ColdBlueNorth

Man, I hate it when I geek out like that and miss the obvious joke - my bad. And you are right, Edwards has done just about everything he could do to turn a bunch of non-impact 4-3 players into some semblance of a quasi-3 4 unit that is starting to stop the run and get some pressure without giving up too much down field. Not sure how much is adjustments he has made over the year and how much of his success is due to players moved to new positions playing better and rookies starting to contribute. That being said, this team makes some second half adjustments that appear to really bottle up whomever they are playing. It is the total opposite of what we used to see with second half collapses under Jauron and Fewell. With a lot of folks dissing the Nix draft, I think the impact of Troup, Moats, Carrington, and Nelson contributing in their rookie year - not to mention the FA pickups along the way are a testiment to a front office that is starting to turn the corner on evaluating this team's needs.

Modkins is more of a positional coach. He has followed Chan around, but from his bio he is generally credited with developing and serving as a running backs coach in his past whereas Chan is known for developing the QB game and serving as HC. They certainly know eachother well and work well together, but I highly doubt he has as much to do with Fitz's success as Chan.

Some differences that I have noticed over our decade of impotent HC's: Chan can develop a QB Has on offensive system that he is gradually building that his players buy into. He and his staff teach the players well - that is the only way you can plug in so many Free Agents and rookies and still have success. The team truely looks prepared each game (the Vikings game aside with the injuries, etc...) Last year was a joke with how bad our offense played - the mistakes, the play-calling... Remember the Steelers laughing at our attempt early in the year to run the no-huddle and joking about how easily they beat that "scheme", I believe the comment was "maybe they should have huddled". The coaching staff was never on the same page - how can we forget the firing of our offensive coordinator Turk Schonert during preseason and his verbal barb at Jauron wanting to run a pop-warner offense? Not to ignore the W/L records... Jauron was a defensive-minded coach and ran the 4-3 and cover-two well. We had decent personnel to run that scheme (even with the injuries) and a true pass-rusher in Schobel. With our offense eeking out an average of 15 points a game, our defense under Perry, field position from Bobby's Special Teams, and Ryan's leg kept us in a lot of games where Trent never even fired a TD pass. The players really responded to Perry and worked hard for him down the stretch. The things that led to our slow start this year were starting Trent, the switch to the 3-4, and we lost a special coach in Bobby April. I was glad that we were able to get a proven comodity like DeHaven, but Bobby April was special. Someone can look it up, but I think we had the number one Special Teams unit 3 out of his last 5 years and the other years they were right up there. Look at the job he is doing for the Eagles. The 3-4 switch needed to be done if we were going to be competitive in this division. All the teams in our division run it as their base package and one need not look too much farther than that to know we needed the switch. It is worth the change alone just to have the ability for the offense to practice against the look they are going to see when playing our conference rivals. I am cautiously optimistic about what Chan and this defense can do with a solid Nix draft and some FA signings. I give them a pass this year, but like most of you here, I will have much higher expectations for next year.

Its too bad... you can always tell when concussions have reached critical mass - a player gets barely hit and is out cold. Bad sign for a talented kid who really came on for Manning when he was in the lineup.

Agreed. I was excited to see more of what Steve Johnson could do when he was money on just about every pass thrown his way the prior season. I was annoyed with the Owens signing. First I thought he was going to be more of a problem child than he turned out to be, but mainly I was just annoyed because it was going to keep Steve on the bench for another year. Not that it would have made a difference with Edwards rarely throwing a pass more than 10 yards downfield, or getting sacked, or checking down to our RB on 4th and forever with 7 seconds left in a game. Probably a wash in the end.

I wouldn't mind the Miller signing and we have taken guys off the Oakland scrap heap before, there is also Boss out there who is a big target. My guess is that it is more likely that they will work on developing their own draft prospect, and bring in a serviceable FA to shore up the position. I will be curious to see if they cut Nelson and the associated migrains.

The Legend Killer... Too funny - welcome to the NFL Moats!!!

I have to say I do enjoy this discussion, but I think we have almost come full circle to where we can almost agree on something. I was actually trying for sarcastic on the plan for stopping the Pats O. The "plan" I mentioned is what most teams try and fail using, with a blitz thrown in here and there, and I did mention that if you executed the plan you would leave their TE open or singled up on a LB. It is a good plan, but most teams do not possess the secondary that can match up against the variety of 300+ yd receivers Brady spreads the ball to. My comment on Welker is that all QBs have a comfort zone - Brady's is Welker. Welker leads their team in receptions with 80, has close to 800 yds on the season, and averages close to 10 yds a catch. You want to make Brady uncomfortable, or want to take him out of his current rhythm, you could start by taking Welker out of the game (easier said than done). No guaranty for success against NE as a whole, but at least it is a start. They are certainly more beatable without him and looked like a different team when he was injured. Chicago tried to use their bread and butter zone coverage. Zone? That had to be like going back to kindergarden for Brady. Too easy for him to carve that up. You are absolutely correct, NE runs a spread offense to perfection. It involves a lot of short timing routes and run after the catch. With our current D, I expect they will spread things out and find more success running the ball than they have shown against other teams. Maybe Jauron knew that to have a chance at stopping NE in this division you to have a very talented secondary so you could match up man to man on them. Perhaps that is why he always went after DBs in the draft.

