Joe B (The Athletic) on passing game problems (with data)

[Sweats]

Let's put this into perspective........if Cook wasn't chewing up ground yardage and basically winning games outright by himself, do we have the WR capacity to win games through the air?

 

If teams took away Cook and forced us to beat them with our passing game, could we do it with our active roster?!?

We all know it's a huge NO........why does our FO not see this?

 

It's only a matter of time before teams take Cook out of the equation and force us to play the passing game and i'm not confident that we can do it with who we have on the roster presently.

[BillsVet]

Joe B's article is pretty clear that whatever philosophy/identity McD and Beane have pursued, it's officially an epic fail 2 seasons running.  

 

I can only hope TPegs reads this article or has someone close tell him about this.  And if he had any stones, he'd be on the horn telling them they'd better figure it out. 

 

 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

15 minutes ago, Sweats said:

Let's put this into perspective........if Cook wasn't chewing up ground yardage and basically winning games outright by himself, do we have the WR capacity to win games through the air?

 

If teams took away Cook and forced us to beat them with our passing game, could we do it with our active roster?!?

We all know it's a huge NO........why does our FO not see this?

 

It's only a matter of time before teams take Cook out of the equation and force us to play the passing game and i'm not confident that we can do it with who we have on the roster presently.

Matter of time?   The Pats already did it. Cook had 3.3 YPC that game.

Interesting in that game Kincaid was able to get 108 yards receiving on only 6 receptions.  So the Bills have ways to counter, but I am not sure Brady is good enough to scheme guys open consistently.  

[Sweats]

4 minutes ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

Matter of time?   The Pats already did it. Cook had 3.3 YPC that game.

Interesting in that game Kincaid was able to get 108 yards receiving on only 6 receptions.  So the Bills have ways to counter, but I am not sure Brady is good enough to scheme guys open consistently.  

 

 

 

I'm talking a matter of time, as in always, as in each and every game going forward.

I'm talking that teams will know to take Cook out of every series and force us to throw every single week. Teams are eyeing up Cook, knowing that he's basically our only source of any O generation each week and teams will hyper focus on taking him out of the plays and making JA throw to dismal WR's........if i was an opposing team, i'd do the same thing.

 

UGH

[BeastMaster]

2 hours ago, Royale with Cheese said:

When Palmer comes back, we need to throw him the ball more and downfield.  That's what he was brought here to be.

Kincaid and Shakir need to be our other primary targets.

Elijah Moore is decent and I think needs to have the ball thrown to him more.  He needs more targets than Coleman.  

Moore can average 60 receptions a year in Cleveland but not much here?  He is a decent WR.

Cook needs to have more routes thrown to him as well.  

 

I don't see what value Coleman adds.  At this point, neither do I with Samuel.  

 

Thinking Palmer is going to be our savior is only going to lead to disappointment 

 

He was another Beane bust free agent signing that wasn't worth anywhere close to what he got

 

I agree that Bradys offense is partly to blame, but a true threat at wideout will make a huge difference 

 

BTJ, Olave, or Shaheed would all massively improve our passing game and help Josh immensely. All are available in trade.

 

Beane needs to admit his mistake and get one of these guys

 

[Buffalo Junction]

12 minutes ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

Matter of time?   The Pats already did it. Cook had 3.3 YPC that game.

Interesting in that game Kincaid was able to get 108 yards receiving on only 6 receptions.  So the Bills have ways to counter, but I am not sure Brady is good enough to scheme guys open consistently.  

Watching that Packers/Steelers game last night was a bit eye opening with regards to this…. It seemed like LeFleur had an answer schemed up for almost everything the Steelers threw at them. 

[blitzboy54]

If I was forced to bet on it, I would put my money on they don't make a trade at the deadline. If they do it will be middling at best. Honestly outside of AJ Brown I don't think there is anyone who meets their needs. I don't see Philly dealing him and if they did they would want multiple (maybe 3) firsts. 

[DCOrange]

Obviously our wide outs (as in the boundary receivers) are not good, but I'd also argue they aren't really any worse than they were last season when Josh won MVP and our offense was incredible. A big difference between last year and this year has seemed to be that Brady and Josh just haven't been as good diagnosing things pre-snap this season. It felt like last season, we consistently ID'd the defense and got into plays that schematically work even if the talent on the field isn't particularly great. Whereas this season, we've gotten tricked a ton with our protections, particularly against those really wide defensive fronts that New England and especially Atlanta utilized heavily. When we ID this stuff correctly, our OL has been great, but there's been a lot of times this season where we haven't been on our A game and then pass rushers start leaking through untouched. Beyond that, it has felt like a ton more examples this season of defenses disguising their coverages and catching Josh completely off guard and the plays that we're running are meant for a different type of coverage so on top of our WRs not being good at winning even when it's the right environment, we're also running plays that would make it difficult for good WRs to get open too. I had hoped this would be cleaned up during the bye week, but for whatever reason, it seems like Brady and Josh are still having issues and our lackluster WRs only exacerbate the issue.

