Orton's Arm

I'm hardly what you'd call a member of the Losman camp. Basically ever since I registered, I've expressed the view that if you're going to use a first round pick on a QB, it should be on a guy who's known as a good pocket passer--not on a guy who's "raw" but has lots of "upside" (i.e., physical upside). That said, you might want to rethink the way in which you're presenting this case. As someone pointed out in this thread, two of the Bills' possessions were ended by fumbles, and neither fumble was Losman's fault. And putting up 17 points isn't too shabby, especially with the line doing its best to imitate proctologists. "Thanks to my fine medical work, everything is now unblocked . . ." If you feel the Arizona game should count against Losman--which I do--you should argue your case on a somewhat different basis. Joe Montana led the Chiefs to just 6 first half points against the Bills in the AFC Championship game. Does the fact that Montana was on pace for a 12 point game mean that he played worse against Buffalo than Losman played against Arizona? I don't think it does. I think an analysis of QB play has to go a little deeper than points per game, especially if you're looking at just one game. When Edwards is under center, the Bills' passing offense is largely predicated around short to intermediate passing routes with the occasional long bomb. The idea apparently to kill the other team's defense with a thousand small cuts. For this style of offense to work, the quarterback has to read the field quickly, see multiple options, and be quick and decisive in his actions. That wasn't the style of offense the Bills tried to run when Losman was under center against Arizona, which to me implies the coaching staff doesn't trust him to run that kind of offense. And I think we all know why the coaching staff doesn't want him in that offense: he doesn't have the same ability to process information quickly that Edwards has. If you try to sustain a many-play drive with Losman, sooner or later a time will come when Losman's primary target is covered, and the drive will fizzle out. That's why Losman lives and dies by the big play. While the above mental limitations have always been part of Losman's game, there have been times when they're not apparent from the stats. A few long bombs to Lee Evans will do wonders for a quarterback's passer rating, his average yards per pass attempt, his points per game, and just about any other stat you'd normally use. But after a while teams learn to take away those long bombs, especially when they realize how ineffective a Losman-led offense is going to be once those long bombs to Evans are no longer an option. Instead of looking at things on a points per game basis, I'd suggest making a list of the things each quarterback does well, and which things he does poorly. Losman's positives in the Arizona game involved his long bomb to Evans, his good mobility on that TD run, and his ability to complete some intermediate passes by hitting his primary receiver. His weaknesses include his pocket awareness, information processing ability, ability to see multiple options, and his overall ability to run the same kind of offense in which Edwards excels.

I remember that year. The Houston Oilers had started the season 1-4, but won 11 straight to get into the playoffs and get the bye. They were considered hot--the team to beat. Some predicted Houston versus Dallas in an all-Texas Super Bowl. Montana led the Chiefs to a playoff victory over the Oilers in the divisional round. The next week, Montana and the Chiefs traveled to Buffalo for the AFC Championship Game. Kansas City's supporting cast got dominated by the Bills' defense. Even with Montana back there, Kansas City couldn't get much going offensively. Montana led them to two field goals in the first half, and got knocked out just before halftime. Bono played in the second half, leading the Chiefs to one touchdown. They lost, 30-13. You are right: that game illustrates what happens when you take arguably the greatest quarterback ever and don't give him any pass protection. Not even Joe Montana can score many points when he doesn't have pass protection. I agree with your post. If your offensive line doesn't block, and if your defense lets the other team score on 7 of 8 possessions (including TDs for five of them), it doesn't matter who your QB is. That said, I saw Losman display the same set of strengths and weaknesses we've come to expect from him. He can give you the occasional big play, but he doesn't have what it takes to be a successful starting QB.

