Bills new offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, has made a good first impression on the players. It has them motivated to master the scheme and execute at the highest level.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
If you catch Brian Daboll walking around the team facility at One Bills Drive, there’s a spring in his step and an upbeat attitude to match. Perhaps it’s because he’s back in his hometown, running the offense for the team he used to root for every fall. But if you ask those who know him best, it’s just who he is as a person.
“He’s a guy I’ve been around,” said Charles Clay, who was a wide-eyed rookie with the Dolphins back in 2011 when Daboll was Miami’s offensive coordinator. “He’s a very fun, energetic guy. A great teacher first and foremost. It can be a lot of volume sometimes, but he does a great job teaching. Those relationships he builds makes him a lot of fun to be around.”
Some Bills fans might find the description of Daboll as fun a bit surprising.
Didn’t he spend most of his pro coaching career in New England under Bill Belichick? Isn’t New England where fun goes to die?
If there’s one thing that Daboll has learned over his nearly two decades of coaching, it’s that you have to be yourself when you’re working with players. For him, that’s a coach who demands that you know every detail of your job, but enjoys the game as much as the players who play it.
“What you’re trying to do as a coach is give them some type of feedback to help them be a better player,” said Daboll flatly. “Whether it’s positive or sometimes negative, the biggest thing for a coach is to be truthful. Don’t sugarcoat things. If it wasn’t done the right way, give them the reason why and then give them a better way to do it. That’s your job as a coach.”
While that straightforward answer might sound all business, the early reviews on Daboll from the locker room have been encouraging.
“It’s been awesome,” said rookie QB Josh Allen of his first few weeks under Daboll. “He’s very energetic. He’s very engaged with myself, Nate (Peterman) and AJ (McCarron). Meetings are awesome. He’s super talkative. He’s got a lot of information. I definitely am in a really good situation here being able to learn from AJ and Nate and then a coach like Daboll.”
Entrusted with the dual task of installing a new offense while also navigating the daily evaluation of a three-way quarterback competition, Daboll is keeping his focus only on the day that lies in front of him and his staff.
“We’re putting in the foundation of the offense,” he said. “I think offensive football in today’s day and age, you have to be ever changing. We have a foundation. Each day is a little bit different, but you have to put your core concepts in and see how they work.
“Sometimes the core concepts for one team is different for another team. So, we’re still getting a feel for the personnel and how they run certain routes. How our line is doing. How our quarterbacks are reading their progressions and it’s ever changing.”
Couple those two sizable tasks with getting acclimated to an offensive staff where he’s the new guy and one quickly sees how much is on Daboll’s plate. That’s why the one-day-at-a-time approach is the only way for him at this point.
“When you come in and you work together with a new staff and you’re only here for a couple of months, you’re really grinding on that particular day and trying to get focused whether it’s later on with the players or the next day, you’re just trying to stay afloat.”
One shouldn’t be misled by Daboll’s humility. He’s an ardent competitor in every sense of the word. It’s why he is always keeping his players on their toes, making sure they know their assignments right down to the finest of details.
“I think he’s a guy that cares about the players. He’s a players’ coach at heart, but he’ll test you,” said Kelvin Benjamin. “Always testing you. He’s always asking questions trying to make sure you’re on top of your game, learning the playbook. At times he makes it fun. It’s not just all work. He makes it a good atmosphere on offense. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but he’s pushing us. We’re going to get there.”
The testing often comes in the form of trivia-type questions in meetings. Even though there’s a level of fun associated with it, players understand they better have the right answers.
“He does it in front of everybody on offense so it puts pressure on you to know your stuff,” Benjamin said. “It’s just little things that a lot of OCs don’t do. A lot of them just put it in front of you and you have to learn it. All around they’re doing a good job with teaching it here. Everybody is picking it up pretty good.”
Daboll deflects credit to his assistants, who had to school themselves up on the scheme in the winter before disseminating it to their players.
“I think our staff does a really good job with all the guys in their position rooms,” said Daboll. “I’m just part of the group and trying to help out the best way I can. I think the coaches all do a good job in their classrooms keeping it live, energetic and interactive. I think that’s important nowadays.”
Coaches often have mantras that they reiterate time and again to their players. For coach McDermott it’s ‘Respect the Process.’ For Daboll, it’s more specific.
“His thing is you can’t beat yourself,” said Clay. “He says, ‘To start winning, you’ve got to keep from losing.’ You can’t beat yourself. That’s the main thing with him. He harps on those little things. Penalties, false starts, all the stuff where it’s not the other team doing anything, but it’s us doing it to ourselves. He wants us on top of those as much as possible. That can go a long way in the long run. You eliminate those things, you give yourself a chance.”
Daboll also spends a lot of practice time replicating game situations. Every offense in the league works games situations during team segments, but Buffalo’s OC also applies it to individual position drills.
“The drills that we’re doing with (quarterbacks coach David) Culley and Daboll are really good,” said Allen. “Just feeling pressure from one side and subtle movements, and setting your feet down and putting the ball where it needs to be. They definitely apply to in-game situations.”
The teaching of Daboll’s offense is also concept based. Players don’t learn a singular role in the scheme. They learn the entire concept of plays, so they understand how all 11 players fit together in executing them. That provides Daboll with the ability to move certain players in his offense around to keep his scheme unpredictable.
“He can move us around anywhere in the offense,” said Benjamin. “I mean, Shady, Clay or me can be moved around anywhere, so it’s going to be hard for teams to key on us.”
Additionally, Daboll sees value in changing the speed at which the offense operates, something New England’s offense has done for years.
“You have to dictate tempo offensively,” he said. “But there’s also a part of scheming and seeing what the defense gives you and trying to attack those weaknesses.”
That’s the part of Daboll’s approach to offense that excites Clay the most. NFL offensive coordinators know it’s a matchup league and often look for those mismatches each week. Clay however, sees Daboll as a play caller who makes it his top priority.
“He definitely does a good job of coaching the quarterbacks to find the mismatch,” said Clay. “He coaches reads too, but he thinks mismatches first. The quarterbacks are going to give us chances. That’s the exciting thing. (Daboll) thinks matchups first and that’s something that will help us this year.”
Having worked under head coach Sean McDermott for a year, and previously with Daboll, Clay believes the fit will prove to be a solid one.
“I know the kind of atmosphere he likes to work in,” Clay said of Daboll. “You’re going to get your work in and hold everybody accountable, but at the same time you have fun and you do that by going out and executing. That’s what he’s big on. The guys in the locker room enjoy being around him. It was a great hire.”