AKC

We end up 10-6 this season and I'll buy every registered poster on TSW an original pair of the Ruby Slippers.

Game planning for Michael Vick might very well be considered a critical measure of a DC's skills for a team considering head coaching prospects- If we truly were fielding at the opening whistle one of the "best defenses" in the NFL Sunday, we surely failed to convert that to effective containment of Mr. Vick. In fact he had his most productive passing day of the season against us while racking up a "respectable" 7.1 yards per carry when he ran the ball. Even ignoring Vick's carries, we allowed TJ Duckett and Warrick Dunn to run for over 170 yards? And to be beaten frequently by Brian Finneran doesn't look good either- we're hardly talking about Randy Moss or Terrell Owens here. I've seen the suggestion that "player failures" were the biggest part of the equation, but are we not fielding a veteran group, almost to a man the starting "#2" defense in the league last year? Far lesser defenses have fared better against Vick over the first 4 seasons of his career. Having had the benefit of that film of poor defenses containing Vick, will the excuse that our offense wasn't holding the ball long enough be enough for Jerry to get a pass on that game when this season ends, assuming he interviews for any head coaching vacancies? Or will the scheme we fielded on Sunday and the apparent lack of any meaningful adjustments to it be a major stumbling block for Gray in any quest for his own shot at the top job in coaching?

I'd think winning half our games and getting the young QB through the season in one piece, as the starter, would constitute a succesful season looking from this vantage point after 3 games.

Yeah, you're right. We'll surely end up #2 in rush defense this year again.

There's more to that than simply the OLine. Flutie may have been one of the alltime winners in the regular season, loser against quality D's in the playoffs guys for no fault of his own (but maybe his mom's ;-). It was just too easy to scheme for him. I'd ask you to look at the time the Pats gave Mudslide down the stretch Sunday- they're hardly playing with marquis linemen yet their scheme held it together long enough- once again- for by far the best player on their roster to kick another 3 point game winner.

The running offense the Bills would like to run benefits big time by having players who can or will hustle to make blocks well outside their line spot. I don't remember Jennings more than 6 yards on any play in his career with us away from his LT spot. Gandy gets across the line completely in addition to up the field on other plays. He's a superior run blocker to JJ and but nowhere near as good in pass blocking. Gandy has given up a (1) sack this season Jonas is still clean. The big oney at LT is in Pass Pro, not run blocking.

It seems clear to me- 1) He figured he could build a power running team around OLs with better run skills and lesser pass pro skills. 2) He also figured that with a QB who can play in a moving pocket offense he could mask the OLs pass pro deficiencies with play action plus the mobility of the QB. 3) Making these two work required he be right on the point he misjudged more than any other- that the D would give him the ball back regularly and never be run over. But he failed to properly assess his talent in the interior of his DLine and when 3 doesn't work 2 is shot and 1 even becomes more difficult because in many games you'll be left throwing down the stretch. And that's what will happen the rest of the season because we simply don't have the help on this roster to stop teams from running over our RDT spot. Hell, we don't even have the depth you'd like to play an effective 3-4 in the interior of our DLine.

I'd call Jennings a wash regardless of stats because we're looking for a rushing O and he's an awful run blocker. Gandy makes up for his liability against some edge rushers in pass blocking ability versus Jonas by his ability in running plays to get in space and engage opponents, something Jonas was terrible at. Now as far as comparing Edwards and PW by stats, it's a false measure for run stoppers on the DLine. The measure is all in the film- does the DT hold his territory, forcing the runner to move laterally (losing momentum) and allow the linebackers to make the easier play? Does the DT attract at least 1.5 blockers on every play and reduce the ability for the offense to send blockers to the second level, again protecting your linebackers? The answer for PW in both these cases is YES and the answer for Ron Edwards is NO. So regardless of some tackles Edwards might have made 8 yards downfield, a place you'll rarely find a decent run-stopper making tackles, you can't with any credibility compare two completely different defensive tackles. Watch ONE Vikes game and tell me how many times PW is knocked off balance- in fact watch ALL the Vikes games this year and then watch a single Bills game, keying on Edwards. Edwards will be knocked off balance more in one game than PW is likely to be over the complete season. And you can't run stuff when you're off-balance, it's that simple.

The problem as I saw it was that bringing the 5th or 6th man took away our ability to cover their backs slipping to the sides of the field or give any help on top with the WRs. This left us in single coverage and consequently forced our cover guys to play behind their assignments. This allowed all the passes Vick completed of 5 yards or less to behind the LOS that were killing us. In their first drive they had a 3rd and 14 that went 21 yards on a 2 yard pass plus an earlier behind the LOS first down pass going for 8 yards. It kept happening all day long and our insistence on blitzing kept allowing Vick to throw this garbage on us and eventually beat us to death by our taking advantage of a scheme we refused to adjust. Dropping the extra rushers back into coverage could have allowed our dbs to jump routes and make Atlanta pay for throwing that kind of crap; we couldn't take those risks because we had too many committed to rush.

