Bills Don't have Receiver Problem, they have a perception problem-- Jim Kubiak BN

[SCBills]

9 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

The post made it seem like the only thing missing from the Bills winning a SB was a WR who can open up the intermediate passing game.  My response…do you think this is a defense that can get the Bills to a SB, let alone win it?

Honestly, I don’t know.  
 

Hancock & Bishop could become a good pair.   They also could be meh. 
 

The linebackers are fine if they stay healthy.  Can they?

 

Hairston/Benford should be a very good tandem.  What is Hairston and will Benford remember how to play football after being paid?

 

Taron Johnson needs to be better, borderline getting to a spot where I’d like to see Cam Lewis there.  
 

DL.. Can we get to the Playoffs with Jones, Ogunjobi, Walker and Sanders?  Does Sanders show improvement when he comes back?

 

Love our DE room.. Bosa, Rousseau, Hoecht and Epenesa is a very good group. 
 

Too many questions for me to answer, but it was always going to be about this Defense gelling by January.  
 

On Offense, this is the same friggin issue as last year.  And we burned a 3 to get the corpse of Cooper to open things up a bit.  
 

Now here we are again.  Elite OL, Elite QB, Elite Running Game.  Adding even a Shaheed opposite Palmer changes so much moving forward for this Offense and how teams defend us. 

[Coach Tuesday]

If KC is seeing this too, their plan will be to try to score early and force the Bills out of their strengths on both offense and defense.

[Thurman#1]

3 hours ago, Gregg said:

Hurts has Brown and Smith

Burrow when healthy has Chase and Higgins

Dak has CEE-DEE and Pickens

Allen has what at the WR position that would be considered elite... NOTHING!!!

 

 

 

 

What does Mahomes have at the WR position that would be considered elite ... also NOTHING!!!

 

Out of the three teams you mentioned with good WRs, two are not very good teams. Spending so many resources on WRs has not helped them get as close as the Bills have on a consistent basis.

 

Philly is a good team, but Smith is not "elite," he just isn't. And it's arguable that the reason they spent so much is because their QB really isn't that good as a passer compared to guys like Mahomes, Burrow and Josh, and needs support in that specific place.

 

And the Chiefs are the best of the bunch on offense, without anyone elite, though they do have two solid guys, one of whom is probably a #1, though not a "true" #1. For several years now, though, they've done well without a #1.

 

Not that I would mind if we could get someone else. But we're not getting guys who keep getting mentioned like Garrett Wilson and Waddle and A.J. Brown. Olave seems unlikely now, but he and Shaheed are likely the high end of the possible.

 

And the tape really does show that Josh has had a relatively bad last two or three games, and that with Palmer, Shakir and Kincaid Josh has weapons in the pass game enough to be successful.

Edited 3 hours ago by Thurman#1

[oldmanfan]

We had a very good passing game last year, so I am perplexed about this season.  I don’t think Brady is calling games the as he did last year.  Two examples.  One, we ran that 4 + 1 receiver formation a lot and opposing defenses had a helluva time defending it.  I haven’t seen that much.  Second, we used Ty Johnson a lot as a third down receiver and we don’t see that much, don’t see throws to any RBs for the most part.  As a result we aren’t seeing guys open as much and we see Josh trying to figure things out, hesitate, and such.  
 

Brady has to get play calls going that scheme guys open and take advantage of things guys do well.  Just having Keon run sideline back shoulder throws is yet another example.

[machine gun kelly]

This is silly.  We need a separating WR.  There’s no talking out if it other than to cover themselves.  It’s called two eyes.  Watch an all 22. You’ll see it if you know what to watch which most people on this board do know how to read offenses and defenses.

[Thurman#1]

2 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

We had a very good passing game last year, so I am perplexed about this season.  I don’t think Brady is calling games the as he did last year.  Two examples.  One, we ran that 4 + 1 receiver formation a lot and opposing defenses had a helluva time defending it.  I haven’t seen that much.  Second, we used Ty Johnson a lot as a third down receiver and we don’t see that much, don’t see throws to any RBs for the most part.  As a result we aren’t seeing guys open as much and we see Josh trying to figure things out, hesitate, and such.  
 

Brady has to get play calls going that scheme guys open and take advantage of things guys do well.  Just having Keon run sideline back shoulder throws is yet another example.

 

 

Yeah, I still can't figure why Ty Johnson doesn't seem to be quite the same guy this year. I think that explains why we don't seem him as much. The first few games he had chances and wasn't as good.

