Justice Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 Daimon Shelton-If Willis McGahee praises him, we should too. He has been a monster all year. I still remember the block he put on Zach Thomas! Ross Tucker- I knew all along he should've been the man at LG. He's nasty! Mike Williams-Starting to blossom. Road grader and becomming great at pass pro. also. Trey Teague-all of a sudden he looks like a center! Ron Edwards-Turned out to be a player that can make Pat Williams expendable and thats saying a lot. Rashad Baker-Nobody has been able to exploit the undrafted free agent since he has become the starter at FS. All of the special teams-They get their props, but not enough. They are even better than our special teamers of the early 90's. Jabari Greer-Another street FA rookie. He plays in nickel and dime defense and you don't hear his name often. That's a good thing! And last but not least. Mad props goes to TD. Thanks for finding all of these Street FA's and Mike Mularkey. Good job TD!
Justice Posted December 2, 2004 Author Posted December 2, 2004 That's funny! I just switched to TBD and what do I find? An article on the unsung hero Daimon Shelton. Whatta coincidense!
Guest Southern Mon Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 Overlooked this year has been the success of kicker Ryan Lindell, whom many figured to be a candidate for replacement prior to the start of the 2004 season. He has quietly had a very steady season on both kickoffs and placekicking. He's 14/16 in field goal attempts and 100% on point after attempts. Not sure what his kickoff average is, but he's frequently getting the ball inside the opponents 5 yd line and the improved special teams coverage units have helped the Bills starting defensive field position. I no longer see him as a liability as I once did. During the offseason, I had been calling for Donahoe to find a suitable replacement who would be a superbowl caliber kicker. (easier said than done) Using lack of recognition as a criteria for the award, I have to say Lindell gets this year's "unsung" award. "Unsung Hero" may be stretching a bit, since he hasn't really been in a position to be heroic by winning games with his foot, but he's been steady, and his textbook execution with the on-side kick to open the second half of last week's game should lay to rest any doubts about his status as a truly unsung member of the squad. How did Donahoe get so damn smart in just 5 weeks?
nick in* england Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 Shane Matthews. Boy can he hold that clipboard with alacrity or what??
Beerball Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 Overlooked this year has been the success of kicker Ryan Lindell, whom many figured to be a candidate for replacement prior to the start of the 2004 season. He has quietly had a very steady season on both kickoffs and placekicking. He's 14/16 in field goal attempts and 100% on point after attempts. Not sure what his kickoff average is, but he's frequently getting the ball inside the opponents 5 yd line and the improved special teams coverage units have helped the Bills starting defensive field position. I no longer see him as a liability as I once did. During the offseason, I had been calling for Donahoe to find a suitable replacement who would be a superbowl caliber kicker. (easier said than done) Using lack of recognition as a criteria for the award, I have to say Lindell gets this year's "unsung" award. "Unsung Hero" may be stretching a bit, since he hasn't really been in a position to be heroic by winning games with his foot, but he's been steady, and his textbook execution with the on-side kick to open the second half of last week's game should lay to rest any doubts about his status as a truly unsung member of the squad. How did Donahoe get so damn smart in just 5 weeks? 142398[/snapback] I don't know Sman. If it came down to a 40+yarder to win a game I would still be wetting my pants. This years stats sound great, but how many kicks have been pressure packed, and how many over 45 yards?
Guest Southern Mon Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 I don't know Sman. If it came down to a 40+yarder to win a game I would still be wetting my pants. This years stats sound great, but how many kicks have been pressure packed, and how many over 45 yards? 142423[/snapback] I don't know what distance his kicks have been from, but remember, in at least three of the Bills home games, the wind and weather has been less than condusive to either kicker. As I said earlier, he hasn't earned the "hero" part of the moniker, but has been steady and done what's been asked of him. I'm just pleasantly suprised that he hasn't been a goat this year or earned a spot on the whipping post. Shelton, who has been getting some ink this week (thanks to McGahee's recognition) probably is the best candidate for unsung hero due to his impact on the offense's sudden resurgence and McGahee's success.
