VADC Bills

I happened to have worked in Tampa quite a bit before and after Dungy arrived. Tampa was had not made the playoffs since the Doug Williams era. They were awful. Tony was the key in building Tampa into a Superbowl Team. Gruden came in after doing a good job building the Raiders. Lets face it, he was a tuck rule away from going to the AFC championship maybe a superbowl. He eventually took the Bucs and won the big game. Bill Polian obviously thought Tony was damn good because he hired Tony within the same week that Tampa released him. Gruden's luck has not been as good and he is on the market.. Contrary to your opinion the Colts were coming off of a 6-10 record. Dungy had a great nucleus to work with Manning, James and Harrison. Tony led them to a 10-6 season and never looked back and eventually won his superbowl. Once Tony put his handprint on the team they were consistant winners. Once Gruden put his handprint on the team they have been in slow decline. How many times has Dungy's team started out to an 8-0 start. This Colt team still has Dungy's hand print. That's the sign of a well built team. Gruden's team has been very mediocre since they won the superbowl. However the Raiders went to the superbowl the year after he left. Tony has demonstrated this ability twice where Gruden has once. They both have very good accomplishment because they have demonstrated they can make the most of a situation but if I had my choice to pick one of them to turn my team around I would pick Parcells.

I like the general theme of change. I don't quite agree with the personel you have mentioned but I understand what you are saying. - Remove DJ - Restructure your front office to the more traditional arrangement. Get a GM. Go for the up and coming name, Polian's son comes to mind. Casserly destroys every team he has his hands on (the Redskins are a good example) - Upgrade your scouting personel. One of our biggest problems is talent evaluation. - Bring in a coach that is a proven winner or can build a winner. Gruden best team was team that he didn't build. He did a good job with the Raiders though. Billick, Shanahan, Cowher have all won the big one but have sputtered as well. Cowher is your best choice. Don't rule out Shottenheimer. I think they will bring strong coaching staffs as well. - Start purging the teams players to attaining 3 more draft picks. Use those picks to solidify your lines - Get a top second string QB with experience and draft a QB as well.

I concur with this thread. This was clearly the worst offense. Dan Darragh, Bob Cappadonna. We would not have gotten OJ with out those guys.

Easy answer...the Bills did not want to pay him the money. They justified it by saying they wanted a more attacking defense behind the line of scrimmage. It amazes me how peolple buy into the BS that management will feed them to disguise the fact that they don't want to pay the bucks. Bills management indicated that Fletcher was tackling down field and his age was a factor. Untrue and if you have seen him play recently he is clearly better than anyone we presently have. Remember when Pat Williams was to old and about done.....Wrong , the Bills just didn't want to pay him. Remember when Antoine Winfield didn't create the turnovers or have a strong impact on the game.....Wrong, the Bills just didn't want to pay him. Who knows how Kyle Williams or John McCargo would benefit by playing next to proven veterans when they were rookies. Who knows how Poz or Ellison would benefit playing next to a proven veteran like Fletcher. Instead I honestly do not think that Williams, McCargo, Poz, and Ellison are capable of starting on hardly any other teams. Poz really hurts because we traded up to get him when David Harris was still on the board. We could have had Harris and an additional pick....Gotta love the Bills braintrust.

Amazing how he had no problem getting open for Bledsoe and JP. You think it might be the QB....... Minnesota's WR's couldn't get open until Farve came. Atlanta's WR's couldn't get open until Ryan showed up. Evan's would be a pro bowler if we had a consistant qb. Mould's career should be an example of how bad quarterbacking can have an impact on WR's.

Good post. I have done my share of Poz bashing over time comparing him to the Boz. There are several issues regarding our line. Kyle Williams is no Pat Williams but would be even better in rotation with a two gap run stuffer like Pat Williams. The defense needs a better offense so they aren't on the field so much. Ellison has improved more than any LB on the team which still doesn't make him one of the better OLB's by no means. When it comes to Poz lets not sugar coat this. After 3 years he doesn't have the football instincts to compensate for his lack of speed and below average pass coverage skills. Even Fewell mentioned that he needs to be more of an impact player at the end of last season. It was mentioned that he rushed the QB in forcing his pass and help create the fumble by Slaton. When he did those things I was thinking when is the last time we saw this from Poz. We don't see these thing on a regular basis. The real problem with Poz comes from the constant completions QB's throw in the middle of our defense. In fact many tackles by Poz in prior games are on the pass catcher in the middle that he didn't cover and even more irritating on run plays up the middle especially the ones Moats ran for TD's Poz was not looking at the fooball but looking at the traffic. Poz ran in the wrong direction of the play and was swallowed up by a lineman. He doesn't keep his gaps and the rb has a big gain. Many times when he does make the hit on a rb, the opposing rb usually get and extra 2 or 3 yards ala Brian Bosworth. The defense is designed for the LB to fill the gaps when the DT and DE's are occupied. His instinct are still very much like a rookie. Poz unless he get better is destined to a backup role like Holecek, Bailey, Patton, Maddox and Goganious he is no better at this stage of his career. We are better off drafting for a mlb with probowl potential. I don't think Poz has the speed to play outside but I could be wrong.

