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1.91 for his 10 3.19 for his 20 By comparison, guys like Robinson, Lewan and Matthews had 10 yard splits around 1.7 and 20 yard splits in the low 2.8's. Henderson actually had similar numbers to them. At the combine, it was almost an eye opener to see how lumbering and lethargic he looked. That's why all of the questions about his knee came up. The Bills took a chance. He had/has trouble with speed rushers, but other than that..played like the All American he became. He could be dominant, especially in the run game. But he most definitely came with some red flags. He wasn't a "solid but unspectacular" type of prospect. More of a "he can be dominant if..." type of guy. Whether he'll ever be able to compensate for his lack of athleticism, or whether it improves, is anyone's guess.

You talk about getting rid of a coach because he's from a "bygone era" but keeping the head coach because he's "old school"? Speaking of bygone eras, you had a HC and his junior OC coming into Buffalo and bragging about how they would be using a 20+ year old playboook... uh huh. And worse, it was clear that they had little idea of the reason behind the K-gun and how to run it. Its Spiller's fault because he doesn't smash through the middle of the line and pick up 2 yards; Its the OL's fault when the D has 4 defenders stacked over the guards, and the 3 OL can't block 4 defenders (it took Hackett several games to realize that was happening); Its the OL coaches fault when the OC decides to attack behind the weakest area of the OL; Its everyone's fault except the people who design the O. But ok. If you think getting rid of the OL coach is somehow going to transform the offense, good luck with that. There will be someone else to blame next year.

I'm not sure that using essentially the same running play 20 of 23 times in a game can be classified as a "scheme". I mean, even Don Shula ran Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris outside. Watching Hackett call a running game reminds me of an old Happy Days episode I saw as a kid. Ritchie and Potzi's band played a frat party but could only play one song. Potzi couldn't figure out why everyone was leaving. Hackett = Potzi. Don't feel bad, give it a few years. The next offensive genius to come in, probably a quality control assistant at Sweet Home High School, will move Watkins to tight end, just as he's coming in to his own as a WR. And the comments will go like this: -You know, he's really not a very good blocker; -He really can't get off the line with a LB in his face; -I know he's not big by typical TE standards, but still, you should be able to block a LB or DE if you're a TE; -we're really getting killed on the edge by DE's and LB's...we really need someone who can block; -In this scheme, we really need a TE who can block, and we're not getting it from him, he just doesn't fit what we're trying to do; -I wonder if we can get a 5th rounder for him, I mean, he's proving pretty worthless as a TE...can't block and can't get off the line, I don't know who'd want him.

Why? Because that's what its been after the Chicago game...3.6 ypc and about 35 yards per game. By the same token, I don't know why you keep excluding the NE game. More importantly, if you think 3.6 ypc is good, fine or whatever, I don't know what to say.. Even more importantly, if you think the best the Bills RB's good for is to run into the middle of a pile on every play....well damn. This running game would be sooo much better with even a touch of imagination.

OK...I'm looking... and his ypc in the last 5 games total is 3.6. .

166 total rushing yards in the last 5 games is "doing just fine"? Because that's what he's gained since the Chicago game, with a total average of 3.6 ypc. Had Jackson, Spiller and Boobie each not have kicked off long run in the first 2 games, (3 carries totalling 132 yards), this would be a bottom 5 rushing attack. All is not well, sorry.

and no offense to you...(sincerely), but if you have sunday's game on DVR, go back and watch the running plays. Of the 23 rushes, I counted 20 that were designed to go up the middle. There were 2 plays for Spiller designed over the tackle, 1 to each side There was a run between Richardson and Glenn, so I'm not calling that a run over the middle, though some might Spiller bounced one to the outside, Freddie bounced one, Boobie bounced two. -If you want to keep a defense honest, you might not design 87% of your running plays to go up the middle. -I mean, the line doesn't even have to shout, "we're running up the gut, try to stop us!!" ...because the D already knows that. -As far as others doing well in this imaginative attack...Freddie averaged 2.6 ypc Sunday, and Boobie 3.3. That's 17 carries for a whopping 49 yards between them. -Only NH would consider a sweep, a pitch or any other off tackle running play a "gadget play". Fun is fun, but damn...20 of 23 plays were essentially the same running play. Its pathetic that the game plan for a rushing attack fits on the back of a business card.

