Billy Claude
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Posts posted by Billy Claude
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4 hours ago, Captain Hindsight said:
Jones only played 6 games last year but he was sacked 30 times. I’m higher in jones than most. Dude is tough as nails and a good athlete. He has made some really impressive plays in his career and besides Barkley, who had his own injury history, been surrounded by ***** talent.
That Jones was sacked at about the same rate as UDFA Tommy Devito is not a good look, especially as Devito was blitzed more and had a more make-shift line to deal with.
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15 minutes ago, Florida Bills Fanatic said:
It would also be interesting to see how long Allen held the ball in the sack and pressure situations. He tends to hold the ball too long and puts the o-line under more pressure. Some of the reason that he holds the ball has to do with a receiver group that had trouble separating. Addressing the o-line, receivers, and doing a better job of scheming guys open should improve the overall performance in this area.
Its not only how long he holds the ball on average, but also how often he goes to the hot route so that there is no chance that the defense can get pressure on him. I get the feeling that when he sees a blitz coming, rather than going to the hot route like most QBs, his first inclination is to see it as an opportunity to scramble out of it and make a play downfield agains the reduce coverage.
3 minutes ago, Einstein said:Allen had the 4th lowest pocket time of any starting QB in the NFL last season. 2.3 seconds.
This is partly because he gets blitz a lot, about 30% of the time versus 20% for the league leaders like Purdy, Mahomes, and Tua which is also partly because defenses know he doesn't go to his hot reads very ofien.
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12 hours ago, Mark Vader said:
He's tough to figure out. With field goals he can struggle, with extra points he's one of the best in the league.
XP percentages are most likely not very statistically meaningful even over 4 years since one or two more missed XP would change the percentage from very good to average, this is demonstrated by Bass' XP percentage in the playoffs which at just under 90% is very bad.
They definitely should have some alternatives that they can go to quickly if issues continue in training camp or during the season.
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Giants OL was definitely bad but a significant factor was DeVito and Jones:
Jones: 1 sack out of every 6.3 dropbacks (att+sacks)
Taylor: 1 out of 11.6
DeVito: 1 out of 5.8
Giants: 1 out of 7.2 -- essentially Rob Johnson numbers (1 out of 6.6)
For comparision
Allen: 1 out of 25.1
Mahomes: 1 out of 23.1
2023 league average: 1 out of 14.4
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As this thread is pretty much off track ....
Probably an unpopular opinion but I regard deflategate as no big deal. The harshness of the punishment was mainly due to the justified criticism of Goodell's handling of the Patriots' video cheating. Any other team and it would have been a one game suspension at most and more likely just a fine.
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15 hours ago, fergie's ire said:
The way they were constructing a team they reminded me a lot of the Bills under McBeane. The big difference is that the Bills drafted Allen and the Jets drafted Wilson.
I don't see the similarity between Douglas and Beane. Douglas has used 10 out of his 14 first two day draft choices on the offense, including 4 OL (3 in the first round) and 4 WR. His bigger FA signings has also been primarily OL and WR. He just hasn't been very good at it, though he had a great draft 3 years ago. Of course it is a lot easier to draft well if you have three first rounders including two picks in the top ten.
Douglas also has had a lot more out and out busts than Beane has. The similarity you can argue between Douglas and Beane is that they both seem to put more emphasis on traits than on college production.
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5 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:
In regards to Torrence…going to a 17 game NFL schedule (along w/ 2 playoff games) is brutal. I’m sure his conditioning will be much better this year. He was the most impressive rookie to me and I think he will be the best of his class. It’s no coincidence the Bills had their first 1000+ yard rusher when he was drafted in IDK how many years?
Morse was a heck of technician as a pass blocker plus a great leader. I think those are the only areas Buffalo might regress in. Josh is a big strong guy and I think he can maintain. Morse was getting up there in age and it’s time to move on. I think he will be missed for however long it takes the O-line to gel. Depth is an issue (I mean what team doesn’t deal w/ this problem?) but maybe one of these rookies turns out to be a steal. Beane always seems to find that diamond in the rough. Nobody knows how the injuries will unfold, this an issue every team deals with.
Hopefully it was just the rookie wall for Torrence and certainly you expect to him to get better with experience. As for Morse, I think I value his leadership and experience than most fans on the board.
