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Bills defense back to top 5?

Coach55

By Coach55
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Coach55 RFA

Coach55

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I was looking at the talent on the roster and was thinking about the following - if McDermott installs a simple 4-3 defense to allow our players to play (similar to that of Schwartz), we may have a defense as good if not better than 2014. The D-line is basically the same insert Lawson for Williams. Our secondary has been completely revamped and has the potential to be very solid. 2 of our 3 LBs have the potential to also be great. I see us having as many if not more sacks than 14 (especially with the Lorax). I all of a sudden have a glimmer of hope.

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Doc Hall of Famer

Doc

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I don't know about top-5, but they'll be much better than the past 2 years. The defensive personnel weren't suited to a 3-4 and Ryan (and especially his brother) was a coaching disaster. Thankfully he didn't do too much damage to the DL, keeping the key players and drafting a 4-3 DE in Lawson. And I think they'll be alright at LB with Hodges, Brown, Ragland, and LorAx. The main concern is replacing Gilmore.

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Johnny Hammersticks Hall of Famer

Johnny Hammersticks

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I don't know about top-5, but they'll be much better than the past 2 years. The defensive personnel weren't suited to a 3-4 and Ryan (and especially his brother) was a coaching disaster. Thankfully he didn't do too much damage to the DL, keeping the key players and drafting a 4-3 DE in Lawson. And I think they'll be alright at LB with Hodges, Brown, Ragland, and LorAx. The main concern is replacing Gilmore.

Also, IMO, the safety position has been grossly neglected for the past 3-5 years. Hyde is a step in the right direction, but after him? Glorified special teams players.

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Doc Hall of Famer

Doc

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Also, IMO, the safety position has been grossly neglected for the past 3-5 years. Hyde is a step in the right direction, but after him? Glorified special teams players.

 

Hyde was a really good addition. But I'm curious to see what McD and co. saw in Poyer to give him $3.25M/year.

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Gugny Hall of Famer

Gugny

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Lack of discipline and execution were a lot of what killed our defense post-Schwartz. So goes it for a D led by a Ryan (or both of them, for that matter - were we all murderers in our past lives? - How dafuq did we deserve that? I digress),

 

I worry about the talent that left the team. A lot. But I'm hoping that some of the replacements, along with better discipline and execution, will result in an immediate and significant improvement to the the defense, overall.

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Iron Maiden RFA

Iron Maiden

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Our DL is good...potentially great....Our secondary..not so much....I might be in the minority but I feel we're going to miss Gilmore....Darby took a step back last year also.....there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hyde to step up his game....

 

One thing for sure, it will be better than last year....I just don't think it will be at the 2014 level....

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Captain Murica Veteran

Captain Murica

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Our DL is good...potentially great....Our secondary..not so much....I might be in the minority but I feel we're going to miss Gilmore....Darby took a step back last year also.....there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hyde to step up his game....

 

One thing for sure, it will be better than last year....I just don't think it will be at the 2014 level....

If the DL is able to revert back to even 2014 form our secondary should benefit the most from it. It would help hide some of the defeciencies we have this season.

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JohnBonhamRocks Veteran

JohnBonhamRocks

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Hyde was a really good addition. But I'm curious to see what McD and co. saw in Poyer to give him $3.25M/year.

 

Not that I have reason to doubt Poyer, but I also don't have reason to know why I should like him, so he and the safety position are my biggest ?'s on D.

 

 

Re: the 2017 defense as a whole, I'm fairly optimistic.

 

The starting Dline should be average at very worst. Depth there could be better, but at least we have Worthy, Washington, and Davis.

 

I'm not too worried about linebacker because, even if there aren't perfect scheme fits, we should be fine between Hodges, Brown, Ragland, Alexander, Humber, and the rookies (digression: wonder if they'll contribute at safety at all). That's a lot of bodies to rotate in, if nothing else, especially considering there will probably be only 2 on the field 60-70% of the time.

 

While I don't think we have a shutdown corner, there appears to be a solid top 4 of Darby, White, Seymour, and Johnson. Even if the opposing WR1 isn't completely shut down, at least we'll be able to cover their WR1-3 decently well.

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Kirby Jackson Hall of Famer

Kirby Jackson

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The Bills were #28 DVOA last year on defense (thanks Rex). I'm not sure that they can take a leap to the top 5 but I can see them moving closer to the middle of the league. The Bills will get after the QB in this scheme and they always create some turnovers. That's especially nice because they rarely turn it over on the other side of the ball. I believe that the defense has lost some talent but the new scheme will offset a lot of the shortcomings. I expect them to take a step but not from #28 to #5.

