Why is everyone focused on the Offense here?

[cgg716]

6 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

We did draft two offensive players with our first two picks.  Also signed another FA guard who is playing well.  We did a good job with our offensive upgrades.  

Something is broken though.

This year they did at least begin to try. Coach is still hampering it though 

[LeGOATski]

I love how a Pats fan is here making more threads the week after, coincidentally, the Bills lost to the Pats...

 

And he clearly doesn't know the team this board is here to discuss.

 

Woof.

[PatsFanNH]

8 minutes ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

Seen many posts stating injuries are no excuse, all teams have them and that is true.  But how many have probably their best 4 defensive players all out 3 of them long term.  There's an article came out today in the BN stating Bills lead the league in percent of salary cap on IR.

 

Up till now all their players on offense have remained the same so the defense does have an excuse more and they looked real strong prior to the injuries. 

 

There was chart showing how the Bills offense is still coming up with big plays, 14 of them in Sundays game, but only 3 were before halftime.

They lead the league on salary cap IR? Maybe but I’ll just take my Pats D missing Judon, Gonzalez, Jonathan Jones, Uche, and Marcus Jones. All starters on D our top 2 corners, and our top 2 Pass rushers and our Swiss Army knife in Marcus Jones who probably takes that 1 long punt return (that ended in a FG) to the house. 
 

Pats D still been playing well (Minus Dallas and Saints game) and if they had a competent O the Team probably be 4-3 or more likely 5-2 even with those injuries. Right now your O is the 3rd highest scoring O in the NFL.  Behind only Miami and the 49ers.. but yet they are to blame for the losses. Lol 

1 minute ago, LeGOATski said:

I love how a Pats fan is here making more threads the week after, coincidentally, the Bills lost to the Pats...

 

And he clearly doesn't know the team this board is here to discuss.

 

Woof.

Umm I have only made 2 threads this week. The other saying the bills be fine.. which they will be if your Coach can stop the bleeding on D.  Your Bills won’t beat anyone if the D keeps giving up 29 plus points a game to bad Os . You only have a few more left before the good Os arrive on your schedule. 

[LeGOATski]

 

I hope they discussed what they wanted out of the offense in the players-only meeting: what kinds of plays they think they're best at, what they want their identity to be, what changes they want made, etc.

 

After discussing that, the offensive leaders can have a productive discussion with Dorsey rather than having random players complain to Dorsey at random times.

 

Same goes for the defense, but I have the feeling that they're more content with what they're doing and just trying to compensate for the injuries as best they can

[PatsFanNH]

Just now, LeGOATski said:

 

I hope they discussed what they wanted out of the offense in the players-only meeting: what kinds of plays they think they're best at, what they want their identity to be, what changes they want made, etc.

 

After discussing that, the offensive leaders can have a productive discussion with Dorsey rather than having random players complain to Dorsey at random times.

 

Same goes for the defense, but I have the feeling that they're more content with what they're doing and just trying to compensate for the injuries as best they can

I still say if the Bills D is that hampered by 3 players being out they need to adapt to a bend but don’t break type Defense. Make the teams take long drives to beat you and guard against the big plays.. most teams will shoot themselves in the foot. 

[LeGOATski]

@PatsFanNH don't bother trying to reply to me, I've had you on my ignore list for over a year

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

The Bills offense scored 3.125 points per possession (I'm not counting the end of either half as a possession). 

 

If my math is correct that's the 4th best offensive performance of the week trailing behind BAL, PHI, and NE. 

 

Our defense easily had the 2nd worst performance of the week (at least we were better than DET). 

 

So why are people blaming the offense?

 

1) The QB (and therefore offense) always gets too much credit and blame for wins/losses

 

2) Our offense has been sputtering in the last 3 games relative to putting up a perfect game vs Dolphins in week4

 

3) Injuries on DEF changed our expectations and we now think that as long as we're not allowing a TD every single drive the DEF is doing their job

 

4) Our DEF minded head coach places the blame on the offense

 

 

 

[Rew]

2 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

We went from not punting to probably punting more than anyone in the league in the last few weeks.  We can't even cross midfield on any sort of regular basis.

 

As an interesting point of context, the Bills are in the top 10 in the league for fewest punts attempted over the last 3 weeks. 

 

Source:  https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/punt-attempts-per-game

 

Turning they are "not playing as well as they were before" into "worst in the league" is absurdly over dramatic.

