AKC

I'm growing to recognize that 7-9 is pretty much being "screwed" ;-)

The press so far is that they claim we're going to play a pure Cover-2 with a pair of 3 techniques as the base D. I'm thinking myself that the Tampa 2 "upgrade" was the version with the success in the league- a 0/1 at NT and a 3 at UT. Tampa/Chicago/Indy all made the stage playing it that way. It strikes me as very strange that if you want to be the first to do it with two 3s on the field you'd pick a declining Marcus Stroud as the premier DT in your rotation- just from the burst standpoint. I have to assume the ideal in the "double 3" interior would rely on two guys with an exceptional initial 3 steps, and Stroud's last few campaign's say he's definitely not that guy. But maybe that is the Johnson role- we give up big runs with some regularity but we balance that with a lot of 3rd and 9s. Seems incredibly risky but it might be the best, and most likely, use of the talent on the roster. And no doubt, McCargo, no matter the (substantial) size of his lower body, still plays above his waist and therefore will always be a 3. Funny thing is that Williams- with maybe 1/4 the athleticism of McCargo, is a natural playing low, but we've so far been asking him to play high! Maybe they allow him to go back to his natural technique this year. He could prove to be the better DT pick from that draft if he is encouraged to submarine the OLine as a prominent member of the rotation. The bad news is it doesn't fit the scheme we're being fed publicly.

If Stroud were only going to have to play 25% of the downs the season, he'd have a heck of a lot better chance of being in 16 games than he has the way I think they're intending to use him, which is on rushing downs. Some defenses limit rushing downs- we're at this moment a defense that invites them. If we assume (IMO logically, but I haven't seen him play yet and don't know if he has an exceptional ground-holding technique for a DE-sized DT) that there's little chance they intend to use the 275 pound Johnson as a regular in the rotation on rushing downs, we should see a lot more reps for Stroud as long as the rush is a big threat to us each game. I don't think anyone expects the AFC East to change in 2008 to a passing conference. Problem is that Marcus effectively played UT in the Jag's scheme and was never the run stopper. The effect of a great gap push on rushing downs in the Cover-2 is clear- make consistent tackles in the backfield while giving up occasionally the bigger run and upset the ultimate down/distance rythym of the offense, but winning with the odds on that is a big gamble. It's incredibly optimistic to imagine seeing the Stroud of 2002/3, especially when he'll hardly be playing next to John Henderson in anything but a few Bills' fan fantasies.

In order to believe the hoax that it's about "picking the right players" versus understanding where you get the most for your draft dollar at each position, you have to ignore our long term RB/WR draft priority and how different it is when compared to the DT/TE priority of most of the top teams in the league. Ignore it if you like, but there's no need attacking any of us who are paying attention. That's great since it creates no conflicts with my thing for attractive ladies my own age ;-) BTW- Is the kid ready for his 2008 season?

Right brain. The one that is dominating whenever one feels they've discovered rational logic in a VOR post. I'm not clear on your opinion regarding the use of high picks at positions where the bust rates are higher and the rewards of the pick might have been as easily or even more easily achieved by drafting the same position later. WR is one of those where the evidence shows a 2nd rounder is just as likely to end up a big-time producer as a 1st. OLine interior, TE, DLine interior and LB all have lesser bust rates than RB, and RB has proven to be one of the easiest positions to fill (and quickly in most offenses) via FA/trade. Getting the superior interior rushing presence that has become the signature of the winning franchises in the league today came in most cases from the use of high draft picks. Buffalo has used far more of it's top draft equity in the RB position than the best teams in the game, to the tune of about twice as much. Is that a symptom of doing things the wrong way or is it just a coincidence? At some point in this "toying with a .500 record" stretch I think it is prudent to begin to ask these kinds of questions about our strategy. Our higher use of top draft equity at WR when it's the #1 bust position in the draft is a good place to start the study, and our near total disregard of the TE positon at the top when IIRC EVERY top team in the league has used a top pick for the position also stands out as something we may very well be doing wrong.

You're right, I'm probably underestimating the intelligence of the average Bear.

Bears are assumed to have an Intelligence Quotient of about 10-12 points on the human scale. You insult them with your self-flattery. Even a Bear with an I.Q. of 12 would be able to hold his thought pattern better than you have here; you insisted there were no "noteworthy" examples of RBs not drafted in the first round. I proved your statement to be utter nonsense. With your next self-comparison you might do much better by drawing from among the extinct bird species.

