Latest / Disguised Coverage / Buffalo Bills 2024 Offensive Outlook w. Mina Kimes | DC
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- 0:00It's thirty eight. All bills can win in here, Wake puts it down.
- 0:03The kick is on the way and dock m the bell good one?
- 0:07How the hell that one home? How one? They were a party one
- 0:14not party way? Incredible? Why not combat by my bell? Jacksonville's perfect
- 0:21record on the line right here, quick kicking, look excited. Touchdown Kyle
- 0:43Williams touchdound amazing, unbelievable. They puttied william who's hats to full back and
- 0:56he scores a touchdown. It's wealthier to face tackle. What's good? Folks,
- 1:10Family, Friends, loved Ones, Enemies, Friend of Thees Wizards which
- 1:12smuggles mud bloods people of Middle Earth to a special edition of Disguised Coverage,
- 1:18the only podcast to give you an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin,
- 1:21and is presented by the best pizza in Buffalo, New York, and that
- 1:23is one PI Pizza. Find the online menu in the episode showing not so
- 1:26They're here on YouTube or whichever podcast and the Apple platform you're listening to this
- 1:30show on. I'm your host Anthony Prohaska. Finding on Twitter at pro Underscore
- 1:34Underscore and that's pro two Underscores A n T In this special edition of Disguise
- 1:41Coverage, we are continuing the recent theme of diving into the Buffalo Bills offense
- 1:47in twenty twenty four and forecasting who and what they will be in terms of
- 1:51schematics, in terms of personnel, in terms of usage rates and snap counts,
- 1:56and anything and everything as this Bills Tea undergoes a significant revamp of sorts
- 2:04offensively and defensively going into this year versus what they've been previously. And the
- 2:08reason this episode is a special edition is because one it's pre recorded instead of
- 2:13being live on our normal Tuesday night slot. And the reason that this show
- 2:16is pre recorded and not live is because I adjusted to accommodate an absolutely tremendous
- 2:23guest. That guest will be continuing the conversation with us today on that Buffalo
- 2:28Bills twenty twenty four offensive outlook. I am joined by one of the best
- 2:30when it comes to anything and everything football, a guess that I am extremely
- 2:35excited to sit down with and talkball with. Today. I am joined by
- 2:38Miss Mina Kimes. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you, thank
- 2:43you so much for the applause, and thank you for having me on.
- 2:45As I said before we started, Kim highly recommended by a lot of fine
- 2:50folks on the football Internet, many of whom I've had on my podcast.
- 2:53So I'm looking forward to this conversation. I appreciate that, thank you very
- 2:55much. I appreciate you saying it offline and then even more show like more
- 2:59so when this is live, So it just kind of like gives me even
- 3:00more own fannemphasis. I appreciate that so much. We'll get right into it.
- 3:05Make sure we'll get you in and out on time. So, like
- 3:07I mentioned in the intro, and you've dabbled a bit in this conversation on
- 3:12Twitter on NFL Live, you and Nate got into some small pieces when you
- 3:15did the QB draft last week talking about Josh Allen. But just kind of
- 3:21leading off with what are your expectations for this Bill's offense schematically in twenty twenty
- 3:25four. They are going undergoing changes. They're revamped, rebuild, depending on
- 3:30how you want to look at it. They're tweaking the offensive line a little
- 3:32bit. Stefon Diggs gets jettisoned out. They're bringing in different body types at
- 3:38the wide receiver position. Then they've traditionally gone with what are your expectations for
- 3:42this offense in twenty twenty four. That is a big question that we could
- 3:47talk about for a long time. So you litered this. I just did
- 3:52a QB draft with Nate Tice. You guys haven't listened to that Menikim show
- 3:55you can watch on YouTube. Josh Allen went second, which was I think
- 4:00where that was. We agreed on one and two and then not a lot
- 4:03of spicies there were there, but we were both like Josh Allen's obviously second
- 4:06right, which I don't think should be controversial. In a few weeks,
- 4:11I'm doing my Top ten Offenses pod and I think that'll probably come out long
- 4:15after this one. So a spoiler, the Bills are still in the top
- 4:18ten, which I think not everybody might agree with right now because of the
- 4:24uncertainty around the skill players, a scheme all that. A lot of that
- 4:29flows from the fact that you have Josh Allen and pretty much and you know
- 4:32it's the same with Honestly last year with Patrick Mahomes, I was like,
- 4:35I'll still have him top ten now. The differences well, actually the Chiefs
- 4:39Office had finish eighth and DVA. I think. So when you have one
- 4:43of those guys, you're pretty good. It's good. It just it just
- 4:46works. But that in the process of ranking them, and you guys can
- 4:50listen to find out where they do land. I spent a lot of time
- 4:53diving into the splits before and after the coordinator change, just to kind of
- 4:58try to figure out what change, what got better, what got worse.
