BeastMode54 Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 The Buffalo Bills are the only AFC East team unsettled at left tackle, a fact that's underscored by research Khaled Elsayed recently completed at the wonderful football analysis site, ProFootballFocus.com. The rest of the division looks outfitted for a long while. Elsayed has broken down every play to determine a metric called "pass blocking productivity" for every offensive lineman. ProFootballFocus.com devised a formula that essentially takes the number of sacks, quarterback hits and pressures allowed, then divides them by the number of pass plays. What we learn is three AFC East left tackles are among the league's six toughest to beat, and they're all going to be around. http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/...-at-left-tackle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 In a similar vein, for those of you who actually liked Peters and wanted to pay him $10M/year after his 2008 season, look where they ranked him in 2009. Then look where they ranked him for the aforementioned 2008 season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinny4sum Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 As a mathmatics and business analyst I can tell you there are variables not taken into account the single biggest may be down and distance. So how many times did Bell face a long yardage 2nd or 3rd down allowing the defensive player to have an advantage by ruling out a running play. Bottom line is the Bills do not know what they have in any of the individuals on the team because the collective team has been horrible. If you put even a great player in enough difficult situations he is bound to fail more than a peer on a better team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In-A-Gadda-Levitre Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 In a similar vein, for those of you who actually liked Peters and wanted to pay him $10M/year after his 2008 season, look where they ranked him in 2009. Then look where they ranked him for the aforementioned 2008 season. where do you find the 2008 numbers? on another note, Geoff Hangartner is the worst center. Ouch! We haven't touched on the center position, in part because the correlation isn't quite as strong as what you would see with guards and tackles. That said, it's noticeable that you see a center like Geoff Hangartner, who played on a Buffalo line generally regarded as one of the worst in the league, finish at the bottom of the center rankings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
....lybob Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Yeah Bell didn't play well what are the odds- never played football until college where he started out as a DE, then was switched to OT because of injuries, never had an offseason football strength program because he was on the basketball team until his senior year. from Wiki: "Bell's high school had not fielded a football team, so prior to his attending Northwestern State, he had never played organized football. In the fall of 2005, he red-shirted the basketball season and began playing for the school's football team. He was initially placed in the position of defensive end. The following year, injuries struck the team's offensive line, and he was moved to the left tackle position. He earned second-team All-Louisiana honors that season.[4] Bell made a bigger name for himself in his senior season of 2007, having focused solely on football. Remaining on the offensive line, he was named an All-Louisiana and an All-Southland Conference first-teamer. He also became an Associated Press All-American.[4] Bell graduated from Northwestern State in 2008 and was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft.[2] The Bills were encouraged by his raw skills, but saw him as a longer-term project, given his inexperience in having played organized football for only three seasons at that point.[7][8] However, the team chose to place him on their active roster, rather than assigning him to their practice squad, where he could potentially have been signed away by another team.[9][10] Consistent with their view of him as a work in progress, Bell was not activated for play in any of the Bills' regular season games in 2008.[11] In 2009, citing the quality of Bell's performance in the Bills' off-season and pre-season training camps that year, then-Bills head coach Dick Jauron installed Bell as the team's starting left tackle for the 2009 regular season.[12] After earning mixed reviews over the first half of the campaign, including an extremely high number of penalties against him, Bell's year came to a disappointing conclusion when he suffered what would prove to be a season-ending knee injury in a Week 10 game against the Tennessee Titans." So they take a guy they know is a project and throw him to the wolves cause they want to pretend they can dump salary without consequence - I hear about coaches and GMs that put their players in a position to succeed but I haven't seen it on this team in a long time- maybe Bell won't make it but to conclude that because he was over-matched last season that he will always be over-matched is very premature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloBill Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 So they take a guy they know is a project and throw him to the wolves cause they want to pretend they can dump salary without consequence - I hear about coaches and GMs that put their players in a position to succeed but I haven't