OLine/Unforced Error All 22 Review - Bills/Dolphins Wk 14

[Bocephuz]

In the past i used to do lengthy in depth posts with gifs.. don't have time for that nowadays

 

I watched every passing snap to evaluate pass blocking performance as well as Josh Allen unforced errors committed (PASS BLOCKING ONLY EVALUATED.. did not evaluate running plays). 

 

Unforced error =  Allen has time to throw, wr is open and he misses throw.. or.. Allen makes poor unforced decision 

 

OLINEMAN BEATEN =  O lineman clearly loses his one on one matchup... or.. clearly misreads stunt/combo block

 

____

 

OLINEMAN BEATEN STATS

DAWKINS - 1

SAFFOLD - 6

MORSE - 0 

GVR - 1

QUES - 1

BROWN - 4

 

OL SUMMARY : The O Line was solid in Q1 but absolutely melted down in Q3. Interestingly enough Morse going out with a concussion and all the shuffling did not appear to be the culprit for the poor O Line play. The 2 main culprits (as in most weeks this year) are Saffold and Brown.. and its hard to blame their mistakes on anything else but their poor technique and awareness. Lets dig in 

-DAWKINS -  Looked pretty solid for most of the game.. back to his old self mostly. He and Saffold did have some miscommunication on a twist stunt.. but other than that 73 was reliable at LT

- SAFFOLD -  Saffold may be one of the worst pass blocking guards I've evaluated since doing these type of reviews. He gave up or was involved in 6 QB pressures against Miami (which I believe is the highest number I've recorded since doing these reviews back in the Tyrod era). Q3 was particularly rough. On consecutive plays he had 1.) False Start  2.) Completely unaware of a twist stunt .. stayed with the DT and did not switch over to the stunting DE .. giving up a big hit on Josh. He is nearly worthless as a pass blocker. My hope is that Ike Boettger can step in at LG and put Saffold on the bench. Ike is certainly not a world beater.. but he should be able to hold up a little better than Saffold.

-MORSE -  looked fantastic, stout in his reps.. unfortunately went out with an injury midway through the game

- VAN ROTEN - Kudos to Greg Van Roten. I ripped him pretty good last review.. but he stepped in at Center for Morse and did a fine job. Held on by the skin of his nose on a few reps but did not break. No bad snaps to QB.. was only beaten one time from what I saw

- QUESSENBERRY -  Did surprisingly well at Guard filling in. 

- BROWN -  Yet another poor showing. Gave up 4 QB pressures. He has almost zero chance when the DE does a speed rush to the outside. 

 

 

 

QB UNFORCED ERRORS:  Josh had 2 unforced errors by my count.  Based on my history of doing this kind of analysis when a qb has 5 or more unforced errors the chances of his team winning decrease materially.  He had a few throws that were just off.. but in most cases he was on the move due to pass protection breakdown and the bad throws were forced ..

 

Josh was impressive this game. His elbow seems to be fine.. He tried to hang in the pocket and had very few unnecessary pocket bails. 

 

SUMMARY -  Saffold and Brown have consistently shown that they are not reliable in pass protect. With Saffold.. I think there may be an answer with Ike Boettger replacing him. With Brown... I'm not so sure an answer is on the roster. Quessenberry has not really performed any better than Brown at RT.  The Bills most definitely need to acquire a legit RT next year be it in FA or Draft. Hopefully Josh will continue to rise above and hopefully the play of Saffold and Brown will not be a fatal flaw in the playoffs. 

 

 

[CSBill]

Thanks  @Bocephuz... your work confirms the eye test.

[NewEra]

I love these breakdowns and appreciate your work.  👍🏻 

 

as expected-  

Saffold was terrible-  

Brown may have the slowest feet in the history of RTs-  I watched a bunch of Brown this week too but didn’t focus on him every play.  I though he played better than I was expecting, but I suppose I missed a couple bad beats.  

 

what would be Browns biggest issue if moved inside to OG?  Would his height make it more difficult for 17 to see the field?     Too tall to leverage?  Maybe he can improve…..but it looks like his lack foot speed might be too much to overcome. 
 

 

[BearNorth]

The top rated tackles under the age of 25 are basically all first rounders, Darrisaw, Wirf, Sewell, and Andrew Thomas.

 

McBeane's last four drafts have been Oliver [DL], {Diggs}, Rousseau [Edge], Elam [CB].

 

Obviously they think they can manage without a top tackle to balance Dawkins.

 

They are paying Knox a lot of money to chip block on the right side.

[JohnBonhamRocks]

Saffold we knew in the off-season to be a poor pass blocker, but Brown having the highest RAS in the history of OTs and consistently being taken to school on speed rushes does not jive with logic. Must it be his back injury lingering? 

[Robert Paulson]

12 minutes ago, NewEra said:

I love these breakdowns and appreciate your work.  👍🏻 

 

as expected-  

Saffold was terrible-  

Brown may have the slowest feet in the history of RTs-  I watched a bunch of Brown this week too but didn’t focus on him every play.  I though he played better than I was expecting, but I suppose I missed a couple bad beats.  

 

what would be Browns biggest issue if moved inside to OG?  Would his height make it more difficult for 17 to see the field?     Too tall to leverage?  Maybe he can improve…..but it looks like his lack foot speed might be too much to overcome. 
 

 

do we think his foot speed is related to his back issues or is he just a big lumbering giant? I'm not sure and would like to see him next year in camp after a full offseason of rest.

 

that being said- our o line needs an infusion of more higher end talent than we currently have. we are 2-3 deep (Schnow, Morse, Rick Bates maybe) and need to be 7 deep on decent o line players- not asking for 7 all pros-I'd settle for non dumpster fire at the moment

3 minutes ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

Saffold we knew in the off-season to be a poor pass blocker, but Brown having the highest RAS in the history of OTs and consistently being taken to school on speed rushes does not jive with logic. Must it be his back injury lingering? 

just saw this after i posted- great minds

 

[finn]

9 minutes ago, BearNorth said:

They are paying Knox a lot of money to chip block on the right side.

