Are the Bills originating a new trend with such a deep D-line rotation?

[CheshireCT]

6 hours ago, uninja said:

what 50 does is mind boggling to me. He’s effectively a good DE who can also disengage off his block and play spy on the QB and keep contain. He’s basically pulling double duty out there. Last night the Chiefs had to assign Bolton to the spy role, which robs you of an LB to play in coverage. 
 

The fact that we can do that with Rousseau and still have him play is role on DE is nuts. 

 

Talk about striking gold. We got lucky that he played so little in college....would have never dropped that low in the first round.

[uninja]

10 minutes ago, CheshireCT said:

 

Talk about striking gold. We got lucky that he played so little in college....would have never dropped that low in the first round.

100% had he not opted out and had similar production the year before the draft, that’s a top 10, maybe top 5 pick in the draft. 

[Buffalo716]

Just now, uninja said:

100% had he not opted out and had similar production the year before the draft, that’s a top 10, maybe top 5 pick in the draft. 

Keyword is if he had similar production 

 

His draft stock certainly does rise if he plays again though

[Georgia Bill]

The rotation worked great last night.  At first after seeing KC hold the ball a long time and us scoring much quicker I got the old "crap, they're going to wear us down and by Q4 the D will be spent" concern.  NOT!   They were looking really fresh even near the end, still swarming.   I like a great D even more than a great O, and am loving what I'm seeing from this unit so far - fun to watch!

[billsfan89]

The 2018 Eagles who won a Super Bowl had a similar approach. McD came up through the Eagles organization under legend Jim Johnson and they always had a fairly deep defensive line approach. So I don't think they are necessarily innovating an approach here. But they have put in the draft and free agency dollars onto the D-line and it is paying off. They signed Hughes to a fairly big extension, signed Butler, Star and Addison to fairly large deals, invested two first and two second round picks in the span of three seasons and a third round pick. 

 

The massive investment of draft and cap capital is paying off. I think the only players that aren't significant free agents or picked in the first three rounds on the D-line are Zimmer and Obada. Loving the heavy investment in the lines. 

[maryland-bills-fan]

2 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

The 2018 Eagles who won a Super Bowl had a similar approach. McD came up through the Eagles organization under legend Jim Johnson and they always had a fairly deep defensive line approach. So I don't think they are necessarily innovating an approach here. But they have put in the draft and free agency dollars onto the D-line and it is paying off. They signed Hughes to a fairly big extension, signed Butler, Star and Addison to fairly large deals, invested two first and two second round picks in the span of three seasons and a third round pick. 

 

The massive investment of draft and cap capital is paying off. I think the only players that aren't significant free agents or picked in the first three rounds on the D-line are Zimmer and Obada. Loving the heavy investment in the lines. 

True.  One of my points is that the following is probably new.  The "new" situation is that there are several good running/good passing QB's playing on the top teas lately.  The "new" wrinkle, that I see, is that we are using waves of speedier defensive ends on our D-lines in order to be able to run these guys down (or chase them to give them less time).   We play these guys as DE and in the interior and have them bull rush a bit in order to contain the pocket and push in the pocket.  This would quickly wear out the DE's but we have a 3 deep set of them.

[Protocal69]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:17 AM, BearNorth said:

My real concern with this is how do you stop Derrick Henry or the Browns duo of RB's that are pounders.  Not as worried about Ekeler as we have pursuit speed.

4-3 defense

[Boatdrinks]

Nope. 90’s Cowboys had that philosophy 

[Augie]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:55 AM, auburnbillsbacker said:

Most teams don't have the depth to rotate in so many players.  Even our depth will likely take a hit during the off-season.

 

Exactly! This was a matter of needing to get younger and cheaper along the DL. We have to pay Josh and some others, so we needed to draft the next generation and see who is worth extending down the road. Fortunately, it seems like they have hit on most of these draft choices. Groot and Basham look good already, Ed looks like a new guy with Star next to him and even Epenesa looks like a different player this year. 

