This one game shows the offensive evolution of the Bills

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The Buffalo Bills took on the Pittsburgh Steelers in their second exhibition game of the 2024 season. While the game was challenging offensively, it featured a winning play that many Bills fans may not have recognized.

For years, the Bills Mafia has been advocating for a better screen package. It feels like every playoff team the Bills face has a set of screens that were clearly designed by a collaboration between Andy Reid, Robert Oppenheimer, and Littlefinger—devilishly brilliant plays that trick the defense into creating significant gains—and what makes it worse is that it feels like the Bills will never be able to open that same treasure chest. At least, that’s how it feels, but more on that later.

Against the Steelers, the Bills ran a screen late in the third quarter; you’d be forgiven if you missed it.

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The play: Q3, 1:17, 2 & 6 out of -20, score BUF 6 – PIT 3

The Bills enter Ben DiNucci in shotgun with an 11-personnel setup (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers). When they first line up, Justin Shorter (18) is outside the numbers on the boundary side (top of image) and Tyrell Shavers (80) is in the slot. On the field side (bottom of image), the Bills initially have KJ Hamler (19) just inside the numbers and Tre’ McKitty (83) as a loose tight end. Shorter is waved to go wide, setting up a 3×1 set. Darrynton Evans (37) is the running back.

Pittsburgh starts with four players on the line, but when Shorter moves to the other side, linebacker Julius Welschof (48) switches from a coverage position to a rush. The linebacker on the other side of the formation, Jacoby Windman (45), signals the safety to switch to coverage, and cornerback Corey Trice slides wide to pick up Shorter. The safeties show that the middle of the field is open (MOFO) or a two-high structure.

With the ball, left tackle Ryan Van Demark (74) immediately shoots wide, while left guard Alec Anderson blocks the Steelers’ defensive tackle. Center Sedrick Van Pran-Granger (62) initially blocks the nose tackle, but quickly lets go to flow to the screen. Right guard Richard Gouraige tries to help right tackle Tylan Grable (68), but also peels off to help the screen.

For the pass catchers, McKitty immediately goes to block, while Shavers executes a slant that eventually curls toward the screen.

Only four linemen run, and Welschof picks up Evans from the backfield. Pittsburgh’s other two linebackers step back.

Hamler turns to DiNucci at the snap and takes two slide steps toward his end zone. DiNucci sidearms the pass around Pittsburgh defenseman Kyron Johnson (53). Hamler pulls down the slightly high pass and turns toward the field.

At this point, the play design is set up very well as McKitty and Van Demark can block Windmon (45) and one of them can deflect to safety Ryan Watts (29).

But Windman (circled) does a nice job of breaking McKitty’s block and forcing Hamler back inside. Hamler accelerates forward to get the first down and four more yards before Windmon, Watts and Tyler Matakevich (44) combine for the tackle.

That, Bills Mafia, was what a successful screen looks like. While Bills fans, including this author, have clamored for a better screen game, most statistics say Buffalo is mediocre at worst in the category.

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Screen Passes (SIS) 2023, ranking in brackets:

*Boom % is the rate at which a team generates a play worth 1.0 points or more in EPA.

They didn’t use them as much in 2023, but the average yards the Bills gained on those attempts were respectable. The only truly bad stat among the bunch was the Boom Rate, with only the Bears, Steelers, and Giants performing worse (funnily enough, the Bears attempted the seventh-most screen passes in 2023 (70) and somehow managed to have the worst overall EPA on screens (-29.48)).

An advanced screen stat that was intentionally left out of the list above indicates that perhaps too much criticism has been leveled at the Bills for their screens or lack thereof. The league as a whole does not perform as well on screens as we might have thought, especially in EPA.

Kansas City tops most screen stats, because of course they do. Andy Reid seemingly has a new screen package for every game, but the rest of the NFL isn’t lighting up the field. Only two teams had a positive pass percentage above 50% on screens (KC and SF), and only seven teams had an overall positive EPA on the season on screen passes (KC, SF, GB, SEA, ATL, DAL, and TB). The Bills were in the middle of the pack at 13th in overall EPA on screens and 14th in EPA/Att (-0.73), but their season production was -3.78 in EPA. The Bills weren’t great on screens, but they weren’t as bad relative to the league in production as has been assumed for a play often considered an “easy button.”

If Joe Brady can bring a successful screen game to Buffalo, it could put Josh Allen and the Bills at the top of the screen production list and replace some of the receiving talent that left this offseason.

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