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6 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:
McGovern is a much more natural run blocker. Torrence is going to be a beast as well going into his 2nd year. This line is extremely solid from top to bottom. Buffalo always lacked those slow methodical drives that eat the clock up and prevent the other team from having time to score at the end of games. That’s going to change this year
To me there is a good chance the Bills' offensive line will take a serious step back this coming season. The reasons have been mentioned by others many times:
(1) The Bills are downgrading at left guard from McGovern to David Edwards.
(2) Folks like to belittle Morse's contributions but he was still a decent NFL starter and will most likely will be the starter at Jacksonville this season. There's a lot more to playing center than being bigger and stronger. Throwing a guy in who only played center during his sophomore year in college is seriously rolling the dice.
(3) Torrence's play declined at the end of last season. Either Torrence hitted the rookie wall or NFL defenses figured him out. Him and Kromer will need to adjust.
(4) A large part of oline's success least season was due to that it was injury free. This is unlikely to happen again. Without Bates, the depth is either extremly inexperienced (van Demark, Anderson, and Pran-Granger have played in 2, 0, and 0 NFL games) or most likely washed up (Collins).
8 hours ago, MDH said:
The problem is you’re misidentifying the weakness and why they’re blitzing. They’re not doing it to exploit the OL, they’re doing it because the Bills lacked the ability to make them pay for the blitz - a WR group who can get behind the D. It’s also why the Bills’ didn’t throw deep as often as in the past.Agree but it is also up to the QB to recognize the blitz pre-snap and go to the hot read to discourage blitzing. The Bills rarely do this.
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1 hour ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:
Rodgers has missed almost every single football activity for the Jets this off-season but people are in here questioning our QBs commitment?
Pretty sure Rodgers has been at every OTA which was what was so surprising about him missing the mandatory.
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2 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:
haha. $12 per year worth of savings?! Ouch.Some other poster said that the NBA lost a lawsuit that required NBA to offer a single team option but did not specify how much they could charge for it.
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13 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:
Awesome News for the fans. I believe I read that this will force the NFL to provide team-specific packages. Hopefully we can buy a Bills team package for a much cheaper price!
Don't get your hopes up on the cheaper price part. The NBA has a single team access for League Pass. $14.99 per month for the entire league, $13.99 per month if you just want one team.
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On 6/27/2024 at 4:22 PM, Mr. WEO said:
it's not a bad O-line. got a guy who was described as 25th at his position....
Nice deflection. You get called out for saying Allen gets blitz a lot because the oline stinks and then bring up an entirely irrelevant point.
First as it turns out Allen doesn't actually get blitz an extremely high percentage of time. He ranks high in number of times he is blitzed because he passes a lot. He is blitzed on 30.2% of dropbacks where dropbacks are counted as attempts + sacks. This turns out to rank 11th among qualifying qbs, so above average but clearly in the main portion of the bell curve. Jordan Love leads at 35.3% while Brock Purdy is just below Allen at 30.1%.
Second there is little correlation between how good an oline is and whether the opponents blitzs a lot. Lamar Jackson (34.2%), Jared Goff (33.5%), Jalen Hurts (32.2%) and Matthew Stafford (31.2%) were all blitz at a higher rate than Allen and I think most people would agree that those QBs had good olines protecting them.
OTOH, Zach Wilson (27.3%), the Giants QBS (28.2%) and Kyler Murray (25.5%) all were blitzed at a lower rate than Allen. Again, I think most people would agree that the Jets, Giants and Cardinals had some of the worse olines in the league last season.
The QBs blitzed at the lowest rate were Burrow (21.3%), Mahomes (21.2%), and Tagovailoa (19.7%). This is just another indication that blitz percentage is primarily a QB/OC stat rather than an oline stat.
I would definitely like to see the blitz percentage on Allen be a lot closer to Mahomes but that is up to Allen and Brady and not a reflection of the quality of the oline.
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4 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:
yes--Defenses sense the weakness and exploit it.
it could be. but we all saw him spending a lot of time scrambling, running from a collapsing pocket.
If Allen took the hot read he wouldn't need to scramble so much and eventually there will be a lot less blitzing.
Is there correlation between a high blitz rate and quality of the oline? If the oline was really bad, why bother blitzing at all -- you can get there without it.
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15 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:
Why not? I'm not saying people expected the world from him, but it's pretty natural to expect a certain level of progression from a rookie WR.
27 catches on 75 targets and jumping out of a window naked in between seasons are some of the reasons people didn't expect a lot from him. The folks who expected anything significant from Zay Jones in his 2nd year are the same people assume that Shakir will be all pro this season.
