Scott7975 Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, ColoradoBills said: Geez, could you imagine how a 30 year old Kent Hull could help Josh Allen this year! I know right, but I really think Wood is a bigger loss than people think. Not only is he a better center but he is familiar with calling the protections. I didn't even know the Castillo connection with McDermott. Weird stuff. McDermott was fired from Philly and replaced by Castillo after coaching Oline and TEs and now McDermott is his boss. Doesn't seem like Castillo has had much success in the NFL anywhere. Maybe somewhat under Reid in Philly but was it really him? Quote Philadelphia Eagles[edit] The Philadelphia Eagles hired Castillo as an offensive assistant in 1995 under Ray Rhodes.[2] In 1996, the Eagles drafted Jermane Mayberry, an offensive lineman Castillo coached at Texas A&M University–Kingsville, in the first round of the 1996 NFL Draft. Castillo was promoted to tight ends coach in 1997, and switched to coaching the offensive line in 1998. When Andy Reid was hired as the head coach of the Eagles in 1999, he retained Castillo on the coaching staff.[2] Mayberry earned a Pro Bowl berth in 2002, and said Castillo "molded me into the player I became." Castillo coached the offensive line for thirteen seasons, from 1998–2010. Castillo became the defensive coordinator for the Eagles following the firing of Sean McDermott on February 2, 2011.[5] The hiring was met with surprise by players, fans, and members of the media primarily because Castillo had not coached the defensive side of the ball since he was at Kingsville in 1989.[6][7] After a tumultuous tenure, Juan Castillo was fired on October 16, 2012. He was replaced by Todd Bowles, the team's secondary coach and former interim head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Edited October 7, 2018 by Scott7975 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihilarian Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 (edited) 13 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said: Actually, the "I" formation right up the middle has been one of the more successful plays for our OL. Seriously. I agree with you that we need to fix the run game as a top priority, it was just that you said " Sounds like an awful lot of "ifs" to get the passing game right. Wouldn't it be simpler to work the run game and then let Allen pick and choose his passes? Play action might actually work if the Bills could run the ball. " The reason it's not simpler, is because right now the blocking for the run game is a total hot mess. I see glimmers of hope that it can be improved - we do have successful plays here and there, but most of the successes that I've seen to date are plays that don't suit McCoy very well as they feature the back slamming right up the middle through a small hole into a LB, without a lead blocker. There are a few where McCoy bounces it outside. It's not simpler, but it needs to be done. I do agree that it's totally nuts to put the weight of the offense on Allen. Among other things, while our pass blocking is better than our run blocking, it's still on-again, off again and I fear it will teach Allen bad habits. 3 We both agree that establishing the run game first thing should be the priority. In three games McCoy has only gotten 21 attempts rushing combined and he should have at least that many in each game. It really is ridiculous how underutilized the run game has been and how overused Allen has been in the passing game as a rookie QB with no run game. Josh Allen is the teams leading rusher with 111 rushing yards, 2 rushing TDs and he has more rushing TDs than any of the RBs after 4 games. My thoughts are we Bills fans get sucked into a new regime every few years with all new hopes and dreams only to see them shattered by people that really are clueless. I really like McD and Beane in what they did their first year. Now, not so much. These men have had time to fix the O line, the WRs and instead it seems like all they care about is the defense. We know that McD is a decent DC and so is the current DC Frazier. For that matter so is WR coach Terry Robiskie. All three have been head coaches too. So far his offensive hires as OC has sucked and his line coach has sucked for two years now but the line had Woods, Incognito so it wasn't so bad as it is now. We Bills fans can see how bad things currently are on offense so how does McD not see them too, and if he does why is he sitting on his hands? At some point during the season, McD's only real option is to replace Daboll with Robiskie and perhaps replace Castillio with assistant line coach Andrew Dees as he couldn't possibly do any worse. Will McDs refusal to fix the offense going to kill the season? Edited October 7, 2018 by Nihilarian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunnerBill Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 On 10/5/2018 at 9:15 PM, Drunken Pygmy Goat said: That play stuck out to me on Sunday. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I believe this play falls on the QB and C. It's up to them to see the pre-snap defensive allignment and adjust the protection. It's something that's been an issue with Allen ever since preseason week 1. Guys have been getting in untouched, and defenses know this. It was a good job by the Packers of exploiting an obvious weakness in Allen's game, which isn't exactly surprising to see since he's a rookie. But hopefully it's something that improves with time and film study. It did seem better with Bodine at C against Minnesota; not sure why it seemed like a 180 last week. 100% correct. The QB and the C are in charge of protections. Not seeing who is coming and adjusting has been a major issue. Maybe they are and the others just can't execute - possible, but it looks like our offensive line is just not prepared for who is attacking which gap. There is a role for Daboll and Castillo here - simplify the scheme, go for more vanilla blocking - block the man infront of you. I think they are reluctant to do so because they think these linemen are not good enough to win 1 on 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hapless Bills Fan Posted October 7, 2018 Author Share Posted October 7, 2018 7 hours ago, Nihilarian said: We both agree that establishing the run game first thing should be the priority. In three games McCoy has only gotten 21 attempts rushing combined and he should have at least that many in each game. It really is ridiculous how underutilized the run game has been and how overused Allen has been in the passing game as a rookie QB with