Is the Buffalo Bills' Offense For Real?

Eric Samulski evaluates the Buffalo Bills offense in 2020 for fantasy football purposes. Will players like Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs retain QB1 and WR1 value or are they sell-high candidates to trade?

Move out of the way for the NFL's new most explosive offense: the... Buffalo Bills?

Through the first two weeks of the NFL season, the Buffalo Bills rank 3rd in the NFL in total yards (928), 3rd in yards per play (6.6), 1st in passing yards (719), 2nd in passing TDs (6), and 5th in Pro Football Reference's Expected Points metric (which is the expected points contributed solely by an offense) with 35.50.

Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll seems to be scheming his offense perfectly for the opposition. The million-dollar question is: will it continue?

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Finally a Franchise QB

Josh Allen has looked like a breakout star and is currently the number two quarterback in fantasy.

Stefon Diggs, the number four wide receiver in half PPR leagues, is making catches all over the field, and his presence has opened up more explosive plays for John Brown, who is currently the 10th ranked receiver in half PPR leagues. The Bills are a force to be reckoned with.

They've also played the Jets and the Dolphins to start the season.

So which one is it: is this an indication of how the Bills offense will operate this year and should we adjust our rankings accordingly or was this just a two-week aberration against bottom-barrel defenses? I looked through the Bills gameplans, formation usage, and production in order to understand what the true identity of this offense is.

Let's just get this out there right from the start. I'm not here for the Josh Allen hatred that has continued to pervade the fantasy community since the NFL Draft. Yes, he will fumble. Yes, he will make some bone-headed throws. However, he is also a young quarterback who is clearly getting better in many areas and has already proven that, even with his flaws, he can consistently put up fantasy goodness.

On the season, Allen has completed 57 of 81 passes (70.4%) for 729 yards with six touchdowns and zero interceptions. As was displayed online repeatedly this week, that start has only ever been equaled by Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Patrick Mahomes. Not bad company to keep.

One of the keys to that has been Allen's improvement as a deep passer. The young quarterback has been maligned for having a big arm and no idea where the ball is going, and that narrative was affirmed last year when Allen finished 29th in the league in Football Outsiders' Deep Ball Project, completing only 19 of 57 attempts on throws 21-plus yards from scrimmage. To make matters worse, he was only four-for-29 on passes that traveled 30 or more yards in the air.

So far this season, Allen is seven-for-nine on passes over 20 yards and was two-for-three on passes over 30 yards against Miami alone. While the secondaries of the Dolphins and Jets can certainly be a factor in this (especially after the Dolphins lost Byron Jones), you can clearly see Allen's improvements in technique on a few of these deep passes.

On his first completion of the day (the first pass below), Allen sells the play-action well and stays light on his feet in the drop. He climbs up into the pocket, keeping his eyes on John Brown in the middle of the field to hold the safety in his place. Allen feels the pressure coming from his right side, and flings a pass that hits Diggs on the money. No matter who is in coverage on that play, that pass is perfect. It's the type of touch pass that everybody said Allen wasn't able to make.

Another play that shows Allen's growth was his long completion to Isaiah McKenzie. Here, Allen takes a deep drop and, again, works to climb the pocket. He doesn't take the immediate option to pass to Singletary in the flat because he sees the linebacker lurking behind him.

Allen works through two more reads before feeling pressure in the pocket. Here is where we see the growth. Instead of tucking the ball and running into that vast open space, Allen keeps his eyes downfield, giving McKenzie time to make one more move in space to lose his defender.

Then hits him in stride for a huge run after the catch.

Another throw that shows Allen's improvements in the pocket is the touchdown pass to Gabriel Davis. When Allen feels the pressure in the pocket, he has the presence of mind to switch the ball from his right hand to his left hand to keep the ball secure.

Then he switches back as he's rolling outside of the pocket. Even throw he throws off of his back foot, he squares his shoulders and puts the ball where only Gabriel Davis can get it. It's an incredible catch but is also a great throw on a 3rd and goal with the Bills down by three.

That's either a touchdown or a game-tying field goal if it falls incomplete because Allen was able to avoid some of the simple mistakes that plagued him as a younger quarterback.

That improvement in technique, and the improvements in his supporting cast, has led to a jump in production from the fourth-year pro. Despite Allen being 9th in the league with an average depth of target of 8.9 yards, he has only thrown only 19.8% "bad passes," according to RotoWire. That's fewer than Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, Carson Wentz, and some other names that wouldn't surprise you.

Allen will likely not hover around 70% accuracy all year, but it's foolish to write off this clear evidence of a young player improving and just saying that he's faced bad defenses. Allen is renowned for being a hard worker, and it's clear that all that hard work has finally started to pay off.

Josh Allen May Not Run As Much

Josh Allen's rushing prowess remains. The Bills have run the ball 55 times this year, and Josh Allen is second on the team with 18 carries (The Bills' top three rushers are all within two carries of each other, but that's a discussion for later). Allen has gained 75 yards and a touchdown on those rushes, which raises his floor as a fantasy quarterback. However, there's been an interesting development.

Josh Allen is no longer the goal-line back.

