5 Adjustments the Buffalo Bills Must Make in Week 4
After a strong 2-0 start to the season, the Buffalo Bills lost their first game to Philip Rivers and the visiting San Diego Chargers.
Rivers showed why he is one of the league's top quarterbacks as he picked apart the Bills defense and led his team to a convincing 22-10 win.
But all is not lost for the Bills after one bad performance. The Chargers were a playoff team last year, and they showed their win against the Seahawks the week before was no fluke.
A loss always hurts, but now the Bills have to turn their focus to their trip to Houston in Week 4. Let's have a look at some adjustments the Bills could make heading into their matchup with the Texans.
Change Up Offensive Line
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We know the Bills will rely on the run to pace their offense, but for them to have success on the ground, they need to find better play from the offensive line. More specifically, they need better guard play.
After using Erik Pears at right tackle last year, the Bills have been experimenting with him at right guard through the first couple weeks of 2014. It's safe to say by now that the experiment has blown up in the team's face.
Via Chris Trapasso of NFL.com, Pears had a -4.0 Pro Football Focus rating in the Week 3 loss to the Chargers. For the season, Pears is at -10.8, which is good for last among offensive guards.
Trapasso went on to say that Pears' issues stem from him being "too tall to ever get low enough" and "not quick to stay in front of defenders."
It's hard to have a successful run game when you have the worst offensive guard in the league. Perhaps the Bills could go back to Kraig Urbik at guard. He may not be a huge upgrade, but he can't be much worse, right?
Left guard Chris Williams, who has also struggled, left Sunday's game with a back injury. Per Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com, rookie Cyril Richardson is in line to start in against the Texans in Williams' place. Giving Richardson a shot could help the Bills, as his strong and bulky build would be a factor in the run game.
Even if Williams is healthy enough to play, Richardson deserves an opportunity to showcase his skill. The Bills will continue to be a run-first team, so they need to find their best combination of offensive linemen. It's pretty safe to say their current starting five isn't the optimal group.
More Corey Graham
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The Bills took Stephon Gilmore 10th in the 2012 draft to be their No. 1 cornerback. But another player on the Bills roster has been the team's top pass defender early on.
Corey Graham, who signed with the Bills this offseason, has been the team's best corner through the first three games, and it isn't even close.
Despite routinely outperforming both Gilmore and Leodis McKelvin, Graham only played 50 percent of the defensive snaps against San Diego, per Matthew Fairburn of Syracuse.com.
Ryan Talbot of The Bills Mafia Blog provided some looks at Graham's rating from Pro Football Focus. Talbot said Graham is rated as the top cornerback in the NFL and also the best in coverage. Also thanks to Talbot, opposing quarterbacks have a rating of 28.5 when throwing to Graham, which is second only to Vontae Davis of the Colts.
So yeah, maybe Graham should be on the field more often on defense. With upcoming matchups against Andre Johnson and (gulp) Calvin Johnson, the Bills need to deploy Graham lest they get eaten up by these dangerous pass-catchers.
Start Removing Manuel's Training Wheels
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Even though EJ Manuel is in his second pro season, he has only played in 13 games. So some bumps along the way are to be expected.
However, the defense can't hold down opponents week in and week out, so the Bills need to start giving Manuel more opportunities in the offense.
Should they try to make him Peyton Manning and start chucking it all over the lot? Of course not, but the offense could stand to be a little more creative.
The Bills' fatal flaw might have been exposed against the Chargers. After going down 20-3 midway through the third quarter, the Bills were ill equipped to get back in the game. The Chargers seemed content to let Manuel throw short to receivers or check it down to running backs.
Plays like that are not going to help a team get back into a game when it is down double digits. The Bills need to challenge teams deep from time to time. They have a talented group of receivers that should be able to beat their defenders on long routes.
And there are more benefits to throwing it long besides just the potential for a big catch.
The league has made it clear that it is cracking down on pass interference, illegal contact and defensive holding penalties. The more you throw it downfield, the more likely you are to draw some of these penalties.
Some critics will cite Manuel's lack of accuracy as a reason he doesn't throw it deep. But Manuel has shown he can hit his targets.
On a pass against the Dolphins that ultimately fell incomplete, Manuel dropped it in the bucket and hit Sammy Watkins in the hands as he was streaking down the sideline. The cornerback made a great play to knock the ball out of Watkins' hands, but Manuel's throw was definitely worthy of a Dilfer's Dime.
The Bills' bread and butter is still the run game. But eventually Manuel is going to have to throw the team to a victory. The sooner they get him comfortable with that role, the better off the team will be.
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Tweak Running Game
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Better play from the offensive line would certainly help the run game, but there are other ways the Bills can look to rack up more yards on the ground.
It still seems like the Bills are misusing C.J. Spiller in the rushing offense. Too often the Bills will run the zone read with Spiller and send him right into the teeth of the defense. Since EJ Manuel hasn't been much of a passing threat early on, opposing defenses have been teeing off and waiting for Spiller in the middle.
Spiller is averaging four yards per carry on the season, but that average has been bolstered by a few long runs. Spiller's skill set lends itself to more running on the edge than between the tackles. Let Fred Jackson or Boobie Dixon handle the tough running inside.
Now that Spiller's ankle is healthy, he has regained the quickness and juking ability that makes him such a dangerous runner. The Bills need to find a way to get him the ball in space. That way, if he can make one or two defenders miss, he can rack up big chunks of yards.
In addition, the Bills could use a few of their other offensive playmakers on the ground. Much like the Seahawks use Percy Harvin, the Bills could use Sammy Watkins—or even Marquise Goodwin—on a fly sweep.
Here's a great breakdown by Brock Huard of the play Seattle used in the Super Bowl. If the Bills can get Watkins or Goodwin one-on-one with a safety, that's a favorable matchup.
And if either player makes their man miss and hits the open field, no one is catching them.
Because Manuel is still learning on the fly, the Bills need to lean on their run game to keep the offense going. If they give their explosive athletes a chance to make a play in space, it can do wonders for the offense.
Be Aggressive
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Full disclosure: Doug Marrone forgets more about football every day than I will ever know. But (double negative alert!) that doesn't mean he won't make a curious decision every now and again.
One such decision came early in the game against the Chargers. Jay Skurski of The Buffalo News detailed the play, but here's the Cliff's Notes.
Down 7-0 in the first quarter, the Bills punted on 4th-and-6 from the Chargers' 48. There were two penalties on the play, both of which were on the Chargers. One was offside and the other was holding.
Marrone ended up accepting the holding penalty, which still gave the Chargers the ball but backed them up 10 yards. The other option would have been to accept the offside penalty and set up a 4th-and-1.
The Bills still would have been out of field-goal range, and it would have made for a tight window for Colton Schmidt to punt into.
The aggressive play here? Go for it on 4th-and-1. Not only would it have kept the drive alive, but it would have given the offense confidence that it can line up and get one yard when it needs to. The Bills have a 6'5" quarterback. Snap it to him and let him lean forward for a yard.
When you're outmatched offensively like the Bills were against the Chargers, you have to maximize your scoring opportunities. Say the Bills converted (a 65 percent expected success rate in that situation, per Skurski) and went on to score. It would have been 7-7, the crowd would have been right back in the game and the defense would have been hyped to go out and get the ball back for the offense.
Should the Bills go for it on every fourth down? No, but if they only need a yard and they are in an opponent's territory, it couldn't hurt to leave the offense on the field now and again.
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