Ronin

Once again, you've missed the point entirely. To start, he was higher than in previous years, but again, the ENTIRE point is that this was a hybrid of Schwartz & Ryan's schemes. This DID NOT come from Schwartz. Since we're leaning even more Ryan this year, you can expect those numbers to go up. Hence, they will be notably greater than average easily and depending upon who you read already are. Either way, stick to point, don't change the argument/discussion.

When I said good offenses I meant top-10 minimum. Average and below are not good, they're average and bad.

Unfortunately Ryan does it more than "now and again." Could also be why his Ds in NY were below average.

http://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo-bills/index.ssf/2016/06/rex_ryan_not_convinced_hell_be_fired_if_buffalo_bills_dont_make_playoffs_in_2016.html Maybe the memo never existed. Either that or fans are left playing "Who's the Liar?" again. So much for the majority of media and fans that know that Whaley & Ryan are gone if we don't make the playoffs. Also, so much for the senseless notion that Pegula's having given Whaley an extension means the same for him.

Bortles had 35 TDs last season, one less than Brady tied for 2nd in the league. There's no reason to suspect he'll do much less this season. He's got great WRs, Robinson and Hurns, both of which by the way were in Sammy's draft, and both of whom have outplayed Sammy on a per-start basis. If Yeldon improves they could be the best offense in the AFC behind the Pats. They drafted nothing but D and by all counts did a bang-up job. Ramsey alone should yield immediate benefits on D there.

LOL Seems to me that the only thing that Ryan has to worry about is himself and his brother. If he can take care of that we'll be worlds ahead of where we were last season.

We held opponents to fewer than 20 points in 7 games. Four were the Jets and Fins, the other three were the Colts, Titans, and Cowboys, ranked 24th, 28th, and 31st in scoring. That's not impressive. Stats are a guide. No team can claim to have a good D if they finish average in points allowed. And for every good game on any given Sunday, the average has to go that far in the opposite direction for others, so you can dismiss arguments like that, but at the end of the day for every good game you say they have like that, they'd have two horrid ones to compensate in keeping with their final ranking. Either way, look at our schedule from last season, our D didn't play well against any good offense except for one game against the Pats. It can also be argued that any team can easily get up for one game against a particular opponent, like the 14-2 Pats losing to the 5-11 Browns in '10. Consistency is key, Ryan has been anything but, here or in NY.

Well, it is what it is. I brought up the original topic since I haven't heard anyone anywhere even mention it, not local media, not national media, no forums, etc. It should be a high-profile topic, particularly since numerous players complained last season and will do the same if things don't go well out of the gate. I think we can count on that. As to good and bad DCs, Ryan's been mostly bad. He's had two good seasons in 7 as a head coach, led the Ravens to their worst D of the Lewis/Reed era in Baltimore with only two good seasons there as DC. But in Baltimore even the most nominal DC could do well as evidence by Mike Nolan and Greg Mattison outperforming Ryan, neither of which has gone on to do anything relevant in the NFL. Nolan has regressed down to LB coach and Mattison went back to college. Now on comes Rob Ryan who's done almost nothing relevant, but the oversized twins can sure talk up a hurricane. Besides the Pats, name one good offensive team that his D kept us in games against? That all sounds good on paper, but at the end of the day the same players that logged 54 sacks in 2014 logged a mere 21 last season and saw us allow 4.3 more ppg than the year prior, with an easier schedule too. This year's schedule is more difficult by any standard. Even now players from the 2014 squad that logged 35 sacks are still here, those same players logged 12 last season, a mere third. And a seasoned head coach being "caught off guard?" Really?

The loss to the Stoolers 3rd and 4th string players in '04 in week 17 has to hurt as well although not as badly as the others. There was probably less excuse for that loss than any of the others though.