- 5:01And I'm sure you've done the same and thought about this a lot, and
- 5:04they're really it's really interesting. And this of course is before Diggs left and
- 5:09Coleman arrived, which will change things even further. But I was trying to
- 5:12get a grasp of what really changed with Joe Brady, because you know,
- 5:16I wasn't wholeheartedly opposed to the switch at all, but the offense was good
- 5:23before, so you know, and I and I you know, I it
- 5:28was good before, it was good after in some ways, uh, statistically
- 5:31it actually was better before, but I think competition factors into that as well.
- 5:36But the biggest things that jumped out to me when I dove into the
- 5:40splits, because a lot of it actually looked pretty similar. I think the
- 5:44number one thing by far was the and this is obviously to anyone who watched
- 5:48the Bills, particularly in some of the higher profile games the end of the
- 5:51season, not just the willingness to run the ball, but the willingness to
- 5:56run the ball when situation was favorable to doing so. One thing that really
- 6:02jumped out to me, I was pulling these So next one Status has this
- 6:06great stat called run rate over expected, and you can actually parse that I
- 6:11don't know if you've ever seen this into situational run rate over expected and formation.
- 6:15So before the coordinator change, the Bills were the fifth lowest based on
- 6:19situation, the sixth lowest based on formation, both negative meaning they were less
- 6:26likely than average. Afterwards ranked near the top of the NFL, and based
- 6:30on formation, they actually Joe Brady. Brady's Bills ran it at a ten
- 6:33point seven percent clip higher than expected, which is very very high. So
- 6:40they were good running the ball before, they were good running the ball after.
- 6:43They were just more willing to do so. So I think that's something
- 6:46I expect to continue. We can dive into what that run game might look
- 6:49like. But to me, that was the single biggest change you saw.
- 6:53And then the other thing that really jumps out, Oh, I guess we
- 6:56should ask they smashed the Josh Allen run more. But yeah, you know,
- 7:00yeah, okay, so that's kind of something you always saw with the
- 7:02Bills with Josh Allen as the season progressed. I always kind of had a
- 7:05joke that there was like the breaking case of emergency glass any type, yes
- 7:09exact. You could tell they were kind of just keeping him, being like,
- 7:12we don't want to do it unless we need it, and then it's
- 7:13like week twelve or thirteen and they're like, we need it, smash it.
- 7:15I don't know how much to put that on Brady or even to assume
- 7:19it's something we'll see in the beginning of the season again, but that's something
- 7:21obvious. But the other dramatic change Anthony that I noticed was just the usage
- 7:25of Stefan Diggs and how that changed the tenor of the offense, which is
- 7:29to say, if you look at Josh Allen's target depth and the route types,
- 7:34a lot of it looks the same actually deep ball, same intermediate,
- 7:38same. The biggest difference is he just threw a lot more screens to Stamon
- 7:42Diggs, who's the route profile became much more screen heavy, ISO heavy,
- 7:46part of the reason why he wasn't as productive down the stretch and you saw
- 7:50she care really emerge as a deep ball threats. So again, I don't
- 7:54know if that's something that will continue necessarily because Coleman's a very different player,
- 7:58for example, but that was something that really jumped out. Otherwise, the
- 8:01past game was, you know, pretty much equally effective before and after the
- 8:05switch. I love that you led with the run game pieces. I've been
- 8:09making the joke for maybe like two or three years that I've just wanted the
- 8:13Bills to shift. They were so pass heavy, and I thought if they
- 8:16could have a pivot in the run game, didn't have to be their number
- 8:20one option, but have a genuine pivot in the run game, it would
- 8:22just do wonders. And as they got better in the run, the offense
- 8:24opened up more. But then with the advent and prevalence of all the two
- 8:28high coverage structures and the pass heavy defenses, we saw a lot of them
- 8:33being built to stop offenses like the Bills and the Chiefs and put a cap
- 8:37on everything. I just kept having this joke. I was like, I
- 8:37just wanted them to switch to like this power run game play, action bootleg,
- 8:41all this stuff like kind of zig when everybody else is zagging, and
- 8:46that was a bit of what I loved with Joe Brady the most down the
- 8:48stretch and you hit it on the head my I'm especially in the Bills circles.
