Orton's Arm

Just based on the numbers you've posted, QB B looks like the best choice to me. But obviously, those numbers alone would be an extremely silly way to make a decision. I'd want to know how those numbers were attained. Is the QB a one trick pony? Is he running a simplified offense? Are those numbers something he'll be able to sustain after defenses have had the chance to figure out his strengths and weaknesses? Kordell Stewart had a good year before defenses figured him out. Like Kordell Stewart, Losman was chosen by TD, and is a lot stronger WRT physical potential than with respect to mental abilities. Like Stewart, Losman also had a good year. If you take a player like that, simplify the offense for him, have him roll out and use his mobility, he can give you a season's worth of a flash in the pan. But after that, defenses will largely have him figured out. The feasts that he occasionally delivers with his big arm will become rarer, while the periods of famine will be longer and more common. You'll ultimately come to realize that this guy--despite his favorable physical attributes--is always going to hold your offense back.

I resent that statement! I've noticed that you've been down on Edwards for a while now, even when he was playing well. And even his last three performances haven't been as bad as some have described. IIRC, Edwards did pretty well from a yardage and yards per attempt standpoint against the Jets and Dolphins. The problem has been turnovers. But how many of those turnovers are Edwards' fault, and how many are because of poor or nonexistent offensive line play? I think that if Edwards was an established, name quarterback, people would (correctly) point the finger at the offensive line for most of those turnovers. But because Edwards is new and largely unproven, people forget about the massive contribution the line has made to the Bills' problems, and point the finger solely at Edwards. As for Edwards' most recent performance, think of all the times Peyton Manning has played against the Patriots. Has he looked good on each and every one of those occasions? Now consider that Edwards was playing with a much weaker supporting cast than I can ever remember Manning having had. The fact that the offense was ineffective against the Patriots--and that Edwards contributed to that ineffectiveness--shouldn't cause us to begin entertaining doubts about his long-term future. Of course, the operative word here is "entertaining":it seems you really do find it entertaining to express doubts about Edwards. And that's a shame, because he's going to be a solid player in this league.

There's so much wrong with this team it's hard to know where to begin. Someone recently posted that our defense has forced three punts in the last two games. That's obviously pathetic. With DBs playing soft and allowing the underneath stuff it's hard to force too many three and outs. I think the problem there is overly cautious, play-not-to-lose coaching. The other possibility is that the coaches have good reason not to trust their DB/pass rush combination very much, and that they're playing it safe for that reason. (DBs and the pass rush go together, because every play boils down to whether a WR can get open before a defensive player gets to the QB.) There are also a lot of problems on offense. What we need is Lee Evans at one WR spot, an Eric Moulds-like player at the other, and Josh Reed in the slot. And we need a good pass catching TE. Obviously we have some of the pieces of the puzzle there, but not others. This offense could use better play-calling. Someone mentioned that, based on the formation the Bills used and the down and distance, he'd predict whether it would be a run or pass. This past game, he was wrong on all of three occasions. The level of predictability this implies is absolutely staggering. There are too many times when Schonert seems to say to himself, "Hey! I have three downs and I think I only need two, so why not waste first down by running Lynch between the tackles?" But above all, the biggest single reason for this team's problems is the offensive line. If we had a good line, our running plays wouldn't be wasted downs. The passing attack--which right now is the only thing sustaining our offense--would be a lot better. People talk about Edwards' recent turnovers, but how many of those have been due to bad pass protection? On the recent interception on a throw intended for Parrish, someone pointed out that Edwards couldn't step into the throw because the DL Dockery was supposed to be blocking just blew Dockery up. On the fumble/safety, the OL failed to slow one of the defenders down on his way to the QB, and it was a three man rush! Fixing the offensive line's problems would eliminate at least half the offense's turnovers. With a significantly upgraded passing game and with life having been breathed into a moribund running game, our offense would be strong enough to compensate for many of our defense's shortcomings. A good offensive line really would make that much of a difference to our offense. That's why I voted for the offensive line in this poll. But is our bottom 5 offensive line a symptom of a deeper problem? If so, where might that problem lie? Is it Ralph, for picking bad GMs, or for failing to spend the money it would take to get good GMs and coaches? Is the problem Bradon, Levy, or a lack of talent from the TD era? Is the problem Jauron, for perhaps advocating a draft day approach which over-emphasizes the secondary (which plays 10 yards off the ball anyway) while largely ignoring the offensive line? Or is the problem simply that too many of the Bills' draft day successes have gone first contract and out? I really don't have the answer to these questions. I just hope for a good off-season which results in significant improvement to both lines.

