Simon Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 Giving up your feet can NEVER be an advantage for a run stopper. The ability to hold your footing and keep your balance are the most fundamental parts of shutting down the run along the defensive interior, and Ron Edwards is incapable of doing either one with any consistency. I agree with everything you're saying about Edwards' continued difficulties, but would only add this. Whenever he loses leverage and is being knocked out of his gap, a well-coached DT should just hit the ground and make a pile instead of continuing to be driven backwards or laterally. Have you seen Edwards doing this when guys get up underneath him? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKC Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 I agree with everything you're saying about Edwards' continued difficulties, but would only add this. Whenever he loses leverage and is being knocked out of his gap, a well-coached DT should just hit the ground and make a pile instead of continuing to be driven backwards or laterally. Have you seen Edwards doing this when guys get up underneath him? 448362[/snapback] Not where it looks as if it's on purpose. He has gone down a few times in this calendar year but he's left himself on his back on at least one of those; hard to help out on your back even if you're athletic. Since we're seeing Anderson and the occasional Bannon rep, I have to believe it's only a matter of time before the team concludes the Edwards experiment failed and gives one of the others the field time. You have a favorite? I recall seeing Anderson make a great lateral move off a block in the preseason and keeping his horizontal line getting 3 gaps up to hold the runner for no gain. He seems to have the edge on potential so I'm to some degree hoping this is where the Ouija pointer ends up. Clearly we're allowing potential to dictate our effectiveness on the other side of the ball so why not do it defensively? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKC Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 (I know he's been out for some but he's also stayed in for some)? Otherwise they would just scrap the idea and put in Anderson to learn the ropes, or use Bannan/Sape/Etc. no? 448341[/snapback] He's actually not assigned in any of our passing packages, instead we're using Big Sam with Ryan Denney or Chris Kelsay. That's why Edwards never got on the field in the 4th quarter of the Houston game, we played all nickel and dime packages. The passing plays he's seen were on rushing downs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finknottle Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 Drew isn't around to kick anymore, Lindell connected on all his field goals and Reed made 7 catches without dropping one. There needs to be the new poo boy. 448273[/snapback] The most succinct analysis I've seen yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB2004 Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 He's always sucked against the run, including all pre-season and last week. He can't hold ground against single team blocks and so he becomes as useless as a spinning top in the run game. I've broken it down throughout the pre-season and given the plays. It was simply a matter of time before our opponents discovered what our film clearly shows. Expect a lot more of it. It boils down to this: He's a square peg being pounded into a round hole- he should be on the field in passing situations only and instead he's being used exactly the opposite way. The team's refusal to address our DT depth this off-season will be the story of the season itself- a season in which we can expect to be run over regularly unless we adopt a different strategy. At least Anderson plays low- I'm for giving him the starting role and moving Edwards back to the nickel and dime sets. This would also give Sam some much needed down time. 447131[/snapback] I agree with that. Eventually teams will look at the tape and run at Ron. Is he good against the pass? I'd say above average, but unless he can stop the run, teams are going to run right at him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKC Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 question - if the jags hadn't drafted marcus stroud at #13 in 01, do you think the bills would have? believe me, i'm not complaining about the results -- we dropped to 21 and picked up clements. i'm just curious as to your thoughts. a lot of prognosticators had the bills taking stroud. he's turned out to be a real load. by the way who is the last good interior lineman the bills have drafted? fred smerlas? that'd be my guess. that was about 25 years ago, if memory serves ... 448333[/snapback] If you pick up 2 or 3 pre-draft pubs each off-season, a curse I'm sure many share with me, you've probably noticed the trend that 1 or 2 of them predict us picking up a first or second round interior DLineman for maybe the last 4 seasons. Nationally we've been considered thin at DT even with PW, and based upon our opponent rosters it's even more clear. Then this decision to try to turn Edwards into something he just isn't physically set up for- but the reality is every off-season there's usually 2 or 3 vets who become available who can help a team with quality depth in the middle. The best teams in the league have some balance of drafted youth to veteran talent, but I'm still of the opinion you can make it work with one or two guys on the downside if you package them right. So I can't put the whole blame on missed draft ops, there's plenty to consider when your season might very well be riding on it about whether to make an honest play at a Corey Simon rather than simply getting your name in the paper as "interested". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
booya2 Posted September 21, 2005 Share Posted September 21, 2005 I agree... Edwards is OK at best. Decent pass rusher, but not able to affectively stop the run. What we saw Sunday was eerily similar to what we saw in '01-'02, teams gashed us right up the middle almost at will, and Jerry Gray and the defense look awful. When Sam Adams, Pat Williams and London Fletcher were all in to defend the run in '03 and '04, it was a totally different story and Jerry Gray and the defense were brilliant. From what I've observed in my years of watching football... the strategy of building a defense from the inside out is the basis of a dominant defense. Starting with 2 mammoth tackles that can't be moved and command double teams and a good MLB will take a team a long way. We've seen time and again what 2 huge tackles do in the middle of a defense. Urlacher was becoming a living legend when he had Trayler and Washington in front of him... Ray Lewis was actually deserving of all the hype he gets when he had Siragusa and Adams in front of him. You take one guy out of the equation and everything falls off. We're seeing the same thing happening here and it is disturbing. It apparently didn't make cap sense to do it, but clearly had we been able to land Corey Simon or retain Pat Williams, Cadillac Williams would've rushed for half the yards if that this past Sunday and we don't get crushed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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