LOL, pretty much, but that's it, it's all talk so far. As he gets rid of the elements that netted 54 sacks in favor of his 21 and that saw our D drop from 4th to 15th in scoring, it seems to me that we can only see a trend further on out towards where he had the Jets' D performing in his last four seasons there. Bringing his brother on merely adds insult to injury. And allow me to add to that and ask, how on earth was Ryan able to get only the 10th scoring D much less the 22nd ranked scoring D with the talent he had in Baltimore for two of the four years he was there. In fairness both Reed & Lewis missed games in 2005 (10th) but there's no excuse for logging the worst D of the era in 2007 at 22nd. As to Belicheat, his defenses have been crap in recent years. Over the last 6 seasons Belicheat's defenses have averaged 10th in scoring and 21st in yardage. And to be fair, it doesn't do much to his image in that way either to have been in a division with some of the most offensively inept teams in the AFCE during the Brady era that ever existed and for such a long ongoing time. There hasn't been a QB of note on any of the other three AFCE teams since Brady began playing in NE unless we count Bledsoe, whom Brady replaced and who couldn't play against good teams. The Pats have been a .500 team without Brady, he's the reason for their modern success, not Belicheat. Anyone that can't see that clearly doesn't understand the modern game. If Brady goes down this season we'll see the Pats winning no more than every other game.

You seem to be very reasonable and not primarily led by emotions and more by factual informantion, you're clearly also not averse to reading something for its actual content, something that plagues this community sorely. Having said that, yes, you more or less hit several of the key points, and IDK, maybe I wasn't clear enough or anything in my original post, although I cannot see where not if not. What you may have perceived as "vitriol" is nothing more than pointing out some of the truly lame responses that ignore the tenets of my original post altogether and go off on unrelated tangents and citing info not originally cited by me while recreating an argument that I never made. I post these things hoping to truly draw some solid discussion, I guess I should know better generallly speaking as I can count the decent responses on one-hand, or at least the number of decent posters on one hand anyway of which I count you among them. I'll address the points you made that I put in quotes. That's correct and essentially the crux and core of my argument. Players, that's plural, not just Mario, complained about this all last season. The core point is that Ryan claims to have run a hybrid between his and Schwartz's system. Since the DL-men dropping into coverage except only occasionally wasn't from Schwartz, it must've been from Ryan's D. Since he plans on ridding himself of the influence of Schwartz's D, the assumption is that since this dropping of DL-men into coverage was his idea, namely Ryan's, that we can expect more of it as he takes the reigns of Schwartz's not doing so off of his plans for the D. This is logical. Unfortunately many respondents have gone running down the hall with their hair on fire ignoring that completely or citing LBs or whatever when it's meant to concern DL-men only as stated, clearly stated. The post was really nothing more than that. This wasn't really relevant to my original post to be honest. He's gonna do what he's gonna do. My point was the prior point, namely, again, that the dropping of DL-men into coverage came from Rex, not Schwartz. Whether it's effective or not stands for itself and it wasn't. Clearly the players, particularly those impacted the most, did not like it however. i.e., I'd suggest that we can expect more issues from the players if things don't work out immediately. What are the odds of that happening? Frankly, the combo may not have worked, but history suggests that all Ryan's schemes will be even less effective. He's had two good defenses in seven years of head coaching, his brother Rob hasn't had any. None of Ryan's have been in the last five of those seven seasons. Again, to me that speaks louder than anything. Was he? You sure? Yes, he was good, but consider the talent that he had, he had both Ray Lewis and Ed Reed in their primes. Those are two of the greatest players at their positions in NFL history. Together they represented 22 Pro Bowl and 12 All-Pro season. We have nothing even remotely close to either player much less than tandem here. I think we have 1 Pro Bowl season at our LB and S positions currently, check me on that, but it's not significantly more if not. The talent in Baltimore otherwise exceeded what we have here as well. Having said all that, his defenses ranked 10th, 1st, 22nd, and 3rd in scoring from '05 to '08. To put this in perspective, Greg Mattison (hardly a household name in DCs) & Chuck Pagano, had the Ravens D ranked 3rd every season from '09 - '11 following Ryan's departure. From '99-'04 Marvin Lewis and Mike Nolan (also no household name in DCs) had the Ravens' D ranked 6th, 1st, 4th, 19th, 6th, and 6th in scoring. So Ryan had the Ravens' D average 9th in scoring. Mattison & Pagano had the Ravens' D average 3rd in scoring with Lewis out of his prime. Lewis and Nolan had the Ravens' D average 7th. Overall during that era Ryan averaged 9th the rest averaged better than 6th. So, based on that, would you say that Ryan's D in Baltimore overachieved or underachieved? Keep in mind that he had top talent at his disposal, better than what we had in Buffalo during our heyday and among the best if not the best all-time at the most key position on D and another highly key position, with rare special players. So was Ryan good there? Yes, yes he was, but not as good as his two predecessors or his two successors, he posted the worst D of that era there as well as two of the three worst Ds there in the same era, and given the talent that he had at his disposal I would say that he underachieved. Since he has nothing of equal talent here or even close, I think any comparisons are irrelevant otherwise, particularly considering how horribly he flopped last season coupled with the fact that he's not only underachieved his last five seasons as evidenced by a novice coach replacing him last season yet bumping up the same D 15 ranking spots in scoring, and considering how bad he actually was in dropping our 11 spots for a 26 spot swing between the two. He's nothing but a poster boy for excuses until further notice at this point. I don't believe that I praised Schwartz's track record, I think you read into that. My point was entirely that he did not drop our D-linemen into coverage and his D was better. Limit my take to that singular fact for purposes of this argument. Otherwise Schwartz's brief record speaks for itself here. I think that we can at least agree that he definitely didn't underachieve though. So, to sum up, you hit the nail with your first comment, that's essentialy the crux of my original post. Thanks, appreciate that! That's my point, entirely. The difference between the two is pronounced. It's one thing to drop a DT into coverage 5 times a season, it's another to do it 2 or 3 times a game. Same for DEs, it's one thing to drop them into coverage a time or two per game, but doing it many times/game is completely different. Schwartz did it rarely for DTs and in a limited manner for the DEs, it was a huge part of Ryan's changes, presumably changes that we'll see even more of this season. Given that multiple players complained and it didn't even work, I'd say he's on thin ice for production not to mention with fans and media outta the gates if as I suggest, the hybrid he ran last year will see to it that we see more of that this season.

