colin

im a hater and for the past 4 off seasons i wanted to move on. I still do, but given where we are now the two best coaches/roles in our building are kromer on OL, and McD as a DC. they both have succeeded many times at a high level in those roles. McD has been an overall successful HC, but given that the expectations are a chip, he's not been all the way there. I think right now he's got to really take his stamp and mark the D, either wake babbich up, over see more, or just call plays as needed (he may have done so at the end of the last game for all i know). on O, frankly he has to realize what brady does wrong and actually make him do the right thing. it's not something he's really done before, aside from firing dorsey and promoting brady, but it's what he has to do to make the next step.

2023 bernard blew me away, i think that says something about mcd as dc vs the trash bag stuff we've had since. bernard has been hurt too much, and he has been pretty garbage this season. i hope he and the whole d really turn it up, but he and shakir and benford have not been living up to their contracts so far, which i thought were ok to good at the time.

i think we can go super jumbo like baltimore did last year. just maul teams up front from time to time, and pass out of it to the tight ends or back, or single WR if they coverage brakes down. brady is creative with odd mixes of people and strange playcalls, but he hasn't found a way to show one look and run lots of different things (that work) out of it.

Josh is not great at the pre snap reads, not all the time anyhow, but to me a huge part of that is simply coaching. He's never had an OC who's had anything approaching actual success on the NFL level without riding his coat tails. the film is out, you can beat the bills O locking down the outside, confusing josh with overloads and such. the solution to this is not for Josh to literally be perfect, it is to have an idea what the D wants to do, and what our O can do to best advantage themselves. this is part of what i see as the fatal flaw of the buffalo bills as they exist today. we do not impose a high degree of difficulty on the opponents O with our d scheme, and we always seem to operate our own O with a super high degree of difficulty. it's just never easy simple plays that we can run whenever we want, like oh i don't know, a TE wide open in the flat like kelce always is, or a freaking screen to a running back like opponents always seem to have success against us with. ironically right now, i think (particularly if mcd takes over d play calling) the d with new infusions of health and talent can really turn a corner. they have sucked outright for chunks of every game but the jets one (doesn't count), but they have also played their own style and really brought the pain for chunks of games as well. if our o can find it's pace, and it has had that many times even since brady was the OC, all we need out of the o is like 4 real hard stops and we can win it all. we need mcd to find a new gear as a HC and to right the ship on O.

i think the pocket passing breakdowns are a function of our WRs sucking out loud, but even more so play calling. we seem to not want to use effective play action, no matter how successful it is, and the stats show we run 80% from under center and pass 80% from shotty. the d has every advantage on 4 out of 5 plays against us, so you are going to see allen struggle because aside from showing if we pass or run, we also are back to not being able to pick up blitzes and stunts.

the bills not forcing the issue is part of it too IMO. this far off coverage makes it hard to ride and hide the holding out of the brake, the lack of crowded fronts make it hard to get mucky up front, atl was doing that and so was NE. i remember when we played the delay rush spy game vs kc in the past two reg season wins over them. our LB spy/late rusher would maul any wr in a shallow pattern, and i think it might have gotten called 1 out of 10 times. if you press the issue you make it hard for the ref to call the penalty (the cb mugging coleman all day was let go because it was at least 5050 half the time). if you play finesse ball, your physical play is more obvious and gets called more.

