A moron-free thread on the Bills OLine

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

We are 22nd in the NFL in rushing with Travis Henry and Willis McGahee as our running backs.

We are 27th in the NFL in passing.

 

You and Simon are both living in a fantasy if you think our offensive line doesn't have anything to do with those numbers.

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I certainly don't think (Simon can speak for himself but I didn't see him say) the offensive line has nothing to do with these numbers. What I do say is that any claim that these numbers would be reversed if only we had better OL players or better OL performance does not make good football sense.

 

Our OL has a number of clear deficiencies, though many of them have been problems which wr have suffered from since the end of the K-Gun and Kent Hull;s career. The good news for Bills fans is that a number of these long-term problems appear to have resources in place finally to address them and the OL is still a troubled unit but is much improved in terms of on the field performance even as meltdowns continue. While this improvement in OL play is not yet reflected in relative production of the offense as you show in the numbers you provide, there is tangible objective evidence of improved recent performance under the new regime and subjective evidence which can be debated unless we allow ourselves to merely invest in ad hominem attacks on observations when a tangible debate can be easily had.

 

Specifically, there are several tangible resources improvements one can point to on the Bills (no single change gurantees production in the relative areas you provide, yet it seems hard to argue the changes are not improvements);

 

1. We now have adult OL and even OC guidance- JMac is an upgrade over Vinky and Ruel and Clements is an upgrade at OC over Kevin Killdrive. Do you disagree? Fine if you do, I'm glad to debate this point.

2. We have strong RBs in WM (who is still recovering his old form from his injury) and a guy who gained around 2800 yards in two recent years of play and an appearnance in the Pro Bowl. Do you disagree? Fine if you do, I'm glad to debate this point.

3. The OL play represents an relative upgrade at each position over past performance under Vinky and Ruel- Center- Teague resisted giving up LT for C initially but has taken to the position personally based on his comments and has a rep for being able to diagnose and make line calls which all his coaches have publicly talked about. He has demonstated in the past an ability to play effectively even though he is not the biggest guy (he received the objective based certification of FA contracts and interest in him coming out of Denver and with the Bills), he had demonstrated impovement in making shotgun hikes and snaps to Bledsoe, and he has demionstrated improvement in not getting bowled over this year by big DTs as he did in the past. It appears to me his problem was not an inability to do these individual tasks, but an inability to multi-task well and do them all at the same time (for example he was most likely to get bowled over when he was focusing on line calls or making shotfun snaps. Time and experience (and probably better OL coaching) has made him better at multi-tasking. RG- Villareal is simply an upgrade over Pucillo. LG- Losing Ruben was a downgrade because he was one of the only OL players with significant (or any experience at some points) at his position. His time as a Bill was done because he found it necessary to publicly challenge Kevin Kildrive and even if you are right new bosses can never truly trust a guy who takes on publicly the old boss. Losing Ruben but getting Villarial seems to be at least an even trade in terms of talent. The new OL regime found they had a problem because they found the two candidates to replace Ruben from the old guard (Sully and Pucillo) both lacking. The good news is that they have found two candidates now to replace RB who are not yet adequate (Tucker and Smith) but do have some upside (Smith gets ragged on but my gosh the guy is a UDFA from the Ravens PS last year and merely becoming a credible backup for us is a big jump and the fact he did any kind of a job as a starter was great and forced upon us by the failure of Sully and Pucillo). The most glaring and demonstrable failure of Smith was in redzone production and here I give the Bills braintrust all sorts of credit for adopting the Belicheck like method of employing defensive players to fill in for Smith with great effectiveness. LT: The play here is about the same now as it has been as Jennings is still the man and still misses games due to injury on occaisions. Yet Price does a great job filling in. RT: There is that question of who bears the blame for MW disappointing for his 4th player drafted position (Vinky/Ruel provided lackluster training and ended up having to help Pucillo which was not going to work or TD for allowing hiring of these two not ready for primetime coaches or did he overreach for MW). However, it is clear that MM, TC and JMac do not bear the blame for his unprofessional reaction to a death in his family and in fact bear a lot of credit for the upgrade in his play over last year and this off-season. Again do you disagree with any of this analysis (my hopes at LG is perhaps the shakiest area) but I am more than happy to debate any of these specific points,

 

The specifc question of your post which I come to Simon's defense on is the accusation that he ever said Teague was a great center (he did not say that) and attacking his comments for being a Dorothy like excursion into fantasy land when he quite specifically and in great detail pointed to improvements in specific OL techniue and play.

