The Buffalo Bills have one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses, but that wasn’t the case a year ago.
The 2019 expenses were offensively mediocre, averaging fewer than 20 problems consistent with the game. Josh Allen was a green quarterback susceptible to confusing decisions. Buffalo arranged an elite defense at a playoff position, winning a lot of low-scoring rock fights along the way.
This year’s expenses are different. They score nearly 10 more game-consistent issues (29. 1). Allen is a Pro Bowler and candidate for the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. His passing offense, still one of the weakest in the league, now ranks fifth in yards consistent with the game. and sixth in yards consistent with the attempt.
“Offensively, they’re leading the league in almost every single category, starting with the scoreboard,” Bill Belichick said last week as his New England Patriots were ready to welcome the Bills on Monday Night Football.
Here’s a look at the improvement in the Buffalo offensive since last season:
2019 Game-Consistent Points: 19. 6 (23o) Yards Consistent with the Game: 330. 2 (24′) Yards Consistent with the Game: 5. 19 (22) Yards Consistent with The Pass Consisting of the Game: 201. 8 (201. 8 (201. 8 (24) 26th Yard consistent with pass attempt: 6. 29 (20o) First outing consistent with the game: 19. 6 (T -20) DVOA football outsider offensive: 21st DVOA Pass Attack : 20
2020 Game-consistent points: 29. 1 (6th) Yards consistent with the game: 386. 7 (fifth) Yards consistent with the game: 6. 02 (6th) Yards consistent with the pass consistent with the game: 278. 5 (third) Yards consistent with pass: 7 Fix 53 (6th) First attempts consistent with the game: 24. 2 (second) DVOA Offensive Football Outsiders: 6th offense DVOA: fourth
How did they do it? A more consistent and guilty game of Allen’s ancestry helped, but he benefited greatly from possibly the NFL’s top life addition to the off-season: open receiver Stefon Diggs.
Diggs, acquired from the Minnesota Vikings for a first-round selection and the last two, simply sensational in his first season at the AFC East. The 27-year-old entered Week 16 as the NFL’s main catcher (111) and third in yards per reception (1314). He is a true number one player, one of the 10 most sensitive players in his position, and his presence has absolutely reshaped the Bills’ offense.
Beyond his own receiving production, Diggs’ arrival also propelled Cole Beasley, John Brown and rookie Gabriel Davis to more herbaceous roles as No. 2/3/4 options, giving the Bills a deeper and more balanced stable. . In 2019, he has been held back by injuries this season, yet Beasley is having a year in slots, setting his career highs in receptions (79) and yards (950) with two games to play.
“(Diggs) helped him a lot, ” Belichick. Es the league catcher said, is very specific. He made some wonderful individual pieces, sometimes he would go up and take the ball off the defenders, matches that you think are going to be incomplete passes, and he ends up with the ball . . . He added a lot to this team. “
The Belichick Patriots were in dispute over Diggs’ last offse season, talking to the Vikings about the then discontent receiver before it was distributed to Buffalo. New England eventually decided not to make any primary moves at Wideout, signing two reasonable loose agents for Damiere Byrd and Marqise Lee (who later left the season) and ignored a busy harvest of customers in the mail.
Hope, obviously, that N’Keal Harry would make a big leap at this time of year, Mohamed Sanu would look more like the player than he is in Cincinnati and Atlanta, and Julian Edelman would stay healthy and productive. None of those things happened.
Harry averages 2. 5 catches and less than 25 yards consistent with the game. Sanu cut off at the education camp. Edelman made his way through the first six games, landed on the disabled reserve list and has not played since. Byrd and especially Jakobi Meyers have forged seasons, but the caliber of the player a team needs to lead is not the spearhead of their reception. frame neither.
New England ranks 20th or worse in the 8 offensive categories discussed above, adding sixth place on game-consistent issues.
The list of disorders with this team of 6-8 Patriots is long: erratic game of quarterback, production 0 of adjusted final position, primary disorders on the defensive front of seven, etc. , but the location of a valid No. 1 receiver will have to be in the most sensible of his to-do list during the off-season.
Fortunately for New England, this year’s close harvest of loose agents includes several players who would have support for that profile (or at least be updates to their existing options). Chicago Bears star Allen Robinson is the head of the lineup, followed by Chris Godwin, Kenny Golladay, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Will Fuller. Below in the list are names like Corey Davis, T. Y. Hilton, Marvin Jones, Curtis Samuel, Keelan Cole and Nelson Agholor.
Patriots rarely pay a lot of cash for the rulings – Robinson will probably be out of their diversity of value they like – however, they are expected to enter the spring with about $60 million in salary cap space, the league’s fourth-ranked. organization of positions, and they want it.
The Bills’ offensive explosion is evidence of the price of a real Pass Receiver No. 1 If the Patriots need to recover from their worst offensive crusade in two decades, they cannot continue running without one.