Rubes

Hmm...LT rushes for over 100 yards and scores 4 TDs against the #1 defense in the league, on the road, under the lights. He's had the Bills game game circled on his calendar for a long time now.

But he could barely get it to him when he was wide open against Green Bay!

I wanted so badly to see a replay of that pasting...but instead all we got was shots of Haggan and his mother in the stands. Sigh.

I agree with you, this was a tough game to figure out. Great win, but I'm just left scratching my head. The O-line did great in pass blocking but we couldn't open up a hole for the running game to save our lives. Huh? The defense gives up 180+ yards to a lousy rushing offense. Carr is picking us apart seemingly at will. But we don't allow them to score in the 2nd half? Huh? We punt on 4th down at the end of the game? And we get the ball back anyway and win? Huh? I'm done asking questions.

I was wondering this, too. I guess it was close enough to a horse collar, so they didn't call it. Amazing, since they will call it when a defender barely touches a finger to the QBs helmet. Bruschi had a nice helmet-to-helmet smack on Favre yesterday on the play he was injured, but no call. Imagine that? Criqui may be bad, but I have to admit it was a nice call on the final TD....

I liked it, except when we lined up in the shotgun on 3rd and 1 on the first drive. Ye gods.

http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showtopic=55399

Peters and Pennington did a really nice job out there. The interior is still a work in progress. I remember one play from our 5-yard line, Thomas was stuffed for a 2-yard loss. The DT made the tackle in the backfield. On the replay, he was actually DOUBLE-TEAMED on the play by Fowler and Gandy. Yikes. But the pass blocking was actually very nice.

...of how to run out a clock? Thanks for the gift, Kubiak. I'll take it!

Just had my 20th this past summer. Yeah, it was weird.

During the bye week, when Gandy was moved to Reyes's position? I can hear it now... "You know, coach, I know I suck at left tackle, but if you're thinking about benching me, consider this...the only reason I suck is because the guy next to me is making me suck. He's just not motivated to make me suck less. I really question his work ethic. So maybe you should just bench him instead and let me take his spot? Whaddya say, coach? Huh?"

Jauron has said that Reyes is healthy. Nevertheless, it sounds like Preston is the starter. Could Reyes really be worse than Preston? Or are we saving him for when we finally can't stand Gandy anymore?

Okay, I'm going to throw something out there. Take it for what it's worth, just a stream of consciousness. The best way to defend the Bills passing attack is to do two things: get pressure on JP (not much of a challenge, really), and play tight coverage on the receivers. None of this zone crap. Why? Why play tight man coverage against a team with speedy receivers? Isn't that asking for trouble with the deep pass? Not against this team. It is so easy to generate pressure on JP that there is almost never the opportunity to throw deep. That requires a deep drop, time to let the receivers run deep, set, and throw. Ain't gonna happen. Defenses don't have to worry much about medium to deep passing routes, because they just don't have the time to develop, at least not most of the time. That's especially true once we get inside the 30 yard line. In the NFL, all receivers can get open, eventually. If it's against tight man coverage, it might take a little longer. But against the Bills, you don't have to worry about that. You'll almost never have to hold coverage for a long time. JP will get sacked long before then. So are the receivers a mess? Yes, but not entirely. They're obviously not great at beating tight coverage over short distances.

I watched the Jets game in the background while watching the Bills this weekend...Brady took an absolute POUNDING in that game. He was hit time and time again, and not just some little hits...he was getting absolutely leveled by the Jets. There were a couple where I was convinced there was no way he could get back up. So maybe he's a little sore this week?

Given that one of those games was against a team giving up a staggering average of 165 yards per game on the ground, I'll reserve judgement for another few weeks.

From NFL.com play-by-play: They indicate when a play is in shotgun formation. Do a search for "(Shotgun) J.Losman". You'll find it once, on the first drive of the game. If you search for "(Shotgun) P.Manning" you'll find it 21 times.

So....just that I wouldn't call that an "awesome" game. They did well, got some points, and made a couple of turnovers. But Indy still mostly had their way with them, they gave up far too many rushing yards, and when the time came to stop Indy and give us a chance, they folded. Don't get me wrong, I thought the defense played fairly well, and I'm impressed that they held Indy to 17 points (though it would have been more if they needed it at the end). But I wouldn't exactly call that an "awesome" game and in no way did it remind me of our dominating D from a few years ago. That's all.

Keep 'em coming. This is good stuff.

Sure. Except for not being able to stop the Colts from using up the last 6 and a half minutes of the game. Without even forcing a single third down, at that.

Does that help?

So....is it that the coaching staff doesn't have confidence in Losman, or they don't have confidence in the line's ability to keep him off his ass? From Jauron's post-game comments, I know where I'd put my money.

Yeah, it is. I'd like to see him step in at RT, now that you mention it. It really boils down to these points: 1. Our offensive line is really, really offensive. 2. We have done a pretty lousy job bringing in and/or developing new offensive linemen. Drafting a whole crapload of offensive linemen won't necessarily solve the problem. But I think the point is that we need some linemen who are capable of getting the job done. This group, for the most part, ain't getting it done. Whether it's poor scouting, poor judgement, or poor coaching, I don't know. The new regime has found us a center and moved Peters to the position he should be in at LT. That's just 2 positions out of 5 that they've secured for us. I'm assuming the Reyes experiment at LG has failed (unless he's just injured, I don't know). Sticking with Villarial was probably more out of necessity than anything else. The jury is still out on Pennington, but he hasn't shown a tremendous amount yet. I'm not advocating bringing in a boatload of offensive linemen as a fix, but we really need to look everything over from scouting to coaching to figure out why we have failed so miserably for so many years at putting together what most would believe is the foundation for an offense.

Which part?

Who's Lineman? Can he play right tackle?

Nobody with a brain expected Levy and Jauron to fix this right away. They inherited a mess on offense and defense, but a quality special teams unit. They had holes everywhere. You had to know that this would be a two or three year effort. Start plugging the holes one year, plug some more the second year and watch the first group mature. In the third year, you finish plugging the holes while the first two groups mature into solid players. There were that many holes to fill. I think they're doing a pretty decent job on defense so far, and that seems to have been the focus this first year. We're still pretty lousy at stopping the run and stopping teams at the end of games, but it's still the first year of the plan and so far I'm not disappointed in the effort. I think they might have underestimated the complete mess that is our offense, and I also think they ended up not getting their money's worth out of the stiffs they brought in for the line. Fowler will probably be serviceable, and Peters is decent, but beyond that we have, basically, nothing for a line. I expect this offseason we will see a focus on bringing in some better quality offensive linemen in free agency and a focus on offensive and defensive linemen in the draft. But I wouldn't expect more than one big offensive lineman FA signing, which means we still are two good offensive linemen away from a decent line. Those we draft next year will need at least a year to develop. A lot depends on if Pennington (or Butler) can prove by the end of the year that they belong in the league, if not on the starting line. Even if we focus 100% of our off-season efforts (FA and draft) on offensive linemen, we're still talking a couple of years to see that effort bear fruit. It sucks, but unfortunately that's the way it is, and we have to deal with it.