Yeah, among the 4 leading rushers in the NFL last season were 3rd round pick Bryan Westbrook and UNDRAFTED Willie Parker. But apparently that's not "noteworthy" if you're insistent on being recognized as the number one source of hot air on TSW.

No doubt some of his most celebrated games were blessed with an awful lot of "coin tosses" that landed in his favor, but that risk-taking was his game- and I agree it's among the reasons he has been among the best in the league. He's also proven to have the "follow me" intangible that's desirable at the point guard spot in this league.

One of the board morons conjured up that argument because he couldn't grasp the clear record that shows the best teams don't pass on premier DT talent at the top of the draft. My position remains the same it's been for years- we've passed on at least 3 top DTs in recent drafts and our team is still hurt by it more than any other personnel decisions that've been made on or off the field in contemporary times. Knuckleheads who can't intellectually grasp the the facts are left putting a moron's spin on it like that "D Linemen early = good team". If you want to study and learn about the best teams, you'll recognize that drafting GOOD interior D line talent early leads to long periods of respectable football product on Sundays, something we haven't seen in Buffalo in way too long. The media and most fans love "skill position" players, and the league promotes them over the reality on the ground in the NFL. But in the back rooms of the teams who whip our butts with regularity, there's surely a good laugh every time we let a good DT talent drop to one of those better teams down the board in favor of a RB or WR, positions the best teams know can be filled other ways. DT is at the top of the best team's draft priority at the top of the draft, while the Bill's have drafted more like the Lions than our toughest competition. It's kept us in the bottom half of the league and outside of blind optimism the partial move forward taken in this past off-season is probably reflected pretty fairly by the ESPN assessment. We may have moved forward 4 or 5 spots with the moves, but anyone who thinks we have a defensive interior that in any way resembles the depth and quality of the best teams is a fool.

Entering the 2002 season, ESPN ranked the Defensive line of the Tampa Bay Bucs one of the best in the NFL.

It is clear that they are assessing teams based not only on the quality of starters but the quality of the depth of their rotations. There are a number of 3-4 teams at the top of their board who have better quality of depth than we do as a 4-3 team, and consequently they recognize that we might be a little bit better than the bottom-of-the-league line that we fielded last year, but there’s a huge gap between us and the best teams in football. This gap is the one that will only be filled by adding another quality DT to our rotation. While we have some small percentage of our fan-base who went Pollyanna on the moves of the off-season, this is a more reasonable assessment. And it’s the #1 cause for concern about once again being pushed down the field for much of the 2008 campaign as we once again paid too little attention to what IMO is the single most important position in the contemporary NFL.

We get that completely- but the posters in this forum claiming to represent the Pats* have been nearly wholly of the group whose first Pat's* jersey says Brady* on the reverse. We can use posters from other teams who've actually been their fans for life, like most of us on this board. We've had good contributions over the years from other team fans, but the current crop of Pat's* fan "contributions" has been a bunch of know-nothing garbage from bandwagoneers who will move on to their next favorite team in the near future. Stick around and we might find some football to talk about.

Don't let me discourage that Fantasy Football thinking, but in the 2008 NFL we're hardly competitive with the good teams at the position. As long as offenses are reducing the length of their passing games, quality and depth at DT will continue to become more and more important. In some of our opinions, it's already become the most important position in the NFL, and based on the drafting records of the best teams there's no secret among them about how to build a winner. But then again there will always be the Matt Millen types who think adding an aging and declining-for-years DT plus a 275 pound sub who hasn't sacked anyone since the first month of the 2007 season could all of a sudden magically transform one of the worst D interiors in football to among the elite. The fact is we're razor-thin at DT when compared to the better competition, and that's assuming Stroud plays far better than he has over the past three seasons. Seem like a pretty sizable "wish sandwich" to this fan of the Buffalo Bills.

No one who has ever actually keyed on Ngata's play as a Pro would promote such utter nonsense- McCargo as somehow the equal of Ngata? Ngata controls the whole flow of his own defense and the opposing offense is forced to play around him. This kind of misunderstanding of the game of football demonstrates the confusion some have about the contribution to the overall defense that's made at the DT position. You have Ngata, a dominant force who allows his 10 teammates to do things they would not otherwise be free to do with a lesser player in front of them, making his defense better with his domination, and at the same time we have a fan, who for his desire to promote his lack of understanding, seeks to diminish Ngata's contributions by making the claim that statistics show something that play on the field has proven to be a laughable premise- that John McCargo has in any way been the equal of Haloti Ngata up to this point in their careers.

