Difference in O-Line Year over Year

[Rich Stadium Original]

If memory serves, the Bills offensive line gelled at the end of last season and into the playoffs.  Josh Allen seemingly scored on every drive as the Bills seemingly never punted. He would sit in a mostly clean pocket and pick defenses to pieces. Run blocking was the issue.

In the offseason we picked up what we thought was an upgrade at guard, making a good pass blocking line even better, and hopefully inproving the run game.

Also added was the experienced line coach who would improve that run blocking.

Fast forward to right now, and I think you could argue that yes, its a better run blocking unit...but what has happened to the pass protection?

Granted Miami blitzed on like 52% of dropbacks, but your QB was hurried on multiple occasions (sacked 7 times)  even when there was no blitz.  Allen is getting hit A LOT and I'm sure in some cases he is bailing out of a collapsing pocket sooner than he needs to..regardless, it is affecting success.

Can you imagine this O-Line against the 49ers front four? Even without a blitz?

This mostly intact-serious injury free line needs to get its act together quickly, or this will be a very short playoff run.

[H2o]

This OL is who we thought it was. The run blocking is better this year, but the pass blocking is still suspect on occasion. Saffold and Brown seem to struggle the most. It needs to be the focus of our off-season. That said, we can still beat any team we come up against. It's all scheme and execution. Take the quick hitters, run the ball with consistency to open up the play-action passing game, and put Josh in position to be successful. 

[Franco_92]

16 minutes ago, Rich Stadium Original said:

If memory serves, the Bills offensive line gelled at the end of last season and into the playoffs.  Josh Allen seemingly scored on every drive as the Bills seemingly never punted. He would sit in a mostly clean pocket and pick defenses to pieces. Run blocking was the issue.

In the offseason we picked up what we thought was an upgrade at guard, making a good pass blocking line even better, and hopefully inproving the run game.

Also added was the experienced line coach who would improve that run blocking.

Fast forward to right now, and I think you could argue that yes, its a better run blocking unit...but what has happened to the pass protection?

Granted Miami blitzed on like 52% of dropbacks, but your QB was hurried on multiple occasions (sacked 7 times)  even when there was no blitz.  Allen is getting hit A LOT and I'm sure in some cases he is bailing out of a collapsing pocket sooner than he needs to..regardless, it is affecting success.

Can you imagine this O-Line against the 49ers front four? Even without a blitz?

This mostly intact-serious injury free line needs to get its act together quickly, or this will be a very short playoff run.

I generally thought the OL played well considering the amount of 0 and 1 Miami was playing

 

And think that like last year, they got better in December/January

Saffold is a problem though, and Brown is only sliiiiiightly improved from last year

[Max Fischer]

Miami's D-Line is very good, Josh often held the ball a beat too long and the play calling was erratic.  However, the lack of consistency along the offensive line is puzzling.  I didn't expect the healthy line to be world beaters, but they seem to miss assignments and the pass protection got beaten on a regular basis. 

 

Having said that, the run game has been at least average to good, the Bengals, while very good, aren't nearly as deep on the DLine, Dorsey can call a much better game and we know the line has the ability to raise its level of play. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

Imo Daboll’s strength is o line and he helped that unit be as good as they were. 

[BillsShredder83]

Drafting a kilker RT wpukd be fun. Having Brown in the Doyle role takes him from liability to a luxury

[BillsPride12]

Is it just me or did our Offensive Line(primarily speaking from a Pass Protection perspective) look at it's best in 2020?  

[Success]

I hope they continue to make investments in the line. It's such an important aspect of a franchise QB's longevity.  I always thought the Pats did a great job w/ that - they'd put more into the line than in skill players.

 

Yesterday was rough, but as others have pointed out, there are some reasons for that which go beyond the line.  Still, we're likely going to face another tough pass rush or 2 if we want to win the whole thing.  

