The three biggest questions facing the Buffalo Bills offense heading

into the 2018 season We are now less than a week away from the Buffalo Bills’ 2018 Week 1 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens. The roster is settled Youth Ryan Groy Jersey , official game preparation has begun, and all of the questions that have been asked for months on end this offseason will start to be answered on Sunday in Maryland.These are, in my opinion, the three biggest questions facing the Bills’ offense heading into the 2018 regular season.Can anyone take pressure off of Shady?LeSean McCoy is Plan A for the Bills offensively, without question. There’s a lot riding on the star tailback, once again, this season.Plan B is top wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin, who, when healthy, is a high-volume target that can put up big numbers, but has not yet ascended to true No. 1 wideout status. Charles Clay has been a consistent starting tight end in his time in Buffalo, but expecting a big statistical leap forward from his current level is probably unrealistic.Buffalo badly needs a big-play threat to emerge in this offense, so that teams can’t constantly key on their only big-play threat out of the backfield. Whether or not that player is on the roster - receiver Zay Jones and backup running back Marcus Murphy are, arguably, the best candidates on the team today - remains to be seen.Will the offensive line gel?Things were bad for the Bills’ offensive line in preseason action. That’s really not that surprising, given that there were multiple positional battles going on amongst the starting five, given that their starting left tackle missed some time due to a (minor) injury, and considering that they’re attempting to replace departed starters at left tackle, left guard, and center.The Bills don’t have a lot of star power in their projected starting offensive line, but they don’t need to field five Pro Bowlers. They just need Dion Dawkins, Vladimir Ducasse Authentic Zay Jones Jersey , Ryan Groy, John Miller, and Jordan Mills to play as a cohesive unit that communicates well and performs consistently.After the way the group played in the second and (especially) third preseason games, that seems like a big ask. But a climb to average up front may be all the team needs to start really figuring some things out offensively.When will Allen Time arrive?Sean McDermott had not officially named his Week 1 starting quarterback at the time that this article was published, but presumed starter Nathan Peterman earned the right to do so by out-playing both AJ McCarron and Josh Allen in preseason action.Still, we know that this is Allen’s job; it’s a matter of when, not if, he’ll ascend to the starting lineup. It will probably happen at some point this season. Peterman’s strong offseason has afforded the Bills time to continue acclimating Allen to the NFL before he has to play, but eventually, he has to play.There will be a lot of factors that go into the timing of this, with Allen’s own progress, the play of Peterman, and the team’s overall performance on the field and in the standings foremost among them. The Bills will obviously still compete to win while their star pupil is on the sidelines, but finding the right time to make the switch is something that McDermott does not have a strong track record with. He’ll need to stick the landing this time around.All-22 Analysis: Bills receivers at Baltimore You may have heard that the Buffalo Bills season opener against the Baltimore Ravens went somewhat badly. While a lot has been written about starting quarterback Nathan Peterman, it takes more than one person playing poorly to lose by...[scans repressed memories]...oh dear God. Please note; the following analysis came from an intent to review whether the receiving options were getting open, or if they were blanketed all game. This discussion will inherently touch upon the offensive line and of course the quarterback making it more of a team analysis. Because of the nature of this review, completed passes are pretty much ignored (one exception). The reason being that with a completed pass there is an assumption of “someone was open enough.” Play 1Nathan Peterman has a couple of good options and he looks like he’ll pull the trigger. Unfortunately he doesn’t trust anyone enough and pulls the ball back down. There’s likely a little more time if he hangs back instead of stepping into the sack as well. Play 2From what we see, this was intended to be a quick timing pass. The first read is open and Peterman fires it in that direction. Since we’re evaluating the team more globally, had there been more time to develop the play, the line has Peterman protected quite well. At least two other receiving targets came open. There’s quite a bit to like on this snap believe it or not. Play 3The graphics tell most of the story for this play. Kelvin Benjamin is the intended target. While he’s “open” at the end of the play, his route was disrupted quite a bit leading to the incompletion. To defend Peterman, he needs to throw this and trust Benjamin gets to his spot. By the time Benjamin’s route gets blown up it’s too late to decide. We set out to review the ability of the receiving options to get open so let’s finish the play. Every other skill player is open at some point Womens Marcus Murphy Jersey , which, again, means there’s more to like than a first glance suggests. (However, if you look closely one player probably wasn’t going to make the catch.)Play 4Evaluating everyone, the protection holds up again. Three receiving options are in great position to make plays, with a fourth potentially open (Kelvin Benjamin). The pass is delivered to the receiver that’s most covered by the defense and the result is an incompletion. Play 5Since we’re all about rubbing salt in our wounds let’s answer our question in truly heartbreaking fashion. Peterman scans the field and again has decent protection. Not liking what he sees, Peterman throws to his wide open safety valve Jeremy Kerley. Meanwhile, Robert Foster’s afterburners force questions of “what if?” Play 6There are several potential receivers who come open during this play. For the graphic I’ve highlighted the two that are in the area Peterman honed in on. Benjamin has a little contact with the defender which slows him down. The throw isn’t even necessarily a bad option as Benjamin was acquired to win situations such as this one. To come back to the original focus, it’s easy to see that Jason Croom was open. Play 7The graphic suggests utter failure on the part of Peterman but that shouldn’t be the main takeaway. The GIF is there to answer our question and, undeniably, receivers were open. Jeremy Kerley is a little animated about how open he was in fact. Unlike many of the plays above, the line rapidly breaks down. If the play was designed to have Peterman scan left to right he didn’t have time to progress through his reads to reach Kerley.Against the Ravens, Peterman had 13 incompletions, six of which are highlighted here. I could have kept recording but at this point the original purpose of the analysis has already been answered. The skill positions actually didn’t do badly at all, with plenty of open targets. Play 8To stress that the goal wasn’t to slam Nathan Peterman, here’s a Josh Allen play with similar results. At various times during the play, no less than three receivers are open. Allen has good protection with over three seconds to throw the ball. Allen missed opportunities as well. Play 9One more. The defensive pass interference bails out Josh Allen. Like the Peterman toss above on Play 7, it’s hard to fully blame the quarterback here. Benjamin is supposed to go win these battles. Also like Peterman though, other options were present and the answer remains “yes.” Receivers were getting open.