Josh Allen and Joe Brady didn't beat around the bush.
"There's a lot of targets obviously missing from last year," said Brady, the now full-time offensive coordinator.
A combined 308 targets have been vacated in the Bills receiving room from a year ago due to several departures, including a trade involving the team's star receiver.
"It's no secret – Stef (Diggs) was an All-Pro here," Allen said this summer.
But rather than dwell on what they lost this offseason, the Bills decided to focus on what they gained — and there's plenty to love about their additions. In doing so, the Bills have re-imagined their identity and philosophy without losing their heart and soul. As Brady aptly put it, "at the end of the day this is Josh Allen's offense, right?"
With a quarterback of Josh Allen's caliber, there are endless possibilities for how to structure the offense because the seventh-year QB can be successful in any of them.
This year, the Bills want to keep team's guessing on who their go-to target will be on any given week. When Buffalo opens the season on Sept. 8 against the Arizona Cardinals, it's anyone's best guess as to who will catch Josh Allen's first pass or come up with a crucial third down conversion.
It's a departure from previous iterations of the team's outlook— and that's just the way the Bills want it.
"It's a different way to play offense and we gotta go prove it, but we're excited about the pieces we have," Bills GM Brandon Beane explained on the Green Light podcast.
Putting the pieces together
During the offseason and into training camp that core idea of spreading the ball around has manifested itself into a mantra.
'Everybody Eats'.
The phrase 'Everybody Eats' was first coined by offensive coordinator Joe Brady when the team returned for OTAs in the spring. "It's not just about one person, no one's bigger than the offense. But in order for someone else to have success, I gotta do my job so they have success and then vice versa," he said.
Third-year wide receiver Khalil Shakir, the only returning WR that has caught a pass from Josh Allen in a game, described it as a mentality where each individual player is performing their role on a given play to the fullest of their ability, even if they know they aren't getting the ball.
"What goes around comes around. If you got to sit there and run a go 50 times, do it full speed 50 times, then that 51st time it might be you running that out and somebody else is clearing the ball for you," he said. "We're all working together to make sure that play works and you just keep building off of that."
Work hard, do your job and good things will happen. Of course, this all sounds nice in theory. But you still need players besides Shakir that are willing to buy into that approach and make it applicable on the football field. As Brandon Beane put it, “talk is cheap”.
Fortunately for the Bills, they've retooled their receiver room with players that fit that mold. They added Curtis Samuel, Mack Hollins and Marquez Valdes-Scantling to their receiver room in free agency, then drafted WR Keon Coleman (second found) and RB Ray Davis (fourth round).
The common thread among the group has been their willingness to learn and have a selfless approach.
"I've loved how the guys have worked, how they've kind of taken to this offense, the identity of the offense, and how they're going to be utilized. It's been a lot of fun, just their selfless mindset, and I'm excited to see that take off," Brady said.
According to Shakir, the entire receiving room has practiced lining up all over the field during training camp and preseason practices to learn all the different positions, whether it be on the outside of the formation or in the slot. By doing so, each player is able to understand why and how certain route concepts are called. When a receiver knows why their specific route will help the overall play call, it's that much easier to get the buy-in.
"Everybody's trying to learn every different spot so we can play fast and not have to think about it. If you're playing Z, and you have to run a go so the F can get open, you gotta do it. And then five plays later it'll probably flip flop. I definitely think us trying to spread the ball, and get everybody open, get everybody involved, just allows for us to have so much more targets. And, as a group, we all know what we're doing," Shakir said.
The mixing and matching of the team's pass catchers is something that specifically caught the eye of The Athletic's NFL writer and podcast host Robert Mays. Mays took a visit to Bills Training Camp in Rochester where he began to understand the meaning behind Buffalo's vision for the offense.
"When you bring in players with flexible skill sets, I think that training camp, and especially the first part of training camp, is designed to figure out, all right, how does this all fit together?," Mays told BuffaloBills.com.
After the first day of training camp, Josh Allen offered a glimpse on how the pieces are going to fit once the season starts.
"You saw today where Mack Hollins catches a ball but... you got MVS rolling down the middle, clearing an out so that (Mack) can go over and catch the ball. I didn't even congratulate Mack, I went up to MVS and KJ and was like 'you guys made that play... it was you guys that got him open'," Allen explained during a One Bills Live appearance.
Why the Bills have bought in and what it will look like
Wide receiver Mack Hollins took training camp by storm with his barefoot lifestyle and cutoff practice shirt. But more importantly, he's established himself as Buffalo's 'glue guy' — a player that embodies the team's Playoff Caliber standard and a team-first approach.
"I love Mack," Allen said during camp. "I've only been around him for a few months now. But the energy and the juice that he has is infectious toward his teammates… He's not trying to be anybody else but Mack Hollins, and guys respect him for that. I know I sure as hell do."
Hollins, 30, is on the back end of his career with only one trip to the postseason after playing for five different NFL teams. Earning the trust of Allen means Hollins also has the trust of those around him. So when he speaks, players on the Bills offense listen. As unselfish as it gets, Hollins has one key reason why he believes the team has fully embraced 'Everybody Eats'.
"Because nobody cares who eats as long as everybody has a plate," Hollins explained.
"It doesn't matter if so-and-so's plates' bigger today. We know at some point your plate is gonna be big, just be ready to eat when it comes. And that's obviously Joe's philosophy, everybody eats. But that only works if — everybody eats only when nobody cares who eats. Because if people complain then, it doesn't work out," he said.
