Has the bills offense shown any improvement from week 1 until now?

[Steptide]

This is the most frustrating thing for me. We're listening to the coaches say week after week how they have to get better and score more points. After last week, I kind of thought they were starting to figure it out using singletary more, but here we are again. I like that the bills wanna be a passing team, I don't want a run first offense, but there has to be a good balance. I'm really curious what the coaches are doing during the week to make the offense better. I have seen almost no difference between week 1 and week 10 when it comes to the offense 

[The Firebaugh Kid]

They have no identity. You see glimpses...but never anything repetitive enough to call it a trend. Beasley on 3rd downs for example. The dude is open almost every play. Smh. Allen or Daboll is making calls/decisions that are ruining a fine season. 

[HOUSE]

 

[RiotAct]

Nein.

[beacon]

No difference to me. Dump OC now. I vote for hurry-up with 4 wide, Singletay lone back and let it rip. Let Allen scramble/run all he wants. Just slide!!!!!!

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

Any chance we can nip that "identity" narrative in the bud? Daboll is attacking match ups he thinks they can take advantage of. It isn't work as well as we'd hope, but its his plan.  Saying we haven't developed an "identity" completely misunderstands what the coaches are trying to accomplish. 

[Do The Reich Thing]

Coaches in the NFL are far to ego driven to change anything, which is why we haven’t seen any improvement. Daboll, just like McD, is shoving his coaching style right down our players throats no matter what. 

[Troll Toll]

2 minutes ago, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

Any chance we can nip that "identity" narrative in the bud? Daboll is attacking the strongest part of the opposing defense. It isn't work as well as we'd hope, but its his plan.  Saying we haven't developed an "identity" completely misunderstands what the coaches are trying to accomplish. 

Fix’d

[DuckyBoys]

No they might be worse actually. 

[dubs]

Really don’t think so. I said it in another thread, I think they plateaued. 
 

 

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

1 minute ago, Troll Toll said:

Fix’d

 

That was definitely true against the Browns, but not so much against the Eagles, and he still received the same criticism. 

[Troll Toll]

2 minutes ago, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

 

That was definitely true against the Browns, but not so much against the Eagles, and he still received the same criticism. 

It was true against the Patriots as well.

[bmur66]

8 minutes ago, JoshAllenHasBigHands said:

Any chance we can nip that "identity" narrative in the bud? Daboll is attacking match ups he thinks they can take advantage of. It isn't work as well as we'd hope, but its his plan.  Saying we haven't developed an "identity" completely misunderstands what the coaches are trying to accomplish. 

The Bills are not the Patriots. They are not good enough to do that. And its hard to find proof that they are trying to exploit matchups because I haven't seen it happen. IMO the Bills need to figure out what they are good at, master it and build upon it

[Troll Toll]

The lack of success on deep passes tells me they don’t practice them enough. Those should be almost automatic when they are open. Watching Rodgers yesterday, he makes it look so easy to just throw a deep ball his guy can make a play on. Seems like Josh is all over the map in his trajectories on those throws. Coaches should be working with him to get the optimal trajectories on each type of deep throw. It’s disconcerting that our guys can’t even get a finger on these throws. They clearly aren’t giving enough attention to this area.

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

Just now, bmur66 said:

The Bills are not the Patriots. They are not good enough to do that. And its hard to find proof that they are trying to exploit matchups because I haven't seen it happen. IMO the Bills need to figure out what they are good at, master it and build upon it

 

You haven't seen it successfully happen. It is clearly what they are trying to do, though.  Are they not good enough to do that? You are probably right.  But that doesn't mean we should misdiagnose what is happening as the team "hasn't found their identity." 

[CountDorkula]

They have actually gone backwards in terms of production, so that’s promising. 

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

7 minutes ago, Troll Toll said:

It was true against the Patriots as well.

 

Sort of beside my original point, but sure. 

[Wayne Arnold]

The offense is regressing.

[mjt328]

Over the last 4 games, Josh Allen has done a good job of eliminating "stupid" throws.

Early in the season, this was leading to 1-2 interceptions per game.  So this is a big improvement.

 

But with one step-forward, we get one step-backwards.... and Allen has somehow gotten worse with his fumbles (which is hard to believe).

He may be the worst QB I have ever seen at ball security when running with it.

 

 

Everything else on offense is exactly the same.  No improvement whatsoever.  Same strengths and weaknesses as Week 1.