[MikePJ76]

just as an example, Here are two plays from yesterday where Josh could have given Coleman the ball with easy throws.  He went to hawes on the play action and threw it deep for no reason to shavers.  Coleman is open on both plays and if he gets the ball he probably makes nice plays there.  Little plays like this add up.  I think he should be given opportunties like these.

 

Here is the play action that went to hawes.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExuPj1d502A&feature=youtu.be

 

and here is the curl route where coleman looks pretty open and then after the scramble is even more open.  He never gets the ball.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by MikePJ76

[WNYFAN1]

2 hours ago, Goin Breakdown said:

They don't want a passing game. They want a running game. This version of Josh is what they want. Game manager. No INTs, don't fumble so basically get the ball away from

josh as fast as possible. The MVP "unicorn" has been removed from the game. But hey we can run well now. Awesome. That'll win a couple games. 

I for the life of me can't figure out why Josh is even in the MVP conversation this year.

[Goin Breakdown]

55 minutes ago, thenorthremembers said:

 

The 6.11 yards per average yesterday is mainly due to missing terribly on a 2nd round wideout.  Coleman shouldn't be on the field at this point.   That said, they didnt draft a WR high just because he could block well.   Sure it played into it, they want well rounded players.   Yes, they want to run the ball well, they didnt pay Cook to have a bad run game.   But to say they purposely want the pass game to be secondary to the run game is a bit obtuse.   I am sure they want both to be excellent, that should be the goal of every coach.    Balance is part of winning football. 

 

The issue with the pass game isnt that they havent put money and draft picks into it, they have.   They just havent brought in the right players.  Kincaid is talented, but is hit or miss and has injury issues.  Coleman hasnt developed into anything beyond a one or two route wide receiver.  Samuel is constantly injured and doesnt process the game fast enough.   The WR position has been grossly mismanaged at a personnel level.     If they can somehow get one good to great WR at the deadline I think you'll see a large change in their ability to throw the ball.  

I understand what you're saying and respect it no doubt. I have to believe that the office, coaches and scouts had to know what Coleman was. If we as fans knew pretty much, then they really had to know. Great blocker, has a few highlight reel catches but lack separation speed and is a bit inconsistent. Yet they drafted him. The other WRs they go after are rental guys, or WR 3s and 4s on other teams. Now I'm not in the negotiating room obviously but why not spend money on a metcalf instead of spending it on 2 other players combined that make no impact almost whatsoever?  We had a Diggs. I know he may have been a problem mentally but once Brady got here Diggs was almost a no show. I believe little by little. Brady or whoever is chirping "don't mess up, don't make mistakes, keep it all close, pitch it and hand it off. There really is a ton of reasons why Josh has looked off. We all see that he does not look like the Josh we've ever see up to this point unless you look at "low positive Josh"

but yeah for sure. You're right about mismanaging the WR room. I'm with you. I really do hope they can pull something off trade wise. Go Bills!

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 minute ago, WNYFAN1 said:

I for the life of me can't figure out why Josh is even in the MVP conversation this year.

The offense was this off in October last year too for the record…and I’m sure he’s on the back burner in the mvp convo for now like he was at this time last year

[Goin Breakdown]

2 minutes ago, WNYFAN1 said:

I for the life of me can't figure out why Josh is even in the MVP conversation this year.

I heard today in WGR,  that he no longer is. 

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, transient said:

I used to think Beane was a good GM... I'm starting to realize he's actually much more like Kevyn Adams than I ever would have cared to admit.

 

boom!

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

31 minutes ago, BeastMaster said:

Thinking Palmer is going to be our savior is only going to lead to disappointment 

 

He was another Beane bust free agent signing that wasn't worth anywhere close to what he got

 

I agree that Bradys offense is partly to blame, but a true threat at wideout will make a huge difference 

 

BTJ, Olave, or Shaheed would all massively improve our passing game and help Josh immensely. All are available in trade.

 

Beane needs to admit his mistake and get one of these guys

 

I wouldn’t say savior but even if he is mediocre he takes one of shavers/moore off the field who have been awful. I don’t think anyone is really trying to say Palmer is a great player based on what we’ve seen so far. Him being just ok would be a massive upgrade to what we’ve had the last few weeks though  

 

 

[Goin Breakdown]

1 hour ago, Sweats said:

Let's put this into perspective........if Cook wasn't chewing up ground yardage and basically winning games outright by himself, do we have the WR capacity to win games through the air?

 

If teams took away Cook and forced us to beat them with our passing game, could we do it with our active roster?!?

We all know it's a huge NO........why does our FO not see this?

 

It's only a matter of time before teams take Cook out of the equation and force us to play the passing game and i'm not confident that we can do it with who we have on the roster presently.

They say run to set up the pass. Cook is running real well and the pass still

isn't working even when we aren't relying on it.  

