Bills Central

Bills need to give QB Josh Allen this 'easy button' in 2024 NFL season

Play action energizes most quarterbacks in the NFL, and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen needs increased access to easier plays.

Chris Seth

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) has to scramble away from Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones (95).
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) has to scramble away from Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones (95). / Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and
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Josh Allen is the engine of the Buffalo Bills’ offense and team, as a whole. He is a wholly unique, one-of-one player with remarkable talent.

He also needs more easy buttons.

Under former offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, many fans wondered why everything looked so difficult offensively despite the team consistently winning games. Many statistics during Dorsey’s tenure were excellent, which led many in the national media to question Dorsey’s firing. If the team is doing well in so many analytics, why change?

Sean McDermott and the Bills made the move away from Dorsey because there were a number of issues that were making the offense too reliant on the heroics of one Josua Patrick Allen. While Allen is amazing, there is no reason for “Josh, be awesome” to be the only answer in the playbook.

Related: New Bills WR breaks down how he'll add to revamped passing game: 'Just be yourself'

Allen has often been compared to former NFL MVP Cam Newton as a player, mainly because they are large, athletic humans who are essentially unstoppable when they run the ball. Bills fans cringe at the comparison because Newton’s career nose-dived with injuries that sapped a great deal of his immense talent, and that is not the career path anyone in Bills Mafia desires for the most talented quarterback in franchise history. The Bills need to incorporate more schematic efficiencies into their offense so that the reliance on Allen’s miracles is saved for truly desperate times, like versus Kansas City in the playoffs, thank you. Allen needs more easy buttons.

Numerous elements in football get termed “easy buttons” for passers. Having a great run game is an easy button. Having a top-10 wide receiver is an easy button. Having a tight end who knows how to get open versus zone coverage is an easy button. Running play action is an easy button, and that’s where we’re focusing here.

For the 35 quarterbacks in 2023 who had 50 or more passing attempts without play action AND 50 or more pass attempts with play action, the average improvement in EPA/ATT 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 much closer the offense came to scoring as a result of that play based on factors like down and distance, game time, and field position. To put that 0.176 in context through analogy, play action took a player like Jarret Stidham and turned his performance into that of Brock Purdy on a play-by-play basis. You can quibble over whether Purdy is simply a product of his offensive system, but you can’t argue that his output isn’t significantly more impressive than Stidham’s.

Josh Alle
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) steps into this throw over the middle. Allen only threw for 169 yards but scored 2 rushing touchdowns in a 27-21 win over New England. / Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and

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

Unsurprisingly, Allen is good in both techniques. He ranked 10th out of the 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 rushing statistics, but giving Allen play action was equivalent to the second most efficient QB play in the NFL in 2023.

Related: Bills WR named one of NFL's 'most underrated' pass catchers entering 2024 season

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

(Also, just as a football fan, look at the jump by Lamar Jackson with play action! Every time the Ravens used play action, it was close to adding a half of a point to their score. Insane.)

The league as a whole should be utilizing play action more often - its impact does not diminish with repetition because each play is its own universe, and the defense has to respect the run each time whether they’ve seen play action zero times or 15. Allen finished 18th in percentage of throws that included play action 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 this easy button.

Check out related video content from Cover 1: Josh Allen's Top 10 Throws of the 2023 season

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Chris Seth
CHRIS SETH

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