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New data shows Tyrod/the offense was better than you thought


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Just read through this thread, and clearly Thurman and Rochesterfan had the best and most accurate posts.

 

This thread kind of piggybacks off of the last Tyrod thread and Transplants post near the end about Tyrod and how he fares under pressure, and at that time I argued how that was not surprising because of his mobility and ability to make things happen. It was met with opposition from a certain pro Tyrod poster who challenged this assertion with inadequate information. I'm glad to see this brought back up so that we can get more answers on it.

 

It all boils down to this for me...Tyrod seems to do his best when he's not operating within the system. He is not very good or effective inside the system. He can manage the game and limit turnovers behind a strong ground game in a simplistic pass offense, but when relied upon for anything more, he struggles. When he is not thinking and just looking to make something happen, he's much more successful. This means he's a gamer that has a knack for making plays. The drawback is that he's not that much of a QB in terms of understanding and executing an offensive gameplan. It's a true quandary IMO because you can imagine what type of player he could become if the light came on in terms of understanding and executing within a more complex passing scheme...the problem is that it may never happen, and how long do you give the keys to the car to a guy who hasn't shown to master the most important aspects of being a QB?

 

That's where I'm at on this whole thing.

I think that this is a really fair and strong point. That's part of the reason (or the whole reason) he's so polarizing. There is good and there is bad.
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Can we just wait for the 2017 season and let that speak for itself?

That would be too easy.

That's a very dumb statement from Dennison unless it's taken out of context.

 

Why wouldn't you be interested an a run offense that dominated the league?

 

You'd have to ask him Scott or google further articles on Dennison.

 

the first blurb was from BR (that I don't think TBD likes posted links to), the other Rochester D&C.

Was RGIII's first Skins team run oriented?

Edited by ShadyBillsFan
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That would be too easy.

 

You'd have to ask him Scott or google further articles on Dennison.

 

the first blurb was from BR (that I don't think TBD likes posted links to), the other Rochester D&C.

Was RGIII's first Skins team run oriented?

Believe so. Alfred Morris and RGIII had big years. Morris had 1600+ yards

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Yes this is a Tyrod thread. I would love if all the name calling and petty arguments could stay out of this one.

 

I thought I was done analyzing the Bills offense in 2016, but these three articles that were published over the past couple days changed my mind:

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/6/19/15829060/buffalo-bills-tyrod-taylor-lesean-mccoy-highest-first-down-conversion-rate-after-sack-in-2016

 

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2016

 

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-hc-mcdermott-impressed-with-tyrod-taylors-leadership/

 

Taken together, these articles give us a lot of new information about how well Tyrod and the Bills offense fared when under pressure, or after taking a sack.

 

The conventional wisdom is that sacks are drive-killers. The first link is a study looking into how often a team was able to get a 1st down after taking a sack.

 

The average team was able to obtain a 1st down after a sack just 16.01% of the time. But the Bills converted for a 1st down 28.26% of the time after a sack. This was the highest percentage in the league (for comparison's sake, Miami was the worst in the league with a 3.33% 1st down rate).

 

We took 46 sacks total of which we converted 13. So in actuality we took 33 drive-killing sacks in 2016. This number needs to go down in 2017 but at least as an offense we were better able to recover after a sack than any other offense in the league.

 

The next two links are far more interesting to me. Football Outsiders published a study showing how often QBs were under defensive pressure on a passing play. They also calculated what the total offense's DVOA looked like when the QB was under pressure, whether the QB scrambled or threw the ball. This is really important because previously we only had good DVOA data on Tyrod's passing. Now we get a sense of how his passing and mobility can affect the entire offense's production.

 

The data:

-Tyrod was under pressure on 35.3% of his pass plays. Only Jared Goff was pressured more, out of 34 qualifying QBs. This obviously needs to get better, whoever you want to blame.

-Our offense's DVOA when Tyrod wasn't under pressure was 16th in the league - exactly average.

-Our offense's DVOA when Tyrod was under pressure was 2nd in the league. Only the Packers/Aaron Rodgers were better.

 

Finally, the last link tells us that Tyrod also had the 7th best passer rating (80.1) when under pressure. And he threw 10 TDs when under pressure which was 3rd best in the league (Luck and Rodgers were ahead of him).

 

So there's a lot of really great data here. IMO the data shows Tyrod was better than people give him credit for. He was under pressure way too often. I know he has a tendency to hold the ball too long but I don't believe that tendency is enough to explain our extremely low 33/34 ranking. Hopefully Dawkins helps solve this problem in 2017.

