Fake-Fat Sunny

Actually since hindsight is 20/20 it is clear to avoid the outcome where the Bucs sprinted to a 2-0 lead and never looked back that JP should have done something different like call a TO because the TB design and execution was great and the ills design and execution was faulty. To some extent, this argument is over how well did WM execute. On one side are folks like me who feel from what they saw that WM did not execute well at all: 1. He clearly did not take down or even engage the blitzer and at best he redirected him as he needed to go left to avoid WM. 2. The rushed did contruibute to the play because even though he did not tackle JP and was not the closest player to him when he was forced OB, this blitzer was part of a several man TB pursuit which forced him out and this blitzer had the time and ability to even peel off and occupy space so JP needed to throw long to dump the ball. Others however, 1. Feel JP did "force" the blitzer to take an inside rush toward the QB and thus executed as he was supposed to terming his effort a "chip" block which allowed JP to "easily" role to his right (where he was run OB for the safety which killed us, the quotation marks are mine and I add them since I think this view is so off the mark but that is just my commercial). I think it is impossible to say for certain which view is correct because we simply do not know the blocking scheme called for this play by the Bills or what assignment or duty he had on this play (for example if he was actually the intended receiver on this play then engaging the blocker is the last thing he should do). I think the real big deal here is the question of how the heck did JP not see that we were overmatched on that side by even two blitzers and actually there were 3 guys with pressure on JP. In retrospect, if you want to blame anybody who could have done something different it was JP. The design of our play and protection was so flawed when matched up against their design and blitz that it is hard to see any appropriate call but to call a TO and start all over when the line-up became clear. Still, looking only at the issue of execution, it seems pretty far fetched to me that anyone can feel that WM did what he was supposed to do well, He simply did not effectively block the blitzer. If all he was supposed to do was make sure the blitzer did not take a direct line to the QB then yes he accinplished this task by throwing his body to the ground in front of the blitzer. The defender had to go around him (in essence this is what he did- I do not think people argue about that, just whether that was efffective execution of his role or not) to pursue the QB. I just can't see that being good execution and all he was supposed to do on that play. This come after he also threw an ineffective block on 1st down leading to a pass block. Its hard for me to conlcude anything but WM simply sucked on blitz pick-up this series. This does not mean at all that we bench him or do anything but rely on his running ability this Sunday. We just have to realize that this youngster is learning.

Taking stock of a player who has not yet even started a 16 game full season worth of starts is so premature it isn't doesn't even get up the level of being rediculous. Sure in this what have you done for me lately sport and world that we live in this broad analysis is to be expected. However, if one is going to do this and have even a remote connection to reality this taking stock needs to be placed into the proper perspective that yes we are taking stock of his play overall, but our conlusions are pretty worthless in terms of reality and truth. If folks are willing to spend their time taling stock with this caveat which is true then more power to them. The important things to remember when taking stock of WM's career particularly in the context of Sundays game. 1. Not only are we drawing broad conclusions about his career based on him starting less than 16 games, but we are doing this after he threw a clinker after rushing for well over 1000 yards in a mere 11 starts last year. The accepted wisdom in the NFL is that it takes at least 3 years if not 4 before you can accuirately judge a draft class. One might be able to draw and earlier conclusion about an individual if he gets hurt and is out of the game or if he has a better than Tom Brady start on achievements early in his career, but overall the taking stock which we do now may well be totally wrong and worthless in the end. 2. The taking stock which we do know will be heavily influenced by recent events and thus the horrible day WM had Sunday will almost certainly get inordinate weight in our taking stock compared to not just the tremenddous year he had last year but the great game he had in the distant pass of the week before last. 3. Trends do not dictate the future at all, but there should be some relevance to the fact that if current yardage trends hold up, JM will gain over 1200 yards this year. This number would be bad in terms of our expectations but would be an great total yardage for an RB in the NFL which still has 1000 yards as a standard for rushers even though the season extended from 14 to 16 games. By all means take stock, just acknowledge and realize that this is pretty worthless when trying to think through WMs career prospects.

No. Its bizarre to me that folks some how seem to have reached a conclusion that MM is singling out McGahee for criticism or making some special effort to call him out. It's not what I've seen and read in interviews with MM since the game. Yes, he definitely directly pointed out some faults in WM's running game in the TB game. Well as Gomer Pyle would say Surprise Surprise. The WM running production simply sucked on Sunday not only in comparison to his past lofty standards of past performance (way back last week) but even in comparison to even the most mediocre starting RBs in this league. Quite frankly for MM to have a comment that merely tossed off the production as a bad week that he is sure will get better with dumb luck or if Willis just tried harder would actually give us real concerns about him as a coach, generate legitimately more media questions and controversy for such a simplistic response from MM, and simply not be believable and undercut NN credibility with the press and with the fans. Is he singling him out? No- Look at the fans ask MM section on the Bills website and in response to a question MM does say that WM is more tentative than before but clearly says the running problem are a little WM and a little of the O-line. Somehow in at least one thread MM is described as coddling the OL and savaging WM. Is MM descrbing some drastic downturn or change in MM's running style this year compared to last year? No- I'm not sure where this stupidity is coming from but Hello Bueller, not onlt is it merely the second game and MM would be dumb to draw some parallel between the two years, but in the first game WM gaine 120+. I don't think MM can possibly be making any broad comparison and his comments are purely restricted to the TB game where WM did suck because a comparison would simply be stupid. Is MM saying anything at all negative about any players except for WM? Yes. he referred to Moorman's punting Sunday as not matching the previous consistency he has shown. As mentioned above he attributes fault to the OL with exactly the same phrases he uses to find fault with the OL. For gosh sakes who cares what he said he simply flat-out benched JP for a time. This whole controversy seems to be a creature of the media and this board. Everytime I have seen MM comment in anyway negatively about WMs play Sunday it has been in response to a direct question about McGahee or the running game production. Unless he says something negative about a putridly negative performance something he would not be answering the question. WM has also been pinned down with repetivie question after question and each remarked is parsed out to find and fuel some conroversy that are created in folks minds. My sense is not that there will never be controversy or that MM may call a player out publicly, but when this happens I think we will know pretty clearly that it happened and the creative work all over MM calling folks out will not be necessary when there is a real fight going on.