 

Your reply to my reply is true that the Bills offense has not produced good yards relative to the rest of the league. OL performance is obviously a part of offensive production. However, one should not draw the conclusion that the reason for that offensive failing is mostly the fault of the OL or that the OL has not improved at all in their specific techniquesand play.

 

In fact, if one cares enough about the Bills and football to analyze the specifics of OL play since the change of the OL, OC and HC improvements in players and their play strongly points to looking elsewhere for the sources of our bad yardage production.

 

Simon links this to play by Bledsoe. I think Bledsoe's play sucks but I still see this as more symptom than cause. Smarter people than me (or Simon since he claims to be a moron) have not figured out the answer to this question and they even get paid to do so. My guess is that the real answer to this problem is that the Bills have not yet made many good pieces (WMs play, MM/TC's past achievements in QB revival, talented WRs and an improving OL) fit together properly so the whole is greater than the individual parts. Who knows?

 

However, I definitely think we are more likely to find a better answer through some of the detailed analysis and exchange over it in this thread rather than from incorrectly stating Simon (or anyone's) views on what they said or dismissing his detail by calling it mere fantasy based on the incorrect summary of his views.

[1billsfan]

However, I definitely think we are more likely to find a better answer through some of the detailed analysis and exchange over it in this thread rather than from incorrectly stating Simon (or anyone's) views on what they said or dismissing his detail by calling it mere fantasy based on the incorrect summary of his views.

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Look, you obviously feel our line is on the upswing and their play will keep improving game after game until it becomes a dominant force of the offensive unit and one of the best in the league (and if you don't feel like they can become one of the best in the league than this argument, for all intents and purposes, is over). I don't think these players have the talent to acheive these lofty goals. I'd keep Villarial (Jennings is going to Atlanta IMO) and the rest I'd either cut, try them elswhere on the line or demote them to backups. Your buddy rudely questioned my credibilty so if you guys are so thin skinned then watch those rocks you are chucking because I won't be wilting under your verbose replies.

[Simon]

I have to ask you in your opinion how many times this season, previous to this game, was an opposing coach able to beat us by simply unvieling a strategy to befuddle our QB and having that strategy play out the way it was designed?

 

Are you kidding me? I can't even remember what I had for breakfast

 

I don't think any opposing staff focuses their gameplan on befuddling Drew. His lack of field vision and poor decision-making make defending him an afterthought. I think most co-ordinators have gone out of their way to make sure that the Bills are going to have to really work to run the ball at all, at least that's the way it's looked to me so far this year. Exceptions are the Raiders game (I take the fifth on those late starts, and I ain't talking amendments; I'm lucky to be bipedal at 4:00 on a fall Sunday) and the Cards game (was in P'burgh watching the Stillers eviscerate the Pats).

Defending Drew is easy. Keep a guy over the top on any down with more than 5yrdstogo to prevent the big play from hurting you. Have your LB's first step always be to the LOS to keep the OL from creating running lanes. Blitz the interior lanes on passing downs (Drew will stare them down every time) while having your corners play outside technique to force the play to the hashes. Occasionally disguise your man as a zone and he'll eventually hit a DB. Tell your DL when they get close take him low because he has no peripheral vision and doesn't keep the ball up.

Basically, contain the Bills groundgame and force Bledsoe to read the intermediate zones and you can play .800 ball against them.

Cya

[OGTEleven]

You can't expect 5-6 guys to block 8-9 guys with any consistency and then chew them out when they don't do it.

The only way you can run the ball in that situation is for your QB to back them out of such an agressive posture by making them pay for their unwillingness to defend the short/intermediate zones. And Drew was again unable to do that even though I'd bet my house we had receivers running free through that depleted secondary all night.

Our inability to run the ball had little to do with the OLine's play and everything to do with the Patritos utter disdain for Drew's vision and ability.

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It is clearly very easy to game plan for Bledsoe. You have nailed the type of passes he is unable to complete. This is the main reason I am confused when people view Josh Reeed as a bust. This is the exact route he is meant to run and should be running.

[Nanker]

My gripe with TD's attention to the OLine is that he obviously views the OT position as the only one worthy of focus. Virtually every OLineman brought in her by TD has been a OT. At one time during this last offseason he had 13 OTs on the squad.

 

He brought in Vinereal, and then an UDFA Center I think from Louisville the second last week of the preseason. Then they picked up the mighty Lawrence Smith (who's also currently listed as an OT) who pushed aside the awesome Mike Pucillo. That's about it for any attention given to the Center and OG positions.

 

If the same philosophy were applied on the defense then Ryan Denny would be out starting OLB and Pat Williams would replace London Fletcher as MLB.

 

So, I give. Let's make the entire line from OTs. Let's start with making Mike Williams the starting RG.