Good point. Brown's incompetence is essentially costing us a tight end. It takes two players to do the job Brown should be doing alone. Could Quessenberry, Hart, or even Daryl Williams be worse? 

[Simon]

7 minutes ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

Brown having the highest RAS in the history of OTs and consistently being taken to school on speed rushes does not jive with logic.

 

My theory is that his feet are OK when he knows exactly where he's going next (i.e. controlled situations like combine testing, workouts, etc), but in live action where he has to be agile on the fly, his feet simply cannot keep up when he doesn't know where his next step needs to be.

[NewEra]

12 minutes ago, Robert Paulson said:

do we think his foot speed is related to his back issues or is he just a big lumbering giant? I'm not sure and would like to see him next year in camp after a full offseason of rest.

 

that being said- our o line needs an infusion of more higher end talent than we currently have. we are 2-3 deep (Schnow, Morse, Rick Bates maybe) and need to be 7 deep on decent o line players- not asking for 7 all pros-I'd settle for non dumpster fire at the moment

just saw this after i posted- great minds

 

I wish I knew.  Could be though.  He had a 9.99-10 RAS and test great in movement tests.  🤷🏻‍♂️ 

 

 

[BearNorth]

RAS is a great tool to measure physical attributes, but nowhere does it measure mental processing speed, the ability to analyze, then execute the required behavior. 

 

That's what makes the great tackles great.

 

Tackle Play may not always be indicative of how well a team is doing. 

 

There are five teams with bookend top 25 tackles: Eagles, Vikings, Lions, Falcons, and amazingly Texans - arguably the worst team in the league

 

Also noticed that former Bill Ty Nsekhe is starting for the Rams at LT.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by BearNorth

[Bocephuz]

13 hours ago, NewEra said:

I love these breakdowns and appreciate your work.  👍🏻 

 

as expected-  

Saffold was terrible-  

Brown may have the slowest feet in the history of RTs-  I watched a bunch of Brown this week too but didn’t focus on him every play.  I though he played better than I was expecting, but I suppose I missed a couple bad beats.  

 

what would be Browns biggest issue if moved inside to OG?  Would his height make it more difficult for 17 to see the field?     Too tall to leverage?  Maybe he can improve…..but it looks like his lack foot speed might be too much to overcome. 
 

 

Brown at guard may not be bad. He rarely gets beat with power. Kicking him into Guard would pretty much eliminate the speed rush weaknesses as an issue.

 

 Then again.. this regime tried to do the same thing with Cody Ford and we all know how that worked out. As Brown is a late round pick.. there’s really no compelling reason to go out of their way to “save” him IMO

13 hours ago, JohnBonhamRocks said:

Saffold we knew in the off-season to be a poor pass blocker, but Brown having the highest RAS in the history of OTs and consistently being taken to school on speed rushes does not jive with logic. Must it be his back injury lingering? 

It could be the back. He had moments of brilliance in his rookie season.. but hasn’t been same since injuries 

[Sierra Foothills]

I'm not surprised that Quessenberry played well at guard.

 

He's a mauler... one of the top run blockers in the league. He's a poor pass blocker.

 

I would have guessed that moving him to guard played to his strength and minimized his weakness.

 

Here's hoping Boettger and/or Quessenberry can be upgrades at left guard.

 

 

[Beck Water]

15 hours ago, NewEra said:

I love these breakdowns and appreciate your work.  👍🏻 

 

as expected-  

Saffold was terrible-  

Brown may have the slowest feet in the history of RTs-  I watched a bunch of Brown this week too but didn’t focus on him every play.  I though he played better than I was expecting, but I suppose I missed a couple bad beats.  

 

what would be Browns biggest issue if moved inside to OG?  Would his height make it more difficult for 17 to see the field?     Too tall to leverage?  Maybe he can improve…..but it looks like his lack foot speed might be too much to overcome.

 

I think it's too tall to leverage

 

14 hours ago, Simon said:

 

My theory is that his feet are OK when he knows exactly where he's going next (i.e. controlled situations like combine testing, workouts, etc), but in live action where he has to be agile on the fly, his feet simply cannot keep up when he doesn't know where his next step needs to be.

 

That sounds like it might be a thinking problem - where a guy is thinking about what he needs to do and that slows him physically

 

If that's the case, perhaps there is hope for him

Edited December 24, 2022 by Beck Water

[Punching Bag]

19 hours ago, BearNorth said:

Also noticed that former Bill Ty Nsekhe is starting for the Rams at LT.

 

I liked Ty when he was with Bills but he seemed to have lack of competent coaching throughout this career spending time in NFL, CFL and various minor leagues. 

He has only played 100 games starting only 22 including a stint good enough for WTF to get him tagged.

He was over paid for Bills starting only one game after signing for two years.

Bills had been able to pluck from Colts PS when we had OL injuries.

 

[Billsfan1972]

Great review.  Do you have one for the NE game?  I got eviscerated for saying they looked bad and the drops that game and for starting a thread.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Billsfan1972

[Beast]

Roger Saffold has been a disappointment.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I think the Brown criticism is warranted but in this last game he was quite a bit better than he had been. I also found 4 negative plays but he also had some really good 1:1 blocks where they left him on an island. 

Thought it was one of his better games. He doesn't need to be elite just serviceable for another year so they can focus on LG, future C, and WR early in the draft.

29 minutes ago, Beast said:

Roger Saffold has been a disappointment.

He was playing ok until these last two games when he has been really bad. 

Hopefully he turns it around.