Coordinator problem or talent problem?

[GunnerBill]

There are threads on the front page of TSW currently calling for the heads of both coordinators.  As the Bills come off their third blowout loss in a row people are after reasons and they are after scapegoats.  The coordinators are being offered as sacrificial lambs as fans try, understandably, to stay away from directing the blame at a first year Head Coach and General Manager.  

 

I have probably garnered a reputation in the past 2 weeks as a "Dennison defender".  I thought he was totally unfairly maligned in New York when the offensive line played a terrible game that blew up pretty much every play call we had and whilst I am not saying he has done a particularly good job the past two weeks the execution of the players has been a bigger problem than the structure and scheme of the offense.  And similarly on defense.... we are not executing and we are struggling as teams have adjusted to us.  

 

To me the answer, sadly, is that this team is just not very talented.  It is a bottom third of the NFL roster.  When I look at rosters across the league I always do it the same way:

 

1) Where is the Quarterback?

2) Where are the cornerstones?

 

We know that we have a bridge level quarterback on the roster here and we know that we have a 5th rounder who far from being a steal was always in my opinion (you can check what I said in the draft day thread) over drafted.  It goes without saying that we need to find the long term answer at the most important position on the field.  

 

But where are the cornerstones for this team?  The guys on the current roster who you can look at now and say "proven, established, no need to upgrade for the next 4/5 years"? Cordy Glenn if they can get him properly healthy is one in my opinion, but Beane and McDermott have been hawking him around for trades.  Tre White might have done enough to be in this category, but is only half a season into his career.  I really like our safeties, especially Poyer, but wouldn't call either of them cornerstones yet.  What about the rest of the team? Where are they?  We have too many positions - RT, RG, C, all 3 linebacker spots, defensive tackle alongside Kyle being manned by guys who are NFL backup level players.  We have other spots where the depth is just not good enough.... from TE to WR to CB to S.  This is not a very talented football team right now.  

 

That lack of talent was, in my opinion, in no small part a reason that McDermott went for coordinators to install simple schemes.  Don't overcomplicate, just let the guys play fast.  That worked well through the early part of the season.  But as teams got more and more tape and identified our weak spots on both sides of the ball they were able to scheme against our simplicity.  That is when you need to rely on your talent to out execute theirs.  And that is where the Bills have been found wanting. 

 

Could the coordinators be doing more, getting more creative? Yes, neither of them has been "impressive" but they really don't have much to work with.... on either side of the ball.  They are not getting creative because they don't want to ask guys to do things they are not sure they are able to do.  The coordinating can get better, but I suspect both Frazier and Dennison would look better with some talent.  There simply isn't enough of it on this team.  On either side of the ball.  You can only hide that for so long.  

 

Just my opinion.  

[CodeMonkey]

Coordinator problem or talent problem? ... The answer is yes.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Both.

 

[bmur66]

Well said. I agree.

[P51]

Interesting point on having simple schemes to mask in a way the lack of talent, hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes almost perfect sense given whats going on in the organization at this point. Good post, simply put the talent on this team is lacking and no matter the scheming, coordinating, play calling, coaching, Buddha or Allah himself, can over come this at the NFL level. 

[BuffaloBill]

25 minutes ago, CodeMonkey said:

Coordinator problem or talent problem? ... The answer is yes.

 

22 minutes ago, joesixpack said:

Both.

 

 

 

This^^^^

 

[Helpmenow]

Talent totally

[Bill Murray]

Talent > Coordinator 100%.  If we had same coaches but major upgrades at RG, RT, DT, and OLB, this team would be rolling.  If we had the same players but Bill Cowher, Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells (all Bills!!!), we would be about where we are right now, give or take an L or W.  

 

The only major coordinator blame anyone can credibly assign is Dennison's reluctance to tailor the offense to Taylor (see what i did there), but 90% of people here wanted Taylor out of town anyways so cant blame the coordinator for not "limiting the offense because of our limited QB"  Either way, that argument also falls on the side of talent (ie a better QB would get better results)

[Kirby Jackson]

I don’t see it as one or the other and it bleeds to the HC and GM. This team has regressed. Some of it is a function of tape, some of it is a function of not adjusting, some of it relates to the personnel decisions, some is just being stubborn. The blame goes around. The Bills got off to a better start than any of us could have imagined but they need to be progressing and not regressing. I don’t see any places getting better as the year has gone along.

[jaycorp51]

This team lacks talent throughout the roster.  OL, DL, LB & WR all need massive upgrades. It goes without saying that QB is the biggest need, but those other positions are severely lacking as well. 

 

That being said, I'm not very optimistic about Dennison's system or the zone blocking scheme that's being used. I think the coaching staff is in desperate need of an upgrade, too.

[The Jokeman]

2 minutes ago, jaycorp51 said:

This team lacks talent throughout the roster.  OL, DL, LB & WR all need massive upgrades. It goes without saying that QB is the biggest need, but those other positions are severely lacking as well. 

 

That being said, I'm not very optimistic about Dennison's system or the zone blocking scheme that's being used. I think the coaching staff is in desperate need of an upgrade, too.

I agree with the front 7 on defense, Alexander especially looks like he lost a step or two. the D-line has nothing going for it except Lawson, who might never be a 10.00 sack guy but think he's a good Phil Hansen type DE. Also the secondary beyond the starters needs some serious upgrades. Yet WR is talented as long as they are healthy as to me Benjamin, Matthews and Zay Jones a solid top 3. 