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 The Lindell question is an interesting question, but the fact there is any doubt at all that we need to get a new kicker is actually an advance for a player who was definite disappointment last year. I have seen a number of post recently which cited the need to replace Lindell with an FA as a top-priority need for the Bills. I think this may well be true but generally is based on his non-performance last year rather than an assessment of his play this year which does not yet prove he is a keeper but as you cite has done virtually everthing that has been asked of him. Specifically in terms of a kickers responsibilities: 1. Placekicking- This is the first and most prominent responsibility of a kicker and the cadillac performance the last couple of years has been Vanderjagt and Vinatieri as they are virtually automatic on anything 45 (even 50) yards in and give a team a fighting chance even if a plus 50 FG is needed in the waning seconds of a game. Lindell has simply not been called on to play this role for the Bills because generally the Bills have not gotten in FG range as often as we would like and when they do, MM has not shown the confidence in Lindell to try 40 plus FGs and has even punted a couple of times from yardage many fans find debatable. Nevertheless, in the few times Lindell has been used (16 as opposed to 29 times for Vinatieri so far and actually more than the 11 tries by Vanderjagt because Manning throws TDs when the team is in the redzone) he has been virtually flawless. Lindell's two misses this year if I recall correctly were on a very late in the half kick from long distance and on a makeable distance and it was actually dead on but the winds of the Ralph simply blew it straight down short of the mark. Last week's performance I found to be hopeful for Lindell and for MM. He tried a 53 yarder and seemed to have plenty of leg on it for distance though he missed wide left. Actually he was not credited with a miss because an unusual call was made on Seattle for a player jumping onto the back of a player (players are barred from this to stop these athletes from launching themselves up at a kick off another player) and the Bills took the penalty (erasing the miss) and drove on down where they scored. On another kick last weekend was makeable but beyond the range MM usually calls on Lindell and he actually put the kick through the uprights, but the Bills had called a TO and stopped the play essentially taking our points off the board. However, this lemon quickly turned to lemonade as the Bills instead lined up, Bledsoe did a great job of faking the sneak and WM ran and leaped for the TD. Rather than advocating cutting Lindell for his placekicking, I think that buoyed by the promise of some good stats when he is called on AND MM suddenly using him on long PKs, waiting to see if this establishes a trend in usage and success in the last 5 games is the purdent thing to do. Kick-offs- I would disagree with you when you assess Lindell as consistently dropping the ball within the opponents 5 as in my view he quite often does not do this. However, he does not seem to be asked to emphasize distance by Bobby April who instead seems to emphasize direction and hang time. The true measure of his performance is not where the ball is landing but how is the whole ST doing on coverage using the directional kicking of Lindell. Here the results have been nothing short of outstanding as the Bills rank in the top 5 in the NFL (by may understanding) in terms of kick coverage. I'm not sure whether this ranking is one of total return yardage or of drive starts. The second measure would be a better one in my mind because I do not really care if a team is holding opponents to 19 yards a return if they consistently kick it only to the opponents 20 (you might as well kick it OB as they would simply get a drive start at the 40 and at least you don't risk a longer return). I think the measure is drive starts and Lindell has hung the ball up to give the coverage team the time to get downfield and the ST boys have then made sure tackles to provide some great drive starts for the Bills. An extra important doo-dad in the kicking game featuring Lindell was the simply outstanding onside kick he made at the start of the second half of the Seattle game. This was a great call (April probably recommended it because he noted in film that Seattle did not use a "hands team" to prevent this and that they fell back quickly to form a wedge for the return rather than waiting to make sure the kick was away) and it was beautifully executed by Lindell and the team. They made it look easy but there were a number of things going on. Lindell had to kick it the requsite 10 yards before he could cover it. He had to run the fake like hewas going to kick it away and not tip off the opponents he was doing something different. He got between the opposing team and the ball to give himself the best chance at the recovery but not get in the way of the progress to 10 yards. Of great imporrt, not only could he not touch the ball before it went 10, but no Bills blocker could hit a Seattle player until the ball went 10 yards so the entire Bills team had to either have eyes in the back of their heads to set-up a hit but not do this until the ball traveled 10 yards or actually the 10 yards needed to be timed so that Lindell could recover it before a hit occured. This play really set the tone for the second half of the blow-out as Seattle was totally prepared in their mind to try to move the ball with their O to get back into the game and instead the D had to come out and fight for the team's life with the Bills having great field position. Its hard to praise Lindell too much for doing a great job here. I think this contrasts nicely with Seattle's kickoff to open the game. Josh Brown has a lot of leg, but he was frightened enough by the McGee threat that he tried for a directional kick to pin McGee on the sideline and instead booted it OB. The Bills got a headstart in the field position battle with a drivestart on their 40 and the Bills O capitalized (behind the passing game actually as WM had a non-productive yardage start) from there. The bottomline is that it is probably too early (the onside kick being the major exception) to dub Lindell a hero) but calls for his ouster are premature based on his performance. Certainly he has not been the weapon we want as a placekicker, but his performance in limited usage this year and his kickoffs means that if someone is calling for his cut, they need to have a specifc better alternative (Grammatica is available, where is Jake Ariens these days) or this call based on last year's horrible Lindell performance is fairly meaningless.
Like A Mofo Posted December 2, 2004 Posted December 2, 2004 Shane Matthews. Boy can he hold that clipboard with alacrity or what?? 142418[/snapback] Maybe he learned from RJ when he was with the Bucs...I still cannot believe RJ has a SB ring and Kelly dosent. Sometimes life is just so unfair
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