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No straw man involved. I just openly wonder when someone watches an interior lineman on all access...watches them give up 5 sacks and 28 pressures...and then calls them "average". And then expects people to accept that opinion as fact. I just wonder what they are watching. Much like when Buddy talked about how surprised people were going to be with Colin Brown and Sam Young. People at the time said...Buddy has a plan...so these guys must be good.. They weren't and his "trust me, they're better than you think" statements were no more than naked justification for someone who had the OL as a very low prioritty on his list. If you'd like to say that Chris Williams played "average" feel free. It doesn't change the OL situation... Again..if you want to believe that the Bills put the same emphasis on the OL as the Ravens...go ahead...it isn't true... it has never been true. He seeks quality on the OL...and he pays for quality. Is he always right? no. but he puts far more effort into it than any GM we've had in a while. I used Ozzie as an example for the point that maybe...just maybe..the Bills should start looking at how successful teams build their teams, rather than thinking they are outsmarting people. That's nice...point comepletely missed.

It is what you said before, it seems to me to be a matter of attitude, a matter of priorities. Ozzie, who puts far more into maintaining his Oline than the Bills do building theirs...never seems satisfied. the Bills replace their best lineman with some dumpster fodder, say things like "oh, I really like the way things are shaping up" I really hope he's playing possum. But we'll see.

Ozzie had to dismantle half of his SB team for cap reasons. Last year, he lost his veteran center to retirement and his 2 OT's to laziness. the year before,,,when they won the SB...they looked like this LT- former Pro Bowl selection (with motivational problems) LG- 2nd round pick C- veteran and former 6 time pro bowler RG- 3rd round pick, Pro Bowler...had been given a contract for 6.5 million a year (you don't pay a guard that type of money!) RT- 1st round pick (you don't draft a RT tackle in the 1st round!) Since 2005, while replenishiing his offensive line (that had been always far superior to anything Buffalo fielded), he used 8 picks in rounds 1-3 on the OL; Buffalo...while "rebuilding" its OL since at least 2005...has used 3; they are down to 2... When the cap wouldn't let him pay both of his guards 6.5 million a year, he used a 2nd round pick as a replacement. Buffalo used a garbage dumpster run to replace its guard. When he was losing his center Jason Brown to FA riches, he was replaced with a pro bowl center. When the Bills traded their pro bowl tackle, he was replaced with 7th round pick Demetrius (Demetruss) Bell. It took 3 years to draft Cordy Glenn. Ozzie..the anti-Bills philosophy.

uh huh... the context is...some are better at pass blocking than others. It is a football fact of life. I've watched Levtire enough over the years...and more than enough of Legursky and Colin Brown..to know what the differences are.. and that reading those stats confirmed what I already knew by watching them. "not in the same league" is a phrase that comes to mind. If you ever put an interior offensive lineman on an island...Levitre was it.. The dude never got help..because he didn't need it. 95% of the time..Wood would move to his right and help Urbik. And despite not getting help and being left on interior island..he gave up an extraordinary little amount of pressure. Legursky isn't really too bad of a run blocker, IMO..but his pass blocking is well below average. It might be his lack of height and consequent loss of leverage, but he gets beat quite a bit after initial contact. His protection basically holds up for a second or two. That might be cool with some...but that a second or two of protection is really not good. Colin Brown was just beyond bad. People can watch all of the tape they want, but if they can't tell the difference between good and bad..it really doesn't matter. So yes, it is a matter of context, I guess.

Does that fact really need to be refuted? The Bills' have been the anti Ozzie Newsome for more than a decade. Anyone not realizing that...hasn't been paying attention. It would fine if they actually found these late round gems that everyone seems to think are so easy to acquire. But its been 10 years now since they found anyone below the 2nd round who was worth spit. You'd have to go back to Jonas Jennings, 13 years ago..to find someone taken as low as the 3rd round who was worth anything. If you can get them later..where have they been? 2 in 13 years is pretty pathetic for getting people from "anywhere". Other teams might...Buffalo has proven repeatedly and beyond any doubt that they can. The only real question is whether Whaley is actually going to change anything. We'll see.

Man, I'd hate to tell you what Levitre gave up in 2012. 1 sack 3 hits 7 hurries http://blogs.buffalobills.com/tag/andy-levitre/ So it goes like this... Levitre wasn't worth the money because he wasn't a stud and no more than above average. Ok.. He's replaced by a duo that gives 5 sacks to his 1..and a whopping 24 more hurries Who are then replaced by a guy that gave up 5 sacks to Levitre's 1 and who gave up a whopping 21 more hurries...a guy who is deemed "average" by some. If that's average..I'd hate to see below average.