The Bills have had 14 rushes in the Red Zone so far this year, and Zach Moss has gotten eight of those carries. Devin Singletary is second on the team with three and then Josh Allen has two. When you remember that, last year, Frank Gore had 26 Red Zone touches despite converting on only 11.1% of rushes inside the 10-yard-line and 18.2% of rushes inside the five-yard-line, it becomes clear that the Bills don't want Josh Allen to be the primary goal-line back. He only had 14.3% of the team's Red Zone opportunities last year and that was with Gore being abysmal with his chances. Had Frank Gore had even moderate success at the goal-line, it's highly likely that Josh Allen's rushing touchdown total would have dropped from nine to something closer to four.

Brian Daboll Helps and Hurts Josh Allen's Fantasy Value

Another big factor in Josh Allen's rushing production is Offensive Coordinator Brian Daboll. What's become incredibly clear after two games is that the Bills are going to have drastically different offensive approaches depending on the defense they're playing.

When the Bills faced the Jets, Daboll adapted a gameplan to counter the Jets' stout run defense, which included running Allen a lot: "The quarterback zone read is an obvious element to our game, particularly I would say last game... You go back and play a team like New York who is very, very good at stopping the run, it's just a way to try and get an extra [advantage]."

It was easy to watch that first game and think that Josh Allen was going to run all season long for the Bills. However, Daboll noticed an opportunity against Miami's secondary, even with Byron Jones healthy, that the Dolphins ran a lot of man coverage, which would make them susceptible to crossing routes and rub patterns. As a result, the Bills repeatedly attacked the Dolphins with those concepts, and Josh Allen was seven-for-ten on crossing routes for 172 yards and a touchdown.

On the flip side, Allen finished with only four carries against the Dolphins and 17.4% of the team's rushes, an obvious indication that Allen's scripted rushing will be matchup dependent.

So with Allen no longer being featured as much near the goal-line and the designed runs being limited to certain matchups, the quarterback's overall rushing upside may not match last season. However, it's clear that Daboll will put Allen in the best possible position to succeed, which will just not always involve the fantasy-friendly rushing that we have become accustomed to. Getting 17.4% of a team's carries is still rare at the position and will give Allen a safer floor every week than most quarterbacks, but he may not come close to challenging guys like Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, or Cam Newton (the Patriots goal-line back) for rushing value.

Stefon Diggs is Now a WR1

People didn't want to draft Diggs as a WR1 coming into the season even though he had been drafted as one before while playing with Kirk Cousins and sharing targets with Adam Theilen on a Vikings offense that is as geared towards the run as the Bills offense was supposed to be. That doesn't quite add up to me.

Diggs saw 94 targets last year, catching 63 balls for 1,130 yards and six touchdowns. He finished as the 21st ranked WR, just one spot behind John Brown. Diggs also finished 18 total fantasy points from finishing as a top-12 fantasy wide receiver. That's a few more big plays or touchdowns but certainly within reach.

After two games, Diggs has already seen 22 targets from Josh Allen, or 23% of his total from the ENTIRE YEAR last year.

Last year, Diggs caught 20 passes that were 20+ yards down the field. He has five already this season. However, the Bills are also using him on drag routes and crossing routes closer to the line of scrimmage, which is why his average depth of target (aDOT) is 11.3 after being at 14.9 last year for Minnesota. While that may seem like a bad thing, I should point out at, in 2018, when Diggs finished as the 11th ranked wide receiver in half-PPR leagues, he had an aDOT of only 8.8 yards.

That season, Cousins peppered him with 149 targets, and Diggs hauled in 102 passes for 1,021 yards and nine touchdowns. With the Bills, Diggs is currently on pace for 176 targets, 128 catches, 1,912 yards, and eight touchdowns. More importantly, he's running routes at an elite rate and seeing enough of a target share to make that route total especially useful.

Obviously, those numbers are skewed by a tremendously small sample size, but it illustrates the point that the Bills are actually using Diggs the way he's been most effective in the past. Last year, he was basically a glorified deep threat, but the Bills are allowing him to run his whole route tree, and he has proven for years that he is an elite route runner.

Josh Allen has also shown that he is going to go to Diggs when he needs a big catch, and since Allen has been known to lock onto his favorite receivers, it's not out of the question that Diggs gets over 120 targets this year. If he's able to do that, while being his team's clear top option, and running a more versatile route tree, I see no reason why he can't push to be a top 12-15 wide receiver by the end of the season.

John Brown Is Essentially Will Fuller (without the injuries)

John Brown's value is obviously impacted by the addition of Stefon Diggs; however, it's not only negative. Diggs is now the clear number one wide receiver, but that attention can also open up more opportunities for Brown, as evidenced by his long touchdown grab on Sunday, where the defensive attention on Diggs allowed Brown to sneak free over the top of the secondary.

There will clearly be games where Brown is heavily involved. He had ten targets in Week 1 and six in Week 2. However, his role as the number two receiver on this team also means that his opportunities will be harder to rely on. As I mentioned above, Daboll is clearly going to scheme to attack specific defenses. When the Bills pass, that will mean Brown can still be heavily involved in the passing game; however, if the Bills think their advantage is on the ground, Brown will be less of a consistent focus in the gameplan, but will still be used to stretch the field.

