Bills Offense Production vs. Falcons

MasterStrategist · January 3, 2022

It's been discussed in a multitude of posts & reasoning already, but I wanted to provide some statistics & context to highlight why I think yesterday's offensive performance is one of the most dominating/strong showings this season.

Much has also been made of Josh's underwhelming QBR performance, 17 rating, so wanted to touch on that (see points #2-4). The turnovers absolutely need to be cleaned up, but I'd call 2 of those "flukes" (tip passes) and the 3rd should have been illegal contact (while Beas running the seam route). Not an excuse, but this could have easily been another 40+ point showing by the offense. I was also encouraged to see the run game pick up chunk plays & convert in the redzone.

Key Points/Statistics (based on re-watching the game & tracking each play):

1. Dominating performance/Maintaining Drives: 71 Plays / 4 - 10+ Play Drives / 351 Yards / 28 - 1st Downs / 34 Min TOP / 80% Redzone efficiency.

2. Misleading Stat of the Day: 11-26 Passing, 42% completion %. It's misleading because Josh completed 5/8 3rd down passes (4 going for 1st downs & the 5th leading to a 4th and 1 conversion).

3. Context is important Stats: 9 incompletions were due to Drops and/or Throw-Away passes (ie: to Dion at the goalline or screen to Motor, etc). Josh also faced pressure on 10 of 26 attempts, only completing 3 of those passes.

4. "Clutch" stat of the day: of Josh's 11 completions, 8 went for 1st downs (5 coming on 3rd down).

5. "Make it Count" stat: on 4 separate occasions, Josh threw incompletions on 1st and/or 2nd down, to then follow-up with a 3rd down pass to convert the 1st. Said another way, he went 4-10 (40% completion rate) on a sequence of plays that extended drives. This is like sitting down at a blackjack table, betting $100 and losing on 2 hands in a row, then betting $300 on the 3rd hand and winning (you'd have an extra $100 in your pocket, but lost 2 of 3 hands).

6. No Punt Game (safety doesn't count...Part 2): 2nd consecutive game w/o a Punt. Same as against New England, Josh & the offense are converting critical 3rd and 4th downs to extend drives & score. We're not seeing drives stall at Opposition 40 or 30 yard line, like we did at mid-season, and that's an encouraging sign heading into the playoffs.

Note: See the chart below for a quick summary of these stats.

Bottom line, it's easy to look at some stats and come away with the impression that the offense struggled to move the ball or had a poor showing due to turnovers/etc. In contrast, they were "inefficient" at times but came through in the clutch when needed. I like another posters analogy of a "no-hitter, but walking 5 batters/3 errors". We dominated TOP, ran extended drives, and had our best showing of the season in the ground game, to go along with very good redzone efficiency. Yes the turnovers need cleaned up, as our defense stepped up to limit the damage, but this type of performance is MILES ahead of where we were at mid-season (ie: think back to the Jaguars game). This is also the 2nd consecutive game with I 100% believe that Daboll/McDermott have made some critical changes to the offensive approach, to go along with better execution by the players.