The challenge Keon Coleman and the Bills’ offense will face vs. the Panthers 🔍 | NFL Live

The challenge Keon Coleman and the Bills’ offense will face vs. the Panthers 🔍 | NFL Live

The Bills fresh off their byee. They’re going to try to end their twoame losing streak Sunday. Against the Panthers, they got some things to figure out, right? So, we’ll see what they can do against Carolina. Here’s Sean McDermott on how this by week went. Had some time off last week and my wife I was kind of itching a little bit and fidgeting and my wife’s like, “Hey, you need to go in.” I’m like, “Yeah, I need to go in.” and and she knows I mean she used to be a teacher so she’s like when my classroom wasn’t set you feel that kind of uneasy feeling sure you guys feel the same way when you you don’t feel great about things with great clarity total clarity I need to go in there and watch some film we’re looking forward to getting back on track and having a good week of practice and trusting each other don’t don’t have to get tight um don’t have to change everything obviously we want to correct things but doesn’t we don’t have to do a complete overhaul you know we’re uh we still trust our guys and we still are going to rely on our guys to go out there and make some plays and um that’s ultimately what we got to do. I love the honesty from McDermott. Some great wisdom there even from Josh Allen. This Bill’s offense, they haven’t been hitting home runs on the deep ball of late, right? They have a look at these heat maps. Okay, this tells a lot. From 2020 to 2023, Allen threw 27 touchdowns on passes at least 20 yards downfield, tied for the third most in the NFL. But over the last two seasons, just one touchdown on those throws, which came in week 17 last year against the Jets. Allen has the same number of 20-yard touchdowns as Cowboys backup Joe Milton in that time. That’s weird. The left side of the screen, can we put that back up there again as we talk about it? The left side of the screen is just completely filled with the heat and then the right side there’s just one. All right. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the ball going over 20 yards. Yeah. And and touchdowns. on touchdowns. 20 plus air touchdown. He’s not he’s not throwing touchdowns of that nature, which Dan, I feel like there’s a few reasons why, but let’s go to Hawk first. What needs to change for this Bills offense? Well, it’s exactly that. I think it’s it’s the receiving weapons need to step up. One person, Keon Coleman, he’s having a rough go. He seems overwhelmed now. There are some disciplinary things that have gone on, but he seems like a young player who’s trying to work his way through his sophomore season. One thing that can help him is not be a onetrick pony for contested catches. He has to get yacked. But how does he get yak? He has to get forward. We talked about this last year with a young player catching the ball and coming backwards. You’re going to see the same thing here. Split field catches it. Watch where his first step is. Those are like the small things. And there was another one against the Atlanta Falcons where he did something similar that you just noticed it on tape. He has to develop in the yak portion of this offense. And the coaches have to help him get there because the whole just back shoulder throw it up. Everybody’s expecting it. They’re playing it. And the way you combat that is to get him the ball and show that he can catch and run. I don’t think he’s right now a guy that you could just put out there by himself and go like beat coverage. Really versus any corner. I just don’t believe he’s that guy yet. I think he’s got to be utilized a little bit like they do Shakir. I I really think he should become like a at least right now in specifically early in games just ball in space like a bubble guy, an RPO guy, ball in space guy. He’s not whooping people. So here’s here’s the the issue with that is that is not his game. Like that is that is not You don’t think so? Like cuz punt returning and you’re seeing those catches. And the reason why I put that up there is because instinctually when you are confident in that he has to know at this level you are a catch and get vertical. You leave the side to side step back to Shakir, but at this level you’re dangerous. When you catch and get vertical with speed at your size, then those big plays will happen. And to your point about lining him up, he’s going to have to develop more of a bag, more of a package in his routes and the way he makes things look like that, makes that look like this. But how they’re using it can’t just be run straight enough run straight out back shoulder you and you go up and get it like that’s going to wear out. NFL DBs at some point aren’t going to let that to continue going on. This isn’t the college level. Yeah. So, I think this would be a good challenge for him and this offense going against Carolina. I know everyone thinks that Carolina is X. One thing I do know is a very physical, very sudden and disruptive defensive line. And they will move against Buffalo’s offensive line. Just watch this kind of interior like twist game. These are athletic, young defensive linemen. And this is a Buffalo offensive line that really struggled with this similar stuff against the Falcons last time they were out there. Left side of your screen, it’s going to be slant down. Slant down. Watch this quick wrap. This is exactly what this offensive line struggled with two weeks ago. going against Atlanta. And the thing that they do to match up with it and Hawk, this is why your type matters a ton. They’re going to play sticky man coverage with it. Like JC Horn is going to play really tight man coverage. Michael Jackson going to play really tight man coverage. And um the fact past two games I’ve gone like Buffalo, this is upset alert. I’m not necessarily like that far. I do think Carolina will present a really stiff challenge to their offense. Yeah, I don’t think Buffalo’s that far off. I think we all agree this team after four weeks we’re sitting there saying like, is this the cream of the crop in the AFC? the new team to beat. Uh, but they have kind of lost what I think is their desired way over the past couple of weeks, two weeks ago against New England. It was never a blowout, but it was a game that New England was playing well enough. And they’re one of the best run defenses in the NFL right now that Buffalo couldn’t get anything going. And what they want to do, right, they want to play either six offensive lineman or now with Jackson Haw, their fifth round rookie tight end, who basically can function as a six offensive lineman. They want to control the point of attack. More of that baby face. Don’t forget who you are. We haven’t seen nearly as much of that over the past couple of weeks. Last week against Atlanta, the game got out of hand early. Atlanta jumps, I guess, two weeks now, but they of course jump out ahead of them on Monday Night Football and next thing you know, Buffalo is unable to tap into James Cook, who over the past couple of weeks has been limited relative to where he was to begin the season. I love the safe version of Josh Allen. I think that’s the NBA, but it’s you want to ride the Josh Allen experience, you want the long ball. They got to figure out how to incorporate that because that’s what he really does. Very special. you I agree the two guys on the outside got to make more plays for him to be willing to put the ball in harm’s way a little bit more and I think it’s a little bit play caller they they had a really good formula last year but those two guys Palmer and Keon Coleman you got to make me trust that I could put that ball up in a 50-50 ball opportunity you think about how good Joe Brady’s been like to your point but it is hard to repeat this stuff year after year especially with slightly different guys they’ll be all right so that’s what Josh Allen said too [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

The NFL Live crew previews the Buffalo Bills vs. Carolina Panthers matchup during Week 8 of the regular season.

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