Ouch. What if we said "pretty please" give up your source? Interesting perspective and some history I am sure that most would be unaware of... certainly would change the complexion of the whole impasse thing.

I took your advice and I was suprised to see how well Cassel is doing - QB Rating-wise this year, that being said I was never a big fan of the QB rating system it made Trentative look like the second coming of Kelly... Although Cassel has had some monster games against San Fran and Seattle in wins, and he put up good numbers in losses that were scoring races with Houston and Denver he also had these games: Win against SD with 68 yds and 1 TD Win against the Browns with 2 ints and 0 TDs Loss against Indy 156 yds and 0 TDs Win against Buffalo 1 TD and 152 yds OT at home compared to Fitz 1 TD and 223 yards. Win against Denver 0 TDs. One could make the argument that his performance is at times erratic, and if your argument is that Cassel is an elite QB then Fitz can't be too far off. How many people believe that KC is SB bound with him behind center? KC is better with Scott Pioli at GM, and they will get better. Pioli came out of NE and is a good talent evaluator. Belichik is a better coach than most in the NFL and nearly always has his team better prepared than their opponent. Stats: NE is near the bottom in defensive categories, and is 8th overall in offensive categories, but they make about every team look unprepared when they play them and they win - period. What I think the key is to stopping\slowing NE, don't give Brady good lanes to throw in, jam their receivers every play to disrupt their timing, double-team Welker a lot and definately on 3rd downs. Lastly, be ready to have a different plan for the second half of the game when they start hitting their TE. and yes, I hate them.

Wrong. Brady would not have nearly the same success elsewhere, but you are welcome to your opinion.

Sort of true Buffalo (11/9): Started at quarterback in the Patriots' 20-10 victory over the Bills ... Scored his second career rushing touchdown with a 13-yard run in the first quarter to give the Patriots an early 7-0 lead ... Completed 23 of 34 pass attempts for 234 yards while making nine carries for 22 yards and one touchdown ... In third-down situations in the second half, completed 5 of 5 passes attempted for 74 yards with each completion resulting in a Patriots' first down. Does the above sound like a typical efficient Brady game against us? It wasn't. It was Matt Cassel's victory over the Bills - yeah, that seventh rounder that they plugged into the Patriots system who then tore up the league - from his BIO: Became the fifth player in NFL history to have back-to-back 400-yard passing games with a 415-yard performance against the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 23 after a 400-yard performance against the New York Jets on Nov. 13 ... Made his first career start at the New York Jets on Sept. 14 ... Posted a career-high passer rating of 136.3 while throwing for a career-best three touchdown passes in the Patriots' 41-7 victory over the Broncos on Oct. 20 ... His 136.3 passer rating against the Broncos ranks as the 10th best mark by a Patriots quarterback since the 1970 Now I ask you does he even look close to being the same QB in KC? Not saying that Brady is not a good even great QB, but when a team like the Patriots can prove that they can continue to plug in new player personnel, jettison coordinators, change GMs and not mis a beat even the most stubborn amonst us must admit that they have a system enforced by a head coach grown from a test tube in some secret military lab. Just kidding there, but I get sick of my team getting consistently kicked in the Jimmy by that team each year. And it is almost humorous the way teams that don't play them often (Chicago)think that the AFC East must just be a cake-walk for NE to have the success it has. Then they go into soldier's field and administer a real spanking on them. Does Brady have the same success if he played for Denver, or Chicago, or anywhere else? Food for thought.

What it probably comes down to for the Bills brass is simply that they have Byrd developing nicely as thier FS and they may want to find one player that is more of a prototypical SS rather than using the 3-headed solution of Whitner, Scott, and Wilson. I have nothing against Whitner, his strengths lie in his well-documented versatility. He's a high character guy and he has played through injuries, etc... The way I see it though is that this front office really is not satisfied with our current crop of strong safeties. The reason I say that is that they haven't gone out of their way to lock up any of them. Wilson's contract is done this year, Scott's contract is done in 2011, and Whitner says they are not close on his deal. I wouldn't have thought this before, but perhaps the front office is tipping its hand on where they are going to go in the draft. I thought for sure that they would take a big D-Lineman with their first pick, but perhaps they are leaning towards a true SS like McDaniel (mean streak and some baggage), or perhaps they feel that they can grab a SS to play a bit closer to the line later in the draft like Bama's Barron? All I know is I am glad I do not work in the Bills FO, if I did they would have been wheeling Thurman, Bruce, Andre, and Jimbo out onto the field in wheelchairs every 20th play or so because I would have never wanted to let them walk or tell them their careers with the Bills was winding down. Certainly Whitner has a lot more football ahead of him, but if you feel you can upgrade a position to make the team better, you have to be able to pull the trigger. I just hope it is that and not some cheap-ass way of letting a good player walk to the detriment of the team to save a few $$$ ala Pat Williams and Winfield.

