HoofHearted
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Posts posted by HoofHearted
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13 hours ago, Ray Finkel said:
Do they ever run a stunt or line up in different positions for a different look?
Yes.
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28 minutes ago, Sweats said:
I'd like a secondary that plays "proactive" and not "reactive", but you need guys with experience to be able to play that way........guys who have the experience to be able to read QB's eyes, tendencies, etc. and be able to project what play is coming or where the ball is going.
We play way too much "reactive" ball and give up a ton of yardage due to our "bend, but don't break" philosophy and in the long run when you want to tighten things up in the post season, i don't know how you can possibly win like this.
Defense is reactive by nature. Guessing gets you beat. Could we react faster? Surely. Our issue defensively is we lack overall speed and quickness. We are not very good playing man, which makes it extremely difficult to call a defense.
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8 minutes ago, ren1701 said:
6-8??? yep - that would be the BIlls record to without 17
Can't believe you guys are defending this scheme - unreal. Don't worry, in the payoffs this year I'm sure 5th's time a charm.
You’re the one who used them as the example of a defense who shut down the Rams offense lol. Maybe next time if you’re trying to prove a point that our scheme sucks pick an example of a team that runs a different scheme from us.
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1 hour ago, ren1701 said:
Anybody that sits in a nickel zone for 80% of a game is going to get burned every year by decent qb's - sorry. that's just lazy coaching/planning. Doesn't matter the players, the scheme is not bad but it is not meant to be used all the time. If it were me, I'd jumbo up, run the ball and send guys into the seams all day long, McVay gave out that blueprint btw as they amassed 427 yards but barley broke 300 against the 49ers.
All I'm saying is this - after we spot the usual 10-14 points to Detroit like we do everybody else, and watch the usually 1st and nothing up the middle a few times from the O combined with the screen out to Samuel for -1 yard, I'm pretty sure 17 will be putting on the cape before half time... hope I am wrong
9ers run a very similar scheme to us defensively. Two high shells, Quarters coverage, Cover 3 fire zones when they want to bring pressure. Its the people, not the scheme.
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14 hours ago, Mikie2times said:
Even when you watch his Wyoming tape Josh has been a stone cold killer in playaction (2 minutes and 17 seconds in).
In his career Allen has a +25 QBR in play action vs regular passing situations 113.9 vs 87. You can see why Josh is so good with playaction with his timing. It's almost like playaction gives Allen a more traditional pocket cadence. Right when he hits the top of his drop he either rips the ball out or you see him moving forward in the pocket still in the rhythm of the play. It's always very decisive. So it's a pretty exciting concept that we have developed this run game under Brady which should allow for a lot more of what Allen does best.
I wish this was the case.........
If you look at the chart below in the PA% column it shows the % of totals passes that were playaction. In the Pass% column to shows the number of Allen passing attempts divided by total plays minus Allen rushing Attempts. I looked at it this way because we know most of Allen rushing attempts actually come from passing attempts. I only wanted to see how often a RB was getting the ball vs Allen throwing. In theory the less we throw and the more we run with HB's, the more impactful PA should be, the higher the PA% should be.
We are running substantially more with traditional run plays in 2024 off a 2023 career low for Josh but throwing nearly half the amount of playaction passes as a % of total pass attempts, also a career low.
It's like taking away John Daily's driver.
Just next level dumb. What the hell is Brady doing right now?
Who are you manipulating with PA when everyone is running some form of Cover 2? There's your answer.
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3 minutes ago, K-9 said:
The Henry run is the reason Williams has a long way to go before he's Milano caliber.
They schemed a one on one with Rasul on Henry - Rasul didn’t fit. Had nothing to do with Williams…
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12 hours ago, Beck Water said:
Hope you and all your family are safe (1st priority) and property relatively unscathed (2nd priority).
Can you say more about Deep Choice, what it is and how the Bills were using it last year?
Also Zone Insert?
Some of us may know both when we see them, but not by those names.
I think Samuel is also a strong and capable blocker, but it's a testament to Shakir that you see him as our best perimeter blocker now because it shows he really worked at it. As far as Beasley's blocking, the best I can say for that is "he tried"
Great question by the way
Here is a good article on Deep Choice. As far as zone insert, we were mostly running same side with Shakir in a nasty split. I couldn't find any images of it online, but I can draw it up later when I have more time. Essentially the way it fits out is like ISO (which I think is what I was calling it in my run game breakdown last season), but you're not isolating a linebacker because of the defensive personnel vs the personnel we had on the field at the time.