[Reed83HOF]

Seeing that the season was set up to be a tear down and to turn over the roster for the long-term, it is clearly a talent problem and this will persist for another season or 2. That being said, I really dislike Dennison's playcalling and I hated his hire, even though he was at the bottom of the barrel. I can't fault Frazier too much, because aside from the starting secondary the defense is horrendous....

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

5 minutes ago, Reed83HOF said:

Seeing that the season was set up to be a tear down and to turn over the roster for the long-term, it is clearly a talent problem and this will persist for another season or 2. That being said, I really dislike Dennison's playcalling and I hated his hire, even though he was at the bottom of the barrel. I can't fault Frazier too much, because aside from the starting secondary the defense is horrendous....

 

Same. Horrible playcalling.  If something works make them scheme to stop it.  Then hit em with misdirection or play action,

 

hes so set on outside zone it's stunning

[sugashane69]

Dennison has to Go!  He does not make smart choices at all!  Know your talent....USE IT!!!!  I believe it was the Tampa game before half when he made a completely idiotic call with no timeouts left and 12secs n we were in field goal range!  WE GOT NOTHING...... yea we won the game but good teams don't do that!  I believe if the offense states on field more the defense will get back to doing what it was!  Of course more talent would help.  Dennison has to let tyrod go more!  20 straight runs against Saints was a stat I heard!!!!!  C'MON MAN 

[hondo in seattle]

I think there's a talent deficit on both sides of the ball.  But there are coaching problems, too, IMHO.  

The DLine looks like a poorly coached unit to me.

Rico took over a relatively productive offense and made it abysmal.  The entire offensive coaching staff is failing.  They've failed to build an attack that successfully utilizes the little talent we have.

[Epstein's Mother]

Players make coaches.  Ask Mike McCarthy.

[Marty McFly]

Both. We dont have enough talent to make up for mediocre coaching, and our coaching isnt good enough to make up for lack luster talent. Its that simple

[Reed83HOF]

52 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

I think there's a talent deficit on both sides of the ball.  But there are coaching problems, too, IMHO.  

The DLine looks like a poorly coached unit to me.

Rico took over a relatively productive offense and made it abysmal.  The entire offensive coaching staff is failing.  They've failed to build an attack that successfully utilizes the little talent we have.

 

The DLine looks like a talentless and aging group. Lawson is a 43 run stuffing end and has not shown that he can rush the passer, Kyle is just about done, the other DT spot is severely lacking talent; leaving Hughes as the only pass rusher. You can't send a linebacker on a blitz because that will put even more pressure on our secondary who are all dinged up and very poor depth. Tough to blame coaching here as we are really limited with what we call for plays imo....

 

 

59 minutes ago, dneveu said:

 

Same. Horrible playcalling.  If something works make them scheme to stop it.  Then hit em with misdirection or play action,

 

hes so set on outside zone it's stunning

 

I agree....

[Dr. Who]

Depressing analysis going on here and it's difficult to find any room to disagree.  I am largely in the both coaching and talent camp.  Better hope the new scouts are really good at finding gems and the coaching staff figures out how to coach talented players that sometimes require putting up with rather than trading them off for low round draft picks.

[Big Turk]

Some of both.  If I had to guess I'd lean mostly on talent.  Talent makes schemes irrelevant many times.  You can make the dumbest playcall in the world but if you have someone like JJ Watt from a few years ago or Bosa who just beats his man one on one and gets a sack forces a fumble or a bad throw, you'll never know it was a bad playcall.  In the end it is far more important for players to win their matchups. When you lack talent you have to win matchups by scheme.  Its much harder because the other team knows your scheme and will be doing things to counteract your adjustments. 

 

In particular its important to have talent on the offensive and defensive lines.  The Bills DL is a shell of what it was a few years ago.  This is why you are seeing so many issues.  We can't stop the run and we can't generate  pressure with 4 rushers.  This means QBs have a lot of time to sit back and evaluate and wait for receivers to get open.  Or it means we have to rush more to try and generate pressure which exposes coverage on the backend.  On defense its a bad situation. 

 

On offense...we have issues.  The coordinator plays dumb football in regards to personnel matchups(see my post from yesterday) too many times and the OLine seems to not be able to handle basic pass rush moves like stunts and twists.  This causes immediate pressure on the QB which does not allow him to wait for deep routes or forces an immediate scramble. The problem is it isn't just one player where the issue is occurring on the OLine...they take turns getting beat or missing assignments...one play its Incognito, the next its Wood, then its Mills...from play to play they are all very inconsistent this year.  There is no reason the line should be as bad as it is.  I put this on coaching. I also put the offensive scheme itself on coaching as well.  It's in many cases trying to fit a round peg into a square hole instead of building around what we do well.  Dumb situational football, clueless playcalls based on defensive personnel...its the difference between an offense that plays well and an offense that sputters and goes 3 and out.  If you make good playcall decisions based on what the defense has out there on the field, you usually will not end up in 3rd and 10+ a lot, which is where we end up too many times.  Penalties are another big issue on offense...seems almost everytime we get a big play at a critical time we have a dumb penalty that nullifies it.  We struggle enough on offense as it is, we don't need to struggle because of ourselves.

 

It's more of a case of talent, but on the offensive side of the ball especially our coaches aren't doing us any favors with their poor coaching and boneheaded and frankly undefensable decisions many times.

Edited November 21, 2017 by matter2003