Agree... with that last part Often felt (even on this board with its collection of level-headed individuals) that PC's should come with that breathalyzer thing that doesn't allow drunks to drive. Blow in the thing and it boots you off until your sober up - imagine how many errant emails or posts you could prevent from reaching bosses, wives, girlfriends, etc... Now, if they could come up with something that test the level of stupid before someone tweets... Who knows, perhaps professional athletes feel they can use twitter to generate pressure on management when negotiating. Interesting to see if the NFL starts cracking down on what players can or can't tweet about.

Making a whole lot out of nothing... what would be more surprising is if Chan said that CJ is where he expects him to be. Chan said this in one of his news conferences and it seems to be in line with his direct approach. Is Spiller where he wants him to be - no. In that interview Chan indicated that Spiller had some setbacks this year, but I definitely did not get the same vibe that he reserves for Maybin and others he has talked about as epic failures struggling to get onto the field. I think he was just saying that Spiller is not where he should or could be, but has made progress. Last week was a better outing for CJ. I noticed a lot less dancing behind the line. I think a lot of dynamic college players have to learn early that dancing around in the backfield doesn't translate well in the NFL. Certainly there are plays where the RB has to display patience and let the blocks develop, but for off-tackle or ISO runs you read a seam and you hit it "North" (never liked when folks add South to that saying - sounds too much like being driven backwards). The holes aren't as big in the NFL and the definitely do not last as long - he'll learn, he'll be fine.

Not to feed someone Trolling with overly negative comments, but the post you responded to indicated that we needed defensive help. Anyone that watches this team knows we need to be better in run defense and to find players capable of creating more pressure on passing downs without always having to blitz our LBs and Safties - hence the projection of going defense in the draft. As to improvements one need only look at the second half adjustments that were made in several games where they were able to shut down some pretty decent teams. Peyton Hillis has been a load for any team he has played against, but our defense held up pretty well against him. I've been watching this team for a long time and this year (with the exception of the Vikings game) this team has looked prepared and it appears that the coaching staff gets them in position to win games. Have the players taken that last step and gotten the wins - no, but they were there for the taking and a playmaker making a play here or a stop there may be the only difference this team needs to get back on track and be competitive again. I would like to see Spiller more involved in the offense, but I will give him a pass this year. Fred is no spring chicken and he is bound to get nicked up along the way. Spiller will be good insurance for years to come and I believe could develop into an every down back, but why take carries away from Jackson who has earned every right to carry the bulk of the load. Better defense will lead to more 3 and outs and therefore more opportunities for Spiller to get carries. If he is not producing good yards per carry the rest of this year and next, then I will use the label "disappointment" too. For now, it is way too early for that.

Not taking anything away from Allen who is starting to come on lately for the Vikes, but losing our starting center and guard, the subsequent shuffling of the line, the muffed snaps at center by Levitre, along with the crowd noise in the dome really killed any chance we had. It didn't help that a couple of really poor plays led to MN points putting the team in such a hole that the Viking's D knew we had to pass the ball. With the crowd noise and adhoc O-line the snap count was obvious even to me. The Vikes were able to pin their ears back and key in on Fitz. I have not seen such poor protection for our QB all year as I did in that game and we have played some teams with decent d-lines. I am hoping it was just a fluke combination of events. Not being polyanna, just curious to see how our revamped line holds up against the Fins, Jests, and Pats.

I don't think that talent-wise we are that far off, but we do need some players. The Viking game was good litmus test of our depth and exposed some of the talent gaps we have. I still believe that wins in the NFL more often than not come down to coaching and schemes, NE plugs in just about anybody, finds the best way to use them, and gets the most out of them. Granted Brady is definately a great QB, but it isn't just Brady. When they lost him a few seasons ago in steps a 7th rounder and he ends up playing like an all-star. That staff scouts well and coaches up their players well - period. I mean seriously... Danny Woodhead? WTH??? You can spend a wad of cash and gather the best players around ala Dan Snyder of Washington but without solid coaching and players that buy into the system you just end up with a pricy collection of talented prima donnas who cannot execute a game plan together. I have more faith in Nix directing our next draft after Gailey has had a year to put his stamp on this team, seen what players fit his system and has identified what additional players are needed to get this team over the hump... I expect to see impact D-line, linebackers, and couple of O-Linemen that grade out well taken and would not be suprised if there is a tightend taken at or before the 4th round. I really had high hopes for Nelson, but with all the various ailments, suspensions, and now migraines it may be time to cut him loose and get a player that can actually get on the field. We will all learn a lot about where this team is truely at over the next 3 games against our AFC East rivals. Of course I would like to see wins in all three, but I could have hope for next year if we are at the very least competetive and the games are close. No craptastic blowouts like the game against the Vikes. please. Just my Opinion so fire away.

