WhitewalkerInPhilly

Look, he may be available, but I really doubt that we're going to take him. Marrone is a brand new coach with a team he is expected to rebuild almost from the ground up. He has an extremely solid O-line and two very highly touted Rb's. If this is isn't prime condition to start molding a rookie QB I don't know what is.

How about our special teams with Bobby April? (who happens to be with the currently leaderless Eagles)

You know, until Marrone came by I was all for this. Now, I don't think so as much. Would he be an upgrade over Fitz? Probably. But what we're going for now is a bold new direction. I have a feeling that Marrone wants to put his own stamp on the offense.

I don't get this. How is he high risk? He was picked in the third round, and signed to that level salary, and then led his rookie team to the division title. Amidst the much vaunted Andrew Luck and RGIII, he was the last rookie QB standing and excecuted a 21 point comeback with under 31 seconds left in he game. Did he come up short? Yes. But the rookie QB made every other QB in the AFC East other than Tom Brady like a grade schooler playing a pickup game. I was critical of the "we should have drafted Wilson" group but I was dead wrong. Of course, we would have probably squandered him last year.

Incredible offensive line work by the Hawks.

It's a mark of how desperate we are that Wanny makes us be willing to even look at anything Williams touched. Of course ten years ago I didn't understand football as well as I do now so it never clicked. Still, I relish the chance of being aggressive again on defense. People keep trying to emulate the Pats, and the only way to stop that is to apply pressure. Without it, how many times have we seen Brady pick apart a zone?

This

Hey, I would be all for it, especially if we move back to a base 3-4. He would be a better fit as an OLB.

Here's a really helpful link I've been using as a reference: http://chi.scout.com/2/646395.html

We can always resign him then. I'm not sure who else would be willing to pay as much as us.

Well thanks...to be honest, I mostly cribbed it from links from Wikipedia so I'm hardly an expert. I'm glad that I was able to explain it decently. I agree that if we go with this, we could certainly need another CB for press coverage. While we might be able to get a decent performance out of someone on the roster, we would really need for them to step it up. Either way, I'm eager and excited to see what Pettine comes up with.

Perhaps Dareus would be better as the NT, since he's a little bigger. But the nice part of the 46 is that it brings in a fourth person in, and I would see that a 4-3 over would be a little closer to what he had last year.

Why the hell would we take yet another 4-3 DE when we have Anderson, M Williams and Moore? we have much bigger problems to fill. ANALYTICS Kiper! ANALYTICS! But seriously I would much rather be looking at Ogletree or Teo.

Not really. While Rex may be the master, Pettine was there when they cooked up the most innovative strategies. I also think that we have a more talented line that the Jets have this year, it was always more a matter of getting them to play up to expectations.

Heh, thanks for catching that. Ends, I meant ends. Both have been put as OLB's in the past, though admittedly Mario is a much better fit in a 4-3. I like how you think. Of course I would love Teo as an ILB but he may not be a good fit. I do think that Carrington finally showed that Buddy wasn't entirely wrong about him and I think he could be a good fit and I like the idea of bringing A. Williams in, since he lacks ball skills but has great size and speed (though I'm privately sure that Pettine will beg Buddy to do whatever it takes to keep Byrd) I do agree that we need someone across from Gilmore and I'm hoping that it's Rodgers or Brooks, especially since they would have to win a lot of 1 on 1 battles to prevent opponents from running the West Coast Offense all day on us.

Well, while we can certainly debate whether we're going to play 3-4 or 4-3, how about we take a look at the 46 scheme? It's a very agressive style designed for run stuffing and bringing heat and I think it's promising for our scheme. It can be a subpackage as a 3-4 defense since it uses a nose tackle but uses four down linemen and calls up the SS to act as linebacker. We already Scott as a tweener and Williams and Anderson are great speed tackles. Any thought about its use, or where we would like to see people placed?

Whoo! I love it! If we get Gilmore to be the next Revis and whip up a good system we can finally use our talent!

I'd change to the title that we are "looking at" Nassib for sure. in the first and second rounds. Both Marrone and Hackett are raving about the guy. However from what I've read and seen I can tell he's nowhere close to being an 8th overall pick. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as Russell Wilson proved a lot of people wrong. I'd like to have him, but as I said he's not worth the 8th overall pick, so I'd only feel comfortable if we traded back far into the first round or picked him up with our second round pick. These both carry a bit of risk that he won't be there but it's something we have to deal with.

ANALYTICS! By which, we mean, the hit to the pocketbook or lack thereof. I really hope to be impressed by the DC, because right now I'm not sold.

Eh, he'll get picked in top 10 any way you look at it. As to whether he's right for the Bills... Would I take him if he falls into our lap at #8? Quite possibly. Do I think we would make it that long? Hell no. My money is that the Chiefs will snap him up.

Well, it's promising. He has talent, but the man gave up a DC job with the Panthers to go to Green Bay. Maybe he wanted to work for a team he thought would be a champion. Carolina has been more of a contender than we have as of late, and the Packers are still in the playoffs.

Also, will the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys be racing to be the DC for the Bills? It seems like a hard sell.

From what I read, I would love it. As point of fact, this would bolster a lot of the concerns I have about Marrone. While I love Marrone's attitude and apparent skills at teambuilding the two (biggest) problems people have brought up that he isn't the playcaller and his defense schemes have left a lot to be desired. Pettine would fix the second half of that. A side effect of our shifting defensive schemes is that we have players who can fit in multiple positions (Anderson playing OLB/DE, Scott playing LB/S, Gilmore having the size of a S with the speed of a CB) and therefore can be adapted to multiple schemes instead of the predictable base 4-3 we kept trying last year. I think how aggressively we pursue this will be a litmus test of how effectively Marrone and Brandon can bring people in.

Well he certainly looked "special" last night with those mixed tackles. Just not special in the way that we were hoping. That said, people have bad games. It is lamentable that his game on the night of the championship and that the rest of Notre Dame didn't show up either. This might drop his stock enough that we don't have to worry about anyone swooping in to take him before the 8th pick.

Who would be up for trying to bring Bobby April back? Reid is now in KC, meaning his future is hardly secure.