The Bills gave LaFleur every reason to switch it up, but he did not capitalize
No single factor is responsible for the Jets’ 20-12 loss to the Bills in Week 14.
Injuries, a putrid blocking performance, an ill-timed penalty, crushing turnovers, frustrating no-calls, and a crucial blown coverage all contributed, and the Jets might have come out on top had any one of them gone the other way.
However, their offense was not helped out much by the play-calling. Mike LaFleur was dealt a rough hand, but he still did not make the most of the Jets’ strengths. Throughout the game, it was fairly obvious what the Jets were going to do even when watching on TV, and the Bills certainly recognized the trends. LaFleur failed to adjust.
It’s tricky to evaluate a play-caller, and there will always be excuses for why he called the game the way he did. The Jets’ pass-blocking appeared liable to land Mike White in the hospital with their lack of protection (as actually happened after the game), and that certainly did not inspire confidence in throwing the ball. The elements and the early loss of Corey Davis also made finding a call that might work difficult.
Still, there is a way to quantify how predictable a coach’s play-calling is. NFL data tracking provides a statistic called XPASS, which is the probability that a given play will be a pass play based on down, distance, score, time remaining, and various other factors modeled on historical in-game data. Earlier this season, Mike Kafka of the Giants led the team to success largely by doing the opposite of expectation very often, allowing a talent-poor team to overachieve. Recent results show that plan coming back down to earth, but the point remains: do what your opponent does not expect and you’ll have a split-second advantage.
To utilize XPASS in a meaningful way, we must eliminate situations in which a team’s win probability is so low or so high that the probability of running or passing is skewed. Therefore, I eliminated plays on which the offense’s win probability is below 25% or above 75%. Changing that threshold slightly did not alter the numbers drastically.
I also decided to look at only first and second down, since on third down the play-calling is a lot more scripted: third and short, more often a run play; third and medium or long, almost always a pass play.
The way I determined whether a play call was predictable or unpredictable was as follows: if XPASS is greater than 55% and the team passed or less than 45% and the team ran, then the call was predictable; if XPASS is greater than 55% and the team ran or less than 45% and the team passed, then the call was unpredictable; and if XPASS was between 45-55%, then it’s a wash (I called it “meh” in highly technical statistical verbiage).
Within this framework, according to 2022 averages, teams run predictable plays 41% of the time, unpredictable plays 20.7% of the time, and “meh” plays 38.3% of the time. This means that a coach will try to switch up significant tendencies about 1/5 of the time.
I’m going to focus specifically on what a coach does when there is an expected play call – meaning the difference between the run and pass expectation is greater than 10%. Eliminating the “meh” play calls leaves us with situations in which there is a clear skew towards run or pass calls. Obviously, each team is going to have a different ratio of plays that have such a disparity, depending on game situation and the like.
For the season, the number of play calls in these situations ranges from 182 (Eagles) to 324 (Broncos) with an average of 233. The Jets are tied for the fifth-most with 266. On average, when XPASS is greater than 55% or less than 45%, teams go with the unpredictable 31.4% of the time.
Against Buffalo, Mike LaFleur called 21 plays that fit this description: first or second down, win probability between 25-75%, and XPASS either greater than 55% or less than 45%. In those situations, LaFleur went with the unpredictable play just 23.8% of the time, which would slot in at the fifth-lowest among team averages this season.
We could just leave it at that and say that LaFleur went with what was expected when the situation sharply indicated one play call over another. After all, a difference of about 8% on 21 plays averages out to less than 2 play calls in this game. Why fret over such a small sample size?
However, I propose that this may be one reason the Jets lost to the Bills: overall predictability.
How many times did we see Buffalo run a safety up to the line of scrimmage as the snap came, and then the Jets ran right into that blitz? The Bills were daring the Jets to throw behind their single-high look. Yes, Buffalo is a two-high-heavy team in general, but they, like other teams, are not as afraid to go single-high against a QB whom they do not think can beat them deep.
LaFleur should have recognized that and punished Buffalo for telegraphing their own defensive gameplan. Whether by using a hard count to identify where the blitz was coming from, running a max-protect play-action pass out of a run-heavy set, or running a jet sweep coming from the weak side of the formation, there were many ways he could have attempted to exploit the Bills’ aggressiveness.
Instead, LaFleur stuck to the predictable, and it cost him. The Jets had a 36.8% success rate on 19 first- and second-down rush attempts against the Bills, defined as a play with positive Expected Points Added (EPA). The league average for the season is 40%, with a high of 51.9% (Eagles) and a low of 30.7% (Rams). That 36.8% would be 23rd in the league.
Even worse was the Jets’ pass success rate on early downs. The Jets garnered a measly 36.1% success rate on first and second-down passes, which would be the worst mark in the NFL by a full two percentage points. It’s also far worse than the Jets’ season-long mark of 43.4%, which itself is ranked 28th in the NFL.
Furthermore, Buffalo’s defense is middle-of-the-pack when it comes to success rate allowed on first- and second-down, both against the run and pass. For the season, they rank 14th in the NFL at a 45.8% pass success rate and 13th at a 39.5% rush success rate allowed. The elements could be pointed to as a mitigating factor for the Jets, but it appeared that the Jets’ predictability was a more dominant cause, at least after the first couple of possessions.
You can also point to the returns of Jordan Poyer and Matt Milano as huge swings in Buffalo’s favor, and you would be correct. However, that goes back to the overarching point of this article: when facing superior competition, you need that split-second advantage to defeat them. The Jets did not have that; they played right into Buffalo’s hands, making running difficult and allowing the Bills’ pass rushers to tee off on Mike White.
