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So last night was the first time since... i think JA's 2nd year i turned off a game at halftime. I watched the rest of the game this morning, and I can't say i was surprised at the result. A few things stand out to me about this year...
First of all; we don't really have that much talent on the offensive side of the ball. I'm not saying it's "bad" per say, but it's been better. The reality is Gabe Davis is a no.3 or no.4 on many teams in the league, Our o-line has 2 -3 quality NFL starters and none who'd i'd say are pro bowl worthy. Our RBs are a jumble of mediocrity (Even Cook, if he could block he'd be an every down back, but no one on defense takes him seriously as a blocker, they just assume he's going to be catching when he's out there on passing downs); Diggs, as good as he is, is more of an overachiever then he is a top 5 WR; he's not amazingly fast, he's not a physical specimen, he's not particularly strong. He runs amazing routes, but he doesn't get there particularly fast either. If JA wasn't so adept at giving him time he wouldn't be putting up top 5 numbers. He's got great hands, and he's got the moves making him hard to cover, but if he doesn't deek out the CBs he's not getting separation. Kincade is turning into a weapon in the passing game, probably the first true difference maker since JA we've drafted on the offensive side of the ball, but he really needs to get better at blocking in order to take that next step.
The defensive side of the ball is average at best without Milano; teams have figured out where the weak spots are (Dodson and Taron Johnson) and are exploiting both players to an absurd degree. I mean it's almost painful watching team after team run the same dozen plays against us over and over again, and Johnson and Dodson bite on every play action, lookoff or pump fake, opening up huge holes in our primarily zone defense. Part of the reason why we drafted Elam years ago was because we couldn't play man defense when we needed to mix things up and confuse the opposing QB, well guess what. we still can't play man, and we still can't "mix things up" to confuse the opposing QB. teams know that if they take their time, and move down field taking what we give them, they'll get to go on 10-15 play drives, eat up 10 minutes, keeping our offense off the field, and likely get points too.
Last night was all of these things coming to a head. In the 2nd half we had one drive stall out due to penalties, ending in a FG, traded punts, plus the bengals losing it on downs, then had Kincade fumble away a long drive deep in scoring territory, only for the bengals to kill the clock on a 85y FG drive, take even longer to drive the field dink and dunk style for our own TD, then watch the bengals clock it thanks in no small part to only having 1 timeout left for that final 3 minute drive, to end the game.
We scored on about half our drives last night even with the two turnovers, the problem is, we only had 9 drives. the bengals ate the clock all night. which has been the story of our season so far. The Giants nearly beat us the same way. They ate the clock, had long time consuming drives, converted 4th down after 4th down, patiently took what our d would give them, and kept Josh off the field. The bengals did the same thing right down to running the same basic offensive plays... the jaguars did the same thing... the patriots did the same thing...
The book on beating the bills is out. Run misdirection/motion before the snap then run the ball up the middle (dodson or Johnson will fly out of position). Run misdirection/motion before the snap to stretch out defense horizontally then pick on the seams near the hashmarks or underneath in the flats, depending on the zone we're in (again targeting dodson or johnson). 5 yard outs are always open. and get the ball to the running back on a delayed swing pass where the RB pretends to pass block and leaks out. rinse and repeat, until the bills CBs start to cheat up into the short zones, then hit them over thier heads on the standard cover 2 beaters along the sidelines, cause our safeties, as good as they are, aren't elite speed types. keep doing that, and you get to keep the ball on long 5-10 minute long drives, and the bills offense only touches the ball 8-9 times a game. you have a good chance to win, because one of two things will happen. One JA gets impatient sitting on the bench and starts to take shots down field, or two, he stays patient, but with no real speed on the offense, we're forced to kill clock to move the ball down field slowly and methodically as well, minimizing the number of times our offense gets the ball. JA's flaws have been figured out as well. He's not a huge fan of throwing seam routes in the middle of the field, he will throw them, but he doesn't go to them as a hot read much, and he rarely tries it against cover 2 or 3, prefering to trust his arm to get it deep on the sidelines (again this is a tendency not a guarentee), furthermore when presenting a high/low route tree to the defense (say a short and deep out) JA will go to the deep option 9 times out of 10, meaning the "stress" on the cornerback presented by a high/low zone beater concept, isn't really a stress at all. just fall back to the deep out option and if JA sticks to form, he'll try to find a football sized hole to hit his guy. Oftentimes it works, sadly, he does this so much it also will usually end in a pick a game. The pick in this game was the same basic problem, bengals were in cover two, bills had a cover 2 beater called on that side of the field, we had a high low concept with Davis down the sideline, and I think it was cook underneath in the flat. the CB never looked at cook. JA never looked at cook. no one on the bengals tried to cover cook (well the LB did, but he wasn't close to him); and as a result we have JA trying to hit it into the small hole in the zone that opens up around 20 yards down field along the sideline against cover two. now had the CB slowed down slightly to look at the RB that's probably a 20 yard completion, as the safety never got close, instead since the CB didn't feel any threat from the underneath route, JA's pass which was behind and short, ended up being picked.