[nedboy7]

41 minutes ago, PatsFanNH said:

Omg! It’s 3 people down.. The Pats O line has been a MASH unit all year.  Brown, Onwenu, and Strange were back but no where near a 100%. Heck Brown got reinjured during the game but came back in for the final drive.  But your D missing 1 lineman and that’s why the Pass rush just vanished..  BUT it’s ok to expect your O to score a TD on practically every drive they got in the first half.  That’s just not sound logic. 

 

Milano, Tre, Dequan, Oliver, Phillips, Von.  Why am I arguing with a Pats fan?  My point is if the O had scored the D would not have been in that situation.  Clearly not getting thru. 

33 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

@PatsFanNH don't bother trying to reply to me, I've had you on my ignore list for over a year

 

His team isn't worth having a discussion over so he is here with his deep football intellect. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

49 minutes ago, PatsFanNH said:

They lead the league on salary cap IR? Maybe but I’ll just take my Pats D missing Judon, Gonzalez, Jonathan Jones, Uche, and Marcus Jones. All starters on D our top 2 corners, and our top 2 Pass rushers and our Swiss Army knife in Marcus Jones who probably takes that 1 long punt return (that ended in a FG) to the house. 
 

Pats D still been playing well (Minus Dallas and Saints game) and if they had a competent O the Team probably be 4-3 or more likely 5-2 even with those injuries. Right now your O is the 3rd highest scoring O in the NFL.  Behind only Miami and the 49ers.. but yet they are to blame for the losses. Lol 

 

 

How do those numbers look like over the past 3 games? I highly doubt they are #3 then.  10 points total scored before halftime in 3 games.  The offense went from average 35 points per game in the first four games to 20 in the past three and averaging 3 points a game up to halftime.  So yes I do blame the offense more than the defense.

 

Regardless this thread was about the Bills offense and defense, has nothing to do with NE and how good, bad, or ugly they are playing and what injuries they have.

[CincyBillsFan]

Just a reality check on whether or not Allen is playing poorly this season:

 

Allen's rank among QB Starters:

 

Yards passing = #6

 

Passing TD's = tied with Mahomes & Tua for #2

 

Total TD's = #1

 

Regular QB Rating = #6

 

QBR = #3

[Don Otreply]

Because if we scored a TD and a field goal in the first half we would have won the game…, just a WAG…, 

[UKBillFan]

28 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

Because if we scored a TD and a field goal in the first half we would have won the game…, just a WAG…, 

 

If the defense had turned up in the final drive we would have won the game. Just like 13 seconds.

[Big Turk]

 

[Royale with Cheese]

58 minutes ago, Rew said:

 

As an interesting point of context, the Bills are in the top 10 in the league for fewest punts attempted over the last 3 weeks. 

 

Source:  https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/punt-attempts-per-game

 

Turning they are "not playing as well as they were before" into "worst in the league" is absurdly over dramatic.

.

Yes it was but it's not absurd based on how our offense has been playing.  19 ppg in the last 3 is unacceptable when two of those teams were 1 win teams who had several injuries as well.  

 

Our previous 3 before that, we averaged 41 points a game.  I know that's not sustainable but a 22 point drop is pretty dramatic.  

Honestly, who cares if I was wrong with punt attempts?

2 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

 

Our offense has definitely looked the 2nd best in the league in weeks 5-7.  

[UKBillFan]

6 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

 

Yeah but... injuries.

 

Anyone would think the Bills had grabbed a load of HC defensive players and put them out there. That's not to absolve the offense, they have been poor for too long for first halves of games and that's on coaching and players. But the defense should be more effective than it has been, even with the players lost.

 

ETA - Obviously I mean against the Pats.

Edited October 24, 2023 by UKBillFan

[Big Turk]

2 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

.

Yes it was but it's not absurd based on how our offense has been playing.  19 ppg in the last 3 is unacceptable when two of those teams were 1 win teams who had several injuries as well.  

 

Our previous 3 before that, we averaged 41 points a game.  I know that's not sustainable but a 22 point drop is pretty dramatic.  

Honestly, who cares if I was wrong with punt attempts?

 

Our offense has definitely looked the 2nd best in the league in weeks 5-7.  

 

2nd half it actually looked pretty great...lack of possessions is where people got fooled.

[Royale with Cheese]

1 minute ago, Big Turk said:

 

2nd half it actually looked pretty great...lack of possessions is where people got fooled.

 

I think people get fooled is it's a 4 quarter game.

[Big Turk]

4 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

I think people get fooled is it's a 4 quarter game.

 

100% agree, but for people saying the offense has sucked, it's not exactly true.  You can only score points when you have the ball and when the offense is on fire in the 2nd half and you only have 3 or 4 possessions cause the D isn't stopping anyone, that doesn't help.  O is not helping D in the 1st half, D is not helping O in the second.