That's the wrong mindset. The correct mindset would be to ask himself, what do I have to do to make the Patriots fear us? Then he should do that!

I think that I'm a lot like most people around here in this respect: I'd really, really like to make a significant contribution to this team's success. I know that nothing I say or do is going to matter much, but that doesn't stop me from trying to help anyway! It's silly, I know, but if it wasn't for that kind of silliness, we probably wouldn't have signed up for this forum.

That's not entirely true. The offensive line played well during the second half of JP's best season. But I agree that overall the line has been quite bad. I'd like for the Bills to draft Mack with their first round pick. But a part of me thinks that instead they should use that pick on a DE, and go interior OL in rounds 2 - 3.

During the first half of the Oakland game--and for much of the third quarter--the offensive line played like a steaming pile of . . . something that had been defecated out of a dead pig's rectum. If Trent only took one sack, it was because he got rid of the ball in a hurry or threw it away in response to getting little to no pass protection. Later in that game the Raiders began to tire, and our offensive line looked good. Once Trent (unexpectedly) began getting pass protection, he was able to engineer a fourth quarter comeback against the Raiders. This was also the case in the Jacksonville game: the line looked better late, against a tired defense, than it had early on. Trent did a good job of getting rid of the ball in a hurry, thereby masking the line's inability to provide pass protection for a full four quarters. I agree with this. The level of pass protection is clearly nothing like it had been last year. There are a lot of plays when you'll see the line fail to slow some defenders down on their way to the quarterback. They mentioned yesterday that one of the guys blocking for Trent--I think it was Chambers--was a teammate of his at Stanford. And this Bills line is starting to look a lot like Trent's line had while he was at Stanford. They'll play well in spurts, but those unexpected periods of rudimentary competence are frequently interspersed with plays when the line simply fails to provide any pass protection at all. Watching this line trying to hold off a pass rush often reminds me of watching a beaver dam in the path of a 100 foot tidal wave.

You called that one! Until we drafted Trent, Bill was strongly of the opinion that you don't need good offensive line play to win football games. Now that Trent is here, Bill has to at least pretend to be interested in the total collapse of our offensive line as a means of making excuses for Trent. Before Trent came, Bill couldn't care less about the offensive line. He was all about defensive backs!! I remember how he celebrated after the Bills took a SS 8th overall back in 2006! (For those of you who didn't "get" the above post, it was sarcasm. Bill has been very focused on building a strong offensive line for as long as I can remember. Given that this team hasn't had an offensive line since the Super Bowl years, and given the neglect of the offensive line on draft day, it's easy to see why Bill has reached the conclusions he has.)

I disagree with this so strongly I just changed my screen name to Edwards' Arm. He had a bad day and should have played significantly better than he did. That said, Edwards is the answer.

Well, Bill, it stands to reason that if you don't have an interior OL, you won't have much of a running game. Nor much of a passing game, because the QB will be pressured into making mistakes and bad throws and will take too many hits and sacks. With all these problems on the offensive line, it stands to reason your offense won't be scoring many points. To make up for this lack, the defense will have to play extra well. And as everyone knows, good defensive play starts in the defensive secondary. So why not use our highest draft picks there? At least, this is the logic I'm expecting from the front office come draft day . . .

Here you guys go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q6WkK9k7Hg No thanks are necessary!

You make an excellent point: the DL is one of our two areas of most significant need. The offensive line is the only other area of the team which should be regarded with that same level of seriousness. All our other needs are secondary including OLB (re-sign Crowell) and pass catching TE (hope Fine continues to improve, and a pass catching TE isn't much good anyway if the QB's on his back). I hope that in the 2009 draft, the Bills use their first three picks on linemen.

Frankly, I find the above post annoying. Our defensive line's lack of pass rush is a significant problem with this team. Attempts to discuss it deserve a better thought-out response than, "we're 5-3 so why worry about anything?"