Now between you and me, Not many QBs make that throw ever. Aaron Rogers could 5 years ago. Payton Manning could 10 years ago. Tom Brady never tried that throw... ever. The rate which JA completes that pass is insane, because NO ONE in the league throws it as often as he does. And as well covered as teams make it (because they don't believe he'll go short) the fact he completes any of them is remarkable. But the problem is he has to be absolutely perfect to hit that pass. And no one is that perfect all the time. Hell, Joe Burrow never tried that pass last night. It's such a stupidly impossible throw to make, only JA really tries it, and it works most of the time. But... well you know how he's now thrown a pick in 5 straight games? It's because he throws that ****ing pass every ****ing game. I don't want JA to not be JA, but he'd make his own life so much easier if he took the underneath stuff in a high/low more often. Teams would have to respect it, CBs wouldn't drift back, and he'd get the chunk yards far more often. Josh has the league terrified of his legs. They RARELY play man against us because of it. This should make his job really easy since he knows he's getting zone, this should make playcalling easy too, because we know we're not getting man on 80% of passing downs. But because he doesn't take the short option in zone beaters he's trying to fit the ball into remarkably tight windows all the time. the fact he doesn't throw more INTs then he does is frankly amazing.
Ultimately the problem we have is we have a Superbowl quality QB, and a team and coaching staff that's wasting his career. The defense is filled with good not great players everywhere outside of milano, and milano ALWAYS gets hurt. It's a defense with a couple of weak spots, that teams are content to beat on us with. Our offense lacks true talent outside of QB and maybe TE (Kincade looks pretty special), with a massive overachiever in diggs (love the guy) and a RB who still hasn't figured out pass blocking (Cook). a OL that is mediocrity personified, and a DL which is tying up like half our cap, but isn't getting results.
This team if healthy could win a superbowl, but I don't think we will doing things like we've been doing. We will make the playoffs, i've no doubt JA will carry this team to the playoffs, we won't do much once we get there though.
First of all; we don't really have that much talent on the offensive side of the ball. I'm not saying it's "bad" per say, but it's been better. The reality is Gabe Davis is a no.3 or no.4 on many teams in the league, Our o-line has 2 -3 quality NFL starters and none who'd i'd say are pro bowl worthy. Our RBs are a jumble of mediocrity (Even Cook, if he could block he'd be an every down back, but no one on defense takes him seriously as a blocker, they just assume he's going to be catching when he's out there on passing downs); Diggs, as good as he is, is more of an overachiever then he is a top 5 WR; he's not amazingly fast, he's not a physical specimen, he's not particularly strong. He runs amazing routes, but he doesn't get there particularly fast either. If JA wasn't so adept at giving him time he wouldn't be putting up top 5 numbers. He's got great hands, and he's got the moves making him hard to cover, but if he doesn't deek out the CBs he's not getting separation. Kincade is turning into a weapon in the passing game, probably the first true difference maker since JA we've drafted on the offensive side of the ball, but he really needs to get better at blocking in order to take that next step.
The defensive side of the ball is average at best without Milano; teams have figured out where the weak spots are (Dodson and Taron Johnson) and are exploiting both players to an absurd degree. I mean it's almost painful watching team after team run the same dozen plays against us over and over again, and Johnson and Dodson bite on every play action, lookoff or pump fake, opening up huge holes in our primarily zone defense. Part of the reason why we drafted Elam years ago was because we couldn't play man defense when we needed to mix things up and confuse the opposing QB, well guess what. we still can't play man, and we still can't "mix things up" to confuse the opposing QB. teams know that if they take their time, and move down field taking what we give them, they'll get to go on 10-15 play drives, eat up 10 minutes, keeping our offense off the field, and likely get points too.
Last night was all of these things coming to a head. In the 2nd half we had one drive stall out due to penalties, ending in a FG, traded punts, plus the bengals losing it on downs, then had Kincade fumble away a long drive deep in scoring territory, only for the bengals to kill the clock on a 85y FG drive, take even longer to drive the field dink and dunk style for our own TD, then watch the bengals clock it thanks in no small part to only having 1 timeout left for that final 3 minute drive, to end the game.