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OldTimeAFLGuy Hall of Famer

OldTimeAFLGuy

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Our DL is good...potentially great....Our secondary..not so much....I might be in the minority but I feel we're going to miss Gilmore....Darby took a step back last year also.....there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hyde to step up his game....

 

One thing for sure, it will be better than last year....I just don't think it will be at the 2014 level....

....I'm going to guess top 10, with McD returning defense to pre-Wrecks dismantling form......he did learn from THE best, legendary Eagles DC Jim Johnson who succumbed to cancer at 68, LONG before his time.....Rivera was on the '85 Bears SB team as a LB in the 46 and did a good enough job as Chargers DC to earn HC position in Carolina.....McD comes from some pretty good pedigree IMO and I think he'll mesh well with Leslie as his DC......

Edited by OldTimeAFLGuy
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hondo in seattle All Pro

hondo in seattle

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Our DL is good...potentially great....Our secondary..not so much....I might be in the minority but I feel we're going to miss Gilmore....Darby took a step back last year also.....there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hyde to step up his game....

 

One thing for sure, it will be better than last year....I just don't think it will be at the 2014 level....

 

Yep.

 

I agree with the group that McD and Frazier will be better defensive coaches than Ryan & Ryan.

 

But I don't see a top 5 secondary here.

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Putin Veteran

Putin

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Our DL is good...potentially great....Our secondary..not so much....I might be in the minority but I feel we're going to miss Gilmore....Darby took a step back last year also.....there's going to be a lot of pressure on Hyde to step up his game....

 

One thing for sure, it will be better than last year....I just don't think it will be at the 2014 level....

I agree with pretty much everything you said , and I believe will be better against the run , we got shredded last year and pretty much sucked against the pass , the only thing for sure is our secondary will be tested ( often )

 

Yep.

 

I agree with the group that McD and Frazier will be better defensive coaches than Ryan & Ryan.

 

But I don't see a top 5 secondary here.

Top 5 secondary ? are you kidding ? I'd be happy if we were in the middle of the pack to start of with ,
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3rdand12 Hall of Famer

3rdand12

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Nullifying the Rex affect gets back to a middle of the league D in one fell swoop.

If Frazier Waufle and Co. can get their mojo workin' on that beastly line, the LB's and secondary are going to have some fun.

And so are we Fans.

I could see the D Line getting back to Jim's wide 9 stats.

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San-O Veteran

San-O

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I was looking at the talent on the roster and was thinking about the following - if McDermott installs a simple 4-3 defense to allow our players to play (similar to that of Schwartz), we may have a defense as good if not better than 2014. The D-line is basically the same insert Lawson for Williams. Our secondary has been completely revamped and has the potential to be very solid. 2 of our 3 LBs have the potential to also be great. I see us having as many if not more sacks than 14 (especially with the Lorax). I all of a sudden have a glimmer of hope.

 

Has anybody seen or more importantly given a drug test to or WEIGHED Mr. Big Puff?

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billsfan89 All Pro

billsfan89

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The secondary is much less proven and much less likely to produce a top 5 defense. In 2014 Gilmore and Graham anchored them at corner while Robey and even McKelvin had good years at nickel and dime back. But that secondary was anchored by A.Williams and Searcy on the backend. Both safeties had great years and they really bailed out the corners when they needed it once in awhile which made everyone look good.

 

The front 7 has a chance to be very good this year as long as Dareus can return to be a force up front and the combo of Lorax and Shaq can be a pass rushing presence. Although it is possible that Kyle Williams and Hughes could decline as they are both 3 years older now. But even if the front 7 is very good the team is unlikely to see a good secondary unless White is an impact player, Seymour gives them something above average, they find a safety to play well next to Hyde, and Darby returns to form.

 

So I think the defense should be better than it was the past two years under Rex but I think it is at best a year away from really becoming an elite unit. They need to play under the coach for a full season, the younger guys need to develop, and maybe add 2-3 more pieces of talent around the existing core before they are ready to take that step up.

 

If they can get the young secondary straightened out they might have a chance down to be very good in the future.