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14 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:
@HoofHearted you never gave your own response to this...said you were going to later, but just reminding you that you still haven't as the next QOD has arrived
Im curious to your thoughts on this too
Yeah, sorry. Got caught without power for a while with these storms down here in Texas. Was lucky my QOD was able to go through on my phone 🤣. Shakir reminds me a lot of Hines Ward. Not the most physically gifted dude, but someone who plays with reckless abandon on every single play. Khalil doesn’t seem to care what he’s being asked to do - he doing it fast and physical. His blocking within the box and on the perimeter are weapons.
As far as his role in our offense, I think it’ll be multifaceted. He has the ability to play both outside and inside as well as in a slot or wing role as we saw last year. I think he short area quickness plays well to the perimeter pass game we saw last year, but he’s also probably our best perimeter blocker so I’d expect to see him blocking for Samuel on these more often than not.
From his interview the other day it sure sounds like Deep Choice is still going to be a focal point of the offense as he was talking about running those “collector” routes to pull coverage in order to open things up underneath for others. I’d imagine they’d run both DC1 and DC2 like they did in the past.
What really intrigues me though is his ability to play within the box. There were multiple times last year we put Khalil in a wing or “nasty” split and ran a variation of zone insert. What makes this so intriguing to me is that we can do this with 11p but show 12 or 13p looks out of it. Essentially we’re forcing teams to play with a light box and scheming plays up that are forcing opposing teams corners to make tackles within the box. It was very effective last year, and is something Brady did during his time at LSU with his run game there.
Overall I think he’s most natural in a slot role where he can run all of the choice menu Beasley did while also being a key factor in the run game from a blocking perspective.
Sorry all for such a late response!
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Brady has said he wants to take advantage of each players individual skill sets within this offense. Couple that with the uptick in production we saw out of Shakir at the end of last season once Brady took over, and one could assume he’s primed to be a focal point in this offense (albeit not to the level that Diggs was). So what say you. How would you get the most out of Shakir’s skill set within this offense? (There are no wrong answers and I’ll give my opinions later as not to influence the responses).
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6 hours ago, Old Coot said:
Perhaps this is because in play action with the QB under center the QB dropping back must turn his back to the D so that the play looks like a running play. He then fakes a handoff to the RB then pulls up and looks to see who is open because a D player got sucked in thinking it was a run. If the QB glances back at the D while retreating from under center, he gives away that it's really a pass play. The in the play action pass, tehre is no option. The play is pass all the way but designed to fool the D by looking like a run.
The RPO is a true option; it may be a pass or a run depending on how the D reacts. In an RPO, the QB in shotgun or pistol can focus on the conflict defender and, according to what the defender does, pass or run; that is, if the defender plays pass the RB keeps and runs and if the defender plays run the QB can pass. With Josh, the RPO has the option for Josh to keep and run.
Is this analysis correct?
Yes, but more importantly defenses still have the upper hand without the threat of QB run because they don’t have to designate a defensive player to account for it (Essentially playing 11 v 10 in favor of the defense). RPOs allows offenses to get the numbers advantage by putting at least one defender in conflict, as you said. So now it’s 11 v 10 in favor of the offense. With a player like Josh you could have old school triple option through RPOs where you are now putting 2 defenders in conflict playing 11 v 9. This is why you saw an uptick in our RPO game once Brady took over. He understands the numerical advantages it gives you, especially when you have a guy like Josh back there orchestrating the whole thing.
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10 minutes ago, 34-78-83 said:
All fair counters if this were a true debate (and it can be I suppose if you want it to). I think there are many out there that would agree with my angles on why to use more under-center in our offense with Josh though, including former players Eric Wood, Dan Orlovsky and J.T. O'Sullivan. They've been outspoken about it over the past couple seasons. I don't agree on Josh being removed as a run threat either. It's just going to rely more on the roll-out game where he gets his run-pass options.
I do recall the thread where you did the analysis you mentioned...
Whatever the case may be, thanks for starting an interesting thread.
