A comparison of NFL O-Lines

[C.Biscuit97]

Lately, I've been wondering why the Bills offensive line has been awful since basically the glory days of the 90s. So feeling a little hungover and a little bored (basically killing time before the Sabres game), I wanted to see how other teams built their lines. I picked three teams, so based on the information, try and guess what team (don't cheat and look below ):

 

Team #1

RT 7th round

RG Undrafted Free Agent, cut by original team

LG UDFA

C 5th round, cut by original team

LG 1st round

LT 3rd round

 

Team #2

RT UDFA

RG 5th round

C 3rd round

LG 3rd round, cut by another team

LT 3rd round pick, cut by original team

 

Team #3

RT 4th round

RG 5th round

C UDFA

LG UDFA

LT 1st round pick

 

At a quick glance, it seems these teams built o-lines using similar methods. Some of the players were UDFA, so were mid-round picks, some were picked up from other teams, and only 2 were 1st round picks. So you would figure these teams would have similar results. Not really.

 

Team #1: the New England Patriots (boo):

RT 7th round (Brandon Gorin, cut by Chargers)

RG Undrafted FA (Stephen Neal)

C 5th round (Russ Hochstein, cut by Bucs)

LG 1st round (Logan Mankins)

LT 3rd round (Nick Kaczur)

 

Team #2, your Buffalo Bills:

RT Undrafted FA (Jason Peters)

RG 5th round (Chris Villarrial)

C 3rd round (Melvin Fowler)

LG 5th round (Tutan Reyes, cut by Saints)

LT 3rd round (Mike Gandy, cut by Bears)

 

Team #3, the Indianapolis Colts:

RT 4th round (Ryan Diem)

RG 5th round (Jake Scott)

C Undrafted FA(Jeff Saturday, cut by Ravens)

LG Undrafted FA (Ryan Lilja, cut by Chiefs)

LT 1st round Tarik Glenn

 

Granted, this is only a couple of teams. However, these are two really good teams and across the league as a whole, teams don't load their lines with high round picks. We drafted a guy 4th overall and that didn't work for us. So why does ours suck??? I'm just wondering some thoughts from some gurus on this board. Is it coaching (though we are supposed to have one of the best)? Is it scheme (our o-coordinators change like every year)? Another thought I had was how much QBs contributes to the line's problem. JP (in his first year as a starter), Bledsoe, RJ ( ), and Todd Collins aren't known for their fast decision-making. How much blame should they receive? How would Tom Brady or Peyton look behind our line? So if anyone has any answers, please share. Then hopefully we can pass then to the Bills and our line will stop sucking. Thanks for your time. Go Sabres!!!

[RJ (not THAT RJ)]

Thanks for this info. I have been saying for a long time that there is no magic formula for building an O-line, and this proves it. The sad thing is that the failure of the Bills line is not due to any failure to look for players, but rather in their failure to work out in games. That is unsatisfying to those who want to be able to pinpoint the one mistake, but is a reminder of how much these games are based on intangibles that cannot be automatically predicted.

[Nanker]

I'd say that Team #2 is bogus. That's not the guys that sucked last year and the year before. In fact the line probably sucked because of the guys that were in there last year and the years before that. Maybe these new guys won't suck nearly as bad (that might not be that hard even). But let's not put up this year's squad and say the suck automatically. That's not true. It can't be. They haven't played a game yet.

[Bill from NYC]

Thanks for this info. I have been saying for a long time that there is no magic formula for building an O-line, and this proves it. The sad thing is that the failure of the Bills line is not due to any failure to look for players, but rather in their failure to work out in games. That is unsatisfying to those who want to be able to pinpoint the one mistake, but is a reminder of how much these games are based on intangibles that cannot be automatically predicted.

690717[/snapback]

 

While there is no magic formula, looking at the Seahawks, Steelers and Bengals tells us that the closest thing to it is to draft these guys early and often.

On Seattle, Jones and Hutch (the best left side in football) were both first round picks. Both OTs on the Bengals were 1st rounders as well, and Steinbach was an early 2nd. The Steelers have taken OGs in the first round in fairly recent drafts, and Smith was an early 2nd.

 

The Bengals will probably not be able to keep their OL intact in 07 due to free agency, but they seem to keep stocking up on these guys to soften the blow. We otoh historically man our line with castoffs, often from poor teams.