 

IMO we've got to start throwing more to the TEs and RBs as well. Haven't seen that as much lately.

[Dillenger4]

Kincaid and Palmer have been injured. Full stop.

We need both to play. Now we are talking... and Josh/Bills have no excuses with Kincaid/Palmer/Shakir/Coleman/Cook/Knox.

Josh needs to take what is there. The "Nobody gets open" line is so lame and not true.

If we can get healthy, stay healthy, then we are more than fine.

Our D has arrived and you will like what you see on Sunday!!

[Thurman#1]

1 minute ago, machine gun kelly said:

This is silly.  We need a separating WR.  There’s no talking out if it other than to cover themselves.  It’s called two eyes.  Watch an all 22. You’ll see it if you know what to watch which most people on this board do know how to read offenses and defenses.

 

 

Palmer and Shakir are separating WRs. Kincaid is a separating TE.

 

And where were all the separating WRs last year when the passing offense looked a lot better than it has the past two or three games?

 

People want to pretend it's really simple. It's not. Even if you watch all-22. There's a lot of things not looking quite as good, including Josh missing throws and not being confident of his footwork. A lot of valuables at play, including game planning, play design, etc.

 

An extra upgrade at WR would help. It would likely not eliminate all the problems. Some, though. But if it's costs a bunch of resources, it would require downgrades elsewhere, now or later, that would cut team performance. This really is a balancing act more than people want to admit.

 

The goal here isn't to have a great WR room. It's to have a great team that performs well together.

 

[DapperCam]

10 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

We had a very good passing game last year, so I am perplexed about this season.  I don’t think Brady is calling games the as he did last year.  Two examples.  One, we ran that 4 + 1 receiver formation a lot and opposing defenses had a helluva time defending it.  I haven’t seen that much.  Second, we used Ty Johnson a lot as a third down receiver and we don’t see that much, don’t see throws to any RBs for the most part.  As a result we aren’t seeing guys open as much and we see Josh trying to figure things out, hesitate, and such.  
 

Brady has to get play calls going that scheme guys open and take advantage of things guys do well.  Just having Keon run sideline back shoulder throws is yet another example.

Last season we had Hollins who was serviceable, and Allen seemed to trust down the field. He led the team in receiving TDs. We also had Cooper for the second half of the season who played like a real NFL WR2.

 

This season we have Kincaid back (when he’s targeted he looks good). But Palmer hasn’t really replaced Cooper or Hollins and now he’s going to miss a chunk of the season. So we just have less talent than last season. We banked a bit on Coleman taking a step forward and he looks like he’s actually taken a step back.

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, vincec said:

They need to find a way to generate big plays without a premium WR. Maybe scheme things up for Kincaid more? It’s tough.

 

I'll be honest I'm still not super impressed with Kincaid this year. He's for sure been better than last year, I'll give him that. He might be our best pass catcher but that's more a statement about the WR room than it is about him. I'll use one of the videos from Jim Kubiak's article as an example:

 

 

Kincaid is directly to the right of Spencer Brown before the snap. His route break is rounded and pulls him right into his defender. I see this a lot from Kincaid, his breaks aren't sharp and/or he drifts into coverage. He's a decent route runner but he hasn't developed a feel for leverage and positioning.

 

Once this play becomes a scramble drill Kincaid confusingly decides to run up the sideline with his defender plastered on him, instead of coming back into the empty space where Allen could get him the ball. These are the sorts of plays Kelce has been automatic on. I can't remember the last time Allen was in scramble mode and Kincaid managed to work open for him.

 

If we can get defenses into heavy sets Kincaid can be a situational personnel mismatch, but as far as running the offense through him I don't see it.

[Casey D]

33 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

Based on at the very least getting past KC in the playoffs  and getting to play for the Lombardi once is achieving more than being Andy Reid's personal Washington Generals come playoff time. 

Whatever.

[TheFunPolice]

Oh give me a break.

 

This offense is operating like it's the drought era.

 

One thing is for sure: it will be the talk on national sports media if things don't improve that Allen doesn't have weapons to throw to and the Bills are wasting his prime years 

 

That's already being said here and there. It will get louder if the passing game doesn't improve.

 

Not that any of that matters, mind you. But it will become a narrative. 

