Week 13: Bills at Pats on TNF

[wjag]

24 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

He can.  But whether because of play design, lack of open receivers, lack of trust, or lack of passing lanes/time in the pocket, he doesn't seem to be getting the ball to the middle of the field very much nor completing when he does get there.

 

Pretty stark contrast, wouldn't you say?

 

 

The glaring red hole in the middle of the field is a where a Mr. Cole Beasley used to ply his craft.

[Joe Ferguson]

[Dan]

10 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

#69 at the end.   😆 

[Beck Water]

13 minutes ago, wjag said:

The glaring red hole in the middle of the field is a where a Mr. Cole Beasley used to ply his craft.

 

Yep.  Not just Cole though (especially last season and 10-20 yds deep) but Manny Sands. 

 

And this year, it's not just the slot guy, it's Gabe Davis (Sanders replacement).  It's a place where when Josh puts it there, the ball has a tendency to end the play, not in the receiver's hands.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Beck Water

[Straight Hucklebuck]

28 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

He can.  But whether because of play design, lack of open receivers, lack of trust, or lack of passing lanes/time in the pocket, he doesn't seem to be getting the ball to the middle of the field very much nor completing when he does get there.

 

Pretty stark contrast, wouldn't you say?

 

 

Yeah this jives with what you feel/see on the TV. 

 

1. With the Bills everything feels like it lives on the sidelines. Gabe Davis, when he catches the ball, seems like it's always the same comeback route outside the numbers. 

 

2. You don't see anything over the middle for Knox, Hines, Shakir. The Bills offense has no #2 TE. Knox, again, it seems like he is always diving out of bounds on his catches. Nothing in stride. 

 

3. Maybe that is what Crowder was supposed to be, but there is no possession WR on the Bills team. 

 

4. McKenzie occasionally with a crossing route, but those kind of throws are under utilized. 

 

5. When running backs are used in the pass game its sporadic, Singletary with 9 catches in one game, and 4 combined the next 3 games. 

 

6. The Bills have Diggs. We are the 2018-2021 Packers. One dominant WR. 

[YoloinOhio]

 

[Process]

This dude cannot be serious. It's 45 degrees out.

 

 

[sven233]

I know it drastically goes against everything we do on defense, but this is the game to force the issue.  Tre's back.  Elam's back.  Rhodes is finally part of the 53.  Mac Jones crumbles under pressure and they have no dominant WRs.  Time to get up in their grills, lock them down on the outside playing press man, and just blitz the crap out of this team and force Jones to make mistakes and cry. 

[Greg S]

15 minutes ago, sven233 said:

I know it drastically goes against everything we do on defense, but this is the game to force the issue.  Tre's back.  Elam's back.  Rhodes is finally part of the 53.  Mac Jones crumbles under pressure and they have no dominant WRs.  Time to get up in their grills, lock them down on the outside playing press man, and just blitz the crap out of this team and force Jones to make mistakes and cry. 

 

On the flip side I would like to see Josh do a better job taking care of the ball especially in the red zone. That has been a big problem lately. 

[Beck Water]

2 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

 

 

 

[DapperCam]

3 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

Probably figuring out how to not make Judon invisible against us.  He's probably not facing Dawkins so we might need a similar game plan against the Rams....ball out quickly.

Ball out quickly should have been the plan the whole season.

 

Instead it seems to be have long developing routes and have Allen run around until someone is open.

2 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

 

And people say tackling in the NFL is bad now, lol!

[Straight Hucklebuck]

Just now, DapperCam said:

Ball out quickly should have been the plan the whole season.

 

Instead it seems to be have long developing routes and have Allen run around until someone is open.

According to WGR, Josh should always be expected to open more. 
 

So I expect the same thing.

 

Him running around, taking hits, toe-tap catches to the sidelines, nothing overt the middle, abandoning the run game in the 2nd half. 