LOL Is that a joke? Thanks for restating my entire point. In fact, it was quite a bit less. A. Now, consider, Schwartz had the 4th ranked scoring D, Ryan had the 15th. B. Ryan claims, per the original post, as an excuse as I see it, that he ran a hybrid of Ds last season, his and Schwartz's. C. This season he's going to remove any and all elements of game-planning that had our D performing to 4th ranked scoring standards, and replace it with elements of his own D that had our D operate at the 15th ranked scoring D standard. So, A + B + C = what to you? Worse than 15th scoring D, which is in keeping with Ryan's last five seasons of coaching, or better than 15th in scoring D? , To me it's entirely obvious. I guess not so much for others. In short, This D was highly successful in 2014. Elements of how that D was run were partially removed last season and the D was tremendously average. This year, LOL, offered as an excuse was that the methods that held us back last season were the same methods that generated our best D in a decade, and the methods that allowed us to diminish to average will be bolstered and reinforced, and that's going to propel this D back into top status?? LMAO Only in Buffalo. Truly. I realize that I'm a poster that people love to hate and go out of their way to hate, but a lot of the counter-commentary in this thread is comical.

Once again, the point seems to have gone unnoticed. Try that argument again using Schwartz's 2014 D as the baseline, then consider what I said about one of the key differences, that not only Mario complained about mind you, Dareus among others weren't happy either, just not as vocal about it. If you're happy with the trend to the 15th ranked D, great, can't help you. You said that you do care about the results, so I assume that you're not satisfied. Given that Ryan's half of the "hybrid" that he said he ran, was clearly responsible for the drop from 4th to 15th in scoring D, my point is clearly the obvious, that as the vestiges of Schwartz's D are removed, do you think that that trend will continue upward from 15th, or trend back to 4th? The answer should be clear, it should continue to trend upward and more in sync with Ryan's Ds over the last five seasons, 20th, 20th, 19th, 24th, and 15th last season. Why would the D improve as Ryan's changes take over entirely, as any last vestiges of Schwartz's 4th ranked D are removed, changes that had this unit plummet from 4th to 15th? There is no reason whatsoever. In other words. there is absolutely no basis to argue that it should trend back down to 4th by removing any elements of the D that allowed it to be 4th, while enhancing the elements of the D that caused it to drop from 4th to 15th. Another very simple data point is how Bowles in NY got the essentially the same D that Ryan had the year before to jump from that 24th back up to 9th, and frankly it wasn't even that talented to be able to be 9th, IMO. Either way, I highly doubt that Bowles/Rogers had their DTs and DEs dropping into coverage well above league averages as Ryan has and apparently will keep doing. If someone shows me that that was the case, then all of a sudden dropping DTs and DEs into coverage has become chic and effective, but then the question becomes why couldn't Ryan be effective with it. First one must prove that Bowles/Rogers did that, and I don't think that's going to be the case. It might make sense to drop a DT or DE to a greater extent into coverage on occasion, but to do it regularly, meaning the frequency with which we do it, thereby taking players out of their skillset wheelhouse and placing them into roles to which they're not suited on a regular basis, makes little sense. Most of the people commenting on this thread offer no contrary data, not actual factual info other than a youtube clip of Von Miller as one example, who's a LB, not even a DL to begin with as my original post addressed thereby ignoring the parameters of the debate altogether, dropping into coverage. That's hardly an argument, it's irrelevant nonsense.

