Oct. 7, 2024.
For the first time since taking over as Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator, Joe Brady found himself in a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of. The young smooth-talking, high-energy play-caller armed with catchy slogans was leading an offense in a rut.
It was the day after quarterback Josh Allen not only produced the worst game of his career, but it was among the worst NFL outings in the last 30 years. Allen went 9 of 30 for 131 yards in a 23-20 loss to the Houston Texans.
For the second consecutive week, the Bills offense performed dismally. It was also the third time in four weeks Allen failed to throw over 200 yards.
There were questions about Allen, Brady, the offensive line and receiver talent. Both Allen and head coach Sean McDermott delivered a shot across Brady’s bow, essentially saying it was time to get back to what the Bills did best.
By the end of the season, the Bills boasted the NFL’s No. 2 scoring offense, Allen was an MVP finalist and four teams requested to interview Brady for their head coaching vacancies, pulling out of the running for the New Orleans Saints gig prior to the AFC championship game.
Total yards and total plays went down this season, but Brady crafted one of the most efficient offenses in the last 25 seasons. Of Buffalo’s 186 drives (excluding kneel-downs), the Bills scored on 54.8% of them — 38.7% ended in touchdowns — which was the third-high rate in the league since 2001.
“We won games in different ways,” general manager Brandon Beane said. “I think Joe really embraced, ‘Hey this week we just need to run the ball. Hey, this week we’re going to let Josh air it out.’ … He never went in – him or Josh – trying to force-feed the ball to a certain place. Or only run the ball, only throw the ball. I loved our balance. And credit to him and his staff.”
What went well
Throughout the offseason, Beane expressed a desire to create more chunk plays. He felt the offense had to work too hard to score points last season.
Brady’s offense responded by producing 33 plays of over 30 yards, nine more than 2023 and the most in Buffalo’s string of five consecutive AFC East championships. And 12 of those plays went for touchdowns.
The Bills added to their big plays by not making many mistakes. Not only did the Bills surrender the fewest sacks in the league for the second year in a row, but they only committed eight turnovers, which were the fewest in the NFL during the regular and postseason since 1993.
And when opponents made mistakes, the Bills were quick to pounce. Buffalo scored 139 points off 32 takeaways and 82 of those points came when they got the ball on the opponent’s side of midfield.
After muddling through the first six games, the Bills found their offensive identity and scored 30 points or more in eight of their next nine. The Bills found running plays that worked for them, including using a sixth offensive lineman more than any team in the league.
The passing game also found more of a rhythm, with Allen averaging 257.1 yards per game in his final 10 games, after putting up 193.3 in his first six. And the Bills found balance, with 602 passing plays and 603 running plays, including the playoffs.
“Keeping a team in a two-dimensional offense is hard to do,” McDermott said. “I thought Joe did a really effective job at doing that throughout the course of the year and not really knowing or the opponent knowing who or what to take away. So I think as a coach, in general, when you can do that, and take what you have and learn the strengths of your team, in this case the offense, and use those strengths to formate good system year-to-year, I think that is a sign of a good football coach or a good coach overall.”
What needs improvement
One of the pitfalls of Brady’s “Everybody Eats” moniker was that he had a tendency to live and die by it. The NFL is a matchup league, but sometimes the best matchup is lining up your best players.
Splitting fullback Reggie Gilliam out wide as they did multiple times during the playoffs isn’t creating a mismatch nor is it fooling the defense. And Brady fell into the trap too often this season.
The Bills ran the ball on 60.5% of first downs, the fourth-highest rate in the league, after Brady’s predecessors Brian Daboll and Ken Dorsey threw on more than 50% of first downs. And when the Bills did throw on first down, it was frequently an unsuccessful deep shot out of a heavy formation in an attempt to fool the defense into thinking they were running.
Despite his strong arm, Allen has never been a terrific deep-ball thrower. He is a superb intermediate thrower, but averaged just 3.6 air completed yards per pass attempt, which ranked 27th in the league.
And that’s where Brady must improve going forward. He needs to put together a more consistent passing game that suits Allen’s talent because while a balanced offense is good, Allen is the team’s best player and one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
Under Daboll and Dorsey, the Bills were one of the most frequent play-action teams in the NFL, but they were 22nd this season despite having the ninth-most rushing attempts. And then there is player use.
Brady can get a pass because Amari Cooper played most of his time with the Bills while nursing a broken wrist, Curtis Samuel was on the injury report almost every week since training camp, Dalton Kincaid played the second half of the season with a torn PCL and Keon Coleman wasn’t the same player after his wrist injury.
But Brady’s growth needs to include showing that he can effectively scheme and target his top receivers. And that’s not to say he needs to split from his spread-it-around philosophy because any offense is best when the ball moves organically.
The Bills don’t need a player to force-feed 10 targets per game. But when the game is tight or the offense is sputtering, most coordinators have a section on the call sheet to dial up a play for their best weapons against that defense.
At LSU, Brady didn’t face too many of those situations with an offense featuring Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. Nor did he see it in Carolina, with an offense devoid of talent.
Perhaps a healthier receiving corps will change that, but it’s hard to envision the Bills getting to the Super Bowl with Allen throwing for fewer than 200 yards seven times again. Eli Manning (2007) was the last quarterback to match that number.
“The end goal is to score one more point than our opponent. And, we didn’t get that done,” Allen said. “So throughout the entire off season, it’s going to be focusing on what we can do to make that a reality.”