Healthy debates are fine, and a debate is all it'll ever be. Neither one of us, or anyone else for that matter, has the exact answer. There isn't one way to skin a cat. We had success under center last year running play-action so people want to lean into that more which makes total and complete sense. From a coaches perspective, when you start thinking about how that limits you schematically and what skill sets it takes away from your offense that would otherwise set you apart from 90% of the other offenses in the league is where you start questioning whether the juice is worth the squeeze. When does it become too much under center if you will. Roll-out run game is fine, and we've had success with Josh running naked bootlegs in short third down situations which have provided him a single pass option to take if it was there, and if it wasn't then he would keep it himself. These are easily defended in normal down and distance situations within the base rules of defenses when it comes to secondary contain players forcing Josh to pull up while still having players in coverage.
From a purely statistical standpoint I'd really like to see the numbers for play action compared to rpo numbers. I've seen what they look like for teams I've been involved with and I think they'd really be eye opening for fans. RPOs are the closest thing we have to out-right cheating in football lol.
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1 hour ago, Florida Bills Fanatic said:
When they did blitz, too often they were very simple and easily countered. I would like to see them blitz in conjunction with d-line stunts, use delayed blitzes, or use overload blitzes forcing the QB toward the short side of the field. Most importantly, they need to blitz more selectively and less frequently so that they are less predictable.
Interesting, I saw the complete opposite of what you mention here and even posted about it during the season in the X's and O's thread (I believe). McDermott was very calculated in his blitzes. He did a phenomenal job imo of predicting and attacking protections, ensuring we were able to get an athlete matched up 1v1 with a RB. That's what you want to see. We used delays, overloads, you name it - it was done. Frequency can always be argued, but ultimately if your more likely to be a successful defense by getting a QB off his spot than if you let him sit back there all day.
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3 hours ago, 34-78-83 said:
Looking at Josh's effectiveness and historical success on play action from under center when we have a legitimate threat to run the ball is where it started for me. Forgive me for not having numbers to show but 1. I know his under-center #'s are pretty outstanding, and can be found online with the right subscription. He's got a good ball fake game (better deception than non under-center play action) and certainly has a natural aptitude in the 2. roll out game resulting from those formations as well. 2. When they actually do run out of those formations, the run game itself is typically more successful as well. Rb's can get more downhill. I think the better, more deceptive play action achieved from under-center also opens up more of the quick-hitter throws (like to the TE) in our offense. Lastly, I think the pre-snap field scanning information gathering benefits Josh by not having to focus visually on receiving the snap, and he can keep his head up and on a swivel, readying with his hands to receive the snap and processing information about the defense.
1. His play-action numbers are outstanding - as are every other QBs play-action numbers vs normal dropback numbers. It's the whole point of Play Action - to freeze defenders and not allow them to play run or pass and get caught in no mans land. As far as I'm aware there are no sites who break down Play Action from under center vs Play Action from in the gun (would love to see that data if it exists though).
2. This was a common theme I saw during the season last year so I did a deep dive into our run game and found no evidence that suggested we run better from under center than from under the gun. I will try and find that thread and link it here. EDIT: Found the link
Josh under center immediately takes him away as an immediate run threat. We have been so successful as an offense since Josh got here because of his legs, whether he uses them or not, because teams have to account for it. Gun provides that on every single snap and forces a defense to play 11 v 11 football instead of 11 v 10 which is typical of any QB who isn't a run threat. Now does that mean there is no place for anything under center? No. Obviously it's a good wrinkle to have, but with the way modern offenses are run you want to be in gun the majority of the time if you have a dual threat QB because of the stress it puts on a defense to defend the whole field. Additionally, gun allows you to take advantage of the RPO game which is even better than true play action since you are forcing a defender to be wrong regardless of what they do. Now you're getting into situations where you can play 11 v 10 offensively instead of the reverse.
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3 hours ago, PBF81 said:
1. Where'd you get the data for how successful DART was, both for us as well as league-wide? That would be interesting.
2. Also, in the video it says that DART is good for teams with athletic Tackles, do we consider Dawkins and Brown to be particularly athletic? Brown certainly doesn't appear to be particularly athletic per se.
3. It also says "DART is a good solution and wrinkle for Zone Scheme teams and offenses that are having trouble with penetration and other gap scheme plays." Is that us? Granted, we had zero injuries to our OL last season which we cannot assume this season, but it seems that we didn't have any particular consistent difficulty with penetration as such, to the contrary it seems.
Here's an interesting piece that I found while poking around for more info on the topic, it's up to right around the transition from Dorsey to Brady, but the metrics up to that point were good, as the piece points out.
As to this season, it'd be nice to see Allen & the offense doing what Allen does best, but that likely won't happen for several reasons, primary being that we don't have the receiving talent to achieve that to that extent.