 

Most of all, the data shows that when you factor in Tyrod's passing and scrambling, our offense performed anywhere from average (16th) to outstanding (2nd) on called passing plays. If one of your central criticisms of Tyrod is that his scrambling isn't as important as being a good passer, this data puts a pretty big dent in that criticism IMO. Especially when you consider how often Tyrod was under pressure and therefore how often we needed this special talent of his.

 

Interpret and argue away!

I'm not a Tyrod fan (long-term anyway) but I observed the same thing last season after the change at OC the offense played pretty much as designed. Ryan & co. wanted an offense similar to 49er teams under Roman and they played pretty much at that level. The obvious problem was the defense. He's not a bad place-holder at all and the Bills could do a lot worse. In addition he seems like a really nice guy and someone who is easy to cheer for. I just don't believe he is the long term answer and I hope Bills keep looking for a real superstar QB.

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Well thought out and well reasoned- I think I agree for the most part.

 

You read it the same way I did - nothing was unexpected because these articles play into what was already his known strength.

 

It also made me wonder about the rest of his game as he was so much better under pressure and he was under pressure % wise more than any QBs - so his overall QBing the rest of the time was even worse than the average numbers project.

 

We will see how he does in a new offense with a new staff, but he has to get better in the normal aspects of the game and maybe some of that is designed rolls with out a lot of thought - just get rid of the ball. Time and space is his enemy - he needs to be instinctive and just make plays and that is part of the reason his timing was off, he struggled with throws to the middle of the field, and throwing timing routes to moving receivers. I have stated I do not think a lot of that was coaching - I think a lot of that was TT overthinking.

I'm sure overthinking has something to do with it, but do you think that part of it is that he struggles to see open receivers over the LOS because he's relatively short? I'm interested in seeing if Dennison does any rolling pockets this year to open some passing lanes for TT.

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Not really buying this much, Happy. Mostly I don't think these tell us anything we didn't already know. I'll try to be more specific.

Thanks for the response Thurman.

 

I have to admit I don't really think the sack/conversion rate study is all that interesting as far as it relates to the Bills. I agree that there's too many variables. The study author does break down conversion rates by what down the sack happened on:

 

1st down: 31.02%

2nd down: 19.35%

3rd down: 3.46%

 

And he breaks down by yards lost:

 

0-5 yard sack: 23.27%

6+ yard sack: 12.10%

 

But these are NFL averages and he doesn't list the Bills numbers so there's not much to be gleaned here. I still included the study for data's sake. And it does show we took less drive-killing sacks than the tots would make it seem. Either way the number needs to go down.

 

However, I think you're underselling the Football Outsiders data. What the data shows is that on called passing plays, the Bills offense performed exactly average. It doesn't matter if Tyrod passed or scrambled, it just doesn't. One way or another we were average. I do want a better than average passing offense, no question, but this is contrary to the common opinion that the Bills passing offense was bottom 5, or even worst in the league. It was the worst total passing yards in the league but efficiency-wise we were right in the middle.

 

I think people are slightly misunderstanding the second part of that data. Under no circumstances was our offense "good" when Tyrod was under pressure, it was still a negative DVOA. Tyrod isn't a great QB under pressure, he's just great relative to how other QBS perform under pressure. This is important because he minimizes the damage of the far below average pass protection we had, and also it means our offense can only get better if he is under pressure less.

 

Okay I need some math help with my next point because I am bad at math so if someone here knows how to figure this out I would appreciate some help. I'm trying to figure out what our offense's total DVOA would like if Tyrod was just average under pressure. And ask what it would like with Tyrod at QB but with an average "under pressure" percentage. Here's all the data I just don't know how to turn it into what I need:

 

-Tyrod was under pressure 35.3% of the time

-The average QB was under pressure 26.3% of the time

-Our DVOA under pressure was -21.3%

-Our DVOA without pressure was 46.4%

-Average team's DVOA under pressure was -55.5%

-Average team's DVOA without pressure was 46.4% (because we were the average)

 

I'm pretty sure using that data we can figure out what an average QB, or what average pass protection, would do to our total DVOA on called passing plays, I just don't know how.

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Pretty good. Just not good enough to beat any .500 teams.

 

It's still a no from me.

Agreed. He had opportunities to make plays/extend drives to win games or put games away and he did not get it done. To this point he is similar to Fitz in that he is entertaining at times, he makes some great plays but at the end of the day he is not able to win games when the team needs it. I see him as middle of the road QB. I don't believe he can lead this team to a championship. I'd be thrilled if he proved me wrong.
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Yes this is a Tyrod thread. I would love if all the name calling and petty arguments could stay out of this one.