If you don't mind confirming for me just in case I missed something- The offensive players are responsible for listening to the offensive coaches and executing their strategy, and when the players don't listen it's the offensive coaches fault. The defensive players are responsible for listening to and executing the defensive coaches strategy, and when the players don't listen it's their own fault.

I guess I could have refined my original point down to this: Much of the frustrating stuff we're seeing was predictable (DL, QB), but I had the expectation that coaching would be a strength. Even there we seem to be suffering from an awfully rough start.

Pro Scouts are typically region-based. We have a personell department of 17 employees, of which probably 8 are assigned to specific regions and the colleges within those regions. The talent at picking low round corner talent is most likely happening at one of the upper levels of the personell department- for instance each scout provides lists of the top players in their region including film they've requested from the school/conference on those players. These players are then vetted by the personell department on a broad scale. Some of the top management like Don Majeski and John Guy oversee compiling their scouts data for TD, but this all includes some amount of "we REALLY like this guy"- Somewhere in the process someone appears very good at eyeing lower round talent at the corner spot. Who that person or persons might be has never been publicly suggested from any media I've ever read.

We were definitely no "#2 against the run" on anything more than on paper last year. Maybe #7 or 8. But that's still a lot better than the #18 we'll end up this year.

I didn't get a tape in and got preoccupied feeding wings to 75 people- I probably wouldn't want to watch it anyway. It's a consistent thing about an effective 1st down defense- when you can leave your opposition regulary at 2nd and 8 or 9 all year you take away a lot of their playbook. Resultantly you also get to take more chances and the increased likelihood of those chances paying off based on the down/yardage situations that present themselves. I expect the next clear victim of our diminished run D will be our takeaway ratio. All the talk about the diminished value of a guy playing "1/3rd" of the time today looks pretty short-sighted. Yes there's other players who could have taken the PWilliams spot and possibly even contributed on more downs, but none of those "other players" happen to be on our roster.

Stop- the wound isn't dressed yet.

It's hardly important for you to acknowledge the 800 pound gorilla in the room, simply smelling him can be enough evidence for the balance of us when there are so many other signs of his presence. I provided play by play evidence of Edwards inability to keep his balance against the run all pre-season, and now, as predicted, teams are running at his spot with great success. The caoches and players around him are exactly the same as last year, a year when few teams ran over our left side. This year it's become fashionable. When asked the difference from 04 to 05 you've made amorphous references to "team this" or "defensive back that" without offereing one single bit of evidence that the play of Ron Edwards is not the sole cause of all the rushing yards we're giving up. Fantasy is nice, but the film shows you're dead wrong since the vast majority of these gains are being made right over territory Edwards has vacated. I won't waste my time trying to explain it to you, I'll simply allow you to go on believing that it "may" be getting hot over there, the snorting has nothing to do with any gorilla, and Ron Edwards has nothing to do with the decline in our run defense".

Again, the flaming man asks the question "is it getting hot in here?" As I pointed out, DBs are nowhere near as critical to the effectiveness of a rushing defense as the interior defensive linemen. Hence, whether you're plugging in Troy Edwards or Edward R. Murrow in a defensive backfield you simply won't affect your run defense to any degree when compared with the change from a quailty interior DT to one with no business being on the field on rushing downs. This truth, one you are so determined to dispute, is the reason for the pitiful run stopping of our defense the past two weeks. And it will continue. But it would be entertaining to hear you expand on your opinion that DT quality has no more bearing on rushing defense than personell in the defensive backfield.

No doubt, my reference was simply to the type of blocker the team sees fitting our offense, and clearly they've chosen beer run blocking linemen in Free Agency while allowing the run-blocking challenged JJennings to move on.

When I think of the examples where that's been an effective contemporary strategy I think of the Vermiel/Martz models. The thing about those is they built pass blocking OLines, whereas we've gone in the exact opposite direction, in fact letting our best pass blocker leave in FA. Maybe we're suffering a bit of an identity crisis in this, or perhaps I'm overlooking somebody with modern success predicated on power running and blazing speed at the 2 and 3 spot. Got anybody in mind?

In some monolithic model where all pieces have the same impact on the overal effectiveness you would be accurate, but that's hardly realistic in the NFL. The middle of the defensive line is the most important element in the effectiveness against the run. Most teams recognize this, which is why teams like NE have far deeper talent pools at DT than the Bills (even though they use a 3-4 base running set). Our first down D was of good quality when we had two starting quality talents there, today it's awful since we've downgraded that by one whole player. And there's little about the outcome that is curious in any way, shape, or form.

