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The New Bills OL


LaDairis

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Levitre and Hangartner are also backup caliber players. Wood, before the leg, was the closest thing on the roster to a legit NFL OL starting caliber player.

 

Ok, Hangartner I can possibly understand, but calling Levitre a backup quality player after his 1st freaking season is a joke. Seriously, I am sure Kelly, Bruce, and Thomas would have been called "backup quality players" after their first season under your criteria. Give the kid a freakin chance to develop. ;)

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maybe we should trade our whole secondary for tracey porter

 

 

Porter isn't exactly a second round failure despite injuries. While a notch below Joseph and Revis, Porter is an excellent man cover corner.

 

What happened to Brett Favre's last throw in the NFC Championship?

 

Where will Porter be on Sunday?

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Ok, Hangartner I can possibly understand, but calling Levitre a backup quality player after his 1st freaking season is a joke. Seriously, I am sure Kelly, Bruce, and Thomas would have been called "backup quality players" after their first season under your criteria. Give the kid a freakin chance to develop. ;)

 

 

Andy lacks the athleticism and power to be anything special. Hope all you want, it ain't there.

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"Everything I've read indicated the young middle of our line was promising"

 

 

And everything you read you believe, because nobody is more certain that you do not understand the football you watch every Sunday than...

 

you

 

and hence all of "your football opinions" come from what you

 

READ

 

not what you

 

WATCH.

 

 

 

Kinda similar to a certain bird species common in the Caribbean...

 

 

If your talking about parrots then you have no idea what your talking about, because parrots don't read they watch. They also are not native to Caribbean islands. I DVRd every bills game this year and watched the offense in slow motion to see what the fn problem was with our anemic o. Yeah the guards didn't play like pro bowlers every game. They were rookies playing next to rookies. When they did have starters next to them they excelled. Go replay the Monday night game when Eric Wood manhandled vince wilfork for most of the game. How about how they knocked Chris Jenkins out for half the season because he couldn't handle our interior. The problem came from the outside. Over and over again. How can you fairly assess these players when they play next to someone new every week? You suggest we just throw our 1st round pick from last year overboard in favor of another rookie "project"? That Demetrius Bell taste is out of your mouth then I assume. :lol:

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"You suggest we just throw our 1st round pick from last year overboard in favor of another rookie "project"?"

 

 

That reading comprehension problem again...

 

Levitre was not a 1st. He was a marginal OLT for Oregon State who was completely mauled by Greg Romeus in his final game for the Beavers. How the Bills justified a second for him is the real question.

 

As for Saffold, he was a 3+ year starter in the Big 10, hardly a "project." Saffold dominated Michigan's Graham and Iowa's Clayborn. Charles Brown was a 2 year starter for USC. Sean Allen was a 2+ year starter for East Carolina, and absolutely dominated and graded out perfectly against Arkansas in the Liberty Bowl. Sean Allen is a tremendous athlete with power, with credentials for character and football intelligence. Allen was one of two First Day caliber OLs on EC last year, the other being junior OLT Willie Smith. Brian Simmons is a 1+ year starter for OU, but was regularly rotated in with Duke and Walker in 08 and before, including the NC in 2009 when he replaced Duke in the third series (a TD) and then Walker the next series (which UF stuffed a 4th down from the 1). Following Walker at the time, I though Simmons was some PS1 super Fresh getting reps because he was "just too good" and clearly better than either Duke or Walker. He had some injury issue this year, but was absolutely dominant over a pretty good Stanford DL in his bowl game. Brian Simmons is really the only pure OG prospect in this Draft who can do everything well - run block with power, second level blocks, pass protection, anchoring against the bull rush, having the athleticism to shut off gap shoots and blitzes. Every other OG prospect in this Draft, save the position switches, has a rather obvious flaw in his game, starting with Iupati's pass protection set.

 

 

So, no, Saffold, Brown, Allen, and Simmons are hardly "projects." Rather they dominated all year against NFL caliber talent, do not require positional switches (other than moving Saffold to ORT from OLT), and it is shocking but not unprecedented that the NFL has completely whiffed on two of them...

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Andy lacks the athleticism and power to be anything special. Hope all you want, it ain't there.

 

Cant agree with that LaDairis.....Levitre was playing LT for us for a bit and probably outperformed everyone with had at the position this past year despite his short arm length.

 

That means he has athleticism.....power is technique and that will come

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Second Round: Charles Brown OLT USC - best pass blocking OLT in the Draft

Third Round: Rodger Saffold OT Indiana (an OLT in college, a perfect ORT for the NFL)

...