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48 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:
the point wasn't to compare him to other (no one throws a lot of passes over 20 yards). I was pointing out that he has actually decreased his long passes over the years--the opposite of what another poster was suggesting.
yeah--opposing Defenses are feeling free to tee off on Josh Allen...
I think what the high blitz percentage and high air yards per attempt really implies is that Allen doesn't audible into a hot route very often and that he really should be doing a lot more of it.
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16 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:
Not picking and choosing anything, just talking about expectations vs how they ended up. Zay Jones was an equivalent to Coleman, Matthews was superior to both Shakir and Samuel. We don't have anyone in the WR room with the off-season potential that Benjamin had.
If you weren't only looking at expectations and where they ended up, no one was expecting much from Zay Jones his second year after his 35% catch percentage his rookie year.
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1 hour ago, PBF81 said:
Did it look "smoother"?
Our last three games were not particularly smooth. We should have dusted both the Chargers and Pats and nearly lost both games with the offense looking anything but smooth, and as to the Miami game, while we logged a lot of yards, it wasn't a particularly "smooth" game.
But question for you, ....
Set-up:
Under Dorsey we looked fabulous, on both sides of the ball, for our first four games. In fact, while we all thought that it was a positive harbinger, I distinctly recall letting people know that that pace was not sustainable and was mocked for it. But I never expected us to go so flat in the next six games.
Under Bray we also looked fabulous, for our first couple of games offensively, and then our fourth game, but after that the offense went flat again. Allen and the O in both cases, with again, Cook playing worse later on.
Question:
To what do you attribute those types of patterns and inconsistency?
I think we just have to disagree with your assessment of the last three games. In my opinion offense looked very good both against the Steelers and the Dolphins They also looked pretty decent against the #2 defense in the NFL against the Chiefs. This is just an opinion so I do not contest your right to have yours.
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52 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:
I was responding to another poster. It's ok to point out weaknesses. It's not a great O-line, Josh spends lots of time running away from a collapsing pocket.
You'll be ok...
that was never an accurate complaint.
in 2020, he had 572 attempts, only 10.8% went for more than 20 yards. Last year, 579 attempts, only 8.5% went for 20 or more yards---the 2nds lowest % in his career (only 2021 was lower).
There is other data to indicate that Allen's passes go longer than average. From Pro Football ReferenceAverage air yards per pass attempt / average air yards per completion. The rank is among qualifiying QBs.
2023 8.7 (3rd)/ 6.1 (10th)
2022 9.2 (3rd)/ 7.5 (2nd)
2021 8.2 (8th)/ 6.5 (6th)
2020 8.5 (9th)/ 6.8 (7th)
So if Allen did not throw more very long passes than the average QB, then he must have thrown a lot fewer dumpoffs and quick hitters than average. Those passes reduce a lot of stress off the oline. BTW what were the league averages on percentage of pass atempts over 20 yards? I know it has been going down.
An interesting sidenote is that Allen seems to have increased his air yards per attempt the last two years and, at least in 2023, being quite a bit less successful on it. Was this due to Dorsey? Due to not having Cole Beasley as a legitimate bailout?
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7 hours ago, BullBuchanan said:
Kelvin Benjamin was a former 1000 yard receiver. We all know he turned into a massive dud with us, but that's not who he was coming in. Likewise in 2017 Jordan Matthews would implode, going from a perennial 900 yard player to sub 300 numbers - we also had a rookie Zay Jones who would have a promising sophomore season. They weren't strong years by any means, but I was definitely more optimistic about those groups than I am about the current crop because Benjamin was supposed to be our #1.
In some cases you are looking at expectations for the year -- "Jordan Matthews was a perennial 900 yard receiver but imploded with the Bills" and in another case you are looking at accomplishments during the season -- " Zay Jones who would have a promising sophomore season". Picking and choosing which one you want to use to make the argument pretty much destroys its credibility.
The WR room this season looks pretty weak going in but I don't think it was as bad as the 2017 one looked. It has always been my belief that that Bills intended to tank that season and were surprised to be in the playoff hunt. Anquan Boldin obviously though so too. -
11 hours ago, PBF81 said:
Our D allowed 17 or fewer points in four of those seven games. During our 2-4 losing streak just prior to Brady's takeover, we allowed 17 or fewer points just once, against the Giants, which arguably had the worst offense in the league, ranking 30th in scoring and 29th in yardage.
In those last 7 games our D allowed more than 22 points only once. In the six games of that prior stretch we allowed 24, 24, 25, and 29 to teams that were, quite frankly, ranking 13th, 22nd, 26th, and 30th in yardage offense and 14th, 16th, 19th, and 31st in scoring.