I would say I\m as off the wall as any football fan, but i know this is a lie because I;m actually more off the wall than most football fans and tend to look at the random tea leaves of football and see some significance. However, the items in this thread even strike me as fairly meaningless psychobabble. Come on folks get a grip. One can try to guess what these folks are actually thinking and since folks generally are so different and some folks think one way at one time, but very similar stimuli can produce nearly the opposite results in even the same person such tea leaf reading may produces a right answer but almost certainly will be wrong. This uncertainty about motives even comes before how folks will react to those motivation. Certainly trying to read the tea leaves is part of the fun, but really anything beyond the superfiial in trying to guess what an individual is going to do is just so speculative as to be pretty worthless. At least trying to predict a groups reaction has a bit more validity for someone practiced in judging group dynamics and reactions to relatively public info. However, this analyzing of individual players even strikes me as bizarrely off.

Darn, I thought when VABills admitted the errors of thinking after Simon and a couple of other folks also said they thought Willis essentially whiffed on the blitz pick-up that this horse was dead. However, since this horse is twitching again (your claim of JP easily rolling right is a twitch at best since its hard for me to see how someone running for life from the boarding house rush TB called on that play can be characterized at all as "easily." Specifically: 1. You claim that WM blocked him sufficiently to the left. Actually, the word block implies that he at least touched him and even that is not clear. He certainly "forced" him to go to the left, but since he quickly got past WM who at best "nudged" and probably just forced him to the left before he looped quickly past a lunging McGahee and chased JP to the right, I think you and those who claim he chipped the blitzer are giving WM more credit that he deserves for this "block" based on a look at the tape. Whiffed is a pretty strong word but it is certainly closer to the truth than the thought he blocked this player since that pretty strongly implies he engaged the rusher. I'd even have trouble calling WM a speed bump in terms of this blitzer as I am not even sure WM touched him. 2. You claim the blitzer was a non-factor. It is certainly true that the blitzer's pursuit of JP was slowed as he was forced to go left to make WM whiff, but he quickly resumed his chase of JP who was avoiding the blitzer by going right. The player Willis failed to stop was not involved in tackling JP, but interesting;y he had enough time and there were two other TB guys closing in for the kill that this blitzer can be seem peeling off and actially defending the space to make it harder for JP to dump off a shiort pass to avoid the safety. Instead JP held onto it for a second longer before throwing it away across the sideline but by that point JP had already gone OB and it was a safety. I think it is clear that this player had pretty free rein to choose where he could do the most damage despite the attempted WM block and it is possible by peeling off to cover the short pass and denying this option for JP it forced him to hang onto the ball and get called for going OB before he could throw it away. I'm not sure how big of a factor in the safety this player was but the WM block attempt was ineffective enough this pass rusher had time to consider his options and act on them and who knows how big of a factor he was but non-factor seems like wishful thinging. 3. I buy WM currectly trying to follow the take the inside guy axiom as you call it, but the keys parts of this are not only choose the inside guy but also TAKE him. Can you really look at the tape and call the attempted WM block TAKING the blitzer? As I said above, he forced the blitzer to go left to avoid the diving WM, but barely slowed down as he resumed pursuit right until he himself chose to bail as two other blitzers were closing in and instead cut off the passing options. I wish WM had taken the blitzer or at least engaged the blitzerso that the rusher was dealing with WM rather than deciding how best to get the sack done. WM did not TAKE the inside guy he was the non-factor here with his whiff. Further, VABills above may consider folks who argue against his and your position as lacking knowledge but one thing I learned from another post in this thread is that IF WM had in fact TAKEN the inside blitzer effectively, he actually would have forced this rusher to the right creating a pocket for JP rather than whiffing on the hit but forcing the blitzer left. It seems to make sense that if the Bills were building a pocket as on most other passes and WM had been the least little bit effective then JP would have not been forced to roll "easily" to his right and into two other TB blitzers and instead would have stepped up into the pocket and potentially thrown the ball downfield. All in all, i think this is the hierarchy in effective zone blitz pick-ups: 1. Pancake the guy- occaisionally the blocking RB will so effectively stymie the blitzer he simply pancakes the guy with a great block. This rarely happens since the blitzer has so much momentum but I have seen this high quality blitz pick-up a few times. 2. Submarines the blitzer- more likely if the end result is that the blitzer goes down it is because the blitz pick-up guy goes underneath the blizer and uses the rushers own momentum to flip him. I have seem this dramatic move a number of times and often on blitz pick-up you see this. It is a riskier move however, because on occaision I have seen the blitzer simply hurdle the blocker and kill the QB. Another example of this was seen on the 1st play in this safety series where the RB (probably McGahee but his number was blocked makes an ineffective effort to cut block Grer Squires of TB. Squires in fact slowed but not picked-up by the ineffective WM block attempt. The result was that Squires tipped the JP pass into the air but fortunately it simply fell incomplete. 3. Engages the blitzer- This is the classic and a good blitz pick-up guy at least locks up the blitzer so that the pocket is maintained and the QB can step up and get the pass off. In addition by engaging the blizer it keeps his arms bisy and stops him from blocking the pass. 4. At least chips the blitzer so that he has to take the long way around the pocket. McGahee did at least try to do this so in essence he whiffed on the blitzer. From review it appear that either the set-up was designed poorly by TC as there was too much space and a natural lane to the QB beyween WM and the right end of the line, or TC designed the set-up so this rushing avenue was cut off and WM simply line up a step to far to the right or a step too far back so he had to lunge fifully as he attempted to cut off the rusher. WM failed to even execute the lowest level of an effective block on the blitzsr. Actually thanks for continuing to beat this dead horse as I got a chance to think this through in a fuller way and unlike VABills who thinks some posters here do not have a clue I am able to thank the poster above for pointing out that if JP had made his block effectively he would forced the inside rusher to his right to maintain a pocket, Its observations like this one which make me love TSW.