In the same way the flaming man asks "is it getting hot in here?" PW commanded a blocker and a half on evey run down. That forced a team to start their blocking schemes with 3-4 players hitting Big Sam and Pat. Today we have the human Weeble in run support, Ron Edwards. There's no need to scheme for him since a 190 pound running back can knock him off-balance. This frees up one blocker to focus directly on our linebacking corps instead of chipping a lineman on their way to our second line. Every offense this year has bascially an "extra blocker" since we only have one starting quality run stopper. This is the only difference between the 2004 and 2005 Bill's Defense. To recognize all the elements of what is happening, yet ignore the obvious cause, that- at least to me- is curious indeed.

I don't know about the additions of another speed WR and a rookie TE, it seems offensively a veteran blocking TE might be more impactive. JP looks to me like he's too scared to go through his reads and he's locking on to a target every play. That will take time to correct, both time on the field and time behind the line. Next week I'd expect him to improve if he can stay in the pocket; the Saints bring pressure from their DEs and using corner blitzes- the interior guys shouldn't get a push on us. If JP can stay disciplined in the pocket he should have his best pro outing against the third most generous D in the league at giving up points.

You acknowledge that the only difference betwen the 2004 "#2" Defense and the "ruined" unit we're fielding now is Pat Williams. Then you make the above statement- Curious.

There were enough indications this past offseason that we should expect drop offs in play on both sides of the ball that it would be unfair for me to express disappointment in those right now. For instance, as mentioned many times here, if Ron Edwards were starting in our rushing down package we should expect to drop about 10-15 total spots in our rush defense ranking. Another result of Edwards porous run play, again as outlined on numerous occasions here, would be a cumulative degeneration of our linebacking corp's health. The season has so far mirrored those predictions. On the offensive side of the ball it was clear we would be asking a kid with no good pocket experience in college and no real experience in the pros to come out and play sound football as the point guard in our offense. It was unrealistic before the season to expect him to be effective and he surely hasn’t disappointed on that count. He’s likely to be 3 years from even beginning to realize his potential and the time getting there will be tough for all of us. Again though, hardly unexpected from many of our seats. Where I can say I’ve been surprisingly disappointed has been in sideline coaching decisions- I predicted we would finish about .500 with Edwards and Losman holding their spots but I really based that on entering week 5 at 3 and 1, something that won’t happen now. We face too many good running teams this year to expect to have a favorable record at the end of the season. Overall I’ve been happy with Mularkey’s growth as a head coach, but his scolding of McGahee in the press after last week’s game was a major disappointment. Where was he during the game, when so many of us were observing and deriding the same trepidation by Willis? I expect a coach to react DURING a game when there’s a clear situation unfolding, especially one that might be effectively addressed on the sidelines in real time. Not to mention that addressing it in real time might just tip the game in your team’s favor. Yesterday Jerry Gray kept pressuring the middle against a poor passer who is most dangerous when he gets into space with his feet. Pressuring Vick is arguably playing to his strength. But more so, Atlanta clearly felt that they could simply swing balls to the sides and make us pay for all the blitzing. When it was far too clear early on that their strategy was trumping ours, where was the decision to adjust our D? We were so predictable defensively that for a second week, with a simple adjustment that could have tipped the game in our favor, we just didn’t appear capable of reacting. Of all the things that doomed this season from the beginning, our refusal to consider shoring up the DLine seemed the most obvious- while other teams like NE, Philly and San Diego were using 1st round picks to help their playoff teams on the defensive side of the ball, other teams were picking us free agents like Jason Ferguson, a legitimate starting talent in the defensive interior like the player we lost who requires a second body if you want to run his direction. Other teams like Miami added Keith Traylor and Kevin Carter. Indy did them all one better by bringing in the talented Corey Simon. We sat on our thumbs, apparently looking for some way to overpay a very talented CB next year; a guy playing at the single position our management team has shown a special ability to uncover talent via that draft at. But even outside of the roster we’re fielding, the coaches are failing at their sideline jobs too. Just some decent coaching in the past two games might very well have led us to a 2-1 start. Problem is, we’re 1-2. After we’ve seen Priest, LaDanian, Rickey and Rudi plus Corey and Curtis a couple times we’ll all get to see if the trend of playing our Bill’s continues to bounce running backs up the Yards Gained board. A word to the wise- don’t bet against it.

If you pick up 2 or 3 pre-draft pubs each off-season, a curse I'm sure many share with me, you've probably noticed the trend that 1 or 2 of them predict us picking up a first or second round interior DLineman for maybe the last 4 seasons. Nationally we've been considered thin at DT even with PW, and based upon our opponent rosters it's even more clear. Then this decision to try to turn Edwards into something he just isn't physically set up for- but the reality is every off-season there's usually 2 or 3 vets who become available who can help a team with quality depth in the middle. The best teams in the league have some balance of drafted youth to veteran talent, but I'm still of the opinion you can make it work with one or two guys on the downside if you package them right. So I can't put the whole blame on missed draft ops, there's plenty to consider when your season might very well be riding on it about whether to make an honest play at a Corey Simon rather than simply getting your name in the paper as "interested".