The Buffalo Bills feel like a Ferrari stuck in first gear.
They are 3-0 for the second consecutive season, and have scored 30+ points in all three games thus far. In spite of that, plenty of members of Bills Mafia are already growing restless with the offense and its lack of explosive downfield plays. Instead of long bombs, the Bills' offense has been death by a thousand BBs.
Per Next Gen Stats, Josh Allen has zero completions of 20+ air yards over the last two weeks. On the flip side of that coin, Allen leads the NFL in passing yards on quick passes as well as EPA on quick throws. Fans voiced frustration during Buffalo's Thursday night win over the Miami Dolphins over how conservative the offense looked. Allen threw just one ball 20+ yards downfield and only one additional pass more than 10 yards downfield. This seemingly conservative approach isn't like the Bills, even under Joe Brady, who has leaned into a more efficient passing attack balanced out by a good run game. So why are the Bills playing with a more quick-game style? It's a fairly straightforward puzzle to solve - a lack of separation.
Bills receivers struggle to separate
The Buffalo Bills' wideouts aren't great at creating separation downfield. They brought in Josh Palmer to be the downfield threat guy - his average separation is 2.3 yards. For reference, the league-leader for separation amongst qualified receivers is KaVontae Turpin at 5.3 yards.
Khalil Shakir is in the top 10 in separation with an average of 4.3 yards, but that's as the slot guy. He's not a perimeter receiver who's getting downfield separation. The next closest qualified receiver on the Bills' roster in terms of separation is Keon Coleman, but he's putting up a mediocre average of 3.4 yards. Josh Palmer averaged 3.2 yards of separation on his lone reception of 20+ yards in Week 1, but has been very quiet over the last two weeks.
Dalton Kincaid is averaging 3.5 yards of separation, but again, he’s not a perimeter player. However, he has proven to be one of Allen’s most reliable targets downfield down the seam, similar to what Travis Kelce has been for Patrick Mahomes for so long.
Do these numbers completely absolve the Bills of any criticism regarding the vanilla offense? No, they should remember that Josh Allen is their quarterback and try a little more when it comes to testing the defense downfield - especially against a Dolphins team on their ninth-string cornerback. However, Allen himself said it best when asked about this on Thursday.
"I just wanna win football games," Allen said via Matthew Bove. "People want to talk about last game. Kevin just told me that people are mad that we're not pushing the ball downfield, and it's just like, we're winning football games. And we're doing what's asked of us, taking what's there for us. Teams want to play these split safety coverages and keep everything in front of us. But completions and letting guys like [Khalil Shakir] get the ball in his hands and make a play and go score. Same thing with [Dalton Kincaid]... we're just trying to win football games. Whatever that may be."
Winning games is the most important thing, of course. So as long as the Bills are doing so and putting up 30+ points, Bills fans can sleep well at night knowing that if and when they need to chuck it, they have the best quarterback in the NFL at doing so.
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