Maybe, and it would be fantastic if it happened. If nothing else, I hope every member of the Bills took something away from it. they could understand what it means to be embraced by a city; they could understand what it means to be loved and cheered long after their playing days are over; they could understand what it means to be "a special group of men".

This is what I use, because I can find it at a local shop. http://shop.foos1.com/ But you can still get it over the net. The menthol flavor is actually a little harsh on the back of the throat, but the taste is good. The starter kit is inexpensive, so if you don't like it, you aren't out much money. I also like it because the company was started by an Iraqi War Vet out of his house. He now distributes to a few thousand retailers in Kansas and Missouri. They really need to go national.

Oh, I agree with getting the best nutritionist for these guys too.. In terms of stamina, somehow, he has it for a guy who played at 340 or so. Baylor was the most up tempo offense this side of Oregon. Their average scoring drive would be like a minute. And..they would play in 100 degree heat. In their game against Oklahoma, he actually looked stronger as the game went on.

The "can I afford this?" link is a nice touch..

The rape allegations are a bit different. In his freshman year, the team kicker..a friend of his, allegedly raped a female student. After she made the allegations, Lewan apparently threatened her...telling her to keep quiet or he'd rape her himself. He WAS warned by the Ann Arbor PD to have no further contact with her...and the allegations about the threat were made by two teammates, not the victim... http://www.washtenawwatchdogs.com/uploads/7/6/7/4/7674794/7992254.png?745 And the kicker was expelled from school last fall...4 years after teh fact. http://www.michigandaily.com/sports/former-kicker-brendan-gibbons-expelled-sexual-misconduct?page=0,0 I'm not as concerned about the fight he may or may not have gotten into. Threatening a rape victim is another matter. I wouldn't want him on my team.

I think there is some truth to what he's saying too. It isn't, and never has been about a single lineman. Or 2. But you can't expect 2 good linemen to take on 5 or more defenders. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. THAT is what happened many times in the past. We have R. Brown, he's a Pro Bowler, so we can get by on Pucillo and Trey Teague; We have Jason Peters...so we can slap a guy like Tuten Reyes next to him; We just drafted Levitre and Wood, so we can use D. Bell and Kirk Chambers as our tackles; We just re-signed Wood...so we can put some schlep next to him. Like a bad manager..they often as 1 or 2 to do the work of 5. As far as what he said about drafting..late 1st, 2nd round or a little later....I just have a problem with the "little later" part. i agree..they've really done well in the late 1st-2nd rounds. But it has been 10 years since they got anyone below the 2nd who is worth mentioning. They got lucky with Jason Peters as a UDFA 10 years ago...but have been 0 for the decade since then. You have to go back to 2001 to find someone worth mentioning drafted as high as the 3rd round. The rally cry of "you can get these guys later in the draft" hasn't worked for the Bills...not even close. I don't mind drafting OL late in the draft...I have more of a problem when they are Plan A...or the only plan.

hey, thanks for bringing up the Seahawks and the Ravens... Okung misses 8 games with injury, their RT misses 9, Max Unger misses 3 and Carpenter doesn't play in 6...and they sucked... Go figure.. So Okung doesn't play, they move their RT to LT and G Pat McQuistan to Rt...and subsequently give up 7 sacks to the Rams... go figure. Of course, if these positions really didn't matter...you could just plug and play anyone in them...you know...like the Bills do.. They get their line back and win the SB. Baltimore 2012..and even better example.. Mckinnie is brought in to play LT...he becomes...Bryant McKinnie...unmotivated and lazy. The Ravens shuffle their line,... move Oher to LT...Osemele to RT...the offense goes between sputtering and mediocre. McKinnie asks why is isn't playing...Harbaugh informs him that he isn't practicing. Had it been the Bills...there would have been a cry that Rice, Torrey Smith, Flacco and Boldin needed to be upgraded and they needed more "playmakers". Instead..McKinnie gets his stuff together in late December and gets in the line up. Oher goes back to RT, Osemele goes back to LG. and....wait for it...the offense takes off, averaging 30 points and 400 yards in the playoffs. Again..go figure Thank oyu for citing those examples to prove my assertions. . I don't recall saying it was a no. 1 priority.. if a team has a no. 1 priority. its far more than the afterthought the Bills put into it.. 14 years and counting...and people saying the same thing.

