Mike in Syracuse Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 (edited) I just re-watched all of Fitz's snaps for the second time. Let me point out some notes I jotted down that I think are being ignored:: 1. We threw almost exclusively out of no back sets. I think there were a half dozen plays where we actually had a back lined up behind the QB. 2. We had 6 drops of balls that should have been caught. 3. A TD was called back on a quesitonable call 4. A missed defensive holding call negated a first down 5. The Redskins were blitzing on EVERY play 6. We ran no motion 7. We ran no play action 7. There was absolutely no attempt to disguise what we were doing. It was purely a set of "beat your man scenarios". I also watched the 1st quarter of the Patriots/Saints and Jets/Bengal. We didn't look any worse than any of those offenses, in fact, our OT's looked a hell of a lot better. So step off the ledge, relax a bit and lets see what happens next Friday. Edited August 11, 2012 by Mike in Syracuse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed83HOF Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Only QBs to worry about are Young and Thigpen and choosing the cream of the crap as our backup. Not too worried about Fitz, he has the season to prove his worth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Senator Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Our offense will be great, our defense will be great, our season will be great. My only concern is whether my liver can handle shots for every Bills touchdown... GO BILLSSS!!!! "I expect to be undefeated...I expect to win every game." - Chan Gailey 19 and 0 baby!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
San Jose Bills Fan Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I'll make the counterpoint as in spite of my optimism, I have some concerns. On Thursday night, the Bills offense continued a disturbing trend established last year in the second half of the season. Back then of course, Fitz had bruised ribs, Fred Jackson had been placed on IR, Eric Wood and D Bell had gone down with injury, the O-line was playing musical chairs trying to find the right configuration to put the best 5 out there, and Lee Evans had been traded, Donald Jones, Roscoe Parrish placed on IR, and Scott Chandler missed a few games. There was ample legit reasons for the demise of the offense last year. The disturbingly familiar part of Thursday Night's performance was the continued obstinance in using a spread, timing offense which requires the defense to cover the receivers for only 2 seconds on each play. The agonizing repetition is snap/blitz/quick throw/incomplete pass/punt with the offense in an empty set tempting the defense to blitz, the defense doing so, and the passing offense unable to capitalize on the expected mismatches… the play ending on a rushed throw. Now obviously every NFL team needs to be proficient in its passing sub-packages and certainly the Bills need to brush up in this area so I was not so much disturbed by the practice of drilling this personnel group for 16 straight plays as I was the relative ineffectiveness of those 16 plays. Regardless of the drops (six seems high btw) and the nullified TD and the missed calls against the D (there were 2), the first offense did not seem like a well-oiled machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ko12010 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Only QBs to worry about are Young and Thigpen and choosing the cream of the crap as our backup. Not too worried about Fitz, he has the season to prove his worth. It's got to be Young I think. He'll probably take the entire season to get comfortable with the playbook, but his ability to be something of a gamer and make plays with his feet makes him a better option than Thigpen. With more reps I feel Young will improve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Our offense will be great, our defense will be great, our season will be great. My only concern is whether my liver can handle shots for every Bills touchdown... GO BILLSSS!!!! "I expect to be undefeated...I expect to win every game." - Chan Gailey 19 and 0 baby!!!!! Funny stuff, Senator. Reminds me of the story the late Harry Carey told when asked what he wanted done with his remains. He said anything was ok except for cremation because they would never be able to extinguish the flame from his burning liver. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cub Reporter Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 How could you be concerned about QB already? They've played one game so far, and its the preseason. If they played like this against the Jets in week one, then I would start to get concerned. And just like last year they are only running certain plays to ensure that all the players are on the same page, so the coaches can really see what the player can do. EVERYBODY DON'T WORRY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsWatch Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 So step off the ledge, relax a bit and lets see what happens next Friday. Or dive off ledge, land on head and be in full body cast until March. Every year we have posters who say they are going to quit but keep posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2o Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I just re-watched all of Fitz's snaps for the second time. Let me point out some notes I jotted down that I think are being ignored:: 1. We threw almost exclusively out of no back sets. I think there were a half dozen plays where we actually had a back lined up behind the QB. 2. We had 6 drops of balls that should have been caught. 