Question: When are Stefon Diggs, John Brown and Cole Beasley not among the best 11 players on the Buffalo Bills’ offensive unit?
Obvious answer: Almost never.
This summarizes the personnel usage by Bills coordinator Brian Daboll through the first half of the 2020 season.
Few defenses can match up well with the Bills’ wide receiving corps, and that includes the fourth wideout, whether it’s Gabriel Davis or Isaiah McKenzie.
The Bills are using three or four wide receivers on the field an NFL-high 94.8% of their snaps in the first half of the season, according to Buffalo News charting. Last year, the rate of three and four wides was 72.9%.
It has worked well. The Bills rank 13th in yards gained (372 per game), up from 24th last year (335.8 per game). The Bills are 10th in passing yards (263.4 per game), up from 26th last season (204.8 per game). Josh Allen’s completion percentage is up from 58.8% to 67.1%. His passer rating is up from 85.3 to 102.4.
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In a perfect world, the Bills would have the added flexibility to power up with two tight ends against a defense that was vulnerable to power formations.
But the tight end situation hasn’t been good enough to make it more attractive to Daboll than the spread formations. Part of the reason is second-year tight end Dawson Knox has missed four games due to injury. But while Knox and fellow tight end Tyler Kroft have been mostly capable, neither ranks in the top half of the league at the position. In other words, Beasley is far more valuable on the field as the third receiver than Kroft is as the second tight end, unless it’s a short-yardage or goal-line situation.
If Knox can return and start making more plays, that would be one way for the offense to diversify and cause even more problems for defensive coordinators in the second half of the season. Bills fans can dream about that scenario.
Daboll didn’t have a big mismatch advantage to work with last year. The Bills used multiple tight ends on 18.4% of their plays in 2019. They’ve done it just 1.7% this year.
The Bills used a fullback on 8% of their snaps last season. There is no fullback on the roster this year.
The Bills are using 10 personnel (four wideouts) on 18.2% of their snaps, second only to the Arizona Cardinals (21%), according to Sharp Football. But Arizona uses two tight ends 30%, far more than Buffalo.
The Bills’ 94.8% spread-formation rate is by far the most. Cincinnati is second at 81%, according to Sharp Football, with Dallas third at 79%.