[Dopey]

On 11/25/2022 at 7:57 PM, smuvtalker said:

He sure did.  I have no doubt the Pats are gonna be fired up... I'll be honest,  I didn't expect them to be 6-5 at this point in the season.  As much as I hate them, Belichick has them overachieving, and Thursday's game is gonna be a dogfight, at least in my opinion.  We just have too many injuries right now to blow teams out.  Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but I also feel like Belichick has been waiting to face us ever since we humiliated his Pats last year....TWICE.  I mean we didn't just beat them, we straight up eviscerated them, in front of the entire country.  Both the team AND Josh Allen set all kinds of records in those games, and Belichick's ego took a major humbling.  

 

Remember back in 2003, Buffalo played the Patriots, and spanked them 31-0?  It was the year the Pats cut Lawyer Milloy, and he signed with the Bills....even recorded a sack...well go figure, in the second meeting that year, the Pats beat us....and what was the score?  31-0.  You think that was coincidence?   I don't.  

Boy, do I remember. All I could say was " I can't believe the S.O.B had the balls to try it, and he succeeded". BB is great. Yep, I said it.

[DapperCam]

3 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

According to WGR, Josh should always be expected to open more. 
 

So I expect the same thing.

 

Him running around, taking hits, toe-tap catches to the sidelines, nothing overt the middle, abandoning the run game in the 2nd half. 

Fans can see it pretty clearly. Our offensive design stinks and if not for Allen our offense would be in the basement. He’s expected to do everything.

 

I watched Vikings-Pats last week and the Vikings offense looked way better and in-sync with worse personnel than ours. Kirk would take a three step drop, go through his progression and hit a short to intermediate route with YAC. You could tell he had to think like half as hard as Allen has to on any given play.

[Stank_Nasty]

6 minutes ago, DapperCam said:

Fans can see it pretty clearly. Our offensive design stinks and if not for Allen our offense would be in the basement. He’s expected to do everything.

 

I watched Vikings-Pats last week and the Vikings offense looked way better and in-sync with worse personnel than ours. Kirk would take a three step drop, go through his progression and hit a short to intermediate route with YAC. You could tell he had to think like half as hard as Allen has to on any given play.

i wont debate our design sucks but the vikings having worse personnel than ours? seriously? Jefferson, Theilen, Hock is about as talented and reliable trio you can ask for.

[Golden]

1 hour ago, wjag said:

The glaring red hole in the middle of the field is a where a Mr. Cole Beasley used to ply his craft.

Man,

great post & so well said! 

[DapperCam]

6 minutes ago, Stank_Nasty said:

i wont debate our design sucks but the vikings having worse personnel than ours? seriously? Jefferson, Theilen, Hock is about as talented and reliable trio you can ask for.

Their receiving group has a slight edge (Thielen isn’t the star he used to be), but Allen puts us over the top. You can see when things aren’t perfect Kirk can’t handle it at all. But they support him with their scheme so their team still has success.

[Beck Water]

57 minutes ago, Straight Hucklebuck said:

Yeah this jives with what you feel/see on the TV. 

 

1. With the Bills everything feels like it lives on the sidelines. Gabe Davis, when he catches the ball, seems like it's always the same comeback route outside the numbers. 

 

2. You don't see anything over the middle for Knox, Hines, Shakir. The Bills offense has no #2 TE. Knox, again, it seems like he is always diving out of bounds on his catches. Nothing in stride. 

 

3. Maybe that is what Crowder was supposed to be, but there is no possession WR on the Bills team. 

 

4. McKenzie occasionally with a crossing route, but those kind of throws are under utilized. 

 

5. When running backs are used in the pass game its sporadic, Singletary with 9 catches in one game, and 4 combined the next 3 games. 