Until this trend stops, it will be hard for the Bills to win football games.

[C.Biscuit97]

While there is no magic formula, looking at the Seahawks, Steelers and Bengals tells us that the closest thing to it is to draft these guys early and often.

On Seattle, Jones and Hutch (the best left side in football) were both first round picks. Both OTs on the Bengals were 1st rounders as well, and Steinbach was an early 2nd. The Steelers have taken OGs in the first round in fairly recent drafts, and Smith was an early 2nd.

 

The Bengals will probably not be able to keep their OL intact in 07 due to free agency, but they seem to keep stocking up on these guys to soften the blow. We otoh historically man our line with castoffs, often from poor teams.

Until this trend stops, it will be hard for the Bills to win football games.

690739[/snapback]

 

That's a fair point. However, the reason I posted the Colts and Pats is to show that teams don't need to draft linemen with high draft picks. How come they can make it work with castoffs and undrafted free agents?

[C.Biscuit97]

I'd say that Team #2 is bogus. That's not the guys that sucked last year and the year before. In fact the line probably sucked because of the guys that were in there last year and the years before that. Maybe these new guys won't suck nearly as bad (that might not be that hard even). But let's not put up this year's squad and say the suck automatically. That's not true. It can't be. They haven't played a game yet.

690736[/snapback]

 

Yeah, you're right. I probably should have used Teague (a seveth rounder) and Anderson (UDFA). And I don't necessarily think the Bills line will suck this year. But my question is how come a team like Indy can take 2 UDFAs at center and left guard and make them pro bowl caliber players? What are the Bills doing wrong?

[Chilly]

Yeah, you're right.  I probably should have used Teague (a seveth rounder) and Anderson (UDFA).  And I don't necessarily think the Bills line will suck this year.  But my question is how come a team like Indy can take 2 UDFAs at center and left guard and make them pro bowl caliber players?  What are the Bills doing wrong?

690749[/snapback]

 

Well, seeing as how they were both cut by other teams before signing with the Colts, it could be that other teams discovered the gems, and the Colts just made strong moves in free agency.

[RJ (not THAT RJ)]

While there is no magic formula, looking at the Seahawks, Steelers and Bengals tells us that the closest thing to it is to draft these guys early and often.

On Seattle, Jones and Hutch (the best left side in football) were both first round picks. Both OTs on the Bengals were 1st rounders as well, and Steinbach was an early 2nd. The Steelers have taken OGs in the first round in fairly recent drafts, and Smith was an early 2nd.

 

The Bengals will probably not be able to keep their OL intact in 07 due to free agency, but they seem to keep stocking up on these guys to soften the blow. We otoh historically man our line with castoffs, often from poor teams.

Until this trend stops, it will be hard for the Bills to win football games.

690739[/snapback]

 

 

I respect your football knowledge, Bill, but even your example reinforces my original point. You mention three playoff teams that have drafted OL (though I am not sure from your post whether their drafts were so very different from the last five Buffalo drafts) but the original post mentioned two other playoff teams that were built very much like the Bills. Glancing at all the playoff O-lines, I am struck by the great variety of strategies used to build good teams, and am also struck by how much fortuna is involved. I am sure that people who know more about these things can make marginal improvements, but on the whole I am not convinced that there is any single formula that can be applied with universal success. Heck, Bill Belichek should be sending flowers to the Jets the rest of his life; without that hard hit on Bledsoe, Tom Brady would still be an unknown.

 

(I know, I know, that last example is not OL-related, but it is a good example of the role of the unpredictable and unforeseeable in sports success.)

[The Jokeman]

Granted, this is only a couple of teams.  However, these are two really good teams and across the league as a whole, teams don't load their lines with high round picks.  We drafted a guy 4th overall and that didn't work for us.  So why does ours suck???  I'm just wondering some thoughts from some gurus on this board.  Is it coaching (though we are supposed to have one of the best)?  Is it scheme (our o-coordinators change like every year)?  Another thought I had was how much QBs contributes to the line's problem.  JP (in his first year as a starter), Bledsoe, RJ ( ), and Todd Collins aren't known for their fast decision-making.  How much blame should they receive?  How would Tom Brady or Peyton look behind our line?  So if anyone has any answers, please share.  Then hopefully we can pass then to the Bills and our line will stop sucking.  Thanks for your time.  Go Sabres!!! 