I think the confidence issue is a red-herring in terms of effectiveness and is mostly just an excuse. JP and Willis are big boys and extremely well paid big boys at that. I do not think that they are so weak as athletes or as people that their confidence is going to be so wounded by being benched or their failings pointed out. In fact, if they were that weak in terms of personality that the only way to deal with is to say they are good when they suck in real performance they are likely to fall apart at crunch time anyway. There clearly and obviously is a psychological game to be played here and managing group dynamics of this team is a crtical part of MMs work. Though expressing confidence and being there for your players is part of this, unrelenting confidence will come back to bite you hard when it begins to diverge from reality. Real confidence comes not from the HC being unwilling to say something about the failings of a player which are pretty obvious (WM's output simply sucked Sunday and he is not hitting the holes in a way that picks up the yards he normally picks up) or being unwilling to bench a player who not simply has a problem but really reeks in terms of his production. Real confidence comes from the HC proving he is willing to stick with a player an give him a fair chance to show what he can do in the longrun. Guaranteed JP is going to fail a few times this year, but MM showed JP that he can be confident that even when his play sucks he will be sent out there to give it another try. I have no problem with MM benching JP when his results were as horrendous as they were Sunday and even less problem with him being sent back in when out back-up (who is truly on a short leash fails to turn things around immediately. I think it will correct management of the team dynamics if he lets JP know the obvious that he is out starting QB no ifs, ands, or buts and that once again he will get a large shot at doing it right next week. Sure, just like Sunday JP should be bemched Sunday if he fails to socre a TD or run the offense well at all and we are then in the fourth quater. However, our pledge is that this will not happen. Not in our house. The same with Willis, if he breaks down pouts, or cannot perform merely because his HC state the obvious then perhaps we did trade the wrong RB. I don't think WM is such a weenie that MMs comments are a problem.

My recollection of WM last year disagrees with this view and agrees more with what i think Simon is saying above that rather than immediately hitting the hole hard, i was surprised and impressed last year that WM really seemed to take his time and was effective picking the good hole as it developed and then turning on the after burners. I generally have been a part of the observer school which saw the success of RBs who hit the hole quick and picked up yards, but one of the things which I certainly took great note of last year was how successful WM was by being patient and reading his blocks by hitting the hole more slowly than the norm.

I think that these thoughts are the key. I know I poohed-poohed the prediction that the Bills O would not score a TD against TB because I simply thought the Bills had too many talented individual weapons for them to cover everyone. In the end, I think the TB boys simply beat the Bills straight up and in fact the covered everyone. There are those who worry that this was actually due to inaccuracy as a passer on JPs part, but I think that though this was probably part of the story, the facts indicate this is not true as an explanation of out total D failure. JP connected on the hand-offs to WM fine. The big stories in this game are that we did not run and eventually did not stop the run. Can JP carry this team with is passing. NO! He is not good enough and may even never be we will see in a few years. However, this fact does not mean the Bills cannot win as last year it is obvious Bledsoe also could not carry the team with his passing and we came within a game of making the playoffs. The game story is that Cadillac successfully ran and WM did not. I do not think JP can pass this team to a winning record, but i do think he can augment a productive run attack with the same skills which saw him start the last game 6/7 or the same skills which saw him respond to the benching by going 5/5 (or something like that) at one point.

