RP Clips: Brady's Buffalo Bunch: Time to Air it Out?

James Koh (0:00)

This is Reception Perception, The Show. James Koh and Matt Harmon.

Matt Harmon (0:06)

DJ Moore and the Bills, wide receivers, taking on this Houston secondary. How do you see this one playing out?

James Koh (0:12)

Yeah, I mean, Houston's an interesting defense because they have Derek Stingley, but they don't necessarily use him to shatter or play a bunch of man coverage. They'll play some zone that turns into match concepts and stuff like that because they also have a great second corner, Kamari Lasseter. I think Kamari Lasseter might be, I think people know who he is. He's a good player, but he might, I don't know if he's like a household name or anything like that. He probably should be though. He's one of the, in my opinion, better second corners in the NFL.

He's one of these guys because you're trying to throw away from Derek Stingley. It's like in Denver, Riley Moss gets a ton of targets thrown his way because people are trying to avoid Pat Sertan.

Matt Harmon (0:48)

I think he was the most targeted guy actually.

James Koh (0:51)

He was, and he actually was pretty good in coverage, but he gave up a lot of penalties.

So that obviously, if you're looking at what he allowed in coverage, it's going to skew the numbers there because he did get target a lot and give up a lot of penalties. Look, when you're the most targeted corner in the NFL, you're also going to get cooked every now and again. Basically, every corner gets cooked.

It's such a difficult position to play. I have immense respect for these guys considering watching receivers go against them. It's a very difficult job. But in Houston's defense, they're one of these ones. They don't really do a bunch of disguises. They don't really mix things up on the back end all that much. They kind of just play it pretty straight, and they can because they have a ton of superstars at every single level here. So yeah, I think what's going to be fascinating is just watching, maybe not the success of the Bills offense in week one, but sort of the approach with which they try to go at it. Because this team under Joe Brady as the offensive coordinator full time the last two years is 18th in neutral drop back rate. They have not been one of these teams that's really leaning on the pass. I kind of wonder if we see that change. And I know the thought process would be, hey, it's just the same old play caller. Now he's just the head coach. It's just going to kind of be more of the same. But now he's literally the head football coach. The buck stops with him. And there's just been enough whispers at a Bills camp about things like James Cook, catching the football more. Dalton Kincaid playing more of a 60 plus percent snap roll, which would be a big increase for him.

Obviously, this is Josh Allen's guy, Joe Brady, being the head coach now. He's literally in the hiring interviews for the head coaching position. I just wonder if this ends up becoming more of a pass first team. And that can be a way that you catch a defense like Houston off guard in week one, as you kind of go away from tendencies. I think they're still going to be built off a strong run game. And some of the gap stuff that they do with James Cook will still be incredible. But I do wonder if we just see like a little bit of different levers pulled by Joe Brady now that he's the head coach as opposed to just an assistant on Sean McDermott staff.

Matt Harmon (3:11)

Well, I think two things in regards to Buffalo, which I think dovetails perfectly with what you're saying. One, he's an offensive minded guy versus Sean McDermott was a defensive minded guy. And I don't care how much control you have over the offensive, if you're the OC, you got to get in line with the head coach, right? So if Sean McDermott, the defensive minded guy, wants to run the ball, which generally is what happens with these defensive minded head coaches. Listen, Joe Brady's got to kind of sort of fall in line with that, right? And the second thing I would say too is now that it is his job, Matt, it is human tendency to want to do something different than what you did before. Right? So I think he will just from a tendency standpoint, want to lean on the past. I think he's going to want to lean on Josh Allen.