Well, OK, you put it into percentages without any frame of reference, and I'll look at it as the following: As DEs, Hughes & Mario went from 25 times to 86 times collectively. Dareus & Williams, neither of which should ever drop into coverage IMO, went from 0 and 9, 9 total, for to 5 and 28, 33 total, for an overall total of 34 to 119, or a 350% increase. Again, assuming that this was a hybrid, as Ryan stated (or was he lying?), then clearly we should be able to expect more of Ryan's and less of Schwartz's (stay home) D, which is entirely logical. Let's assume that it was an exact 50/50 hybrid, then it seems to me that we can see those instances double, also entirely logical. So, instead of 86 times for whomever the DEs are, then an additional 61 times for the starting DEs, for 147 total there, and a doubling of the number of times a 300-and-some lb. DT drops into coverage, again, only for Dareus & Kyle, forgetting the depth DTs and DEs as well, to 57, an additional 24 again, for 204 total. I don't care what the percentage is, that's 13 times/game from just the DL. If that happens then everyone has excellent reason to agree with Mario this season. That figure doesn't even include the depth players, so it only goes up from there. Anyone that thinks that's normal by NFL standards, much less logical, well, perhaps Ryan is their coach after all. Kyle Williams, or Dareus for that matter, has absolutely no business dropping into coverage on a regular basis. Schwartz didn't do it and the results were pronounced. Seems like people are actually defending Ryan's nonsense. Looked at another way, when our D was almost tops, Dareus and Kyle dropped back only once every other game, about right, not 4 times/game which is what this season projects to on a perfect 50/50 hybrid scenario. Mario and Hughes can be debated, but Williams and Dareus cannot. Neither of those players are built to drop into coverage on any regular basis. It's stunning how opinions without any substantiation shape peoples thoughts.

That is an excellent article, it provides greater detail than any I've seen, but it also supports my point. Again, can we see the defensive linemen dropping into coverage more this year given that they didn't do so much at all in 2014 under Schwartz. Some people have commented on the LBs but they were not included in the original thesis. LBs can be expected to be in coverage as much as in run D or thereabouts. Either way, when your sack totals, and therefore pressure on the QB given that sacks are merely a singular measure of that, although at least to a large extent a proportional one, diminish by over 60%, it's a very difficult argument to suggest that dropping linemen into coverage was effective. According to that linked article, it wasn't effective. We merely lost pass pressure and gave up more yards per play passing when the DL-men were in coverage than when they were not. Like many others commenting with criticism, try reading the original post, it was limited to DL-men, not LBs who are also pass-rushers, into coverage. Only DL-men including DTs, not just DEs. Either way, the aforementioned link does a nice job of breaking down the ineffectiveness of doing so. And BTW, from that piece; And once again, overlooked by several of the critical intellectual giants otherwise contributing absolutely nothing to the conversation, again, is the notion that if this was a hybrid, then we can expect more, theorhetically anyway, of Kyle, Dareus, and whoever the DEs are dropping into coverage even more, again, theorhetically at somewhere in the ballpark of twice the rate. Doesn't seem to make much sense given the lack of production on D otherwise, clearly a result of the difference in Ryan's philosophy with that of Schwartz. I see further regression in the play of the D as a result, not an improvement as the Ryan Bros. are promising. As well, I see very little wisdom in dropping your best pass rushers into coverage on key passing plays. All you do is give the opposing QB more time, generally speaking.

