The Best Offense in the NFL that Can't Score Points.

from an analytics perspective I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like the 2023 bills offense if you go back to the week five game against Jacksonville until now so that's a five game sample size and that's kind of where their slide started they lost three out of these last five games but if you go back to week five until now they are second in EPA per play which is awesome they are third in terms of offensive play success rate they are fifth in terms of offensive points scored they are 12th in explosive pass rate and they are sixth in terms of the percentage of their drives that result in touchdowns all of that is amazing and yet somehow in that five-game sample size again they lost three of those games they're 18th in total points scored per game and they had a net negative Point differential how is any of that even remotely possible I mean just look at the scatter plot if they're all the way over here on EPA per play second only to the Eagles how are they also way the hell down here on scoring Drive percentage they're 24th in the league in terms of drives that actually result in points it makes no sense this is one of the only teams that I've ever seen where the math just doesn't add up so we're going to go on a very deep dive today to hopefully figure out what is going on here I've dedicated this week to pouring through every scrap of data I have available to me as well as watching tape on every single failed Bills Drive this season and believe me there's been a lot of those and I've done all of that in order to try to answer this one question if the analytics are saying that technically everything is still working in Buffalo then why does it feel like nothing is working first things first the point that you have to understand about how EPA per play works is that it's basically the measure of the likelihood of scoring points from a certain down and distance from a certain spot on the field so for instance if you start a drive at the 50 yard line it is statistic ically more likely that you will score points from that spot than if you started on your own 20 now if you do start a drive from the 20 and you immediately hit a 30 yard pass to get out to the 50 then that one play is extremely valuable in terms of expected points added because it turns a drive that's only about 30% likely to result in points into a drive that's about 50% likely to result in points so in a nutshell how EPA per play works is the more successful plays you have from a further distance away away from your opponent's End Zone the more your offense will be weighted positively in EPA per play because in theory that means you're good at starting drives in bad field position and sustaining them long enough to score which the bills actually are pretty good at they have the third most possessions in the league that have started from inside their own 15 yd line which is terrible field position they've started 19 drives from that spot on the field and they've scored on seven of them which is tied for the most scoring drives from that that field position in the entire league it's really really hard to get points from that spot I mean for context the Falcons have the most Drive started from inside their own 15 at 22 and they have yet to score on any of them the bills have seven and a big reason for that is that when Buffalo is backed into a corner they get Ultra aggressive if they're going to go down they're going to go down swinging so they don't just run the ball and give themselves breathing room to punt they take shots down the field Josh Allen has the deepest average depth of Target in the NFL when throwing from inside his own 15 yd line and it's not even close his a DOT is 14.3 yards for reference Jordan loves is 1.4 while Green Bay is trying to throw screens just to get a few yards in punt the bills are throwing Haymakers and trying to get themselves back into favorable field position to score and when they do hit on those throws down the field it has a massive impact on their EPA per play metrics because it turns drives that are very unlike to score into drives that almost definitely will score I'll give you an example of one such drive that took place during the Jacksonville game and this isn't from inside the 15 but it is from the 18 so that's still pretty close and still from a spot on the field that doesn't have a high expectation of scoring this is a third and six and Jacksonville is showing what looks to be either quarters coverage or cover five pre- snap cover five just being another name for cover two man that Nick Savin prefers but surprise surprise even with showing these two High safties deep this call from Jacksonville is not actually cover five and it's not actually quarters or any other two high safety structure at all it's really a situational man coverage known as cover one double jersey number or in this case cover one double 14 because the player who's actively being doubled is number 14 Stefan Diggs but not only is there a double team on Diggs and I mean a true double team on digs but this other safety is also coming down to be a spy on Josh Allen from depth so you get man coverage across the board Diggs is taken away and Allen's legs are taken away by a spy to show quarter's pre- snap and then to get into a look like this is just downright mean it's a great call by Jacksonville