Switching up those tendencies just once or twice could have paid major dividends for the Jets, particularly on the one or two second-and-short situations they had (including the one that Michael Carter fumbled on). Instead, LaFleur stuck with what he had planned even as Buffalo keyed on him.
However, I believe this analysis sheds some light on why the Jets’ offense struggled against Buffalo. Certainly, it’s not the only factor; LaFleur was playing with a compromised deck due to his offensive line struggles, the elements, and the injuries. Still, getting more unpredictable and creative was necessary to win against an aggressive and talented Bills defense, and LaFleur did not get it done.
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I watched the 1st half with my brother in law this past weekend. (He visited for the holidays) I had to leave for work so I missed the 2nd. We both agreed that the play calling has gotten stale. Wilson can get down field and has a good jump but not one deep pass in the 1st half his way. It was 0-0 almost till half time. Even when the Jets started mid field on there 3rd drive. No creativity. Just Predictability.
I would agree in general, but surprisingly, LaFleur has been slightly less predictable than average overall this season. It was just the last two games that it’s been bad.
I would like to see him open up the playbook a little more. Especially in the Red Zone. WR End around, Wildcat, Pass to an Eligible O-lineman on goal line, Reverse, maybe even getting a lineman to play running back on the goal line. Anything to be creative and unpredictable in the red zone. The Jets where having success in that type of play calling in the red Zone. He seems to have gotten away from that in his play calling. Might have been a different outcome in the past two games if he were to get creative in the Red zone.
He tried those end-arounds in the red zone against Minnesota, but it just didn’t work. Ultimately, the offensive line is a particularly big problem in short yardage, red zone included.
That being said, I did think a misdirection play might have worked against the aggressive Buffalo defense in this game, red zone or not. LaFleur seemed disinclined to go with it, perhaps because of the lack of success and Fant’s illegal block in the back penalty in the Vikings game.
I happened to miss the 2nd half in the past 2 games. I had to leave for work 🙁
Thank you for providing objective info for a topic that so often is “barstool wisdom”.
It does seem like we get into a funk often. Although, I feel like the tendency to call more passes on early downs has increased.
My biggest gripe is not having any “can’t miss” plays….like third/fourth and short or goal to go. It seems like when I watch other games, teams have a “can’t miss” play for crunch time (I know I’ve used the words “feels” and “seems”, not objective). It need not be some cutesy trick play, just a play you haven’t showed or a play the opponent failed to defend earlier.
To be fair, I do see teams run the gut on 4th and 1 and fail as well…and I always say “they look like the Jets!”
I agree that the funks are coming too often, particularly early in games. In fact, if you think back over the course of the season, they’ve started slowly in almost every game, including Miami, Green Bay, and Denver. Whatever running attack or offense they had came later.
Honestly, Saleh and LaFleur said that the 4th down pass to Berrios against the Vikings was a play they hadn’t used before and were waiting to run. That makes it seem even more lackluster to me since it fooled no one (empty set, no threat of the run).
I don’t know why teams, including the Jets, don’t use QB sneaks more often. They are very high-percentage plays. I could understand avoiding it with Zach because he’s so slight, but White is big enough to be pushed ahead without getting mauled (even though he’s also somewhat thin). Maybe that’s different with his rib injury, but this was an issue in the Minnesota game prior to the injury.
I want to see a Steveler package in the red zone. He’s the fastest running QB we have. I think he can get in the end zone on a bootleg.
I hate to blame the play calling but these last couple of games it’s does feel like we haven’t been getting the right mix of calls. We know that defenses tend to stack the box against them but at the same time we can’t get in the end zone with the pass plays that have been dialed up so they have to figure something out. I wonder how much of this has to do with the lack of experience
I don’t hate to blame play-calling, actually. The play-caller has an important job and deserves blame if the defense seems to have his number. If defenses stack the box, then he needs to punish them deep. Take a max-protect shot. Run a double move (Wilson, Moore, Davis, and Mims have all gotten open on such routes this season). Do something.
If you want to blame lack of experience, compare Mike LaFleur to Mike McDaniel, another inexperienced play-caller from the same system.
I think we’re starting to see some severe limits with the LaFleur-White combination. The main thing that strikes me is how incredibly inefficient the passing game is in terms of scoring. White threw over 50 passes in the Minnesota game and the Jets scored 22 points. He threw 44 passes in the Bills game and they scored 12. Clearly something is wrong. You have predictable play calling combined with a QB who is immobile and can’t “flip the script” on any given passing play. So zero unpredictability plus zero unpredictability equals zero. I’m not feeling this whole Mike White thing at all.
Let me ask you something: what difference in play-calling did we see due to Zach Wilson’s mobility? He was the worst QB in the league on the move this season, and every single statistic proved it.
In addition, two of the Jets’ highest-scoring games this season came with White and Joe Flacco: 31 against the Browns and Bears. (In the Jets’ other 2 higher-scoring games, Zach didn’t do much. Against the Dolphins, Zach Wilson threw 21 passes and would not have cleared 200 passing yards if not for Breece Hall’s speed; against the Packers, he barely cleared 100 yards.)
I don’t believe it’s White who’s the primary problem. I do believe that going to Braxton Berrios in the red zone and refusing to scheme up a play for a TE in that area may have something to do with it.
I’m talking about scoring and wins per pass thrown. There is something wrong when you see the huge numbers of attempts that LaFleur is dialing up for White and the puny results in terms of scoring. For one thing, a lot of the gains are between the 20 yard lines and getting shut down in the red zone. For another, the run game is being underused, or poorly used, strategically. The mix and the play calling just isn’t right.
But again, is that on White or is it on LaFleur? In my opinion, it’s on LaFleur. White has executed the plays that have been called, but the calls themselves just haven’t been good. Throwing to Braxton Berrios in the red zone is a bad idea and always was.