 

...

 

 

Sixth Round: Sean Allen C East Carolina (steal of the Draft, likely best C prospect in the Draft, and a total whiff so far by the NFL "gurus")

Seventh Round: Brian Simmons OG Oklahoma (OK, so Duke sukks, Brandon Walker got a DUI a week after his undrafted was signed... I watched Duke a lot in 08 and concluded he sukked. I actually thought Walker was pretty decent as a late Round backup interior. And the guy they kept rotating in for both Duke and Brandon, must be some PS1 Freshman... nope, its DL convert Brian Simmons, the best OG on OU in 08 and 09, and the one OG prospect in this Draft who excels at all aspects of being an OG - Draft guru "consensus" - undrafted, maybe even a "try-out" player...

 

 

 

New Bills OL capable of keeping an NFL QB upright for more than 2 seconds per pass play (a HUGE upgrade from last year)

 

 

 

OLT Brown

OLG Simmons

C Allen

ORG winner of Wood, Levitre, and everyone else

ORT Saffold

Let me get this straight, four rookies? While I am at it two more questions where is your site? and are you a clone?

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Cant agree with that LaDairis.....Levitre was playing LT for us for a bit and probably outperformed everyone with had at the position this past year despite his short arm length.

 

That means he has athleticism.....power is technique and that will come

 

outperforming Bell at LT is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

 

Bell does not deserve to be on an NFL roster

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I love that line....hilarious. LaDarius, I'm sure you're a smart guy (in the basement dwelling kind of way) but you come off as pompous and paranoid. It doesn't help that none of your sentences are structured...its almost like reading a watered down retarded version of Hunter S Thompson...just a constant steam of thoughts that make no sense.

 

I apologize to all of you a head of time if you think I'm doing a disservice to Hunter.

Yeah LaDarius and Hunter comparisons are much bigger reaches than the Maybin/Bennett comparisons. The Doctor may have rambled somewhat incoherently at times but please, the good Doctor was at the top of the food chain.

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Cant agree with that LaDairis.....Levitre was playing LT for us for a bit and probably outperformed everyone with had at the position this past year despite his short arm length.

 

That means he has athleticism.....power is technique and that will come

 

 

No, power as an OL comes from frame, musculature, athleticism and technique/knee bend. An OL at 300 with years of experience isn't going to add power. He either has it or he doesn't. Levitre doesn't have good knee bend, plays high, and is hardly a better than average OL athlete in the NFL. He was, rather, a desperate attempt by the Bills last year to bend over backwards and forwards to justify the "best available OG prospect" with the second in accordance with the "gurus" who originally had Duke and Herman at the top of their OG boards last year. The short arm issue is a real issue as it was for Geisinger, who was also a college OLT switched to interior (recent track record of that switch is marginal). Geisinger eventually settled in at center with the Skins, where short arms matter the least. Levitre isn't athletic enough for NFL OT and isn't powerful as an OG. Just being the last or second to last Bill OL to fail last year wasn't exactly a claim to fame...

 

I understand the frustration of coming to grips that the FO's second from 2009 isn't going to cut it. Bummer...

 

Better to fix that now than destroy whatever QBs you acquire for the next few years of denial about it. Wood's injury is also very unfortunate, and whether Wood is ready to play this year, and whether he should play, is yet another issue.

 

An OLT and band-aids ain't gonna fix it.

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One of the knocks coming out of college on Levitre was that he needed to add strength......which can be done with a good strength coach. I totally agree that at the beginning of the year he was playing way to high which caused him to lose battles up front in one on one situation......but I also saw him improve as the season went on. There actually was some question (before Woods injury) about which linemen was progressing faster.

 

I am only a fan of Butler at RT because he is a veteran.....I would really like to see Meradith step up and take that spot or even a draft pick there. I would like to see Wood at Center and would like to see Hangarter in a reserve utility role.

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I actually like Wood at OG better than C. Wood is a bit "upright" and doesn't have the most fluid snapping motion. Moving him an inch back and relieving him of snapping duties fit better with his skill set.

 

Meredith was a great OLT for the Chickens as a Soph. Since then, he has fallen apart with various injuries and accusations. The other 31 didn't pass on him as a PS guy for nothing, not to mention the OL starved Pack parting with him for nothing. Something is UP with that individual, we just don't see it. Perhaps it can be fixed. Perhaps not. Jamon is really an OLT prospect, more athleticism than power.

 

Whether Levitre's knee bend can be improved is something I'd like to see, but given history, I'd consider extremely unlikely. Knee bend just is or isn't, it isn't something "taught."

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