[Shaw66]

6 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

Obviously our wide outs (as in the boundary receivers) are not good, but I'd also argue they aren't really any worse than they were last season when Josh won MVP and our offense was incredible. A big difference between last year and this year has seemed to be that Brady and Josh just haven't been as good diagnosing things pre-snap this season. It felt like last season, we consistently ID'd the defense and got into plays that schematically work even if the talent on the field isn't particularly great. Whereas this season, we've gotten tricked a ton with our protections, particularly against those really wide defensive fronts that New England and especially Atlanta utilized heavily. When we ID this stuff correctly, our OL has been great, but there's been a lot of times this season where we haven't been on our A game and then pass rushers start leaking through untouched. Beyond that, it has felt like a ton more examples this season of defenses disguising their coverages and catching Josh completely off guard and the plays that we're running are meant for a different type of coverage so on top of our WRs not being good at winning even when it's the right environment, we're also running plays that would make it difficult for good WRs to get open too. I had hoped this would be cleaned up during the bye week, but for whatever reason, it seems like Brady and Josh are still having issues and our lackluster WRs only exacerbate the issue.

I agree with this. 

 

And what it speaks to is the player personnel and style philosophy that I talk about often. McDermott's philosophy is that good, versatile, competitive players can be molded into a team that, as a team, plays better than teams with more talented but less versatile players. That's certainly the philosophy for receivers, but it's also the philosophy for the offensive line. I mention the line because another part of the problem that the offensive is having is inconsistent pass protection. They aren't, as a group, good pass protectors. Allen has been in trouble in the pocket often this season. He's taken several sacks while in the pocket. Defensive line, the same thing. If Rousseau is your star, you'd better be running really good schemes. 

 

That may be a good philosophy for team building. One thing that's good about a team that depends on teamwork to win, rather than star talent, is that when injuries happen, the next man up isn't replacing a star, he's replacing just another guy.  However, that philosophy requires that the team have excellence in another place, and that's coaching. If you're going to play with average talent and rely on teamwork to win, you need coaches who build teamwork. And those coaches have to have excellent schemes in place, week after week, because executing those schemes is what gives your average talent an edge. We definitely are not seeing that edge in the receiving game. And, to be honest, I don't expect to see that edge in the running game against the Chiefs.  And we've only seen the edge in the defensive game inconsistently. 

 

I really don't think it's a Beane problem. I think Beane is getting the kind of players McDermott wants. I mean, instead of trading up for a receiver, he traded back to take Coleman, and no one in the football world thought Coleman was a guy who would blow the top off defenses. They took him for a reason. Most people around here were excited when Beane took Kincaid, and the guy has kind of disappeared. Since Diggs, the only quality receiving talent Beane has gone after was Cooper. It's completely clear that the problem lies in the kind of game McDermott is trying to play.  I mean, think about this way: Do you really think Beane would still be the GM if McDermott were sitting in his office every night for the past three seasons thinking, "why can't Brandon get me at least one good receiver?"  I don't. If that's what McDermott thought, he would have told Terry Pegula he needed a new GM, and Beane would have been gone. McDermott has the kind of players he wanted, and he and his coaches are not delivering the kind of success he thought they could. 

[Shaw66]

23 minutes ago, MikePJ76 said:

just as an example, Here are two plays from yesterday where Josh could have given Coleman the ball with easy throws.  He went to hawes on the play action and threw it deep for no reason to shavers.  Coleman is open on both plays and if he gets the ball he probably makes nice plays there.  Little plays like this add up.  I think he should be given opportunties like these.

 

Here is the play action that went to hawes.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExuPj1d502A&feature=youtu.be

 

and here is the curl route where coleman looks pretty open and then after the scramble is even more open.  He never gets the ball.

 

 

These are good examples, and I saw a few others during the game, too. 

 

Remember, in training camp and in the beginning of the season, Josh was intentionally looking for Coleman, and they worked a lot on their timing.  That's all gone away now. Now it seems Josh seems only to go to Keon on throws that are contested catches where Keon has to win a 50-50 battle for the ball. 

 

Three years ago, two years ago, when we all were saying Josh was the MVP and he wasn't getting the award, he was hitting wide open receivers a lot because the schemes were getting guys open and Josh understood where those openings were. Now, it seems like every completion is a struggle. 

 

Cook and Johnson have disappeared from the passing game. Kincaid and Knox have disappeared. I simply don't believe that all of these guys are that much worse than all the other receivers in the league. 

[Chaos]

Yesterday our OC said we don’t need to throw passes downfield to be dynamic. 

[BillytheKid]

23 minutes ago, Goin Breakdown said:

I heard today in WGR,  that he no longer is. 

That’s false. They obviously don’t know what they are talking about.

 

Allen is 2nd in MVP odds to Mahomes right now. Maye has moved into 3rd place now though. He is making a big leap. 
 

As long as the Bills keep winning and he doesn’t go haywire with turnovers he will be in the convo. 
 

Last October as someone else said he was even lower. 

Edited 40 minutes ago by BillytheKid