[NewEra]

They are who we thought they were.  Dawkins and Morse- good

Bates- jag

Brown and Saffold- poor in pass protection- decent run blockers. 
 

Hopefully Morse returns and we can replace Saffold with a stud guard in rd 2-3. Considering our cap sitch, I don’t expect much in FA other than vets willing to take a pay cut.  Drafting an OT high is possible. 

6 minutes ago, BillsPride12 said:

Is it just me or did our Offensive Line(primarily speaking from a Pass Protection perspective) look at it's best in 2020?  

They did, until the AFCCG where they got destroyed 

[Ramza86]

#15 from the Fins literally beat the RT on every single play. 

 

Wtf was that man? Seriously...get some talent.

[BuffalOhio]

For '23, as it currently stands, the Bills are $6.4M OVER the salary cap.  https://www.spotrac.com/redirect/team/62/cap/

 

There are a few important players on the list of UFAs, and those will be very difficult decisions:  https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/contracts/sort-value/buffalo-bills/free-agent-2023/limit-100/

 

While I'm thrilled that Josh is our QB and we have him long-term, his contract is going to seriously hamper our roster building over the next several years.  The same goes for every team with a high-dollar QB. 

 

Upgrading the O-Line through FA will be impossible.  They must draft properly.

 

Go Bills!

[Process]

I remember them being much better at the end of last season. But Miami is also the best d line we will face until the Superbowl. Hopefully we get a better performance vs Cinci and KC.

[Commish]

47.8% pressure rate on Allen yesterday:

 

https://twitter.com/NextGenStats/status/1615001505198911489?cxt=HHwWgsDR0f7T0eksAAAA 

[Sierra Foothills]

4 minutes ago, Process said:

I remember them being much better at the end of last season. But Miami is also the best d line we will face until the Superbowl. Hopefully we get a better performance vs Cinci and KC.

 

I was surprised to find out that Miami only had 40 sacks this year. They have a lot of talent on that D-line. I wonder if their sack total accelerated towards the end of the season?

 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

The last three games of last season plus two playoff games, Allen was 113 out of 180 for 1310 yards 62.7% completion, 14 TD, 3 Int and all three were in week 15, last 4 games zero Ints. They also ran the ball much better in that same timeframe.  That point in time corresponded with when they moved Bates to starting lineup.

 

On the other hand, we couldn't sack the QB and were very weak against the run last season.

 

Move to the off season with limited resources $$ wise, they put most of the money on the defensive side, brought back 4 of the 5 lineman and signed Stafford in place of Williams which in hindsight may be a small drop off.  I can recall pre-season the announcers commenting how the Bills backups are better than some teams starting 5. (probably true based on experience only) So all in all didn't seem like a bad place to be st the time.

 

What else has changed since, new line coach which was supposedly a step up.  But new blocking styles mean learning curve, could also be some of the Bills starters aren't as good in this scheme?  Add to that Brown missed all actual on field work all off-season, plus training camp and pre-season.  For a guy like seasoned vet may not be that big a deal.  But for a 2nd year player now in a new scheme, that likely set him back some too.

 

Think we'll see the Bills draft an interior lineman high, I'd prefer WR 1st round OL 2nd round and also sign a good vet.  If Morse were to retire then need another starter.  But to many people's dismay IMO Dawkins, Bates, Morse, and Brown will be next years starters barring injury or some surprise move.  I'd also draft another OL maybe around rd 4.  They also have Doyle coming back.

 

I've seen crazy [posts here draft all lineman.  If you want a better stronger team in 2023, you don't want all rookie backups so that really makes no sense. I always like to say, whomever you draft, you need to have a landing spot on the roster for them, else it's a wasted pick if you turn around and cut them.  Maybe 6th and 7th rounders can take a chance on sneaking to the PS, but not anyone higher.

 

[BillMafia716ix]

We probably won’t do it..but I think Dion Dawkins would be better at RT. Then we draft a stud to play the left side. Spencer Brown was good the first half of his rookie year and has been suspect ever since…

[Buffalo_Stampede]

They’ve been playing much better but they had a rough game Sunday.

