WideNine

...and don't forget the crappy scheduling logistics that tilted the field in favor of the Jags rested and acclimated in the UK while our Bills were working off jet lag crossing the pond just days prior. Pray for the best for our injured starters and put that game in the rear view where it belongs.

Folks keep forgetting that while the Jags defense was pitching some 3 and outs our defense could not get off the field and allowed a lot of conversions that moved the chains and produced long Jaguar drives. There were reasons for that too starting with losing so many defensive starters so quickly in the game.

One game played with jet lag and we suck at everything right? Fickle fans that blow with the wind each week. TEs are never downfield... Knox runs plenty of deeper routes, so our OC does know how to scheme those up. Fans complain that Allen can't take what defenses are giving up underneath, when he does they complain that the OC cannot scheme deep routes. Did they play sloppy and fail to execute, yes. Did our defense struggle to get off the field and gave up too many 3rd down conversions, yes. One game does not define this offense that has been putting up decent numbers. The Jags defense matches up well with us even when they are not given the advantage of a few weeks to acclimate to another time zone while our guys barely had time to unpack.

I blame Goodell for using our Bills as an a scheduling experiment. Hard to believe he was born in Jamestown. Heck, I rode my bike there as a kid. No home town help coming from that guy.

I can live with that and especially DBs having their responsibilities, were they rolling safety help over the top or playing quarters. I don't have All 22 so going off memory. I thought I saw a few single high looks with the SS in the box. Allen stays on schedule more and completes more passes from under center, not sure if anyone knows why - perhaps less to do with defensive reactions and more that he is just wired that way. We lost quite a bit in the trenches, but I thought that was more due to simulated pressures and how well the Jags diagnosed our protection schemes and could overload sides without having to send the extra rusher although they sprinkled in blitzes. Their Josh Allen is a Swiss army knife - hand on the ground bull rushing and winning vs OL, or wide with speed, or off the ball covering he came as billed. They did a good job attacking gaps forcing double teams while freeing up rushers on stunts. They did a good job of containing the edges and forcing Allen to operate in the pocket or step up. I said it in another thread they put on a clinic and our OL had their hands full.

Fair enough. 8-9 times out of ten I think Diggs wins that. There were some pus comments that I thought were out of line for how many times that guy has bailed this offense out.

When you consistently get more yards on average when executing under center both passing and in your running game why would you not lean into that with more reps? Most anyone knows play action is specifically intended to free up passes downfield. So I am not following your logic that because plays were made downfield there was "no impact by the fact we were under center showing some type of action" - huh? Not sure why folks get so wrapped around the axle with the fact that Allen is more effective operating under center like somehow that cripples him. Maybe not every QB, but the numbers for Allen and this offense jump when he does operate under center. They should do it more no drooling needed.

re: -He says more play action passes wouldn't have worked with the way the Jaguars were loading the box and showing heavy pressure looks. I've seen a lot of people criticize Dorsey for a low play action percentage in this game so I thought that was an interesting point. I took something different away from the clips. In the second video around the 9:00 mark he actually stressed that play action runs from under center needed to happen a lot more, and kept talking about Dorsey needing to lean into play action under center more. We all know that Allen has a much higher percentage of completions and yards with play action under center, but he mentioned that it has a positive impact on our runs as well when Allen executes from under center. He brings up some stats - that we average 5.8 yards with runs from under center, but only 3.7 yards when we run from out of shotgun. A couple long completions throughout the second video he says, "Surprise, surprise with Allen under center..." Aside from that, some obvious confusion with those mesh routes and receivers all ending up in the same area and I swear that whenever Allen set protection and pointed to the LB where he wanted our OL to slide the protection the Jags would cue off that and have that LB loop to the other side away from how our OL was sliding/setting protection. They did this a lot to overload our protection with just 4-5 rushers. Credit where credit is due, the Jags put on a master class in how to simulate pressure looks and overload protection.