[Don Otreply]

22 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

 

If the defense had turned up in the final drive we would have won the game. Just like 13 seconds.

It is both, but primarily our offense is sputtering, jmo

[Rubes]

1 hour ago, PatsFanNH said:

I still say if the Bills D is that hampered by 3 players being out they need to adapt to a bend but don’t break type Defense. Make the teams take long drives to beat you and guard against the big plays.. most teams will shoot themselves in the foot. 

 

4 players, actually, when you consider both starting DTs in addition to Milano and White. That's 4 high quality starters missing.

 

[UKBillFan]

4 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

It is both, but primarily our offense is sputtering, jmo

 

Don't disagree, but 25 points should still be enough against the Pats, no matter how they come.

[Fan in Chicago]

2 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

 

I hope they discussed what they wanted out of the offense in the players-only meeting: what kinds of plays they think they're best at, what they want their identity to be, what changes they want made, etc.

 

After discussing that, the offensive leaders can have a productive discussion with Dorsey rather than having random players complain to Dorsey at random times.

 

That conversation should have happened after the Giants game. If it did and the Pats** game was the result, then it was fairly useless. 

[Maine-iac]

Remember last year vs the Bengals when we had injuries and couldn't stop the run to start the game and then made adjustments and couldn't stop the pass the rest of the game ........... that's us with back up DT's.  We have to scheme to stop the run and not the pass and all of a sudden guys are getting open and B list QB's are having good games.  We were doing fine against Tua now we are almost losing to Tyrod and Mac Jones is balling out.

[Fan in Chicago]

1 hour ago, nedboy7 said:

 

 

His team isn't worth having a discussion over so he is here with his deep football intellect. 

He is by and large objective and respectful. What do you have against him other than him being a Pats** fan?

3 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

You're not a real TBD poster until you have at least a few warning points on your profile anyways.

Dammit

[nedboy7]

1 minute ago, Fan in Chicago said:

He is by and large objective and respectful. What do you have against him other than him being a Pats** fan?

 

Isn't that enough?  I kid.  He is a good poster. 

But starting a thread about how the D is the problem on another team's site is suspect.  He can change his name to former Pats Fan. 

[Fan in Chicago]

2 hours ago, Rubes said:

 

 

It's still a huge problem when you let Mac Jones score the winning TD at the end of the game and can't protect the lead, but the reality is, as others have pointed out: this should never have come down to the final drive. The offense, at basically full strength, crapped the bed most of the game against a defense that was missing their own multiple key starters. It shouldn't have been close. The offense deserves far more criticism for that than the defense.

 

I disagree about O deserving far more criticism. Obviously they have underperformed in the Giants and Pats** games, but they came back with a strong second half this past Sunday. They left with the lead against one of the presumed worst offenses in the league and messed that up, similar to 13 seconds. After having poured lot of resources on the D, here we are again with shallow depth. Close games happen in the NFL, to the best teams. Yes, O needs to be bolstered but the D should be able to hold up its end of the bargain

[PatsFanNH]

24 minutes ago, nedboy7 said:

 

Isn't that enough?  I kid.  He is a good poster. 

But starting a thread about how the D is the problem on another team's site is suspect.  He can change his name to former Pats Fan. 

It was meant to be more of a .. You had the lead with less than 2 minutes left and you’re blaming your O???  All I see here are people blaming Allen and the offense but no one saying “ We need the D to pick it up”. Your O did their Job got the lead with less than 2 minutes left your D did not. 

[Goin Breakdown]

I get the worry about the offense. They look bad at the most untimely moments, but are we saying the same things if they only score around 25 pts if they get a TD each quarter and a FG the last?  What this shows is that they CAN score. They can figure it out (I hope). WGR was talking about this same thing yesterday. Defense is going to be the issue. Lack of defense is going to force the offense to alway have to play at its highest level and that may prove to be a mental hurdle. 

[Aimee75]

4 hours ago, PatsFanNH said:

Giving up 29 points to the worst O in the NFL isn’t hanging in it’s letting go and being splattered against the wall.

 

I mean even on the last drive they gave up a HUGE play to start the drive off. All they needed to do was make Jones drive down the field and make him either make a mistake or at worse settle for a FG.  Instead Stevenson rumbles for 30 yards? (Almost getting the Pats into FG range) They had a hard time staying in receivers who couldn’t get separation all year.. imagine what will happen with Evans on Thursday, or Higgins and Chase when you have the Bengals.  You had no real pass rush. I think the Bills even tried blitzing and still failed to get home.