The defense was on the field a lot but that's no excuse for missing gap assignments. Poz ran himself out of both plays. I know he is a fan favorite but he is part of the reason we give up so many yards on run defense.

That was the rap on losing four superbowls we didn't practice with pads on during the week of the big game. When you look at the turnovers in the last 3 SB's games preparation had to be a key...A certain degree of torn muscles and even ligaments can be tied to preparation. That why hold out players tend to get injured more frequently. You don't want to kill your players in training camp but when you have a young team with very little veteran leadership you need to instill a tough training regiment....I do agree that we need to draft larger players as well...it works for Parcells

This is what happens when you focus your draft on the high character intellectual types and run soft practices. We need bigger and tougher players with talent as well as coaches that are tougher. Every team has injuries but they have well conditioned people ready to come in.

Don't fully agree but I love the effort here I would trade some assets but not the ones that possess solid veteran leadership. Keep Stroud because he is actually good and your not going to get two high picks for him. Draft another RB that can catch the football. Hold onto Lynch in the meantime until the other RB is proven then get what you can for him,in the mean time with improvements to the OL he can still be a stud. Trade Poz and Whitner if we can get 3rd round value for them. Let's face it the safeties are making more impact plays without Witner and if you saw todays TD runs by Moats straight up the middle you saw Poz clearly running away from the play as the run was coming through his gap. This is a weekly occurance. Offer Roscoe for a 3rd or 4th rounder.. ...The rest of your points I agree with.

Agreed, this is a no brainer and for the life of me I don't understand why they don't experiment. In the past we have acquired free agents and draft picks on their ability to play more than one position. Now we have a tremendously athletic person that seems that he could make the adjustment more naturally than some..we don't even try. Brian Orakpo and Philip Ayer is spending their time at OLB than DE. Thats because the coaching wants to get the best athletes on the field. Before the season I felt that Maybin was the tweener of the group. Maybin holding out hurt him as far as development for this season but he will be OK in the long run. I can't help but think Darryl Talley when I see him. I expect more common sense from our coaching staff.

With all that being Houston is not a playoff team and just started looking like a real team with the acquisition and growth of Matt Shaub. Where the Bills need to improve in many areas our quartebacking is what is hurting the team most. It reminds me of the Rob Johnson Bills. Remember our receivers were getting old, our OL needed to be upgraded and when Doug Flutie stepped in they looked like a different team. Our line was holding blocks and Eric Mould emerged. All of the WR and OL talk went away. When Johnson came back in they looked like a bad team again.

If you have seen Fletcher play recently he is making tackles all over the field including behind the line of scrimmage. When they let Winfield go it was because he didn't intercept the ball enough. Pat Williams was on the wrong side of 30. I can't believe anyone buys into the BS propoganda and excuses for not wanting to pay these guys. The fact of the matter is Williams had plenty of years left and is still dominant was going to command a higher salary. Winfield was going to command top dollar being a cornerback has been a strong defender on the Vikings staff was going to command top cornerback bucks in FA. Fletcher was considered on the wrong side of 30 and tackled downfield field because he missed a step. The fact is his contract was up and he was going to command more bucks in the FA market. He was the leader of the Redskins defense when they finished 2 years in or close to the top 5 defenses. Seriously what have we replaced him with, a slow, nonhitting, injury proned, over rated Poz.

It only says that we have a QB that can not play in conditions that are not ideal and a stupid punt returner. They could have hired one of many potential head coaches in the off season and they went with a proven loser Mangini. Lets see who our new head coach will be.

As crazy as it sounds Ellison has been our most consistant LB this season and I have seen improvement each year. Mitchell can make the impact play in coverage...average everywhere else. Poz is good when the play comes right at him he is otherwise slow and is often pushed the extra yard or two on the initial impact...the most over rated player on defense along with Witner.