- 8:54I think I was one of the more pro Ken Dorsey people. I
- 8:58didn't think as much was on his plate in terms of blame, as he
- 9:03just kind of got used to this blanket cure all scapegoat and anytime anything went
- 9:05wrong, if it was snowing and a rainy in Buffalo, everybody's like,
- 9:11god, Ken Dorsey sucks. Look at the weather today. It just really
- 9:13got out of control. But my biggest gripe with him was that lack of
- 9:16commitment to the run, because even down the stretch in twenty twenty two,
- 9:20whether you're looking at it from a DVOA perspective and EPA per a temp perspective
- 9:22or just watching on the tape, they had a successful run game. I
- 9:26immediately think back to when they closed out that the Saturday night game against the
- 9:31Dolphins in the snow in Buffalo, and they're just leaning into their tackle rap
- 9:35scheme. Something Brady did a ton against the Cowboys in twenty twenty three,
- 9:39where he just spammed it like what seemed like thirty times in that game,
- 9:43but Dorsey wouldn't he wouldn't fully commit to that run, and it felt like
- 9:46it took him a while to get into it, in a while to feel
- 9:48it out. And I think that's a very good jump off point for what
- 9:52this offense will be in twenty twenty four, because I do expect the run
- 9:56to be heavily prevalent in this offense. They had one of the best ground
- 9:58games last year. Whether you're taking you're looking at just Josh Allen, you're
- 10:01looking at just you know, running back carries. They were seventh and just
- 10:05running back carries with epa per attempt. And then when you factor in Josh
- 10:09Allen in terms of what he can do from design runs from the scramble game,
- 10:11and then how that works with what defenses are trying to throw at them,
- 10:16combined with the question marks that exist from a pass catching standpoint, I
- 10:20really feel like the run game. I'm not going to sit here and say
- 10:22they're gonna be like a sixty to forty split in terms of the run,
- 10:24but one of the better run teams in the league, one of the highest
- 10:28gap run usage rates last year. They were third in the league. I
- 10:31expect close to like a fifty to fifty split with gap and zone, that
- 10:33they're able to get into a lot of pieces, and especially early on where
- 10:37they're trying to figure out who they are offensively. Yeah, I mean an
- 10:41unbelievably effective run game you mentioned even if you take out Josh Allen, who
- 10:46that was kind of what Nate and I got into, which I feel like
- 10:50continues to be unappreciated how unbelievably dominant and efficient Josh Allen is as a runner.
- 10:54He is very, very good. It heavily influences the way defenses play
- 10:58the run generally. But the other thing that really struck me when I was
- 11:01looking at some of the run stats I looked at before after the change,
- 11:03it was always good question was just the commitment. But even if you know
- 11:07so before they ran into a light lot of light boxes because they were such
- 11:11a pass heavy team. You saw that the year before. Even if you
- 11:13took out takeout light boxes from the Bills offense last year, they were still
- 11:18first and EPA per play and second in success rate running the football into neutral
- 11:22or stack boxes, which is it speaks to a lot of things. I
- 11:26think the presidence of Josh Allen. I think this is a very good run
- 11:28blucking offensive line. Obviously Morris is gone. We'll see how that affects things.
- 11:31But I think the tackle duos but sens around I thought was actually decent.
- 11:35And then yeah, I think James Cooks are really good back too,
- 11:39So it's a really good run game. I guess for me, you know,
- 11:45you asked me about the change in the offense. I kind of spoke
- 11:46to the changes we saw last year. Obviously that was a mid season change,
- 11:50right, so you're changing things on the fly. To me, the
- 11:54biggest question I have, aside from the wide receiver usage, which we can
- 11:58talk about and who plays what role is can you make the rushing and passing
- 12:03attack feel more cohesive? And I think that would be the step towards Okay,
- 12:07this offense was really really good after it was good before, it was
- 12:11good after. How can we make sure that it's a top five offense in
- 12:13the NFL and also potentially compensate for you know, not having a true number
- 12:18one as they figure out who Keon Coleman is and how he fits into things.