The Buffalo News had another article indicating that the Bills' offensive line has give up 23 sacks, making it (thus far) the 7th worst in the league in terms of pass protection. This line also has to be in the bottom 10 in terms of run blocking.

I agree that it would have been better to have built the team as you suggest. I wish that during the first day of the 2006 draft, the Bills' brain trust had said, "we're going to spend the day fishing, but we'll come back for the second day of the draft. Since we're going to be taking the day off, and since Bill is right here in NYC anyway, we'll leave him in charge of the first day of the 2006 draft." If things had happened this way, the Bills wouldn't have Whitner, Youboty, or McCargo, but they'd have Mangold and several other very good offensive linemen. Currently, our line is an unmitigated disaster. Ideally, our line would be one of the five best in the league. But it's not like that transition needs to be made in a year or two. Even just one or two key improvements--such as taking Mack--would significantly upgrade the line's ability to keep pass rushers out of the backfield, and to open holes for Lynch and Jackson.

Nah, I'm just saying it. I think this line's done a great job this year (except for run blocking, pass protection, and blitz pickup).

You are absolutely right about this. The Bills have neglected the offensive line ever since the Super Bowl years, and it's showed. I'd have no objection whatsoever to the Bills using a first round pick on Mack--currently we don't have a starting center. If they don't take Mack in the first round, or maybe even if they do, they should use a 2nd or 3rd round pick on an interior lineman. And if necessary take yet another lineman on the second day of the draft. As Bill pointed out earlier this thread, this team also needs to upgrade its talent level on the defensive line. If Mack is there and a defensive lineman is there who you think has the chance to be special . . . it'd be a tough choice to make. If I had the two players rated about equally I'd go with Mack. The Bills are an offensive line and a receiving threat away from having a very strong offensive unit.

You sound like someone who watches the game very closely, making you aware of things some other fans might miss. Overall, I've noticed that the offensive line is doing a very bad job in run blocking (even worse than last year). And they've taken a large step back from last year's level of pass protection. For most of this season, the level of pass protection has looked below average or downright bad. But like oases in a desert, there have been times when the offensive line has been dominant in pass protection.

That was a very good post. I'd like to add to it by pointing out that this year, the offensive line has taken a major step backward in terms of pass protection. It still sometimes shows flashes--a good drive here, a good 4th quarter there. But overall, its pass protection has been extremely unreliable, and in serious need of improvement. Trent took five sacks against the Jets, and that's just not an acceptable level of performance from our offensive line. We're on pace to allow a much higher number of sacks this year than we allowed last year.

Losman had performances like this? Trent threw for 289 yards averaging 8.3 yards per pass attempt. This, on a day when the Jets had no reason whatsoever to show the slightest hint of respect to the Bills' running game. That's a very solid body of work, except for the three turnovers. As for those three turnovers . . . the first interception wouldn't have happened had Parrish not slipped. The fumble was a result of a missed block. The second interception was a poorly thrown ball. There were some things Edwards could have done better today, as he'd be the first to tell you. But quite frankly, your assessment of his play makes you seem eager to lay the Bills' offensive problems at his feet, whether he's responsible for them or not. Overall, Edwards is one of a very small number of bright spots on our offense. Expect things to look brighter once Reed returns.

There's a lot more truth to this post than most people here may realize. I've noticed a tendency among many here to blame problems on Trent even when those problems are largely due to someone else's mistakes. The fumble is a good example--there was a missed block, allowing a Jets defender to get at Trent from his blindside. But no one talks about how we need to stop missing blocks. Instead it's "Trent fumbles too much," "Trent holds the ball too long" "Trent is the reason we lost." As you point out, our run blocking has been nonexistent. Our pass protection has been . . . inconsistent at best for most of the season. Today it seemed better than usual because the Jets were dropping so many men into coverage. Trent has imperfections which need to be corrected, and which he's working hard to correct. The last player I'm worried about is him. But when you don't have an offensive line--and this team clearly does not--a good quarterback can only get you so far.

Just out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what do you feel is the strongest part of your above post? Your parrot-like repetition of the Maycok factoid? Or your use of that factoid as a springboard for your 3,500th inane attempt at making a dinosaur joke that was actually funny?