 

 

[Rubes]

Seems like our guards are very susceptible to stunts, and our RT is repeatedly susceptible to outside rushes. Those seem like things that could be corrected, but aren't, for whatever reason.

 

[Teddy KGB]

Looked like same old soft OL 

[LABILLBACKER]

2 hours ago, H2o said:

This OL is who we thought it was. The run blocking is better this year, but the pass blocking is still suspect on occasion. Saffold and Brown seem to struggle the most. It needs to be the focus of our off-season. That said, we can still beat any team we come up against. It's all scheme and execution. Take the quick hitters, run the ball with consistency to open up the play-action passing game, and put Josh in position to be successful. 

We have the 27th ranked overall OL this season. Our OL has been neglected for years. Guys like Saffold, Brown and Quessenberry need immediate upgrading. Josh's pocket is still collapsing way too quickly. Can one April we just ease up on defense and go heavy OL/ WR2.

[DocLawless]

Beane has failed miserably with his patchwork o-line year after year. Which is incredibly stupid considering most gm’s would want to put more resources into protecting their most prized and expensive investment. Every year I get more and more underwhelmed by the job Brandon Beane has done so far, minus the Josh Allen selection 

[SoCal Deek]

Speaking of Offensive Line, is that "our" Feliciano playing starting Center for the NY Football Giants? 

[Eastport bills]

3 hours ago, Rich Stadium Original said:

If memory serves, the Bills offensive line gelled at the end of last season and into the playoffs.  Josh Allen seemingly scored on every drive as the Bills seemingly never punted. He would sit in a mostly clean pocket and pick defenses to pieces. Run blocking was the issue.

In the offseason we picked up what we thought was an upgrade at guard, making a good pass blocking line even better, and hopefully inproving the run game.

Also added was the experienced line coach who would improve that run blocking.

Fast forward to right now, and I think you could argue that yes, its a better run blocking unit...but what has happened to the pass protection?

Granted Miami blitzed on like 52% of dropbacks, but your QB was hurried on multiple occasions (sacked 7 times)  even when there was no blitz.  Allen is getting hit A LOT and I'm sure in some cases he is bailing out of a collapsing pocket sooner than he needs to..regardless, it is affecting success.

Can you imagine this O-Line against the 49ers front four? Even without a blitz?

This mostly intact-serious injury free line needs to get its act together quickly, or this will be a very short playoff run.

I guess scoring 34 and throwing for 350 is struggling. I think every team in the playoffs would sign for that. We had 2 unlucky giveaways and now after 8 straight wins, the Dolphins rushing 5,6 and 7 guys put pressure on Josh and our O-line stinks. Half those sacks were Josh tucking it and getting tackled behind the line. Bottom line, when he got flushed he found open receivers for big chunk plays. Ask yourself if Josh didn’t throw the 2picks(both could have easily been avoided by receivers making plays on the ball) what would the final score be? It can always be better, but this team finds away.

[Maine-iac]

Miami was in blitz zero over half the game.  Most plays were one on one blocking and hoping the extra guy got picked up so there wasn't time to throw deep on every play.  Yet play after play we tried to throw deep on every play.  In many instances we are trying to score 100 points and pushing for incredible plays instead of taking what's easy and winning without the style points.  Many of the plays are there if everything goes perfect but when they don't we let teams stick around or even take leads in games they have no real business leading.  I don't blame our OL for the sacks.  We had easy solutions in most cases.  Quick throws or run the football (we were up 17 points).  As an offense we want to score on every play and it's beautiful sometimes .............. and other times it isn't.

[klos63]

We have a new OC and new OL coach. Not sure that they are on the same page and not sure these are the players that Kromer wants.