i remember when i worked in London a colleague of mine mentioned that there are tiny airstrips all over the UK that private flyers can just book and take off and land from. it was part of him describing how the UK favors putting a little bit of resources into everything to have something for everyone rather than a real determined focus to pick what one wants to do well and put resources into that. IMO, that's the exact problem with our team right now. we have lots of nifty things, lot's pass rushers on d who sit more than half the game, lots of tight ends who can block and run, and what seems like 4 slot WRs and 3 backs (two of whom sit on any given play) who can do a few things. furthermore, our philosophy on o is sprinkling the ball around out of many groupings and formations, to give teams more things to study on tape. on D, we like to have eight reads for each person in the back 7 and four calls to be made pre snap so everyone can be on the same page, and we are trying to defend everything all at once. clearly, this approach is not working. on the all 22 of one of the plays, i saw ATL overload blitz, press man all over, and rode the back out of the back field so he wasn't an outlet (the back ran to the offense's right). the slot wr on the left was uncovered, no one within 10 yards of him. they gambled because they had confidence on what we were going to do, and were willing to take a risk at a super easy first down (and more) if allen and the O picked it up. they saw our tendencies and decided to not let us pick our best shot on O, and dared us to press the matter, which we did not and just took our best non 17 weapon off the field for the last like 4 drives. Our D ends up giving up giant gashing plays underneath the coverage that will die before it allows a deep pass, but it still seems to produce some stops and maybe turnovers after getting totally cooked for long periods of time (don't get me wrong, the d sucks). on O, we have somehow backed ourselves into a corner where if we do anything wrong and get behind the sticks, none of it works. the silly jet sweeps would work if executed perfectly, but for what, 12 yards? meanwhile targets to tight ends out of play action are easy mode plays that pick up chunks and TDs, and passes to backs are similar. to diversify your game on O but still be fragile is a foolish thing to do, having the ol and qb make hard reads into blitzes which simply would not work if we used different formations or groupings is the height of arrogance. i'm not saying go back to 5 wide empty and just throw the rock like we did in 2021, but we have to have a couple things we can go back to when we need production, and the OL, QB, TE, and RB talent we have is so so so much better than our WRs that i'd be quite happy to see more than 1 WR on the pitch less than 25% of the time. we present a degree of difficulty with our D that is near the lowest in the nfl, it can make some stops with great DL play, but it doesn't actually force the O to take any bait or get out of their comfort zone. On O, we seem to refuse to go for easy mode stuff, and rely on coleman one on one, or a back picking up a free runner, or the OL to diagnose and stop all blitzes instead of maybe running a screen. OP is 100% correct we need to make our best players the focus of the O, and having a screen game, less predictability (80% run from under center, 80% from shotgun is disgusting), and chucking the no reward trick plays into niagra falls is a great start. remember the fake punt in the playoffs vs kc, the flea flicker vs baltimore in 2024, and the jet sweeps to our 2nd best TE and maybe 4th WR in the past two games? i think brady might not be capable of learning what works vs what doesn't. every time we show a look that murks people, we throw it away for some weak stuff that the players clearly don't have confidence in.

the odds makers (something i've done a bit of myself, altho i admit im a fool for the bills so i let that go most of the time) have a much more sober view than we fans do. the bills have had this near exact pattern, and finished as few as 13 seconds from advancing past kc, who just about every year threatens to get to the super bowl or does get there. they also try to balance their book and change the odds as money comes in, but these kind of bets will most often rely on their model of who is likely to get there. based on all of this, i suspect mcd makes a splash move w the coaches, likely takes over play calling, and at the least screams the riot act to brady. also, some kind of wr or secondary player trade.

we have one total trucking game every year, we have two losses in a row, almost always in late sep/oct every year, and our d always has drives/games/several games where it looks totally fragile and allows explosive plays underneath (runs and shorter/mid passes) and also either gets take aways or attacking stops. i suppose we have to just accept that this is the rhythm of this team. the team will be better this year if and only if the defensive reinforcements get us over the hump and the O just figures out what it is good at and does it well instead of this gadget trash. honestly, we have had the too cute on O stuff many times in the past where a couple of simple plays might have won us the game. it does get tiring, but this is nothing new.

That look like not very good players being so utterly concerned about being in the right position in the holy and wonderful scheme that they are told they are not good enough to run, that they let the only guys who pose any threat get wide open. a lack of instinct, a lack of talent, and most of all a d that wants to make every blade of grass covered instead of the modern nfl idea of taking something away and pressing something else and forcing the O to beat you with what they aren't best at.