I assume this thesis covers last year's games for Clements as OC and is not simply limited to this year (any these based on two samples is rejected simply because the sample size is too small). As an OC TC's record is 10-8. Right off the top him having a winning record as an OC throws your thesis into doubt. Perhaps you are correct IF all 10 of his wins happened because the D and ST saved the team or the O production came against bad defenses while his 8 losses were against good D teams that undressed the Bills and his O like TB did Sunday. However, this perfect occurence of events that proves your point seems pretty unlikely and if you are serious in putting out this thesis, rather than simply throwing out your conclusion (get rid of him) you actally should provides some evidence that substantiates your thesis. I'm impressed with TC becauseL 1. In the real world he has produced a winning record as OC and even if you can site proof of an unproven (and even unargued with anything but your conclusion) point that he beats bad Os and losses to good Ds, your point has no relevance in terms of can the team produced a winning record with a sub-mediocre OC and even make the playoffs with a sub-mediocre OC. If you have the evidence it links with TCs record and the team coming within a game after an 0-4 start of the more interesting point that a team can do quite well with a bad OC. 2. He really did a good job with Bledsoe last year. it was not great because he could not make the playoffs with Bledsoe as his QB. However, we have seen how bad the record of team can be if Bledsoe is depended upon too much and a team is pass-happy and uses him badly. TC got far better production out of Bledsoe last year in significant part due to better game calling and recognizing Bledsoe's weaknesses and strengths. A. In order to not allow opponents to sell out to the blitz one has to make use of Bledsoe's linited run skills. No one is going to mistake him for Michael Vick or worry about him running for a long score. However, TC who is primarily responsible for the O strategy and has almost total control of the play calls recognized that Bledsoe is a big boy who can get hit getting sacked or get hiit lumbering for 5 or 7 yards on a QB draw on 2nd and 8. He really made good use of ledsoe's limited run skills last year and this helped lower out sack total as blitzers feared WM going wide or Bledsoe on the delayed draw and blitzed less. B. He also recognized that Bledsoe is a very good ball handler. it was Bledsoe's ability to handle wayward snaps which got us through the Teague learning curve as he learned how to do shotgun snaps. TC gets credit for installing a number of traick plays which the Bills used successfully as WM pitched the ball back to him and he found Evan and Moulds on flea-flickers. C. ge recignized that though Bledsoe suffers brain farts in game situation that he actually is a 10 year NFL vet with a lot of game knowledge and good practice habits. He routinely runs out plays after the handoff and this illusion adds to his ability to run fakes. The fake QB sneak and the pitch to WM who ran for a TD were also examples that for a planned play Bledsoe can be very good. D. He and MM made good use of the alarm clock set for 4 seconds to replace the force of wil Parcells can do when he constantly yelled at Bledsoe just pass the damn ball when he would go into his familiar patpatpatsack. Bledsoe proved to be incapable of leading a team to the playoffs last year. However, i was really impressed with TCs work which improved the O and DBs performance to a level which was still inadequate on an absolute level but was a tremendous improvement over his horrid 2003 performance. I'd love to see your detailed cut disagreeing that TC oversaw substantial (though ultimately inadequate improvement in Bledsoe as a QB) and love to see you present and actual thesis (rather than simply and unsupported conclusion( that the 10-8 record produced with TC at OC was built up against bad Ds (which seems to be in the majority in this league based on matching your thesis with reality and if this is true it doesn't matter alot for the W/L whether he is sub-mediocre or not)

What you saw regarding the actions taken is one thing but why a player took those actions is something else. The reasons you desribe as WM's motivations may be true but they could also easily be all wrong. Even if you are correct that he wss pissed, who he was pissed at and why are also pretty much guesses. In addition, as someone pointed out above, even if you are correct that he was pissed (maybe or maybe not), you are correct about what he was pissed about (maybe or maybe not- maybe he was pissed at the ref who stepped on his hand when they unpiled the last play and he was signaling to the sideline his hand was fine, but if flared up during the TD and was so bad he could not even shake hands or high-five when he came off the field- I doubt this fantasy but I doubt your fantasy explanation as well), it is a flight of fancy to think that him being pissed at ths play says anything about his general attitude or will be translated to other plays. I think you were correct in what you saw (though even what we see is in some dobut because we cannot hear what is said or did not see the context that led up to it os even doubt that which one sees) but I think the conclusions you draw may be true in some ways but are probably incorrect.

My sense is that it appears Gray/Krumrie actually seem to judge that in order or Edwards to be most effective in working within this D scheme to stop the run a key for him in to play low but actually maintain his ability to move across the line and fill spaces left by an Adams rush. I do read your and other posts as I try to figure out what the heck Gray and Krunries are doing. I think that posts which find fault with Edwards for not playing low or for moving laterally rather than penetrating and breaking down the play are simply bad anallysis if he is doing exactly what Gray and Krumrie are telling him to do. As best as I can tell the ultimate proof in the oudding is whether the point about accomplishing the ultimate goal, stopping run is achieved or not. The key is not whether Edwards plays low or not, the key is whether they stop the run or not. As best as I can tell the key to how the Gray D works is mobility. A player who plays as low as you jufge good but proves unable to move horzontally and fill a gap is playing badly as far as our D scheme is concerned. The key is not to miss the point of a post, but the key is not to miss the point of how the game is being played. I think your assessment is correct when applied to a player who is running a normal 4-3 and his responsiblity is to stay low, hold hjis ground and cover the 1 or 2 gaps he is supposed to cover, but the very same assessment of whether a player is low enough but unfortunately he is human and thus cannot exercise the mobitlity to cover a gap that his fellow DT has abandoned because he us rushing the passer is not playing well because the other team is running all over us throught the uncovered gap. I flat out say that I like the vast majority of NFL OCs do not understand and cannot predict with enough accuracy how the Gray D works and what Krunrie wll have players do to make it work as much as possible. From what i see the Bills D failed badly last week, but the reason it failed was not because Edwards did not play low enough. As best as I can tell Edwards was actually not moviing well enough to cover all the space he needed to cover. Sam failed to get the penetration he typically gets and the plays were not being blown up and Cadillac got to use his time and ability to pick his spots rather than running awsy from Adams. If anything Edwards problems were that he was playing too low if this cut back on his achieving the mobility needed to make the Bills D wirk. I think you are judging how Edwards on an incorrect assessment of that constitutes good play on his part bevause what is good play in a 5-3 where DTs main job is to hold their ground is simoly incorrect because in the Bills D the mobility that has a player like Schobel covering a WR downfield, which emphasizes SA using his unusually quick first step to shoot the gap, nd see Posey drop back in pass coverage as often as he provide run support at the POA and far more often than he tries to sack the QB is how you measure good performance rather than some nonapplicable or outmoded assessment of whether Edwards is low enough.