 

Nobody is perfect in the draft, but I sure like the group we have making the evaluations and decisions regarding how we build this team. 

[HardyBoy]

On 10/11/2021 at 3:50 PM, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

McD  has been doing this pretty much the last two seasons, the difference is he didn't have nearly as good a fleet of horses as he does this year to do it with.  The one thing that helps too is they don't have an Arron Donald type on the team as likely if you had to pay top $$ for any specific D lineman, you wouldn't be able to afford 8 other very good ones. 

 

Having Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham, plus Oliver on rookie contracts helps, plus not paying big money to either Zimmer or Obada.

 

Does make me wonder though, if they had a Bruce Smith type on the team, would they sub him out more or not.  Seems it's the trend in many sports for stars to play less.

 

Have to imagine it helps with injuries too, and helps maintain a high level of play for the entire season, instead of burning out.

 

Not saying this is a fair analogy, but would you rather have Bruce for 60% of snaps for 100% of games or 100% of snaps for 60% of games?

[Buffalo Barbarian]

On 10/11/2021 at 9:00 AM, Bob in STL said:

Gap control is important against the pounders.  A guy like Star is really helpful.  Did you see the replays of him eating 2 blockers at the point if attack. .  

 

i think Star is a big reason the defense has rebounded this year.Star

 

 

[machine gun kelly]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:17 AM, BearNorth said:

My real concern with this is how do you stop Derrick Henry or the Browns duo of RB's that are pounders.  Not as worried about Ekeler as we have pursuit speed.

Bear that’s where you go heavy.  You strain the secondary a little more by substituting Taron for a trad 4-3 with Klein who is a pounder with Milano and Edmunds.  We held the King to 53 yards last year and 80 the year before that.  The Star haters are going to hate how important he is Monday night.  Instead of all Oliver, you put Nasham in as his aternate as he has power and rotate AJ with Hughes.

 

my bet is Henry is under 80.  We’ll have to sub Klein and Taron in when we feel obvious pass plays.  Trust in Frasier.

[buffalo2218]

On 10/11/2021 at 7:43 AM, BearNorth said:

He had two TD's in that beat down they gave us last season. Right now he's on a pace to match last year's 2,000 yard season, and he has an extra game.

Yeah he may get his 2000 yards, but like last year, he will run out of gas. That playoff game against Baltimore last year, you could clearly see how worn down he was by the time that game started. Not taking anything at all away from Henry, dude is a straight up beast. Tennessee still hasn't learned balance but to be fair, Tannehill isn't exactly the QB to take some of the workload off Henry. Henry would be in heaven if he were in Buffalo

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

1 hour ago, HardyBoy said:

 

Have to imagine it helps with injuries too, and helps maintain a high level of play for the entire season, instead of burning out.

 

Not saying this is a fair analogy, but would you rather have Bruce for 60% of snaps for 100% of games or 100% of snaps for 60% of games?

 

It's been awhile, but did Bruce miss much time for injury?  Do recall him being out with the flu.

[Eastport bills]

Their Dline is the difference in this years improved defense. Rousseau, Star, AJ, Oliver, Hughes, Booger and Efe just keep coming in waves and stuffing the run. We have to hand it to Beane. He used the draft and a few low key FA signings to really improve this team.

[HardyBoy]

4 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

 

It's been awhile, but did Bruce miss much time for injury?  Do recall him being out with the flu.

 

Absolutely, it's not the greatest analogy,  but I do believe the Bills FO and training staff believe they can extend players' primes using proper sleep, nutrition and player usage.

 

The best inactive call I've seen in a really long time was Harrison Phillips. I think he plays if it wasn't for the rain in the forecast, and just a smart call given his knee history.

 

The benefit of an 11 deep dline rotation that has a ton of flexibility is they are going to be able to rotate some guys as inactives over the course of the year for match-up and random day off reasons. The best of course being when the matchup allows for a random day off...put your players in the best position to succeed a shot and rest two.