- 12:24To me, a lot of that is can we make all of these
- 12:26things tied together. We have this unbelievably dominant run game. Can we build
- 12:31you know, RPO play action pass attack off of that that is as effective
- 12:35as the Rams, the Ravens, whatever. Some of the teams across the
- 12:39NFL who I think do a better job with that. I love when I
- 12:43bring people on who I think highly of and I respect and like they like,
- 12:46I have no idea what you're about to say. I gave you some
- 12:48anchor points to our conversation. And I love when you start saying things that
- 12:52I was planning on saying, or that are already in my brain. It
- 12:54just makes me. Yeah, it makes you feel so great. That's a
- 12:58huge one for me. More of a marriage of the run and the pass.
- 13:01I remember before the twenty twenty three season, I was watching I think
- 13:05it was in I don't think it was a coaching clinic. I think it
- 13:07was an interview with Jeff Scotland, the Eagles offensive line coach, and he
- 13:11was talking about how every run that they have, they have a pass that
- 13:16goes along with it, where the setup, the design, everything looks the
- 13:18exact same, except it's just a pass instead of a run. And I
- 13:22was like, that seems like such a simple thing, but it's such an
- 13:24effective thing at the same time. And I expect the Bills to lean into
- 13:28that more from a formational standpoint, given how their offense is built now with
- 13:33their pass catchers, and so much of successful offense, especially successful rushing attacks,
- 13:39is in the NFL now. Teams like the forty nine ers, teams
- 13:43like the Ravens, teams like the Dolphins, you know, actually than the
- 13:46Rams, although in a different perspective that I'll talk about in a quick second.
- 13:50They lean into kind of the uniqueness of the personnel that they have and
- 13:54use that to put defenses into a buy. And you look at the Dolphins,
- 13:58who have a forty twenty one personnel use to drate highest in the league
- 14:03last year because of the prevalent the ability to use alec Ingold as a blocker
- 14:07or in all their RPO flooded floods and everything that they try to do with
- 14:11McDaniel. And then you look at the Niners, who have Kyle Uschak and
- 14:16who just use him in every way, shape and form thirty six percent twenty
- 14:20one personnel usage rate, eleven percent twenty two personnel usage rate, so forty
- 14:26seven percent of the time they have two backs on the field, usually use
- 14:28Jack and McCaffrey. Sixty percent of their snaps come with either two tight ends
- 14:33or two running backs because of what they can do with Kittle and how he's
- 14:35effective. And then you look at teams like the Lions, who had sixty
- 14:39four percent eleven personnel usage rate but were second in EPA per attempt for running
- 14:45back carries. And granted, some of this is because their offensive line is
- 14:48really good, but they had these bigger bodied wide receivers like Josh Reynolds and
- 14:52Donovan People's Jones, who were second and third, respectively in terms of wide
- 14:56receiver snaps. People see the pass catchers on that team and right, so
- 15:00you think I'm on Ross, Saint Brown, Sam Laport, and then it's
- 15:03like, okay, can James and Williams be anything? But Reynolds and People's
- 15:05Jones went a long way towards allowing them to stay in eleven and being able
- 15:09to access both the run and pass menu without having to switch out of eleven.
- 15:13And then the Rams take that notion and dial it up to one thousand.
- 15:18They were ninety five percent eleven personnel usage rate last year and then were
- 15:24six in terms of EPA per attempt for running back carries, and that's you
- 15:28know, Cooper, Cup and Pookin decor tremendous pass catchers and receivers. They're
- 15:31also very good run blockers. You can use them to insert and fit up
- 15:35on duo or just against second level defenders wash defenders down. And that's also
- 15:39something I expect the Bills to lean into, not just the matchup pieces they
- 15:45can create in twelve personnel with Kincaid and Knox or a eleven with some of
- 15:48their bigger body than athletic receivers who are also good blockers, but being in
- 15:52those personnel groupings and being able to access more of the menu from a run
- 15:58and pass standpoint put defenses into a true buying because you don't know what's coming
- 16:02at you. And then I expect them to pair that with some more like
- 16:04Sean McVay type pieces in terms of condensed formations, where you can really lean
- 16:10into adding more gaps around the line of scrimmage. You have less tells when
- 16:15you are in condensed formations because of the splits both in terms of the formation
- 16:18and the offensive line. I just think that it just speaks to what how
- 16:23they built this roster, and I feel like the identity they're going for in
- 16:27twenty twenty four and potentially beyond. Yeah, it's something I think I've kind
- 16:33of been waiting for from the Bills for a while. I think back to
- 16:36you know, you remember when Dable first got things really going with Josh Allen.
