Maine-iac

Looking at Dennison and Roman it is easy to see who's better at scoring points. Roman's offenses have frequently been 24 or better ppg and Dennison had one season over 23. We are essentially moving away from a higher scoring offense. Even with frequently injured WR's, RB's, and TE's the offense of the last 2 years outscored every single offense Dennison has ever fielded except one.

Wow ........... read it. Seems many will not like it. Change for change sake is frequently not a good idea. We should have kept the offense and fixed the defense. Now we are fixing everything and seemingly have little idea what actually works.

Well Dennison averaged 22 ppg with Manning and 20 ppg without so our whopping 20.4 ppg isn't probably going to rocket up towards 25 anytime soon.

If Dennison is just a horrible 0C I'm not sure benching QB's is going to help matters. Suppose it's too late.

Well if Dennison isn't or can't change or effectively use the talent then I guess you try the other talent. So trying Peterman makes sense for McDermott. As far as Frazier he has IM0 a much better track record of fielding defenses and we have some very dominant defensive showings under our belts from this year alone. The two big slips ups are both after trading away a pro bowl DT and both now involve us not being able to stop the run. The next couple weeks will surely show a lot. If the defense doesn't come around in a big way and the offense continues to collapse it's going to be fairly demoralizing. All I wanted was a defense to go with the offense we had. We were scoring 25ppg. This league is actually fairly simple and straight forward. Score more than 23ppg and hold teams to less than 20. Go back through the last ten years and it's almost a sure fire way of making the playoffs. We will end the playoff drought when we put a coach on each side of the ball that doesn't suck. I'm not sure this is the year we fixed that problem.

When are they running the ball well? We averaged 160 yard a game last year.

The next couple of weeks will show a lot. The defense returns and Peterman is the quick release, west coast, passer than Dennison needs and hey we have hope beyond mid season for a change. The run game continues to get blown up and Peterman is facing 3rd and 10 all day with Mills doing a turnstyle impression it will get ugly fast. Even uglier if McDermott doesn't have an answer for teams running it down our throats. I've been doing this too long and bad coaching is bad coaching. I get it that they have a process and and a ton of draft picks but we've seen this group here now play well. If you can't get that out of your players every week there's a problem and all the draft picks in the world will not fix that.

There's no way in hell they would have been playing cover 2 all day last year because we ran the ball down everyones throats. It's the offense we are running now that is causing this. It is also the reason Peterman may be a better fit. I get that. It also might blow up in their faces and show that Dennison just sucks.

I am skeptical of using the word success with Dennison. You are right though, Peterman may fit this system much better. I don't like to stare over the cliff but if it is Dennison just sucks we need to get rid of him before we draft a "franchise" QB.

I certainly wouldn't have told you they'd be 7 - 2 but yes I would have said they would be good. Wade Phillips has put a top 10 defense on the field everywhere he played and give McVay talent like Gurly, Watkins, Woods and Kupp with a good TE also. Not hard to predict. I more likely would have guessed another season to be where they are now but that combination of coaches is easy. Bring in McDaniels here and I highly doubt we are averaging 20.4 ppg.

Look at the Rams this season. They put McVay with Philips. I almost could have told you before they played a game that they would be a good team. We year after year put a team on the field that doesn't compete on both sides of the ball and it almost always starts with coaching. If they could have kept Gailey with Pettine or Schwartz with Roman or Lynn with Frazier now maybe we'd be somewhere. I just have this terrible sinking feeling. Hopefully I'm wrong and Peterson is the fit Dennison needs otherwise we will have problems until the jettison Dennison.

I hope this idea is right ........... I'm afraid Dennison just sucks.

I see other teams adapt and get better. NE is the best example. I can't tell you how many times their defense has come out flat to start a season and yet every year they finish top ten in keeping the other team from scoring. I want that. They run or pass completely based on what the other team is doing. We run the same stupid offense no matter what. At least last year and the year before we ran the same stupid offense no matter what but it worked most of the time. I am worried this offense just isn't going to work regardless of QB. If Taylor and then Peterman isn't working, then we draft some "franchise" QB and throw him to Dennison and that doesn't work we are really creating a huge void and dedicating seasons and resources to a problem that may always be coaching.

rotate Lorax in pass rush and let him play special teams.

It's not the QB it's the 0C. You want to see this running game look at footage from the 0rton years. That will be our offense.

