Bocephuz

Good insight.. We've beaten ourselves more often than not

I try to be objective and generally have not been a Hackett hater. My general impression watching in real time was that we relied too heavily on the screen pass today. It's hard to tell in real time whether a screen is a dump off or a called play so I went back and watched the DVR to see if my eyes had been deceiving me. So I'm watching the DVR is slo motion and it is Q1 .. We are on the Denver 45 3rd and 11. O line has been holding up well so far.. Giving Orton time. Watching in real time I thought that Orton was forced to dump off to Freddy due to a heavy pass rush... But upon further review Urbik Wood and Pears are bailing on pass protect and are pulling out to the right in anticipation to block the screen for Freddy... and it's clearly a called screen. Play ends in Freddy getting tackled at the 40 ( out of field goal range). We end up going for it on 4th and 5 and don't convert. Momentum is gone and we never get it back. ( b.s. penalties shortly after this don't help). Logic tells you Orton for whatever reason excels at 3rd or 4th and long.. O line is holding up well so far .. Why cripple yourself with a screen pass there? This failure of a crucial play is 100% on Hackett. If I'm Marrone.. And I'm gonna continue on with Orton .. A vet QB who knows the offense by now.. I'm stripping Hackett of his play calling duties and letting Orton call the plays from now on. Granted... Whether or not Orton deserves to keep starting is a whole nother ball of wax.. But if you're gonna go with the vet let him call the plays a la Manning or Kelly. After all... Wasn't Hackett supposed to bring about the second coming of the K-Gun? A screen on 3rd and 11 is very un K Gun. Not letting the QB call the plays is very un K Gun. I'm quite sure Orton in his aggressive nature would not call a screen on 3rd and 11

To tag on ... RGII and EJ may have similarities in their difficulties in adapting to a pro-style offense.. but they are miles apart as far as attitude goes. From all reports EJ is working hard and being a positive influence in the locker room behind the scenes. He's certainly said all of the right things publicly. RGIII is the exact opposite. Based on that.. I'd certainly rather have EJ as a developmental QB rather than RGIII

Hah....

I think we can all agree that there is a large enough sample size on Orton to conclude that throwing the ball 40 times/game and relying on his arm to win games is not a good formula. Definitely need to improve/ focus on the run game more. That being said... we could do much worse than Orton if we are in a situation where we are behind late and need a game winning drive.

Thank you for your feedback and thoughtful replies/posts as well. I like that there fair number of objective reasonable posters here to counteract the shoot from the hip emotional types I have to admit there was a point in the Browns game where the thought of pulling Orton and putting in EJ crossed my mind. I think right at that moment Orton stepped up and made that aggressive 4th down throw to Woods. Orton's best quality is his aggressiveness and willingness to put the ball in tight spots.. and I think that type of attitude digs him out of the holes he puts himself in. Risky business though... I really hope he can develop some more consistency.. particularly since the O line is playing much better now. If he keeps walking that tightrope it's going to be tough to justify him being the everyday guy next year.

I counted that one as an unforced error.. just didn't put it as a notable play I think that's what we are seeing is the Good Orton/ Bad Orton phenomenon .. which is probably the real Orton. I think he was pumped up the first few weeks and now that he is more comfortable perhaps the real Orton is coming out now. He's definitely better than any QB we've had since Bledsoe when he's on.. I think we just have to hope that his bad streaks only go one or two games in a row at the most

SURE.. here's what I have so far. I'll post the O Line numbers as well as Orton's numbers. - Two things to note here - O LIne has been much better since Urbik came back week 8 - Orton was making steady progress up until the Dolphins game and has been up and down since ORTON UNFORCED ERROR HISTORY - Week 5 - DETROIT - 20% Unforced Error Rate ( defined as 20% of his throws where Orton had time were off target.. or he took a bad sack) 26% O Line Breakdown Rate ( defined as Orton not having a moment to throw when he hits his last step of his drop) - Week 6 - NE - 15% Unforced Error Rate 25% O Line Breakdown Rate -Week 7 - SD - 10% Unforced Error 28% O Line Breakdown - Week 8 - NYJ - 14% Unforced Error 19% O Line Breakdown - Week 10 - KC - 11% Unforced Error 9% O Line Breakdown - Week 11 - Dolphins - 22% Unforced Error 20% O Line Breakdown - Week 12 - Jets ( did not do analysis - I would assume it to be a low # for both units here) = Week 13 - Browns - 28% Unforced Error 6% O Line Breakdown