No straw man involved. I just openly wonder when someone watches an interior lineman on all access...watches them give up 5 sacks and 28 pressures...and then calls them "average". And then expects people to accept that opinion as fact. I just wonder what they are watching. Much like when Buddy talked about how surprised people were going to be with Colin Brown and Sam Young. People at the time said...Buddy has a plan...so these guys must be good.. They weren't and his "trust me, they're better than you think" statements were no more than naked justification for someone who had the OL as a very low prioritty on his list. If you'd like to say that Chris Williams played "average" feel free. It doesn't change the OL situation... Again..if you want to believe that the Bills put the same emphasis on the OL as the Ravens...go ahead...it isn't true... it has never been true. He seeks quality on the OL...and he pays for quality. Is he always right? no. but he puts far more effort into it than any GM we've had in a while. I used Ozzie as an example for the point that maybe...just maybe..the Bills should start looking at how successful teams build their teams, rather than thinking they are outsmarting people. That's nice...point comepletely missed.

It is what you said before, it seems to me to be a matter of attitude, a matter of priorities. Ozzie, who puts far more into maintaining his Oline than the Bills do building theirs...never seems satisfied. the Bills replace their best lineman with some dumpster fodder, say things like "oh, I really like the way things are shaping up" I really hope he's playing possum. But we'll see.

Ozzie had to dismantle half of his SB team for cap reasons. Last year, he lost his veteran center to retirement and his 2 OT's to laziness. the year before,,,when they won the SB...they looked like this LT- former Pro Bowl selection (with motivational problems) LG- 2nd round pick C- veteran and former 6 time pro bowler RG- 3rd round pick, Pro Bowler...had been given a contract for 6.5 million a year (you don't pay a guard that type of money!) RT- 1st round pick (you don't draft a RT tackle in the 1st round!) Since 2005, while replenishiing his offensive line (that had been always far superior to anything Buffalo fielded), he used 8 picks in rounds 1-3 on the OL; Buffalo...while "rebuilding" its OL since at least 2005...has used 3; they are down to 2... When the cap wouldn't let him pay both of his guards 6.5 million a year, he used a 2nd round pick as a replacement. Buffalo used a garbage dumpster run to replace its guard. When he was losing his center Jason Brown to FA riches, he was replaced with a pro bowl center. When the Bills traded their pro bowl tackle, he was replaced with 7th round pick Demetrius (Demetruss) Bell. It took 3 years to draft Cordy Glenn. Ozzie..the anti-Bills philosophy.

uh huh... the context is...some are better at pass blocking than others. It is a football fact of life. I've watched Levtire enough over the years...and more than enough of Legursky and Colin Brown..to know what the differences are.. and that reading those stats confirmed what I already knew by watching them. "not in the same league" is a phrase that comes to mind. If you ever put an interior offensive lineman on an island...Levitre was it.. The dude never got help..because he didn't need it. 95% of the time..Wood would move to his right and help Urbik. And despite not getting help and being left on interior island..he gave up an extraordinary little amount of pressure. Legursky isn't really too bad of a run blocker, IMO..but his pass blocking is well below average. It might be his lack of height and consequent loss of leverage, but he gets beat quite a bit after initial contact. His protection basically holds up for a second or two. That might be cool with some...but that a second or two of protection is really not good. Colin Brown was just beyond bad. People can watch all of the tape they want, but if they can't tell the difference between good and bad..it really doesn't matter. So yes, it is a matter of context, I guess.

Does that fact really need to be refuted? The Bills' have been the anti Ozzie Newsome for more than a decade. Anyone not realizing that...hasn't been paying attention. It would fine if they actually found these late round gems that everyone seems to think are so easy to acquire. But its been 10 years now since they found anyone below the 2nd round who was worth spit. You'd have to go back to Jonas Jennings, 13 years ago..to find someone taken as low as the 3rd round who was worth anything. If you can get them later..where have they been? 2 in 13 years is pretty pathetic for getting people from "anywhere". Other teams might...Buffalo has proven repeatedly and beyond any doubt that they can. The only real question is whether Whaley is actually going to change anything. We'll see.