 

I thought I was done analyzing the Bills offense in 2016, but these three articles that were published over the past couple days changed my mind:

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/6/19/15829060/buffalo-bills-tyrod-taylor-lesean-mccoy-highest-first-down-conversion-rate-after-sack-in-2016

 

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2017/quarterbacks-and-pressure-2016

 

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pro-hc-mcdermott-impressed-with-tyrod-taylors-leadership/

 

Taken together, these articles give us a lot of new information about how well Tyrod and the Bills offense fared when under pressure, or after taking a sack.

 

The conventional wisdom is that sacks are drive-killers. The first link is a study looking into how often a team was able to get a 1st down after taking a sack.

 

The average team was able to obtain a 1st down after a sack just 16.01% of the time. But the Bills converted for a 1st down 28.26% of the time after a sack. This was the highest percentage in the league (for comparison's sake, Miami was the worst in the league with a 3.33% 1st down rate).

 

We took 46 sacks total of which we converted 13. So in actuality we took 33 drive-killing sacks in 2016. This number needs to go down in 2017 but at least as an offense we were better able to recover after a sack than any other offense in the league.

 

The next two links are far more interesting to me. Football Outsiders published a study showing how often QBs were under defensive pressure on a passing play. They also calculated what the total offense's DVOA looked like when the QB was under pressure, whether the QB scrambled or threw the ball. This is really important because previously we only had good DVOA data on Tyrod's passing. Now we get a sense of how his passing and mobility can affect the entire offense's production.

 

The data:

-Tyrod was under pressure on 35.3% of his pass plays. Only Jared Goff was pressured more, out of 34 qualifying QBs. This obviously needs to get better, whoever you want to blame.

-Our offense's DVOA when Tyrod wasn't under pressure was 16th in the league - exactly average.

-Our offense's DVOA when Tyrod was under pressure was 2nd in the league. Only the Packers/Aaron Rodgers were better.

 

Finally, the last link tells us that Tyrod also had the 7th best passer rating (80.1) when under pressure. And he threw 10 TDs when under pressure which was 3rd best in the league (Luck and Rodgers were ahead of him).

 

So there's a lot of really great data here. IMO the data shows Tyrod was better than people give him credit for. He was under pressure way too often. I know he has a tendency to hold the ball too long but I don't believe that tendency is enough to explain our extremely low 33/34 ranking. Hopefully Dawkins helps solve this problem in 2017.

 

Most of all, the data shows that when you factor in Tyrod's passing and scrambling, our offense performed anywhere from average (16th) to outstanding (2nd) on called passing plays. If one of your central criticisms of Tyrod is that his scrambling isn't as important as being a good passer, this data puts a pretty big dent in that criticism IMO. Especially when you consider how often Tyrod was under pressure and therefore how often we needed this special talent of his.

 

Interpret and argue away!

While I understand and appreciate the data, the only statistic that matters are wins and losses. I don't care how good or bad you are, if your not getting the wins.......for better or worse every other stat does not matter.

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REALITY says TT is NOT a Franchise QB and the Bills will be getting one in the next draft.

Right on,

Truth is in my opinion many are in hopes of a top QB drafted next season while some are still lost in the same delusional feelings that were had during the Fitz era. I can only hope our new HC doesn't try to force feed the fans Tyrod like Chan did with Fitz.

Edited by xRUSHx
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While I understand and appreciate the data, the only statistic that matters are wins and losses. I don't care how good or bad you are, if your not getting the wins.......for better or worse every other stat does not matter.

If literally the only part of football you care to discuss is wins and losses, why would you come to this thread? Why would you even come to this forum at all between February and September? These kinds of posts make no sense to me.

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If literally the only part of football you care to discuss is wins and losses, why would you come to this thread? Why would you even come to this forum at all between February and September? These kinds of posts make no sense to me.

You don't win championships by having the most passing yards or rushing yards, or crushing 1/2 of your opponents by playing Brady, I mean your QB late in the 4th with a 20 point lead.

 

You win it by having the most W's.

Edited by ShadyBillsFan
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I thought HappyDays made a good post with interesting links.

 

I get that some disagree and have understandable reasons for doing so. What I don't get is why we need to attack and ridicule each other. Honestly, it's kind of childish and certainly unkind.

 

As for the O... TT and all our players have particular strengths and weaknesses. It's going to be interesting to see how Dennison will put it all together.

 

Despite the deficiencies last year, ALynn still got us into the top ten in scoring. I hope Rico does the same.

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My humble take:

The reason QB's are so important is 2 minute offense. If your down by a TD or less and you have the ball with less than 2 minutes you need a passing QB to win you the game. That is why our point differential is low but we did not win enough games. TT is not a good enough passer. That is also why a run first team like the Bills is a dodo bird.

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with all due respect....what does any of that have to do with this season in a new scheme with new coaches?

 

The OP is about how Tyrod was better than ppl thought... How does that data relate at all to the new regime?

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