[Chandler#81]

It’s certainly novel. Whether it has staying power is debatable as it’s never been successful. For as thrilled as we are of these great rookie finds (GROOT, Boogie & Brown) it’s becoming unlikely we’ll be able to afford their 2nd contract. This isn’t the early 90’s. 
Regarding GROOT & Brown, in large part, what’s made this happen is excellent scouting of players who didn’t play last season. That’s unlikely to ever happen again. A tip of the cap and a wink towards Beane & Co., but one can’t count on this level of evaluation consistently. Bean already has ‘drafting Haters’ here while constructing a championship level squad. Where will the $$ come from in 4 years to keep Brown & Bashem? A year later, is it even possible we’ll re-sign GROOT with Milano, Tre, Dion looking for their THIRD contract and YUUUUUGE $$ going out for Josh & Tremaine? By then, Diggs will be the elder statesman but we’ll need his successor in place.

 

Again, it’s never happened. But it’s a nice thought.

[Matt_In_NH]

This is. It really new.  The cowgirls super bowl teams had quite a DL rotation.  

[maryland-bills-fan]

12 hours ago, Augie said:

 

Exactly! This was a matter of needing to get younger and cheaper along the DL. We have to pay Josh and some others, so we needed to draft the next generation and see who is worth extending down the road. Fortunately, it seems like they have hit on most of these draft choices. Groot and Basham look good already, Ed looks like a new guy with Star next to him and even Epenesa looks like a different player this year. 

 

Nobody is perfect in the draft, but I sure like the group we have making the evaluations and decisions regarding how we build this team. 

I suspect that players who are on a top team and have a good chance to get to the SB, AND are getting real playing time,,, will be okay with staying another year. We don't need 6 Bruce Smiths or even 2 Bruce Smiths.  That would be nice but a good player, who is fresh and playing against an exhausted o-line is going to be better in the 4th quarter than a tired Bruce playing against a not-exhausted o-line.

 

[maryland-bills-fan]

2 hours ago, Chandler#81 said:

It’s certainly novel. Whether it has staying power is debatable as it’s never been successful. For as thrilled as we are of these great rookie finds (GROOT, Boogie & Brown) it’s becoming unlikely we’ll be able to afford their 2nd contract. This isn’t the early 90’s. 
Regarding GROOT & Brown, in large part, what’s made this happen is excellent scouting of players who didn’t play last season. That’s unlikely to ever happen again. A tip of the cap and a wink towards Beane & Co., but one can’t count on this level of evaluation consistently. Bean already has ‘drafting Haters’ here while constructing a championship level squad. Where will the $$ come from in 4 years to keep Brown & Bashem? A year later, is it even possible we’ll re-sign GROOT with Milano, Tre, Dion looking for their THIRD contract and YUUUUUGE $$ going out for Josh & Tremaine? By then, Diggs will be the elder statesman but we’ll need his successor in place.

 

Again, it’s never happened. But it’s a nice thought.

...and we might get some draft capital if they leave as FA's-  but we probably would also be picking up enough good FA's who want to come here, so that would be a wash.

 

BUT, we could win by trading off some older good veteran (Addison?  Obada?  Johnson (6th rouder)) who still have time on their contract. The sixth round pick for Johnson will help in the 2022 draft:  (quote from an earlier post)

 

Quote

 

Carloina's 6th is probably the 186th player taken.  They might be picking  #10.  So using ( http://www.tankathon.com/nfl/full_draft   ) if the Bills are drafting @ #30. then that pick would enable them to move up the following ways in the draft.

round 1    move player 30 to player 29          +1 spot

round 2  move up playre 62 to player 59      +3 spots

round 3  move up 94   to 88                          +6 spots

round 4 move up 126 to 110                            +16 spots

round 5  move up 158 to 121                           +37 spots

round 6  move up 190 to 100                         +90 spots

 

IF there is  a guy we really want who is out of the top 100 spots,  this pick will make it quite easy to get hi

 

m.