mcd took d play calling out of frazier's hands a couple time, and he took the whole thing over for a season after dude left. a change is needed, and this is a job mcd has been one of the best at (DC, not HC IMO) so if he wants to light a fire on the team's butt, this is his easiest avenue. i think the "culture" knock on effect might be a positive influence on the O as well because it could put the whole organization on notice. i'll keep banging my pet drum on this tho, brady is a bigger failure to date than babbich, and babbich outright sucks the bag. vs NE, ATL, Miami, and the saints the best unit on the field for us was the D. key take aways and just enough stops vs miami and NO, and as much as they stank in the last two, they held the opponents to 20 and 24 points (coulda been 31 vs atl, i get it they suck) and the O just went into limp mode. clearly dumb and idiotic play calls in high leverage situations, trying to build on weakness instead of strength, and having no bag to go to to answer the questions atl was presenting shows a very very low level of mastery as an OC.

our o is worse than our d. our d is awful, but it can make stops and (except for penalties and silly dropped balls and such) puts itself in a position to get turnovers. also, the first 3 scores all happened after the d made a good play, got a stop, or got a turnover all which were unwound but bad little penalties (the 3rd down PI was criminal, no such foul was committed). the O just sets itself up to fail all the time. NE and atlanta both keyed in to stop the run by flowing to the ball fast and hard, and they both overloaded pressure because we never pick it up. why did they feel like they could do that? well, because we tell the d what we are going to do at literally better than an 80% clip based on how we line up. we force plays to overmatched wrs, and we just decided not to run our best position groups, RB, QB, TE and OL en masse and throw and pass out of it. brady is a garbage OC. he has the nfl mvp, a top 5 or so rb, good OL, and suddenly a great TE room, and his answer is to just keep randomly generating plays and player combos that are not repped, have shown nothing, and in no way tricking the d or seeking the best match up. our d constantly gets trucked, and is a mash unit and is missing players to suspensions and is young otherwise. and again, it sucks, but it makes stops, and makes multiple stops in every game. the O just magically finds ways to lose. the jet sweep fumbles, one in each of our losses, the forced throws to covered outside wrs, and most of all the lack of an answer, the lack of adjustments to what the d is doing, and the total inability to go back to what is working are all signs of a bad play caller. we lost games where we gave up 20 and 24 points. we have a fully healthy OL, RB room, the NFL MVP, and we still have some TEs who can play. any quality OC can get 27 points at home vs NE or on the road vs a fast but small atlanta d. line up the big boys, use misdirection and tricks, and stress them on the edges with cook and go up the middle with our other guys. basic freaking football, but instead we get these mesh concepts vs jail break blitzes and stop cook because the atl d couldn't do that themselves.

neither is the 20/20 hindsight answer. we would have been much better off to let milano walk, extend edmunds, draft bernard and let him walk, and rinse and repeat. on d (except front 4, which is now actually really stacked) we have just position groups with a lack of speed/power/skill. our rook corners (all 3, my gosh) go down and we have the ghost of tre out there, and bernard is playing cheeks and isn't fast to start with. bishop is not good, but rapp is so much worse, and the back up is hamlin who was never good. milano goes down (obv) and bernard goes down, and we have street free agents and dorian (i still have faith, but he does make so many mistakes). turns out shaq as a street free agent is a better nfl lb than anyone else on our roster, including like 22mm a year on our "starters". atlanta is not a good team, and does not have a good d, but they have a squad of small fast long pass rushers, and they just used that to stymie our idiot OC. aside from our front 4 (which means we have real talented players on the bench doing nothing while tre white and bernard and rapp give up plays over and over) we only have weak defensive position groups

The d has been less bad than the o for about a month of poop football over which we are 2-2 and cratering. The d is still horrible, obv, but the o is fixable at least. A change in coaching on o might be a bigger boost, cuz Brady is terrible

I'd love to have a clear inside picture of what thoughts are shared when the bills pick players or plan their scheme. How on earth are benford and Groot and Bernard extended for big dollars on a team that drafted Walker and Spencer Brown and Josh Allen? Like, slow lower ceiling and often injured guys vs raw super power hi risk how reward guys. And why do we have these crazy heavy jumbo sets that do well but then run the weak trash we ran vs atl and ne? Like if the d just decided to overload and play the run hard, we force balls to 0 (appropriate number) and palmer? This team just throws stuff against the wall man