- 16:40They're one of the teams that used ten perconnel most in the league.
- 16:42You know, it was, you know, a very very different offense.
- 16:45And then we were like, okay, well now it's changing. I remember,
- 16:49I think it was not last year, but maybe the year before,
- 16:52down the stretch they started using regig gillium on some key. I remember being
- 16:56like, this is happening. The Bills are doing it. You know,
- 16:59Regie, it's happening. And then it didn't really happen. And then last
- 17:03year you get your draft dot KKI with your first round draft pick, and
- 17:07because of injuries to Dawson Knox, there's they don't really have that time to
- 17:11develop that twelve personnel grouping that we all expected. And look, even if
- 17:15it is quote eleven and a half, I think maybe Brandon Bean said that
- 17:18or someone Dalton Kincaids can still block a corner. Yes, you know,
- 17:23so he's willing, he's functionally like, he's not George Kittle. But when
- 17:27Dawson Knox is on the field, he doesn't have to be George Kittle.
- 17:30He just has to you know, beat up on a guy who's like much
- 17:33moreer than him. Yeah, So it's kind of been like stops and starts
- 17:37with regards to having a more diverse personnel offense. And to your point,
- 17:42I think it is something that we really see in the most successful offenses around
- 17:47the NFL, and when we break out personnel groupings now they're really misleading.
- 17:51Like you talked about the rams and everything they do out of eleven, so
- 17:53that shows up as ninety six percent eleven, but it's not really an eleven
- 17:56personnel offense. The Ravens, for example, they use Patrickricard like a tight
- 18:02end now, so really it's like a twelve offense that was classified as twenty
- 18:06one. But the point is all of these offenses are able to present the
- 18:11illusion of complexity, as Sean McVay likes to call it, where everything looks
- 18:15the same and not only gives them an advantage in terms of getting the matchups
- 18:21that they want getting, you know, a tight end versus a linebacker and
- 18:26coverage for example, or running the ball at a corner with that is how
- 18:30the defense chooses to play them, but also sequencing plays together in a way
- 18:34that I think we just really haven't seen from Buffalo. Because so while I
- 18:38do think Dable was great, I actually I do think Dorothy did a good
- 18:41job. I'm not I'm more propriercy than others. I think Brady did a
- 18:45good job last year. The reality is much of the success of this team
- 18:51has not been scheme based. It's because you have an absolute mutant at quarterback.
- 18:55So I think my question is can you give can you create a more
- 18:57scheme based offense moving forward? And that is what remains to be seen,
- 19:03And that's that's such a great segue to the next point they were to talk
- 19:06about, And yeah, I've joked a bunch on this show and just in
- 19:08different spaces that for years, like the Bill's playbook, like if you opened
- 19:11it, it wasn't like actual plays and concepts. It was just like different
- 19:15pictures of Josh Allen, like doing athletic or like different things, and that's
- 19:19exactly right, or him like reaching back or like and then like a couple
- 19:22like candid ones where he's like this and just different aspects, Like they really
- 19:26leaned into him being a unicorn and letting him be Josh Allen. And when
- 19:30it works, it's awesome. But then when you get to the end of
- 19:34the season and come playoff time, especially against you know, lou Ana Arumo
- 19:38and Steve Spagnolo and these guys who have everything that you are on tape,
- 19:44you're easier to scheme against because you're somewhat more siloed and you're somewhat more isolated.