Really? So how many games has Diggs been the only receiver to step up? He lost a jump ball and not even a 50/50 one as I think the defender made a great play to have the better leverage at the catch point. Barking up the wrong tree if you think Diggs is not a competitor.

Jacksonville sat back protecting their lead and even Allen said the offense woke up a bit so probably a combination. I think folks have the wrong idea with these supposed handcuffs on Allen. I don't think they have that much of a leash on Allen, he changes plays at the line often, but to negate an effective rush a QB has to get rid of it quickly and hit the quicker routes underneath. The Jags did a good job of overloading protection and using a variety of blitzes and stunts to get a free rusher in Allen's face. It was a big test of pass pro and they were able to sniff out our running plays pretty well too. There are a dozen ways I am thinking we could have run the ball better, but hindsight is 20/20. My advice, let it go... on to the next opponent.

If Allen plays smart we will win more than we lose. Unless folks enjoyed that Jets game. We need some luck too and our starters to be able to stay healthy. Less flag-happy crews would be welcomed. Hope they leave those guys in England. Other players have to step up on offense too, make a guy miss, get to the marker and move the chains, win contested throws, or block if you are a RB and have to pick up the blitz. Allen may be playing a bit too conservative. I am just thinking he could pick up a few more 1st downs with his legs if scrambling and there is 5 yards of green in front of him. I think he will find that sweet spot of when he should take chances and will be better for it. I don't want to see him getting the crap beat out of him every game like last year either. Ask yourself how much you want to see Kyle Allen starting?

They did blitz quite a bit and on 3rd down, but I was not counting. Those often left Elam and/or Hyde singled up in coverage and they got burnt enough times to extend drives. The rush was often just a step from getting home on those, so I am not sure I would get too wrapped around the axle on those being mistakes. There are some things technique-wise I think the Bills DBs and Safeties need to get better at when playing man and part of that I think is jamming and disrupting receivers and their timing at the line. Lawrence looked like he was just throwing to spots on timing routes as blitz beaters. Today the backups to our backups got beat and just barely, so I don't think it is time to panic or get too down on coaching or our players. I don't think Dorsey had the best plan, but it was not a terrible one and we were close to breaking out on a few drives that stalled out. I was not a fan of the officiating - way to introduce the Brits to the worst aspect of the sport. Ticky-tacky penalties like holding on an interior G negating exciting plays. Meh, got up too damn early to watch that. Defense created some turnovers and stopped the Jags on the doorstep plenty of times, but the Jags were able to keep Allen and the offense on the sideline and eat a lot of clock and our offense did not have a lot of opportunities to try to cash in. Every possession felt like the offense had to press and Allen did not take the bait so for what it is worth it could have been worse with negative plays and turnovers.

As much as I think the Brits are welcoming hosts, these "home" games are such a disadvantage for our team with travel and time adjustments. This team has more than enough injuries. Tough this year with Tre and then Milano both gone for the year, but it is still early in the season and a chance for others to step up. Poona was brought in to rotate with Jones so we will see what he has left in the tank. Elam looked shakey in coverage and Hyde is sufficient as a safety, but should not be playing man against speedsters. Deep breath and curse the NFL schedule-makers and life goes on folks. I thought Josh played a decent game, but the penalties were ridiculously slanted and not in our favor during the game snuffing so many of our drives. Hard to get anything going when the hankies fly like that.

Agreed. I am really looking forward to that Groot, Floyd, Von rotation. Groot really knows how to set the edge, is disciplined with his rush lanes, uses his long reach and violent-hands to both keep blockers off him and shed when he needs to close on the QB or RB. He is effective playing inside and out. The kid is a great pickup and keeps trending in the right direction that it makes it really exciting when you think about the elite player he can become.

Yup. Those folks can drink. I have worked with plenty of folks from Ireland (company had sites there) and with Germans from Leverkusen. Thought I could hold my own 😅. Not so much, they can drink beer (and wine) like it is water.

I hope they have been chilling in British pubs all week.

