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

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I will partially defend Beane a bit here. He got fooled as most of us did by Gabe Davis. For a moment he looked like the perfect #2 to Diggs. If he had not regressed we would have had a top 3 WR duo in the league. 

But as we have seen he regressed terribly.

Then similar story with Knox. He looked like a guy that could be a top 15 TE, but it never occurred.

And lastly, Elam ended up being a complete bust. These last two meant top picks that could have been used on WR needed to be used on TE and CB again.

 

I still think the Diggs trade was dumb.  Even post ACL he is better than any WR on the Bills roster now. 

 

The question now is will he swallow his pride and make a move or will he call up a radio station on Nov 5th and tell people to suck eggs because we have Palmer and Shavers....

[Dan]

3 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

You don't really need a lot of data to see that the Bills just don't have a consistently good outside WR who can break coverages consistently and that's causing limitations to the offense. Right now the Bills have a very good TE and a very good slot WR (Kincaid and Shakir). The rest of the offense in terms of pass catchers are mostly role players. Good role players but still role players. Samuel and Moore gadget guys, Knox quality TE2, Hawes blocking TE, Ty Johnson pass catching back, and Keon is more of a big slot WR3/4 at this point. Palmer is the one WR that could maybe break outside coverage but he's hurt and not super consistent either. 

 

Largely I would say that the Bills simply need a WR on the boundary that teams respect. Put that trade in place and everything is fine offensively. Getting Olave for example would largely make teams think twice about stacking boxes with 8 and putting the safety over the middle single high and blitzing to Josh's right (the formula that seems to work to stop Cook and Josh at the moment). The data isn't needed when the eye test is very obvious...

This is it in a nutshell.   Last year, they made the move and brought in Amari Cooper.   His stats weren’t eye opening at all.  But, what he did do was make defenses respect the full field which opened up the underneath stuff more.  Now… we don’t have that deep/boundary threat and defenses are loading up the middle of the field, closing the passing lanes and running delayed blitzes and stunts with great effectiveness.  

 

It’s easy to say… get a guy like Olave in.  But, it takes 2 teams to make a trade.  So I can’t fault Beane entirely if they don’t bring in another WR this week.  BUT… Brady has to see this and do something different.  They need to take shots down field, even if players aren’t open and Josh just throws the ball away.  But they have to make defenses back up.  Until they do that… the offense is going to sputter.

[WNYFAN1]

1 hour ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

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

He's currently second at +350

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

1 hour ago, Sweats said:

 

 

 

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

A team that can pound the run from a three TE set or with a couple TEs/a wr that can run block etc when all those guys are competent pass catchers is gonna cause problems schematically for a lot of defenses.

 

 I totally agree with adding a wr don’t get me wrong, but this whole ‘teams just haven’t thought of stopping the run and it’s really easy to stop once you decide you want to stop it’ style of thinking isn’t really true imo 

 

as much as people think it’s just a mcd thing, nickel is pretty much the base defense of the nfl now and teams are loaded up on edge rushers to murder qbs on top of that.  If you start forcing these teams into loaded boxes out of a more traditional defense you’re taking a lot of their best defensive weapons/plays off the field and out of the playbook so DCs aren’t super comfy doing that for long stretches.  They might still be at a schematic disadvantage even if they do load up the box…Hawes really seems like he’s been an absolute terror lol 

 

pats game would be interesting to replay…they did a nice job slowing down the run but we had a ton of penalties and didn’t go as heavy on offense either. Yesterday Gilliam and Hawes seemed to have big roles which wasn’t the case in the NE game.  I think we kinda shied away from running in the falcons game when they loaded the box a bit but could’ve ran them straight out of the building if we stayed committed to it 

[Gunsgoodtime]

3 hours ago, BearNorth said:

In what universe would you pay your franchise QB $55MM per year to be a "game manager"

In what universe do you have this franchise QB and put the Wrs he is throwing to at the bottom of importance list?  I would be willing to bet since Beane got here, he has done less, used less resources in fa, less resources in the draft than any team in the league ar WR, with a qb with the biggest arm in the league.  He has literally neutered Josh Allen.  Lots of us have been fussing for YEARS about this criminal malpractice

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

4 minutes ago, WNYFAN1 said:

He's currently second at +350

Yea that’s mostly the market trusting him to turn it around based on past history I’d say…mahomes was in the top few spots of the odds most of the year last year 

[Pete]

3 hours ago, BuffaloRebound said:

This KC game is huge.  Could see a deal for WR happening in next 24 hours.  Spagnola will take away cook.  We need a downfield passing threat asap.  

KC is gonna make a big deal.  And you know Philly is making a big deal.  What’s your move Beane?  Why are we waiting?

[TheBrownBear]

53 minutes ago, Allen2Moulds said:

In watching again, there are some open guys. I don't know what the heck Josh was thinking or doing on that one. I'm watching on my phone, so its hard to make out, but the underneath screen is def available. If moore is the deep one on the bottom of the screen, there was also def a window there before the safety closes it.

Josh right now is not very decisive or confident. I do think that all the blitzes and hits from the NE and Atlanta game, messed up his internal clock.