690713[/snapback]

You put up some good analysis but you missed a few key points.

 

1) Fowler was traded by the Browns for Nate Dorsey, so while it wasn't a cut but it was an indication the Browns feeling that Fowler wasn't worth keeping around.

 

2) the Pats' starting center is Dan Koppen (5th Round pick of Pats) not Hockstein. So while he was picked in the same Round he wasn't cut/traded by his original team which to me indicates he has a little more value then a higher round pick that was let go by his original team (see Gandy and/or Fowler).

[Typical TBD Guy]

Lately, I've been wondering why the Bills offensive line has been awful since basically the glory days of the 90s. 

690713[/snapback]

 

To quote some wise TBD'er, "it's not rocket surgery" :

 

1. The QB: you need to have a mentally sound QB, in terms of field vision, pressure awareness, and the like....a guy who knows when to get rid of the ball and where to move within the pocket in order to buy more time...because no matter how good your OL is, it WILL eventually break down...since Kelly left, we have not had such a QB (Clodd Tollins, Robbery J, Duh Bledslow, and now Mr. "I scored a 14 on the Wonderlic because I had to pee" Losman).

 

2. Raw talent: generally speaking, the earlier you draft OL the better the talent (see Bill from NYC's above post). Also, the more often you draft OL the more likely you are to find talent. Simple stojan, right? Well, take a glance back at past Buffalo drafts and you'll find that since the days of Butler, we have not come even close to comprehending this simple theory (I posted a much more detailed analysis on Buffalo's OL draft history many months ago).

 

3. Coaching turnover: not only regarding the change in coaches, but the change in offensive systems as well. Here's where Buffalo's offense has really fallen apart since the Super Bowl days (and where Ralph Wilson certainly deserves a share of the blame for the OL's failures). In the TD-era alone, we were a West Coast offense followed by a run n' shoot-style Gilbride offense followed by a bull sh--/gadget Coach Meathead offense in the relatively short span of 5 seasons. Kinda hard for your linemen to master their blocking assignments when you have such coaching and playbook instability, eh?

 

4. Player turnover: when you've found a group of players that work well together, you stick with them. This particular theory hasn't been tested much in Buffalo since guys like Wolford left, because - quite frankly - we haven't found much of anything that HAS worked . But as a good rule of thumb, the longer two or more quality linemen play next to each other, the more effective they can become. So when you find quality linemen, you keep them (and keep them healthy). Sometimes you may even want to (gasp!) overpay to keep them. I hope Marv, for example, will enable The Jason Peters Project to remain at RT in Buffalo for a long time.

 

5. Not related, but important nevertheless: GO SABRES!!!!!!

[Rico]

^^^^

Also, the Pats starting LT is Matt Light, a 2nd-rounder from THE Purdue University.

 

Biggest of many reasons why this OL sucked (note the positive past tense ) is MW and his contract.... killed this team on so many different levels.

[UConn James]

^^^^

Also, the Pats starting LT is Matt Light, a 2nd-rounder from THE Purdue University.

 

Biggest of many reasons why this OL sucked (note the positive past tense ) is MW and his contract.... killed this team on so many different levels.

690777[/snapback]

 

Purdue doesn't stress the THE as their trademark thingie. Their claim to fame is having put more people into space than Eli Lilly.

 

On topic, Kelso pretty much nailed it. But in the Coaching Turnover category, I would add that we've had to work with the remnants of those several different philosophies in amalgum. I think generally, it's called 'bad fit.' It's now up to Jauron et al. to try to make some kind of combination that will work.*

 

*Not running the Meathead trickery shovel pass to Shelton from the 1 should help.

[Rico]

Purdue doesn't stress the THE as their trademark thingie.

690795[/snapback]

They don't... I do.

[/dev/null]

*Not running the Meathead trickery shovel pass to Shelton from the 1 should help.

690795[/snapback]

 

a trick shovel pass to the FB from the 1 yard line?

Brilliant!

[obie_wan]

That's a fair point.  However, the reason I posted the Colts and Pats is to show that teams don't need to draft linemen with high draft picks.  How come they can make it work with castoffs and undrafted free agents?

690748[/snapback]

 

 

because they implement a system which has been consistently applied for a long time.

 

The Bills have a jeckyl and hide group constantly whipsawed between a power run group having to defend a statute. The GM got bulldozers when they needed dancing bears.

 

It will help tremendously now that there the coaching staff and the front office are on the same page as to what types of OL personnel are needed to run the offense. Sounds like the line will need to be quicker with the ability to trap and pull which will provide more flexibilty over the pound it between the tackles approach from last year.

[jarthur31]

You need more than just talent to win; you need heart. We haven't had that since those SB runs. They knew they were better than their opponents across the line even if they were smaller. They took it to em and it showed.

[WhitnerIsAGod]

A couple more points.

 

The Bills have hired some totally incompetent position coaches in recent years via cronyism. Gregg Williams' bringing in his childhood pal as OL was one of those supreme blunders. The Bills now have two OL coaches and both have long coaching resumes.

 

The last few years, the plan seemed to be any square peg fits any round hole. The general pecking order along a line is C, LT, LG, RT, RG. The Bills seemed to favor picking up free agents that were RGs (i.e. the worst lineman on the unit), from teams with bad offenses, and promoting those guys to more demanding positions.

 

Furthermore, since the offensive system and philosophy was changed more frequently than most posters on this board change their underwear, the right players for the system were never around. Sign some finesse pass blockers and the coaches would decide to try the wishbone. Sign a couple road graders with zero pass blocking skills and the coaches decide to take a 7 step drop and try to complete bombs every play.

 

What a complete cluster.

[Pyrite Gal]

A couple more points.

 

The Bills have hired some totally incompetent position coaches in recent years via cronyism.  Gregg Williams' bringing in his childhood pal as OL was one of those supreme blunders.    The Bills now have two OL coaches and both have long coaching resumes.

 

690975[/snapback]

 

Even this indictment does not give full justice to just how not-ready for the NFL GW was (I he was hired by TD because TD was confident he could stop GW from ) running him out of town like Cowher did) and though these coachimg errprs were not the whole story of our OL problems since the early 90s it is a big part of it that must be mentioned to make any OL analysis rational.

 

1. Vinklarek was not only hired it seems mainly due to his being a lifelong friend of GW, but even worse he had never ever been an OL position coach before.

2. When even GW realized that Vinky was not cutting it he replaced him with Pat Ruel who had all of 1 year's experience as am OL coach at Detroit.

 

This the crew working under the quickly fired Sheppard and good ol Kevin Killdrive that actually oversaw the selection and training of MW. If you want to blame the player fine, but this does not free Vinky of blame since he assessed him.

 

While one could argue and I wouldn;t oppose the idea that MW was never gonna play well for anyone, this does not eradicate the fact that a player wheter great or bad is going to be worse with Vinky than with another coach.

[BuffOrange]

We otoh historically man our line with castoffs, often from poor teams.

 

"Well this guy can't be any worse than _!"

How many times have we all been bitten in the ass by that old standby rationale?

[BuffOrange]

You need more than just talent to win; you need heart.  We haven't had that since those SB runs.  They knew they were better than their opponents across the line even if they were smaller.  They took it to em and it showed.

690885[/snapback]

 

The Super Bowl teams didn't try harder than Wade's.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Even this indictment does not give full justice to just how not-ready for the NFL  GW was (I he was hired by TD because TD was confident he could stop GW from ) running him out of town like Cowher did) and though these coachimg errprs were not the whole story of our OL problems since the early 90s it is a big part of it that must be mentioned to make any OL analysis rational.

690990[/snapback]

 

Williams was "ready for the NFL" -- hell, he had been an excellent NFL Def. Coor. for 4 years before coming to Buffalo. And he is still one of the better Def. Coor. in the game today.

 

The problem was that he wasn't nearly as "prepared" to be an NFL head coach as he and Tom Donahoe thought he was. His mishiring of assistants, particularly on offense, were supreme blunders that set the franchise back years. Donahoe deserves a big part of the blame for this as well. Not just for hiring Williams, but for the way he mentored Williams after he hired him (apparently he didn't, he just let Gregg run around with his lists). A bad mix of the inexperienced novice and the pompously arrogant.

[Pyrite Gal]

I though it was pretty obvious that I meant by my shorthand that he was not ready for an HC job as he clearly had been around for awhile in the NFL and was a very successful DC,

 

I guess what I assume is quite obvious is not to some and thus my posts will have to be even longer as I recite all the detail I assume I could skip.

[Sisyphean Bills]

I though it was pretty obvious that I meant by my shorthand that he was not ready for an HC job as he clearly had been around for awhile in the NFL and was a very successful DC,

691068[/snapback]

 

You may have meant that, but you didn't say it. Many Bills fans think Gregg Williams was the worst coach ever and lay it on super thick. Basically, because they still believe Ol' Whitey was a poor victim.

 

I am not one of those people. Gregg Williams made some serious blunders, but he is an excellent football coach. The circumstances in Buffalo were terrible for any inexperienced head coach trying to find his own way. One way of looking at it was that Donahoe threw away Williams' first season by gutting the team of talent. Then by the 3rd year, Williams intentionally became a lame duck coach (Why?) and stood by as Donahoe ran a draft aimed at getting players that would never play a down for Williams. That leaves the one middle year, 2002, when the Bills went 8-8 under Williams and had a pretty good run in a very strong division.

[obie_wan]

You may have meant that, but you didn't say it.  Many Bills fans think Gregg Williams was the worst coach ever and lay it on super thick.  Basically, because they still believe Ol' Whitey was a poor victim.

 

I am not one of those people.  Gregg Williams made some serious blunders, but he is an excellent football coach.  The circumstances in Buffalo were terrible for any inexperienced head coach trying to find his own way.  One way of looking at it was that Donahoe threw away Williams' first season by gutting the team of talent.  Then by the 3rd year, Williams intentionally became a lame duck coach (Why?) and stood by as Donahoe ran a draft aimed at getting players that would never play a down for Williams.  That leaves the one middle year, 2002, when the Bills went 8-8 under Williams and had a pretty good run in a very strong division.

691094[/snapback]

 

Since TD didn't fife Gilbride and GW during the lost 2003 season, he should have stuck by his guns and kept GW. TD caved in to fan pressure and brought in his protege - Mullarkey.

 

 

This writing may have been on the wall which is why GW refused an extension.

[BB2004]

Lately, I've been wondering why the Bills offensive line has been awful since basically the glory days of the 90s.  So feeling a little hungover and a little bored (basically killing time before the Sabres game), I wanted to see how other teams built their lines.  I picked three teams, so based on the information, try and guess what team (don't cheat and look below  ):

 

Team #1

RT    7th round

RG   Undrafted Free Agent, cut by original team

LG   UDFA

C    5th round, cut by original team

LG   1st round

LT   3rd round

 

Team #2

RT   UDFA

RG  5th round

C    3rd round

LG  3rd round, cut by another team

LT  3rd round pick, cut by original team

 

Team #3

RT  4th round

RG  5th round

C  UDFA

LG  UDFA

LT  1st round pick

 

At a quick glance, it seems these teams built o-lines using similar methods.  Some of the players were UDFA, so were mid-round picks, some were picked up from other teams, and only 2 were 1st round picks.  So you would figure these teams would have similar results.  Not really. 

 

Team #1: the New England Patriots (boo):

RT   7th round (Brandon Gorin, cut by Chargers)

RG  Undrafted FA (Stephen Neal)

C    5th round (Russ Hochstein, cut by Bucs)

LG  1st round (Logan Mankins)

LT  3rd round (Nick Kaczur)

 

Team #2, your Buffalo Bills:

RT Undrafted FA (Jason Peters)

RG 5th round (Chris Villarrial)

C  3rd round (Melvin Fowler)

LG 5th round (Tutan Reyes, cut by Saints)

LT 3rd round (Mike Gandy, cut by Bears)

 

Team #3, the Indianapolis Colts:

RT 4th round (Ryan Diem)

RG 5th round (Jake Scott)

C  Undrafted FA(Jeff Saturday, cut by Ravens)

LG Undrafted FA (Ryan Lilja, cut by Chiefs)

LT 1st round Tarik Glenn

 

Granted, this is only a couple of teams.  However, these are two really good teams and across the league as a whole, teams don't load their lines with high round picks.  We drafted a guy 4th overall and that didn't work for us.  So why does ours suck???  I'm just wondering some thoughts from some gurus on this board.  Is it coaching (though we are supposed to have one of the best)?  Is it scheme (our o-coordinators change like every year)?  Another thought I had was how much QBs contributes to the line's problem.  JP (in his first year as a starter), Bledsoe, RJ ( ), and Todd Collins aren't known for their fast decision-making.  How much blame should they receive?   How would Tom Brady or Peyton look behind our line?  So if anyone has any answers, please share.  Then hopefully we can pass then to the Bills and our line will stop sucking.  Thanks for your time.  Go Sabres!!!  

690713[/snapback]

 

This was the one area we needed to get better at and did we? I really don't think so. However, if the line plays a little better than last year, I think we will be able to hold our own and the offensive line will be competitive.

[dave mcbride]

That's a fair point.  However, the reason I posted the Colts and Pats is to show that teams don't need to draft linemen with high draft picks.  How come they can make it work with castoffs and undrafted free agents?

690748[/snapback]

you've gotta factor in the qbs - brady and manning are the best in the league, and their decision making, accuracy, and ability to act quickly and decisively makes otherwise ordinary lines look a lot better. the bills haven't had a top tier qb in a long time, so we've forgotten how important that is. flutie was the closest we've had since kelly, but he obviously had some flaws in his game.

[stuckincincy]

you've gotta factor in the qbs - brady and manning are the best in the league, and their decision making, accuracy, and ability to act quickly and decisively makes otherwise ordinary lines look a lot better. the bills haven't had a top tier qb in a long time, so we've forgotten how important that is. flutie was the closest we've had since kelly, but he obviously had some flaws in his game.

691392[/snapback]

 

The Bills history doesn't seem packed with top qb's. Fergy, Kelly, Kemp in a different era. Lamonica and Harris, they let go of...

 

They've had a few with one or two nice years - DB, Flutie.

[C.Biscuit97]

you've gotta factor in the qbs - brady and manning are the best in the league, and their decision making, accuracy, and ability to act quickly and decisively makes otherwise ordinary lines look a lot better. the bills haven't had a top tier qb in a long time, so we've forgotten how important that is. flutie was the closest we've had since kelly, but he obviously had some flaws in his game.

691392[/snapback]

 

I agree with this point. However, some people try to make you believe you can throw anyone behind a good line. I guess another question could be what happens if Losman and Big Ben switched teams? How would the two teams be different?

[Bill from NYC]

I agree with this point.  However, some people try to make you believe you can throw anyone behind a good line. 

691608[/snapback]

 

Imo, it is more complex than this. For instance, how good do you think that Trent Green is?

The Chiefs plug in backs who gain huge yardage seemingly at will. This is because of their consistently superior OL, led by Roaf, Shields, etc. Wouldn't you say that this makes life a whole lot easier for Green?

Trent is a proven pro, but his arm is not great and he is old, yet he puts forth great numbers. I make the case that he would get murdered on the Bills.

Palmer and Big Ben are examples of talented young qbs who are lucky enough to play behind great lines and have and have good skill players as well. Do you think that either of them would transform the Bills into a good football team? I simply do not.

Now, would JP have won many games on one of these teams? It is hard to say. Imo, he hasn't had a chance to develop because of injuries and a disgraceful set of blockers. Do I like what I have seen? Not really, but he does have talent, and at least some chance to be a good qb.

At least Levy gave him a new secondary to help him in 06.

[dave mcbride]

Imo, it is more complex than this. For instance, how good do you think that Trent Green is?

The Chiefs plug in backs who gain huge yardage seemingly at will. This is because of their consistently superior OL, led by Roaf, Shields, etc. Wouldn't you say that this makes life a whole lot easier for Green?

Trent is a proven pro, but his arm is not great and he is old, yet he puts forth great numbers. I make the case that he would get murdered on the Bills.

Palmer and Big Ben are examples of talented young qbs who are lucky enough to play behind great lines and have and have good skill players as well. Do you think that either of them would transform the Bills into a good football team? I simply do not.

Now, would JP have won many games on one of these teams? It is hard to say. Imo, he hasn't had a chance to develop because of injuries and a disgraceful set of blockers. Do I like what I have seen? Not really, but he does have talent, and at least some chance to be a good qb.

At least Levy gave him a new secondary to help him in 06.     

691642[/snapback]

 

so:

 

pretty good qb behind mediocre-to-bad o-line = bad

pretty good qb behind good e-line = good

 

great qb behind average o-line - still great

[Bill from NYC]

so:

 

pretty good qb behind mediocre-to-bad o-line = bad

pretty good qb behind good e-line = good

 

great qb behind average o-line - still great

691655[/snapback]

 

Over-simplified perhaps, but close imo.

 

A great qb behind an average qb might not last long. Also, I am not sure how many qbs today I would classify as "great."

Tough call these days, no?

[Pyrite Gal]

You may have meant that, but you didn't say it.  Many Bills fans think Gregg Williams was the worst coach ever and lay it on super thick.  Basically, because they still believe Ol' Whitey was a poor victim.

 

I am not one of those people.  Gregg Williams made some serious blunders, but he is an excellent football coach.  The circumstances in Buffalo were terrible for any inexperienced head coach trying to find his own way.  One way of looking at it was that Donahoe threw away Williams' first season by gutting the team of talent.  Then by the 3rd year, Williams intentionally became a lame duck coach (Why?) and stood by as Donahoe ran a draft aimed at getting players that would never play a down for Williams.  That leaves the one middle year, 2002, when the Bills went 8-8 under Williams and had a pretty good run in a very strong division.

691094[/snapback]

 

I do not see why one must believe that either GW sucked or TD sucked. These two points are not mutually exlcusive at all.

 

I have no problem saying and have said almost from the start (though there was some benefit of the doubt I was willing to give him) that TD did deserve to be fired un the end and his first and I think biggest mistake was hiring an HC whom he knew he could beat if push came to shove as it did in Pitts with Cowher.

 

TD waited until all the HC slots except for his were filled and he had maxinum leverage. He then passed on Fox (who I knew little about and did not advocate for but his results indicate he would have been a far better choice) nor did he attract Lewis here (whose record also indicates he would have been a far better choice) and instead said he was blown away by the lists and contacts of GW.

 

 

Look, the proof is in the results and is confirmed by the incidents here which produced those results, GW was (and may still well be) a great DC but he was not ready to be a successful HC in this league.

 

Part of TDs power approach to make sure he was never again fired by a guy he hired, seemed to be to allow GW to make (what now seem to be seemingly obvious) failures as long as he did not get blamed for it.

 

1. TD sucked in letting GW select an OC who proved to be so bad he was canned after one year.

 

2, TD sucked in letting GW hore the OC he wanted (Kevin Killdrive) who proved to be so inflexible that once opponents got some film on his O they were able to completely stymie our offense. TDs candidate Clements obviously had his failings also but he was quite productive running an O that even got some production out of Bledsoe after the Killdrive O under Bledsoe went something like 9 straights quarters with no TDs in GW's last year.

 

3, My major problem with TD managing GW was that he put things in place for GW to manage his OC (he got an old buddy who was a former OC as our RB coach, but he never forced GW to rein Killdrive in.

 

I do not see how you can credibly argue that GW would have been a good HC if only ol Whitey had not been around, GW is one of the prime reasons why Ol' Whitey deserved to get canned for making bad hires.

[Orton's Arm]

Granted, this is only a couple of teams.  However, these are two really good teams and across the league as a whole, teams don't load their lines with high round picks. 

New England gets away with using lower round draft picks because they're looking for a different type of lineman than most teams. Belichick and Pioli are more willing than most teams to overlook the absence of elite athleticism if a guy has good intelligence, toughness, and passion for football. As for the Colts: I've read their offensive line's inadequate play was a big reason for their playoff loss; and that it's one of their biggest off-season needs. Not to say their line is anywhere as bad as ours, but on the other hand it's not as good a line as Pittsburgh's or Seattle's. As was pointed out, the latter two teams' lines were largely built through high draft picks.

 

Looking at the elite left tackles in the league, a lot of times those guys were chosen very early in the draft (Jonathan Ogden, Orlando Pace, Tony Boselli back before he got hurt, etc.) The strategy of building a good line through high draft picks is a good one. Of course, every time you find a good offensive lineman, you have to keep him. You don't let him hit free agency after just four years, as TD did with his lone OL drafting success.