Nah. I hope amd expect that these two will do the same old same old next week and that should be fine.

Actually the coming thing will be to put the computerchip in every players head. A fan will be chosen to either see things through the players eye or control his body to make him dance like the Burger King guy. The possibilitie are endful.

Goats- I'm reserving this for players who made mental errors that a brain transplant seems to be what they need to do to get better (ex. Bledsoe after he through away a pass on 4th down in the waning seconds of a game last year and then when he realized what he had done basically seemed to slap his head and say D'oh) or it was a nice try but they just aren't good enough to play their positions right now (ala Lawrence Smith in the redzone last year, he gets kudos and props because stepping off the PS of another squad to start for us is a lot, and really far more than anyone should expect or demand of a player. However. he simply was not there as a full service LG and needed to be replaced in order for us to perform adequately in the redzone. Fortunately we found the answer in Bannan and Adams in the redzone and ultimately in Tucker (pre injury) as our LG). At any rate, when I am ready to give up on a player or near ready or he stunk up the joint so bad in a game it is worthy of note I will label them a goat and I am interested in what others think. The good news is that though there is more than enough blame to go around, there is no Bill at this very early stag of the season that I would give up on as a starter or as a player for the team. Many watch qirstions were hatched by this debacle, but by far I think watching and judging is the thing for us fans to do. Goats- None (YET!) Heros- Its hard to believe but there were a few players who stepped up Sunday mostly because so many doubts had been issued about them by us finicky fans or because of injury or previous performance. Despite the horrible results, these fellows should feel good about their individual potential to help the team though I hope everyone feels bad about how the team performed and plans and will do better against AT at home. Josh Reed- He is still on the watch list as he has not produced theTDs or demanded he be sent on long routes by putting up the RAC numbers that demand greater use. However, the fact that he is leading the team in receptions after twp games (in part due to anemic JP use and performance which unfortnately is necessary for this young QB) is great. Reed so far seems to be slaying the dragon of the droppsies which derailed his second year and career by making catches in tight spots and building the rapport with JP we had hoped he would show with Evans. Reed still needs to show some more before to make the case for exending him beyond his current contract to be rational at all, (and would need to show some serious RAC production to make us want to do anything but rush Parrish back as soon as possible) but so far so good for him and kudos to him (for the moment but next week is another game and he needs to prove it every week for now). Rian Lindell- Who would have thunk it. His 6/6 performance so far has been outstanding and he has team with the coverage game to have our kickoff coverage look at least as good so far as last year. The jury remains out since oddly enough the game has not rested on his foot in the waning minutes all the time he has been here as we tend to win or lose in blow-out fashion, but his performance so far does not merit the nickname I am holding in reserve for him, but if he pulls this off then we will see. For now he is a great story for us and his limited role on Sunday of adding 1/1 to his first week 5/5 keeps the story going for now. Vincent- His injury last year raised some doubts in my mind about this longtime vet. However his performance at safety late last year and his showing in the first game in terms of 2 INTs and some nice almost coverage in this game gives this watcher a lot of hope that he is the real deal at safety. Milloy- once again it was an older player missing some starts due to injury which raised some questions about Milloy. Yet some hard hits from him and our lone sack Sunday on top of the INT in game 1 makes him one of our too few heros that we can be hopeful about after Sunday. Watch List- This is both good and bad to be on as players should be watched if they may prove to be inadequate or players should be watched because they may step up. Most players are not to be watched but merely expected to keep on doing the jpbgs they are assigned. Sam Aiken- some good ST play and seeming tackles leave me surprised he is not on the stat page for tackles. Roscoe Parrish- power outage on the O is making me lust after having his speed on the field to warp D coverage. Mike Gandy- pretty adequate game since the expectation was one of deep trouble at LT. Rice got 1 sack and Gandy and the rest if the OL did not open holes for WM but even this performance was better than the potential meltdown at LT most of us feared. He remains a watch but I am hopeful after 2 games Jason Peters- Not much to day about him after Sunday as most of his duty was ST and occaisional back-up when Gandy needed a blow (Ithink I saw him takwethe field at LT at least once. However, his tackle eligible TD this year,his punt block TD last year and the raves about him from JMac put him on the watch list until he has a brain fart that take him off. This