- 19:48And yeah, I look for the schematics to play a heavy role,
- 19:52and it's part of the reason why I think there's so much pressure on Joe
- 19:55Brady this year, especially because I think what they've surrounded alan w isn't a
- 20:00bad grouping, but I think it's more of a you know, like the
- 20:03whole is greater than the sum of its parts type and offense, and so
- 20:07I think there is that pressure on Brady to schematically figure out a way to
- 20:11use everybody. One quick point. I also want to mention too, just
- 20:15to go back to that condensed formation aspect, the teams with the lowest formation
- 20:19with in twenty twenty three the Niners were the lowest, the Rams were the
- 20:23second lest Yeah, we did a chart on this in the playoffs. I
- 20:26was pulling them and I was like, Jesus Christ, it's like every team
- 20:29left it was nut yea. It was literally Niners, Rams, Dolphins,
- 20:33Texans and then Lions were the five lowest. And all teams with good run
- 20:36games, good pass attacks, good EPA per playing different metrics that you're looking
- 20:41at. That's one of the big ways that I think Dorsey Durham, sorry,
- 20:45Joe Brady leans into the schematics, just those big bodied receivers, condensed
- 20:49formations, reducing splits so you can you have less tells for defenses, and
- 20:56just trying to add gaps every way they can give themselves an advantage. Then
- 21:00using that with under center play action. Also expect more motion in different little
- 21:03tweaks when you look at Joe Brady, and because some of the conversation,
- 21:08I feel like Ken be put onto Allen this year in terms of there's no
- 21:12Stefan Diggs. It's really your show. You don't have a true alpha or
- 21:17true pass catching target one. Even if you really like what Dalton Kincaid can
- 21:21be, he's not there yet. So I do think there's some pressure on
- 21:23Alan. But if you're looking at Brady and Alan, who do you think
- 21:26has more pressure? Do you think one of them is far supersedes the other.
- 21:32Yeah, yes, Josh Allen is figure. I mean, this is
- 21:36like not a popular thing to say on national sports television, but he,
- 21:40Josh Allen has nothing to prove to me. He's already, like I just
- 21:44someone who draradically underestimated him in the draft and obviously wasn't alone in that he
- 21:49has exceeded every possible expectation I would have for him as a quarterback. And
- 21:52he's also, by the way, like I think there's such a misapprehension of
- 21:55his game and it's so mischaracterized, you know, I think I mentioned this
- 22:02with Nay, but it's kind of like the Bills offense is now kind of
- 22:04entering what Mahomes went through. Right Whether Okay, Tyree Kill's gone with very
- 22:07different player from ster Maun Diggs. But the point is you're going to have
- 22:10to become much more dependent on the quarterback and the scheme rather than the skill
- 22:14players to just win. And Josh Allen has to do that, no doubt.
- 22:18But Josh Allen also already went through the thing Patrick Mahomes went through where
- 22:22team started playing them with too high and he was like, Okay, I'm
- 22:25just going to be an absolute assassin and slice you up underneath and be super
- 22:27accurate and decisive and the ball is going to come out quick. I've seen
- 22:30Josh Allen win so many of those football games. He is not a boom
- 22:33or bust quarterback. Sometimes he makes boneheaded decisions, no doubt, but they're
- 22:38usually born of They're not born of like I would say, like him not
- 22:44seeing the field correctly. They're just born of him thinking like, yeah,
- 22:47I can hit this like, you know, collapsing whole shot falling off of
- 22:49my back foot because I'm Josh Allen, which he should not do that sometimes,
- 22:52but it's just part of who he is. Joe Brady, on the
- 22:56other hand, I think the expectations are much higher because again I'll go back
- 22:59to feel like he came in and he replaced a good offensive coordinator who led
- 23:06a very successful offense for a few years. And that's not to say that
- 23:08the change is bad idea, we'll see. I think it still has something
- 23:11that I think it's kind of a TBD for me. But because of that,
- 23:15there is more pressure on Joe Brady to evolve the scheme, to maintain
- 23:19the level of efficiency, and to do all the things we have been talking
- 23:23about in terms of integrating the run in the past and sort of optimizing the
- 23:26group of skill players that they do have. Yeah, I'm in lockstep with
- 23:30you there. Josh Allen's season last year was so odd. I always describe
- 23:36it as kind of like the Yin and the Yang of Josh Allen, and
- 23:38it just seemed like last year there was more of the yin, which is
- 23:41the bad one. I think we just saw more of that, like him
- 23:45going with more of those boneheaded type plays, but also at the same time,
- 23:51like he'll do those boneheaded plays a bunch and they work seventy percent of
- 23:55the time and then it's like, well, thirty percent they don't. I
- 23:56feel like last year was more fifty to fifty or kind of like sixty forty
- 24:00with sixty being bad and when it doesn't work, it's terrible. But when
- 24:03it does, you look at him and you're like, well, that's why
- 24:07he's Josh Allen, and I just I see what they built offensively in terms
- 24:14of surrounding the pieces around Allen and it just feels very much like a bet
- 24:18on Josh Halm, but also a bet on Joe Brady. And we'll see
- 24:22what they do this year and how that affects forty twenty five. And they
- 24:25should have some more cap space after the move with digs, but changing the
- 24:29offensive line, going with different body types and not going with your traditional you
- 24:33know, Allen's best seasons came with Colby's Lee and Stefan Diggs, guys with
- 24:37good release packages, Guys who can win at any point in the route,
- 24:41at the release and the stem on the break, declarative separators. And now
- 24:45they've gone with more bigger bodied frame tight ball winners like a Keyon Coleman,
- 24:51like a mc collins MBS has speed, but isn't this guy that's ready to
- 24:53route dudes up. He's more of kind of like a power slot, good
- 24:57blocker, vertical presence. Leo Shakir can win in a variety of ways,
- 25:00and it is the closest thing I think they have to a true separator,
- 25:04but that's about one. And then Curtis Samuel is a fun athletic gadget.