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wilcoam Rookie

wilcoam

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Very unlikely

For our 2017 Bills to yield a top 5 D you'd have to have almost no injuries which is very unrealistic

And 9 of the 11 starters would have to have either career years and or really exceed expectations

Sure, our D line 'might' be great if not solid

Yes, if Ragland becomes the game changer some think he is 'maybe' our LB's exceed off season expectations

However if you take off your Bills homerism cap we have to have one the worst ranked secondaries in the NFL

Or at least a secondary made up of 50% former back up depth players, and raw rookie, and a 3rd year player coming of a bad 2016

Sure, maybe they greatly exceed expectations as a unit, anything is possible

However let's be honest here, this is a team that finished 3rd worst in the NFL vs the run last year

Yes, we have 2 new potential run stoppers in Ragland/Hodges, and a a whole new secondary, a new HC, a new DC, and a new scheme

I hope we will better this year as we cannot be much worse

But top 5, C'mon, even the 2014 D was barely top 10 vs the run, while the back 7 was #1 vs the pass

If you're a betting person, I wouldn't recommend putting any real money down on that kind of projection, sorry the odds are not with you, lol

 

jc

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hondo in seattle All Pro

hondo in seattle

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Posted (edited)

FWIW, PFF didn't hand out high scores to our defensive roster.

 

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2017/6/27/15882900/pro-football-focus-rankings-buffalo-bills-27th-best-roster-tyrod-taylor-lesean-mccoy

 

Two players (Lawson, P. Brown) earned "Poor" scores and two players (Hughes, Seymour) earned "Below Average" scores while two players (Ragland, White) didn't receive scores.

 

Only three layers were ranked "Good" (Kyle, Marcel and Lorax) and they barely made the scoring threshold for that rank. We had no "Elite" players on either side of the ball.

 

The score of our average player was only 76.2 which is in the Average range.

 

The problem I have with PFF's grades is that Rex's D did not bring out the best in people. A defense is not merely the sum total of it's players. Scheme, guided film-study, etc. also play a role. Individual grades will go up with better coaching.

Edited by hondo in seattle
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Dopey Veteran

Dopey

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Our back 7 really needs the d-line healthy.If the D line stays healthy, it would go a long way to making this D top 10-12. Before rex came aboard our d-line dominated the los. We handled the run and put a ton of pressure without going crazy with blitzes. IF, and that's a big IF they stay healthy, I see the pressure and sacks increasing, which leads to hurried passes that get picked off. Can Shaq provide the edge setting that Mario provided, can Kyle make it through the season, will Dareus finally show he's a top talent, and will Hughes keep up the pace? As for depth, this d-line could use 1 or 2 vets that I see coming after cuts from other teams. Our db's will greatly benefit from knowing where they should be lined up, as opposed to the confusion created by those clowns dressed up as coaches. As stated by others, I am counting on BETTER coaching, scheme, and discipline to carry the defense to a top 10-12 defense. Not bad for the 1st year of the new regime.

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26CornerBlitz Hall of Famer

26CornerBlitz

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:beer:

 

@gggaughan

One simple request for Bills coach Sean McDermott.

http://buffalonews.com/2017/07/10/mark-gaughans-power-take-one-simple-request-sean-mcdermott/

Here’s a simple request for Bills coach Sean McDermott: Take care of your side of the ball.

 

McDermott’s Carolina defenses ranked in the top 10 from 2012 to 2015. You’d like to think the Bills defense is in great hands. You’d think this would be a no-brainer. Yet this is the Bills we’re talking about.

 

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Thurman#1 Hall of Famer

Thurman#1

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I was looking at the talent on the roster and was thinking about the following - if McDermott installs a simple 4-3 defense to allow our players to play (similar to that of Schwartz), we may have a defense as good if not better than 2014. The D-line is basically the same insert Lawson for Williams. Our secondary has been completely revamped and has the potential to be very solid. 2 of our 3 LBs have the potential to also be great. I see us having as many if not more sacks than 14 (especially with the Lorax). I all of a sudden have a glimmer of hope.

 

 

Top five? Very unlikely. Not impossible.

 

McDermott defenses in the past have taken two to three years to get really good.

 

When you switch schemes that's what you should generally expect.

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zonabb Veteran

zonabb

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If we're talking 5-spot ranges, they're more like to be 12-16. The scheme will be simpler but as mentioned, the safety position is a major concern. They're going to start a rookie DB. Ragland's talent might be wasted as he was picked as 4-3 LB and has to learn MLB. Is Brown good/fast enough for MLB? Kyle Williams is old and I'm not as high on the line as others, although they should be the best unit on the D.

 

The end game here is they should be markedly better, and that in and of itself will help.

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wilcoam Rookie

wilcoam

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I see our D 'potentially' improving to the 16-19 range 'if' Hughes has a better year, Hodges/Ragland stop the run, and Hyde becomes a legit NFL starter

I think Hodges could turn out to be a terrific FA signing in lieu of losing Zack, but I'm unconvinced any of the safety moves were upgrades

I prefer Hyde as our nickel corner as we will play alot of nickel (as did GB)

Wish we would have signed Tre Boston to start

Not saying I'm right but those 2016 PFF ratings on folks like Hyde/Poyer/P Brown, etc are not confidence builders

 

jc

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