That's a classy gesture on your part, Dibs, and it speaks well of your character. I was somewhat surprised by the tone you'd taken earlier in the discussion, because you're usually one of the more civil posters on this board. You typically make your case with logic and data. In other words, you don't fit in. This is only partially true, or true on some cases. (More on that below.) But to continue . . . You've described the spectrum of possibilities quite well. That's true. But sometimes NFL teams indicate where they had players rated. A day or two after Losman had been drafted, an NFL head coach or GM indicated he wouldn't have taken Losman with the last pick of the 7th round. TD sometimes indicated his like or dislike for certain players. But I agree that most of what happens inside those draft rooms remains unknown to the general public. Levi Jones is a good example of a player who was picked ahead of where he'd been projected, and who's playing at a high level. But it's one thing to pick a guy a few positions ahead of where he'd been projected--as in this case--and another thing to take a guy 8th overall when mock drafts had generally projected him as a second rounder. The Edgerrin James example is similar. You also mentioned two other examples: Donnie Avery and Ted Ginn. The former is a rookie with 337 receiving yards, the latter is a 2nd year player who had a great game against a gimpy McGee. It's far too soon to tell whether either player is worthy of his draft position. I read a very good article about how it's possible for a player to drop, even if teams think highly of that particular player. It was written a while ago, and I don't remember many of the details. Unfortunately, it's the details which make it convincing. But I'll do my best. Suppose you have a TE whom the media considers the 10th best player in the draft. The team that picks 10th needs a TE, so they have him projected going #10. The team picking at #10 thinks highly of this guy, but they think even more highly of a DE--another position of need. So they take the DE, and the TE falls to #11. Then things go as follows: 11) Doesn't need a TE 12) Doesn't need a TE 13) Doesn't need a TE 14) Needs a TE. But this team also needs a LT, and a run on LTs has already begun. This team is much more confident in getting a good TE in the second round than in finding a good LT in round 2. It decides to get a LT now, and take a TE in the second round. 15) Doesn't need a TE 16) Doesn't need a TE 17) Doesn't need a TE 18) Needs a TE, and likes the guy in question. He's the second or third highest rated player on their board. But this team had a particular RB rated the 7th best player in the draft--higher than their 10th best rating for the TE. That RB is still there, and RB is a position of need for this team. So they take the RB. 19) Doesn't need a TE 20) Doesn't need a TE 21) Doesn't need a TE 22) Drafts the TE in question. It's quite possible for a guy to fall from #10 to #22 even though NFL teams generally had him rated as the 10th best player. I suspect something like the above may have happened to Mangold. One of Pat Kirwan's mock drafts had him going at #15, another had him going (IIRC) at #29. From what I gather about Whitner, he was considered a much better prospect for a team running a Tampa-2 than he would have been for teams which run other defensive schemes. The reason why experts such as Kirwan and Carucci had projected Whitner as a second round pick was because they were thinking of him in general terms, not in terms of his fit with the Tampa-2. How many other teams who ran a Tampa-2 were in need of a SS that year, and were in a position to pick in the top 15? Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of any teams that fit that description. This is why I believe Whitner likely would have been there at #15 had we accepted Denver's trade-down offer.

You've missed my point completely. Maycok evidently picked up on the fact that the Bills thought highly of Whitner--so highly that they'd take him 8th overall. That (most likely) speaks highly Maycok's information sources. Or, he possibly picked up on the fact that Whitner would be seen as a good fit in the Tampa-2 scheme, making him a much more interesting pick for the Bills than he'd be for the vast majority of teams which don't run a Tampa-2. Either way, kudos to him. What the Maycok prediction doesn't do is the one thing I'd asked for: provide a shred of evidence that any team besides the Bills was considering taking Whitner in the top 15. But even in the unlikely event Whitner had been off the board at #15, the Bills would still have had excellent opportunities to fill positions of dire need, with players as good as or better than Whitner.

By "future Hall of Famer" they mean Donte. And by "look to attack the banged up unit" they mean "expect to see Donte go after Greer early on, with maybe a hard hit or two against McKelvin. Later in the game expect to see Whitner used to attack Bryan Scott and Ko Simpson . . ."