AKC

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".

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.