HappyDays

He doesn't specifically comment on that, he does give Brady a lot of blame for this performance throughout the article though. On this play he says a QB sneak or run would have been the right choice which I agree with. But I think even some of his criticism of Brady is unfair. He keeps saying that Brady needed to lean on Cook more and that he got away from what has made our offense successful. I don't know what game Jim Kubiak watched, but in the one I watched the run blocking was garbage and Cook's ankle clearly wasn't entirely right. Not to mention we got down by 2 scores early so committing to the run wasn't really an option at that point. As I've said before, every fan and analyst is tripping over themselves trying to find solutions that don't exist with the current personnel. "Allen needs to play with more fire." "Brady needs to run Cook 30 times a game." "Give Elijah Moore more targets." These are all nice ideas but they're all ultimately circling the drain that is this WR room. It's like some people still don't want to admit that Beane just utterly failed to give his QB and his OC the tools to be successful. We thought we could replicate last year's performance without making a single meaningful change to the WR room or to the scheme, and the resulting failure we're seeing this year was entirely predictable.

I'm going through the article now, and again I am wondering why some of these all-22 reviews don't at least try to understand why Allen is making certain decisions or turning down certain throws. Like Jim Kubiak here blames Allen for the failed 4th and 1 that Miami was all over. Here's the screenshot he uses: Kubiak's take on this play: What are we doing here? He thinks Allen turned down the pass to Shavers to try and... throw a TD to a covered Jackson Hawes who's standing at the 30? He even draws a sight line from Allen to Shavers. Does anyone notice anything in the middle of that sight line? Like say a charging Miami defender directly blocking Allen's vision and throwing window to Shavers? I really don't mind criticizing Allen when it's warranted but some of the analysis I see is just crazy to me. The offensive system and the players around him clearly have him out of rhythm and playing without confidence, that much is obvious. Can we agree that he's not playing at his best while also giving him some grace for the absolute mess surrounding him?

The steam has run out on the McDermott and Beane era. I think the trade deadline was the final nail in the coffin. This team needed a big move to inject some energy and belief into the locker room and I don't think it's a coincidence everyone played flat in the game immediately after the opportunity passed. We've finally gotten to the "make a change for the sake of change" moment. Not right now, might as well finish out the year. But next year there is no chance anybody in that locker room is feeling confident if we just run it all back. Confidence begets success in pro sports. Get some new voices in the organization and reset the mentality of everyone in the building. If anyone still has doubts about moving on, the one thing that should convince each and every Bills fan is that Josh seems to have lost his mojo. Forget his play on the field. Look at him on the sidelines and in his pressers. The most important person to the franchise clearly isn't confident in this operation and that above all else should force a change.

Kubiak is my first choice by far but Saleh with McDaniel at OC intrigues me. Both San Fran guys so the connection is easy to make. Saleh always had his defense performing at a top tier level and it wasn't his choice to bring the circus to town in New Jersey.

? If the ball is thrown to the 35 it's a definite pass breakup. Coleman isn't even drifting that way, he's running straight horizontal. I'm not sure what you're seeing here Alpha. Also I don't agree that those two throws are "standard NFL throws." The 1st one is one that can be completed by most NFL QBs but it is very low percentage because of how tight the CB is to Coleman. The 2nd one I genuinely don't think any normal QB is throwing that one to a spot 35 air yards downfield just out of reach of the flat defender and right where Coleman can make the catch. This is not a "hit your back foot and throw a rainbow" vertical shot. It's late in the progression and Allen has to rifle it to a spot way downfield to a jogging WR.

Yeah I don't know why we are calling this and other similar throws "turndowns." Allen is reading the leverage of defenders. There's a LB sitting directly over top with his hips leaning forward which means he is in position to drive on it, not to mention the other 2 sitting defenders you highlighted, so the best case scenario is a 3 yard gain, more likely 2/2.5. For reference as measured by success rate you would want to pick up 6 yards on 2nd and 10. I absolutely hate that this sort of play constitutes the vast majority of our passing offense right now. Defenses are forming a wall of coverage where they know we like to run our little crossers and nobody other than Kincaid has shown an aptitude for getting behind that wall consistently. Maybe Palmer can do it too, we'll see. Right now it's way way too easy for our opponents. They'll give us these looks all day until we force them out of it.