The Bills, at least for now, have removed the phrase 'No. 1 receiver' from their vocabulary. It lends itself to the notion that any receiver, tight end or running back has the ability — and confidence — to be the most productive player.
"I think that making it so anybody can be the most productive receiver we have on any given day, I do think that's possible for it to work," Mays said.
Buffalo's quarterback envisions himself as the team's point guard where he's distributing the ball to the open man and the play calls are designed for every pass catcher to have a specific role.
"It's like basketball, making the extra pass, right? Trying to find a way to get your teammate open. Which, again, you do that, makes them want to get you open more, especially in the wide receiver room," Allen shared.
"Get a guy that's blocking on the perimeter for a running back, or for another receiver, it's going to make that other receiver feel appreciative of you going out there and doing something that's your job, but taking pride in it. And I think having that type of energy and atmosphere, it's gonna be infectious for us."
Above all, Allen not only believing in the 'Everybody Eats' approach but also committing to it as his own strategy is what could ultimately be the difference in the philosophy coming to life in a successful manner.
"I've loved (Allen's) mindset, his work ethic, his attention to detail with everything," Brady said. "That's not to say anything's different than in the past, but we have a lot of new guys and so his communication with his offensive line, with the wide receivers, staying after practice, making sure they're seeing it the same way,"
Brady's complement of his quarterback indirectly points to an underlying point. This year is a new way for Allen to play offense, too.
"The best offenses in the league build it through one player for the most part," Mays said. "But at the same time, when you have a quarterback that you feel really good about and you think that he can do most of the heavy lifting, I think that there is validity to seeing it that way. And I think that's probably how the Bills are seeing it."
Mays' co-host and NFL film analyst Derrik Klassen hypothesized that the Bills offense could be more unpredictable from week to week with this approach. If that's the case, it could make the Bills one of the toughest teams to game plan for in 2024.
"There's a world where they're one of those they just end up in the middle of the pack for every personnel grouping," Klassen said on The Athletic Football Show.
Mays and Klassen aren't the only major NFL analysts that have a guess as to what shape the Bills offense could take.
ESPN's NFL analyst and podcast host Kevin Clark also visited Bills camp this summer and he said during an appearance on the NFL Daily podcast that his biggest takeaway from the trip to WNY came from a conversation he had with OC Joe Brady.
"I said, 'What are you doing? What's keeping you up at night?'," Clark recalled of the conversation. "He was like 'We want to win every single way'."
"They're not trying to change Josh Allen," Clark added. "They're just trying to say 'we need to be so flexible that we can win any sort of game'. And I really do think that's possible."
The X-Factors
A lot of attention this offseason has been devoted to the makeup of the Bills wide receiver room. However, they aren't the only players that are eligible to catch passes from Josh Allen. After all, TEs Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, along with RBs James Cook and Ty Johnson combined to catch 146 passes for over 1,300 yards last season.
"What I've been trying to say internally here is: people are sometimes just focused on the receiver room," Beane told Chris Long on the Green Light podcast.
While questions of the team's new pieces in the WR room are valid, Buffalo can hang its hat on their run game and two ultra-reliable tight ends.
"They have enough plus skill position players to me," NFL analyst Gregg Rosenthal said on the NFL Daily podcast. "Shakir, Knox, Kincaid, Cook. All those guys are plus players. Maybe Keon Coleman and Curtis Samuel get to be that way."
If there's one player that analysts are expecting to emerge as a star playmaker for the Bills, the name to watch is second-year TE Dalton Kincaid.
"If I were trying to pinpoint somebody that I thought was the most talented player in that group, and the guy that did have a chance to become the most important player in that pecking order, he's probably the one that I would go with," Mays said.
During the second half of last season when Brady took over as offensive coordinator, Kincaid's depth of target increased from six yards to nine yards. Kincaid displayed an ability to win downfield with 14.5 yards per catch during the Bills' final two regular season games and two postseason games. That added element over a full season could be a dangerous weapon for Josh Allen.
"I just want to see him develop into potentially a borderline number one within an NFL offense," Mays said. "And I think that he has, you know, the makeup to do that in the right circumstances."
The Bills also boasted one of the best run games in the league under Joe Brady last season. According to TruMedia, the Bills ranked 3rd in the NFL in rushing success rate and had the most runs that resulted in a first down. Buffalo also had the least amount of negative plays on a per rate basis among all NFL teams.
"They also maybe have the best offensive line of the Sean McDermott era, they might have the best running game," Rosenthal added.
During an appearance on First Take, ESPN's Mina Kimes believes Buffalo's run game will be among the league's best in 2024. "They leaned heavily on a dominant run game that I expect to still be dominant this season.They've invested a great deal in the offensive line, and I think James Cook really emerged last season," she said.
It's been an offseason of substantial change for the Bills and we won't truly know how it'll all shake out until the season kicks off. But many analysts are still buying into the idea that the Bills remain a force to be reckoned with in the AFC.
"I think this offense might have some ups and downs in the first part of the season as everybody feels each other out… but by the second half of the season, I think they'll be as good as any offense in the NFL," Kimes said on ESPN.
Added Mays, "Going into it with an offensive line you feel good about, a running game that you have developed, and a truly elite, special, MVP level quarterback, that's enough."