but even with how good of a call it is it still ends up not mattering because Josh Allen is Josh Allen he knows that the motion from Deontay Hardy is going to back this corner off no matter what the coverage is man or zone so Hardy's going to get a free release on this deep out and Allen has the pure arm strength to just un cork this ball from the far hash 17 yd past the line of scrimmage for a big chunk it's almost not even fair that he can make throws like this but that's why he's so valuable to go from a third and six on your own 18 to a first and 10 on the 37 is a massive spike in expected points added 3.2 expected points to be exact based on how the math works out for EPA calculation and then on top of that to go from the 37 to One play later hitting a check down to James Cook that he takes for another 18 yards to the Jaguars 45 that is another huge Spike of about 1.2 in EPA so just two plays in terms of the added expected value were worth a lot to this offense and of course the bills ended up capping off that drive with a touchdown to get their first score of the game so the expected points became real points that does bring me back to the question at hand though which is that at its core EPA is a theoretical statistic it measures the probability of scoring points in the future based on the result of a play but that's all it is probability it measures the likelihood of points not the certainty of points and to me that's where the bills offense falls apart because they are the best team in the league at taking a theoretically strong field position after a big play and totally squandering it I mean hell going back to that very same Jags game early in the second half from their own 10 yd line again deep in Bill's territory Allen hit dig on a huge deep post down the field for a whopping 48 yard which completely flipped the field and immediately set them up on the Jaguars 42 yd line they were only a handful of yards outside of field goal range from that point so scoring theoretically would almost be assured and that's why that one catch by Diggs was worth a whopping 3.7 EPA it's a massive play but again those added points are expected not certain in reality because the bills are IC to running the ball the result of the next three plays were a flare to cook that went for no gain an incomplete pass to Gabe Davis because he dropped it and then an incomplete pass to Dawson Knox while Josh was on the run that sailed just slightly too high the bills then had to punt from the Jaguars 42 yd line because they were in fourth and 10 instead of say fourth and three keep in mind that those three failed pass plays did result in an EPA loss because with each subsequent failure the likelihood of scoring went down but here's the kicker those three failures only resulted in an EPA loss of 1.03 that means that for the drive the bills gained 3.7 EPA on the digs catch lost one EPA because they stalled out which resulted in a net EPA of plus 2.7 which is great except you know they didn't get any real points that's the problem here from an analytics perspective this offense is one of the Darlings of the NFL because it's so good at almost getting in position to score even when they start way backed up in their own territory but then they don't actually score they either turn the ball over or they stall out early before they even get into field goal range if you remember earlier in this show I started off by talking about offensive points scored and touchdown Drive percentage the bills are fifth in offensive Point scored and sixth in touchdown Drive percentage over the last five weeks but you know what's not included in either of those stats field goals the bills offense does not get field goals goals and believe it or not the ability to get field goals is really really important over the first four weeks of the season when the bills had the number one combined scoring Drive percentage meaning touchdown drives and drives that resulted in field goals added together they had both the second highest touchdown Drive percentage at 35.7% as well as the eighth highest percentage of drives resulting in made field goals at an additional 21.4% those two added together was 57.1% of all bills possessions resulting in points which again was the highest Mark in the league over that stretch in the last five games though things have gone downhill they still have the sixth highest touchdown percentage over that time period but they have plummeted in terms of drives resulting in field goals to just 5.9% that is 31st in the NFL they've only attempted six field goals in those five games and out of those six they've only even made three so if you're a Bills fan that's been watching these games at home everying single Sunday and you're thinking hm it seems like Buffalo either gets a touchdown or gets nothing you're correct they either only get touchdowns or nothing and overall that results in their combined scoring Drive percentage being 31.4% which is 24th in the NFL all of those big pass plays for huge boost in EPA all of those drives where they dug themselves out of a hole we love these pass happppy offenses that are super aggressive in those situations and analytics loves them too but the majority of these drives don't count for anything because once they get into a key area of the field between the 50 and the opposing 30 yard line they throw like crazy they string