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Wk 1 Le'veon Bell, Wk 2 Saquon, Wk 3 Joe Mixon


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I think the Bill's will have a top three secondary this year and teams will try to establish the run against us early.  In the first three games of the season the Bill's defense is going to face Le'veon Bell, Saquon Barkley, and Joe Mixon. If we're going to win those games we will need to have our run defense show up and play hard. 

 

Our run defense was clearly the weak spot in our defense last season and it's hard to say how much better they are going to be this year.  We will have Edmonds with a year under his belt and a healthy Milano back and that's clearly a plus.  Just about the entire defense returns this season, in the same scheme, and I think that is a positive.  Oliver will likely be the only new starter and I'm not sure what swapping out Kyle for Oliver does on the D-line for the run defense, I can make arguments both ways there.  With strong cornerback play we can let the safeties cheat a bit more and bring them down into the box for run support.  I think we have solid tackling safeties. 

 

Bell and Barkley in particular have also made those little dump passes and YAC a major part of their game and our defense is going to have to be able to handle that aspect as well. 

 

Bell averaged 86 rush yds and 43 rec yds a game in 2017

Saquon averaged 81 rush yds and 45 rec yds a game in 2018

Mixon averaged 83 rush yds and 21 rec yds in 2018

 

All three are the focal point of their offenses, especially with the Giants WR corps in shambles and with the possibility of AJ Green being out or on a snap count against us Week 3. If the Bills defense can keep Bell, Saquon, and Mixon all under 100 total yards of total offense in those games we should win.

 

It won't get much easier after that, we play New England Week 4, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Belichick's offense continue to emphasize the power running game.  Our run defense is going to get thrown into the fire this year right out of the gate.  I hope they will be up to it.

 

 

 

Edited by Inigo Montoya
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Counterintuitively perhaps, of those 3 RB matchups, Bell actually scares me the least—I think it’s great we face him in Week 1 as opposed to 4, he will have a missed season’s worth of rust to shake off, and his vaunted “patience” to pick and choose his spots to burst through a seam will be sorely tested as his newly minted gangrenous OL is shaping up to be more Cardinals-esque than Steeler gold, which Bell has never had to deal with in his pro career. We’ve seen firsthand what poor OL play will do to a premier back, no? Looking for the Bills’ DL to feast accordingly. Also, kind of tough to play to establish the run if Josh, Bease and Smoky Brown are busy   putting up quick strike points in the first half...

 

[Edit: adding link to Peter King’s column discussing the same issue for Bell, from this morning—jump to the Jets TC notes portion to find.]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/07/29/cam-newton-panthers-training-camp-nfl-fmia-peter-king/

Edited by NoHuddleKelly12
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5 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

I think the Bill's will have a top three secondary this year and teams will try to establish the run against us early.  In the first three games of the season the Bill's defense is going to face Le'veon Bell, Saquon Barkley, and Joe Mixon. If we're going to win those games we will need to have our run defense show up and play hard. 

 

Our run defense was clearly the weak spot in our defense last season and it's hard to say how much better they are going to be this year.  We will have Edmonds with a year under his belt and a healthy Milano back and that's clearly a plus.  Just about the entire defense returns this season, in the same scheme, and I think that is a positive.  Oliver will likely be the only new starter and I'm not sure what swapping out Kyle for Oliver does on the D-line for the run defense, I can make arguments both ways there.  With strong cornerback play we can let the safeties cheat a bit more and bring them down into the box for run support.  I think we have solid tackling safeties. 

 

Bell and Barkley in particular have also made those little dump passes and YAC a major part of their game and our defense is going to have to be able to handle that aspect as well. 

 

Bell averaged 86 rush yds and 43 rec yds a game in 2017

Saquon averaged 81 rush yds and 45 rec yds a game in 2018

Mixon averaged 83 rush yds and 21 rec yds in 2018

 

All three are the focal point of their offenses, especially with the Giants WR corps in shambles and with the possibility of AJ Green being out or on a snap count against us Week 3. If the Bills defense can keep Bell, Saquon, and Mixon all under 100 total yards of total offense in those games we should win.

 

It won't get much easier after that, we play New England Week 4, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Belichick's offense continue to emphasize the power running game.  Our run defense is going to get thrown into the fire this year right out of the gate.  I hope they will be up to it.

 

 

 

 

 

My feeling is that Oliver is an upgrade over the aging Kyle in run defense.

 

Check out the draft evaluations on him for run defense. He was generally rated higher in that part of his game. As a younger player, Kyle was much the same way, but he'd lost a bit last year.

 

We'll see.

 

As always, the less your offense scores, the more runs your defense will generally see. It'll be an interesting season.

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Hopefully the 10 returning starters on defense have improved on their tackling skills. With our scheduel loaded with quality RB's, making the playoffs might be difficult if we don't do a better job of stopping the run. Our first game against the Jet's will be an excellent test.

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Very tough backs, absolutely. However, of the three teams, I am not overly concerned their QB will strike enough fear in our defense to not sell out to stop those guys.

 

Used to happen to Buffalo, we used to hear we made QB "x" have to play QB, the following Monday- after watching (any)one of our former lackluster QBs be abysmal thru the air.

 

With our secondary constructed the way it is, I think we can absolutely commit to the run, leave the secondary on an island so to speak. 

 

Make Darnold beat us, make Manning/Jones beat us, make Dalton beat us. Mind you, especially without AJ Green, none of these three teams have WR weapons that scare me.

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Buffalo is certainly going to find out what kind of run defense they have.  If I recall last season correctly, there were a lot of plays where Buffalo would look like they have a great run defense, and then they would give up a 30 yard carry that would just break their backs.  The problem was consistency.  Tremaine Edmunds with a year of experience should help a lot, but the change on the defensive line creates a bit of uncertainty until we see what Jordan Phillips will do as a starter, or Oliver (if he's overtaken Phillips as starter by the season.

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10 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

You know what helps stop running teams?

 

scoring touchdowns

 

This is exactly right.  Go ahead on these teams so the run becomes something they have to go away from.  Then close the game out by moving to our defensive strength. 

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