That's where I'm at. We mostly just shot ourselves in the foot during the Pats game. Josh didn't play great, but he didn't look like a chicken with its head cut off. The Falcons definitely screwed him up though. He looked great on that first drive, but the Falcons blitzes/pressure got to him and you could clearly see that he was mentally defeated by the third quarter. That carried over into yesterday's first half, but Cook was able to bail us out. Josh seems to be hearing footsteps or seeing ghosts or whatever you want to call it at this point. He needs to find his comfort level again and quick.

[Allen2Moulds]

15 minutes ago, TheBrownBear said:

That's where I'm at. We mostly just shot ourselves in the foot during the Pats game. Josh didn't play great, but he didn't look like a chicken with its head cut off. The Falcons definitely screwed him up though. He looked great on that first drive, but the Falcons blitzes/pressure got to him and you could clearly see that he was mentally defeated by the third quarter. That carried over into yesterday's first half, but Cook was able to bail us out. Josh seems to be hearing footsteps or seeing ghosts or whatever you want to call it at this point. He needs to find his comfort level again and quick.

I agree with you, but believe it started a week earlier against NE. Josh tried to use his legs in that game to bail out the horrible play calling, and the NE defenders absolutely punished him. It's as hard as I've seen him get hit. You can see it on his face as well. 

[starrymessenger]

53 minutes ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

I will partially defend Beane a bit here. He got fooled as most of us did by Gabe Davis. For a moment he looked like the perfect #2 to Diggs. If he had not regressed we would have had a top 3 WR duo in the league. 

But as we have seen he regressed terribly.

Then similar story with Knox. He looked like a guy that could be a top 15 TE, but it never occurred.

And lastly, Elam ended up being a complete bust. These last two meant top picks that could have been used on WR needed to be used on TE and CB again.

 

I still think the Diggs trade was dumb.  Even post ACL he is better than any WR on the Bills roster now. 

 

The question now is will he swallow his pride and make a move or will he call up a radio station on Nov 5th and tell people to suck eggs because we have Palmer and Shavers....

Beane has a habit of drafting athletes. Sometimes it works (Josh). Sometimes not (Tremaine). Knox was never thrown the ball at Ole Miss. Little evidence that he would be a top TE, if that is what he was thinking.

[HappyDays]

2 hours 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.

 

Against Baltimore and Houston last year it looked just as bad as it has these past few games. Wasn't great against the Jets the following week either but we managed to grind out a win off of our run game. Trading for Cooper is what caused our pass game to open up for the rest of the season. I know he didn't perform to the level we all hoped but just having that legit vertical threat outside made a huge difference. Like in the KC game there were two TD drives that only happened because of big completions to Cooper downfield. Just the fact that teams had to respect him opened up other stuff underneath.

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Mikey152 said:

Oh, I think he is plenty prepared...it's almost as if you can see him hesitating. I think he is having the gunslinger coached out of him. 

 

I mean, we can't be shocked. He used to get killed for his turnovers. Last season he cut those WAY down playing just like this and won an MVP. The problem, IMO, is teams are getting progressively more aggressive against this offense with more man defense and blitzes and it doesn't look great right now. 

 

 

But that doesn't explain Josh simply not seeing a gimme touchdown two Moore. No safety over the top. Moore with a step and a half on the defender. We've seen Josh throw 10 touchdowns like that. He should have seen that opportunity in his pre-snap read, he should have looked off the safety and come back to Moore for the touchdown. Simple completion that any good quarterback will take. 

 

My only explanation for not making that throw is that Josh was not prepared to execute that play the way it was designed. He's done it regularly in years past, and the coaches need to figure out how to get him back to doing it.

[Mikey152]

1 minute ago, Shaw66 said:

But that doesn't explain Josh simply not seeing a gimme touchdown two Moore. No safety over the top. Moore with a step and a half on the defender. We've seen Josh throw 10 touchdowns like that. He should have seen that opportunity in his pre-snap read, he should have looked off the safety and come back to Moore for the touchdown. Simple completion that any good quarterback will take. 

 

My only explanation for not making that throw is that Josh was not prepared to execute that play the way it was designed. He's done it regularly in years past, and the coaches need to figure out how to get him back to doing it.

I don't think that is as gimmie as you think. The CB was in trail position and could have made a play on the ball, especially if it wasn't placed perfectly. 

 

Can Josh make that throw?  Of course. Should he attempt it? To Elijah Moore? That's more debatable.

[HappyDays]

2 hours 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.

 

 

 

First play the read is low to high, which has been the case on almost every play since Brady took over.

 

Second play I'm very confused about the route combination on the right side. Shakir's route has him practically running into Coleman... Zero chance of Allen hitting the top of his drop and completing that pass. Looks to me like Allen has the right read here. He's looking at the safety sitting on the 50 yard line to see if he declares for Shavers or Kincaid. Whichever one he declares Allen will hit the other one. Of course Shavers' CB straight up tackles him which kills that concept but also draws an easy penalty.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, MikePJ76 said:

Here are a couple more plays that I think could have been completions.  Feels like a lot of little things that are changing drives.  HItting a few of these I think will change some things.

