AKC

He's actually not assigned in any of our passing packages, instead we're using Big Sam with Ryan Denney or Chris Kelsay. That's why Edwards never got on the field in the 4th quarter of the Houston game, we played all nickel and dime packages. The passing plays he's seen were on rushing downs.

Not where it looks as if it's on purpose. He has gone down a few times in this calendar year but he's left himself on his back on at least one of those; hard to help out on your back even if you're athletic. Since we're seeing Anderson and the occasional Bannon rep, I have to believe it's only a matter of time before the team concludes the Edwards experiment failed and gives one of the others the field time. You have a favorite? I recall seeing Anderson make a great lateral move off a block in the preseason and keeping his horizontal line getting 3 gaps up to hold the runner for no gain. He seems to have the edge on potential so I'm to some degree hoping this is where the Ouija pointer ends up. Clearly we're allowing potential to dictate our effectiveness on the other side of the ball so why not do it defensively?

Some guys physiologically simply have more weight up high and there's little to nothing that can be done about it. For instance Sammy Morris was heavier on top than you'd like for a running back, making him easier to tackle out of the backfield yet on STs he could put that weight to more effective use. Travis Henry has the low center of gravity you like for a first down running back. Edwards just doesn't have the low center that a barrel legged guy like Sam Adams is blessed with. Krumrie sees it all right, there's just nothing he can do about it from a technique standpoint and with what the team gave him to work with this season he's still trying to pound the square peg into the round hole. It ain't working.

There were answers other than overpaying the declining and less contributory PWilliams this past off-season. But we did nothing, instead allowing ourselves to get put in the position of starting Ron Edwards out of position from a scheme standpoint. Now, while Indy is moving up the D charts with Corey Simon dramatically improving them we will slide down the same statistical charts because eventually we'll have to let Anderson or Bannon play for the overmatched Edwards on running downs. And considering we have a QB who looks like he's in need of a full season to get his game together we can all write our own doom and gloom storyline. Mine hasn't changed since the preseason when I predicted entering the season with the Adams/Edwards rotation would make a .500 season a likelihood.

Let me assure you that unless Jerry Gray is trying an experiment in weightlessness by having Edwards allow himself to be knocked off balance by any and every run block, what is happening at Edwards spot is not in any way designed into the scheme. Edwards simply can't keep his balance. There is no precedent in the history of the league that would support Jerry Gray actually teaching this as a strategy, unless Isaac Asimov has been secretly hired to assist Tim Krumrie. I've observed and reported for the past few years that Edwards has an unusually high center of gravity for a guy his size and that this dynamic handicaps his ability to keep blockers out from under his pads. Consequently he is a liability in run stopping where your opponent is doing everything to get under you and destroy any chance you have of holding your position. In pass protection this changes to some degree since it's the offense who wants to gain position, and in fact when a big guy with a high center gets doubled it can actually improve his chances of splitting the double and penetrating the opponents pocket because you can gain leverage on both of the opponents. This is the one thing that Edwards has done consistently over the past 20 games, get upfield against Pass Pro, especially on double teams. Giving up your feet can NEVER be an advantage for a run stopper. The ability to hold your footing and keep your balance are the most fundamental parts of shutting down the run along the defensive interior, and Ron Edwards is incapable of doing either one with any consistency.

He's always sucked against the run, including all pre-season and last week. He can't hold ground against single team blocks and so he becomes as useless as a spinning top in the run game. I've broken it down throughout the pre-season and given the plays. It was simply a matter of time before our opponents discovered what our film clearly shows. Expect a lot more of it. It boils down to this: He's a square peg being pounded into a round hole- he should be on the field in passing situations only and instead he's being used exactly the opposite way. The team's refusal to address our DT depth this off-season will be the story of the season itself- a season in which we can expect to be run over regularly unless we adopt a different strategy. At least Anderson plays low- I'm for giving him the starting role and moving Edwards back to the nickel and dime sets. This would also give Sam some much needed down time.

It's easy to kick the front office after a perfomance like yesterday's, and I'm going to dirty my boot once more by pointing out that it was foolish to enter this season without adding a legitimate blocking TE to complement the very capable Mark Campbell. There were options out there for 1 mil a season who could have helped fill out our depth chart and kept us from suffering watching Ryan Neufeld fail to play up to his weight. I'd rather see Sam Aiken getting the reps in the running game because I beleive he has better technique than Neufeld, plus he's at least the same level of threat to bring in a pass. We blew it this past offseason at those two spots, DT and TE. We didn't need a marquis player in either case, but we did need a starting quality 2 gap DT and a power run blocking TE, two orders of business that are not too hard to fill in the NFL these days. We didn't do either and our pain is only beginning. Just think about the guys we'll see later in addition to the quality runners in our own division- (All in the top 10 among runners currently) Rudi Johnson Priest Holmes Warrick Dunn Stephen Davis Additonally we'll see LaDanian Tomlinson and I thought Lamont Jordan looked effective against the Pats last week.