It would also be nice to have someone work with Allen to get him to understand the value of the high-percentage passing game, but the time to have done that best was the past four years, not now when we have no "field stretchers" generally speaking and with what will likely be more claustrophobic defenses. If leadership hasn't been able to do that in Allen's five seasons of starting, it's probably not an odds-on bet that it'll happen this season.
It would also be nice to ditch the overly conservative offensive approach defined by our fearless leader's complimentary football approach. Focus on the O, not the D and running game in relying on controlling the game. Again, that also doesn't seem likely to happen.
1. I did a deep dive into our run game last season and posted the results on here. I'll have to see if I can dig that thread up, but Dart was our most successful run concept. I don't have any data league-wide.
2. Both of our Tackles move well enough to be great pullers, as did Morse, which is why we used him to pull in our pin and pull concepts rather than running the traditional Buck where both guards pull.
3. We've been a base zone run scheme team since McDermott got here. Yes, this is us.
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12 minutes ago, 34-78-83 said:
I'm with those that would like to see more play-action pass plays with Josh under-center (not in Shotgun).
There's been many here that have made this comment. I guess I'm left wondering why? Why take away our offenses greatest asset by putting our QB under center?
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College defenses are way different than what you see in the NFL. Offenses attack players and coverages with their pass game. Most colleges are basing out of Quarters coverage - not so much in the NFL - so take anything you see from LSU with a grain of salt from a concept perspective. However, what it does illustrate is Brady's ability to scheme guys open vs coverages using various concepts.
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1 hour ago, HappyDays said:
There aren't any. Him being a top 10 offensive mind in the NFL is one of several best case scenarios that need to come to fruition for this offense to be at a championship level. He was thought to be something of an offensive savant in his time at LSU so the hope is that with a full offseason to install his own offense he will prove to be at that level. I'm not particularly optimistic but he'll get his chance.
I assume you mean without a true field stretcher. To that I would still definitely say no. MVS is going to be our field stretcher and that's why they signed him - the role was missing from the roster. I don't believe you can have a high level NFL offense without a true field stretcher, even if it's just of the Gabe Davis variety running decoy/clear out routes downfield. The defense has to at least respect that area of the field.
I see what the team is trying to do. They're trying to build a more consistent, less boom or bust, move the chains offense where the explosive plays are created more after the catch than before the catch. They're going big outside and quick/fast inside. I have zero issues with the philosophy, I'm just not convinced the talent and/or coaching is great enough to make it all run at a championship level.
I think you're spot on with the field stretcher comment. Deep Choice, I'm sure, will still be a big part of this offenses vertical passing game where MVS/Claypool will be running the collector routes (sole purpose is to pull coverage to open stuff underneath) so that Kincaid will be able to work off the underneath coverage defenders and find the soft spots in zone. I see a lot of Mills passing concepts for us with Kincaid running the Dig.
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21 minutes ago, YattaOkasan said:
I remember us using a different dime package a few years ago against mahomes. Rather than taking an LB off for a DB and only having one; we took a DL off and left Milano, Edmunds, Taron on the field. I would like to see more of this as LB seems to be a strength of the defense. It would probably be a edge that comes off if were not getting good heat with them anyway.
That wasn't a whole game thing. It was for that specific end of game scenario where they knew KC had to throw to come back. We ended up running a 55 front - two outside 5's and a true 0 tech inside to rush.
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4 hours ago, HappyDays said:
I'd like to see Kincaid run more seams. Early in the year it was mostly all flats and checkdowns and quick hitches. Later in the year we let him fly down the field more and from my memory we tended to have very good success on those plays. With a WR room that I think will struggle to find consistent vertical separation, Kincaid can possibly be our one consistent means of freezing safeties and opening up pass catchers underneath.
I don't think you'll see as much vertical passing game from us this year. To me it looks like they want to use pre-snap movement to set up quick hitters more in line with what we saw towards the end of last season. Probably will see a lot more screen game and RPO game this year.
2 hours ago, MJS said:I also think play action is less effective faking the run from the shotgun, but I don't think Josh likes turning his back to the defense like you need to do when you fake the handoff starting under center. I guess that's an area of growth for him.
Any mesh action between a QB/RB is going to force the defense to, at the very least, stop their feet. Even on true under center play action no one is teaching linebackers to fly downhill anymore until they see ball given. There's too much offenses are doing now to take advantage of that.
1 hour ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:It works in man quite well.