Unforced errors.. bad throws/ How did the O Line do?/ What mistakes are on the O-Line.. what ones are not? I watched the NFL rewind all 22 and here is my unofficial count of how the O-Line did / How Kyle did on every pass play ( I may have missed a snap or two here.. but this should be 95% accurate) DISCLAIMER ( I am not a coach, I don't know the hot reads or route combinations called.. this is just my educated perception of what happened on each pass play) _______ ______________________ TOTAL PASS PLAYS: 32 snaps (much better snap count … ) LINE BREAKDOWNS - 2 snaps or 6% ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and Kyle did not have a moment to throw after hitting the last step of his drop..) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 30 snaps or 96 % of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and Kyle hit the last step of his drop and had a moment to throw). UNFORCED KYLE ERRORS: - 9 snaps or 28 % of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as Kyle having time and having unforced accuracy issues/ or taking bad sacks) Bottom Line: A game of extremes for Orton. On one hand he made two incredible throws on the run ( very unusual for him) and on the other hand he had 2 brutal interceptions and 9 unforced errors ( tying his previous high for the year). The O Line was absolutely outstanding. Orton had tons of time for the most part. They missed a few stunts and gave up some pressures on a few blitzes but when it was even numbers they quite frankly dominated. Some of the inaccuracy is on Orton.. some of it is due to the outstanding work of the Cleveland secondary. They pretty much blanketed our receivers all day. __________ __________ PLAYS OF NOTE Q1- ball batted by DE Q1- Orton misses Hogan twice.. good coverage .. but better throws could have been made Q1 - O Line doesn’t pick up stunt Q2 - Orton INT – plenty of time.. forced it into Sammy.. should have thrown it away .. no one open Q2 - Overthrown deep ball to Sammy ( CB held Sammy a little but I still think it was overthrown) Q2 - Orton SACKED – coverage sack Q2 - Orton double clutches.. misses Sammy on Slant Q3- Orton INT – forcing it to Sammy Q3- Orton makes outstanding sideline throw to Woods on the run Q3 - Orton scrambles on 4th down.. another outstanding throw on the run to Woods Q3 - Orton deep throw to Goodwin incomplete… good throw.. better coverage Q4 - Orton overthrows Woods Q4 - Orton misses back shoulder throw to Woods SUMMARY - Orton had a very rough day but redeemed himself with the two clutch throws to Woods. Orton is not good enough/accurate enough to overcome solid coverage like the Browns were executing. Granted there's only a handful of guys ..Manning, Brees, Rodgers.. who can make those throws.. but I think I've seen enough of a sample size to absolutely conclude Orton is not in their category. If the O-Line continues to play like this and give Orton sufficient time like this game then much more should be expected of Orton going forward.

Sullivan very rarely adds any insight in his pieces. He tends to let emotion cloud rational judgment. 3 weeks ago he was begging the Bills Front office to give Orton a 5 year contract... then...after 2 subpar games Sullivan completely backtracked and basically said Orton is a bum. Hmmm... maybe the wise thing to do would be to wait until there is a sufficient sample size to make a statement like that. Sullivan's a hack. Since the BN has Carrucci and Graham Sullivan kind of seems like a fifth wheel anyway. Also.. Leo and Sal over at the D&C are getting a little stale.

Seems to me like the best thing to do if The Ralph isn't ready on Sunday is to move the game to Monday night.. However... if for whatever reason that isn't feasible what are the alternatives? Off the top of my head here are some choices: Toronto - Rogers Centre ( seems most likely... Argos season is over... looks like it is available) Syracuse - Carrier Dome ( Cuse is on the road this week) Cleveland - Browns Stadium - ( Cleveland is on the road this week) _____ ___________ Personally if it came down to it I'd prefer the Carrier Dome. What does everyone else think?