I haven't seen much discussion of this in the media or elsewhere, but Ryan is on record now as stating that last season instead of running his own defense he attempted to blend his defense and Schwartz's and run a hybrid of the two. That may not be exactly how he stated it, but the gist is the same. We know that Schwartz didn't routinely drop DEs and DTs into coverage, so that part of the "hybrid D" that Ryan ran last season must be his. I don't know whether he was known for this in NY or not, I haven't looked. Either way, sounds idiotic and a very inefficient use of players. What's next, Darby rushing the passer by sneaking up into the NT slot. It's also hardly optimizing the talent on the D, which given the hybrid, is clearly why his D underacheived Schwartz's by a country mile. Is it safe to assume that the D would have been even worse had Ryan run entirely his own, perhaps equaling his last four 20th, 20th, 19th, and 24th ranked scoring Ds in NY, instead of our 15th ranked scoring D last season? Entirely rhetorical but that's the logic of it. In short, it would seem that we can continue to see the things that the defensive linemen complained about the most, aka dropping into coverage, because if those weren't Ryan's ideas then he's lying through his teeth, which is also a distinct possiblity on this team full of people that cannot seem to come clean with anyone. I guess I'm just curious why no one is challenging that outright. Again, maybe they have and I just haven't seen it, although I've been looking since Ryan made those statements and haven't seen it, definitely not in the media. Seems to me that if that happens again we're in for another long season with challenges upon the challenges that we already have rendering it an uphill battle out of the gates.

The bottom line on the Ryans is that they really need to simply STFU and start delivering the goods. Rex is already persona non grata by many, one more playoff-less season and no one will want him around. Adding Rob is just another move just like talking more, it means nothing unless they deliver the goods. Unfortunately for them neither has delivered the goods recently, and when Rex did he had the likes of Ray Lewis and Ed Reed in their prime. All of our ILBs and Ss together don't equal those legendary two. In fact, I don't see how anyone can possibly say that the defense has more talent now than it did last year. Oh sure, we all get the argument about Mario, but right now with Shaq out, and we will have other D injuries like every other team, we're equal at best, likely worse. McKelvin wasn't a huge loss but Bradham was, not because he's that good, he isn't, but because we have so precious little solid depth at OLB. I mean when they start talking about how Manny Lawson is going to have to have a big year it's time to worry. If that ain't the truth. And hiring his brother is just more of the sme bull **** in action form, not word form. I'd put big money on that no one's going to want to see them around Buffalo in 2017. Hope I'm wrong, and last year I was as into Ryan as Kelly was, but we were wrong, Jets fans were right.

Funny how the arguments change. I don't think anyone has ever said that Sammy sucks or anything. He's good. The questions are related to Whaley. Is Sammy so good that Whaley's decision to trade up for an additional 1st and 4th was worth it. The short answer is no, it wasn't. The only people that believe it was are a subset of Bills fans, almost noone anywhere ellse thinks it was. Numerous WRs in his own draft class with comparable or even worse QB situations have performed comparably, and many of those aren't even #1 or in some cases even #2 WRs on their teams, and almost none have had as many starts as Sammy. That's the first thing. The second thing is that if he keeps getting injured and isn't 100%, then he's just not much use to us. Two-thirds of his first season and over half of last season nothing but excuses were made as to how he wasn't himself because he was hurt. Now it's time for him to pull up his big-boy pants and show the world that he can make it through and contribute for all 16 games, and against some better teams too, not merely the mediocre and worse ones like he has. Most people seem to think he's awesome and among the best few WRs in the league when there's no evidence for that. He hasn't finished among the top-20 WRs in either of his two seasons with WRs like Beckham, Allen Robinson, Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry, and Brandin Cooks all from his draft class finishing ahead of him last season. In his rookie season the following WRs from his own draft class finished ahead of him; Beckham, Evans, and Benjamin. There are a number of other WRs from his draft class that have come close to matching his two-season total but that simply have not had the starts that he's had and in most cases aren't even their team's #1 WRs but who have outplayed Sammy on a per-game basis. That's says nothing to justify the notion that Sammy's even close to having been worth what we gave up to get him. We could have had another starter to boot. Others finishing ahead of him both seasons also aren't considered "elite" or even exceptional, so why should Sammy. What, just because his draft writeup said he was better than the rest, despite not proving it he is or something? Makes no sense. He's not playing like an elite WR right now. In 29 games and starts, he has only 9 100-yard games. Of those 9 games, only two were against playoff teams and we lost both those games. In half of his games he hasn't even had 50 yards. That's hardly elite. If Sammy, and those demanding that he's elite, want him to truly be elite, then he's going to have to play like an elite WR, not just post five teaser games every season, disappear altogether from 7 more for whatever reasons, and post 2 more mediocre games while missing two games due to injury.