That sounds a lot, to me, like Will Fuller.

John Brown, much like Fuller, has dynamic deep speed and can change a real-life and fantasy game in one play. Below, you can see how far down the field Josh Allen tends to target Brown. Now, the Catch % isn't ideal, but we mentioned Allen's growth in that regard earlier on.

As a contract, Will Fuller has incredibly similar aDOT and AY/Snap but the Catch % has been much higher with Deshaun Watson throwing him the ball. Fuller's Drop % was 5.6 last year, compared to 5.2% for Brown, so the difference in catch rate is not because of the receivers' skill sets. John Brown also has a bit more of a diverse route tree than Fuller, which is why his percentage of team targets has always been higher.

However, to me, the crux of the comparison is simply that John Brown now becomes more of a big-play deep threat than the primary option he was in the past. Much like rostering Will Fuller, having John Brown on your team will entail the headaches of trying to decide which matchup is best suited to a big-play touchdown. There will be days when he does nothing and other days when he explodes, and at the end of the year, he's likely to end up as a top-40 fantasy wide receiver.

Buy Gabriel Davis in Dynasty

This is only a short segment, but if you have a dynasty team, you need to get this man. First, his touchdown catch against the Dolphins was all you need to know about the hands and playmaking ability that he possesses.

The Bills have also used 10 personnel (four wide receivers) on 32 plays this season. The next highest is the Cardinals with 17. They WANT to get Davis on the field with Diggs, Brown, and Cole Beasley. He is actively forcing them to play him. John Brown is 30 with only one more year on his contract, and Cole Beasley is 31 with two more years on his deal. Sometime in the next couple of seasons, Gabriel Davis is going to push his way into being Diggs' running mate, and there could be a lot more plays like this to come.

Buy Devin Singletary and Hold Zach Moss

So after all of this love for the Bills passing offense, why am I not concerned about the Bills running backs? Well first, I think it was foolish of anybody to assume that either of these guys would become a RB1 in fantasy. It was never going to happen unless the other got injured, and even then I think the Bills would try to rotate carries.

As it currently stands, Devin Singletary leads the team with 19 carries, but Zach Moss is right behind him with 17. The Bills want to run a timeshare. That always meant the ceiling for either of these backs was as an RB2. I don't think we're far off from seeing that.

The Bills may also not finish 6th in the NFL in rushing attempts like they did last year with 465, but Sean McDermott doesn't want to be a one-dimensional team. As I mentioned above, they will scheme to attack a specific defense, so there will be games where the Bills rely on their running backs to carry the offense. The Bills are going to run the ball.

The Bills also want to run the ball, or use their backs, in the Red Zone. So far, Zach Moss has gotten 31.3% of the Bills' Red Zone touches, and Singletary is second with 15.6%; that's 46.9% of the team's total Red Zone work going to the two backs. If the offense is humming, these guys are going to get Red Zone looks.

That's also why I still think Moss is fantasy-viable. He currently has 10 Red Zone touches on the season. That's a tremendous pace, and you always want to roster players getting those kinds of high-value touches. In games where the Bills are putting up points and getting goal-line carries, Moss has a real shot at a touchdown and his touchdown catch in the first game against the Jets showed that the Bills will use him in a number of ways in the Red Zone. That puts him in the RB3/Flex discussion depending on the matchup.

The reason I like Singeltary more is because of his passing game involvement. Even though Zack Moss has run routes this year, Singletary's numbers are a little bit better.

Singletary:

Moss:

Singletary has not only run more routes and gotten more targets, but he runs a higher percentage of routes when he's on the field and runs routes further down the field. Those are crucial for tallying fantasy points, and if you look at the Bills' schedule coming up, that receiving value will be even more important.

In the coming weeks, the Bills will take on a ton of high-performing offenses: Rams, Raiders, Chiefs, Seahawks, and Cardinals; plus, offenses that are slower-paced but are more than capable of getting ahead of the Bills by double-digit points: Titans, 49ers, and Patriots. If the Bills are trailing in any of those games, which seems likely, expect Singletary to be more involved given his two-minute drill and passing down work on top of his normal rushing share.

Summary - TL;DR

If you just came here looking for a quick answer, my take is that this Bills offense is absolutely for real but will likely look different week-t0-week which will make it tough to rely on anybody consistently outside of Allen and Diggs.

Josh Allen: I believe he pushes to be a top-five fantasy QB but will likely end up around seventh or eighth with some top-five weeks mixed in.

Stefon Diggs: I think Diggs finishes as a top-15 wide receiver because of target share and his obvious skills

John Brown: A rosterable wide receiver who will finish as a WR2 some weeks due to big plays but it will be tough to figure out which weeks those are.

Devin Singletary: I'm buying and think the upcoming schedule and his role in the passing game will give him an RB3 floor, especially in PPR leagues, with him pushing RB2 value often over the next few weeks.

Zack Moss: Holding because of his goal-line role. Will be more valuable in weeks where the Bills are ahead.

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