CIN/BUF replay NFLN game thread

[Phil Hansen Forever]

Another thing I noticed, Trent hasn't changed much this year. When heavy pressure is applied, he runs backwards. I'm hoping he will continue to improve, but I don't see anything different from the past two preseasons. I'm hoping Chan will work miracles.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Munoz is a pretty decent announcer.

 

Maybin did have a better game than most people thought. he has improved each game.

 

On first look online I didnt realize what a great pass that Fitz made on the Nelson TD. Nelson looked good too but Fitz really made an excellent play. Maybe we do get the jackie Chan upgrade on Fitzy too.

 

Fitzy made a beautiful pass down the sideline to Hardy too. The pocket was getting very small and the corner was underneath. It had perfect trajectory.

 

Chad Simpson has no chance IMO of making the team but he is pretty good. Really quick feet.

 

Yes. Every Buffalo runner has looked good this preseason. I think it indicates again that we are a good running team (as shown last year when we had no passing attack but still ran decently) and the fact that Gailey is a very good offensive strategist. It's like when Denver had that run of years where every RB they had was plug and play.

 

BTW, i didnt think CJ stepped on the line on the TD. I thought I always saw green, however slim. Man that was a gorgeous run.

 

Edwards also was better than I initially thought, and I thought he did well the first time.

 

We gotta keep this Roscoe thing up.

 

Another thing I noticed, Trent hasn't changed much this year. When heavy pressure is applied, he runs backwards. I'm hoping he will continue to improve, but I don't see anything different from the past two preseasons. I'm hoping Chan will work miracles.

He's simply not a smooth or instinctive QB. If he was an actor you would describe him as "wooden."

 

I think that any of the Bills top three quarterbacks would be effective in this offense but I trust that Gailey is going with the guy who has played the best so far.

 

Like others, I see Trent getting injured again, he simply doesn't protect himself very well.

 

The Bills will not get great QBing this year but the upside is that when one of them goes down, there won't be much of a drop-off…if at all.

 

Fitzy made a nice throw to Chad Jackson at the goal line. Too bad Jackson didn't hold on.

Edited August 31, 2010 by San Jose Bills Fan

[Phil Hansen Forever]

He's simply not a smooth or instinctive QB. If he was an actor you would describe him as "wooden."

 

I think that any of the Bills top three quarterbacks would be effective in this offense but I trust that Gailey is going with the guy who has played the best so far.

 

Like others, I see Trent getting injured again, he simply doesn't protect himself very well.

 

The Bills will not get great QBing this year but the upside is that when one of them goes down, there won't be much of a drop-off…if at all.

 

Fitzy made a nice throw to Chad Jackson at the goal line. Too bad Jackson didn't hold on.

Trent is looking marginally beter, but this still preseason. He is wooden, but he is learning to step into the pocket more often, something he never did the past two years. I hope he stays healthy, as it will be a long year watching Fitz throw interceptions.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Trent is looking marginally beter, but this still preseason. He is wooden, but he is learning to step into the pocket more often, something he never did the past two years. I hope he stays healthy, as it will be a long year watching Fitz throw interceptions.

Well, Fitzy is playing real well in this game.

 

Fitzy's game is ugly but he's outperformed all the QBs he's played with the last two years.

[Guest dog14787]

He's simply not a smooth or instinctive QB. If he was an actor you would describe him as "wooden."

 

I think that any of the Bills top three quarterbacks would be effective in this offense but I trust that Gailey is going with the guy who has played the best so far.

 

Like others, I see Trent getting injured again, he simply doesn't protect himself very well.

 

The Bills will not get great QBing this year but the upside is that when one of them goes down, there won't be much of a drop-off…if at all.

 

Fitzy made a nice throw to Chad Jackson at the goal line. Too bad Jackson didn't hold on.

 

and If he's wooden maybe we should call him Pinocchio

 

Myself personally, odd comments from a game TE showed good pocket awareness in my opinion.