Two things have to happen for the Bills to win this game with Losman at QB. 1) The defensive philosophy needs to change. We can't simply give them the underneath stuff while waiting around for them to mess things up. They're more than capable of taking the underneath stuff without messing things up. Our CBs have to give smaller cushions to the guys they cover. Our defense should be predicated on pass breakups, not tackles after the catch. 2) The offensive line has to play its first decent game since week 1. Both those things need to happen for the Bills to have a solid chance of winning that game. The San Diego defense may or may not be as bad as that statistic would indicate. (The validity of that statistic depends on the quality of offenses they've faced.) But even if it is, they still have a very good offense. In other words, they're a lot like the Cardinals. We can't win a Cardinals-like game without making the two improvements I mentioned above.

I agree that Losman can make an occasional good throw on intermediate passes. By using the defensive game plan I suggested, San Diego would probably get burned on a few of those. The key for San Diego would be to prevent good intermediate passes from happening very often. Suppose they hold us to 3 - 4 intermediate plays like that over the course of the game (which isn't too hard to imagine, because those plays only happen when Losman's primary target is open). If the Bills' running game gets shut down (again), and if the Chargers take away the long bomb to Evans, then under this scenario you're probably looking at 10 or less points for the Bills' offense over the course of the game. Maybe 14 points if the Bills have some success with trick plays, or if the San Diego pass defense is as bad as advertised. I don't see the Bills scoring more than 14 points on offense unless San Diego fails to take away the long bomb to Evans. There are several reasons why I'm not expecting the Bills' offense to produce more points than that. 1) The offensive line has been playing poorly, and I would expect that to carry over into the San Diego game. 2) Losman lives and dies by the big play. If you keep him from killing you with the long bomb, he's not likely to put together a 10 play drive to do you in. He might gouge you here and there with a good intermediate pass over the middle. But that will be followed up by a Lynch run between the tackles for a 1 yard gain. Lynch will have been met in the backfield, but will have turned what should have been a loss into a small gain. Then maybe a failed screen pass on second down (telegraphed by Losman). Then perhaps a sack on 3rd down, due to some combination of bad offensive line play and Losman's indecisiveness and inability to process information quickly. The Chargers won't be able to stop the Bills' offense completely, but over the course of the game I'd expect them to be able to keep it contained and under control. The Bills have employed a bend-but-don't break defense, and San Diego clearly has the talent to take advantage of that. The Bills have proven to be much better at defending the run than at stopping short to intermediate passes. If the Chargers emphasize those short to intermediate passes, as the Cardinals did, I would expect them to score significantly more than 14 points on offense.

I agree completely. Too many people on this board have false hopes for JP. Maybe it's the first round pick we used on him. Maybe it's the house he bought in Buffalo, or the city cleanup effort, or his excellent physical measurables. But whatever the reason, people need to accept that Losman, while capable of doing certain things very well, is never going to be a successful starting QB in this league.

If a team has a good center, they're normally going to keep him locked up long term as opposed to letting him hit free agency. Available free agent centers tend to be second or third tier guys like Trey Teague and Melvin Fowler. I'd like to see the Bills draft a top-tier center, and keep him locked up for his career. We've found the successor to Jim Kelly. Now we need the successor to Kent Hull.

I think if there's any doubt about Trent, the Bills should err on the side of caution and keep him on the sidelines. There's no sense in gambling with his career. That said, if Losman starts, it shouldn't be that hard for San Diego to contain the Bills' offense. They should take away the long bomb to Evans (obviously), and probably put eight men in the box on the off chance that our offensive line provides some semblance of run blocking. On offense, San Diego should strongly emphasize short to intermediate passes, thereby exploiting the cushions our CBs are coached to give their receivers. Our defense hasn't done a good job of stopping that kind of attack thus far, so they may as well exploit that weakness. If Losman starts, and if San Diego does the above things--and does them reasonably well--I would expect it to come away with a win.