It's a fine line on some of those plays. On one hand I'm sure the coaches got on him for trying to do too much while under pressure and fumbling like he did in his first few games..and clearly he's listened and put it into action... but on the other side of the coin ...there are some opportunities where it seems like he's bailing a hair too early.

He had some legitimate throwaways due to pressure... however.. there were a couple of " throwaways" that didn't need to be throwaways... IE.. he could have stood in there.. taken the hit .. and accurately delivered to an open receiver. I agree it's too early to pull the plug on Orton. However.. if he keeps shying away from hits the next couple of games and has similar results then at that point we should probably see what we have in EJ.

That was definitely a killer... that should have been 6 and would have really given us a chance. It wasn't an awful throw.. he overthrew him by about a yard. Nevertheless, he missed on that one so that's on Orton.

Unforced errors.. bad throws/ How did the O Line do?/ What mistakes are on the O-Line.. what ones are not? I watched the NFL rewind all 22 and here is my unofficial count of how the O-Line did / How Kyle did on every pass play ( I may have missed a snap or two here.. but this should be 95% accurate) DISCLAIMER ( I am not a coach, I don't know the hot reads or route combinations called.. this is just my educated perception of what happened on each pass play) _______ ______________________ TOTAL PASS PLAYS: 41 snaps ( last game against Chiefs was 47.. game plan was fairly balanced up until 4th quarter trying to play comeback.. ) LINE BREAKDOWNS - 8 snaps or 20 % of pass plays ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and Kyle did not have a moment to throw after hitting the last step of his drop.. last week was 9% so pass protect was worse than last week) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 33 snaps or 80 % of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and Kyle hit the last step of his drop and had a moment to throw). UNFORCED KYLE ERRORS: - 9 snaps or 22% of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as Kyle having time and having unforced accuracy issues/ or taking bad sacks... last week it was 5 snaps or 11%. Definitely his worst game so far relating to unforced errors) Bottom Line: The tape verified the perception that this was Orton's worst game yet as a Bill. The O Line and Orton were fairly efficient and productive up until the end of the 3Q. Q4 was a disaster. Miami blitzed heavily at the end of the game and neither the O Line or Orton handled it well. Orton missed on several throws where he had a clean pockets. The most disturbing thing was his shying away from taking a hit this game. In the past few games Orton showed the toughness to stand and deliver accurately knowing he'd take a hit. There were several instances where he missed on throws because he wasn't willing to take the hit and deliver. __________ __________ PLAYS OF NOTE Q1 - Orton hesitates.. unforced bad throw misses Sammy Q1 - Chandler drop on good pass Q1 - Unforced error - Red Zone pass to Mike Williams telegraphed and almost picked off Q3 - Intentional Grounding – O Line breakdown – awful call by refs Q3 - Unforced error, almost intercepted.. plenty of time.. bad decision by Orton trying to squeeze in to Hogan Q4 - Unforced error , has time..slightly overthrows wide open Sammy down sideline deep … this one hurt.. our best chance at comeback just missed Q4- Unforced error, off target to Woods.. had time Q4- Sack, good coverage by Miami Q4 - O line breakdown – Wake beats Henderson.. Orton forced to throw early Q4 - Wood misses stunt – Orton has to throw it away Q4 - unforced dump down to Brown – Chandler open Q4 - Sack - total line breakdown Q4 - unforced error - Hail Mary thrown out of bounds SUMMARY - Orton was very solid/efficient in the first half .. but was definitely subpar for the 4th quarter. Since he has very little mobility .. he needs to be able to stand in and take hits to deliver accurately. He did this in Detroit and Minnesota..sacrificing his body to make a completion.. but this week against Miami he just didn't have the stones to step up, stand in there and deliver with a guy in his face. Hopefully Orton gets his stones back sooner rather than later. Orton's game is predicated on sitting in the pocket, taking the big hit and delivering... if he doesn't get back to that in the next few games then it will be interesting to see if EJ comes back in. That is what I will be looking for from Orton the next few weeks.. toughness.. hopefully we'll see it come back.

