ganesh Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) There is has been so many changes during this off season that all we hear is positive vibes. It is important to go back and look at what ailed our beloved bills last year and what these off season changes have done to eliminate them. Here are my 12 reasons why the Bills were a bad team last year. What has been our Weakness in the PAST: Defense: 1. Ability to stop the RUN when it counts 2. Ability to rush the passer and not give them all the world to complete a pass Offense: 3. Not converting drives into TDs and settling for FGs. 4. Poor Red Zone execution, especially in the Run game (No dominant push at LOS) 5. Bad throws by the QB 6. Lack of a 2nd play maker to take pressure off Stevie Johnson 6a. Inability to use the TE in the middle of the field and use only as a Red zone target. Coaching: 7. Lack of Killer Instinct to finish games. Could not run the ball to run out the clock. 8. Lack of leadership among the players. When key players were injured, team tanked the rest of the games. 9. Weak position coaches (Mainly college experienced ones) 10. Lack of clear game planning and making gametime personnel decisions to the strength of this team: a) Couldn't consistently put Spiller and Jackson to be on the field at the same time b) Paid 15M for a wild-cat QB and used him about five times in the entire season c) Did not address the RIB issue (Fitz) after the Washington game. If you are a coach and your QB is throwing ducks due to bad ribs, you pull him out and replace him. d) Unpredictable 10. Too many injuries to key players 11. Lack of Depth at many critical positions. It showed when key players were injured 12. Decision to do a 3-4 with a LB coach as the DC and not having the right personnel for it. Now your thoughts on if the off season moves have helped this team eliminate those woes. Remember the difference between the teams in the NFL is pretty small. Even if you can fix half the above problems, you are closing that narrow gap to a pin hole. Edited June 27, 2012 by ganesh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRAWNDO Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I guess not pulling Fitz out of the line up shows how much faith they have in Thigpen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirtbag Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 also, they scored fewer points than their opponents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
....lybob Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 1. Injuries 2. Injuries 3. Injuries 4. not having enough depth 5. poor pass rush 6. lack of deep threat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuncha Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) 1 through 12 = Can't stop the run, zero pass rush, too many injures. That about sums it up. If we had a deep threat could Fitz get the ball to him? Oh yea...he played with cracked ribs since the Washington game. Perhaps that should be on the list as well. Edited June 27, 2012 by Azucho98 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homey D. Clown Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I honestly think most of your coaches points can really be attributed to the injuries. It's hard to get intricate with your offense and defensive aggressiveness when your bench has been emptied, mostly on offense though. Defensively, a lack of depth and any star players in the front 7 lineup was the main problem, along with a terrible scheme that didn't fit anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McD Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Have these not been the reason we've sucked nuts for the past decade? This isn't a just last year set of problems.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Optometric Insight Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Have these not been the reason we've sucked nuts for the past decade? This isn't a just last year set of problems.... Hey, it's an idea in the offseason that we can have a pretty amusing conversation with. Just go with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffOrange Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Anyone know how the redzone offense ranked? I don't remember it being that bad. I'm sure there were teams in the playoffs who were worse in that category. Of course part of the battle is getting there, which we did better last year than seasons before. "Lack of killer instinct, couldn't run to finish games" - I don't know what that means or how it falls under coaching. We didn't lose a ton of games with the ball & the lead in the 4th Qtr. There was the Cincy game with the bogus incomplete pass, and we didn't really run effectively that whole game. The aggressive playcalling vs the Giants pretty much epitomizes killer instinct, but of course people b!tched about it because Fitz threw a horrible ball. Obviously the hope is that Mario & Kyle Williams help both the run & pass defense, and Fitz doesn't play like post-Washington. Those 3 things alone are most important & really ought to be enough to get to 10wins. To say they'll close the gap by fixing 6 different things I'd say is an understatement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THATS KILLER ORANGE JUICE Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I think people forget they were playing with house money at 5-2... not one realistic bills fan saw that coming... i think they were who we thought they were! Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billsrhody Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I'm still pretty worried about our run defense.. but i'm hoping Wanny's 4-3 will solve that problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marauderswr80 Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Health....plain and simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luxy312 Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Offense: 3. Not converting drives into TDs and settling for FGs. 4. Poor Red Zone execution, especially in the Run game (No dominant push at LOS) 5. Bad throws by the QB 6. Lack of a 2nd play maker to take pressure off Stevie Johnson 6a. Inability to use the TE in the middle of the field and use only as a Red zone target. Coaching: 7. Lack of Killer Instinct to finish games. Could not run the ball to run out the clock. 