Are the bills playing conservative intentionally? (hot take kinda)

[Scott7975]

This was a topic on WGR yesterday.  A brief one.  Might have been a phone call or something.  I only caught the middle of it.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

It's wishful thinking as it was more gameplan specific.

 

They played pretty aggressively against the Steelers with a lot of 10 personnel because they thought they could find a matchup to exploit with their WR depth.  What they didn't count on is Josh to be off and our o-line to look like Bobby Hart x5.

 

Against the Fins, they were more balanced given the strength of their secondary and how anemic the Fins offense was.

 

I'll take it a bit further.  Yes, they played aggressively against the Steelers with a lot of 4WR and 5WR sets, because they were expecting Pittsburgh to do what they did last year -be "Blitzburgh", especially with Tuitt on IR - and they figured they'd find matchups to exploit that way.

 

Instead, Pittsburgh caught the Bills with their "football pants" down by being able to take our OL to the woodshed with 5 guys - which is not entirely on those 5 guys given that Pittsburgh was clever about disguising pressure, overloading one side of the line, and dropping the other side into coverage.  They were also clever flooding the areas that are Allen's bread-and-butter with 7 DB.  Allen commented that he had some short passes, but he tried to be aggressive and go for the deep stuff and missed. 

 

The Fins were more aggressive in their pressures and counted on man coverage, but they played the same thing - to take away the bread-and-butter middle stuff.  Except this time, Allen was prepared to take the short passes and the Bills were prepared to run the ball down their throats.  So we won.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[John from Riverside]

Teams watched film in the off-season on the bills offense It would’ve been foolish if they didn’t

 

This is a new season the bills are adjusting to the defenses that they are facing

 

We would score 8 touchdown if we could

 

[Big Turk]

6 hours ago, Steptide said:

So, I know what I'm about to write sounds absurd, and I can't even bring myself to fully comprehend it, but hear me out a little. 

 

So obviously the bills offense hasent been to our standards through these first 2 games. It's hard to wrap our heads around after seeing how good they were last season. I was thinking about this a bit while at work today. All through camp all I heard from local media and sports guys on Twitter is how good the bills offense was. Passes from Allen rarely hit the ground in camp and the team was on par to take another leap this season. Then we watch them in pre season and for the most part, see the same thing we've been hearing about all throughout camp (even with trubisky playing). Fast forward to the regular season and all of a sudden our offense is anemic. I'm not saying in anyway that Josh is over and under throwing passes intentionally, or missing wide open guys by design. That would be ridiculous. However, I do wonder if to some degree the bills are intentionally being a bit conservative knowing that they have kc, Tampa and other opponents they have to beat if they wanna be super bowl contenders. I'm in no way saying the bills lost to the steelers intentionally or anything crazy like that. I just think this team is way better than what we've seen these last 2 weeks and it's hard for me to believe it's just a regression 

 

The pass protection has been a shell of what it was last year...teams used to blitz and not even get close to Allen last year...now they are only rushing 4 and half the time Allen is getting flushed or hurried, meaning they can drop more into coverage AND still force early throws....not a good combo

[Mr. K]

Id say its bordering the line between conservative and "saving stuff for later." Mostly because we haven't seen anything close to the passing attack we got used to seeing last season.

[CarolinaBillsFan]

I think Josh is pressing too hard, mixed with decent defenses.  With his big payday and his performance last year, I believe he is in his own head and trying to do too much.  He is forcing passes, looking for the pass further down the field and when its not there, the short pass that was open isn't anymore.

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

On PFT Live just now, Chris Simms was defending Allen a bit and said the Bills' offensive weapons are way overrated and that teams only have to worry about Stefon Diggs but it's not like he's Tyreek Hill. Also said there's a reason Emmanuel Sanders is on his third team in 3 years. Not impressed with our offensive talent.

[skibum]

I think it's important to remember that when your defense is dominating, your offense doesn't have to take risks to win the game. If the game plan was conservative on Sunday, it's probably because they didn't need to do more to win handily. 

