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The Buffalo Bills' offense has been one of the big surprises early in this NFL season. The 2010 Bills scored just 17.7 points per game, 28th in the league. This year, Buffalo leads the league with 39.5 points per game. Ryan Fitzpatrick is slinging the ball all over the field, with a spread attack that features rising young receivers Steve Johnson, David Nelson and Donald Jones. Tight end Scott Chandler has appeared out of nowhere to contribute three touchdowns. As an added bonus, Fred Jackson leads the league in rushing yardage and is third in Football Outsiders' DYAR rushing value. Even the offensive line, which was in complete turmoil during training camp, is suddenly playing well.
How rare is this kind of offensive turnaround? And can past teams give us any indication whether the Bills' offense is for real?
Last year, Buffalo's offense ranked 26th in the Football Outsiders ratings, with an offensive DVOA of 10.4 percent. That meant the Bills were roughly 10 percent less efficient than the average offensive performance of the past few seasons. And the Bills weren't exactly getting hotter at the end of the season. After a huge 49-31 win over Cincinnati in Week 11, Buffalo had six straight games with 17 or fewer points, including just 10 points combined in the final two weeks. This year, the Bills rank third in offensive DVOA, behind just New England and Green Bay.
The improvement in the Bills' offense between last year and the first two weeks of this year is the second-largest in DVOA history. Only the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers had a bigger jump, but unlike the Bills, they didn't go from below-average to explosive. They were already good the year before -- eighth in offensive DVOA at 17.4 percent -- and they won their first two games of 2005 by a combined score of 61-14.
To get a list of teams similar to the Bills, let's look only at teams with an offensive DVOA between minus-20 percent and 0 percent the year before -- offenses that were bad, but not dismal. What happened when those offenses started hot the following season?
The answer? Most of them played well the entire season, with one huge exception (the 1994 Seattle Seahawks, who saw Rick Mirer turn back into a pumpkin after two weeks). Admittedly, two of the top three offenses on that table aren't the best comparisons for Buffalo; the 2000 Broncos and 2006 Eagles were coming off years in which their offenses struggled due to injury, not inexperience, like the 2010 Bills.
read more: http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/story...egitimate-year
How rare is this kind of offensive turnaround? And can past teams give us any indication whether the Bills' offense is for real?
Last year, Buffalo's offense ranked 26th in the Football Outsiders ratings, with an offensive DVOA of 10.4 percent. That meant the Bills were roughly 10 percent less efficient than the average offensive performance of the past few seasons. And the Bills weren't exactly getting hotter at the end of the season. After a huge 49-31 win over Cincinnati in Week 11, Buffalo had six straight games with 17 or fewer points, including just 10 points combined in the final two weeks. This year, the Bills rank third in offensive DVOA, behind just New England and Green Bay.
The improvement in the Bills' offense between last year and the first two weeks of this year is the second-largest in DVOA history. Only the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers had a bigger jump, but unlike the Bills, they didn't go from below-average to explosive. They were already good the year before -- eighth in offensive DVOA at 17.4 percent -- and they won their first two games of 2005 by a combined score of 61-14.
To get a list of teams similar to the Bills, let's look only at teams with an offensive DVOA between minus-20 percent and 0 percent the year before -- offenses that were bad, but not dismal. What happened when those offenses started hot the following season?
| YEAR | TEAM | OFF DVOA Last Yr | RANK Last Yr | OFF DVOA after 2 Wks | Change | FINAL OFF DVOA | FINAL RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | BUF | -10.4% | 26 | 47.8% | 58.2% | -- | -- |
| 1999 | WAS | -3.8% | 12 | 53.5% | 57.3% | 17.1% | 1 |
| 2002 | MIA | -5.7% | 20 | 44.0% | 49.7% | 8.7% | 11 |
| 1997 | MIN | -13.2% | 23 | 34.1% | 47.3% | 5.8% | 8 |
| 1994 | SEA | -13.0% | 20 | 33.0% | 46.0% | -12.9% | 25 |
| 2000 | DEN | -2.3% | 14 | 43.6% | 45.9% | 18.8% | 3 |
| 2006 | PHI | -9.1% | 19 | 34.8% | 44.0% | 22.0% | 3 |
| 1994 | NE | -17.6% | 23 | 25.3% | 43.0% | -2.4% | 12 |
| 2000 | NYG | -12.3% | 20 | 30.0% | 42.3% | 8.6% | 8 |
| 1997 | NE | -0.7% | 14 | 41.1% | 41.8% | 4.0% | 9 |
The answer? Most of them played well the entire season, with one huge exception (the 1994 Seattle Seahawks, who saw Rick Mirer turn back into a pumpkin after two weeks). Admittedly, two of the top three offenses on that table aren't the best comparisons for Buffalo; the 2000 Broncos and 2006 Eagles were coming off years in which their offenses struggled due to injury, not inexperience, like the 2010 Bills.
read more: http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/story...egitimate-year
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