Edited August 31, 2010 by dog14787

[San Jose Bills Fan]

and If he's wooden maybe we should call him Pinocchio

 

Myself personally, odd comments from a game TE showed good pocket awareness in my opinion.

I would say Trent's shown improvement but it's at least equal parts the improvement of the team around him also. The pocket is more defined and more solid.

 

In addition, he's still not smooth or instinctive. It's a stylistic observation. Some quarterbacks are smooth. Others aren't.

[DonInBuffalo]

I DVR'd Time Warner's replay of the game Sunday night, so I could watch the live game that was on then. I just finished watching that replay a few minutes ago. It wasn't broadcast in HD. That's probably why NFLN used the Cincinnati feed.

 

A few things I noticed: McKelvin needs to demonstrate early in the season that he's not a liability in coverage, otherwise teams will go three-wide just to get him on the field so they can pick on him.

 

Defensive alignments: I was having trouble keeping track of exactly who was on the field, in part because it wasn't HD. When they went nickel, it looked like the Troup, Davis, and Ellis came out, and McKelvin, Scott, and Maybin came in. It was basically 4-2-5, with Stroud and Edwards at DT, Maybin and Kelsay at DE, and Poz and Scott at LB.

When they went dime, Corner came in and I think Kelsay came out. Stroud lined up at NT and Maybin and Edwards at DE.

 

Kickoff coverage worries me. Hopefully it's mostly due to them evaluating players who won't be in that role when the regular season starts.

[TheChimp]

The Offense has professionals in charge of it, that's what strikes me as the most glaring thing right now. Really good playcalling. Almost forgot what that looked like. The ST and Defense are now the weak links. Funny that.

[Guest dog14787]

I would say Trent's shown improvement but it's at least equal parts the improvement of the team around him also. The pocket is more defined and more solid.

 

In addition, he's still not smooth or instinctive. It's a stylistic observation. Some quarterbacks are smooth. Others aren't.

 

 

Contrary to what most folks may think Mary isn't on the football field to win a beauty contest.

 

3 TD drives in one half against a game Cincy defense looked smooth and stylistic enough for me,

 

You know what they say though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

[Conch]

I am sure there is a Brohm or Fitz thread somewhere. I watched Brohms replay against the Colts yesterday and Fitz replay against the Bengals today. I am much more impressed with Brohm. Many were raving about Fitz but i did not see anything special except a couple of decent scrambles. Brohm goes downfield almost every throw. He takes risks and gives the WRs a chance to make a play. I liked his play. Fitz will never be more than he is, Brohm and Edwards have bigger futures IMO.

[Chilly]

I mainly focused on the offensive side of the ball this game. Here are my thoughts:

 

- Trent Edwards:

 

Overall, I was pretty surprised by his performance. Trent's not a guy that is going to blow you away with amazing QB play, but if he plays this well I think he'll could be a QB we can win some games with. I do think he'll eventually need to be replaced to get the team to the next level, but I think this is a guy you can improve the team with in the short-term, while you get other pieces in place.

 

I thought he looked a lot better than I've seen previously. He's stepping up into the pocket now which is giving him time to throw. Those very same plays last year would have been sacks. Amazing what a focus on fundamentals can do. I also thought he had pretty strong decision making. There was only one potential pass where a DB jumped the route, but other than that, he seemed to find receivers in space with chances to make plays. I thought he was also very good at executing the screen pass tonight. He also did very well recognizing the blitz most times.

 

I saw him switch back to old habits a couple of times. On one throw to Lee Evans (I think) on the outside, the route was jumped, which if the defender was in a better position could have been a dangerous pass. He tends to throw the ball away a little bit late, and needs to be more decisive when running out of the pocket. He also locked onto a receiver for a whole play at least once. If he does that in the regular season, that's going to cause turnovers.