Man, I'd hate to tell you what Levitre gave up in 2012. 1 sack 3 hits 7 hurries http://blogs.buffalobills.com/tag/andy-levitre/ So it goes like this... Levitre wasn't worth the money because he wasn't a stud and no more than above average. Ok.. He's replaced by a duo that gives 5 sacks to his 1..and a whopping 24 more hurries Who are then replaced by a guy that gave up 5 sacks to Levitre's 1 and who gave up a whopping 21 more hurries...a guy who is deemed "average" by some. If that's average..I'd hate to see below average.

Where do people get the idea that Marrone thought he could "coach up" dumpster players? The problem began long before he got here...people said the same thing with Gailey and the offense "oh, he didn't want X or Y, becuse he thought he was smart enough to coach people up". . If anything..a good position coach is going to say..."uh...these guys we have aren't going to cut it." It isn't much different than the plumber telling his customer "this cheap plumbing fixture you bought at Big Lots is going to go bad in a year." But if the customer insists..or only provides that to the plumber...who's to blame when it does go bad? The plumber, or the customer for providing shoddy materials and demanding that they be used? In fact, Marrone was saying he was unhappy with the guard play as early as training camp. And well...he was right. But the idea that he said "don't bring in any linemen, I'll just coach them up"...sorry... I don't see that any more than I saw Gailey saying "nah, don't give me any offensive weapons..I don't need them." There is a reason that Buddy Nix left the Bills with one drafted lineman during his tenure...the dude was an original American Picker for OL and this occured well before Marrone ever got here. Will Whaley be different...I agree with THAT...I'll wait and see.

uh huh. God, I hope we take another DB...that's been working out so well for us.

Uh huh.. Well as long as the kid who cuts Peter King's lawn says so... He probably should have waited until after the season was over to write that. 3 of the first 4 teams that draft OT's (all 3 ended up playing RT, btw) in the 1st ended up improving their O's dramatically...and went to the playoffs. San Diego went from 31st in 2012 to 5th in yards, and made the playoffs for the first time in 4 years; Kansas City went from scoring 13 points a game to 27 and went from the NFL's worst to a playoff team; Philadelphia went from scoring 17 points a game to more than 27, and was 2nd in the league in yards ganied. Another team that went from drafting 4th to the playoffs. Does it guarantee success? nope. Nor does any other position. Can it help an offense? Oh yeah. Do sucessful teams draft OL in the 1st? Yep..and pretty consistently. Has our reluctance to draft OL in the 1st round given the Bills success? 14 years and counting.. The nice thing about being a Bills' fan is that when November rolls around, and we have nothing to do but look forward to the draft, we can look at the playoff teams and say things like, "they really wasted their no. 1 pick on an OT". We do know better than them, as our playoff record shows.

I don't think that's as true any more. With teams going to more spread formations, and definitely with QB's getting rid of the ball quicker..defenses have had to get more pressure up the middle. They realized that just waiting for the edge rusher to turn the corner wasn't getting there in time. Being a copy cat league, I'm sure every DC watched the Giants' upset over NE in the SB and saw the value of getting pressure up the middle. To counter that, teams have now been finding (and paying for), quality interior linemen. That's why Logan Mankins is paid what he is paid, and why Carl Nicks went for a ransom to Tampa (it wasn't the cleanliness of their facilities). It is why Ozzie Newsome invests in the position, why NO has two Pro Bowl guards and why drafting them in the 1st is becoming a little more popular. It isn't that the LT position has been thought worthless, it just isn't the end all and be all position on the OL. I was never a big fan of the "we have a LT and that's all we need" philosophy as much..teams will just exploit the weak spot...now more than ever. I'm not sure about moving Glenn to guard, I like him where he is...but he does have the potential to be a dominant guard, a Carl Nicks/Jahri Evans type. With a very good LT, the left side would be one to fear. Life could be worse if that happened.

Then why bother bringing up Gronkowski? Thats nice.. I don't know that anyone ever said that drafting linemen high guarantee a good offense, any more than drafting a QB high guarantees a good offense or a SB. I'm not sure what the point is.