A lot of people on this thread have evaluated Trent's performance in a vacuum, as though he didn't require good or even adequate performances from the players around him in order to get the job done. Someone on this thread--I don't remember who--criticized him for scoring too little in the first half of the Rams game, despite the fact our offensive line looked like one of the worst lines in Bills' history in the first half of that game. The bottom line is that Trent has looked very good when he's been given adequate pass protection or better. Typically this decent to good offensive line play has come in the 4th quarter, because that's when the other team's defensive line is tired. When Trent has been given little or no protection--as is normally the case for the first 2.5 - 3 quarters--he's been unproductive. Some people--and I'm not necessarily including you in this category--seem to think that you could let the offensive line play at its same putrid level, but that the offense as a whole would suddenly come to life if one were to replace Trent with a better QB. This line of reasoning is false. Trent makes faster decisions than most QBs. He has a quick release, reads the field quickly, and (at least usually) does a good job of sensing pressure and getting rid of the ball. Trent does a significantly above average job of masking the (considerable) weakness of the offensive line. If you were to replace Trent with an average quarterback, our offensive line would look even worse than it currently does, and our offense would become worse at scoring points and sustaining drives. Quarterbacks like Joe Montana and Tom Brady are known as some of the best QBs in NFL history, largely because of their ability to sustain long, many-play drives. But how do those guys look when they don't get pass protection? If a Joe Montana or a Tom Brady can't give you a productive offense unless he gets at least decent pass protection, it's unrealistic to expect Trent Edwards to be productive for a full 60 minutes when he only receives pass protection in the fourth quarter. And it's this kind of unrealistic expectation, one that sets Trent up to fail, which seems to underlie much of the criticism I've seen directed against him in this thread.

Whatever happens with Trent and San Diego, I hope the Bills learn a valuable lesson from this. They have a good young QB in the form of Trent. Most teams in that situation would be smart enough to want to protect him. Every time you let your QB take a hit, you're rolling the dice that he won't get injured. The Bills' offensive line has been playing like used toilet paper, and I've heard that the play he got injured on was designed to let a defender come free. They've rolled the injury dice once too often, and it cost them. Personally, I hope they rip that play out of their playbooks, and burn the page it had been printed on. Then they need to go into the 2009 draft with the understanding that not getting your QB killed, and having at least a decent offensive line, needs to be a higher priority than taking some first round defensive back. With the line we have, running the ball between the tackles is pretty much a waste of a down, and Trent/whoever else is at QB should feel lucky to be alive at the end of the game. Like 50 pound weights fastened to the ankles of an Olympic runner, our problems at offensive line have been stopping the offensive as a whole from even coming close to reaching its full potential. Think of how effective guys like Edwards, Evans, Lynch, Jackson, etc. could be if we had even decent performance from the offensive line.

I realize the point of your post was to imply that Losman played at least as well against the Cards as Edwards had against the Rams. But the data you dug up about that Rams defense has other implications. In the first half of that Rams game, the Bills' offensive line had more yards in penalties (at least 20) than the Bills had in rushing yards (18). The offensive line also allowed four sacks--at least three of which were caused by the line failing to even slow the defender down significantly on his way to the QB. In addition to the penalties, sacks, and absence of run blocking, the offensive line allowed numerous hurries and knock-downs. Our line was flat out embarrassed by the Rams in the first half of that game. Our offensive line had mixed play in the second half, with some good moments mixed with some very bad moments. And this wasn't just a Jason Peters problem, because the whole line was responsible for an extremely disappointing performance. If anything, Jason Peters is a bright spot, because there's the thought that he'll stop being part of the problem once he's back in shape. The other four guys don't have that excuse. It's fairly obvious that, thus far this season, the offensive line has been the team's single biggest weakness (by far). But the Rams-related information you provided demonstrated the problem may be even worse than I'd realized. Atrocious line play is bad enough under any circumstances. But having your offensive line get completely humiliated and put to shame by a defense that allows 38 points per game? That's completely unacceptable. Bill from NYC is right: we need to focus on the offensive line in the 2009 draft.

