2017 Bills New Offensive Comparisons

[Chilly]

In an attempt to "move on to 2017" in my mind and away from what I feel is a monsterous downgrade at WR, I wanted to understand what our offense looks like now in a historical context.

 

Using pro football reference, I put together splits of what the Bills offense looks like with/without Sammy since he joined the team.

 

 

The Obvious

• The Bills Passing Game Suffers

The Less Obvious

• The Bills make up the difference in the Running Game.
• The Bills actually average 2 points per game more without Sammy.
• The impact on total yards is non-existent.

With that in mind, I started to think about what this offense could look like in context of our coaching staff. Has Rick Dennison had any offenses like this?

 

In fact - he has. Here's Dennison's ranks as an OC:

 

 

The 2012 and 2011 Houston offenses look like good comparisons. Digging into these, the 2012 Houston offense featured an amazing Andre Johnson, so that's not a great fit. While Andre Johnson *was* on the 2011 Houston Texans, he only played 7 games and had less than 500 yards. This sounds like a great season to compare our offense against.

 

Here's what the production looked like for the 2011 Houston Texans:

 

 

Arian Foster had an amazing season that year, with Ben Tate also contributing pretty solidly. I think our offense this year could be pretty similar to that Houston team.

 

The 2011 Houston Texans ended up 10th in points scored, 13th in yards scored, and combined that with the #4 overall defense to be a 10-6 playoff team.

 

I don't believe that our defense is good enough at this point to be the #4 Overall Defense, but this comparison does give me hope that the team can still be competitive in 2017 even with the drop off from Sammy to Jordan Matthews.

[GG]

This analysis fits in well with my theory of why they think Sammy was expendable, wouldn't hurt the offense in 2017 and build draft equity for the future.

[Big C]

Undoubtedly the Bills offense goes through Shady and Tyrod. Trade away either of those and I'd be buying that it's a tank.

 

I think the idea is that we're taking a small step back to take a giant leap forward and perhaps if the numbers are like they were last year without Sammy (and they may even be better with the current WR corps), then we will be in fine shape. Not banking on anything though.

[Chilly]

This analysis fits in well with my theory of why they think Sammy was expendable, wouldn't hurt the offense in 2017 and build draft equity for the future.

 

I honestly am surprised it's not a bigger gap. If we look at just the past two years (after Marrone), it's bigger without Sammy, but about 20 yards per game, and still the same number of points.

 

I fully expect McCoy to have a season like Arian Foster did for Houston in 2011.