8. Lack of leadership among the players. When key players were injured, team tanked the rest of the games. 9. Weak position coaches (Mainly college experienced ones) 10. Lack of clear game planning and making gametime personnel decisions to the strength of this team: a) Couldn't consistently put Spiller and Jackson to be on the field at the same time b) Paid 15M for a wild-cat QB and used him about five times in the entire season c) Did not address the RIB issue (Fitz) after the Washington game. If you are a coach and your QB is throwing ducks due to bad ribs, you pull him out and replace him. d) Unpredictable 10. Too many injuries to key players 11. Lack of Depth at many critical positions. It showed when key players were injured 12. Decision to do a 3-4 with a LB coach as the DC and not having the right personnel for it. Now your thoughts on if the off season moves have helped this team eliminate those woes. Remember the difference between the teams in the NFL is pretty small. Even if you can fix half the above problems, you are closing that narrow gap to a pin hole. On #3, you couldn't be more wrong. Within the 20 yard line, Fitzpatrick had 20 TD's and only 2 interceptions last year. That's not an area of weakness at all. Freddy also had 4 of his 6 TD's before injury in the same. 2 of Spiller's 4 TD's were also in the red zone. You might want to check the facts before you make a judgement like that. On #5, that is my contention as well. People want to say that they were playing "come from behind" football and that's why the interceptions that were thrown happened. You can see from the numbers that it's just not true. More than 50% of Fitzpatrick's INT's actually came when they were ahead, even, or within one score. On #7, that makes no sense. Killer instinct from the coaches? The coaches don't run the ball either. On #8, the leadership was there. The fact that most of the best players were hurt and not playing was a bigger factor than leadership. On the remainder, it comes down to injuries. You simply can't replace Kyle Williams and expect to get similar production from him. Losing Fred Jackson was huge. It's easy to suggest that you're going to have a comparable backup to every position, but very much not realistic. The Bills were bad mainly from the number and severity of injuries at key positions. That has been the same story for a number of years. Hopefully it's not the case in 2012. Let's remember that through that Washington game that this team was 5-2 with a win over New England. Injuries really affected them from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattsox Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 1. Injuries 2. Injuries 3. Injuries 4. not having enough depth 5. poor pass rush 6. lack of deep threat Agreed. Injuries killed them off. And all the rest contributed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artmalibu Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Posters should do some fact checking before typing, a lot of BS. here # 3 & 4 The bills were 11 in redzone TDs percentage so redzone performance was a team strength not a weakness. #6 so Fred jackson doesn't count as a play-maker. Really #8 so it was the lack of leadership that caused the slide after injuries and not the lack of talent interesting #10 (the first # 10) I bet Chan was clear on what he was trying to do. 2 halfbacks on the field is not a every down package its a special. Not to mention when the WRs were all injured spiller was playing WR. Chan explained whey Smith was not used often as a wildcat several times, not to mention he was forced to play WR due to injuries. If the staff thought they had a better chance to win with Thigpen, Fitz would have been on the bench. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ennjay Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 I'm joining the chorus: depth depth depth depth depth depth DEPTH DEPTH!!!! It's been a Bills tradition for years to run out of players. How many teams have two kickers on IR like last year? It's a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybrew1 Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 1. Injuries 2. Injuries 3. Injuries 4. not having enough depth 5. poor pass rush 6. lack of deep threat 7. Injuries You got it brother.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuTheFat Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 After losing 5 straight games to go 5-7, the people on IR were as follows: Out-for-season Injured Players: Eric Wood © Bruce Hall (RB) Fred Jackson (RB) Donald Jones (WR) Marcus Easley (WR) Roscoe Parrish (WR) Jon Corto (S) Reggie Torbor (LB) Chris White (LB) Shawne Merriman (LB) Kyle Williams (NT) Torell Troup (NT) Terrence McGee (CB) Rian Lindell (K) That's a starting offensive lineman, a top-notch running back, and 3 wide receivers. Despite this, the offensive line surrendered only 23 sacks, lowest in the league. I'd call that good coaching considering Demetress Bell was on-again-off-again with injuries and Andy Levitre finished playing 3 different positions by the end of the year. The loss of Fred Jackson hurt, but CJ Spiller actually did fill in admirably. The "lack of downfield threat" was a direct result of 3 starters (or near-starters) being on IR. Parrish may not have done much on offense, but he did give the Bills a viable threat on special teams... when he was healthy. The defense loses 3 linebackers and 2 nose tackles (one all-pro), and <gasp> the Bills have problems stopping the run. Really? This is a surprise? 10 years of poor drafting leaves them with... <gasp> no depth. Really? This is a surprise? After removing 14 players from any roster, I'd say you're rore likely to find an insurance salesman looking to reclaim some lost glory than an all-pro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonprophet Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Have these not been the reason we've sucked nuts for the past decade? This isn't a just last year set of problems.... Not all of them. Remember, the offense wasn't even serviceable until Chan got here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voodoo poonani Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Defense: Not getting off the field in third and long situations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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