 

6. The Bills have Diggs. We are the 2018-2021 Packers. One dominant WR. 

 

On the theme of "speaking it into existence", I wish Cover1 @Cover 1 or someone would do a detailed film breakdown on what happened to the Bills route trees?  Yeah, they've talked about it some but it's on the "this is what I see" level, not the methodical breakdown (if I'm wrong, someone please point me there).  I'm in the same place, I've seen little glimpses on film and I have an impression but I can not claim to have methodically sat down and watched all-22 since NFL+ broke that *****.  (If there's a way for an American to get decent all-22 with the ability to select individual plays and slo mo, LMK please).

 

Hines, just got here, learning how to be a running back for the Bills.  He's had like 5 practices with the team since he stepped off the plane.  Too soon.

 

Here's some of what I think I see, with the caveat this is highly subjective and not based on systematic study:

-Early games - say, up through week 4 - targets distributed pretty evenly across the field.  Week 4 is when we lost Crowder and had McKenzie knocked out.

-Someone ( @HoofHearted?) commented that the Pittsburgh game was the worst thing that could have happened to Josh, or words to that effect - because the Bills dominated with Josh playing "Bombs Away!" taking deep shots all day.  He reined it in next week for KC - I'm sure he knew and the coaches emphasized that he had to play a disciplined effective game for them to have a shot of winning, and he did.  But.....

-Week 8 and on, it looks as though someone took a lawn mower and mowed those 5-15 yd pass attempts right out of our game plan, especially over the middle of the field.

-Knox looks as though he's always diving out of bounds on his catches because most of the time when he has been targeted, it's been as an outlet, along the sideline.  A lot of times he's there as an outlet and Josh chooses to force the throw instead.  Here's every Knox reception from the Browns game:

https://twitter.com/LowBuffa/status/1595036008051277826?s=20&t=8d-oQDC_8DmcUlHpVWAB7A

-Both Knox and Motor are kept in to pass protect a lot.  Sometimes both chip and release, sometimes Motor stays in the backfield and leaks out.  Knox chips and heads for the sideline.  Except for the Browns game, Josh usually doesn't take that.  Want better passing game design?  Get an OL that doesn't need so much help to protect.  It looks as though KC has 5 targets running all over the field on every play?  That's because they do.  We don't.  They have a better OL.  That's why.

-Gabe Davis has been targeted across the middle a fair bit and the results have been Bad.  Either Josh's throw is on target/catchable but Gabe fails to secure it, or it's behind him and gets picked. or he runs the route in a way that lets it be jumped.  I don't wanna dunk on a guy whose won us some games with incredible clutch play, but you gotta "make the bunnies" Gabe.  Maybe it's something with Josh's arm where he doesn't trust himself to pinpoint those right now.

-I have not seen McKenzie running many routes across the middle as Beasley did from the slot - and, as you point out, when he does, Josh doesn't usually take him.  The substitute to put a receiver there seems to be Motor leaking out, or running an option route (sometimes Cook recently).  It's been shorter depth than the Bills ran with Beasley and for whatever reason (maybe lack of passing lanes/concern for tips, maybe no pocket so Josh has already flushed out to the side), Josh doesn't take this.

-Last several games, it seems as though routes and throws over the middle have just vanished from the Bills passing vocabulary.  And when they've been there, it's been bad

 

 

I get it, Josh wants to win, go for the jugular, dominate, but some times hitting the short to intermediate stuff and moving the chains will loosen up those deep shots.

 

 

[Boatdrinks]

1 hour ago, wjag said:

The glaring red hole in the middle of the field is a where a Mr. Cole Beasley used to ply his craft.

Agree, the Bills have missed him greatly. Crowder looked promising before injury. No one has stepped up to fill that role, and that puts more pressure on Josh. 

[Gugny]

4 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

Agree, the Bills have missed him greatly. Crowder looked promising before injury. No one has stepped up to fill that role, and that puts more pressure on Josh. 

 

They've missed 2019 and 2020 Beasley ... not 2021 Beasley and certainly not whatever 2022 Beasley would have looked like.

 

There's a reason he's sitting at home.  And no ... it's not covid-related.