A situational pass rusher who is inexplicably on the bench for our passing packages DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can tell you I've watched him very closely this pre-season and the first two games and I've been ragging him the whole time- his high center of gravity appears to be a physical problem, I don't beleive he'll ever become an even average run stopper because of that handicap. The shame though is that the one thing he does at maybe a better-then-average is pass rush and we're pulling him off the field on passing downs! Yesterday the strategy, which obviously requires that Sam Adams play in almost every defensive set, bit us in the butt real hard with Sam simply getting wasted in the heat. The reality is that as a stop-gap measure Sam should be sitting in our nickel and dime sets and Edwards playing them, and allowing Anderson- who does have some strength and lateral ability plus he plays low- to get time next to Sam in our base running package. I have zero faith that Edwards will ever become a competent run stopper and if the season rides on him getting better we should expect a lot more games like yesterday's. Time to pull the trigger IMO if we harbor any intention of trying to finish at .500 or better.

Starks was pretty quiet playing for the Titans against Pitt last week but it looks like he had a good game yesterday against the Ravens with 3 tackles, 4 assists and a half a sack.

Your description of him is exactly what he is- he's a poor run stopper because he plays too high and he's easily managed by one blocker, he simply can not maintain his ground. He should be a positional pass rusher, where his high center of gravity doesn't render him useless, but instead he's pulled out of all of our pass packages. We face far too many good runners this season and the strategy to play us has now been established. I feared it would become clear about week 6, but with it showing up already we're in major trouble. We had at least one opportunity to address the problem of Edwards when Corey Simon was being shopped but we did nothing. We will come to regret it. Looming Doom

My favorite on the "6 Days to Sunday" featuring our linebackers is Takeo saying "The quarterback should never say nothin'" How true is that- and if we could just keep the quarterback obsessed fans from doing the same a real conversation about football might break out!

Welcome to TSW-don't let your Gruden envy show like that! We'll take it out on him for you. Remember we're all with you on the tuck rule ;-) Watching your first game I couldn't help but see how poorly Gibson is in coverage- he seems to have no ability to make a play on a ball even when he's in perfect position- do you have any depth at safety or will the team suffer the season with Gibson on the field?

With Tyrell Davis interrupting him but Woodson insisting "why don't you let me make my pick", Woodson's take was that if JP can get through the 1st quarter without getting dinged up the game is ours. That's a QB-based prediction but I'm willing to entertain it from Rod W who took us down nearly on his own on at least one occasion. If the jailbreak over Gandy doesn't materialize we may fare well against another NFC middleweight. With deference to Lori, Bills 17- Bucs 10

He filled in very well when Speilman retired, if I remember early due to his wife's condition? But it seems like he got hurt soon thereafter- we hardly knew ya' kid. No doubt a sad story.

It's true that Griese has difficulty when forced to think ASAP, and that makes me tend to find this a match that overall favors us because the QB situation is a wash- after all, both teams will field QBs who are likely to play like rookies.

Regardless of the degree of devil's advocacy to anything said in this thread, there may actually be a right side of the discussion- I'd say it goes something like this: "Any caliber gap between London Fletcher and Takeo Spikes is a tiny fraction of that assumed by the average Bill's fan."

You can catch a ride with Bob Lamb. He knows all the local "customs" ;-) We're about an hour north of LA and contrary to the feeling you might get on Mapquest the roads are all paved.

Pascal Mastantuono is an interesting character. His Tasting Room is like some Robin Hood Hunting Lodge and he regularly does Wild Boar Roasts, etc. on his property. I'm a huge Brunello fan but as far as the other sangioveses I've never gotten excited. Anything from the Barossa though and I'm all ears-

I'll have to concede to you naming Carson the superior player, I simply didn't see enough of the Giants over those years to make a judgement- my memory is clouded by the highlight films from the era that of course were ripe with LT clips since he played the Sizzle position. I appreciate your acknowledgement of which of our great LBs a Super Bowl winning D was built around. That's a very good point and I hope you don't mind if I use it again.

I believe he was in their nickle and dime packages that second season while Takeo was playing ILB in the Cincy 3-4 as a starter. The fact that London has more tackle ops at MLB is clear from how many more tackles he gets every year in our system than Takeo. For your question below- yeah, I'd prefer to begin building my D with LF because there's no better bite for the buck on our team, which would then allow me to spend my big money in the interior DLine where I believe all the best contemporary NFL defenses begin- not out at WLB.

Toby is a real piece of work- the best marketing operation in the business AFAIC. Keep your calendar open for my wine festival next year, tickets are on me. Vino

I was tasting last week in Paso Robles at some of the usual suspects (L'Aventure, Summerwood, Linne Calodo, Eberle, etc.) and a friend along for the barrel tastings asked if we could stop at the J Lohr property. I've never formed much of an opinion about their products before this past Satruday but I must say the 10-15 buck varietals they are putting in the Cypress label are suprisingly consistent and very representative of the grapes, especially the Shiraz and Cab offerings. Also they had an Estate Cab from "Hilltop" vineyard that was a full on knockout, but at a lot higher price point. Considering I had no intention of cellaring any wines from J Lohr as I got to Paso, I have a surprising number of them in my possession right now. I would highly recommend picking up some of the Cypress Cabs or Shiraz and you should find very drinkable wines right now that will rival cousins in the 30-40 dollar range for about a third the cost.

I'll hear your argument- you're saying you believe Carson was better than LT. You might start by sharing those stats and observations that support your contention just as those of us who believe the quality levels between London and Takeo are greatly exaggerated have done in this string.

In my eyes the best player ever to wear our uniform. He changed the whole game of pass coverage forever and the CB position evolved as a result of the types of athletes picked to play there because of him.