Last year we were at our best with Qb lining up under center , a fullback and the power run game. Opened up play action and generally gave us an identity. Ravens game was a good example Hackett has gone shotgun crazy. Way more opportunities for deception under center than in shotgun. What do you think?

Agreed .. he definitely cost the team with those bad missed TD throws... however.. to place most of the blame on Orton for this game is somewhat unfair. I think you could make a case that EJ deserves the lion's share of the blame for losing the Houston game.

One should be cautious in comparing Orton's Chiefs game to EJ's Houston game. Orton had zero turnovers and save for a few costly redzone mistakes played pretty well. EJ had 11 unforced errors in the Houston game ( http://forums.twobil...nforced-errors/) and Orton had 5 in this Chiefs game.

Unforced errors.. bad throws/ How did the O Line do?/ What mistakes are on the O-Line.. what ones are not? I watched the NFL rewind all 22 and here is my unofficial count of how the O-Line did / How Kyle did on every pass play ( I may have missed a snap or two here.. but this should be 95% accurate) DISCLAIMER ( I am not a coach, I don't know the hot reads or route combinations called.. this is just my educated perception of what happened on each pass play) _______ ______________________ TOTAL PASS PLAYS: 47 snaps ( last game against Jets was 21.. Hackett reverted back to chucking it all over the field again.. ) LINE BREAKDOWNS - 4 snaps or 9% of pass plays ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and Kyle did not have a moment to throw after hitting the last step of his drop.. last week was 19% so pass protect was better than last week.. outstanding actually) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 43 snaps or 91 % of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and Kyle hit the last step of his drop and had a moment to throw). UNFORCED KYLE ERRORS: - 5 snaps or 11% of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as Kyle having time and having unforced accuracy issues/ or taking bad sacks... last week it was 3 snaps or 14%. Percentage wise he was better this week.. unfortunately several of the unforced errors were in the Red Zone) Bottom Line: The O Line did an OUTSTANDING job for the most part against the Chiefs. To my eye they only had 4 obvious breakdowns out of 47 pass attempts.. which to my math is the best performance of the year. Aside from a small number of breakdowns.. Orton generally had a nice pocket to throw from. KC did an outstanding job of taking away the deep ball ( on both deep fly routes Orton made good throws but the CBs were in perfect position). In general the KC CBs/ Secondary players had an outstanding day and they are probably the biggest reason KC was able to keep it close for the whole game. Orton did have a few stinker throws that were unforced.. particularly the last one on 4th down to Sammy. __________ __________ Next, here's my breakdown of the last controversial series where they went for it in the end zone 4 times... note that not all of the bad throws are on Orton in this series ( although 2 are indeed on him) Q4 LAST SERIES IN REDZONE 1ST DOWN - Orton hit in the face as he delivers throw ( Urbik whiffs on NT) resulting in underthrown fade to Sammy 2ND DOWN - Outstanding coverage by KC .. Orton has time but no one open and he takes a shot in the dark to Hogan in corner of endzone and misses 3RD DOWN - Orton has clean pocket and straight up misses open Hogan on post pattern 4TH DOWN - This one hurts - wide open Sammy - Orton has time and throws a wounded duck that doesn't even make the goal line OTHER PLAYS OF NOTE Q1 - Roll out throw to Lee Smith off target - unforced error Q1 - Miss to Summers in flat due to Henderson getting beat and pressure from behind Q1 - Robert Woods drop Q1- Tamba Hali sniffs out screen - no one else open.. good throw away Q2 - Orton panics.. thows away.. has room to scramble right .. bad choice Q2 - Henderson misses blitz pickup - Orton forced to throw too quick Q2 - Sack - Wood gets dominated by NT Q2 - Wide open Chandler in end zone- Orton makes bad throw Q2 - Deep ball to Brown incomplete… good throw by Orton.. great coverage by KC Q3- Deep ball to Watkins incomplete.. good throw by Orton.. great coverage by KC Q4 -Orton throws it away due to great coverage Q4 - ( see Q4 LAST SERIES IN REDZONE BREAKDOWN above) SUMMARY - Orton was pretty solid all day - unfortunately bulk of his unforced errors were made in the Red Zone. I had corner endzone seats, came in early to watch warmups and saw Orton and EJ doing red zone work.. he was practicing fade routes to the back corner to Sammy and Chandler. ( His line drive miss in RZ to Chandler in Q2 was a carbon copy of a bad throw he made in warmups ). Despite the bad calls ( both were horseshit upon further review) and despite the fumbles ...if Orton hits any of the three unforced bad throws in the red zone during the game ( Chandler, Hogan and Sammy) the Bills win and Orton would be a hero right now.