Had our D continued to play as it did during that 2-4 stretch, we wouldn't have made the playoffs. Consider, that D TD against the Pats had we not gotten it, takes us out of a division win and puts us at the same 10-7 that got the Steelers the 7th seed, not sure which of us owned that tiebreaker for that 7th seed, but it's incredibly likely that we'd have lost two or three more games had our D not started playing better.
So to your points, there is most certainly also a defensive element that was clearly not present in our 2-4 skid. We have a habit, perhaps a bad one, of stepping up at key times but letting ourselves down in terms of consistency. (Dallas in a huge game and the Jets in Brady's debut eg.) That's a trait that should befall coaching. It's not a positive, that inconsistency.
Absolutely agree that the defense was bad during the last six games of Dorsey's tenure. However, independent of the defense, the offense was also pretty bad during those six games. Outside of the Chargers and Patriots games which I certainly don't want to discount, I don't see how anyone watching the Brady OC games would say that the Bills' offense did not at minimum look smoother and less discombulated than Dorsey's last six games.
The defense definitely played much better during the last 9 games (with the exception of the KC playoff game). A lot of this was due to McDermott adjusting and the pickup of Douglas after the first round of injuries. However, the defense also gave up fewer points because the offense held the ball so long so there were fewer drives per game. The defense also most likely started with better field position on average since there were fewer three and outs (these last two "facts" are guesses, I didn't check that). These appear to be unpopular words on the board but it really was textbook complementary football.
The main question is why did the offense look smoother under Brady? If it was primarily due to Josh Allen running more then is it sustainable? You bring up some data, i.e., Allen's lower completion percentage under Brady that suggests that this is the case so that is definitely something to be concerned about.
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22 hours ago, PBF81 said:
Well, here's the thing with that, on one hand we're told that Brady outperformed Dorsey because he changed things up. On the other hand we're told that he was essentially still running Dorsey's offense. Can't be both.
As to the Ds, not true. I use scoring D, not yardage D because scoring is what counts and we're measuring our points scored.
The Chargers' D was awful at 24th, Miami's ranked 22nd and the Pats' 15th. The Jet D was all beaten up by that point in the season and didn't even resemble their starting D. Talk about injuries.
Dallas was good but they came to Buffalo flat off of their biggest game of the year vs. Philly whom they beat the Sunday Night prior, while we came into that game as if it was our Super Bowl. The Eagles' D was worse than the Chargers' D and ranked 30th, and 26th in scoring.
FWIW, the Jet D allowed 19.1 PPG through 9 games. Then starting with us they allowed 27 or more points in five of their last 8 games. The only three that they didn't were against anemic offensive teams the Falcons and Pats, and also the Texans.
Keep in mind that we only averaged 19.3 PPG against the Chargers, Miami, and the Pats, two of which nearly beat us save for a D and STs TD in each of those two games. So many teams worse than us on O scored more than we did against all three of those teams.
I am skeptical of Brady but you are undercutting arguments with how one-sided they are. You can always find a reason to disregard a data point after the fact. Lets consider the Brady games one by one and make the argument the other way.
Jets: You say the Jets defense was decimated by injuries but what injuries? 10 out of their 11 regular starters started the Bills game and played their normal amount of snaps. The only starter that was inactive was their slot cornerback Michael Carter and he was a part time starter; Saleh was moving people in and out of that position trying to find the most effective player. He eventually landed on Carter who is a decent player but hardly the linchpin of that defense,
The Jets had a lot of injuries but it was the mirror image of the Bills -- most of the injuries were on offense, and outside of Aaron Rodgers, mostly on the offensive line. The Jets had some bad defensive performances after the Bills game but I feel it was caused by the Bills game. The Jets knew they had to win the Bills game to have a realistic chance of making the playoffs. IMHO the run of bad defensive performances by the Jets was caused by the defense essentially giving up for a while after the Bills game rather than a lot of defensive injuries.
Eagles: The Eagles were a bad defense but the Bills offense still played well. In the past, the Bills offense have had plenty of bad games against bad offenses. Brady and the Bills offense should be given credit for a good offensive game (which would the Bills would have been won if they had a better kicker).
Chiefs: If you disregard good offensive games because they are playing against bad defenses, you also have to give credit for okay games against very good defenses (2nd ranked by yardage).