 

Point is the Bills O could score 35 moving forward and the D as it is playing now will give up 40. 

It's going to be ugly. Even when our D was "healthy" we could not stop them. I am sure Mixon will run all over us again as well. I might need to drink heavily before that game.

[Don Otreply]

43 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

 

Don't disagree, but 25 points should still be enough against the Pats, no matter how they come.

Like I said it’s both, our D is again hit by injury to key players, so there is that, on the offense there are no injuries to key players, it is a combination of failures, mostly personnel usage, play design and execution, this, like it or not falls on Dorsey’s lap, as the D’s issues fall on McDermott, as does the whole of the teams current malaise. 

[Aimee75]

1 hour ago, CincyBillsFan said:

Just a reality check on whether or not Allen is playing poorly this season:

 

Allen's rank among QB Starters:

 

Yards passing = #6

 

Passing TD's = tied with Mahomes & Tua for #2

 

Total TD's = #1

 

Regular QB Rating = #6

 

QBR = #3

The scrub! Lets trade him to Chicago as some have suggested 👍

[LeGOATski]

4 hours ago, Fan in Chicago said:

That conversation should have happened after the Giants game. If it did and the Pats** game was the result, then it was fairly useless. 

Hell, it should've happened after last year... They're not in synch at all, but something's gotta give

[Since1981]

9 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

9 hours ago, PatsFanNH said:

I get that! But expecting an offense, even a great offense, to score 30 points to win a game is asking a lot of them. 
 

 

Where did anyone say that?

 

What I AM expecting is 10-14 points in the 1st half, which makes it a completely different game.

AGREE!

 

Grand total 17 pts in combined Q1/Q2/Q3 in 9 quarters (NE, NY, Jags). 
 

Put another way, 3 games Bills:

1H = 10 pts

2H = 49 pts

5 pts in any of 1Q/2Q/3Q wins each game

 

D is not the problem. 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Since1981

[Paup 1995MVP]

8 hours ago, SCBills said:

The Offense has been a disaster for 4 out of 7 games.   

 

It took them an entire half to wake up against a defense missing their top pass rushers, which is devoid of talent to begin with,

 

The Defense still has:

 

Greg Rousseau

Ed Oliver

Leonard Floyd

AJ Epenesa

Taron Johnson

Terrell Bernard

Micah Hyde

Jordan Poyer

Von Miller (we hope, at some point)

 

They desperately need something to click or be added to the IDL... but there is enough talent for McDermott to keep this group middle of the pack.

 

We likely don't make the playoffs, let alone make a run to the Super Bowl, with our Offense doing what they've done through 7 games. 

 

....and maybe we have in-house fixes, but when teams are taking away deep shots and that's literally all our "WR2" is good for in the passing game.... we have a major personnel problem. 

You are the man SCBills.  Your posts are always reasonable and make sense.  I agree exactly about the offense.  Davis and certainly Knox are not explosive players.  Get Shakir Kincaid Harty and Sherfield involved.  All 4 can run.  Its criminal the way this offense is set up.  Get Cook out in open space as well.  And speed up the tempo.  We plod to the line of scrimmage, and can barely get plays off in 40 seconds.  Get Josh running more.  When our offense is humming, we can be unstoppable.  But playing at such a slow pace puts no stress on the defense.  

 

Good defense is great.  But this is an offensive age.  The Vikings won last night because they attacked the 49er defense.  Kirk Cousins wasn't dinking and dunking.  He was throwing darts 15-20 yards down the field where his WR's could run after the catch.  And make Kincaid a big part of the game plan.  Just like Hockenson was for the Vikings.  Other then Diggs he is our best receiver on the team.  

 

We need to blow the doors off of Tampa.  And then go into Cinci with an aggressive offensive game plan.  We play small ball they will bury us like they did last year.  And we will be looked at as pretenders. 

 

In general this coaching staff has been the teams biggest weakness over the past several years.  They have come up small for the most part.  They can change that perception over the next 10 games.  Or be done with.    

[Beck Water]

9 hours ago, PatsFanNH said:

I am really confused by this. The Offense did start off slow but:

 

1. scored 25 points against a team that was 0-24 when a team gets 24 or more points.

 

2. Got a 3 point lead with I believe 1:54 left in the game.  All the bills D had to do was stop the worst scoring O in the NFL from getting  a TD in order to not lose the game. 
 

3. Yes the Bills D has a lot of injuries on it, but hello! The Patriots have the worst O and they gave up 29 points to them, more than doubling their normal output.