 

Kromer used a lot of 2 TE sets in LA, we are doing that a bit more now, but it's not a feature. Deep passes also put pressure on the OL, not sure Dorsey is doing the line any favors with his play calling.

[BillsVet]

 

11 minutes ago, klos63 said:

We have a new OC and new OL coach. Not sure that they are on the same page and not sure these are the players that Kromer wants.

 

Kromer used a lot of 2 TE sets in LA, we are doing that a bit more now, but it's not a feature. Deep passes also put pressure on the OL, not sure Dorsey is doing the line any favors with his play calling.

 

This isn't a one game issue...they've had issues pass blocking particularly in the back half of the season.  It's interesting to me that Miami's plan was to put pressure because it indicates they saw a weakness there.  And of course...because the pass blocking was mediocre to bad, but made to look better because Josh is mobile and has a good sense of the rush.

 

Something is amiss between the people who run personnel and the people who coordinate the offense.  That's not good and it'd be best for this franchise that it get aligned this off-season.  

 

 

[Chaos]

The online was not awful yesterday. The OLine was part of unit that scored 34 points, and would have had more without some drops.  However the oline has been awful most of the season, definitely a bottom tier unit statistically.  

 

The coaching/management assumption seems to be that Josh can take care of himself. 

[GunnerBill]

5 minutes ago, Chaos said:

The online was not awful yesterday. The OLine was part of unit that scored 34 points, and would have had more without some drops.  However the oline has been awful most of the season, definitely a bottom tier unit statistically.  

 

The coaching/management assumption seems to be that Josh can take care of himself. 

 

Yep. I'd say bottom 3rd of the league... agree it wasn't really an OL issue yesterday, it was the blitzers and the Bills unable to adjust to it. But it should still be priority 1A for me in the offseason. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

Miamis got a tough front 7 and they were blitzing often…our oline is going to look a lot better against cincy.  Granted cincy will actually do things on offense haha it will be a completely different game no matter who wins 

6 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yep. I'd say bottom 3rd of the league... agree it wasn't really an OL issue yesterday, it was the blitzers and the Bills unable to adjust to it. But it should still be priority 1A for me in the offseason. 

I think the deep goes were the adjustment…we just didn’t hit enough of them..  they were giving us free tds frequently playing cover 1 press most of the day. Of course in previous games we have gone deep too often though so I could see people being frustrated at this one 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Generic_Bills_Fan

[Chaos]

10 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Yep. I'd say bottom 3rd of the league... agree it wasn't really an OL issue yesterday, it was the blitzers and the Bills unable to adjust to it. But it should still be priority 1A for me in the offseason. 

Compared to baseball or basketball, it is much tougher for me to separate responsibilities in a football game.  I think one reason the oline "regressed" this year, is that the Bills play calling seems very predictable.  I think it is much harder to perform as a online, if the defense knows the play call.  But the predictiability issue is just my perception, not something I know how to quantify. 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Chaos

[GunnerBill]

25 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Compared to baseball or basketball, it is much tougher for me to separate responsibilities in a football game.  I think one reason the oline "regressed" this year, is that the Bills play calling seems very predictable.  I think it is much harder to perform as a online, if the defense knows the play call.  But the predictiability issue is just my perception, not something I know how to quantify. 

 

I think they have been somewhat more predictable. They have had less of the whacky that Daboll used to call but while not all of those trick plays worked (a fair few did as it happens) they just put extra wrinkles on tape for teams to prepare for. Daboll was also a master at showing you something early out of a formation and coming back to that same formation, same motion, same look later and giving you something totally different. He does that so well. Dorsey's O has been a bit more consistent but a bit more predictable as a result. 

 

The oline has been a problem for 2 years though. It hurt us last year as well as this.