You bring up valid points about the differences between Trent and Losman. But I disagree with anyone who thinks we were a quarterback away from winning that game. Kurt Warner played a masterful game on Sunday. He ate our defense for breakfast (or it may have been lunch). The Cards had eight drives where they were trying to score points. (After that they were just trying to run out the clock.) Of those eight drives, they scored a TD on five of them and FGs on another two. The reason no QB--not even Joe Montana--could have kept up with that kind of pace is because of our offensive line. If you're going to ask our offense to score a TD practically every time it touches the ball--which is what would have had to have happened to have won that game--you have to have good blocking. That certainly didn't happen on the Fowler wiff/resulting fumble. It didn't happen on numerous other times during the game. The combination of poor offensive line play plus a defensive no-show doomed this team to defeat, regardless of who we had back there at QB. That said, I felt Losman's play demonstrated his usual strengths as well as his usual weaknesses. He's good for big plays to his primary receivers. He has a strong arm and good mobility. But he doesn't process information quickly or see his #2 or #3 options very well. With him, it's either a throw to his primary target, or a dump off to someone behind the line of scrimmage. He doesn't sense pressure very well, and there were times when he moved backwards when he should have moved forward. With his athleticism and big play ability, you can see why he's been given so many chances. But his inability to see or process information quickly dooms any chance he might have had to be a successful starting QB in the NFL.

That's one of the best encapsulations of Losman's play I've seen.

He had a few big plays: the long bomb to Evans, the TD run, two or three big completions. We've always known that, under the right circumstances, Losman can give you a big play. It's what he does the rest of the time that's the problem. And that was just as much the case in the Cards game as it's been throughout this guy's career. Do you feel he made decisions quickly? That he did a good job of seeing his second and third options? Do you think he sensed pressure well, and did a good job of getting rid of the ball quickly, or stepping up in the pocket to avoid the pressure? I'll grant that he probably did one or more of these things here or there. But if you think this guy did these things throughout the game--or even for the first three quarters--you're mistaken.

I agree the defense played better in the second half. Out of four meaningful drives, the defense held the Cards to a 3 and out on one of them, allowed a FG on another, and allowed 2 TDs. Or you could look at it as 2 FGs and 1 TD if you want to blame that one TD on the special teams penalty (which is reasonable). After making that adjustment, the Cards scored 53% of possible points in the second half, after having scored 85% of possible points in the first half. (Scoring a TD every drive represents 100% efficiency.) The defensive effort was unacceptable in both halves, albeit to differing degrees. To address your other point, our game plan seemed to be to prevent big plays, to force them into many-play drives to score, and to wait around for them to do something to mess things up. That kind of passivity will get you killed, especially against teams that excel in the death by a thousand small cuts offense, such as the Cards and New England. We need a different defensive philosophy to employ against teams which are good at playing mistake-free, many play drive football. Waiting around for teams like those to beat themselves isn't going to work.

You do a good job of pointing out the positives, whereas many of us (including myself) have a tendency to focus on the negatives. And don't get me wrong--there are a number of negatives one could focus on here. But I'd like to address one point in particular you made--that of our o-line not playing together very long. Jason Peters first became a LT in 2006. Melvin Fowler became our center (ugh!) back in 2006. Dockery, Butler, and Walker became starters at their respective positions beginning with the first game of the 2007 season. Maybe you'll come back by pointing out that in this past preseason, Walker was playing on the left side, Chambers on the right. But the change-up at the tackle spots shouldn't affect the play of the interior line, and that's where many of our problems have been. I'll agree with you that the current group of players--especially Peters--have the ability to produce better play than we've seen thus far. But ultimately, the offensive line is a serious problem for this team, one that needs to be fixed on draft day.

An excellent post. As you've pointed out, Edwards helped mask the true extent of some of the Bills' problems this year, most notably on the offensive line. I truly hope the Bills make that their #1 and #2 priority (and maybe their #3 priority as well) going into the 2009 draft. As for Schobel, I think he was playing with an injury. That said, he's not the same player he once was, even when he's healthy. I still think the Bills should ignore the RDE position in the early rounds of the 2009 draft in order to focus on the 0-line. Maybe Ellis will develop into a good DE.