How to fix the LT and QB..easy..Draft some quality players at the positions or sign quality FA's. Before that we have to take some strides in improving the way we evaluate talent. I don't think we are far off as some may think but we can improve in many areas. - QB could be in the first round depending on if we make any free agent moves. Keep in mind Matt Shaub and Drew Brees were FA acquisitions. Maybe we can get lucky here andfocus on a Kyle Orton or Kevin Kolb. - Draft a Tackle and Guard with some size and mobilty, move Woods to Center his natural position. - Draft a DT to play beside Stroud if ther is a quality FA out there get him. Kyle Williams is not the answer. - LB's we need to upgrade the Poz and Ellison spots to faster and more physical hitters. Look at Willis, Beason and Harris out of the same draft that Poz was drafted. Our LB's can't compare. We have to decide do we want potential pro bowlers that play with a high level of intensity or fan favorites that give up 200 yards a game on the ground. Maybin could be part of the solution here...if so add a DE to the mix. - Our secondary has good potential and depth...no need for changes here we just need to find the right combination of personnel from the people we presently have. Lets not assume that Witner is the automatic starter in this equation. Our draft could look some thing like this, 1 QB / OL 2 OL / DT 3 DT /LB 4 LB /DE 5 OL / DL Best Available 6 OL / DL Best Available If we could get more picks they will probably fall in the middle rounds.

Levitre was the one that was blown up for the safety. It would have been better if we had called a play where Jackson didn't line up 7 yards deep into the end zone. Woods and Livitre need to get better. They haven't really come together on the run blocking. Woods is clearly stronger and is a keeper. Levitre isn't as strong and needs more size. Coaching is going to play an important part on these guys development. At times I wonder if we have the coaching to do so. My issue is with Hangartner...he plays scared when snapping from the shotgun. Several games he was snapping grounders to TE, I expected better from a veteran. For next year I wouldn't mind drafting a quality guard and tackle lets move Woods to center (his natural position) and make Hangartner a backup.

Agree...It's hard to single out any one LB when they all suck. Ellison should be coming off of he bench not starting. Poz..I know the fans love him but he sucks too. Noticing that when Poz hits the opposing RB they tend to drag him 2-3 yards after the initial contact ala the "Boz". I first noticed this in the game he was initially hurt but I thought the injury may have played a part. I noticed today it happened two or three times. We need to start drafting LB's that can can hit because our present unit is soft. I believe the third LB spot was filled by the Tops Supermarket fan of the week. Great PR move...I feel I have a shot to start next week.

TO eluded to it earlier this season. Trent doesn't know how to assess single coverage and ball placement. This is why he will have very few 300 yard games if any. Most QB's look for single coverage to throw in. It takes Trent longer to pull the trigger. Trent being extra careful doesn't seem to result in less picks either. Defenders are sitting on his short routes forcing him throw longer which he can't properly assess so he will not do. Other than the "go" route he will not pull the trigger. He is not a gunslinger. It is much easier to teach a gunslinging QB on how to reel it in than to teach a timid passer on how to sling it (JP Losman being the exception of course). It will be interesting to see Fitz with a week of first team snaps. He seems to pull the trigger sooner especially on the 15-20 yard pass. I don't see TE completing the pass for Lee Evans TD against the Jets. as Fitz did.

Good points about our defense. Too many running back have big games and our LB are often out of position. We have no real hard hitters on our LB staff. Poz and Mitchell would look much better surrounded by better talent whether it is on the D-line or additional LB's in a 3-4. I agree with your point on Whitner. At the beginning of the season I felt that Whitner and Poz needed to step up to live up to the billing. I don't see them as bust but but I don't see them as having much pro bowl potential. I think Byrd and Wilson so far have made more impact plays given the limited opportunities they have had. I'm not saying trade established players for draft picks because frankly I don't think we can get much for anyone on defense ,but when drafting for defense we have to realize as long as we look at Whitner and Poz as our core, we will never be better than mediocre. I'm curious about Fitz. I would like to see if he can assess single coverage on route other than the "go" routes better than Trent. I think this is Trent's big problem. The TD to Evans against the Jets, Trent would have never thrown that pass.

Agreed... however until he is traded let just say Parrish is one of the leagues top and most explosive return men and would be a steal for any team for only a third round pick. One of the best from the U I might add. As for that play against Cleveland...those savage winds at the Ralph blew the little guy into the ball, accidentally of course.

I agree on Byrd and Whitner. I'm curious about Palmer and Harris because they showed well in the preseason but I don't think the addition of Poz really makes things better. He still is very poor on pass coverage. Opposing QB have feasted on Poz and Ellison's lack of cover skills and Poz is always a step slow on running plays to the outside. Our LB's need overhauling like so many areas of the team maybe this can be a positive start. It's definitely worth a try...but I wouldn't bet the farm on DJ and PF trying it.