did not happen Sunday. Bennie Anderson- Penalties this pre-season and one last week land him on the watch list. Not bad last week but everyone was inadequate this week . Duke Preston- on the watch list because except for his first play in the game last week i think this rookie belogs in the the NFL Mike Williams- The amount he is injured needs tio be watched. Reports have him as all smiles after the game which is probably a good sign in terms of the diagnosed level of injury. Greg Jerman- Filled in for an injured MW with no noticeable drop off. This probably say as much about MW not being a force as it does about Jerman being an adequate back-up. QB J.P. Losman- He had the expected growing pain in his bad performance so his stinking does not phase me uf he responds well. Complaints about MM mishandling him by benching him seem misguided because: 1. If he is so fragile that he is going to lose confidence when he hgets benched even though he sucked he is probably not tough enough to make it anyway. 2. Complaints he should not have been put back in seem misguided because his performance improved. I'm not sure what the whiners are on about because the theory he is going to be ruined does not seem to refelct the reality thaat he sucked so accountability is not bad and he improved so he responded to it properly. Kelly Holcomb- The back-up QB did not provide the desired spark. So what who cares and I go out of my way to mention Holcomb is NOT on the watch list as there is 0 QB debate. Daimon Shelton- The lack of productivity raises issues but folks who want to jettison him seem pre-mature in advocating this. There is additional lackluster play (JP's passes WM not running as well as last year) that making a change at FB may well produce the same result. Also if you cut or bench him people who advocate this need to make a convincing case that either Burns or Neufeld can do the job. As that case has not been made yet the idea of cutting or displacing Shelton seems little more than grasping at straws. Willis McGahee- all things are fine with him but another lackluster outing from WM will put him on the watch list. Williams- We better hope WM does not go down because Shaud has show little signs of productivity as a third down RB to raise faith in him. Josh Reed has performed very well as the #3 WR and it is simply too bad that we have not gotten performance out of our #1 and #2. Reed will need to sit as soon as Parrish can warp D coverage with his speed potential unless he demands playing time by showing more RAC than he has shown, but his play far exceedsthe droppsies of his second year or injury riddled 3rd year performance. I'm impressed but show me more/ Defense Chris Kelsay- impressed his first week but like the rest of the D pretty ninexistent Sunday. Ryan Denney- He is beginning to log an impressive # of tackles for a backup and gas done his job so far. Justin Bannan- it was good to see some nice work out of him as a backup DT when the heat forced forced the massive Sam to sit. His future appears to be in the DT rotation rather than as a G in the redzone Ron Edwards- A few folks want to cut him and complain about his lack of penetration and too much lateral movement as an issue. However, i think this complaints may actually say more about the lack of understanding about how to judge DT play in the Gray zone blitz than it actually says about assessing Edwards as a player. The intelligent move would seem not to be to cut him but instead to use him mostly as a pass rusherwere he demonstrably excels and also to change our scheme up a bit with Sam doing more run stopping rather than benching Edwards. This is a defintie and high priority watch. Tim Anderson- Also in for a blow because our starters at DT were ineffective ad also stopped by the hear. I'm psyched he got some snaps and hope his play demands more. London Fletcher- we likely saw the big drop-off in quality when Fletcher went out for Angelo Crowell and also how much Spikes depends on Fletcher to attract attention in order for him to perform like Spikes. Fletcher needs to come back or Crowell needs to step it up. Before we get too weepy about Fketcher thoug, I felt like Caddillac started moving the ball while Fletcher was in. Didanyone note the difference in performance with/without Gletcher or what play he was injured oj because it would not surprise me if he actually played ineffectively for a while until he took the bench? Terrence McGee- Interesting to me that TBD named him player of the week after we got killed for good after he got beat one-on-one up the seam on a pass that ended any faint hopes we had. Still he probab;y deserves this accolade because everyone else was so unproductive, he led the team in tackles (a signed that TD decided to pick on him actually) and he dd pull off some nice returns. Brian Moorman - Its interesting that Lindell's resurgence and a failure to make the usual top notcn kicks by Moorman happeed at the same time. Perhaps new long snapper Scneck is hitting it off with Lindell but Moorman misses Dorenbos. Go figure and we'll see. All in all too early to panic but there will be a lot to watch on Sunday (afterall we are tied for the division lead and NYJ loss is in the conference and MI has a loss in the division so it easily could be worse). Sorry for the lack of cliffnotes but this is all thinking out loud about the state of the Billsand that pesky work thing is intruding on my Bills commiment.