Up until the middle of the 4th quarter, the Bills defense had accomplished the following: Held the Cards' offense to a FG on drive #4. (Time expired, or else it might have been a TD) Held the Cards' offense to 3 and out on drive #5 Held the Cards' offense to a FG on drive #7 Drives 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8 resulted in TDs. Out of a total of 56 possible points on those first 8 drives, the Cards scored 41. That's 73% of the points the Cards would have had, had they scored a TD with literally every possession. An effort like that does not constitute defensive success, by any measurement of success I'd care to use. I'm using the first 8 drives as my cutoff, because after that the Cards were trying to run the ball and run out the clock. This game does raise serious questions about our defense. We played a prevent-style defense, with large cushions, practically the whole game. We got killed by an offense that inflicted a thousand small cuts. Can this defense be effective against that style of offense? Let's hope so. But the play calling will need to improve by a lot for that to happen.

Well said. I think we have the defensive talent to do a much better job of defending against this kind of offense than what we saw yesterday. We just need better play calling/coaching. Hopefully we'll get that by the time the New England game comes around.

There were times when Trent could have done a better job of sensing pressure and moving around in the pocket. Overall though, he's much better at that sort of thing than JP. As for that one sack Losman took, I ascribed part of the blame to Peters for getting beat. I also felt part of the blame was on Losman for moving backward--which didn't seem like the right direction to move in, to me--as well as holding onto the ball too long. On that particular play, it looked like Losman could have done more to have avoided the sack, than what he did. Regardless of who the QB is, I think it's important to look at each sack individually, to see how much of the blame should go on the line, and how much should go on the QB. In this case they both messed up. I blame those slow starts almost entirely on the offensive line. In the first half of the Rams game, for example, the offensive line had more penalty yards (at least 20) than the Bills had rushing yards (18). Throw in four sacks allowed in the first half, and numerous knock-downs and hurries of Trent, and you have an absolutely pitiful offensive line performance, even by the standards of post-2000 Bills teams. I don't care who you are, no quarterback is going to be productive when his line is playing like that. I also feel that poor offensive line play was a contributing factor to the Bills' lack of success against the Cards. If you're going to ask the QB to score every time he touches the ball, the offensive line has to give you at least a decent level of play for a full 60 minutes. Our line hasn't done that--or even come close--in any of Trent's comeback games, or in the Arizona game. The combination of poor offensive line play + defense that didn't defend doomed us in the Cards game, regardless of who we had at QB. You seemed to imply the Bills' offensive struggles in the first halves of games were largely his fault. If that's where you were going, I think you're being too hard on him. In the first half of the Oakland game, the Bills' offensive supporting cast, as a whole, was dominated by the Oakland defense as a whole. No pass protection, no run blocking, receivers who got dominated by the Oakland secondary. In the first half of the Rams game, the offensive line turned in another practice squad style performance. Expecting your QB to look like Joe Montana when his supporting cast is being dominated like that is not realistic. Unless of course you're referring to the way Joe Montana looked in the AFC Championship Game, a game in which the Bills' defense completely dominated the Chiefs' offensive supporting cast. Montana was mostly ineffective that game. He led the Chiefs to just two FGs in the first half, after which he was knocked out by some Bills defender. I agree that this would have been a loss, no matter who we had playing QB. The defense flat-out stank, and I strongly disagree with the decision to give the Cards' receivers such big cushions. You'd think Fewell was running a furniture store or something with the way he handed out cushions. But as much blame as the defense deserves for the TOP differential--which is quite a lot--Losman was also part of that problem. He does not see multiple options nearly as well as Edwards, and he doesn't get rid of the ball quickly/put it in the right place, as well as Edwards can. Losman typically goes to his #1 read, or to a check-down behind the line of scrimmage. Edwards sees more of his options than Losman does, and thus can put together many play, death by a thousand small cuts kinds of drives. He's a lot better at avoiding negative plays than Losman. The time of possession differential was thus caused by three factors: 1) our defense's poor play, 2a) our poor offensive line play, and 2b) the downgrade at the QB position. If memory serves, most of the sacks Trent has taken have been because of a guy coming in practically unblocked. Consider the four sacks he took in the first half of the Rams game. One of them was Peters getting clearly, flat-out beaten. Another was because Fowler barely touched the guy he was supposed to block. And a third was because Walker wiffed on his man. I don't remember how the fourth sack happened. But at least with those three sacks, they were clearly, flat-out, 100% the fault of poor offensive line play. I felt that both bad offensive line play and bad QB play were significant contributing factors to Losman's sacks. Had Trent not gotten hurt, he still would have taken sacks, but probably not as many sacks as Losman. Also, it's likely Trent would have lost fewer sack yards than Losman lost. I agree that he got almost no help whatsoever from the defense, and very little help from the guys who were supposed to be blocking. But if you look at the body of work he put together in the Cards game, you can see why he was drafted and given so many chances, as well as why he will never be a successful starting QB in the NFL. He'll give you the occasional big play, especially when his primary target is open. But he does not have the mental acuity or information processing speed to be a big time QB. Trent's typical game would still have resulted in a loss, because we weren't a quarterback away from winning that game. But getting better play from the QB position--which Trent would have provided--would have made it a closer loss.