3. A TD was called back on a quesitonable call 4. A missed defensive holding call negated a first down 5. The Redskins were blitzing on EVERY play 6. We ran no motion 7. We ran no play action 7. There was absolutely no attempt to disguise what we were doing. It was purely a set of "beat your man scenarios". I also watched the 1st quarter of the Patriots/Saints and Jets/Bengal. We didn't look any worse than any of those offenses, in fact, our OT's looked a hell of a lot better. So step off the ledge, relax a bit and lets see what happens next Friday. Agree with everything you just posted, minus the 6 drops. I saw two passes that could've been catches possibly, but if you're talking about every ball that touches the WR's/TE's hands I have to disagree. The inconsistency is still there with Fitz. He throws a beautiful ball like the seam route to Chandler, when there is no where else you could possibly place the ball, but then is throwing behind WR's on almost every slant. It could be timing, it could be bad route running, mechanics, a lack of work in actual game situations with our young WR's, I don't know. I do know that it looks exactly like what we saw out of Fitz for the latter part of the season in '11 and it's not very encouraging, but yes it was just the 1st preseason game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ1 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 (edited) I'll make the counterpoint as in spite of my optimism, I have some concerns. On Thursday night, the Bills offense continued a disturbing trend established last year in the second half of the season. Back then of course, Fitz had bruised ribs, Fred Jackson had been placed on IR, Eric Wood and D Bell had gone down with injury, the O-line was playing musical chairs trying to find the right configuration to put the best 5 out there, and Lee Evans had been traded, Donald Jones, Roscoe Parrish placed on IR, and Scott Chandler missed a few games. There was ample legit reasons for the demise of the offense last year. The disturbingly familiar part of Thursday Night's performance was the continued obstinance in using a spread, timing offense which requires the defense to cover the receivers for only 2 seconds on each play. The agonizing repetition is snap/blitz/quick throw/incomplete pass/punt with the offense in an empty set tempting the defense to blitz, the defense doing so, and the passing offense unable to capitalize on the expected mismatches… the play ending on a rushed throw. Now obviously every NFL team needs to be proficient in its passing sub-packages and certainly the Bills need to brush up in this area so I was not so much disturbed by the practice of drilling this personnel group for 16 straight plays as I was the relative ineffectiveness of those 16 plays. Regardless of the drops (six seems high btw) and the nullified TD and the missed calls against the D (there were 2), the first offense did not seem like a well-oiled machine. That offense was ineffective against the way Washington was defensing it. I was disturbed by the banging-the-head-against-the-wall aspect of it. The approach of no run or any attempt to trick the defense rendered this an exercise in futility. I don;t see that anything of any use was gained other than the knowledge that in a real game you could not run this collection of plays, but that should have been obvious without actually running the plays. To me, the 1st string offense was a complete waste of time, that's what bothers me. Edited August 11, 2012 by AJ1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
You herd it hear last Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I'm gonna go ahead and give everybody the OK to step off the ledge if you're on it. That way I don't have to read this after the next meaningless pre-season game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reed83HOF Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I'll make the counterpoint as in spite of my optimism, I have some concerns. On Thursday night, the Bills offense continued a disturbing trend established last year in the second half of the season. Back then of course, Fitz had bruised ribs, Fred Jackson had been placed on IR, Eric Wood and D Bell had gone down with injury, the O-line was playing musical chairs trying to find the right configuration to put the best 5 out there, and Lee Evans had been traded, Donald Jones, Roscoe Parrish placed on IR, and Scott Chandler missed a few games. There was ample legit reasons for the demise of the offense last year. The disturbingly familiar part of Thursday Night's performance was the continued obstinance in using a spread, timing offense which requires the defense to cover the receivers for only 2 seconds on each play. The agonizing repetition is snap/blitz/quick throw/incomplete pass/punt with the offense in an empty set tempting the defense to blitz, the defense doing so, and the passing offense unable to capitalize on the expected mismatches… the play ending on a rushed throw. Now obviously every NFL team needs to be proficient in its passing sub-packages and certainly the Bills need to brush up in this area so I was not so much disturbed by the practice of drilling this personnel group for 16 straight plays as I was the relative ineffectiveness of those 16 plays. Regardless of the drops (six seems high btw) and the nullified TD and the missed calls against the D (there were 2), the first offense did not seem like a well-oiled machine. The offense is a concern, the only real upgrades were TJ and Glenn. Fitz still has his worts and who knows if he is the QB we saw in the first 7 games, the last 9 or somewhere in between. We need another top WR, we have SJ and what would be a bunch of great options as #3s and lower, Wood is still out and hopefully his injuries are a thing of the past.Our entire offseason again went to the D, which shows you how putrid that unit really is/was. Offense