Naw, thank you and nuff said (unless somebody wants to run through this dead horse again).

Given the responses that you and another poster (DCSabres I think) had to my post finding fault with McGahee;s blitz pick-up on two (2) plays during the series that ended with our safety I went back and took another look at the tape, Given your reads on his play I thought that perhaps I had reacted too harshly in my judgment of his role in the multiple errors that led to this debacle because the RB clearly failed to do his role on the first down pass which was blocked an perhaps he did the best he could on the safety as he unfortunately had to block 2 players. I looked again toniight and I am afraid Willis wiffed on this one. Now this conclusion is simply a niggling detail point. There should be no change in the current Bills line-up or past Bills actions because WM seems to be suffering the same blitz pick-up problems most young RBs suffer from. Willis is paid the big buck to pick up yargage running and chip in with the occaisional reception. He does that with a vengeance with speed, toungness and a powerful stiff arm. He was such a better back than Henry last year as this former contributpr to the Bills simply gave up last year. The savubng grace is that TD was smart enough to take advantage of his poor money-management to get a nother year of ownership to his rights and also resisted the whines of those who wante to cut this "cancer" last year and instead traded him for value that Clayton, pundits and some watchers said he would never get because he had been too greedy, TD is far from perfect (ex. the horrible hiring GW decision) but the Henry and Peerless cases show he can read the market better than most others. At any rate, these were the two plays I saw. 1. On 1st down TC made an overly-aggressive call in tight D battle on the road trying to pass from the 1 yard line or so rather than run for space, and worse comes to worse get Moorman to hit a big one. Instead he called for a pass. The OL was not able to pick up Spires rushing in. The deep RN II could not see his number but it was almost certainly McGahee rather than Shaud Williams came in on the blitz pick-up and failed not only in his cut block attempt to take him down but did not even effectively engage the rusher so he stuck his arms up an blocked the pass (which fortunately fell to the ground. If McGahee had dobe even a mediocre job and forced the rusher to toss him aside the pass would have not been blocked. However, the RB (again I simply assume it was WM based on the position the blocker came from and the down and distance) he just did nothing on this play which got us into very hot water. 2. The contention was that WM bore no fault on the 3rd down play which ended ina safety because two men were rushing the passer and he had to pick one. This is true and WM should not be expected to block 2 men. However, he did not even block one man as he did not engage the second blitzer, and did not even effectively chip block him. The player was deterred from his path little because he did not run over WM. However, in my review of the tape it is questionable whether WM even touched the rusher very much or at all rather than chip him. The rusher went around him leaving WM sprawled on the carpet and got right after RJ/ he may have been sacked or pushed OB for the safety anyway as the guy that McGahee whiffed on was but one of three rushers closing in on JP. In fact, the sacker had the time to actually let the other rushers go after the sack and he peeled back in s short zone to catch any tipped passes and force JP to hang onto the ball allowing him to forced out for the safety. Anyone who claim that WM made an effective block on this rusher is simply wrong as the feeble WM effort was an obstacle which was run arounf at best. He should not be cut or beaten up at all by the coaches, but it is clear that as good a runner as he is (except for last Sunday) he still has a bit to learn about blitz pick-up. I know he will learn it eventually (he has run the ball so well it is easy to forget he has yet to log a full season of starts yet). If even an eggplant like Henry can improve his blitz pick-ups then I have few doubts that a committed player like WM can also improve this facet of his game.

I don't think anyone is trying to make a case that Henry was a good pass blocker because obviously he was not. I think claiming that he was is almost as non-sensical as claiming that McGahee is a good pass blocker because as we saw yesterday on the two plays in the endzone he is not. Neither contributed to the Bills because of their blitz pick-ups but were heroes to many Bills fans because TH put up running numbers (augmented by some good receiving #s in a pass-happy Kevin Killdrive O) that got him to th Pro Bowl in 2002 and followed that up with some productive run yardage the next year and also showed some real improvements in the fumbles lost category. In 2004 Henry clearly was a weenie and quit when WM took his job because Willis was flat out a better runner with better speed making him an outside threat and a tremendous stiff arm. Both his running yardage and even his blitz pick-up suffered last year and TD did a great job resisting the advice of fools who said to cut Henry for nothing and traded him for some value. Both Henry and WM have shown the same young RB problems with blitz pick-up. Like Henry expect WM to improve in this area. Unlike Henry I don't expect him to roll over on his back and simply give up anytime soon.

Edwards has been adequate at best (and a little worse than that most of the time) as a starter at DT. However, many of these analyses seem to over-focus on analyzing the specifics and details of Edwards play without enough attention to what he is supposed to be doing in the Bills D. I'm among the first to say i do not completely understand how Gray is employing his players in the Bills D (my wife will usually be the first person to say I clealy do not understand anything at all(. However, I feel ahead of the curve of many Blls observers because at least I understand that I do not really know for sure what he is doing. Many of the analytical posts here by some folks who clearly have watched a lot of football seem to analyze the play of Bills defenders as though they are assuming the role of the Bills D is that of a player in a standard 4-3. I don't know the shorthand to explain it yet, but i can tell you for sure that though the depth chart has the team labeled as though it is a standard 4-3 this is not how the D works or the players are used. This is reflected in cases like the Bills going almost all of last season and into this season with only 3 DEs on the roster. How is this so? Is Gray so cocky and confident of his godlike status that he is certain no DE is going to get nicked at all or that Posey can shift to be a full time DE if needed and the Bills will be fine having lost the OLN and made the zone blitz repetitive and simplistic. I don't think so. The key here I think to understanding our D is actually to come up with some new lables that more accurately describe the positions Gray is using and fill out a depth chart to fill these position. CD Nittam got a good start on this by labeling a position that Posey plays and seems to be backed up by Denny as "The Keeper." This Keeper role is like the OLB position but the main responsiblities seem to be prettu evenly distributed between pass covetrage and run stopping with blitzing the passer as an iterm occaisonally thrown in but this is not the main duty of this player. I think the low sack totals of both these players are where they are in part because neither of these two players is used primarily as a rusher. Likewise when analyzing Edwards play folks seem to find fault with him for not pressuring or collapsing the pocket much. However, it seems to me that Edwards duty (particularly on the first down or so is actually to concentrate more on lateral movement attempting to clog up the point of attack rather than attacking the POA. There attacks are left in the Bills scheme to Sam Adams who has an incredibly quick first step. Sometimes the step will allow him to hit the runner in the backfield or even get a sack, but Edwards role seems to be moving laterally to cover space in case Adams guesses wrong and overruns the play. The ultimate measure is production and this weekend Edwards in particular (as a lot of the runs were up the gut) failed but. However, i think we need to get more info in terms of whether AT sees something on tape they can imitate or whether Gray/Krumrie can make some scheme adjustment (for example having Adams stay at home more and watch the run rather having him shoot the gap so frequently) that makes up for any Edwards shortcomings. The posts which many make complaining about Edward play would be a bit more credible if they included some explanation of how rhw Bills D works and why Edwards is failing to make it work. I think we will know more after this weekend.