[Jobot]

They're probably not showing their best trick plays with KC in mind, but that's about it. The offense and Josh is working through the Tampa-2 defense that it's now being defended by. Thankfully, the defense and run game are coming along very nicely.

[YattaOkasan]

10 hours ago, SCBills said:

This isn’t college where we open with Mercer and SE Louisiana Tech so we can play vanilla for our upcoming game against Bama…

 

That Steelers loss could be the difference between a 1 seed and 2 seed.   
 

Zero chance they’re holding back, but they are absolutely working through things … I highly doubt the offense we’ve seen Weeks 1 & 2 will be what we see Weeks 11 & 12 etc. 

More likely that KC game is the difference between a 1 and 2 seed.  We needed to beat them almost certainly, but I agree they are not holding things back.

[BarleyNY]

5 hours ago, CarolinaBillsFan said:

I think Josh is pressing too hard, mixed with decent defenses.  With his big payday and his performance last year, I believe he is in his own head and trying to do too much.  He is forcing passes, looking for the pass further down the field and when its not there, the short pass that was open isn't anymore.

This I may have something to do with it, but I think he’s confused by what he’s seeing.   Defenses are scheming to take away last season’s bread and butter throws. These are not crazy exotic defenses.  Teams are just more often using coverage schemes that take away the intermediate throws he killed them with last season.  Other stuff is open though (as Warner showed).  Allen will need to hit deep throws and take some short ones when nothing else is there.  Also we are going to have to run the ball more.

 

That he’s feeling extra pressure due to his new, huge contract could certainly be true.  But there’s some other stuff at play here.  Daboll has been using spread formations and the shotgun to simplify reads and keep Allen’s eyes up and on the defense.  That’s why we don’t see much in the way of real play action where Allen’s eyes initially would be looking back at the RB.

 

So what do they do?  The team isn’t built to run a Shanahan style offense which leans on running, traditional play action and a lot of 2 TE and/or 2 RB sets.  I’m not sure how Allen would do in it either.  What we’re running is a lot like the offense NE ran with Brady.  Allen is going to have to make quick decisions and get the ball out fast to be successful.  Presnap reads will be huge.  Then he can hit defenses on the longer stuff when they cheat up.  Or he will have to be patient and kill them with the short stuff.

Edited September 22, 2021 by BarleyNY

[Gen2]

IMHO something is wrong with Josh. It could be some niggling little injury that is hampering his mechanics, could be his big contract is messing with his mind (god I hope not), maybe something even on the home front messing with him. If you have any of last years games saved on your DVR, look at his body language post snap, pre release. He would get the ball, get to his "spot" and set up in a firm steady base and either throw the ball or decide to roll out or run. This year he just looks indecisive, he never "sets his base". Shoot last year sometimes he'd stand soooooo stock still I would think the TV picture had frozen, this year his feet never stop moving.

 

I have no doubt he (and the offense) will shortly return to last years form no matter what the problem is, and with Washington and Houston on our immediate horizon we have a better than average chance to win even at a diminished capacity .... as long as the ship is righted prior to KC & Tenn I'll be happy.  

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

Na I think daboll kind of outsmarted himself week 1 trying to create mismatches with the steelers dbs rather than running the football into the brick wall front 7 of the pit defense and Josh never got comfortable. 

6 hours ago, Gen2 said:

IMHO something is wrong with Josh. It could be some niggling little injury that is hampering his mechanics, could be his big contract is messing with his mind (god I hope not), maybe something even on the home front messing with him. If you have any of last years games saved on your DVR, look at his body language post snap, pre release. He would get the ball, get to his "spot" and set up in a firm steady base and either throw the ball or decide to roll out or run. This year he just looks indecisive, he never "sets his base". Shoot last year sometimes he'd stand soooooo stock still I would think the TV picture had frozen, this year his feet never stop moving.

 

I have no doubt he (and the offense) will shortly return to last years form no matter what the problem is, and with Washington and Houston on our immediate horizon we have a better than average chance to win even at a diminished capacity .... as long as the ship is righted prior to KC & Tenn I'll be happy.  

