VJ91

Excellent point. I did not realize how big the modern day 3-4 DE's are. Or maybe the Bills have gone so long without playing the 3-4, I just forgot about it. Either way, you are 100% correct, the Bills DE's are absolutely too small to play the 3-4. Oh well, I can still root for Ellis and Maybin to get more playing time then Kelsay as soon as possible, and hope the rest of the front 6 can cover their "gaps" well enough to improve over last season!

Yeah he's laughing his arse off all right. He also needs to win big at the slots to make up for the money he's not earning this season. It is so hillarious for him - he will have to play a mini-season of crappy football that nobody will watch for about $50,000.00. I'm sure he is feeling real good about himself right about now.

Is it really that hard? Well they must speak a different language up in Boston, since those defenders seem to be able to switch aligments from one week to the next, based on what Belechick and his defensive gurus think will work the best against each individual opponent. Plus, it seems to me Kelsay should have no problem being asked to simply "clog up the O-Linemen" instead of pass rushing, since he absolutely cannot rush the passer anyway. But maybe you're right, and Fewell won't change his beloved 4-3 "11-gap", "Cover-0 (especially not the tight ends)" defense anyway. I guess my only hope is for Ellis and Maybin to chase Kelsay to the bench by the first couple of games, so at least we will have stonger faster players at one of the DE positions anyway!

I always thought the great coordinators and head coaches set up schemes to play to their players strengths. If Dick & Perry are so married to this 4-3 scheme, then the FO sucks at finding the right types of players to play in it. If the coaches and players are so damn "accustomed" to playing this scheme, why do they suck at it so much? I'll give this team the preseason benefit of the doubt, with no real game planning. But I expect to see a different defense come Monday Night against the Pats. If Kelsay and Williams start and they stay in the 4-3, they will have the exact same front 7 from last season starting against New England. Boy, will they all be "accustomed" to Perry's scheme, huh? They had better play a hell of a lot better then they did the second half of last season, or 7 wins will be a fantasy with their schedule this season. The personnell, the young kids who are playing pretty good football on defense this preseason, and with Maybins' impressive debut after only 4 practices, I say the personell is better suited for a 3-4 this season.

At least Maybin is wearing the correct number - 58, because this kid has Pro Bowl outside LB written all over him. I would dump this stupid 2-gap crap and go 3-4 starting in practice tomorrow. Here's my 3-4 starting 7: OLB's: Maybin and Ellison or Harris. ILB's: Poz and Mitchell. NoseGuard: Stroud & Williams in rotation. Ends: Schoebel & Ellis. By using the 3-4 alignment, we can finally send Kelsay to the bench permenantly, and remove one of the 4 roating fat stiffs at DT who go 16 game seasons without so much as a QB pressure, or tackle behind the line of scrimmage. In their place, we will have young fast ends and linebackers who can use their natural speed and instincts more to their advantage. I am sick and tired of watching all those decent to good defenders in Fewell's frustrating schemes over-persuing plays and never, ever getting enough pressure on the QB on 2nd or 3rd and long to enable themselves to get the hell off the damn field.

Sure, I read the article. Just your basic comments from Perry Fewell, reminding us how far behind Maybin is in learning the schemes and assignments. Of course, Fewell can be given Bruce Smith on one side and L.T. on the other, and still figure out how to come up with a defensive alignment that cannot pressure the quarterback. Don't you love watching Aaron Schoebel trying to catch up with a running back or tight end after a 30 yard pass and catch burns one of Fewell's ingenius alignments out of his "cover-0", "11-gap" defense he runs?? Just imagine, Bruce Smith may have broken the all-time interceptions record instead of the sacks record if Fewell had been his d-coordinator his entire career!! All I am looking for out of Maybin while Fewell is his coach, if for his natrual ability and speed to create some havoc during the plays Fewell allows him to participate in during the first 4 or 5 weeks of the season, while he catches up on his studying!

I'll tell you what was funny: watching McNab on the sidelines telling the Philly coaches to stop using Vick, and let the real offense play in their meaningless preseason game last night. If McNab can't stomach watching Vick for more then 6 lousy plays now, how will he be able to use him during the games when they count?