Two games ago I loved the McDermott hire. Still do for the most part. I loved it because I more than anything hated watching other teams score 25 points on us week in and week out. It's my own opinion but I'd rather lose in a dogfight where the defense plays well and it's close. It's also fairly demoralizing to see the other team assert their will on you. That said the last couple of weeks have me scratching my head. Now here we are at 5 and 4. Winning record in the hunt for the playoffs and we are making a QB change. For many this is very welcome and to them I'd say I'm not opposed except for a couple different reasons. I'm not opposed not because I think Tyrod can't play. I'm not opposed because I think Dennison can't coach. If Peterman does well, and let's hope he does. Then it was simple. Dennison couldn't coach Tyrod and we switched and all is well. If Peterman fails hard then we have a bad coach, a bad attempt at fixing the bad coaching. Then if McDemott can't get the defense corrected we now have numerous questionable roster moves and numerous questionable coaches. All this when just 2 weeks ago I thought Buffalo had finally turned a corner. I say all this because for anyone who's been a fan for decades, especially the last decade, this is the repeating story and I ask myself how did I fall for it again? How do we start so many seasons with hope and then fall flat on our faces? How is it we always get worse as the season goes on?

You want to see our new offense ................. Just watch game tape of any 0rton start. Can't run and hope to score enough to eek out a win. Actually the team as a whole will probably eek out the same 9-7 type season.

They may have been right on several occaisons. QB's will miss some throws and if there is a criticism of Taylor I get it's that he's too safe sometimes. I still say that Dennison does an awful job of getting guys open long before it is on Taylor. Peterman may well pull the trigger and have a little more success. We might also see the defense play well and Peterman throw three picks trying to be "agressive" and end up getting killed that way. If Dennison isn't capable of using the talent of his players I have no problem with the move to Peterman. It may well work to some extent. That said a different 0C would have this team scoring points and running the ball down other teams throats. We did it for two straight years. We know it can be done. If they are going to go "Rex" on the offense, might as well get started I suppose.

He can back up McCoy ........... let Tolbert run on goaline.

I see this all the time after loses. Kind of the anti Taylor sing song. Fact is the guy scored points to the tune of 25ppg. If you are calling crappy running plays and end up in 3rd and 7 or 3rd and 12 every time then it makes the passing game look much harder than it should be. If Dennison wasn't so awful at getting the running game going any QB, Peterman included, would look like Jim Kelly all over again. Until our coaches get their crap straight and get an effective game plan the passing will suffer. Look at other teams. They scheme guys open and the throws are easy. People here are bitching because Taylor isn't throwing it into double coverage. It shouldn't be so hard.

It's this simple. Despite all the captain checkdown talk Tyrod's best throws were deep throws. Problem is they traded away all the deep speed and left him with a bunch of undersized TE's at WR. Then mix in that the running game is not working and now teams are playing coverage. Instead of 3rd and 4 where they are afraid of the run and Taylor can get passes off downfield, run, or actually check it down and still have a chance to pick up a first we are consistently in 3rd and long, frequently double digit long, and there just isn't anywhere to work the ball and the pocket is collapsing too fast. I really don't think Peterman will have any better success. Both QB's are shackled by this ****ty running attack and an o-line that too frequently let's at least on defender run untouched into the backfield. This is on the coaching. I hope Peterman proves me wrong but I largely think until they replace Dennison neither QB will do that well. It's going to look like the 0rton year all over again except with a rookie.

I thought about this also. Why were we able to play the run when he was only playing part time. This is what I was thinking. Do they keep tabs every single play as to whether Dareous is in or out? If they game plan for Dareous and his back up comes in are they still running plays like Dareous is in there? As in blocking schemes to account for him. If he's gone you can run a whole game plan for the defense not having him and take advantage. If there's a chance he's playing 30 percent of the snaps you can't.

All this plus I'd like to add the biggest thing stopping Taylor from being dangerous is our own coaches. I'm all for telling him to go through progressions, read the defense, make passes but if you have Tyrod back there and they go man and are all running back to down the field let him run. He doesn't have to run all the time but the fact that teams know he's being coached to stay in the pocket makes it easier to come after him. Best thing Taylor could do is run for 60 or 80 yards on a couple of teams. Secondly I'd like to add that they need Thompson on the field full time. He seems to be the only guy with the speed and separation ability to keep defenses honest. Taylor seems to be able to find him also. He almost got him last game except Thompson couldn't hang on but every other game they've put him in he's produced. If nothing else it should keep the defense a little more honest and help Clay and Benjamin underneath.

If Dennison wants to know what we do best watch some tape from last year but shouldn't he have done that already? If he was interested in scoring points he would have taken last years run game and added some route variation to the passing game and called it a day. As it is he's single handedly stopped our running game which effectively cripples everything else because our offense fed off the running game.

Unless you watched the game. Then you'd say they played the pass, it was third and long, and the line can't hold up for anything that develops 20 yards down the field. That's nothing new.