We scored on about half our drives last night even with the two turnovers, the problem is, we only had 9 drives. the bengals ate the clock all night. which has been the story of our season so far. The Giants nearly beat us the same way. They ate the clock, had long time consuming drives, converted 4th down after 4th down, patiently took what our d would give them, and kept Josh off the field. The bengals did the same thing right down to running the same basic offensive plays... the jaguars did the same thing... the patriots did the same thing...
The book on beating the bills is out. Run misdirection/motion before the snap then run the ball up the middle (dodson or Johnson will fly out of position). Run misdirection/motion before the snap to stretch out defense horizontally then pick on the seams near the hashmarks or underneath in the flats, depending on the zone we're in (again targeting dodson or johnson). 5 yard outs are always open. and get the ball to the running back on a delayed swing pass where the RB pretends to pass block and leaks out. rinse and repeat, until the bills CBs start to cheat up into the short zones, then hit them over thier heads on the standard cover 2 beaters along the sidelines, cause our safeties, as good as they are, aren't elite speed types. keep doing that, and you get to keep the ball on long 5-10 minute long drives, and the bills offense only touches the ball 8-9 times a game. you have a good chance to win, because one of two things will happen. One JA gets impatient sitting on the bench and starts to take shots down field, or two, he stays patient, but with no real speed on the offense, we're forced to kill clock to move the ball down field slowly and methodically as well, minimizing the number of times our offense gets the ball. JA's flaws have been figured out as well. He's not a huge fan of throwing seam routes in the middle of the field, he will throw them, but he doesn't go to them as a hot read much, and he rarely tries it against cover 2 or 3, prefering to trust his arm to get it deep on the sidelines (again this is a tendency not a guarentee), furthermore when presenting a high/low route tree to the defense (say a short and deep out) JA will go to the deep option 9 times out of 10, meaning the "stress" on the cornerback presented by a high/low zone beater concept, isn't really a stress at all. just fall back to the deep out option and if JA sticks to form, he'll try to find a football sized hole to hit his guy. Oftentimes it works, sadly, he does this so much it also will usually end in a pick a game. The pick in this game was the same basic problem, bengals were in cover two, bills had a cover 2 beater called on that side of the field, we had a high low concept with Davis down the sideline, and I think it was cook underneath in the flat. the CB never looked at cook. JA never looked at cook. no one on the bengals tried to cover cook (well the LB did, but he wasn't close to him); and as a result we have JA trying to hit it into the small hole in the zone that opens up around 20 yards down field along the sideline against cover two. now had the CB slowed down slightly to look at the RB that's probably a 20 yard completion, as the safety never got close, instead since the CB didn't feel any threat from the underneath route, JA's pass which was behind and short, ended up being picked.
Now between you and me, Not many QBs make that throw ever. Aaron Rogers could 5 years ago. Payton Manning could 10 years ago. Tom Brady never tried that throw... ever. The rate which JA completes that pass is insane, because NO ONE in the league throws it as often as he does. And as well covered as teams make it (because they don't believe he'll go short) the fact he completes any of them is remarkable. But the problem is he has to be absolutely perfect to hit that pass. And no one is that perfect all the time. Hell, Joe Burrow never tried that pass last night. It's such a stupidly impossible throw to make, only JA really tries it, and it works most of the time. But... well you know how he's now thrown a pick in 5 straight games? It's because he throws that ****ing pass every ****ing game. I don't want JA to not be JA, but he'd make his own life so much easier if he took the underneath stuff in a high/low more often. Teams would have to respect it, CBs wouldn't drift back, and he'd get the chunk yards far more often. Josh has the league terrified of his legs. They RARELY play man against us because of it. This should make his job really easy since he knows he's getting zone, this should make playcalling easy too, because we know we're not getting man on 80% of passing downs. But because he doesn't take the short option in zone beaters he's trying to fit the ball into remarkably tight windows all the time. the fact he doesn't throw more INTs then he does is frankly amazing.
Ultimately the problem we have is we have a Superbowl quality QB, and a team and coaching staff that's wasting his career. The defense is filled with good not great players everywhere outside of milano, and milano ALWAYS gets hurt. It's a defense with a couple of weak spots, that teams are content to beat on us with. Our offense lacks true talent outside of QB and maybe TE (Kincade looks pretty special), with a massive overachiever in diggs (love the guy) and a RB who still hasn't figured out pass blocking (Cook). a OL that is mediocrity personified, and a DL which is tying up like half our cap, but isn't getting results.
This team if healthy could win a superbowl, but I don't think we will doing things like we've been doing. We will make the playoffs, i've no doubt JA will carry this team to the playoffs, we won't do much once we get there though.
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