One thing I have noticed is the interviews with the Defensive players - like the one Kyle recently gave. He said the big adjustment the defense made during the Browns game is they stopped trying to strip the ball and just focused on tackling. I think he said that a lot was made of the weather conditions and the defense just needed to focus on making the stops. That being said, it does seem like the defense has statistically been stronger in the second half of games this year. That is a welcomed change from the Jauron days and one could argue that it points to better adjustments by the coaching staff and perhaps better conditioning as well.

I agree that they have some gems and some guys who you can plug in on the line. I would like to see the line show a bit more ability to get some push in the running game (although I liked the way we finished out the game yesterday). Whether that calls for tweaking positions a bit, giving the existing lineup time to gel, or getting some mauler in the draft... I actually trust this staff to get-er done.

Don't sweat it. You missed the spot where he turned around and looked for the ball. I have watched McKelvin pretty closely and outside of getting a case of the "stupids" what I mean by that is the times where he just seems to be completely unaware of the game situation and what is most needed in that situation(not protecting the ball, going for the int in the red zone rather than a desperately needed pass breakup, etc...), he has gotten better in other areas. He has a ton of confidence bordering on cocky, but I am hopeful that his many gaffs and a full year or two of playing time should help him mature into a decent CB. You want your defensive backs to be confident in their abilities without them jeopardizing solid play for low-percentage and selfish highlight reel material. He had a good game yesterday, but what he needs to continue to work on is getting his head turned around to the ball. There is a whole lot of "incidental" contact that is allowed in the NFL, but only if the corner makes a believable effort of turning his head towards the pass. Then he can fall, trip, lean, or get his legs tangled up with the receiver with rarely a call against him. The other times I have seen McKelvin get beat deep I felt it had more to do him expecting help over the top with our safeties but they appear to arrive too late - that falls on Byrd, Whitner, Wilson, and Scott. I refuse to be too hard on those guys because our D-Line and Linebackers have struggled so bad in the past on run defense that our safeties had to respect just about any play action. Defense really comes down to each group being able to trust the abilities of the next, once one group starts trying to cover for another it can will quickly fall apart.

Totally agree. After the dismantling of the Jets by NE and what they did to Chicago, I am really hoping we give them a bit of a show. Although if we actaully by some miracle pulled off a win it would be because the Pats have already clinched and have nothing to play for... at least that would be the spin by the usual pundits. ...perhaps I am getting ahead of myself here

I was kind of against this at first, Hangartner is really smart (he and Fitz both had pretty impressive Wonderlic scores - Goeff scored a 47) so he is pretty quick at calling the line plays and Hang has been playing center for a while. That being said, Eric appears to be a bit more stout at the point of attack, is a natural fit at center, and weighs a bit more than Geoff. With the big nose tackles in our division having a center that can at least hold his ground is huge. Hang has some tackle experience in his career and could be the answer over at right tackle, or could probably easily make the transition to guard. With an offseason to tweek what he has it will be interesting to see what direction Chan goes in regards to the line. They have been a bit better at pass protection till that debacle against the Vikes, but I have been disappointed in thier ability to get push in short yardage sitations. Not sure if that is a huge deal with Chan going spread in the red zone, but you would like to have the option to be able to punch it in or to force a yard when needed.

I wood like to add some Wood to that list Just needed a coach who knows how to coach to get these kids to play... not going out on a limb on the Maybin pick - didn't like it then and he hasn't done anything to change my mind. A lighter, weaker version of Erik Flowers.

I would like to see what Fitz could do with the same time in the pocket that Brady gets. What I saw at the Vikes game was a guy that didn't have any pocket to speak of... of course the line was in shambles with the loss of Hang and Urbik. I don't expect too much drop off at Center this week with Wood, but I am a bit concerned with the guys that will be manning the right side of the line. I think everyone expects a run-heavy game, and we just don't have the beef up front on "D" to stop the run. Even after giving up 200+ yards in just about every game (and I don't expect that to stop with the Browns) we still hear folks talking about taking a QB with our early draft picks. If this team could actually stop the run and give Fitz 1-2 seconds more in the pocket, we would be tough to beat. Teams would then have to rely on McKelvin fumbling the game away, or some other unlikey thing.