There were a lot of these that could have been handed out that game. The coaches had our boys ready and with the right mindset and attitude. "Don't expect a team to ever give you a win, you have to go out and take that win from them on every play." I think D. Jones putting their Center on skates and flattening Tua ranks right up there. I have seen a lot of awkward OL play in my years, but the way that dudes legs were sprawled out and his toes pointing out, leaning into Jones with everything he had as he skidded backwards - it was like he was trying to stop a bus rolling over him. With the same results.

OMG "...like he was playing in wooden shoes." That cracked me up 🤣😂

Yep. They had that tip drill over the middle that should have been an easy INT, but was tipped and redirected right to Waddle instead to keep the drive alive - I think that drive ended in an Achane score.

Sorry bud. I took that a bit far... believe what you want and it is all good. Enjoy the Bills win.

Some gems from that article of facts: "The takeaway here is that once we’ve accounted for a team’s quarterback capabilities through PFF Grade (because that is always spot on), rushing rate and rushing performance relative to passing stats doesn’t tell us much about the effectiveness of their play-action usage." I read that statement as more a lack of meaningful stats than a conclusive correlation one way or another between effectively running the ball and play action. Watering down the data creating a large sample size, individual team performance metrics (can they stop the run with their front 4 or do they have to commit more defenders...), situations like down and distance irrelevant because we all know play action on 3rd and short is just as effective as play action on 3rd and long right? The point here is that an NFL defender’s instincts are built on the foundation of those formative years. For that reason, NFL teams don’t need to establish the run, because the threatening nature of it has already been instilled throughout the amateur ranks. (All facts here folks and no conjecture - who am I to argue with a guy who clearly never saw Edmunds play the run) and lastly for the very folks that argued that you never need to run the ball at all - your article said this. Obviously, if a team only ran play-action and never attempted to run the ball, defenses would begin to adjust. Begin to adjust 🤣 I am overwhelmed by the sheer factualness of this article.

Yeah - I saw that. We can get into some crazy debates here. I guess some folks are saying if you never manifest the threat of a run it is the same effective threat - perhaps, but I think there are degrees of threats and how much reaction they garner. Guy threatening to punch you, a guy who has punched others threatening to punch you, a guy who has already punched you threatening to do it again. Something like that Play action looked good yesterday with Josh executing it from under center. I thought the play action from the gun looked a bit shaky on some of the exchanges and was not sure if they were trying for some RPO??

I feel pretty good about what I think stats can and cannot tell me and I do place a lot of value on trending data as a tool for mapping and using probabilities. I don't see a lot of value getting into the stat debates as I work with enough data analyst that I know they forget to look up sometimes from the numbers - it is a dead-end waste of time. For being such an infallible predictor the philosopher in me is pleased each and every time someone here or an organization like PFF who are immersed in stats come up wrong in their conclusions and predictions. I will admit it makes me happy when they backtrack, talk about variables they did not factor in, and fail to render completely the game I love a into a joyless control chart. Perhaps they should just exchange statistics and skip the whole game playing thing Meh - so I am old school, and I will continue to trust my eyes and how I think the Bills and their opponents perform in the context of each situation and game.

This. I felt like he was a bit slow getting to his deep coverage responsibilities on a few plays and Po was always great at closing ground. In our system that is what we need from our 2-deep safeties. Need to see if he just needs more time in the system so that he is not processing his responsibilities but playing at full speed. Need to see more before I would think he should be their long-term answer.

Quoting Rex Ruin? Play action is MORE effective if a defense respects your running game and has to account for run defense. That should be a no-brainer. Play action to Derrick Henry made Tannehill look like a great QB because defenses had to respect that running ability and it created a lot of space to hit his receivers. Also, I think we do try some RPO plays, but those have to be strictly rule-based (QB triggers off a read) and clear on timing and execution for whether the QB hands it off or keeps it. Allen is notoriously greedy on those as I think he just feels better about the ball being in his hands to make something out of the play - the defensive reads be damned. So those exchanges result in some exaggerated and awkward handoffs that need to be cleaner.