The only "important" thing about Saturdays' game against the Steelers is that nobody gets seriously injured. It's time for the NFL to stop this insanity. Players stay in shape 12 months a year. They run voluntary and involuntary OTA's. Preseason football games have become obsolete for today's NFL athletes. I think they should be eliminated completely, and the NFL should go to a permanent 18 game regular season schedule. Think about it. The best players on each NFL team play less then a total of one full NFL game during an entire 4 or 5 game preseason schedule. What could they possibly be gaining? And even in the Bills' case this preseason, where you have rookies and players playing in different starting positions, a few good scrimmages against their own defense would give them just as much experience as these halves of preseason games they are playing in now. Add to this fact that the Bills' coaches go beyond logical reason to not gamplan against their preseason opponents, what the hell good do these games do for the players??

You want Ralph Wilson to hire another owner? That's funny, he won't even sell the team to another owner for a hefty profit even after he pays all the taxes. And oh by the way, Ralph also won't be hiring any high profile football people during the 4th quarter of his life as Bills' owner. At 91 years old, I don't think he feels like sitting back and allowing the next Tom Donahoe to come in and run his show. Until Wilson either dies, or becomes incapable of overseeing everything, he won't be spending 4 or 5 Million a year on any Cowhers, Dungys, Shanahans or Ozzie Newsomes.

Everything starts and ends with the GM and Head Coach. Ralph has become super cheap on those two most important positions, and that is why we have the team we root for today.

The first thing the Bills need to do is to hire competent NFL coaches to allow their expensive QB to play up to his potential.

Great find. It makes me wonder regarding these felons that litter the NFL landscape today: as far as punishing them more severely or even not allowing them to every play in the NFL again; "What would Vince do today?"

Mike Vick is extremely sorry....for getting caught. He cried in prison....because he got caught. He was contrite and ready to start a brand new lifestyle....as his possee swooped him out of prison, put him in the back seat of a black brand new SUV, and drove him 11 hours to the house he was "able to hold onto" in the suburbs complete with swimming pool and 7 bedrooms. There he had to "endure" home confinement another couple of months. After that horrible experience, he was able to scrape up a few $1,200.00 suits and plane fare to meet with the commissioner, Tony Dungy and his agent and lawyers wherever and whenever he needed to. Finally, the Eagles signed him to the contract he and his agent always knew a team would sign him to, paying him a cool 1 Million dollars the first season, with incentives that could increase that amount to over 5 Mil per season. Not bad for a convicted felon out of prison less then 6 months, eh?? Oh yeah, Vick feels soooooo bad about his transgressions. But blame Roger Goodell, Jeff Lurie and the Eagles, and ESPN for allowing this scum bag to stay in the limelight every second of the day since he strolled from the prison door to his SUV door. I said it before and I'll say it again; regardless of what crime he committed, Goodell had every right to ban Vick for life because he was convicted of a felony and served time in prison for it. He decided not to do that, so now we get to watch Mike Vick all the time, every day, until he does the next stupid thing in his life......which he will......and then Goodell finally rids us of this loser for good!

Brilliant? Edwards sounds like a whiny defensive loser instead of the leader of the Buffalo Bills. What a strange group of NFL players the Bills have assembled. We have Chris Kelsy, earning millions while never making any plays on defense within the first 5 yards of scrimmage, being quoted all the time. We have Donte Whitner, quite possibly the third worst top 10 pick in Bills history, (after Mike Williams and Walt Patulski), making bold predictions of how great the team and his defense will be, and then never making a big play during the full 16 game season. We now have our starting QB throwing his coaches, linemen and receivers under the bus because he's too scared to throw the damn ball 15 yards downfield running out of a freakin' no huddle offense.

Yes, he would pay Ralph to be able to coach the Bills, as soon as they agree on the plans to build that new Peace Bridge. But seriously folks, forget about Wilson bringing in a high profile coach at this late stage of his life. If 3 consecutive 7-9-0 seasons was not enough to fire Jauron and offer Bill Cowher full control last year, then Ralph will never do it. If he fires Jauron, look for Fewell or Schonert to take the job for peanuts, and be thrilled about it.

No kidding. One of the MNF announcers said there were over 25 NFL scouts watching the Ravens, hoping to get a jump on the players they cut! On the other hand, it would piss me off to see the Baltimore Ravens go 2-0 in Super Bowls within their first 14 years of existence, when we loyal Bills fans are 0-4 since SB I was played, back in 1967!