 

- CJ Spiller:

 

Boy, I love the way this guy runs. His vision is tremendous. If he sees a hole open inside, he'll take it, but if not and there's some room outside. he'll bounce it out. He always seems to find where the best place is to go with the football, then quickly accelerate through that hole. I love that he always has his vision on his linemen. I remember one play in particular where Spiller was supposed to take it between the tackle and the guard, but the hole wasn't there. However, Spiller was looking at his tackle, and as soon as the tackle's head got to the outside of the lineman's helmet, Spiller bounced it outside and turned it into a pretty good, 10+ yard gain. It was a thing of beauty - he kept watching the block until he figured out where the hole was going to be based off of the tackle's positioning, then took it right through. He also has tremendous edge speed, I loved the TD run where he just beat everyone to the outside. He's definitely going to make this offensive line look better than it is.

 

However, Spiller flat out sucks at pass protection. This isn't surprising, as he's a rookie, but he's got a lot of work to do. He was regularly beaten when he was in to pass block. This is a pretty big deal, as it really hurts what the Bills can do with him on the field. They aren't going to be able to count on him to pass block, so they're going to have to run 20 & 21 personnel with him a lot. That's not necessarily a terrible thing, as I really like McIntyre's pass catching ability, but I don't know how much they'll want to use Spiller in 10 or 11 personnel groups. I just don't think he's going to hold up there this year. Hopefully Chan will be creative and use some 20 and 21 personnel, but detatch Spiller before the play starts (either line him up in the slot or send him in motion), to keep offenses guessing. I also like Spiller a lot out of the Wildcat.

 

- Steve Johnson:

 

I think Steve is a decent receiver. He's not a guy that is going to burn you, or overwhelm you with skill/talent, or anything of the like, but I think he can be a solid possession receiver. He's a weak spot on offense, for sure, and I think he's more suited to a WR #4 role at this point, but my hope is Roscoe will make up for his lack of playmaking skills.

 

- Lee Evans:

 

I hope it's just pre-season, but I was really disappointed with his run blocking in this game. There were a couple of plays that could have gone for decent yardage, but were stopped way short because his man got to Spiller. I haven't watched his run-blocking much the past couple of years, so I can't comment on whether this is normal or not. I can say I was expecting more.

 

- Jonathan Stupar

 

They didn't really use him in the passing game all that much, which I thought was a little surprising. He had some decent blocks though, and wasn't a liability in the blocking game, so overall I was decently pleased with his performance.

 

- Offensive Line

 

Cornell Green seems to get driven back on a lot of plays. I'm not really happy with his performance at all. I think he's okay at steering his guy wide on pass protection, but sometimes he gets beat by a quick step to the outside. He also doesn't have a lot of strength on the inside either.

 

Demetrius Bell also has a tendency to be driven backwards by strong pass rushers it seems, but not nearly as bad as Green. Of the two tackles, I thought Bell was clearly better tonight, but I wasn't a huge fan.

 

Hangartner, for all the beatings he takes around here, was pretty dang solid. He never really let anyone rush straight by him in pass protection, and always had the middle blocked for Trent. I thought he looked pretty good overall.

 

I thought the guard play was somewhat poor at times, but it could be that the communication wasn't totally there. One play in particular that sticks out in my head was a run which the Bills did some angle blocking and pulled Wood from the right to left side. Levitre somewhat whiffed on his block, which caused Wood to try to seal off that guy when he got there. Unfortunately, Levitre didn't try to pick up Woods guy, but rather they ended up double-teaming the same lineman, leaving a wide open run defender to stuff Spiller.

 

- Defensive Line

 

I didn't watch the DL too closely, but it did look like they were eating up space rather well. I don't think this group is going to get a ton of QB pressure, but they should allow the linebackers the space to make plays. Unfortunately.....

 

- Linebackers

 

I thought our LBs were terrible. Andra Davis had a couple of nice plays, but outside of him, I wasn't impressed by anyone. I saw Poz run past the run gaps straight into some run blocks, letting Benson get a couple of decent gaines. Poz also didn't seem to do very well when he was blitzing. Maybin got pressure once, and Kawika Mitchell had a nice run defense on an outside run by Peerman across the field, but that was about it. Granted I stopped watching in the 3rd quarter, but none of the LBs outside of Davis seemed to make any big plays. I was highly disappointed in this whole group.

