on every pass play ( I may have missed a snap or two here.. but this should be 95% accurate) TOTAL PASS PLAYS - 45 snaps ( this right here is a scary number and falls on Hackett) LINE BREAKDOWN - 13 snaps or 29% of pass plays ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and EJ did not have much of a chance) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 32 snaps or 71% of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and EJ had time to throw) UNFORCED EJ ERRORS - 11 snaps or 34% of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as EJ having time and having unforced accuracy issues) Bottom line is when you get 32 fairly clean pockets and you miss on 11 ( 1/3) of those throws for no apparent reason other than sloppy mechanics or footwork.. you've got a big problem and it's fair to question whether or not you have a legitimate starting NFL QB. I could probably live with 5 or fewer unforced errors.. but double digit bad throws for no good reason is scary. To sum it up.. the O Line is about 1/3 to blame, EJ can be blamed for about 1/3 and I would say the other 1/3 is on Hackett.

Bridgewater looked great. Very decisive, very accurate. It sucks we took our first round QB in a year where there weren't many good options. Imagine if we would have waited a year.. we could have picked from Carr, Bortles,Bridgewater or Manziel instead of Geno or EJ.

That was my perception of him as well. He may not have been dominant but he was certainly serviceable and rarely a liability. He must have done or said something to get on Marrone's bad side. Pro Football Focus had him rated as one of the best guards in the AFC East last year .. and I watched every snap of his in preseason and to my eye he was holding his own more often than not. EJ may or may not be the answer.. but poor RG play resulting in regularly moving off of his spot on the dropback does not help anyone get a good evaluation of him.

Time for Doug to throw in the towel and admit moving Pears to Guard was a mistake. Put Urbik.. Or any live warm body in and move on . If he doesn 't he and the tesm are toast

If you haven't already read this excellent breakdown of the Texans pass D from Buffalo Rumblings take a look http://www.buffalorumblings.com/buffalo-bills-analysis-all-22/2014/9/26/6849273/bills-vs-texans-2014-passing-offense-ej-manuel-sammy-watkins After watching the All 22 last week from the Chargers game it is obvious that the Bills Offense needs to move back to the quick, short intermediate west coast timing offense rather than the verticals clear out strategy they had last week. I’m hoping to see a lot of three step drops and curls and slants this Sunday. This will help out the struggling O-Line, neutralize Watt and build EJ’s confidence back up. Based on the research in the article it appears that the Texans style of D will accommodate this.

News flash.. J.J. Watt is good.. really good. Here are some screen shots showing watt happens when Watt is left alone with a RT. First screen shot series shows pass rush domination... second run stuffing domination. Hackett and Co. better implement the Cameron Wake game plan against this guy.. otherwise.. Henderson is in for a long day.

He needs to take advantage of his height and watch Rivers or Brady to learn the ole side step shuffle in the pocket Another thought after watching all 22...Hackett kept trying to run the clear out drag crossing play for Sammy where everyone else runs go routes to clear out for Sammy. Since they had Sammy bottled up on most of those plays EJ's secondary reads are all go routes.. and by the time you see Sammy's not open it's too late to even attempt throwing the go routes( especially when your o line is sucking)

EJ was definitely shaky.. however.. my perception of him being captain checkdown ( at least in the first 3 quarters.. ) was changed after watching the All 22. From what I saw he was trying to go deep quite often .. it was either go deep or try to throw screens or crossing routes.( not too many intermediate comebacks or curls). I saw very few intermediate curl routes run.. however.. this is an example of a successful one I think Hackett needs to get back to the short 3 step drop curl/ slant game so the receivers' timing is timed up better with EJ's drops.

I'll be the first to admit that EJ was shaky against the Chargers. After watching the All 22 footage ... my perception of him being too conservative was actually changed quite a bit. I think he was actually trying to go deep quite a bit ( at least in the first 3 quarters) and he had his moments when he was aggressive. See shots below another example

Rather than just thinking in terms of average seconds.. or time..Here are the key things I look for when judging O Line Play for pass protection - Is it 3 , 5, or 7 step drop for EJ. You need various amounts of time for various drops. The O Line should block differently based on the depth of the drop. - When he hits his last step of his drop 1.) He does not have to move from that spot due to pressure 2.) He has a brief moment to be able to go through at least 2 reads 3.) He has a window to throw through If all the above are answered yes.. than the O Line did their job. If any of those are answered no then they did not do their job. From what I saw, it was roughly half and half. Ie.. EJ had poor pass protection on about half the throws.. and the other half he had decent protection. The problem is since he was moved off his spot early and often in the game.. it spooked him and caused some unforced errors later in situations where he had enough time

Well said. Being at the game you can see a lot of stuff on the back end that you can't see on TV. Looking forward to seeing the All 22 to get the full picture of what was happening.

I think his problem is that he is "too" coachable. Don't turn it over, make sure you slide when you run.. etc.. I think this is the stuff that runs through his head instead of being in the moment. He is more concerned about pleasing the coaches and keeping his job than winning. How else can you explain these type of passive plays? He's shown flashes of being aggressive and intuitive ... so we know the potential is there.. which is frustrating. I think you have to let him play at least until the bye week. If he's able to bounce back and show some fire, aggressiveness and risk taking then we've got our guy. If he continues to play "not to lose" through the bye week then time to pull the plug.

I'd say after today EJ's on notice. Some of those off target throws were just egregious... But since I've seen him be accurate and decisive enough in the past I know the potential is there so I'm not ready to pull the plug next week .The thing that made me lose confidence... And I'm sure his teammates did too .. Was the final drive . No sense of urgency, dumping it off. ., gutless... Throwing it out of bounds on last play..He could have salvaged some respect by at least trying to go deep and take chances but he didn 't ... And i'm hoping it doesn't.. But I have a feeling that last drive is going to haunt him because he may have lost the team and fanbase right there