Outstanding post....Biscuit was one hell of a rushing linebacker. If only we had a young Bruce Smith already playing opposite him instead of an older Aaron Schoebel!

It seems to me, that if a team drops lots of men into coverage and doesn't bliz, a smart kid like Edwards should be able to recognize the d will be doing that at the line of scrimmage, and simply audible into a nice running play to take advantage of those defenders dropping into coverage. Or, at the very least, with no bitzing going on, he should be able to stand in and simply wait a couple of extra seconds for one of his talented receivers to get open, despite the extra defenders in coverage.

....Maybe he thought, "Gee, I wonder why our offensive coaching geniuses practiced all week against our normal 4-3 cover 2 defense when we all knew the Packers would be playing the 3-4 defense?". And, he may now be wondering why his quarterback would make this strange comment today: ..."It's good for us," Edwards said. "But the hard part now is I don't know how much scout team we're going to be running [in practice]. We didn't face a scout team 3-4 defense [last week], we faced our 4-3 defense."... T.O. may understand that preseason games mean nothing, but you can still line up your scout team, most of whom may not even be on the team come two weeks from now, in the same defenseive alignment your upcoming opponent will be using and practice against it.

You must be joking right? Why would Ralph hire one of those high profile expensive ex-coaches, when he would not even eat DJ's last year on his extremely reasonable salary when everyone in the football universe thought DJ should have been fired? Also, there is already talk of play stoppages with lock outs for the 2011 season, and I cannot imagine Wilson being lockied into any huge coaches salaries during prolonged weeks of no games being played.

Excellent point. And if that was the case, the the Inner Circle-Jerks should find different jobs, for not convincing Wilson that the amount of money needed to sign Maybin was obvious as soon as the players above him and below him signed. (Except of course for Crabtree and his agent, who live in another demension of time and space we humans cannot understand.) But other then Crabtree and his agent, who seem to be under the immpression that he was drafted number 5 instead of number 10 in April's draft, the other players were nicely slotted for anyone with a calculator to figure out what to pay Mr. Maybin. Here's hoping the kid is the real deal and has 3 outstanding weeks of practice so he can put some pressure on Brady a few times during that MNF opener!!

excellent point. The "error" stat in baseball is sometimes debated, and sometimes needs time to assign the error or not assign it. The same should be done for "sacks allowed." Instead of just placing a number next to each O-Linemen, each and every sack should be looked at on film and broken down much more carefully before the "experts" decide how many should be blamed to each blocker.

Thank you Tim...I've been saying the same thing ever since the debate of whether the Bills should have resigned Peters or not began two years ago. Sacks allowed should not be a "stat" anyone pays attention to.

On August 11, I posted a new topic with the following prediction: "It took me less then 5 minutes to come up with Maybins' contract: 5 YEARS, 25 MILLION, WITH 15 MILLION GUARANTEED.".... Almost two long, wasteful, stupid, unnceccesary weeks later, here is the actual contract deal Maybin signed for: ..."Maybin and the Bills finally agreed Friday on a five-year deal worth a maximum of $25 million with more than $14 million guaranteed, according to NFL sources.".... That 5 minutes of research I did back on the 11th was from the most recent signings of the players just above and below Maybin. Can a smarter person then me please tell me what the hell Maybin and his agent thought they would gain by waiting two more weeks to sign that obvious deal with the Bills??

Correct. The numbers don't lie. This hold out is stupid on many levels. First and foremost, is the fact that the player himself is not vital to the Bills' success this season. Secondly, Ralph Wilson and the Circle Jerks are not swayed by greedy moronic agents. Thirdly, even if Crabtree gets "number 5-pick money", what universe does Joel Segal live in thinking that Ralph and the Jerks would offer "number-6 pick money" to their number 11 pick Aaron Maybin?? And as far as that Crabtree insanity, if I were the 49ers, I would let him sit out the entire season and let him go back into the draft next year before I paid him a penny more then where he is slotted as the number 10 choice. If Segal and Maybin plan on earning any money this season from the Buffalo Bills, they will have to finally realize that it will be the perfectly slotted 5 years for 25 Million, with about 15 Million guaranteed. They can sign for it today, or they can wait around another 4 weeks if they like, but that will be the contract amount, no matter what they are thinking.