 

If there wasn't an emotional "stand up for the team" incentive and we were all Rams fans in LA or something it would be more obvious. You only get so many years with a generational QB in his prime 

Edited 3 hours ago by TheFunPolice

[GoBills808]

3 minutes ago, HappyDays said:

 

I'll be honest I'm still not super impressed with Kincaid this year. He's for sure been better than last year, I'll give him that. He might be our best pass catcher but that's more a statement about the WR room than it is about him. I'll use one of the videos from Jim Kubiak's article as an example:

 

 

Kincaid is directly to the right of Spencer Brown before the snap. His route break is rounded and pulls him right into his defender. I see this a lot from Kincaid, his breaks aren't sharp and/or he drifts into coverage. He's a decent route runner but he hasn't developed a feel for leverage and positioning.

 

Once this play becomes a scramble drill Kincaid confusingly decides to run up the sideline with his defender plastered on him, instead of coming back into the empty space where Allen could get him the ball. These are the sorts of plays Kelce has been automatic on. I can't remember the last time Allen was in scramble mode and Kincaid managed to work open for him.

 

If we can get defenses into heavy sets Kincaid can be a situational personnel mismatch, but as far as running the offense through him I don't see it.

he has a ton of talent and potential, truly

just needs polishing...and i'm not sure this is the kind of organization that can deliver a finished offensive product tbh

[WotAGuy]

29 minutes ago, machine gun kelly said:

You’ll see it if you know what to watch which most people on this board do know how to read offenses and defenses.

Not me. I’m just here for the misuse of apostrophe’s. 

[machine gun kelly]

19 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Palmer and Shakir are separating WRs. Kincaid is a separating TE.

 

And where were all the separating WRs last year when the passing offense looked a lot better than it has the past two or three games?

 

People want to pretend it's really simple. It's not. Even if you watch all-22. There's a lot of things not looking quite as good, including Josh missing throws and not being confident of his footwork. A lot of valuables at play, including game planning, play design, etc.

 

An extra upgrade at WR would help. It would likely not eliminate all the problems. Some, though. But if it's costs a bunch of resources, it would require downgrades elsewhere, now or later, that would cut team performance. This really is a balancing act more than people want to admit.

 

The goal here isn't to have a great WR room. It's to have a great team that performs well together.

 

Thurmon, you know I respect you a great deal, and yes, Shakir is a solid slot.  He’s not an x.  In addition, Palmer is week to week.  I applaud Beane for trying with Moore, but it’s failed so far.  You’re right, we don’t need a great WR room, but a team.  With that said, JA looks a heck of a lot better when he had Diggs in his prime and opposite Davis who served a purpose as a third or fourth.  Not a number 2.

 

We do have a WR problem.  That doesn’t mean it fixes everything.  JA is having problems with no one to throw to for whatever reason.

[Lost]

2 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

I mean that's definitely being inflated by a 394 yard performance against Baltimore. In the other 6 games he's averaging 194 YPG. Last year before adding Cooper he averaged 193 YPG. After adding Cooper he averaged 257 YPG.

 

On one hand I agree with Jim Kubiak. We should pound the rock with James Cook. That is by far the best thing our offense does. But his headline is wrong - the reason we should pound the rock so much is because we have a WR problem. When he says "no WR can blow by a soft cushion" if he's talking about our WR room he's 100% correct. If he's talking about the entire NFL that's just wrong. There's this weird myth I keep seeing that offenses can't complete deep passes against cover 2 shells/soft zones. There are in fact holes in deep zones against those coverages but you need a WR group that can attack them.

 

So yeah keep feeding Cook. But we've seen a bunch of drives this year where that 1st down run only gets 1 yard and converting suddenly feels impossible. I remember when 3rd and 15 felt like easy money with Josh Allen. Now you have Joe Brady in this week's presser saying out loud that they need to stay out of 3rd and 7s because it's too big a hole to dig out of. With Allen's arm that's embarrassing. There's no reason our offense should have such a tiny margin for error. The historically mistake free offense we ran last year was never going to be sustainable.

 

 

I remember late in 2021 and early 2022, I would be shocked if the Bills didn't convert on a 3rd and long.  Most of the time though they were converting on 1st or 2nd.  The passing game was just that good.   Nowadays it feels like a miracle if the Bills convert anything larger than 3rd and 2.    Our offense needs to be more than just running Cook and throwing bubble screens to Shakir.  It only takes a few weeks for teams to figure out how to shut those down....then what?   

[90sBills]

4 hours ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

I've said the same on multiple occasions. Usually leads to people responding to it with a video of him hitting a deep ball.

 

The thing is, in the videos it's always John Brown or Robert Foster catching them. The common theme there being that neither is on the roster. 