Cowboys: Brady called a great game against the Cowboys. Full stop. Nobody said anything about the Cowboys being emotionally spend from the Eagles game before the Bills game. If the Bills had played badly, you could have just as well make the argument that the Bills were emotionally spent from the previous week's game against the Chiefs. Both arguments feel like desperate reaches trying to justify a result after the fact.
Chargers and Patriots: The Chargers and Patriots game were just awful offensive performances and the one of the primary reason to question how successful Brady will be.
Dolphins: The offense was moving up and down the field at will against the Dolphins for over 487 total yards. Unfortunately Josh Allen was handing out turnovers like it was Halloween candy (all of them in Miami territory including one on the Miami 5 yard line). Obviously the Dolphins defense was decimated by injuries but you can't just ignore the 487 yards and I don't think you can blame two interceptions and a fumble by Allen all on Brady.
Steelers: The Bills performed masterfully in the first half. This included 80 yard drives of 8 and 10 plays. The only reason the Steelers got back in the game was a blocked 48 yard field goal leading to a short field TD before the end of the half. You can blame that on Bass or you can blame that on McDermott but it certainly wasn't Brady's fault. In the second half the Bills defensive injuries started piling up and the Bills only had the ball four times but only punted once (td, fg, missed fg, and punt). Again, the Steelers had a lot of injuries but this game has to count as a plus for Brady.
Chiefs: Again 2nd rank defense in the league. The Bills offense wasn't great but was ok, given the injuries on defense this was the only game plan that would give the Bills a decent chance of winning.Like I said I have a lot of sympathy for your skepticism of Brady.
(1) The Bills offense increased by a one play per drive and more than 5 minutes in time of possession under Brady. This is impressive but how much of this is due to running Allen a lot more. Is this sustainable? Can Brady do this with Allen running less? Yes, TOP is both an offensive and defensive statistic but surely adding one play per drive and running more contributes substantially to that.
(2) Cook had 3 very good games under Brady -- he had over 80 yards receiving against both the Jets and Eagles. However, he was ineffective once the league's DCs figured out you had to account for him. Can Brady figure out how to make Cook effective?
(3) Brady seems to want to go to the short passing game and the new WR room will almost force it. This is not playing into Allen's strength nor is it something Allen is particularly good at nor likes to do. You would think going to a short passing game should increase Allen's completion percentage. The fact that the completion percentage went down is what I find most troubling.
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47 minutes ago, Beck Water said:
2) Bills decide to keep Diggs, draft/sign low tier FA to replace Davis, and make a modest splurge on Curtis Samuel as their slot/everyman WR vs going for an X
That the Bills expected to have Diggs on the team this season is the only way that the WR strategy made any sense.
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4 hours ago, dave mcbride said:
In the Philly game this year - the one where Elliott kicked the 58 yarder in the wind and rain to tie the game — pat mcafee said before the game that all of bass’s practice kicks from 55 yards out in pre-game were falling 5-10 short of the goal post and that bills fans should not expect to see any long kicks. He is a PROBLEM.
As someone who never understood why people thought Bass was elite, the fact that he his practice kicks were falling short was the strongest evidence that it was an unreported injury and not the yips.
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13 minutes ago, Einstein's Dog said:
Well the plan shouldn't just be for the 2024 season. SF who doesn't have immediate need for a WR used a 1st and 4th- seems like they have a plan. Remember when the Bills needed a CB and drafted Elam and a 6th- that was wise for the CB room that year (even though in my mind that was the year they should have been planning for the WR problem, going C Watkins or Pickens). To me, if we had K Coleman and T Franklin the future would be more exciting.
Speaking of not having much of a plan, what is the thinking for 2025? Right now the same major void at WR looms. Maybe the plan is to wait several weeks in and see if they can get a WR from one of the losing franchises that need a QB, Raiders/Tenn/Seattle. But that comes across as more of a desperation move than a plan.
Everybody loves Ray Davis right now, but I definitely wouldn't have minded if they use that draft choice and some other assets to go up and get Franklin.
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Should the Bills trust that Tyler Bass will return to form?
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
OK, you're correct about his XP rate being good. I was basing my statement on missing one or two XP to be at league average based on the 96% conversion rate last season but it was only 94.2% over the four seasons that Bass has been around.
Bass XP conversion rate hasn't been extraordinary in any particular season (#10 in 2020, #9 in 2021, #15 in 2022, #10 in 2023) but he has been very consistent. He has the third highest XP conversion rate among active kickers behind Justin Tucker and Chase McLaughlin.