Works vs zone quite well too. That's why its a staple in essentially every offense. See man throw the mesh. See zone throw the OTB.
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6 minutes ago, iccrewman112 said:
Shallow crossing routes. Keep a TE or a back in to ensure time for the route develop. Not sure why this has been absent from our offense for years.
We ran Mesh a ton last year. It was one of the boards least favorite concepts we ran lol.
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9 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
Definitely more cover 3/cover 1 on defense but I also wish Sean had Leslie's patience at times. Too many ill timed blitzes when I felt like he just got frustrated and so blitzed out of anger / frustration. I tend to think that is the worst time to blitz. Whether Sean or Bobby call the D this year I'd like to see some of the coverage evolution from last year continue but with greater patience in the playcalling.
Yeah, that’s kind of the nature of it isn’t it. Playing on the edge like that can be very boom or bust. I think what encourages me, even on the plays that didn’t go our way, the design of the scheme was excellent. You could clearly see we were being deliberate with our pressures - not sending guys just to send them - but scheming up protections in order to guarantee someone free or at the worst 1v1 with a RB.
Having personally been in those shoes before I can tell you exactly where those calls are coming from haha. When you’re not getting home with four and just leaving your secondary out to dry your next answer is to start bringing more.
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There's been enough discussion around here about schemes and concepts that we all do not want to see again. With new Coordinators on both sides of the ball, what schemes and concepts from last year would you like to see carry over into this season under new leadership?
Personally I'd like for us to continue building on our Dart run concept that was so successful for us last season (click here if you're unfamiliar with the concept). It was by far our most productive run concept we ran, and towards the end of the year I think we got a bit of a glimpse of what's to come this season under Brady as we saw an uptick in the RPO game off of Dart action. My hope is we'll continue to scheme around this concept in order to not only have Dart, Q Dart, and all of the RPO game off of it, but also be able to use the blocking scheme in misdirection off jet/orbit motions.
Defensively we saw a dramatic shift in our coverages going from a primarily Quarters/Cover 2 defense with a steady dose of Cover 3 mixed in to a predominantly Cover 3/Cover 1 defense with a steady dose of Quarters mixed in. With the backers we've been able to add to the team over the last few seasons I think we're at a point where we can feel comfortable sitting in Cover 1 knowing that our guys are athletic enough to get home on pressures. My hope is we continue to lean into this, put pressure on opposing Quarterbacks while still being able to disguise these looks as Cover 3 or Quarters coverages to give help to our secondary.
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23 hours ago, Beck Water said:
On the just-missed-the-catch to Sherfield on 3rd and 12 38:12 minutes into the video...O'Sullivan spends a long time painting the throw to Shakir in the middle as the better choice. I don't see it. Where's someone who knows their shite like @HoofHearted to put me straight? 2 deep safeties, one takes Diggs, one takes Shakir, and Sherfield is the correct read. Sherfield gets his hands on it. There is no reason that shouldn't have been a catch: a high degree of difficulty catch, but a catch.
Generally speaking a post vs. any middle open coverage is dream scenario. It's fairly easy to manipulate Safety hips with the stem of the route to get them to open outside before you cut back in. Once you win leverage there's no one else there since the backside Safeties eyes will never look there - becomes a foot race in the end.
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27 minutes ago, ScotSHO said:
Correct, the problem is the league hardly ever goes to those personnel groupings. Look at 2021:
Which is why we base out of Nickel.
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Kurt Warner's analysis of the Super Bowl
in The Stadium Wall
Posted · Edited by HoofHearted
Our plan vs mobile quarterbacks clearly needs to be re-evaluated. Specifically, how are we teaching our contain rush? In all three playoff games we relied on a contain rush (more in some games than others) and for the most part it never really looked very good. Our edges were either set too wide creating open lanes inside or too far upfield to where opposing QBs could just step up and then work outside because the rush had passed them. There was no collapsing of the pockets from the edges, no high box/low box mentality, and very little push/collapsing of the interior. Instead, it looked like guys were just standing straight up and peaking at times which allowed them to get displaced and create massive run throughs.
I don't know if we give our ends the freedom to win inside if they feel they have the inside rush, but the amount of times we lose contain with an end going inside with no outside force rusher outside of them is mind boggling and extremely frustrating to continually watch over and over.
I agree, I don't think it's necessarily a Jimmy and Joe's issue (though we do lack an edge rusher who commands a double team every snap), but it's certainly an execution issue if not (and more concerning if true) a scheme issue.