Seems to me the ones jumping to conclusions are those that think that Sammy's going to be fine by the season opener and be injury-free all season. His two seasons here project to anything but that happening. Unfounded assumptions are the only things suggesting otherwise. The fact is that he's had immense difficulty with injuries either slowing him or keeping him out. I don't know why that would change this season, especially given that he's already off on the wrong foot.

BTW, I don't think that it's debatable at all. Forget the fact that in terms of evaluation of GMs all of his draft class WRs cost only one draft pick, not three including a pair of 1st-rounders. Otherwise, Beckum has not only performed better but on on four fewer games and worlds better. You're on an island, outside of Buffalo that is, in suggesting that there's even a comparison. Mike Evans has posted better numbers with comparable QB play. Brandon Cooks has posted comparable and he's started only about two-thirds the games that Sammy has and isn't even a #1 WR. Benjamin outplayed Watkins in their rookie season. Jordan Matthews and Jarvis Landry have also both posted comparable numbers considering that they haven't started as many games as Watkins either. Neither of them have had QB play any better than Watkins has. John Brown down in Arizona has also played comparably but on half the starts and as with most of the rest of the above, he's not the #1 WR like Sammy is. So I think you should probably familiarize yourself with Sammy's draft class before sticking to that argument. And if he can't manage to remain healthy for all 16 games this season, not to mention step up his play some, then he'll be unreliable at best going forward and the team would be stupid to sign him to his option year if he gets hurt every season. Right now he has this seemingly significant hurdle to leap over in order to justify his value to this team this season. All signs point to his injury being a Jones Fracture, despite the opinion of posters here that seem to think that silence from our boneheaded medical staff indicates that it isn't. If it is, then it will be interesting to be sure. But to talk about him as if he's already licked this and is on his way to a superstar season is way, way, way too premature at this point, on both counts. Love to see it, but caution suggests that it may not be the case.

Talk about hyperbole. Most of your arguments, if we can even call them that, are excuses. Watkins was supposed to be special. He can't even finish among the top-20 WRs every year and he's the only thing we have going since he's been here. He couldn't even hit 1,000 yards in his rookie season and he barely did so last season. That's hardly superb, in fact, it's really not all that impressive at all, particularly not for a WR that cost two 1st-round picks and a 4th. He's only missed 3 games, but how blatantly you sidestep the number of games that he's been far from 100% in. There's another, at least, half a season, at least. If all he does is barely put up 1,000 yards, with half of those games resulting in losses anyway, we have to start considering how much he's really worth if he gets hurt again. Oh wait, he is hurt again. How much money would you put down on the notion that he'll make it through the season injury-free? Only a fool would do that. As to Shaq, by all accounts almost every player in round 1 is a top tier player, but seriously, do you really need me to tell you that that's not how it typically works out? I know I know, all of our players will work out. Got it, just like they always do. The bottom line, your excuses aside, is that Shaq is not going to be anywhere close to ready in September and it's a foolish proposition to suggest that after having missed all the conditioning, all the camp stuff, all the playing time, that he's all of a sudden going to step onto the field and be all that. That's the problem here, you look at everything through rose-colored lenses. Sorry, but it's not going to work out that way all the way around. I love your starters list. The only people in the world that think that Miller's anything but a project at this point are a subset of Bills fans. Everyone else sees the truth, that his play, at absolute best, was inconsistent, below average on the whole otherwise, and that he too has already shown signs of being injury prone. Henderson? LOL Why not throw all the other 3th thu 6th round picks in there too. It's a longshot that Henderson amounts to becoming an above average starter, which is what you should be looking for, not mediocre starters and starter/backup tweeners since those aren't the types of players that are going to help us end our playoff drought. Brown? Again, you serious? Another low-end starter with limited skills. Sure, great against the run, ... in a passing league, and with no pass defense skills to speak of. Ragland's a carbon copy, I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned his future Pro Bowl status. Then you say "assuming he starts." LOL he dam well better. What we have behind him is crap and if we drafted a non-starting player when we could have drafted starters at other deeper positions in the draft, like WR among them, then that's just one more reason why Whaley should have been gone by now. BTW, have you looked at the Alabama pedigree for LBs in the NFL? Here's a clue, they haven't fared well despite being highly graded coming in. All we have is hope that Ragland isn't the next in that disappointing string. Taylor was Ryan's choice as any true Bills fan that's paying any attention should know. Again, talk about hyperbole. If Whaley had had his way Manuel would be starting. Clay's been an extreme waste of money so far. Graham? Seriously, again, not a great cover safety at all and a marginal starter at best. Bryant/Washington? LOL, again, hyperbole. Washington hasn't taken a snap and I'm still not sure where he's playing as there is not starting spot for him, yet, apparently we needed another backup, because Ryan, Mr. Integrity said so. So he'll be a depth player out of the gate. Again, we're not going anywhere led by players like Bryant. So reduce your list of pats-on-the-back for Whaley by that list of marginal starters and players for which "assumptions" are needed, unfounded ones at that, and then rethink your position.