I think that's over selling it a bit. There's two throws which I think you are referring to, one along the left sideline where Allen threw it outside when it appeared that it should have been placed inside, and one along the right sideline that was underthrown (although Coleman could have still caught it off the tip). Here they are in order: The first one of those is a low percentage play from any QB especially since the defender was practically riding Coleman's back downfield. Would have had to be an absolutely perfect throw 45 air yards downfield. Nice release from Coleman but he stumbles out of it and doesn't have vertical speed so there is no clean separation. You'd like to see better separation to make it an easier throw or maybe he draws DPI when the CB catches up. The second one, I don't think that throw is even on the menu for most QBs. Looks like basic tampa 2. The throw ends up almost like hitting a honey hole shot except 35 air yards downfield which is obviously not typical. Because Coleman is jogging on his route Allen has to rip it in there to beat the buzzing flat defender which means he can't get air underneath it which makes it more challenging to have perfect ball placement. So yes Allen has the arm strength to theoretically hit this throw but that isn't a point in Coleman's favor. And it's not like he did anything special to separate here, he's just running (or, more aptly, jogging) behind the flat defender in tampa 2. If Allen had hit both of these miraculous throws that would have been more akin to Gabe Davis' "breakout performance" against KC than a legit star turn from Coleman IMO. Especially given how poor he looked on almost every other rep throughout the game.

I need another coffee. I spent a full minute racking my brain trying to remember who on the Bills wears #12.

There isn't a single 1st round pick Beane has made, other than his first one, that I wouldn't trade for Waddle right now. The position is THAT important and it's not like he's found any superstars with those picks.

He isn't quick enough off the line or nuanced enough as a route runner to be a full time slot WR. He does his one trick extremely well, possibly better than any WR in the league (when he's fully healthy). You think back to when Beasley was in his prime, Allen would hit the top of his drop and the ball would be out because Beasley was already open. You don't get that with Shakir. Either you get him a manufactured touch with a YAC opportunity or you have to wait for him to work open after the initial read of the play has passed. The fact that he's our best WR is a major condemnation of the job this front office has done.

Shakir is basically a gadget WR. A really good one at that. He has his own separation issues like the rest of our WR room when he's asked to run normal slot routes. And he hasn't looked quite as slippery to me this year. Shakir last year would have scored on that 2PC he missed against Miami. I think the ankle sprain is probably still bothering him a bit. Not that I blame Shakir in the slightest for this offensive performance. It's not his fault he's being asked to do things he can't do well and defenses are able to give his gadget plays extra focus. That all falls on the GM.

I said this myself just a few weeks ago but it's not really true anymore. The Atlanta and Miami offensive performances were as bad as anything we got under Daboll or Dorsey. Well I guess the Jags 9-6 loss really stands above the rest but that was an outlier of all outliers. Brady's offense has been fully dissected and studied by DCs across the league and without the element of surprise/unpredictability the bottom has dropped out in a hurry.

I think New England is a year away from being a real contender. Not counting them out because the AFC is just so weak, but they lack a difference maker on the DL and they still need one top tier pass catcher which I think they'll go all out to obtain in the offseason. Don't be surprised if AJ Brown is there next year. The AFC and NFC are equally difficult to predict who will make it out of the conference, but for opposite reasons. The NFC has a bunch of powerhouses that can steamroll their opponents, while every team in the AFC has some fatal flaw or two. Right now honestly I think Baltimore if healthy might be the best in the conference. I'll say they or KC makes it out.

Correct. There is no comparison between WRs and RBs, nor is there any comparison between KC and Buffalo. You're just grasping for anything at this point.

No I didn't personally hear anything on Waddle, but I trust the sources of Tom Pelissero with NFL Network. I also heard something interesting from Mike Florio on PFT today. He heard that the report about no one in the division wanting to trade with Buffalo was spin put out by the organization, and that the truth is we could have traded within the division but weren't able to get it done. I don't know why Beane was so worried about losing the value of the trade. What has he got to lose? We're talking about WRs, not RBs.

Yes and he drew his line over 2026 vs 2027. He had to win the trade on his exact terms or no deal, and now we are wasting another year of Allen's prime.

Most GMs suck at drafting. Giving up a 1st round pick for an established starter is just correctly recognizing that 1st round picks are not as valuable as they're made out to be. I guess Beane hasn't figured that out though. He keeps drawing a line in the sand instead of doing whatever's necessary to win a championship.