together three incompletions in a row or maybe even take a sack and they stall out right before they get into field goal range in that area of the field running the ball and just getting yards is important because you need to set up easier forth down so you can actually go for it you need to get your kicker more opportunities for a 48 yd field goal instead of a 58 yard field goal and ultimately that is the difference with the bills they stall out right there all the time which means they're great at scoring theoretical points but terrible at scoring real points now all of this brings up the Fairly obvious question why are they constantly stalling out before they get into field goal range so they get zero points instead of three beyond the obvious turnover problem which is a problem why are they const conly either getting a touchdown drive that is 17 plays long or getting a three and out with seemingly no result in between like what is the actual source of this inconsistency based on the data that I have pulled as well as me going back and checking the film on all the drives that have stalled out so that I can double check that data in my opinion the problem is the Run game shocker I know and I don't mean that the Run game is an issue in the sense that they don't call enough run plays I mean they had like eight designed runs the entire game game against Cincinnati we've known that's been a problem for a long time they've been pass happy for a long time it's kind of just beating a dead horse to talk about that particular problem I mean it is an issue but it's not the one we're focusing on today the real main issue that I want to talk about is the design of the Run game which is so bad and so predictable that honestly I kind of understand why their coaches aren't running the ball because they know that most of the time this [ __ ] isn't going to work but here's the thing though I don't mean to talk like these coaches are handcuffed into calling bad run plays everything that's wrong with the bills Run game from a schematic perspective is entirely fixable like it's all the Bill's own fault that they can't run the ball I'm talking about formation issues I'm talking about you know issues with splits between offensive linemen I'm talking about the concepts themselves the fronts they're trying to run them into it's a [ __ ] mess but it doesn't have to be like everything that is wrong with the bills Run game they could change tomorrow if they wanted to the issue is that they don't want to and I am going to expand on what I mean by that there's a lot of film study involved and a lot more data I'm not going to leave you hanging there I will explain what I'm talking about but before I continue I want to invite you to watch the next Bills game with me if you somehow weren't aware the bills are playing on Monday night this week against the Broncos and I'm going to be live streaming on this channel starting a half hour before kickoff we're going to break down everything as we go and I hope to see you guys there again on Monday night on this channel conversely if you also happen to live in the Buffalo area and you're planning on going to that game but you haven't got tickets yet or you haven't got tickets to any other NFL game this season at any Stadium across the country if you use our Channel partner SeatGeek you can get a $20 discount on any of those tickets when I was looking last night at prices for the bills and Broncos game I saw tickets for as low as $48 so a $20 discount by using my promo code Brett on those is a pretty good chunk off that cost and of course the app itself is very easy to use it's super intuitive and all that I've had it on my phone for years as my go-to ticket app and every game that you see me go to on this channel SeatGeek is where I got those tickets so again if you're already planning on going to a Bills game this year or any other NFL game or concerts or events or pretty much whatever's happening in your city check out SE geek at the link below use promo code Brett and get a $20 discount on your first purchase thank you to sege for sponsoring Today's Show and with that let's take a deep dive into what is quite possibly the worst designed Run game in the entire NFL like I said earlier I believe that the Bill's lack of willingness to run the ball is more of a symptom than it is the disease itself it is an issue that causes them to constantly stall out early obviously but it's not the root of the issue in my opinion the root of the issue is why they won't run as in what is actually causing that overly pass oriented mindset to me Buffalo doesn't run because Buffalo doesn't think they can run and the reason why Buffalo doesn't think they can run is because they line up in shotgun 75% of the time and deep down they know that their shotgun Run game is way worse than their run game from under Center to the point where when Josh Allen is under Center they have the third highest yards per carry with their running backs in the entire league at 4.9 but from shotgun they drop an entire yard and are 20th at 3.9 and their staff is painfully aware of that the bills know that they can't run from the gun but they don't want to stop being in the shotgun because they see that as their identity so rather than call formations that they actually can run out of and maintain balance they instead just want to lean into the pass game and YOLO their