Where do people get the idea that Marrone thought he could "coach up" dumpster players? The problem began long before he got here...people said the same thing with Gailey and the offense "oh, he didn't want X or Y, becuse he thought he was smart enough to coach people up". . If anything..a good position coach is going to say..."uh...these guys we have aren't going to cut it." It isn't much different than the plumber telling his customer "this cheap plumbing fixture you bought at Big Lots is going to go bad in a year." But if the customer insists..or only provides that to the plumber...who's to blame when it does go bad? The plumber, or the customer for providing shoddy materials and demanding that they be used? In fact, Marrone was saying he was unhappy with the guard play as early as training camp. And well...he was right. But the idea that he said "don't bring in any linemen, I'll just coach them up"...sorry... I don't see that any more than I saw Gailey saying "nah, don't give me any offensive weapons..I don't need them." There is a reason that Buddy Nix left the Bills with one drafted lineman during his tenure...the dude was an original American Picker for OL and this occured well before Marrone ever got here. Will Whaley be different...I agree with THAT...I'll wait and see.

uh huh. God, I hope we take another DB...that's been working out so well for us.

Uh huh.. Well as long as the kid who cuts Peter King's lawn says so... He probably should have waited until after the season was over to write that. 3 of the first 4 teams that draft OT's (all 3 ended up playing RT, btw) in the 1st ended up improving their O's dramatically...and went to the playoffs. San Diego went from 31st in 2012 to 5th in yards, and made the playoffs for the first time in 4 years; Kansas City went from scoring 13 points a game to 27 and went from the NFL's worst to a playoff team; Philadelphia went from scoring 17 points a game to more than 27, and was 2nd in the league in yards ganied. Another team that went from drafting 4th to the playoffs. Does it guarantee success? nope. Nor does any other position. Can it help an offense? Oh yeah. Do sucessful teams draft OL in the 1st? Yep..and pretty consistently. Has our reluctance to draft OL in the 1st round given the Bills success? 14 years and counting.. The nice thing about being a Bills' fan is that when November rolls around, and we have nothing to do but look forward to the draft, we can look at the playoff teams and say things like, "they really wasted their no. 1 pick on an OT". We do know better than them, as our playoff record shows.

I don't think that's as true any more. With teams going to more spread formations, and definitely with QB's getting rid of the ball quicker..defenses have had to get more pressure up the middle. They realized that just waiting for the edge rusher to turn the corner wasn't getting there in time. Being a copy cat league, I'm sure every DC watched the Giants' upset over NE in the SB and saw the value of getting pressure up the middle. To counter that, teams have now been finding (and paying for), quality interior linemen. That's why Logan Mankins is paid what he is paid, and why Carl Nicks went for a ransom to Tampa (it wasn't the cleanliness of their facilities). It is why Ozzie Newsome invests in the position, why NO has two Pro Bowl guards and why drafting them in the 1st is becoming a little more popular. It isn't that the LT position has been thought worthless, it just isn't the end all and be all position on the OL. I was never a big fan of the "we have a LT and that's all we need" philosophy as much..teams will just exploit the weak spot...now more than ever. I'm not sure about moving Glenn to guard, I like him where he is...but he does have the potential to be a dominant guard, a Carl Nicks/Jahri Evans type. With a very good LT, the left side would be one to fear. Life could be worse if that happened.

Then why bother bringing up Gronkowski? Thats nice.. I don't know that anyone ever said that drafting linemen high guarantee a good offense, any more than drafting a QB high guarantees a good offense or a SB. I'm not sure what the point is.

Except you are asking the wrong question(s).... Would you rather have Gronk or a DT with a bad back ...because you decided to switch to a 3-4 defense and just had to have a NT.? Would you rather have a QB or 432 DB's? This is a team that hasn't had a QB since Kelly retired..but has went 9 years on drafting a QB in the first round ...because there always seemed to be some DB that was a higher priority. We could have had a kick ass Oline AND a QB, and probably a pro bowl TE. But what's in the past is in the past... Good teams...Balt., NE, NO, and now Seattle and SF, seem to invest in their OL...and don't take the attittude of "eh, you can get OL anywhere". It isn't an either/or type situation. What Bama does isn't a huge secret, though I imagine tougher to implement than to conceptualize. While so many other college teams have went nuts with 4 and 5 wide spread offenses...with the hope of outscoring other teams... ...Bama cuts against the grain and builds through defense and their running game. They find DL big enough to not get pushed around. The find LB's strong enough to hold up to an OL but are still quick enough to cover; They build an OL strong enough to pound down a DL; They get running backs with enough size to break arm tackles at the 2nd level but are still quick enough to turn a corner; They will have at least one WR with speed enough to get deep and a QB good enough to get the ball downfield, but at the same time not create mistakes. Though their first option is to run...they have enough of a middle and deep passing game to keep a defense off balance..and exploit a mistake downfield.

He doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves as a coach, and the lasting legacy he provided to modern NFL defenses. The shifting, stunting 1 gap 3-4 defense he brought to the NFL is as much a legacy as the WCO is to NFL offenses. He just portrayed himself as a good ole boy, rather than a football guru. He was actually both.

“Not at all. Not at all,” said Nix, according to the Bills website. ”I know people have said we’re taking one of those top two guards. Our roster in house is better than I think we get credit for especially offensive line. We’re pretty deep there. We’ve got six guards and we think a couple of them can play.” http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/57578/bills-gm-buddy-nix-guard-not-a-need People actually believed him too.

I wouldn't say it necessarily stands either. They did take some steps in the right direction...limitedly. And...with the higher draft choices...they were showing improvment. Instead of building on that, or at least staying at pace,.they went right back to their MO. . To me, it even isn't so much that they didn't re-sign Levitre, though they certainly could have. Its that they did 0 to replace him. Well, he's no longer here..and they didn't replace him. Oh please. Let's stop pretending the Bils are smarter than other teams, especially when it comes to the OL. I've seen Pears and Urbik enough, and my opinion stands. Urbik needs help from the center, Pears can at least get in the way of a pass rusher for a second or two. All you have to do is watch where the pass rushers are when Fitz threw the ball. The PFF article didn't do anything but confirm what many already knew. And that's not all bad. I've thought for the past 2 years that they did a pretty good job of not letting anyone come in cleanly...getting a direct shot. But that's not the same as giving 3 seconds on a regular basis, and 4 or 5 seconds on occasion. How another QB is going to do, especially if you are wanting more deep patterns, remains to be seen. It shouldn't. And I explained it in my previous post...as well as earlier in this post. 1) They actually did a good job of not letting people in cleanly; 2) The ball came out quickly; 3) Levitre didn't need help. That left Wood free to help Urbik and/or pick up a blitz. When you remove the guy that doesn't need help from the equation, and replace him with someone that most likely will need help...things can, and usually do, change. If Wood is helping Legursky or Colin Brown, a blitzer comes in...or Urbik gets beat. OR a combination of the two. It can be a little more than..."ah, its only one guy." I don't know how they graded it. If it is power blocking, possibly, he never was a road grader. On the other hand, he was very good at getting to the outside, and very good at getting to the 2nd level. (actually, Glenn and Wood are both pretty good at getting to the 2nd level themselves). I could go up to the casino tonight and win enough at craps to pay off my mortgage too, but it isn't all that likely. And if I was behind on my mortgage, I wouldn't tell my bank that was my plan. You can wait if you want, I've seen the play a number of times. We want to see what D Bell can do; We like what we've seen from Kirk Chambers; This Jamon Meredith was a pretty highly regarded prospect before he was cut; That Terrance Pennington sure has some long arms, prototypical for an OT; Boy, that Ed Wang as a cool name. What's not fair is that every time they don't bother to replace someone, the same line gets used. You'd think that when the line was last used, right after the draft, and they just brought in two more people to "compete", that ...people would catch on. Guess not. Anyways. the only one I really have that much hope for is Caldwell, provided he's healthy again and is ready to compete. I actually wanted the Bills to use a late round pick on Legursky and had hopes for him. But it may be the lack of height (a cocern coming out of Marshall), but he hasn't shown to be starting quality, at least not in pass protection. I don't know what would have changed since then. We'll see. But I doubt it. If it was actually true, they wouldn't be brining in guys like Legursky and Caldwell. Spare me the depth argument. They're looking for a starter. And again, I've seen the play before, I don't need to wait. Feel free though, I won't spoil the ending. 1) Jerry Reese doesn't have a single starter who was another teams cast off, much less 3. David Baas wasn't a cast off, he was a bona fide FA. 2) Almost all of his guys are from within..and he's pretty good at getting quality from mid round picks. But that's Jerry Reese. when was the last tiem the Bills got a quality starter from a mid round pick? Or a late round? There was Peters as a UFDA 9 years ago and there there was...um...well, Butler wasn't bad at guard for a year or two. 3) You actually have to pick guys in the mid rounds to be Jerry Reese. This year, after their best Olineman left..there were two pretty good prospects in the 4th. Schwenke from Cal. was the 2nd best center ranked, and could easily go to guard. Barrett Jones won the Outland Trophy and played 3 different positions. In a way, he's a bit of a Levitre clone. Smart, agile enough, very good at using angles, can get to the 2nd level. We took another safety. I'm sorry, I've seen this play before. 4) Jerry Reese isn't afraid to retain talent and pay for it. Well before it became fashionable to say, "you don't pay a guard X millions of $$, he gave Chris Snee a 42 million contract. He's been making between 6.5 and 7 million since 2008. He doesn't buy into that mantra. 5) As David Diehl ages and Kevin Boothe remains lukewarm...he drafted Justin Pugh in the 1st as an eventual replacement. He already has James Brewer being groomed. He's not rummaging through NFL trash bins looking for starters. As far as the Saints go: I'm kind of surprised you brought up NO, but lets go with it. In 2010, they made Jahri Evans the highest paid interior lineman in the NFL. There we go again with that "you don't pay a guard that type of money" stuff. ( I can't believe people still say that nonsense). So they can't afford to have the no. 1 and no. 3 highest paid interior linemen on their team (Mankins passed Evans on the money scale). So they keep Evans, let Nix go and replace him...by paying 6.5 million for Ben Grubbs, a PB quality guard in his own right. Do you see the difference here? Do you see the difference between bringing in a PB quality lineman for over 6 million ...and bringing in someone who's started less than 1/2 of his career...and was just dumped by his former team? Without a doubt. I'd rather mimic the better teams. I'd love to do what the Giants do. I'd love to do what the Saints did. I'd love to do what Ozzie does. Hell, I'd kill to have Ozzie. But we don't. Not where the OL is concerned. I thought we were headed in that direction..but we're back to "we really have high hopes for this 27 year old guy that's never started before". Well, we didn't do anything for 4 years at QB and WR either so....maybe at least that's a step in the right direction.