I plan to review it again tonight, but based on what folks are saying in this thread the actually block by WM on the safety was a not stellar but not unreasonable block on the a guy when there were two guys coming so JPs fate was sealed. It sounds like it would be hard to indict WM for a missed block on the safety itself. However, i do explain that the reason I tended to judge him pretty harshly is that the RB did not perform an effective blitz pick-up on the first down pass play in this series. This RB (likely WM unless Shaud Williams was in on 1st down for some reason) failed to engage the rusher effectively at all or cut him and blocked JPs pass and set in motion the events which led to the safety. As it says in the original post: 1. It is foolish to attempt to blame one person for the multiple failures in play calling, passing and blocking which led to this play, my main point is that a person who deserves his fair share of blame on this series for bad perfomance is WM. It would be fooish to place all the blame on him because even we fans are not called upon to assess blame on 1 and only 1 person for the team's failings (we've seen this non-football tomfoolery more than once for exanoke as some have tried to blame Bledsoe and him alone for our failures last season or even in the Pitts game. the team wins and the team loses in the end. 2. WM's primary and real job for the Bills is to run the ball. It is an assessment of his effectiveness at this that is the key for assesing what should be done with him and the zone blitz stuff is french pastry. 3. The real indictment here is actually to those posters who is the past declared WM a great blitz pick-up talent and claimed that his far better capability than Henry at doing this was the main reason for our reduction in sacks last year. These plays show that WM like most young players still struggles at times making effective blitz pick0ups and should and will get the time to learn this portion of the game. In addition to improvinng on his gosh awful run production uesterday blitz pick-up is a facet of his game which needs a lot of work.

Look. let's find something we can all agree upon, bioth Kerry and Bush are pretty inompetent and make tons of mistakes in our name.

However, I think I made my own knee jerk harsh judgment of the safety block which may or may not have been WM's responsibility after watching the RB (whose number I could not see but I assume was WM) blow the blitz pick-up on the TB ruaher who bliocked the JP pass on 1st down. Againing assuming that the deep back in this set who missed the pick-up was WM the second block was not as bad as the first so for these plays it is hard for one to claim he is usually good and occaisionally bad. Both blocks were ineffective and the first simply sucked.

The trend of more commercials seems to be a general one in TV. I know that the FCC rules use to limit the number of commercials per hour of YV, but in the new free market world in which folks are competing for smaller and more refined market segments, the lost viewership of commericals as folks TIVO andmute them out does not seem to stop the market yet. While football games are a different beast that fictiional entertainment fare (like reality TV) it seems as though there may be even more room for folks to horn in ads so I doubt even despite protests like yours we have seen a stop in the assault of commercials on the game.

Many watchers seem to make the mistake that just because it is true that there are things a QB can learn ONLY from playing the game that it must be true that he can learn nothing by sitting. This is simply wrong. As Kyle Boller remarked in the 2004 draft that when he got hirt and was forced to sut during his rookie season he was surprised that there was a lot of stuff he could see better from the sideline than he could on the field and that even better without the need to prepare himself just in case he was called onto the field. For JP sitting in the booth with Sam Wyche last year struck me as an essential part of what he needed. He needed to play the game as well and see the set-up over the center's butt, but the booth allowed him to view the action analytically without the natural distraction of yukking it up with his teammates. I had and have few doubts about JPs athletic ability, its understanding the mental part of the game when his past success had been improvising as he ran for his life behind the Tulane OL was the area I think he most needed to work on. Ultimately, playing the game is essential and must be done, but getting the Wyche download and analysis is really a singular opportunity and though it was unfortunate it took an injury lastyear to do it, i think the combination of him playing and him watching and learning will make him a more productive QB for us. I have no problem with him being sat down to learn some important lessons yesterday and if being sat is all it takes to break him then he ain't gonna make it anyway as much worse will happen to him in his career on the field.

It certsinly was quite clear that Henry had been a weenie and given up on being a performer and this was reflected in both is running production and blitz pick-up production in the first 4-5 games of last season. He needed to be gotten out of here big time and thank gosh that TD resisted the whines of those who said we should cut this "cancer" and instead got some draft value for him. Clayton and others were even deriding him for not taking a second day pick and felt he would get an even worse deal because of his greed, but they were simply wrong. The other thing that was flat out wrong here (and was the reason I even mentioned Henry in my orginal post) is that folks seem so neurotically intent on indicting him as never having had any blitz pick-up ability (the incorrect revision is rather than him always being bad at pick-ups he was bad, got better and then wnen he wiimped out he got bad again). The piece which was wrong was that they also declared WM great at blitz pick-up when he is a very good runner who still needs some pick-up work. Given the choice I take the good running, but as we fans have no real choice I actually want both.

Accountability is out of style with poor government performance there seems little reason it should be in style for our football team. Perhaps MM and TC deserve the Medal of Freedom for developing this slam dunk plan to destroy the Bucs.