Bills need to give QB Josh Allen that ‘easy button’ for 2024 NFL season

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Josh Allen is the driving force behind the Buffalo Bills offense and team as a whole. He is a very unique, one-of-a-kind player with remarkable talent.

It also needs simpler buttons.

Under former offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, many fans wondered why everything seemed so difficult offensively despite the team consistently winning games. Many of the stats during Dorsey’s tenure were excellent, leading many national media outlets to question Dorsey’s firing. If the team is successful in so many analyses, why change?

Sean McDermott and the Bills moved on from Dorsey because there were a number of issues that made the offense too dependent on the heroics of one Josua Patrick Allen. While Allen is amazing, there’s no reason why “Josh, be awesome” should be the only answer in the playbook.

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Allen has often been compared to former NFL MVP Cam Newton as a player, mostly because they are both big, athletic humans who are essentially unstoppable when running the ball. Bills fans cringe at the comparison, as Newton’s career has been plagued by injuries that have sapped much of his immense talent, and it’s not the career path anyone in the Bills Mafia wants for the most talented quarterback in franchise history. The Bills need to incorporate more schematic efficiencies into their offense so that the faith in Allen’s miracles is retained in truly desperate moments, like against Kansas City in the playoffs, thank you. Allen needs simpler buttons.

Many elements of football are called “easy buttons” for passers. Having a good racing game is a simple button push. Having a top-10 wide receiver is a simple button flip. Having a tight end who knows how to get open coverage versus zone is a push button. Performing a game action is a simple button push, and that’s what we’re focusing on here.

For the 35 2023 quarterbacks who had 50 or more pass attempts without play action AND 50 or more pass attempts with play action, the average EPA/ATT improvement was 0.176 per attempt better with play action EPA stands for Expected Points Added, and it’s an advanced stat that basically measures how close the offense came to scoring as a result of that action based on factors like down and distance , playing time and position on the field. To put that .176 into context by analogy, the play action took a player like Jarret Stidham and turned his performance into that of Brock Purdy on a play-by-play basis. One can quibble about Purdy simply being the product of his offensive system, but there’s no denying that his production isn’t significantly more impressive than Stidham’s.

Play action works primarily because it forces linebackers and other run defenders to consider the run before they can attack the pass. While this may seem simplistic, NFL athletes are dynamic enough that a split-second hesitation or half-step in the wrong direction can be maximized by the opposing offense. Making a linebacker take a step up or wait half a second before getting to his coverage responsibility can create a throwing lane or disrupt a pass rush to allow space and time to complete a pass that might otherwise go incomplete or unattempted. Making linebackers or any other defenders mess up is why play action is an easy button.

Unsurprisingly, Allen is good at both techniques. He ranked 10th out of 35 QBs in EPA/ATT without play action at -0.026, and he ranked sixth with play action at 0.244. That means Allen improved by 0.270 EPA/ATT with play action in 2023. The best EPA/Play in 2023 according to Sumer Sports was Purdy at 0.31. Now, that number is slightly different because it includes Prudy’s running stats, but giving Allen play action would equate to the second-most efficient QB play in the NFL in 2023.

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The chart in the article above highlights how much better or worse qualifying QBs were with play action than without. While Allen didn’t show the biggest improvement in play action (he finished tied for 12th in play action with Derek Carr), the increase is undeniable.

(Also, as a football fan, watch Lamar Jackson’s jump with a play action! Every time the Ravens used a play action, they were about to add a half point to their score. C ‘crazy.)

The league as a whole should be using play actions more often — its impact doesn’t diminish with repetition because every play is its own universe, and the defense must respect the run every time, whether it saw play actions zero times or 15. Allen finished 18th in percentage of throws that included play actions from this group of quarterbacks, and part of new full-time offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s job should be to give him more access to that easy button.

Check out the video content associated with Cover 1: Josh Allen’s 10 best throws of the 2023 season

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