We seem to be capable of moving the ball in spurts, which allows us 2-3 good scoring drives per week.  The other 45 minutes of the game, we struggle to do anything.  

 

[jletha]

I actually think josh played fine yesterday, not spectacular though. But am I wrong in saying that we have lost those 5-6 yard passes over the middle we were using in weeks 1-2? Every completed pass yesterday felt like it was 15 yards downfield. I lost Joshs ability to make those throws all over the field but those should be bookended by easier throws. Seems like we have moved away from "take what the defense gives you". It showed up bad on the final play before the FG. They show blitz off the right side and JA throws immediately to the blitz side, which is good diagnosis and execution...except the hot route is a back shoulder throw??? Tough throw to make and didnt fit the situation at all when we need only a few more yards to make the FG manageable.

 

Not sure if its Daboll or Allen making some of these play calls but its not working.

[Jobot]

I don't see improvement on the offense.  If anything, teams around the league are getting better and making things more difficult for Allen and the offense as the year has gone on.  Early on in the season, Allen was given more leash to audible at the line, I feel like this doesn't happen anymore.

[jrober38]

Absolutely not.

 

We have an extremely limited QB, who has never led a prolific offense at any point in his life. 

 

The notion he was going to develop into a top NFL QB never made any sense.

 

Our offensive coordinator is also not functioning properly. Why don't we run the ball more? Why is Lee Smith ever on the field?

[whatdrought]

It seems like a regression... I don’t understand why Beasly isn’t featured anymore. 

[jrober38]

Just now, whatdrought said:

It seems like a regression... I don’t understand why Beasly isn’t featured anymore. 

 

They're just playing better teams.

 

All the cupcakes on our schedule came early. Now we're playing teams with settled rosters (post trade deadline) who are trying to win football games.

 

The result is that our offense is looking worse, because they're playing tougher opponents. 

 

This is a terrible offense. There are major long term problems at QB and OC, and possibly even HC. 

[Jobot]

8 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

Absolutely not.

 

We have an extremely limited QB, who has never led a prolific offense at any point in his life. 

 

The notion he was going to develop into a top NFL QB never made any sense.

 

Our offensive coordinator is also not functioning properly. Why don't we run the ball more? Why is Lee Smith ever on the field?

 

You could be right... but based on the talent on offense, I think it's unrealistic for a second year qb to carry the team.  Until Allen can read a defense in a split second and counter the offense play calling/routes, the team will struggle to put up a lot of points.  We don't have a Julio to just chuck the ball to, or an O-line that smacks the D off the snap.

 

I would imagine that learning curve is different for every qb that enters the league, and I would also imagine that at times Allen may get this right but team mistakes or opposing 'talented' defenses stymie what could have been.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Jobot

[skibum]

The only improvement I see is that Josh Allen has not heaved any back-foot meatballs into the void lately. Otherwise, it's been the same crummy execution. Allen can't throw accurately on the move, or on deep throws at all. Receivers aren't amazing enough to catch balls that are off-target. They don't use Singletary nearly enough. Allen is not running as often or as effectively as last year, and when he does run, he puts the ball on the ground. Pass protection is mediocre, and throws happen late anyway.  Lots of bone-headed play calling - like Daboll is trying  to trick the opposing defense rather than do the thing that is most likely to succeed in a given situation. 

 

It's yet another year of pop-gun offense for the Bills. 

[JoshAllenHasBigHands]

1 minute ago, skibum said:

The only improvement I see is that Josh Allen has not heaved any back-foot meatballs into the void lately. Otherwise, it's been the same crummy execution. Allen can't throw accurately on the move, or on deep throws at all. Receivers aren't amazing enough to catch balls that are off-target. They don't use Singletary nearly enough. Allen is not running as often or as effectively as last year, and when he does run, he puts the ball on the ground. Pass protection is mediocre, and throws happen late anyway.  Lots of bone-headed play calling - like Daboll is trying  to trick the opposing defense rather than do the thing that is most likely to succeed in a given situation. 

 

It's yet another year of pop-gun offense for the Bills. 

Lol

[Jobot]

1 minute ago, skibum said:

like Daboll is trying  to trick the opposing defense rather than do the thing that is most likely to succeed in a given situation

 

Very apparent on a couple of 3rd and shorts yesterday in the second half... it looked like they didn't even have a single route under 10-yards as Allen hucks downfield incompletions.

[whatdrought]

2 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

 

They're just playing better teams.