- 25:08I think more of an auxiliary piece than he is a true even more than
- 25:11like he is a true too, And so I think this really is a
- 25:15bet on Joe Brady to maximize that value. And also looking into that,
- 25:19when you look at this Bill's offense on paper excluding Josh Allen, how good
- 25:25do you think this offense is again on paper that's around him? And how
- 25:29much do you think is on him to elevate what is around him? You
- 25:33know, you mentioned it kind of going in that Mahomesy and trajectory in terms
- 25:36of being the trigger man or the talisman for that offense. Distribute, be
- 25:41efficient, take what you can when you can with your arm and your legs,
- 25:44but really no pun intended quarterback the offense. You know, how good
- 25:48are they on paper for you? And how much do you think is on
- 25:49Allen to elevate that grouping that he has? You know? Well, like
- 25:52I said, I do have them in my top ten still in terms of
- 25:56my projections for next year, I think if it was a different quarterback and
- 26:00you just slotted you know, a league average quarterback with this group of skill
- 26:03players, I would probably put them in the fifteen to twenty five range.
- 26:08You know, part because I think the run game, which is while is
- 26:11dominant. I do think they really benefit from the presence of Allen, so
- 26:15you know, he is definitely going to have to be an elevator. That
- 26:19said, I do think that there are players that you can really build something
- 26:22interesting around, because you said some of the body types, the skill sets,
- 26:26you know, we can worry about. Okay, you know Kean Coleman,
- 26:30is he a true exceiver boundary guy or do you want him in the
- 26:33slot? You know, I've seen some discussion around that, and I think
- 26:40there's actually some flexibility there, especially if they lean more heavily on the twelve
- 26:44personnel groupings early on. And I think, especially with what sha Care showed
- 26:48you at the end of last season, his ability to stretch the field vertically,
- 26:51I think will play a pretty big role in this offense. It should
- 26:55play a big role in this offense. But you know, so much depends
- 27:00on either Kinkaid taking that second, that next step, or Coleman being productive
- 27:07early on. And you know, those are wild cards, undeniably because those
- 27:11are very young players and if they hit it really can I don't want to
- 27:15put like too much of a silver lining on it or a nice little neat
- 27:18and tidy bow because I do think it is a big loss to lose someone
- 27:22of Stefan Diggs's caliber, even if he's not necessarily the Stefan Diggs of old.
- 27:26I do think that's a big loss, but it's fun in terms of
- 27:27what they could potentially be. And it really ties into one of the points
- 27:32you mentioned earlier in this episode of You know, the Bills can be in
- 27:37twelve personnel from a personnel standpoint, but be running more eleven and ten type
- 27:41of formations and going more spread because of how athletic Dawson Knox is and what
- 27:45Dalton Kinkaid can be. And then the same thing with your eleven personnel.
- 27:49You can be in eleven, but three of your receivers could be you know,
- 27:52key On Coleman, Curtis Samuel and MVS or Mac Collins or whatever they
- 27:56want to do, or even Collusia here with how he stepped up his game,
- 28:00and you can go more condensed, power heavy type looks and formations,
- 28:03so that ability, I think, can really put defenses into a bind.