Bet the ranch on it.

As you point out, the upside of big guys in the middle is that there are examples of some who are productive well into their 30s. Big Ted may be a little different- IIRC he had a leg issue from very early in his career that he eventually shook off and played effectively for a long time. Those teams giving up on him early seem pretty well justified in figuring he was not going to become a top player. Stroud's situation is in many ways almost a mirror opposite- he came into the league and dominated in his mid-20s, suffering a rapid slide over the past 3 years in production. The team that he gave those best years to went into the offseason shopping him- and it's not like they're a rebuilding team. It makes no sense for a team in the hunt for a Lombardi to shop a DT they feel is going to have a good season- you know better than that and so do the Jags. One thing that is pretty clear from the actions of the Jags is that they don't think Stroud is going to have a great season this year. I know there's a whole lot of Bill's fans making that prediction, but the team who actively shopped him does not think that's the case. Let's hope and pray the Jags are wrong- but I wouldn't bet the fan side of this over the front office of the Jags. They simply know more about Marcus Stroud than any other organization in football.

We screwed ourselves in the long run by passing over guys like Ngata, a top tier player at the position. This past draft we were 5 spots too low to get a difference maker at DT. What you do is draft great DTs when they're on the board and you're on the clock. The good teams realize it. We act sometimes like we're being run by the offense-crazed media and fans instead of a front office who is paying attention to what is making teams better on Sundays. And what makes teams better right now, in this day and age, is great Defensive interiors. What's your bet? Are you saying that the JAX Jags, considered to be right in the mix for a Super Bowl appearance, would give up on a guy who could play like Marcus Stroud played for them int he beginning of this decade? It sounds like you think the Bill's FO has some credentials that suggest they are the equal or better talent evaluators when compared to the Jags? Recent history, unfortunately says otherwise. We'd all like to see Stroud have a magic season. But the chances of that are fairly remote.

If the deterioration of Marcus Stroud continues on the path it's been on for the past 3 seasons, we'd be expecting about 3 or 4 total games from him this season. A rotation of McCargo, Williams and the 275 pound Spencer Johnson may inspire confidence in some quarters, but not mine. You appear convinced that we've upgraded from one of the worst DLines in the NFL in 2007. Even if it plays out that we've "upgraded" from one of the worst lines in the league, the real question is whether we've closed much of the gap between the best teams' DLines and our own. And on that point, we aren't even in the same league IMO.

Kyle has a natural low center of gravity and power when he's playing low, something DLine coaches spend their careers trying to teach to most of their players. When he's left to go upfield using that skill, he can be a very disruptive force becasue he's so good at it. One of the biggest drawbacks for him is that like all of our linemen the past 2 seasons, he's been asked to make his initial pushand then get up high to take away passing lanes. Guys like McCargo who already play high are naturally suited to play the style we've been demanding, but with Kyle it has taken the best part of his game away. If Williams is given the chance as a rotational player to come into the game and bring his best pressure, he could be an incredibly important #3 or #4 DT in a solid rotation. The problem is that you have to have much better talent in front of the #3 and #4, and right now that's our huge question. As in most off-seasons, you have fans who feel that any positional FA acquisition has us "keepin' up with the Joneses". Our problem at DT is that we were simply so far behind the "Joneses" that our 2008 offseason only moved us from "awful" to "possibly improved", and nowhere near a goal of "competitive with the best team's rotations". Certainly the position of Defensive Tackle has become more and more important to success in the NFL as mutations of the West Coast Offense have erupted around the league. The best teams are paying attention. It's very easy to look at what we've done as more along the lines of paying lip service to the trend.

If you look at the Super Bowl doorknockers, I see teams that make more of a commitment to DT than the bad teams. I see teams carrying more, and in most cases a higher quality of DT, than we do. You don't have to look outside of our own division- consider the one AFC East rival who looks at the Bills as 2 wins on their schedule every year. They don't even play a 4-3, yet they are rock solid at DT with 3 first round picks among the 5 they carried on their roster last season. We're talking about a 3-4 team with 5 DTs- that's 60% of their DT rotation in under 30 yr-old 1st round picks, and each of those 3 considered starting quality in the NFL. Outside of the obvious fact that we play in a 4-3 and by design have even more needs than they do, we carried no more DTs than that 3-4 team did last year. We're only rostering one first rounder under 30, a guy who is not even considered starting quality on his own team at this point, let alone NFL starting quality. We have another over 30 first rounder who was released due to the exponential drop in his productivity/durability over the past 3 seasons. The fact is, the #3 DT in NE* is considered by most NFL talent experts as better than ANY DT on our roster. I recognize you can't change the planet overnight. But I also recognize that we're still undercommitted to DT when compared to our best opponents. With some real magic from Stroud and bigtime support behind him, our schedule offers a real opportunity. At the same time, based upon the type of DT commitment made by the best teams in the league, IMO we're still a below .500 football team entering '08.