scary thing about Kelce is the YAC... may not be able to keep him from catching it but at least need to make sure we're in good position every time to get him down immediately..

Manny is very good in coverage... more time for Manny this week would make sense. Alex Smith gets rid of the ball really quickly ..which means our DE's most likely won't have a lot of shots at him.. which sort of negates Jerry Hughes and Mario's effectiveness... so put in Manny Lawson on passing downs lined up over the TE ... rush 3 .. and flood the short zones on passing downs.

Yeah... I saw his PFF grade yesterday ( it was bad) and can see in those clips that he was basically manhandled on 3 or 4 plays. Granted it looked like 91 Sheldon Richardson ( who is a great player) appeared to be doing the damage. Still a bit concerning... with Urbik back in there I would have expected Wood to look a little more solid than that

I think we're talking about the same one there... the RB who was the first option on the screen was covered.. however... the pass rush wasn't that bad and if he would have kept it for another second he had a second option open over the short middle he could have thrown to instead of throwing it away

Unforced errors.. bad throws/ How did the O Line do?/ What mistakes are on the O-Line.. what ones are not? I watched the NFL rewind all 22 and here is my unofficial count of how the O-Line did / How Kyle did on every pass play ( I may have missed a snap or two here.. but this should be 95% accurate) DISCLAIMER ( I am not a coach, I don't know the hot reads or route combinations called.. this is just my educated perception of what happened on each pass play) _______ ______________________ TOTAL PASS PLAYS: 21 snaps ( last week was 46.. thank you defense.. Hackett sticking to run game with lead) LINE BREAKDOWN - 4 snaps or 19 % of pass plays ( defined as - O-Line clearly messed up and Kyle did not have a moment to throw after hitting the last step of his drop.. last week was 28% so pass protect was much better this week) SUFFICIENT PROTECTION - 17 snaps or 81 % of pass plays ( defined as O-Line did sufficient job and Kyle hit the last step of his drop and had a moment to throw). UNFORCED KYLE ERRORS: - 3 snaps or 14% of pass plays where he had time ( unforced error defined as Kyle having time and having unforced accuracy issues/ or taking bad sacks... last week it was 5 snaps or 10%) Bottom Line: With only 21 pass snaps this is a somewhat small sample size, however.. O Line Pass protect was much improved this week. The Bills were not beat by any stunts this week from what I saw. One of the unforced errors is Orton holding onto ball too long and taking a sack when he could have stepped forward and scrambled a bit. Another was a poorly thrown screen pass. Third unforced error was a misfire in NYJ red zone on a slant. Orton was much more careful with the ball today.. did not try to do too much and avoided putting himself in position to fumble. Orton missed Sammy deep a few times .. but just barely.. and on both of those misses there was outstanding coverage so I did not count those as unforced errors. Guards did not give up any sacks today.. RBs ( here's where we really miss Freddy) and Tackles were mainly responsible for sacks. I counted the RB missed assignments as O Line breakdowns. PLAYS OF NOTE Q1 - Sack in NJY territory; RB and RT did not pick up outside rushers Q3 - Sack ; Orton holding ball too long Q3 - Sack; Coverage Sack.. good protection Q3 - Sack ; RB did not pick up blitz Side note: Decent Guard Play this week. Urbik did a solid job .. beat twice but did not give up sack. Pears was fairly solid as well. .. did not give up a sack.