[GunnerBill]

35 minutes ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

 

I think the deep goes were the adjustment…we just didn’t hit enough of them..  they were giving us free tds frequently playing cover 1 press most of the day. Of course in previous games we have gone deep too often though so I could see people being frustrated at this one 

 

If they were the entire adjustment then I expect a bit better in terms of planning. Miami always runs lots of blitz packages against us (except for maybe that first meeting this year) they have beem running cover 0 and all out man vs Josh since he came into the league pretty much. It isn't like this Miami plan should have come as a shock. The Bills have killed it previously with intermediate crossers and the little tunnel screen type plays that they ran one of to Beas for a big gain. They have gone deep in those games too they just haven't been the entire plan which they felt like yesterday. 

 

I get it though, receivers dropped balls again and if they make those catches maybe the bombs away approach puts even more points up. It isn't me arguing it was terrible just that it was very one dimensional. And against a better coached heavy blitz team - Spags is the red flashing light in my head - we will have to have more tools in our tool kit than what Rex's dad once called the "chuck and duck" that we saw at times yesterday.

[GunnerBill]

7 hours ago, BillsPride12 said:

Is it just me or did our Offensive Line(primarily speaking from a Pass Protection perspective) look at it's best in 2020?  

 

Yep. It did. With no fans in the stands and the NFL noticeably calling fewer holds (check the numbers that year is a complete oulier on offensive holding calls). 

 

I remember that year the one team that caused us fits twice was the Chiefs. Jones wrecked the game in the AFCCG and they pressured Josh a lot in the game in Buffalo. But generally Josh was kept clean that year compared to the mess infront of him since.

[Sharky7337]

9 hours ago, arcane said:

I generally thought the OL played well considering the amount of 0 and 1 Miami was playing

 

And think that like last year, they got better in December/January

Saffold is a problem though, and Brown is only sliiiiiightly improved from last year

7 sacks allowed is good? Can I play on your team? Lol

[Franco_92]

14 minutes ago, Sharky7337 said:

7 sacks allowed is good? Can I play on your team? Lol

at least 3 of those sacks was Allen deciding to step between his linemen to try and scramble, being baited by dolphins defenders, who then closed the gap. 

And if you actually read my post, it'll help you remember that the other ones are because of the dolphins rushing 5, 6, 7, and 8 players all game long. The strip sack was a DB or LB coming in off the edge, where no protection was available. 

But yeah, "muh seven sacks" 

[Thurman#1]

9 hours ago, BillsShredder83 said:

Drafting a kilker RT wpukd be fun. Having Brown in the Doyle role takes him from liability to a luxury

 

 

IMO there's a good chance that Brown's injury (ankle, I seem to remember?) is still holding him back. We'll see next year, but that seems likely. But there's not much excuse for Saffold. He just seems to have lost a half a step in pass pro.

[Thurman#1]

7 hours ago, LABILLBACKER said:

We have the 27th ranked overall OL this season. Our OL has been neglected for years. Guys like Saffold, Brown and Quessenberry need immediate upgrading. Josh's pocket is still collapsing way too quickly. Can one April we just ease up on defense and go heavy OL/ WR2.

 

 

OL rankings are extremely subjective. Where are you getting this 27th number?

 

[Florida Bills Fanatic]

At times the pass blocking has been suspect.  Left guard has been the worst.  JA likes to hold the ball and puts the o-line in the position of needing to sustain blocks.  Sometimes when they look bad, it isn't on them.  I have also been critical of the pass protection work by the running backs.  I expect Beane to draft at least one interior o-linemen this year (hopefully before day 3).

[Sharky7337]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

at least 3 of those sacks was Allen deciding to step between his linemen to try and scramble, being baited by dolphins defenders, who then closed the gap. 

And if you actually read my post, it'll help you remember that the other ones are because of the dolphins rushing 5, 6, 7, and 8 players all game long. The strip sack was a DB or LB coming in off the edge, where no protection was available. 

But yeah, "muh seven sacks" 

 

You can argue against facts all you want, but you cannot change them.

[klos63]

4 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

Remember when people suggested the line and WRs were a problem before the season started and were mocked??

Nope