You’re covering a few different issues as I see it. The successful Cover-2 Ds have played a NT/UT scheme, not conceding two outside Guard shade DTs instead. We'll basically be playing the latter this year from a personnel standpoint, regardless of where our players are lining up. Kyle Williams as a ‘tweener there might be considered the exception, but the balance of our guys are 3s, and Williams- while game and fairly athletic, is not a starting quality DT in the NFL. He'd be a very good rotational guy if he was playing behind one of the best DTs in the game, but that's simply not the situation in Buffalo. There's no doubt McCargo and Stroud are not the 312 pound players they're listed at- both are bigger but both still are gap splitters and not control guys. At 275 pounds, let's assume we won't want to see a lot of Spencer Johnson in on running downs. So the fact is, while the Bills did bring in a former Pro Bowl quality DT plus add a reserve rotational guy, the better opponents we face have multiple proven quality DTs in their rotations. We simply don't. Could we get incredibly lucky and have Stroud make a miracle comeback this season, plus have our second line of defense survive the crashing, unobstructed OLinemen they should expect to have in their faces all year long? We'll all hope for that to happen- but once again, the Buffalo Bills ignored what the good teams understand- you must have quality in your defensive interior to beat short passing offenses. To call the unit we have a "quality" unit defies the facts about their acquisitions- Jacksonville expects to compete for a shot at the Lombardi this year, and teams in that position do not allow DTs they expect to play like the 2004 Stroud of '04 move on. The best hopes of the 2008 Buffalo Bills are that the Jacksonville Jaguars made a very bad personnel decision in allowing Stroud to go. On the other hand, if the Jaguars sense for his productivity in 2008 comes true, it's likely to be one long, awful year of watching the Buffalo Bills try and stop anyone with a credible running attack.

The Bills picked up Marcus Stroud (last great season in 2004) and a backup DT rumored to be a "Sack Specialist"; never mind that he hasn't had a single sack since the first month of the 2007 season. It's like we signed Isaac Bruce and Marty Booker in Free Agency and some of our fan base has decided we're now among the elite in the league at WR. The problem with their fantasy (outside of the question mark Stroud's health represents) is that we were so thin at DT last year that we eneded up the #31 defense in the league, with anyone and everyone running down our throat when they needed to. Most fans have their heads so far up QBs and WRs butts that they don't recognize the smart front offices are using far more early draft equity at DT than the losers of the league like the Bills. If you want to beat West Coast influenced offenses, you must have superior talent at DT, and a bevy of it, to disrupt the short passing game. We can't claim to have even one single superior talent at DT entering the season. But here we go again- the fan base all atwitter at how James "The Pistol" Harvey will make us deadly in the Red Zone, while the smartest football teams put a greater focus on their Defense, and very specifically their DLine, to get to the big game.

You're merely pointing out that you don't know sh-- from shinola whan it comes to the risks of owning a business. Nothing's more crucial to a bar owner than the liquor license, and the fact that you believe a bar owner would somehow be remiss if he were to protect it from suspension by removing any scumbag who illegally brings his own liquor into the bar suggests that you're just another fan transfixed by the cult of celebrity. Or I guess the other likelihood regarding anyone taking the position that thieving from bar owners is inconsequential would be those who do it regularly?

Since we don't live in Cuba, I'm much more a supporter of allowing the bar owner to make that judgment. Shouldn't the person who's got all the risk decide whether the value of having a scumbag pouring drinks out of a flask to save a few bucks outweighs other considerations like the suspension of his liquor license? Of course there were market considerations beyond simple strategic error in the losses of Clements and AW, but among the points I'm making is that losing the services of a "#12" pick CB is worse today than losing the services of a "#12" pick RB, due fundamentally to the far easier replacement of the RB with help who doesn't need to know your playbook. Our defensive system doesn't afford bringing in any CB and having him start next week, which is something a RB can do effectively.