 

All the cupcakes on our schedule came early. Now we're playing teams with settled rosters (post trade deadline) who are trying to win football games.

 

The result is that our offense is looking worse, because they're playing tougher opponents. 

 

This is a terrible offense. There are major long term problems at QB and OC, and possibly even HC. 

 

I disagree about QB. Allen has done well when given chances. The Offense has no rhythm, and no identity. There’s no plan and no adjustments. Allen is making plays when anything is schemed up for him, it’s just rarely done. 

[jrober38]

1 minute ago, Jobot said:

 

You could be right... but based on the talent on offense, I think it's unrealistic for a second year qb to carry the team.  Until Allen can read a defense in a split second and counter the offense play calling/routes, the team will struggle to put up a lot of points.  We don't have a Julio to just chuck the ball to, or an O-line that smacks the D off the snap.

 

I would imagine that learning curve is different for every qb that enters the league, and I would also imagine that at times Allen may get this right but team mistakes or opposing 'talented' defenses stymie what could have been.

 

Stop making excuses.

 

He's not suddenly going to learn this between now and next season.

 

The year QBs typically make their big jump is year 1 to year 2. After that what you see is almost always what you get.

 

The guys who succeed in the NFL as first round picks almost always show they're really good shortly after they get on the field.

 

The guys who struggle the way Allen has in his 2nd year (29th in the NFL in QB Rating), are usually on new teams by their 5th season.

3 minutes ago, whatdrought said:

 

I disagree about QB. Allen has done well when given chances. The Offense has no rhythm, and no identity. There’s no plan and no adjustments. Allen is making plays when anything is schemed up for him, it’s just rarely done. 

 

The offense has no rhythm because their QB is one of the most inefficient passers in the NFL. 

[whatdrought]

5 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

 

Stop making excuses.

 

He's not suddenly going to learn this between now and next season.

 

The year QBs typically make their big jump is year 1 to year 2. After that what you see is almost always what you get.

 

The guys who succeed in the NFL as first round picks almost always show they're really good shortly after they get on the field.

 

The guys who struggle the way Allen has in his 2nd year (29th in the NFL in QB Rating), are usually on new teams by their 5th season.

 

The offense has no rhythm because their QB is one of the most inefficient passers in the NFL. 

 

You’re seeing what you want to see. Allen played a good game yesterday and was let down by a lack of balance in play calling and a lack of protection in the line. There were several 3rd and short plays where the entire offense was running 10+ yard routes and the line wasn’t protecting long enough to give him room. Everyone knows you’re a bitter JA hater, and that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. But blaming the offensive issues of yesterday on Allen reveals just how devoid of football knowledge you are.

Edited November 11, 2019 by whatdrought

[Jobot]

3 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

 

Stop making excuses.

 

He's not suddenly going to learn this between now and next season.

 

The year QBs typically make their big jump is year 1 to year 2. After that what you see is almost always what you get.

 

The guys who succeed in the NFL as first round picks almost always show they're really good shortly after they get on the field.

 

The guys who struggle the way Allen has in his 2nd year (29th in the NFL in QB Rating), are usually on new teams by their 5th season.

 

The offense has no rhythm because their QB is one of the most inefficient passers in the NFL. 

 

Reality is not an excuse... But he hasn't played 2-full seasons, and throwing the towel in on him today is the dumbest idea anyone could suggest. 

 

Say the defense stopped Cleveland on that final drive... would you be as pissed off today complaining about Allen and the team?  I doubt it, so take a step back from the emotions from watching yesterday's game to think critically.

 

[billsfan714]

Well outside of the Giants and Skins games our ceiling on offense is around 20 points.  And thats the ceiling.

[jrober38]

14 minutes ago, whatdrought said:

 

You’re seeing what you want to see. Allen played a good game yesterday and was let down by a lack of balance in play calling and a lack of protection in the line. There were several 3rd and short plays where the entire offense was running 10+ yard routes and the line wasn’t protecting long enough to give him room. Everyone knows you’re a bitter JA hater, and that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. But blaming the offensive issues of yesterday on Allen reveals just how devoid of football knowledge you are.

Good god.

 

He had another QB rating under 80 and we scored 16 points. 

 

How low is the bar for what a competent QB and offense should look like?

 

He's 29th in the NFL in QB Rating, has thrown 10 TDs in 9 games and leads one of the worst offenses in the NFL.