Hes got both eyes on the offensive line cuz he has no confidence in those guys and he's had happy feet the last couple games...happened last season at times too.  Last years form included games like that...TEN absolutely embarrassed us he was horrible that game.  He doesn't think he has time to set his feet cuz he's getting hit/evading pressure all game long when teams aren't even blitzing.  Better qbs have had far worse games under those circumstances than the last two josh has had 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Chandler#81]

On 9/21/2021 at 8:26 PM, Don Otreply said:

It could be a lack of preseason playing time. They have come out looking rusty and out of sync, tell tales of not enough live game speed and hits, they will get past it, but it is the price to pay for not playing your first team guys in the preseason.  That and the Steelers appear to use what KC did, game plan wise in there effort to beat us, could be other things as well, but this seems to be the most straight forward reasoning to me…,

 

Go Bills!!!

🤦‍♂️
 

so, when we drop a second preseason game for an 18th Regular Season game (next year?) we’ll be even worse to start the year?😳

[JoshAllin]

On 9/21/2021 at 8:21 PM, jkeerie said:

I think they are just trying to be more balanced and it's taking time for the offense to get in rhythm and for the o line to get in sync.

If that's the case then they should revert back immediately and not fix what isn't broken

[BIGFOOTspaceman]

3 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Na I think daboll kind of outsmarted himself week 1 trying to create mismatches with the steelers dbs rather than running the football into the brick wall front 7 of the pit defense and Josh never got comfortable. 

Hes got both eyes on the offensive line cuz he has no confidence in those guys and he's had happy feet the last couple games...happened last season at times too.  Last years form included games like that...TEN absolutely embarrassed us he was horrible that game.  He doesn't think he has time to set his feet cuz he's getting hit/evading pressure all game long when teams aren't even blitzing.  Better qbs have had far worse games under those circumstances than the last two josh has had 

 

I don't think it's going to get any better this week with WFT's front....I believe we'll win but I think Josh is going to have happy feet again unless Dabs can ring up some faster developing routes.

[Don Otreply]

8 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

🤦‍♂️
 

so, when we drop a second preseason game for an 18th Regular Season game (next year?) we’ll be even worse to start the year?😳

Likely so, live snaps my man, live snaps, and game speed, nothing, and I mean nothing can take their place as preparation for regular season play, the switch to eighteen games just means that those first two games are what the old preseason games where in quality of play, it’s nothing more than a rearrangement of the deck chairs, oh, and two additional game checks, 😁👍

 

Go Bills!!!

[Nextmanup]

This same sort of idea was put forth by "Bulldog" a few days ago on Schopp and Bulldog.

 

His basic theory was that we are intentionally holding our offensive scheme back right now, so as to keep some things in reserve for when we are going to really need them against big teams later in the year, particularly the playoffs.

 

I laughed out loud and consider that beyond ridiculous.

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

On 9/22/2021 at 8:21 AM, Giuseppe Tognarelli said:

On PFT Live just now, Chris Simms was defending Allen a bit and said the Bills' offensive weapons are way overrated and that teams only have to worry about Stefon Diggs but it's not like he's Tyreek Hill. Also said there's a reason Emmanuel Sanders is on his third team in 3 years. Not impressed with our offensive talent.

I think teams seem to worry a fair bit about taking away Beasley

 

Sanders, jury still out on whether he’s washed or just hasn’t built rapport with Allen yet.  One pass I saw I think Davis would have gotten it (if healthy)

[uninja]

4 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I think teams seem to worry a fair bit about taking away Beasley

 

Sanders, jury still out on whether he’s washed or just hasn’t built rapport with Allen yet.  One pass I saw I think Davis would have gotten it (if healthy)

 

Diggs and Beasley were #1 and #2 in targets on the team last year, teams are scheming to force the ball away from those two. Last year teams weren't ready for 14 and 11, this year they are (at least up to now). We've either faced some very good defenses that can shut down our 2 best receivers, or teams are just making sure that whatever happens make sure you know where 14 and 11 are and don't let them catch the ball.

 

I think we'll be fine. Just need to lean on the run game which looks much better (so far) and draw up plays where 14 and 11 aren't the first or second read while we iron out the kinks.