will continue to be a concern until we can hopefully get another WR or someone develops as the season wears on, the starting OL is healthy and we see what kind of QB Fitz really is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARCELL DAREUS POWER Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 i usually wait until week 3 of the preseason and the first 2 weeks of the reg season... its normal to be rusty man i think stafford got picked too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sllib olaffub Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 Our offense will be great, our defense will be great, our season will be great. My only concern is whether my liver can handle shots for every Bills touchdown... GO BILLSSS!!!! "I expect to be undefeated...I expect to win every game." - Chan Gailey 19 and 0 baby!!!!! Wonderful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOUSE Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I can't believe my eyes on this board. Somebody should have posted a warning 1 hour before game time. This is a test, only a test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewgetz Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 How could you be concerned about QB already? They've played one game so far, and its the preseason. If they played like this against the Jets in week one, then I would start to get concerned. And just like last year they are only running certain plays to ensure that all the players are on the same page, so the coaches can really see what the player can do. EVERYBODY DON'T WORRY! I Concur. Way too much concern about preseason. 90's Bills never won in preseason. This is only to find the holes so we can plug them by season start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Over 29 years of fanhood Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I just re-watched all of Fitz's snaps for the second time. Let me point out some notes I jotted down that I think are being ignored:: 1. We threw almost exclusively out of no back sets. I think there were a half dozen plays where we actually had a back lined up behind the QB. 2. We had 6 drops of balls that should have been caught. 3. A TD was called back on a quesitonable call 4. A missed defensive holding call negated a first down 5. The Redskins were blitzing on EVERY play 6. We ran no motion 7. We ran no play action 7. There was absolutely no attempt to disguise what we were doing. It was purely a set of "beat your man scenarios". I also watched the 1st quarter of the Patriots/Saints and Jets/Bengal. We didn't look any worse than any of those offenses, in fact, our OT's looked a hell of a lot better. So step off the ledge, relax a bit and lets see what happens next Friday. I did similar thing in another thread. There were 3 balls I considered catchable that were dropped. 3 uncatchable balls due to miscommunication or errant throw, a blocked pass by the lde who drove back Hairston, a deep cross where Stevie was tackled or tripped up before tha ball arrived. That covers the 8 incompletions. There was also a first down and nice touchdown strike called back on procedural stuff. All out of shotgun, 4-5wide sets. This was all against a d that was playing the pass exclusively with a zone blitz. Also I understand there was no planning, just qb calling plays in no huddle. Probably getting some live two minute drill practice against a real opponent. I guarantee chan would have called a screen or draw in there during a real game to subdue the pass rush. Now if we see the first three drives look like that vs jets in September, concern is warranted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanCity Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 I love watching preseason games, only because they are the best teasers ever made. I hate when I watch movie trailers and they give away the whole movie. Preseason is the guarantee that you will see only snipits of the movie that build anticipation to see the whole thing. Judging a movie by a trailer is dumb, just like judging a season by the preseason is. The lack of a first team backfield was interesting, but I'll assume that Chan was looking to keep CJ and Fred healthy and saw the execution of the spread as more of a concern and attempted to get the O some game experience with it to see what areas they can work on. The tough thing is that the Skins defense read it every time. I saw reasons for concern that, come the regular season, should be ironed out. At least start being chicken littles in the regular season as oppose to after game one of the meaningless preseason. We need to get used to being optimistic again. Being a Bills fan in the last decade and a half hasn't allowed for much of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdand12 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 (edited) I read reviews before i watched the game and prepared to be depressed. I was pleasantly surprised. Bills were not playing to win obviously (coaching), but working on execution and getting rooks up to game speed. I think it was educational for them. Watching game again today and going to focus on individuals with the rewind button. I dont feel at all dissapointed or concerned. yet... Edited August 11, 2012 by 3rdand12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max997 Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 (edited) my concerns are with the QB, head coach, and the wide receivers but im not taking too much from what they were doing in this game i do however think Chan falls in love with the passing game when the offense should revolve around its beter players and thats Jackson and Spiller Edited August 11, 2012 by Max997 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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