 

Our offense is awful because what we're getting from the QB position has been awful. Aside from beating up on garbage teams, he hasn't looked good all season. 

[DRA3196]

I think they have two options regarding their offensive identity. Either open things up and let Josh run his offense helter skelter gunslinger style , and win or lose roll with it. OR run our offense through Singletary and make Josh a game manager. Neither are great solutions at this point. But at least they are directions

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

Good Topic! Warning this is not just a yes they're regressing. Although that could be the answer.

 

I started out by asking the OPs question and trying to answer objectively. I don't have access to anything more than traditional stats. But, that should suffice for purposes of comparing the early part of the season, to the later part.

 

Breaking up into buckets beginning with week 1 and ending with Game 4 NE, this is fair, end of Sept., to the eye appears to be a watershed game for the team, this will be referred to as P1 going forward. And, of course the second bucket-P2, will be game 5 through yesterday-5 games. Everything will of course be per game. Let's see if there are any trends?

 

1. PPG and YPG; P1 19.0 ppg/387ypg, P2 19.6 ppg/297ypg, surprisingly perhaps the Schedule is pretty even in each period. P1 .324%, P2.348, the difference is balanced off by one extra home game in P2, so we can put the SOS to bed for the purposes of this discussion. Production down.

 

2. Where is drop in yardage coming from? P1 Passing 240ypg/ Rushing 147ypg P2 Passing 191 ypg/ Rushing 106ypg, that's a 20% decline in passing yards, and 28% in rushing yards. So both are well down.

 

3. Is this being driven by the number of attempts either way? This is a very interesting to me. P1 Pass Att/Rush Att 37pg/31pg drop of 16%; P2 29pg/26pg drop of 11%. Overall the Bills are running 14% fewer plays! Does that mean our defense is on the field more? The answer is perhaps surprisingly NO, P1 63, P2 60 a drop of 5% give or take. Coincidentally or not, Bills games have dropped from 131 plays to 115 plays. Games time have also shorted to an average of 2:53 from 3:13 in P1. Does it seem to anyone else like we've slowed the pace of our games down? huddle more? running the clock down under 5 secs? It does to me. We need to answer my original efficiency question another way.

 

4. Yards Per Rush P1 5.1 P2 4.2, is this because Josh is running less and worse? Surprisingly no. His attempts/yard/average P1 8/33/4.3 P2 7/29/4.5 pretty similar. I'll save you the suspense and tell you the initials of the biggest drop off, you probably could guess FG.

 

5. How about the passing game? It has actually been much more efficient. Completion % is steady at 60%, But with P1 being 3 TDs/6INT and P2 being 7TDS/ 1 INT ; much of the efficiency gain is here, Yards per attempt is relativitely close 6.5 to 6.3. As are Yards Per Comp. So, Josh was asked after NE to stop playing "hero" ball, cut down on the mistakes and let the rest of the team do its job. He has done that, the team has performed worse.

 

My summary:

It appears like the coaching staff, after NE, has decided to slow the game pace down, and has asked Josh not to make throwing errors. Play to the strength of our defense, which is a story for another day. I know some will scream they are trying to protect Josh, and perhaps to a certain extent they are. But, doing this also protects McD's defense. As to the drop in the running game, The first 4 games was a lot of McKenzie motion, the one game since NE where there was a lot of that was...Washington. Devin Singletary's big running game. I have no answer to the Singletary usage conundrum. IMHO laying the regression at the feet of JA is both simple and incorrect. Others have a lot to answer for. Have they actually helped our raw QB succeed by putting adequate resources around him, and creating a QB friendly environment? The answer to that may depend on your biases, I say no and he's doing what he's asked.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by D. L. Hot-Flamethrower

[1st Ammendment NoMas]

NO! F'k NO. Pathetic to watch. I think it is regression. Defenses figured us out and Daboll snipped off Allen's balls and keeps them in a Petri dish at UB hoping he can get some of his  own mojo back.  

[papazoid]

2nd year qb lamar jackson says hello

 

sound the alarm....josh allen is mediocre at best.....currently ranked 29th & 30th in passer rating and total qbr....not good enough

[TAinLack.]

Time for the "No Huddle" - what have we got to lose!!!

[Stank_Nasty]

i'm baffled by the lack of looks for Beasley on those short 3rd and 4th downs.... hasn't that been how he's made his hay in the NFL? its mind blowing he hasn't seen any looks there.