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How Bills adjustments in second half of 2018 set Allen up to unleash his potential


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I find all of this interesting, but I think it misses the fundamental point.  The fundamental point is that Allen's completion percentage has to go up.   One deep or two, man or zone, first half or last half of the season, he wasn't completing enough of his passes. 

 

I have to think he's going to see a lot more cover 2 this year until he shows he can beat it by completing a lot of passes, which means a lot of short passes.   Why cover 2?  Two reasons:  He has the arm to beat teams deep and has shown he can do it, so with Foster and Brown on the field often, defenses will want to avoid the problem of letting one of them go one on one deep.  Also, cover 2 is more of a zone concept and it lets the defenders face the quarterback, which is necessary to try to stop Allen from killing them with scrambles.   

 

By taking away the deep ball, defenses will force the Bills to run effectively  and complete short passes, neither of which they did very well last season.   If Beane improved the offensive line, the run game should be revived.   Where the real change is necessary is Allen has to find, and be willing to throw accurately to, his receivers in short, high-percentage routes and his backs out of the backfield.   

 

In other words, defenses will try to neutralize Allen's deep-ball abilities, and the Bills will have to demonstrate that they can go on the methodical, 10-15 play touchdown drive.   When they start doing that consistently (which means when Allen starts completing 60+% of his passes), the defenses will be forced to go 1 high to stop the run and short passes, and that's when the full potential of the offense will come into play.  

 

Assuming the line will be okay this season, it's all on Allen playing like a pro QB instead of a college bomber. 

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One thing that really impresses me about McDermott and his staff is that they recognize shortcomings and failures and fix them. They don't waffle, they don't hem and haw, they just make the change when it's warranted.

Rick Dennison, gone. David Culley, replaced. WR and RB coaches, gone. O-line coach, gone. Tyrod Taylor, replaced. O-line talent, upgraded. On and on down the line.

This coaching staff makes mistakes. All of them do. The fact that they are quick to recognize said mistakes or non-working components and act quickly to fix them is crucially important and bodes well for the future.

The difference between the first half and the second half of last season offensively is night and day. The scheme itself evolved, the offensive personnel evolved, the formations and the times that they were used in the games evolved, and what they asked of Allen evolved. I think really highly of Daboll. The ONE aspect of his playcalling that I'm still not sold on is the running game and usage of LeSean McCoy. Yes, I expect that offensive line improvements will help in a big way. But the failure of Daboll to effectively involve McCoy in the passing game last year was egregious, too. A weapon like McCoy should not be getting 7-10 touches a game, as he sometimes did last season. Daboll HAS to find a way to get McCoy involved. His ability to utilize his running backs and improve the running game as a whole will be absolutely necessary if the offense (and Allen) are to succeed this season.

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Great article with some new takes on what we saw unfold last season pre & post the Allen injury.  Thanks for posting!

 

As others have noted the Bills coaching & front office should get a lot of credit for changing things up on the fly.  The issues the article lays out for Allen in the first half of the season were a direct result of the Bills decision NOT to name him the starter in the summer.  This meant they had to build an offense that suited either McCarron or Perterman.  In hindsight this was a huge screw-up.  Past Bills regimes would have compounded this mistake by NOT making any changes and allowing Allen to flounder and maybe even wash out of the league in a couple of years.   That the Bills made such significant changes in BOTH offensive personal AND scheme DURING THE SEASON was impressive and unexpected.

 

I also liked how Cover 1 noted that Allen was very effective throwing the ball on deep routes.  I also recall a couple of big time PI calls where DB's had to tackle the WR before the ball got there to avoid giving up a TD.  This is another big advantage of throwing the ball deep.  Long ball PI is great because it can get you down the field fast with a 40 yard penalty. 

 

With an improved O-line, new & improved WR's to compliment our more experienced returning WR's and a better running game, the Bills offense presents match-up nightmares for NFL defenses.  Allen won't run the ball as much as last season but when he does look for 15 yard gains on 3rd & 12.  You know the kind that break the back of most defenses.  I see him rushing for about 40 yards per game using his legs to convert 3rd & longs & generate red zone TD's.

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20 hours ago, Rockinon said:

What a great article!  Forcing those safeties to play deep is going to open up the run game too.  Daboll is about to open up a can of whoop a**.  Love that we have coaches who recognize what skills our QB has and adjusts to those strengths. Brown, Foster and Zay are going to make sure those safeties stay deep.  Will also open things up for TEs and RBs underneath.  I see an evil genius at work here.

McDermott is an extremely stable genius

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4 hours ago, machine gun kelly said:

 

Well Yolo, he tore it up in Canada, so I’m pulling for the same.  We do now have enough TE’s to compete for other red zone threats.  It should be a fun year.

I give him a good chance to make the team. He has the talent, and appears to have the drive. He was a highly thought of prospect (on the field) in college.  CFL was a good place for him to develop.  Anyone know if he’s PS eligible? 

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Ok, Yolo, it looks like because he only made it on the pre-season for one team in 2016 ( I believe the Rams) he should be eligible as not based on age or what he did in Canada, and is eligible for up to three years on a practice squad if not poached to an active roster somewhere else as they are free agents.  They make $7600 per game and if a full season so for a full season they would make $121,600 and if the team is in the playoffs, they continue per week alive will continue to get paid.  

 

It it was too bad the AAFL didn’t work as they could have with positive negotiations with the CBA, could have had good experiences and made another $83000 per season while developing possibly to an active roster.  Maybe the USFL will have better luck.

 

im pulling for Duke, as I’m hopeful he can be a red zone threat for us.

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