way down the field until they inevitably punt if that sounds completely asinine it's because it is now as for why they struggle to run from the gun in the first place that to me is is mainly due to the fact that they base their run game on the two least explosive run Concepts in football inside Zone and Duo and they run them in the most boring least imaginative ways possible when you see actual good shotgun Run games around the league even ones that also run a lot of inside Zone and Duo they do their best to incorporate things like fold blocks inserts jet motions or orbit motions for eye candy sift blocks from haacks or tight ends or receivers to help create a seam it's all about time timing It's All About Angles but the bills don't really do that I mean occasionally you'll see them insert khil Shakir or one of the tight ends and sometimes they'll run power out of shotgun which has been way more effective for them than inside Zone and Duo but those power runs are really more of a side dish for them not the entree the majority of their shotgun runs are just vanilla Duo where they're asking cook to get downhill straight into the jaws of Hell or vanilla inside Zone where again they're asking cook to get downhill straight into the jaws of hell but there's no wrinkles in the scheme whatsoever to influence linebackers to get them out of the gap or to just outright block them and these vanilla Concepts that don't really work super well are the core of the bills Run game because of how much time they spend in Shotgun If you look at Great Run games around the league a lot of them spend less time in the gun and more time under Center or in pistol and they run more outside Zone more counter more pin and pole Concepts but the bills stay away from that and are very Unbound balanced as a result and I think the lack of imagination with which they run these Concepts hurts their offense immensely if they really cared about the Run game and having balance in key areas of the field to improve their overall Drive success rate which of course is the issue at hand today they would line up under Center a little bit more and steal a few run Concepts from Kyle Shanahan again I would even accept the pistol I mean you can run outside zone out of that counter power whatever you want you can do anything from the pistol that's why it's awesome and it puts a hell of a lot more strain on the linebackers than just running Duo out of the gun so yeah overall I mean I kind of get why the bills don't run anymore they're really bad at it but every reason why they're really bad at it is their own fault all of this struggle is by Design and that's the most frustrating part of all this because it doesn't have to be this way it doesn't need to be this hard and yet for years now across multiple offensive coordinators the bills have insisted on making their own offense as hard as human possible once again the good news about all of this is that theoretically on paper this is fixable the only thing they have to do is just completely change their scheme and almost entirely abandon their only identity as an offense it's no big deal will Buffalo get better as an offense this year I have to imagine they will at some point I just don't know when that's going to happen like I have no idea when they're finally going to flip the switch it could be on Monday and hopefully we see them finally get out of their own way on Monday especially while we're doing the live stream uh side note by the way on the live stream I'm not affiliated with this company but I do want to promote them we're going to be drinking some nice local buffalonian whiskey this is from 13 monkeys they are a veteran own and operated uh micro distillery in the Buffalo area um you know proceeds benefit the families of Fallen veterans and it's really really good too so it's good whiskey for a good cause I picked that up um while I was tailgating with Bill's Mafia uh before the Packers game last year side note by the way uh great tailgate scene in Buffalo those people can freaking cook okay like I would put uh Bill's tailgate food up against any tailgate food I've ever had my life it's also a really great town like I love buffalo and I would say that's one of my favorite places I've ever been to In America and I've been to a lot of places in America and especially a lot of football cities in America Buffalo is right at the top like if my family didn't live in California and if my wife really didn't like the cold I would move to Buffalo that's how much I love it there and people always look at me weird uh when I say that that's like one of my favorite places in the entire country but you don't understand it until you go and especially when you go during football season like that is a magical magical place and uh I miss Buffalo dearly I want to go back out uh for a game as soon as I can I don't know if I'll be able to go this season but I really really do want to go back um it's a special place to me but anyway uh I didn't really have an outro plan for this video so uh thank you for watching this late hope you guys join me again on Monday for the stream uh go by 13 monkeys it's good whiskey for a good cause and uh yeah until then cheers

Channel: Brett Kollmann

Views: 250,990

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Id: pIDKWEzr_Kk

Length: 20min 46sec (1246 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2023