I heard the Cards' punter had someplace else he had to be that Sunday. A party or wedding or something. Whatever. Before the game started, he took Kurt Warner to one side, and said, "Listen, buddy. Pal. Good Christian friend. I kind of need the day off here. If it's not to much to ask, would you mind scoring every time you touch the ball? I know that sounds ambitious, but I really do have someplace I need to be." Warner: I don't know I can promise you a whole game. How about keeping you off the field for the first half? Would that be enough? Punter: I guess so. Warner: Go do whatever you want in the first half. Show up around the end of halftime, stay for a few minutes to get the feel of the game, and then go back to doing whatever you were doing. Come back a bit before the game is over just to check in on things. Good enough? Punter: Yeah, I guess that'll work. At the end of the game . . . Punter: Hey Kurt, I really appreciate you giving me the afternoon off. I got to meet a lot of exciting people at the social function I attended while the game was underway. Kurt: Hey man, don't mention it. Did you meet any attractive women? Punter: Well, there was this one . . .

You make a number of good points in your post. (And bear in mind that I'm known as one of the more anti-JP people on this board.) The hand-off/fumble was the fault of the o-line, most likely Fowler. The sack you mentioned was partly Peters' fault, but probably also JP's fault to some extent as well. And I agree with your implication that our defense's play was simply inexcusable, regardless of whether they felt inspired by the QB situation. However, my assessment of Losman's play during that game is probably less positive than yours. The Bills would have lost that game no matter who they had back there at QB, but Losman played like his usual self. And I don't mean that as a compliment.

No argument there. This team is better than last year's, but there are still deep-seated problems that will have to wait until the off-season to be solved. I think the defense is capable of playing much better than what we saw today, but the offensive line will need new talent if the Bills want an offense that can be productive for 60 minutes of football.

Everyone else voted no too, because that was the only option they were given.

This did look like something that should be punished, IMO. No sense in letting a defender drive the QB into the ground after he's already thrown the ball. And if there's doubt, you're better off protecting the QB from a potentially serious injury than you are protecting some defender's right to slam the QB around. Of course, maybe I sound like a fan of a team which is much more likely to get its own QB slammed around (due to poor pass protection) than it is to slam the other team's QB around (due to a poor DL pass rush). As an aside, here's how you post a link: type (url=your_link_here.com)click here(/url). Replace the () with [], and you will be good to go. Change the words "click here" to whatever words you want to use to describe the link.

I agree the Bills are much more likely to stick with Losman as their #2 QB for the season, than they are to promote Hamdan to that role. I won't rule out the possibility of a Hamdan promotion entirely though, simply because I know too little about him.