Ask and Ye Shall Receive, Bills Fans

by Brian Galliford on Jun 21, 2007 10:18 AM EDT in Opinion Comment 2 comments

Yesterday, when I posted my comments on Anthony Bialy's story about the Bills' red zone ineffectiveness, it seemed to me that the stats that Bialy ran were a bit off. Then Kurupt asked the following question in the comments:

I'd be interested to know how those red zone numbers stack up over the second half of last season. It seemed we were much better in the red zone then, though still not that good. Incorporating Royal into the offense was a boost to the red zone offense, IMO, and needs to continue this year...

So, ask and ye shall receive. I decided to run the stats - and it seems like the general feeling that Buffalo's red zone performance improved in the second half of the season was a myth:

First Eight Games
16 red zone trips
8 touchdowns
50% conversion rate
3-5 record

Second Eight Games
19 red zone trips
7 touchdowns
36.8% conversion rate
4-4 record

Top Red Zone Scorers
Willis McGahee - 4 touchdowns
Peerless Price - 3 touchdowns
Anthony Thomas - 2 touchdowns
Robert Royal - 2 touchdowns
J.P. Losman, Josh Reed, Lee Evans, Ryan Neufeld - 1 touchdown each

So where did this anomaly come from? It's obvious that our offense was far more effective in the second half of the season, but it seems that the effectiveness came more by big plays than red zone efficiency. The 13% drop in TD conversion rate in the red zone is very surprising, given the fact that the Bills put up some solid point totals in the second half of the year (they scored less than 20 points just twice in the eight games).

Big plays were the reason. Losman had multiple long touchdown passes to Lee Evans and also had 20+ yard strikes to Robert Royal and Josh Reed. We also had touchdown returns from the likes of Nate Clements, Terrence McGee and Roscoe Parrish to skew our point totals. It seems that our offense did not grow as much as we thought it did in the red zone; in fact, it got much worse.

If we're going to win some of the close games we should have won last year, we certainly need to be more effective at scoring touchdowns in the red zone. Contrary to popular opinion, it seems that the Bills have a lot more growth to do in this department than most Bills fans (including yours truly) realize.

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Well, now...

We have a B-level (with the potential of an A or A+ fairly soon) running game.

That will OVERWHELMINGLY assist us. Most teams can't pull off not running successfully in the red zone and still score consistently. We need to smash some mouth.

by Dock Ellis on Jun 21, 2007 11:11 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Wow

Thanks for the quick turnaround on that. I feel special having my question answered ASAP.

Anyways....

I'm surprised, actually really surprised. I could have sworn we were better in the red zone, but as I think about it along with the longer TD's you mentioned, it makes sense. Throw in the two longer TD runs from McGahee (Jax and Jets) and that helps explain it even further. I guess my memory continues to fail me. I guess the higher point totals skewed my thinking into believing we were better at finishing off drives when in reality we continued to struggle, probably more over the second half of the season, punching it in.

This is setting off a red alert in my head regarding our potential on offense, though faintly. This is something that NEEDS to be improved or we will struggle this year. We can't rely on the deep pass to Evans every game and in order to keep our young defense fresh and off the field, we need to sustain drives and finish them off. Take the Colts game as an example from last year. We chewed up time and kept the ball out of Peyton's mitts, but we never punched it in the end zone and settle for 3 FG's and the critical missed FG in the 4th Q. Being able to continue those drives and scoring TD's will give us chances to win those games. However, I am confident that we'll have a MUCH MUCH MUCH better running game this year with the OL additions and better, hardrunning RB's. From the first series of the season we have to establish our ground game and prove to defenses it'll be a threat. With that we will be able to utilize the play action pass more, including bombs to Evans, and especially in the red zone as effective weapons.

Let's hope this is another phase of our offense that shows improvement this season. Again, I feel it correlates perfectly to how our OL plays and how our running game works out. If we continue to have poor OL (please God no) and can't establish our running game, JP will have a tougher time bringing our offense to that next level we all envision and expect.

Good work Brian and thanks for doing that. This was one of the more eye opening and informational posts and, like all the others, is much appreciated.

by Kurupt on Jun 21, 2007 1:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs