Do the Bills now have the worst defense in NFL?

[dave mcbride]

In general I agree with you but if this is the case why let Fletcher walk only to have to replace him with a high draft pick? Why let Milloy walk to replace him with a top 10 safety? Milloy, while not great, was certainly serviceable and if the front 7 was upgraded would have been good enough. The Bills used, what, 5 draft picks last year on the secondary, one on the DL and one on the OL? That might not be exact, but it's not far off. It wouldn't surprise me if the Bills grabbed a CB with pick #1 this year. Overall, that doesn't sound like the plan you plot out.

 

I'll agree that the OL appears to have gotten better but the front 7 on D is much worse than it was 2-3 years ago and now, minus Clements, so is the secondary. Again, I don't disagree that in the long term the Bills could be better off getting rid of Clements (for salary purposes) and Fletch (do to age and below average run stopping) and moving on but people are kidding themselves if they think this D won't be worse next year. They will be just as bad against the run and much worse against the pass. Imo, we're looking at a bottom 5-7 D here even if they use a few high round picks on DT and MLB. The only way this doesn't happen is if Whitner blossoms into a game changing safety, McCargo comes on like gangbusters in year 2, Youboty (or a draft pick) is instantly a fine CB and whoever they draft at MLB doesn't take long to get accustomed to the NFL. All of that could happen, but the odds are very slim. I'd love to see the Bills grab Harper to play CB as that would help the team next year tremendously and allow them to concentrate on the front seven in the draft.

 

My main beef with this entire thing is the fact that the Bills went to the cover 2 in the first place. They pretty much forced this D on personnel that wasn't suited for it. Why use a cover 2 when you have a top man-to-man CB in Clements? Why use a cover 2 when you don't have a MLB or DTs that are suited for it in the middle? Why use a cover 2 when you don't have the Safeties to play it? So what do they do? They cut the only good/decent DT they had, cut the SS, cut the FS and let the MLB and #1CB walk away via FA after 1 year in the D. The only things the Bills had on D that suited the cover 2 were the DEs. Yet, we wonder why the D is horrid? It's going to take years to draft all the people this D needs to be successful after the overhaul moving to the D caused. My only hope is that once we get the pieces in place for it Marv doesn't step down as GM (he is 80+) and the new GM brings in a new coaching staff that gets rid of the cover 2 and begins to bring in personnel for the new D scheme.

 

No disrespect intended, but you have no idea as to who the Bills will draft in April. You also have no idea as to whether the Bills defense will be worse or better. It is inarguable that the Bills' good years on defense -- really going back to 79-80, if you think about it -- coincide precisely with the years they've had strong front sevens. Good cornerbacks are nice, but they're frosting on the cake, in my opinion. Note that I am not talking about last year's draft, which in any case should not be taken to be indicative of what will happen this year. In his press conference, Levy said that the Bills need to get better in their offensive line and defensive front seven play. So far, I have no reason to believe that he's being deceptive about effecting a plan that will address these issues.

 

Incidentally, while I know many will disagree with me, I regard Fletcher as "just a guy" (I put very little stock in tackle stats). He looks pretty good when decent defensive tackles play in front of him, and he looks pretty mediocre (or worse, as anyone who watched the Rams' wretched D in 2000 and the Bills D in 2002 will recall) when they don't. He's not the sort of guy (like Urlacher, Ray Lewis in his prime, a healthy Dan Morgan, the Sam Cowart of 2000, or -- dare I say it -- Zach Thomas) who will elevate a front seven's play regardless of who is in front of him. He's also not going to be getting any faster moving forward.

[Koufax]

I agree that absent knowledge of problems it would have caused, Marv's promise was not a smart one. If we could have had Nate happy in camp and playing well without the promise we shouldn't have made it, and even if not, I don't think the promise was a great one.

 

But once made, it should have been respected, and no way we want to pay Nate 8/80.

 

So Nate is gone and we are technically worse for it, but financially better (and can spend that money on both sides of the ball). I still think the brain trust thinks we will be better without London for level of play reasons, and it was not a financial decision. Still not sure on how that plays out, but I can see it happening.

[MDH]

No disrespect intended, but you have no idea as to who the Bills will draft in April. You also have no idea as to whether the Bills defense will be worse or better.

 

 

By that same token you don't know if the OL will be better or worse. It's called an educated guess, sure I don't know[/i ]but it's a reasonable projection. Just like projecting that the OL will be better is reasonable.