A lot of the freeze frames I see people post here or on Twitter, there is a LB or CB sitting right over the supposedly open short route with their hips leaning foward ready to drive on it. Do people really think Allen is turning these throws down for no reason? Apparently a lot of fans vastly underestimate the speed of NFL back 7 players and/or want to see all of our WRs destroy their lumbars. Allen did take one of those throws to Shakir yesterday, Shakir took a shot and gained a whopping 2 yards. If Allen hadn't taken that throw you can bet it would be one of those freeze frames making the rounds today. The whole offensive structure stinks. Defenses are forming a wall of coverage right at the depth where they know our awful group of WRs are going to finish their routes. Then those WRs are just turning around and standing still. Meanwhile our supposed X WR is getting taken out of the game with basic 1v1 coverage so we can never punish defenses for selling out to stop the short routes. Our offense basically needs a 65% or better success rate from the run game to be able to function. 2nd and 10 might as well be 2nd and 30. Dorsey's offense got way too boom or bust but at least it was fun to watch, even the lows were interesting. This offense is just boring and crappy to watch when it doesn't follow the exact game script it needs to be successful.

I think it's fair to say he has lost a half step. The arm strength is still all there, the escapability however looks noticeably diminished. We're seeing what the offense looks like when Allen can't pull a rabbit out of a hat every time he needs to. Those unicorn plays have made it easy to ignore a lot of personnel flaws and unfortunately tricked the GM into thinking that the offense was set. We need to bake in some more normal blitz reads. Allen in the past has been his own solution shrugging off free rushers and escaping for a big play, so now that we can't count on that we have to find more traditional answers. Unfortunately it is hard to find those answers when you have zero WRs that can quickly separate. Can't be waiting 4 seconds for someone to uncover against a cover 0 blitz, like he did on the play that ended in an INT. Tyrell Shavers isn't exactly the ideal player you want to be relying on there but that's what this season has come to.

I'm open to anything at this point. The last two games Daboll coached here was the perfect game and the 13 seconds game. We don't have close to the same weapons we had back then but Daboll knows what Allen does well and can get through to him. Of course Daboll also coached the Urban Meyer game and a few other no-show performances so I'm not going to pretend he's some genius, but he can have some value here as a pass game coordinator. We need new route combinations and new ideas. Too many passes are in the direction of WRs that are standing still. Daboll knew how to create passes to WRs while they were still moving.

The most common answers last year were Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson, and people like you dismissed them for one reason or another. "Vrabel couldn't win a Super Bowl with Tennessee." "Coordinators don't always make good head coaches." So pardon me if I don't assume that you ask this question in good faith. Of course both Vrabel and Johnson have seemingly turned their new franchises around in year one so maybe people on here do have an idea what they're talking about when they make suggestions like that.

When it can follow a hyper-specific game script it scores 30 PPG. The problem is that you can't reasonably expect that game script to work out every single week. So yes I would say it's fundamentally broken. If a defense can nudge us off our only path just a bit, the whole system comes crashing down.

We're cobbling together 12 play drives and the predictable criticism from certain people is that we turn the ball over too frequently. Last year's offensive output may have been a net negative for the long term outlook of the team. It convinced the people in charge and by proxy the fanbase that that historically mistake-free efficiency should be the expected norm every year.

Like I said in my last post - the conversation has devolved to should Allen take the bad option or the worse option? The fact that we're asking that question at all should be where the conversation starts.

To Shavers? No. Pause it when Allen gets to the top of his drop. Shavers has just gotten to the 5 yard line, he has not even made his first move yet. As it is Allen tried hanging in there an extra half second against cover 0 to give Shavers time to try and get open, and that extra half second meant the pass was all arm since he couldn't step into it. Best case scenario here would have been the ball sailing out the back of the endzone incomplete. Obviously that's a better outcome than what actually happened but that's where the conversation has gotten - after Allen dragged the team kicking and screaming into a goal to go situation, does he take the bad option or the worse option? Too many people on here or on Twitter want to focus in on the individual process or result of a single play here and there, because it helps them ignore that the offensive structure is fundamentally broken. It's so much easier to point to one play and say "Allen needs to play better" than it is to accept that the people in charge have made fatal mistakes and there are no solutions coming.