- 28:07And then you pair that with Josh Allen with who he is as a passor,
- 28:10but being that plus one in the run game than what they have from
- 28:12a running back run game standpoint, and the potential is there, I think
- 28:18more so going down the road with how key on Coman develops or even Kincaid
- 28:22to a degree, But like you said, so much of it is contingent
- 28:25upon we really need this guy to hit. We really need that guy to
- 28:29hit, and they need to hit in specific ways because if they don't,
- 28:32you can't maximize that skill set, and then you're almost kind of like a
- 28:34sit and duck. Yeah, you'd like to see some similarities to I think
- 28:38what you've seen from the Chiefs over the last couple of years in terms of
- 28:41how they use their tight ends, the way they create opportunities for Cravis Kelcey
- 28:47against man coverage with their uses of a bunch formations and quad's looks. I
- 28:52think that the Bills could do some of that. But then again, some
- 28:55of that is really just about Dalton Kinkaid developing as a player. I thought
- 28:57you saw last year some of the things I really liked about him as a
- 29:00prospect. The hands, especially jump out. There was like a seam ball
- 29:03he caught from Alan near the end of the season where I saw him that
- 29:07reminded me so much of his college tape and I thought, oh God,
- 29:08if we can just see a little bit more of that, I think where
- 29:11he can stretch the field vertically, he is very capable of that. But
- 29:15something that I think you'd want to see in year two, kind of referring
- 29:18to Kelsey, is Okay, what about the chemistry on extended plays, because
- 29:22that is, of course what one of Josh Allen's many superpowers. Kelsey's ability
- 29:26to find work his way back to mahomes to find those holes in zone coverage,
- 29:30that's something I think if you can see that from Kincaid this year,
- 29:34that will take this offense to another level. And it's something I do think
- 29:37he's capable of, and it's something that Stefan Diggs was tremendous at with Alan
- 29:41and for as much maligned as he was amongst Bills fans, Gabe Davis was
- 29:45also tremendous at that that off script scramble drill. Diggs and Davis were tremendous
- 29:49and it's a huge piece of Allen's game and maximizing what he is with his
- 29:53legs and his arm. Mina, I don't want to take up too much
- 29:56your time, want to keep you on schedule. This conversation was awesome.
- 30:00I hope it was a few as well. Just in case people don't know
- 30:03who you are, what should do, anything and everything. The floor is
- 30:07yours. Whatever you got, you do plug it, tell everybody everything you
- 30:10want. Yeah, I had. My football show is called The Minachimes Show
- 30:12Featuring Money. It comes out once a week now twice during the football season.
- 30:17You can subscribe to it vigear pods. It's also on YouTube YouTube dot
- 30:21com slash the matt Menachimes. We end up talking a lot of Bills because
- 30:25the Bills are always a very relevant team. So if you're imagining if listening
- 30:29to this and you're a Bills fan, which if you're not, that's really
- 30:32weird that you're listening to this podcast, go check it out. I think
- 30:34you'll like what you hear. It's funny the conversation you alluded to with Orlowsky
- 30:38that got your attention. I think I was defending the Bill's defense, actually
- 30:41not the offense. I was just taking advantage of you talking Bills, and
- 30:45I was like, oh not, and see what happens it. Really I
- 30:48got a little bit chippy, I think at someone because I just feel like
- 30:52the Bill's defense. Everyone's like, oh, they lost so many players,
- 30:55and I was like, yeah, but if we watched the players that they
- 31:00lost and what they were kind of doing, recoisition might be the issuere Anyways,
- 31:06I'm very excited as always to watch this next iteration of the Bills offense.
- 31:10I am a big Josh Allen proponent. If it's not been abundantly clear
- 31:14from this conversation, no, you made it clear, and yeah you nailed
- 31:17it in the QB draft episode with Nate Tice, which was awesome. I
- 31:19mean everything to you is tremendous. Thank you very much for being here.
- 31:22That'll do it for us in this episode. If you're watching on YouTube,
- 31:25please drop a like, turn on notifications for this playlist, subscribe to the
- 31:29channel. If you're listening on the audio platforms, rate and review and subscribe.
- 31:32Tell your family and friends and loved ones about it. If you thought
- 31:33this episode was terrible, tell your enemies and try and ruin the day with
- 31:37it. I hope you and your family and friends and loved ones are all
- 31:38doing well and staying safe. Be kind to one another, take care of
- 31:41one another. I'll see you next week, and as always, godspeed and go Bills