 

4. The Bills D per numerous sources only got 22% pressure on Jones who up until Sunday was the most pressured QB in the NFL.

 

My point? The Bills D would worry more a heck of a lot more than the Bills O because if they gave up 29 to the worst O what will they give up to teams like Dallas,KC, and Philly?

 

Your O be fine, even sleep walking through a half they still managed 25 points. 

 

Good questions

1) We expect more from the offense, because Allen, Diggs, Cook, Kincaid etc.  It seemed Beane had finally addressed the iOL in the draft and FA.  So it's very concerning that they should be totally impotent for the first half of 3 successive games

2) the defense came into the year with questionmarks for most of us, between starting an inexperienced MLB, aging secondary, and changing DC.  So I think we came into the year believing that for the Bills to succeed this season, they offense had to bring its "A" game

3) the defense has now been ravaged by injuries at all 3 levels - Tre White, Matt Milano, both out for the season; Daquan Jones, out for an indefinite period of time; now Ed Oliver out. 

4) complimentary football - when one unit is hampered, the other unit has to "step it up" in order to keep winning.  that's not happening

5) a lot of people have questions (if not definite conclusions) about how good and how competent as an OC Dorsey really is

 

 

[CincyBillsFan]

1 hour ago, Since1981 said:

AGREE!

 

Grand total 17 pts in combined Q1/Q2/Q3 in 9 quarters (NE, NY, Jags). 
 

Put another way, 3 games Bills:

1H = 10 pts

2H = 49 pts

5 pts in any of 1Q/2Q/3Q wins each game

 

D is not the problem. 

 

Against NE the defense definitely was the problem and was the reason the Bills lost the game.

 

 

[Since1981]

4 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

NE the defense definitely was the problem and was the reason the Bills lost the game.

No way. D injury decimated—they get somewhat a pass.
 

O scored 3 points 1H. How is that even possible (NFL 2023!). 

[CincyBillsFan]

47 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

Good questions

1) We expect more from the offense, because Allen, Diggs, Cook, Kincaid etc.  It seemed Beane had finally addressed the iOL in the draft and FA.  So it's very concerning that they should be totally impotent for the first half of 3 successive games

2) the defense came into the year with questionmarks for most of us, between starting an inexperienced MLB, aging secondary, and changing DC.  So I think we came into the year believing that for the Bills to succeed this season, they offense had to bring its "A" game

3) the defense has now been ravaged by injuries at all 3 levels - Tre White, Matt Milano, both out for the season; Daquan Jones, out for an indefinite period of time; now Ed Oliver out. 

4) complimentary football - when one unit is hampered, the other unit has to "step it up" in order to keep winning.  that's not happening

5) a lot of people have questions (if not definite conclusions) about how good and how competent as an OC Dorsey really is

 

 

To be honest only Allen & Diggs were considered elite going into this season.  Cook & Kincaid represented POTENTIAL and nothing more.  Cook had been average his rookie year and Kincaid had not caught a pass in the NFL yet.

 

As for the O line Bean made some bargain basement signings & a late 2nd round draft pick.  This is more then they did in previous years but hardly represented splash signings with high probability's of success.  Like you, I was excited about the signings and HOPED that they would be considered steals at the end of the season.  And early in the season that was shaping up to be true.  But now there has been a clear regression in the guard play and it's concerning.

 

So yes we had high expectations for the offense and figured it could carry the team.  But those expectations were driven as much by wishful thinking (I am guilty of this) as an honest appraisal of the talent. Beyond Allen & Diggs there is no one on the offense that has shown they can carry that unit. Kincaid has shown tantalizing glimpses of what may be coming but right now there are not enough high end layers on the offense (O line plus skill players) to expect this unit to carry the load.

 

BTW, the defense had multiple high end players that would enable that unit to carry the load but most of them got hurt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Since1981 said:

No way. D injury decimated—they get somewhat a pass.
 

O scored 3 points 1H. How is that even possible (NFL 2023!). 

It happens all the time.

 

[Mister Defense]

But we knew this defense was likely to really struggle at times this year, and saw it in recent games when they gave up a lot of yards, but not a lot of points.

 

They lost their best linebacker, best cornerback, best defensive tackle, with one of the best pressure rates in the league,  and did not have their other high level tackle, Oliver.

 

The offense needed to pick it up, but they just fell apart over the last month instead.

 

The defense gets a pass from most fans right now because of how well they have played despite the many significant player losses.  And I think they will improve as the replacements keep playing and find their own groove.

 

And the defense has seemed very sound, well coached, consistently, taking into account the loss of players.  The healthy offense has not faced any of those issues.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Mister Defense