Conch Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Below is the list of the offseason moves the Bills made to improve their run defense. 1. 2. 3. The Bills were 21st or worse in most defensive rushing categories including 1st downs, scoring, YPC and YPG. Like most of the bottom dozen rush defenses their defensive passing & overall stats skewed to look decent because their run defense was weak. Schobel is coming back and he is steady but everyone acknowledges that he is not a stalwart run defender, Maybin is an addition to the defense but he won't play many running downs, Denney and Kelsay are nothing special, no new DT's and with the exception os Stroud the defensive line is extremely mediocre. Counting on McCargo to come through is a long shot. Poz is not a dominant force at MLB, Mitchell is okay but Ellison would not start on any other team in the league. As they do not seem to be making any changes to their defensive philosophy or players is there any reason to expect any improvement in 2009? The pass rush may be slightly better but that's all I see. "Our defense will be better because our offense will be on the field more" is one of those nonsensical statements that people make that has no basis in fact. The defense will be as bad as last year because it is very mediocre unit and you do not win with a mediocre defense no matter how good your offense is. You will only find ways to lose higher scoring games. Or am I missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOBILLS78 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 I have to agree. I guess you just hope guys got better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busterramsey Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Your too kind actually, Brady is back, and both the Dolphins and Jets improved their offense so I expect a setback. 3-13 is a reasonable expectation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Big Cat Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Schobel is coming back and he is steady but everyone acknowledges that he is not a stalwart run defender. Yeah, everyone who's not a.) one of the Bills coaches or b.) someone who knows anything about football. Counting on McCargo to come through is a long shot. Why? Based on his performance in games to date? Seems that would suggest the opposite. As they do not seem to be making any changes to their defensive philosophy or players is there any reason to expect any improvement in 2009? The pass rush may be slightly better but that's all I see. How do you know they're not changing their defensive philosophy? How do you know that personnel situations in 2008 allowed them to even enact last year's defensive philosophy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.Biscuit97 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Below is the list of the offseason moves the Bills made to improve their run defense. 1. 2. 3. The Bills were 21st or worse in most defensive rushing categories including 1st downs, scoring, YPC and YPG. Like most of the bottom dozen rush defenses their defensive passing & overall stats skewed to look decent because their run defense was weak. Schobel is coming back and he is steady but everyone acknowledges that he is not a stalwart run defender, Maybin is an addition to the defense but he won't play many running downs, Denney and Kelsay are nothing special, no new DT's and with the exception os Stroud the defensive line is extremely mediocre. Counting on McCargo to come through is a long shot. Poz is not a dominant force at MLB, Mitchell is okay but Ellison would not start on any other team in the league. As they do not seem to be making any changes to their defensive philosophy or players is there any reason to expect any improvement in 2009? The pass rush may be slightly better but that's all I see. "Our defense will be better because our offense will be on the field more" is one of those nonsensical statements that people make that has no basis in fact. The defense will be as bad as last year because it is very mediocre unit and you do not win with a mediocre defense no matter how good your offense is. You will only find ways to lose higher scoring games. Or am I missing something? Despite what people on a message board, a lot of coaches think Schobel had his best year ever against the run in 2007. Enough to be a pro bowler as voted by his peers. I do agree that the major hope is that players will be better. There is no way that adding a former pro bowler, a 1st round pick, and a former 3rd pick to a rotational can't improve our terrible pass rush. But again, Maybin and Ellis have proven nothing but I'd rather roll the dice on them than see more of Copeland Bryan (no disrespect, he's just not NFL quality). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.Biscuit97 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Your too kind actually, Brady is back, and both the Dolphins and Jets improved their offense so I expect a setback. 3-13 is a reasonable expectation. Just going on a big limb here: you don't get laid a lot do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offde-fence Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 That is one of our 2 biggest question marks this season, I'd say, other than the O-line... and if we can't stop the run, we will lose, especially if we make the playoffs. But, we did make an addition that was not mentioned - a new defensive line coach. McCargo might be turning a corner this year if he can stay healthy. Even if that isn't the case, this coach might add enough in new techniques to take a group of average linemen and turn them into above average. Sanders was the D-coordinator for Green Bay, so, I'd imagine narrowing down his duties to just the D-line will allow him to have a bit of success. Look at what McNally did with Peters. If Sanders can do that with one guy, and lift a few others to a new level, then we could be decent. We'll have to wait and see. I can't imagine the Bills F.O. overlooked their poor play against the run, so, they must have a plan of some kind in place to improve there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conch Posted June 10, 2009 Author Share Posted June 10, 2009 Yeah, everyone who's not a.) one of the Bills coaches or b.) someone who knows