HoofHearted

We run split zone and outside zone just like those teams do too, and guess what, they run inside zone just like we do. I’ll do a full breakdown of our run schemes sometime this week.

My favorite part was when he said we need to stop running zone schemes and instead copy schemes from teams who can actually run and then showed three clips of the Dolphins, 9ers, and Lions running zone schemes 😏.

Schematically McDermott is one of the top defensive minds in the game. There’s clear intent to put our players in the best position based on their skill sets to make plays. He’s also done a phenomenal job of building a culture in our organization. I think that’s easy to gloss over because it can’t be quantified but it’s what separates good teams from great teams. What he’s done is special. Dorsey does a lot of really good schematic stuff too. I think he gets to tunnel visioned at times with what he wants to do. I also think he could do a better job with his utilization of personnel, but when I turn on the film I don’t sit back and think “this guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing”. Im also curious to see how they handle and work through this adversity. It’ll be very telling since this is really the first time since we started rolling that things haven’t gone our way for an extended period of time. So long winded response to say I think if we got rid of McDermott it’d be a mistake and the jury is still out on Dorsey.

It can be simple depends on if they’re disguising. I’d have to go back and look at what specifically the defense did in that situation, but I’d guess he liked the matchups Diggs and Kincaid pulled even though the concept was better to the other side vs the coverage. It was a third down situation so that’s why I lean towards that.

That’s exactly right. My hope is they bring it back for the playoffs at least to some degree. It puts so much stress on a defense.

The condensed sets have been around since Daboll took over. That's not out of the ordinary - the Curl/Arrow concept that they kept having success with is a common concept as well. It's nothing abnormal. They just haven't ever done it a ton like they did against the Bucs.

Without going through all of Cinci's A22 film and figuring out how they play condensed sets I don't have an answer for you either, unfortunately. I was really encouraged by how we used Gabe in that TB game though.

This mostly - but we have to win those match-ups. Outside of Diggs (and possibly Shakir going forward?) we struggle to win those matchups. We've got to scheme them open vs man. Also Josh has to recognize it. He missed one this past game where he read the zone side against man coverage and our man beater backside (I believe it was Shakir on a slant under a rub route) was wide open.

I mean there's only so man ways an offense can line up. 2x1, 2x2, 3x1, 4x1, or some version of an over set. In general most teams sit in a 2x2 as it puts the most stress on a defense because the entire field is a threat because there are concepts being run on both sides. The shifts and motions are a double edged sword - when we use them we use them effectively to scheme guys open. Not sure we'd get the same results if we did them all the time because teams would prepare for them. On the other hand using shifts and motions force defenses to talk and CoS shifts/motions force teams to shift or bump at one of the three levels in their defense (this is what I'd like to see more of). On RPO's Allen is the run threat in the first place. We've primarily run these from a Dart concept this season, but we've also used inside zone and mid-zone to RPO off of as well. IMO they're at their most effective when using some type of gap scheme and determining which gap scheme to use would depend on what the backers are keying. Your back is the run threat in those situations, but again, the way to nullify the RPO is by playing man coverage. One thing I mentioned in the OP was I'd like to see them use Gabe like they did in the Bucs game - in condensed sets running, essentially, spot routes off of linebacker drops. We got in condensed and marched down the field multiple times on the Bucs just running Curl/Arrow and Gabe just worked over top the backer drop and curled inside him for a quick and easy 8 yards. He doesn't need to be overly twitchy to win those match-ups - just have to be able to work off of a backer. Condensed sets also force most teams into zone coverage/zone concepts on that side of the ball. We haven't targeted him a bunch downfield, but he definitely runs the entire route tree. Would love to see those splits broken down by coverage - think that'd be very telling. Teams have definitely adjusted. We weren't seeing this amount of man coverage before.

It's a little of everything with Josh as far as holding onto the ball to long. There have certainly been times him and the receiver haven't been on the same page that have forced him to hold onto it, there are also times where he just waits for them to work to a bigger window, and then there are others where he just needs to recognize the play is dead downfield and take the checkdown before it disappears on you too. It's the same base system. I'm sure the terminology is all carry over as well as a lot of the pass game. What has been different is the run game. Dorsey has put his own spin on that for sure.

I'd imagine sloppiness. You're not going to want it to look any different regardless of coverage.

I don't, but I'm sure they're out there somewhere.

Couple things: - What do you get out of running play action vs all the man coverage we're seeing? - Kincaid runs the entire route tree - We just need to be more consistent and stop shooting ourselves in the foot

All of them are capable of getting separation on the conversion routes - that's the whole point of them. They are designed so that anyone (regardless of physical skill) has a chance to be open simply by running to green grass as opposed to into a coverage. That's why we've seen so much man this year. Teams have become savvy to it and aren't allowing us to run our conversion routes as often and we do not have the guys to beat man coverage consistently.

The Bills have seen less Cover 2 than most teams, and as a whole it's not being run a ton in the league. Quarters is by far the most common split safety coverage being run league wide. We're seeing a ton of MoF Closed coverages this year.

I dunno, he's been open often on the wheel and Josh just looks him off. It's frustrating at times.