no run game. Josh Allen is the teams leading rusher with 111 rushing yards, 2 rushing TDs and he has more rushing TDs than any of the RBs after 4 games. My thoughts are we Bills fans get sucked into a new regime every few years with all new hopes and dreams only to see them shattered by people that really are clueless. I really like McD and Beane in what they did their first year. Now, not so much. These men have had time to fix the O line, the WRs and instead it seems like all they care about is the defense. We know that McD is a decent DC and so is the current DC Frazier. For that matter so is WR coach Terry Robiskie. All three have been head coaches too. So far his offensive hires as OC has sucked and his line coach has sucked for two years now but the line had Woods, Incognito so it wasn't so bad as it is now. We Bills fans can see how bad things currently are on offense so how does McD not see them too, and if he does why is he sitting on his hands? At some point during the season, McD's only real option is to replace Daboll with Robiskie and perhaps replace Castillio with assistant line coach Andrew Dees as he couldn't possibly do any worse. Will McDs refusal to fix the offense going to kill the season? You know, for all they care about the D and stuff, it's hard to get away from the fact that our D has allowed itself to get frog-marched down the field in the 1st half, 3 out of 4 games. It seems like the coaches install backbones in the defense in the 2nd half. I went back and looked - it's not like our O has been throwing 3 picks or fumbling 3x or ST having punts blocked (knock wood) or otherwise placing the D in tough positions. I hear McDermott talking about how we can't go 3 and out on offense. Has anyone ever heard him talk about the slow starts the D has been spotting us and that's unacceptable? As a rookie, it would help Allen take what he's given and dink and dunk if he didn't feel he needed to one-man-band the team out of a hole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hapless Bills Fan Posted October 7, 2018 Author Share Posted October 7, 2018 6 hours ago, GunnerBill said: 100% correct. The QB and the C are in charge of protections. Not seeing who is coming and adjusting has been a major issue. Maybe they are and the others just can't execute - possible, but it looks like our offensive line is just not prepared for who is attacking which gap. There is a role for Daboll and Castillo here - simplify the scheme, go for more vanilla blocking - block the man infront of you. I think they are reluctant to do so because they think these linemen are not good enough to win 1 on 1. If you listen to Wood's interview with Cover1, he talks about the differences playing center for a vet vs a young guy and how, with a young QB (EJ, Taylor), he (Wood) set the protections. They go through a couple plays and Wood explains what all the yelling pre snap is about. (this is about 19:30 min in if you're pressed for time). Good stuff. Anyway, my point is if they're leaving it to Allen to set basic hat-on-hat protections that's putting too much on his plate. What he does need to do is predict who the unblocked blitzer is going to be and where he needs to go in response. (But I really don't think there are too many QB around the league who have to say "hat on hat, guys, OK, if the MLB comes, you block him" and get slammed on their a** if they're wrong. I could be mistaken though.) You are damn straight that Daboll and Castillo need to go for more vanilla blocking. It's not even as simple as block the guy in front of you - they have our guys doing all this Pin and Pull blocking, lots of cut blocks. You raise an interesting point possibly this is because they think our guys are overmatched, but the fancy-pants stuff doesn't seem to be helping them. I think in all the run blocking I've watched on all-22 in the first 4 games, I've seen like 2 successful cuts, and 3 partially successful, and the rest of the time it results in our guys on the ground with a defender hurdling him - correct me if you've watched more and seen something different. And the pin-pull stuff, Bodine and Ducasse simply don't seem to be aren't nimble enough to "pull (see what I did there?) off against the speed of a lot of NFL defenses. (there's some good stuff in the interview linked above where Wood talks about why it's harder to pull as a center). In the Green Bay game, when they adopted more hat-on-hat schemes but that gave some of the guys help, they were more successful. The Athletic put out a good article pre-game about concepts GB D had been seen to struggle with The Bills actually used one of them, nicknamed "duo", later in the GB game and collected 5-7 yds each time. Shady doesn't like this because it requires him to go head-on into the LB or DB and he tends to dance a bit trying to make the guy miss. Ivory goes straight ahead and moves the chains. The attached was a 7 yd gain off a "duo" concept despite Matthews totally pwning Lee and tossing him aside like a broken Kewpie doll while he makes the tackle. The frustrating thing about that 7 yd play and the 4 yd chain moving run that followed it, was then the Bills went right back to pass, pass, pass. OK well obviously you've hit a topic I've got a lot of energy about. One thing more: It's more complex than "our guys just get beat man on man". In pass blocking, when the scheme works and everyone picks the right guy to block, they're actually holding up more often than not. There are maybe 3-4 plays a game where they get whupped and typically I could predict it (Mills on Matthews, say). So I think they could be servicable, and more servicable if they kept in a back or put a TE in the backfield and gave the predictable overmatch some help. What it seems like to me is that our OL is uneven in their effort. They'll put in good effort and if it doesn't work, take the next play off. Again, maybe I'm wrong there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. WEO Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 The fix for broken protection? I moved up to Magnum as soon as they were available... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJS Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 Looks like Miller chose to block the outside guy for some reason, leaving Mills to do nothing and a huge hole for defenders to rush through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihilarian Posted October 7, 2018 Share Posted October 7, 2018 Looks like they fixed some things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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