anything about football. Why? Based on his performance in games to date? Seems that would suggest the opposite. How do you know they're not changing their defensive philosophy? How do you know that personnel situations in 2008 allowed them to even enact last year's defensive philosophy? You are correct, I don't know that they are not changing it. I made this assumption on the fact that we are hearing a lot about a new offensive philosophy - no huddle - and using the backs more as receivers - and mean and nasty upfront. The fact that they are not saying anything about a new defensive philosophy led me to assume we are not changing from the old one. I think we need to be mean and nasty with our front seven on defense but unfortunately I think we have a bunch of nice guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Big Cat Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 You are correct, I don't know that they are not changing it. I made this assumption on the fact that we are hearing a lot about a new offensive philosophy - no huddle - and using the backs more as receivers - and mean and nasty upfront. The fact that they are not saying anything about a new defensive philosophy led me to assume we are not changing from the old one. I think we need to be mean and nasty with our front seven on defense but unfortunately I think we have a bunch of nice guys. Well, we'll have to wait and see how the Maybin/Williams/Stroud/Schobel combo works out. I'd like to see McCargo return to form, and if that's the case there's three guys we didn't have in the rotation last year. Leaves room for optimism, IMO. As for hearing about the "new offense:" the BB.com PR machine has been touting all the offensive changes each off-season for the last three years, mainly because that's consistently been the team's weakest spot, by a long shot. Gotta keep them fans excited, and it's been tough to get excited lately about the offense. Take it all with a grain of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billsfan89 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Your too kind actually, Brady is back, and both the Dolphins and Jets improved their offense so I expect a setback. 3-13 is a reasonable expectation. The Jets have a rookie QB and lost their number 1 wide receiver and their o-line and top running back has gotten a year older so the Jets have taken a step back ( on the offensive side of the ball at least ). The Fins have improved but not by a big margin on the offensive side of the ball. As far as not improving the rush defense my guess is that they hope McCargo will take a step up and help the run defense. I really hoped that the Bills could have added a linebacker in free agency. But who knows there is still some decent linebackers out there (Derrick Brooks?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. WEO Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 I'd like to see McCargo return to form. Which form is that? The guy who keeps sustaining the same injury or the guy we tried to dump on the Colts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BUFFALOTONE Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Which form is that? The guy who keeps sustaining the same injury or the guy we tried to dump on the Colts? BA-ZING, agree totally some like to argue just to argue. Fact is we really didnt do anything to aid in stopping the run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsGuyInMalta Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 BA-ZING, agree totally some like to argue just to argue. Fact is we really didnt do anything to aid in stopping the run. At least we brought in some OLBs to stop the run. ...we didn't SIGN any of them, but hey...we brought them in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJBuffalo Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Maybe if we are a threat to score 25+ pts a game we won't need a great run defense. Teams bail out on the run game if they fall behind or feel the need to score points fast. Just a thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperKillerRobots Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 You are correct, I don't know that they are not changing it. I made this assumption on the fact that we are hearing a lot about a new offensive philosophy - no huddle - and using the backs more as receivers - and mean and nasty upfront. The fact that they are not saying anything about a new defensive philosophy led me to assume we are not changing from the old one. I think we need to be mean and nasty with our front seven on defense but unfortunately I think we have a bunch of nice guys. Assumption is the mother of all fukkup. I agree about mean guys up front though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Big Cat Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Which form is that? The guy who keeps sustaining the same injury or the guy we tried to dump on the Colts? The few performances he had in his second year (after missing rookie year because of his foot), he showed flashes of brilliance. Also, and I know everyone likes to just go on believing that the Bills organization can't scout talent, but we did think highly enough of him coming out of college to use a first rounder. So, based on the fact that he played well when he DID play, one would have to believe that him playing would be beneficial to the Bills. The guy doesn't suck because he got injured, that makes him unreliable. Had he played poorly in game situations, then we could say he was a crappy player. Until then, it's tough to criticize his quality of play, or even the quality of the pick, as both evaluations have been drastically hindered by unavoidable circumstances. And it wasn't the same injury. One was his foot, the other his back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fingon Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 We've been getting better on run D, and if current trends continue... we will be 19th next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DIE HARD 1967 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 You left out the improvements #1 We hired a Kungfu instructor #2 Ahhhh, I can't think of anymore #3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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