 

Now, I agree. He has always struggled on ball placement deep. What compounds the issue is that the Bills haven't made a priority of finding guys that are good deep ball trackers. 

 

I'd love to see one season where Josh has a guy that can absolutely blow past DBs deep. Get a guy like Shaheed where Josh can just lay it as deep as possible and the WR can run and go get it.

 

Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. At his season ending presser after (I believe) the 13 seconds game, Beane was asked about getting a WR with speed. He had this whole big response with him saying to the effect  of "We would love a guy with speed like Hill. But they don't grow on trees. If you guys know where I can find one let me know." Then a few years later he's got someone with legit game changing speed in Worthy sitting on the board when he picks. So, of course he trades out and grabs the human sloth in Coleman. 

 

In fact, I can't remember Beane ever taking a speedster WR. Even as a late round dart throw. Even back to his Carolina days, Benjamin and Funchess were the big WR picks. No speed. 

And most fans on here applauded him for that. Now Worthy is running clear out routes taking safeties out of the middle for Rice, Kelce, and JuJu to make plays while Coleman is getting blanketed by 1 defender running short routes. 

[starrymessenger]

2 hours ago, Scott7975 said:

 

I think you just missed my edit. I don't care about hitting 40-50 yard passes all game. If they hit even 1 or 2 per game that would be fine. Primarily though, the problem is in the intermediate area. 15-20 yards. They need to do way better in that area of the field. Throwing to Shakir behind the los 5 times a game isn't going to cut it. Josh is currently 20th in intended air yards.

I agree with this. I love a dominant running game, such as we have, assuming you have the horses to execute (and we do). I'd much rather be run first team than a team that over relies on the pass. The defending world champions offer an instructive example. Saquon is of course their bread and butter. Earlier this got AJB's nose out of joint and Smith too aired his displeasure with the number of targets they were getting. The OC tried to cater to their needs but soon and firmly reverted to the norm because it simply wasn't working to optimal advantage.

But the Eagles nevertheless invested in not one but two game breaking receivers and they are not trading a disgruntled AJB.  I wonder why.

It's not just that both the run and passing games are, ideally, complementary, each making the other better. It's that having a passing attack that can on its own be a credible menace to put up points on a defence is a good, and likely necessary thing to have if you want to compete for a championship. Passing cannot simply be only supportive of and an adjunct to the run. That's what we seem to have now.

In the Steve Smith clip he is asked how important having a downfield threat was to the Bills O. He said it was absolutely imperative. I tend to agree.

Anyway, not to worry, I'm pretty sure we are going to land Shaheen next week. Bills will overpay because they will need to.
 

[Coach Tuesday]

2 minutes ago, starrymessenger said:

I agree with this. I love a dominant running game, such as we have, assuming you have the horses to execute (and we do). I'd much rather be run first team than a team that over relies on the pass. The defending world champions offer an instructive example. Saquon is of course their bread and butter. Earlier this got AJB's nose out of joint and Smith too aired his displeasure with the number of targets they were getting. The OC tried to cater to their needs but soon and firmly reverted to the norm because it simply wasn't working to optimal advantage.

But the Eagles nevertheless invested in not one but two game breaking receivers and they are not trading a disgruntled AJB.  I wonder why.

It's not just that both the run and passing games are, ideally, complementary, each making the other better. It's that having a passing attack that can on its own be a credible menace to put up points on a defence is a good, and likely necessary thing to have if you want to compete for a championship. Passing cannot simply be only supportive of and an adjunct to the run. That's what we seem to have now.

In the Steve Smith clip he is asked how important having a downfield threat was to the Bills O. He said it was absolutely imperative. I tend to agree.

Anyway, not to worry, I'm pretty sure we are going to land Shaheen next week. Bills will overpay because they will need to.
 

 

It's fine to be run-first, but outside of one quarter of one game, they haven't even shown that they CAN pass if they HAVE TO.  Whatever, we'll find out in a few days about that.

[Goin Breakdown]

2 hours ago, Psautcsk said:

Josh getting beaten up is my main worry when running with Cook does not work or we need to play from behind. Josh may have an injury. I remember after he scored on the tush push last week he came off the field shaking his throwing hand. It is just a matter of time until he takes a hit that does some serious damage with the way our passing attack has been functioning of late. I do think things will improve, hopefully beginning this Sunday. Go Bills!

 

Yeah I forgot about that play. You're right. He was shaking his hand after. The guy takes a beating at times for sure. I'm hoping for a "hey we're back game". I'll take a win but I want a thumpin' we'll see.