Inside The Bills

No huddle left on shelf Sunday

The Bills have had their share of slow starts on offense this season, which is why they had a tempo change planned for Sunday’s game against Jacksonville. But Buffalo never put that plan into action after posting a touchdown on their opening drive, in a rain soaked game where weather also was a factor.

Making his weekly Monday morning appearance on Bills flagship WGR Sportsradio 550, Chan Gailey admitted that the no huddle was a significant part of their offensive game plan for the Jaguars.

“We actually had our no huddle planned to go,” said Gailey. ”We had worked on our no huddle, shotgun stuff and it was ready to go. But it didn’t work out that way. All of a sudden our running game is going and we had a lead and so you just keep pounding it.”

Gailey acknowledged that the weather was also a factor.

Ryan Fitzpatrick is excited to use no huddle at some point this season, as it was to be something they intended to turn to a decent amount this year.

“I think that’ll be great (when we use it),” Fitzpatrick said in his weekly WGR appearance. ”It was something we talked about going in, definitely the first half the way the weather was it wasn’t going to be something we could use to our advantage so we held onto it. We’ll see where it goes as we go forward here and see who is healthy and who is not because with some of the injuries sometimes you stay away from that stuff and you want everybody on the same page.”

The year Chan ran no huddle all season

As we covered in our front page story on Buffalobills.com, Chan Gailey calls the no huddle approach employed in the team’s first preseason game last week as just “an element” of their offense, not their identity. But at one time and for one entire season for Gailey the no huddle was all his offense knew.

“I know people don’t realize this, we were no huddle when I was in college in 1984,” Gailey told Buffalobills.com. 

Gailey was the head coach at Troy University at the time, and the no huddle was extremely successful. It was also used all the time in every game for the entire season.

“On every snap of every game except the kickoff and field goals,” said Gailey. 

How successful was Gailey and his team? 

Troy won the Division II National Championship in an 18-17 victory over North Dakota State.

Jauron on no huddle future

Bills head coach Dick Jauron appeared on Sirius NFL Radio this afternoon with Rich Gannon and Adam Schein and he was asked about whether Buffalo’s no huddle attack will be scrapped moving forward. Here was his response.

“Well, we’ll look at everything as we go through this week and then we’ll see how things go in the game on Sunday,” said Jauron. “But we certainly have committed ourselves to that up to this point, but we’ll consider anything to help us win a football game.” 

Jauron clearly isn’t ruling out making such a change for Sunday’s game. After penalties were a big problem last week in a home game it’s hard not to think the offense will huddle up more in what is expected to be a hostile road environment.

Whether they go exclusively to huddling up remains to be seen.

No huddle to be scuttled?

According to ProFootballTalk.com, the Bills will be tossing the no huddle out of their offense this week.

ProFootballTalk cites a “league source” for the story that head coach Dick Jauron has decided to do away with the no huddle, which the Bills have run the entire offseason, preseason and first five games of the regular season.

If the report is accurate, the decision likely was borne out of the offensive struggles that were only compounded by 11 offensive penalties including nine false starts.

Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt did comment on what needs to be done to be more successful on offense Wednesday.

“Eliminate the penalties is the first thing we start to concentrate on,” Van Pelt said. ”And put more emphasis on the snap count, and then continue to do the things that we’ve done well, such as run the football.”

When asked what his message was to the offense this week he offered the following.

“Execute, simplify, execute, and make the plays when they are there,” he said. ”As simple as that.”

No huddle takes on quicker pace

The biggest story to come out of Buffalo’s second preseason game wasn’t the five takeaways by the defense. It was the noticeably increased tempo of Buffalo’s no huddle.

There were times where I looked down to jot down the play that just happened and by the time I looked up Edwards was snapping the next play. There were instances where there were just 10 seconds of real time between plays. It was decidedly faster than it was in the Hall of Fame game and coach Jauron admitted as much.

Turk Schonert has talked about changing the tempo and wearing opponents out. Dominic Rhodes saw evidence of that in the game.

“It was good. I saw those guys getting tired,” said Rhodes. ”We were able to exploit some of the times when they weren’t ready or they weren’t lined up good. That’s what the no-huddle brings. It gets you the opportunity to catch guys when they’re tired and on their knees and they can’t really get up and get lined up and get their defenses in, and you can exploit people like that.”

In the press box I spoke to an AFC scout who was in attendance and he said he has not seen an NFL team run the no huddle that fast, “in a while.” It’s going to really be interesting to see where this no huddle attack goes from this point forward.

No huddle used half the time?

How often the no huddle will be used by Buffalo’s offense is compelling question, which is why we made it part of our 25 questions until training camp. In the write-up I mention some of the more overlooked factors when theorizing how often Edwards and company will go no huddle.

Namely the effectiveness of Buffalo’s defense and the opponent. The Bills defense still had trouble getting off the field last season, and it was due in part to there not being enough playmakers to make something happen (sack, forced fumble, INT, etc.).

The Bills feel they have added a playmaker or two in Maybin and Byrd and guys like McKelvin and Poz are poised to step into playmaker type roles as young vets. If their takeaways go up and they can demonstrate consistency in getting 3-and-outs or heck 6-and-outs, I think Dick Jauron will be more confident in using the no huddle more of the time.

Still Buffalo’s opponent will influence how much they use it too. You’ve got to remember this is year one with this thing as a main component of their offense. They’re far from a smooth running machine. Rolling it out full throttle against the Pats for example, in Week 1 could put a lot of unnecessary pressure on your defense if you can’t convert a first down on your first three hurry up possessions.

I’ll say right now I’d be surprised if it’s used more than half of the offensive snaps this season. I think we’re looking at a 50-50 split at best. Jauron values time of possession and the run game and who wouldn’t with the stable of backs the Bills now have.

Knowing that I just can’t see the Bills going no huddle full time, unless they’re remarkably successful with it.