-Wood and Levitre were drafted in 2009. They've had 4 drafts since then. It took 4 years to replace their LT. Levitre's gone anyways, so I don't know why you're counting him. They dumped three offensive linemen that year anyways. The "investment" in Pears was calling a guy who was sitting on his living room couch, unemployed. I'll say this about him...he's at least smart enough to get in someone's way for a second, sometimes two. He doesn't flat out whiff much, but if you're looking for 3 or more seconds of protection, that's not him. (PS.. PFF had the Bills at around 2.5 seconds in time to throw, around 29th in the league. https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2012/11/07/signature-stat-snapshot-time-to-throw/) The "investment" in Urbik was picking up a guy off of someone's practice squad. Like Pears, that's not exactly betting the house. Urbik, like Pears, can usually get in the way. But here's the rub with Urbik..watch the Bills pass plays for the past 2 years, Wood almost always moves to the right...to help Urbik. He could do that because Levitre was one of the better, if not the best pass protecting guard in the league. (I think PFF had him as the best last year, but I'm not sure). Stating the obvious, it is a lot easier to pass block when you're double teaming someone. Herein lies the rub for this year...Wood might not be able to help Urbik on most plays if he has to help out Legursky (the worst pass protector on the Steelers last year), or Brown (who's started 2 whole games in his career). So when Wood is helping out the left side...how's Urbik going to do by himself? We'll find out I guess. So far, Marrone doesn't sound too happy with Levitre's replacements. Maybe Antoine Caldwell takes over. If it works out, that'd be great..but he's suffered ankle injuries the last 2 years and got benched last year. maybe he can make a comeback. What you could likely see is a domino effect Wood needs to shuffle back and forth, You can only cover so many holes with one guy. And when you start to shuffle them...it usually doesn't work. Take the Ravens last year. McKinnie was lazy and Harbaugh wouldn't play him. So they put Oher at LT and Osemele at RT. Neither did much at their respective positions and overall line play suffered. But when McKinnie finally decided to get back in the game, Oher moved back to RT and Osemele went to guard. They became dominant then. When people start coming through the middle because Wood can't help on both sides...will we start hearing the "well, he's really not that good" statements? Probably. At the least, I don't expect him to be re-signed.."you don't pay a center 6 million a year, or 5 million a year." The line went from 3 high draft choices and 2 cast offs to 2 high draft choices and 3 cast offs. If Wood is gone, it'll be 1 high draft choice and 4 cast offs. But of course, "Buddy is happy with the people on the roster"...you know, the line that was given when they didn't try to replace their best lineman either through FA'cy OR the draft. People actually believed that line. Now, if you want to know what a good GM does, look at Ozzie. A few years ago, he drafts 2 guards, Grubbs in the first, Yanda in the 3rd. Both are PB quality. But he won't, or can't pay both. So he gives Yanda 6.5 million a year, and lets Grubbs go. But....and here's the key. He uses a 2nd on Osemele so the loss of Grubbs doesn't sting too much. That's because Ozzie puts a premium on the Oline. It isn't a once-every-4-to-5 years investment. He regularly uses a pick in rounds 1-3 at least every other year.