This first one is tough because the edge is free and unblocked.  May be an impossible throw but once again coleman is running across the field left to right open.

 

this one I really do not understand why allen is looking short to long.  Moore is open all the way through this, this imo should be a TD.  Throw the ball to moore before he makes his break and this seems like a simple TD and I bet moore would have looked really wide open.  Just didn't pull the trigger because it appears he is going short to long in his read.  Even if he hits Davis with a clean throw he may score if he makes the guy miss.  

 

 

The first one you explained yourself. Moore just has to make that catch cleanly.

 

The second one what makes you think Moore was an option? It's clearly a fake screen and seam to Shavers, very similar to the TD Kincaid caught against the Saints. Nice try from Shavers acting like he's gearing up to block but #2 doesn't bite on the fake so the concept is DOA. Moore was never getting that ball. Allen just needed to make a better throw to Davis to pick up some positive yardage on an otherwise broken play. Pressure in his face or not that is a throw he can make in his sleep but he rushed it.

[Shaw66]

12 minutes ago, Mikey152 said:

I don't think that is as gimmie as you think. The CB was in trail position and could have made a play on the ball, especially if it wasn't placed perfectly. 

 

Can Josh make that throw?  Of course. Should he attempt it? To Elijah Moore? That's more debatable.

No way. In the first place, the defender is clearly trailing Moore, and Allen can lead him either across the end zone or throw it shorter and let Moore go down for the ball inside the five. Either way, the only way the defender can make a play is by going through Moore, and then they get the interference call. If, as you say, Allen can make the throw, it's a gimme touchdown. 

 

Should he throw it to Moore?  Absolutely!  What makes you think he shouldn't throw it to him?  Because Moore only has five receptions season?  Moore's a quality NFL receiver.  He's not a star, but he's a quality receiver. 80 receptions in 8 games his last year of college, drafted 34th overall, averaged 50 catches a year in his first four seasons in the league playing on lousy teams with lousy quarterbacks.  Yes, you absolutely throw the ball to him. 

 

JuJu Smith-Schuster averages 50 receptions a year.  You think Mahomes doesn't throw that ball?  

 

I think Brady has Allen all screwed up. 

[Shaw66]

6 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

The first one you explained yourself. Moore just has to make that catch cleanly.

 

The second one what makes you think Moore was an option? It's clearly a fake screen and seam to Shavers, very similar to the TD Kincaid caught against the Saints. Nice try from Shavers acting like he's gearing up to block but #2 doesn't bite on the fake so the concept is DOA. Moore was never getting that ball. Allen just needed to make a better throw to Davis to pick up some positive yardage on an otherwise broken play. Pressure in his face or not that is a throw he can make in his sleep but he rushed it.

Moore is supposed to get the ball on that play

 

I think you've described the play accurately. Watch Allen's feet. He sets his feet to fake the throw on the screen, then he resets to look downfield. Shavers is covered AND the safety has turned to go that way, too. Allen resets his feet a third time, just as he was taught, to be in position to throw to Moore, but almost immediately resets to find the outlet in the left flat. It's a mistake by Allen. His feet do what he's supposed to do, but his brain doesn't. The play design is if he doesn't have the throw to Shavers, he's supposed to come off Shavers and find Moore. He knows he has Moore in single coverage because he's just seen the safety break to help on Shavers. He sets his feet to make the throw to Moore and then comes off it almost immediately. The play is designed for him to make one of three choices - Shavers, Moore, Davis. He had Moore and rushed right through the choice. 

[BillsVet]

The "Blame Josh" crowd has entered the chat with renewed vigor this week.  

 

Gonna be interesting when Beane humbles himself, trades for a WR, and the offense returns to effectiveness.   

[GoBills808]

15 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

The first one you explained yourself. Moore just has to make that catch cleanly.

 

The second one what makes you think Moore was an option? It's clearly a fake screen and seam to Shavers, very similar to the TD Kincaid caught against the Saints. Nice try from Shavers acting like he's gearing up to block but #2 doesn't bite on the fake so the concept is DOA. Moore was never getting that ball. Allen just needed to make a better throw to Davis to pick up some positive yardage on an otherwise broken play. Pressure in his face or not that is a throw he can make in his sleep but he rushed it.

the second one- if shavers sells his route instead of just kind of skipping downfield maybe the safety declares earlier but it's just sloppy wr play from 14

 

even still i think he can get to moore if torrence isnt getting walked back into the throw

 

but in the end i think checkdown is the right conclusion 

[Brand J]

1 minute ago, BillsVet said:

The "Blame Josh" crowd has entered the chat with renewed vigor this week.  

 

Gonna be interesting when Beane humbles himself, trades for a WR, and the offense returns to effectiveness.   

I mean, he does shoulder a lot of the blame, he hasn’t played well. If he hit some of these receivers who have been open, I suspect the WR crowd wouldn’t be as loud. Josh doesn’t shoulder all the blame, of course, but he’s not reading the field well or trusting what he sees. His accuracy and ball placement has also been off. We can say “it’s everyone else’s fault,” but Josh simply has to play better and he’d tell you the same.