seen it on this team in a long time- maybe Bell won't make it but to conclude that because he was over-matched last season that he will always be over-matched is very premature. Great example that exposes the futility of the Bills over the past decade .... let's hope the ship is turned around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Great example that exposes the futility of the Bills over the past decade .... let's hope the ship is turned around. Amen to that. The goodnews is that our OL has nowhere to go but up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 That alone is why you HAVE to be in manageable down/distance situations on 2nd and 3rd downs. I'm too lazy to do the work but I'd wager the Bills had the WORST (or close to it) success on 1st and 2nd downs. There are many things that go into why LTs give up sacks. Bell's lack of talent (and I agree he is nothing more than a project at this point) may be the LEAST of the reasons our line gave up sacks last season. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 where do you find the 2008 numbers? The same place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tennesseeboy Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 In a similar vein, for those of you who actually liked Peters and wanted to pay him $10M/year after his 2008 season, look where they ranked him in 2009. Then look where they ranked him for the aforementioned 2008 season. hmmm..eighth would seem a lot better than uh....LAST? Note that Long and Ferguson were first round picks and Vollmer a second round, 58th overall pick. Bell is not the answer. Why can't people see what is obvious, that our biggest problem and the one that needs immediate attention is the offensive line, and that the way to do that in a draft strong on Offensive tackles is to draft one of the top tackles? Buddy...Chan....are you listening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 hmmm..eighth would seem a lot better than uh....LAST? Note that Long and Ferguson were first round picks and Vollmer a second round, 58th overall pick. Bell is not the answer. Why can't people see what is obvious, that our biggest problem and the one that needs immediate attention is the offensive line, and that the way to do that in a draft strong on Offensive tackles is to draft one of the top tackles? Buddy...Chan....are you listening? Peters was ranked 18th in 2009 by PFF, not 8th. He was ranked 46th in 2008 and and was charged by PFF with 13 sacks, which is more than the 11.5 sacks some people claimed were bogus last off-season. And yes, most people realize Bell isn't the answer. Hence the need to draft a LT high this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steely Dan Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/...-at-left-tackle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Peters was ranked 18th in 2009 by PFF, not 8th. He was ranked 46th in 2008 and and was charged by PFF with 13 sacks, which is more than the 11.5 sacks some people claimed were bogus last off-season. And yes, most people realize Bell isn't the answer. Hence the need to draft a LT high this year. Eighth in that table: http://www.profootballfocus.com/articles.p...arc=&id=122 In fact, only Buffalo lacks a presence in the top 10 from the AFC East. And boy, how they do it. Though he only played 248 pass-blocking snaps before injury curtailed his season, Demetrius Bell ended with the worst PBP Rating. What is maybe more frustrating for Bills fans is that the guy he has attempted to replace, Jason Peters, finished eighth. Peters may not have been motivated in Buffalo, but it can’t be nice to see that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Eighth in that table: http://www.profootballfocus.com/articles.p...arc=&id=122 Eighth for LT's. Eighteenth for OT's in the NFL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthICE Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Yeah about that....we are the only in the AFCE not set at QUARTERBACK either....a greater need than LT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnC Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Yeah about that....we are the only in the AFCE not set at QUARTERBACK either....a greater need than LT. If we are not in position to draft Bradford or Clausen then whom do you recommend to be the next qb for us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pirate Angel Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/...-at-left-tackle So what else is new... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thoner7 Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 where do you find the 2008 numbers? on another note, Geoff Hangartner is the worst center. Ouch! Now can fans please stop claiming we are ok at C! No more Hangartner getting bowled over please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabe Northern Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 where do you find the 2008 numbers? on another note, Geoff Hangartner is the worst center. Ouch! For whatever reason, people don't seem to understand that Hangman played as well last season as Mel Fowler, Bennie Andersen, and Tutan Reyes in their stints as Bills. He's athletic and everyone says he's smart, but the guy gets BLOWED UP! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Eighth for LT's. Eighteenth for OT's in the NFL. Thought LTs were the subject of both Tim's blog post and this discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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