And then you said....yeah, they could have used Mario in that game against the Pats. The same Mario who did absolutely nothing in 2 games against the Pats this year. If he helped the Texans as much as he did the Bills...why bother.. mmhm, Yep. Its not that difficult. Judge him by what HE does, or doesn't do. Which would be, getting sacks against inferior competition but little else.

Well, you're consistent, I give ya' that. Can't seem to discuss him without saying "oh yeah, what about the other guy?" Now...why couldn't Mario beat Sebastian Vollmer...or Nate Solder?

Yeah, that's what I expected... How about he actually beat the guy in front of him on occasion? I mean beating a guy that isn't a third rate OT. He did a nice disappearing act against Sebastian Vollmer in 2 games. When that didn't work, they moved him to the right side to go against Nate Solder occasionally..with similar results. Dude was brought in to get after a guy like Tom Brady. But when he can't beat the guy in front of him...

Hey, that was pretty good. You went from "he would have helped" to "Oh yeah, what about everyone else?" in a millisecond. People have made excuses for the guy his entire career. I can only hope that this will be the first time in his career that he actually makes a defense better. God knows the Bills could use the help.

Shane Nelson as most underrated, at least from the Talkin' Proud era.

Yeah well, it would have been nice if Mario showed up for either of the Bills' games against the Pats. They could have used him.

They finished 6th in scoring in 2008. Tra Thomas was the LT, a very good LT in his own right, but coming down towards the end of his career. he spent 1 season with 2 different teams before retiring. They replaced one very good LT with another.

yep, def. not a difference maker. Pro Bowl last 3 years. Rated no. 1 LT by Pro Football Focus in 2011, by a wide margin. More importantly, the Eagles finished 8th, 5th and 3rd in scoring his 3 years there. He misses one year, and an offense that was averaging over 400 points per season for the last 3 drops to 280 and 29th in the league. But he doesn't catch the ball or run it, so he added nothing to their offense. But then, many just have the Russ Brandon approach. "he's 6'5" and over 300 lbs," all we need is another 6'5" 300 lb. guy to step in. It doesn't work that way, but it won't stop people from believing it.

I fully agree with that statement. In terms of this thread each of the greats mentioned have different attributes that made them great. Butkus played at 245-250, which was nearly as big as most offensive linemen at the time. That's like a LB playing at around 290-300 today. And yet, he could play sideline to sideline. He was a little before my time, but I knew the other great LB's mentioned played alongside some great players. As far as I know, he didn't have a Steel Curtain in front of him, or a Manimal/Dent/McMichael, or a Harry Carson/Carl Banks alongside him. I can give names of more than one of the defenses of that time, whether it be Green Bay, the Chiefs, or Dallas. But I can't think of another Bears defender. Maybe I'm wrong, though. Lambert was a part of a system, but he was an indispensible cog in that great, great machine they had. The toothless grin, the finger waving at QB's was nice for show, but those weren't his best attributes. He had range, he could cover in pass pro, and was extremely smart (per Jack Ham). It was because of him, Russell and Ham that the Cover 2 was created. His D's finished in the top 5 5 of his 1st 6 years. His play outdistanced his persona, and he had a pretty good persona to begin with. LT changed the way the game was played on defense, he changed the way the game was played on offense. For the next 15 years, everyone in the draft was looking for the "next LT". None quite measured up to him, those some were damn good. On the all underrated list: Jack Ham- possibly the most complete LB ever. With the way teams loved to run sweeps in the 70's (everyone had a good pulling guard or two), you'd think they could exploit a somewhat undersized LB. Not when they ran at him. He was probably the league's best open field tackler at the time, and the best in pass coverage. Randy Gradishar- a guy that never gets much mention, but he was asked to take on centers and guards on nearly every play, AND make the tackle from sideline to sideline. His defenses with Denver were top 10 or top 5 during most of his career. Cool thread..I like the topic.