It's definitely a mixture of both. We've seen way more man coverage this year than I can remember us seeing in the past and a lot of that has to do with our scheme. The route conversion stuff gets nullified if you don't have a zone defender you can make wrong every snap. I don't think we've done a great job in man coverage from a scheme standpoint from Dorsey's end, but also an execution standpoint from the player side. We're doing a lot of "win your 1v1" instead of scheming guys open using crossers to run away from coverage or using rubs to get guys separation.

To your first point - that's exactly what you want. When you watch a game and without understanding what is happening our offense looks extremely vanilla. That's what makes it so hard to defend, because if you come into the game thinking I just need to stop these however many route concepts and then you go out to stop those you won't even see those routes because they'll be converted to something different. Now obviously this isn't the case on every concept, but we do have quite a few that are. It's definitely not as complicated as it sounds. In the simplest form it's run to where the defenders aren't. Is it more to handle mentally than just a pre-determined concept, sure, but from my experience players love it because it gives them the opportunity to be open every time. Cook is used on wheels every time we run mesh, and is the first read on that concept the majority of the time. We've also split him out when we go empty to try and get him the ball in the open field. Can they do more of it, certainly, but it's definitely been done to some degree.

I don't think it's a preparation issue. I'll put it this way - it's hard to pre-determine human reactions. What I mean by that is individual player movements post-snap will not look the same every time they do something - there will be variance simply because those guys are human too. So for example - from a pre-snap look a player could have a preconceived idea of what coverage a team is playing. However, if post-snap the defender is slow to react or diagnose what is going on that will delay our receivers post-snap processing which can then throw off the timing of a concept. It's not that our guys are doing the wrong things all the time. More often it's timings that are thrown off.

The eye discipline on zone blitzes, yes. The 1v1 from Allen, no. That's just him playing within the scheme and taking the match-up he likes. In McDermott's defense too you can clearly see on film there has been an emphasis on details since he took over. Footwork and eyes have been much improved - you can really see the difference when the back-ups come in.

There’s no doubt about it, and it’s on both ends. We’re not hitting home sometimes but also the coverage isn’t allowing us to hit home at other times. It’s frustrating to continually see us playing with zone eyes on these zone blitzes - man match and give your rush a chance.

We actually haven’t seen a lot of Cover 2 from defenses against us this season.

I'm assuming your line of thinking is that because Davis is pulling coverage that Kincaid should be running deeper routes? Right, the response was to a question posed about the OL and their execution in both the run and the pass. It wasn't about the volume of runs - just that they didn't execute well when called upon. So I'm still not clear why you're bringing up number of carries.

I'm not in the building - I can't answer this. You're right though - he is electric with the ball in his hands in open space. If it's a matter of him struggling to learn the scheme (pure speculation on my part) you'd think they'd at least be able to use him in the screen game. They've used him as an outside receiver deep ball threat and he's looked less than impressive in that role, but they do need to find a way to get him the ball in space. Not sure what you're getting at with the Kincaid comment. Again, not sure what you're getting at here.

All of the above at different times throughout the game. Here's what I mean: Drive 1: Dorsey did a fantastic job with a Change of Strength shift then motion to scheme Diggs wide open in the flat for a big gainer Drive 2: Dorsey motions across the formation and pulls the overhang into the box vs the split zone run concept we run and it gets shut down Drive 2: Dawkins whiffs a block on a well designed pin and pull concept that would have gone for at least 10 had he maintained the down block Drive 2: Dorsey schemes Diggs 1v1 on a backer using a short motion and Diggs runs an in-breaking route vs inside leverage instead of running the out-breaking route he should have (and Josh anticipated him running) Drive 2: Vertical pass concepts are covered - Allen doesn't take the check-down which probably would have gotten us into a forth and short in "go for it" territory Drive 3: Allen under throws a hole shot and gets intercepted Drive 4: Morse whiffs a block on outside zone that would have been a solid gainer had he made it Drive 5: Allen does a really good job with eye manipulation to uncover Kincaid on a decent gain Drive 5: Allen takes the 1v1 option to Davis and isn't on the same page and throws the vertical instead of playing the field concepts which were also man beaters vs man coverage Drive 6: Allen mis-reads an RPO that should have been a give and ends up dirting the ball because there wasn't anything there Drive 6: Ran the same RPO off Dart action that we ran at the beginning of the game and it's executed perfectly again Drive 6: Vertical pass game is covered and Allen doesn't take the checkdown Drive 6: Torrence trips on a slip screen that would have otherwise been a big gainer Drive 7: Man coverage and Allen looks to Diggs/Kincaid side instead of going to his man beater side - had Shakir open on a crack/slant Drive 8: Stack receivers too tight to formation on the Dart RPO which pulls overhang defender into the box when Josh correctly gives the ball - Brown also whiffed his block. Drive 8: Kincaid fumble Drive 9: We finally used Tight Ends to block on the perimeter screen game!!! It's a mixed bag of everything. There were some really good things from Dorsey from a scheme and play calling perspective - there were also some head scratchers. Josh did some really good things, but also did some boneheaded things. Overall execution at times was really good and others really bad.