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Thanks Mark! It's good to hear from you again

Not only were the Bills #2 in yards allowed in '04, but they were #1 in forced turnovers, #3 in sacks, and #2 against the run. Take your pick of which category is more important, it matters not.

Ancient history and rehash. Players change. Watch him again now without your previous opinion getting in the way.

Bill, I think you need to pay a whole lot more attention to the player Big Mike has become since @ game 4 of last year. Also, in a recent Mcnally interview he revealed that they are now pretty much just "leaving him out there" with no help and he dominates his man @ 90% of the time. (and it shows btw) One thing about NFL players is that they can change their stripes. A once accurate evaluation of a player can become inaccurate in a fairly short amount of time.

I've seen the same so far in my 2nd review of the game. I'm going through the first couple quarters a couple times trying to focus on individual linemen. I was first surpised to see Big Mike get a Pancake block, two maulings of his man, and a solid duration block in his first four plays... I do remember Teague having some difficulty though, along with Anderson.

It's because he excels on both kick/punt coverage and blocking on return teams.

Dude, do you just do a keyword search for "Brady" or "Patriots" or do you actually read all these Bills posts?

It was obvious to us that he needed some work in this area (yes even though he's done it before). We felt that after the fumble it was` kind of a punishment sort of thing..

I've already heard the write up on him but thought he played ok prior to tonight. What did he do specifically tonight? Were his guys scraping off of him to make tackles or was it more missing assignments?

I assumed just by the overall results that Anderson played poorly tonight but I didn't really focus on him. Was he the one that gave up the gap in those couple run blitzes for huge losses on the left side tonight?

I'll stay away from the offense for the most part as they were putrid, although I thought the pass protection tonight was pretty good by the starters and JP did OK other than the one play down in scoring territory... Important players (besides the usual Spikes and Clements, Fletcher) that I thought played very well on D were Kelsay, Edwards, Milloy, and Stamer. Greer had a very rough go of it tonight. I felt that Gause outplayed Ritzman vs. the run, but Ritzman as usual was better pass rushing. Lindell was poor, as was the holder tonight. German was horid. King had a nice breakup and a decent open field tackle. Josh Reed did pretty well in limited opportunities. Willis was the worst I have seen him in two years, although the run blocking was quite poor too. He looked slow to the outside early on, then picked it up. He was also too hestitant on short yardage plays. Haggan did little and Crowell didn't impress much either. Haddad was decent at WR and made a nice return. I felt that as a WR , Freddie made 2 nice medium range grabs, but didn't impress on punt returns where he was indecisive. Wilson made a tackle on teams and a heads up fumble recovery, but missed his chance on a nice route due to a high and away JP throw. That's about all for now.

FFS, Edwards did have a poor outing vs. GB, so that's mainly what's being discussed here. Nobody can deny what he did in the Colts game either (play extremely well), so really were looking at average production over a small grouping of games for the moment. I agree with you that the overall production hit will be minimal, while some others feel it will carry more weight. I'll add that I do feel that the pass rush will actually benefit from his presence a bit.

Oh he's no Sam. I realize that. And he's no Pat either for that matter. I just don't think the dropoff is quite as big with this year's version of Edwards.

Be careful with that though because you might have noticed for example in the Green Bay game on the first play of the game he got pushed back about 2 yards.... A closer inspection reveals that he occupied a double team block on the play, thus freeing up another player. I don't think were asking him to beat double teams now are we?

Ok Peppers.

Peppers on D, Gates on O

My prediction(I think we may have discussed this before. Sorry, poor short term memory) is @ 10-15 more yards rushing per game given up and about .4 to .5 yards per carry. I guess I don't see him as much as a liability as you do. Did you get a chance to see the highlights I metioned from the Colt's game?

I Always value your opinions as you know but this one seems to have somewhat of a "chicken little" quality to it (IMO). 200 to 250 yards? So you're saying one player, who's atleast average replacing a very good player along with 10 returning starters on a fantastic defense with a great line coach, very good coordinator, and highly effective scheme is going to take us from giving up like 90 rush yds per game to somewhere around 150 average over the course of the season? Wow.

I think Willis is guilty here of getting just a tad ahead of himself. He was a great college player, and had a fantastic year for us last year after coming off a major injury/recovery. The sky is the limit for him potential wise. The fact remains though that he has only produced for a very short period of time and really cannot YET be put in the list of guys like Tomlinson, Holmes, Alexander, etc. who have done it over multiple seasons. I am glad he is confident but he seems to consider himself "elite" just a little bit before his time has come. Remember that his contract is full of incentives that will pay him handsomely if he produces again this season. I agree that a holdout next year is highly likely, but it's sure going to be exciting this season!

You guys are either crazy or too young if you don't think Madden belongs in the Hall. Simply one of the greatest and most classic coaches of all time.

Special teams are not counted in the relevant D stats. Also, lets ignore yardage AND points last season and take a little gander at Forced turnovers and Sacks shall we? Where do you think the Bills might stand in that area? Conclusion: ESPN = Every Single Poll (is) Nonsense

Good point as well... I feel the same way.

I see, so when Bledsoe throws a pick or fumbles and it gets returned for a TD, that's the Defenses fault right? Certainly more indicative than yardage

OMG get a clue man. Simon always backs his observations up with facts and if he's not sure on something, he says so. There are many of us here who DO know what were looking at most times (given our television broadcast view of the game since we can't get the Film) and Simon has proven to be very astute in these matters. You can't tell someone simply that they know nothing and expect that to be the end of it. Maybe you could refute his points with a single fact based observation of your own?

Wow! What a memory!