Name the players that you think have been good, by round. We've gotten hardly anything from the 3rd round on out.

You have very low standards.

Either way, it's not a good thing. Here are some quotes of Sammy from TOS; For starters, that's what Ryan, Whaley, & Co. said about Shaq. Secondly, this is the same medical staff that swung and whiffed bigtime on Shaq's injury whereby the rest of the league's medical staffs had it right. They seem to have almost no credibility anymore. Watkins' own statements seem to contradict Ryan's. Also, a minor broken bone in the foot isn't the type of injury where as Watkins says, "you've got to be very careful." Sounds like a Jones Fracture after all if they have to be that careful. Lastly, the thing about Sammy is that even if the foot heals the odds are better than 50/50 that it'll be something else this season or a re-injury of the same foot. Either way, Watkins doesn't sound nearly as optimistic as Ryan does. Maybe Ryan should focus on Seantrel and pay him some love, he's capable of being very good at RT if they can ensure that he gets in there at 100%. Questionable whether that's possible, just sayin'. Hairline fractures also heal quickly as long as you take weight off. If this were a hairline fracture, six weeks in a boot should have more than done the job.

Well, nothing says he'll know them any better this season. But passing assignments are different than blocking assignments. He may have graded well as a rookie in coverage, which I'd like to see, but he sucked last year and wasn't really great at anything. Blame it on what you will, but coming out in the draft coverage was hardly average much less his strong suit. Everyone overachieved that season due to Schwartz's coaching, but that's long gone now. I don't think anyone else could have gotten what Schwartz got from that group of guys. Ryan should have gotten a lot more than he did, but even him. Hi standards there, wouldn't you say. Neither of those two guys has even proven to be an average starter. That's a stretch with Lawson, besides, he'll be needed to play outside, particularly now that the other Lawson won't be available. Zach Brown? You serious? That's our big solution on 3rd-downs and obvious passing downs? Also, why take Ragland so high given all of this? Don't you think that it was shortsighted, which is right up Ryan's alley, to draft an ILB that can't cover when that's what we already had? Who knows why players didn't know their assignments last year, but the onus is on the team to prove that it won't repeat, not us as fans to trust that liars aren't going to continue to lie. It's a massive assumption that they're all going to be on the same page this season. Ryan says that he made a mistake bout trying to run a hybrid of his and Schwartz's system and that he's going to run only his own this year. So since it wasn't Schwartz's, it must have been his that had DL-men dropping into coverage. I don't think that's going to put everyone on the same page, particularly if the winning doesn't come fast and furiously. We do have two shut-down corners and 2 DTs, when healthy (Kyle at 33), but our middle is wide open, and that's where most NFL passes go. That's hardly odds-on for us. Either way, you appear to be contradicting yourself and throwing up as much mud as possible hoping to get something to stick while adcknowledging the issue.