 

- DBs

 

Got beat on a few plays, but overall probably the strength of the defense. They need to work out their zone coverage on Cincinnati's first touchdown to Gresham. It felt to me like George Wilson was supposed to cover Gresham, but I'm not 100% sure on that play. Cincinnati has some good receivers who made some catches despite tight coverage, which sometimes you just can't do anything about from a DB perspective - you need the pass rush to force some mistakes. Still, I thought they played decent, but not the best I've ever seen them play.

 

- Special Teams

 

What happened to this unit? I hope it's just the preseason, because they look absolutely terrible. From Moorman shanking punts to the coverage giving up huge runs, I'm not sure what happened here.

 

- Coaching

 

What an improvement from last year. You can see how Gailey is using short middle routes with Evans and Parrish to beat the zone blitz. There were a couple times when Gailey called a perfect route over the middle of the field right where there was space in a zone. One was on Roscoe's TD catch, the other was on a first down play to Evans where the DB that was covering Evans took off in a blitz, Edwards read it perfectly and fired the pass to Evans, who had plenty of space to beat the LBs and grab a first down. This is such an improvement from previous years, it's refreshing.

 

I also love that the Bills don't seem to be taking a lot of drive killing penalties on offense. That was a huge problem last season, and the Bills didn't have ONE offensive penalty on the starters in the first half. Such a great turnaround. I hope the defense catches up, but I think they need a lot more talent on that side of the ball, unfortunately.

 

Overall, I think we're going to enjoy watching this team more than we have the past few years, simply because the offense is way better. I think they're a team that, with some luck, they could finish right around 8-8. I do think we need a lot more talent at LB and OT to really take the next steps, with LB being a huge key to the defense. I think they are also going to need to build defensive depth, get another solid WR (hopefully Easley), possibly sign some special teams stars, and see what happens at the QB situation before they can really make it over the hump. Given all of that, they are a decent ways away, but it's still better vibes than I felt last year from the team.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Contrary to what most folks may think Mary isn't on the football field to win a beauty contest.

 

3 TD drives in one half against a game Cincy defense looked smooth and stylistic enough for me,

 

You know what they say though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

I don't think you're appreciating what I'm trying to say. When I say some quarterbacks are smooth and some aren't, think of it as Aikman and Montana. Which one is smooth?

 

 

- Linebackers

 

I thought our LBs were terrible. Andra Davis had a couple of nice plays, but outside of him, I wasn't impressed by anyone. I saw Poz run past the run gaps straight into some run blocks, letting Benson get a couple of decent gaines. Poz also didn't seem to do very well when he was blitzing. Maybin got pressure once, and Kawika Mitchell had a nice run defense on an outside run by Peerman across the field, but that was about it. Granted I stopped watching in the 3rd quarter, but none of the LBs outside of Davis seemed to make any big plays. I was highly disappointed in this whole group.

To analyze the backers a bit further (and I wasn't really paying too much attention), Chris Ellis, while improved has a long ways to go. He's a football player that simply does not play with reckless abandon. He's very circumspect for a football player. He doesn't play with bad intentions.

 

Maybin looked pretty good. He has a long way to go but he made several nice plays and just missed another strip/sack in the 4th quarter. I'm encouraged that he might not be a total bust. If he could manage ten sacks this year I'd be overjoyed.

 

Antonio Coleman had a mostly quiet night.

 

Arthur Moats again stood out, occasionally for the wrong reason. His sack was virtually uncontested but he moved in nicely before tossing Palmer to the ground. Later in that series he allowed the receiver to get open over the middle but took him down with authority. Later yet in that series, he forced the fumble. The guy hits like a ton of bricks. And once he gets his hands on you it's all over.

 

edit: In limited time, I thought Kelsay was decent. I don't think he'll be a star in this system but I don't think he'll be a liability either. He's a fairly mobile and physical defender and those traits might fit better in this system.

Edited August 31, 2010 by San Jose Bills Fan