It is still about the o-line

[jahnyc]

Whether it is Bledose or Losman, we need to improve our o-line. Most of the successful teams over the recent years have had very good o-lines (i.e., Pittsburgh, KC, Philadelphia, Indy, etc.) If we lose Jennings, we will need a LG and LT (unless Teague is moved to LT, then we will need a center). Should we be comfortable with Teague at LT? I am not sure. In addition, we have no depth and Price is a free agent.

 

McNally did wonders for the overall play of the line, but I think Tucker should be a reserve and not a starter and Pucillo should be cut.

 

We need help, free agents and draft picks.

[LabattBlue]

I hope that TD doesn't fall into the trap that the Giants front office staff did. They relied on McNally's expertise to turn garbage into gold on the OL and ignored drafting OL with high draft picks(rounds 1-3) over several years. In time, it caught up with them. An OG with either the 2nd or 3rd round pick should be a given, unless this is going to be addressed prior to the draft through FA.

[ROCCEO]

I hope that TD doesn't fall into the trap that the Giants front office staff did.  They relied on McNally's expertise to turn garbage into gold on the OL and ignored drafting OL with high draft picks(rounds 1-3) over several years.  In time, it caught up with them.  An OG with either the 2nd or 3rd round pick should be a given, unless this is going to be addressed prior to the draft through FA.

196360[/snapback]

I concur, almost every SB team has had a solid offensive line. On defense the same is true, any team that controls the line of scrimmage wins, it's that simple.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

Bill's Daily suggests that Williams will be moved to LT if Jennings goes. This certainly seemed to be the likelihood before MW's off-season meltdown and may actually be a possibility due to his better play, however, I'd rather have him stay on course to merely become the player he should have been at RT rather than aim for him becoming even more of a player by learning and demonstrating well at LT.

 

I think the choices at LT are thus in terms of likelihood:

 

1. I like the idea of playing Teague at LT where he originally wanted to go and building Tucker into a full time center where he played well when Teague got hurt as the easiest way to be about at good at these two spots.

2. If MW has truly become a pro athlete rather than letting down his teammates and the region as he did when he took a bad blow from life hard then he may be able to make the jump to the other side.

3. I think an FA LT will likely be too exspensive as the good ones (Pace, Walter Jones, Tra Thomas) will be too expensive and we can find an internal replacement of comparable quality to the second tier of LTs (a placewhere I put Jennings) on the Bills. However, one answer might be that we buy a top level center on the FA market which makes the move of Teague easy to do and alows us to use Tucker as a super-sub or in an attempt to solve LG issues.

4. Find an existing Bill to step up to the tackle slot though they most likely would take the RT job and allow MW to move over. Tucker has played tackle in the NFL before and Peters was added to the roster as a tackle so maybe they take the RT slot to allow MW to move over.

5, The actual answer to this may be that there is less of a market for Jennings than conventional wisdom thinks there will be and we resign him. I like his play but I do not think he is worth the ranch and the dog to resign him. Specfically the average of the top 5 OL cap hit (mostly LTs) or franchise tag is about $7 million a year and the transition tag (top 10 average OL cap hits mostly LTs) is about $6 million. If someone wants to pay Jennings this much then n my mind good luck to them and to Jennings.

The interesting thing to me is that in addition to most of these top 10 OL cap hits, contracts have also gone to more pedestrian LTs like Clifton, Petitgout and a couple of others at about $5 million annually (their cap hits for a given year vary from this average as some contracts are backloaded). At any rate, when you take the the 7 or 8 top 10 salaries out of the LT marjet, take another half dozen or more teams that have already made commitments to some LT, add the sense that folks like Pace will attract the big bucks and that many teams with LT openings like AT have actually already locked up a lot of cap room in resigning Vick to a 100 million+ contract and blew FA money on their commiment to Price, I will not be shocked if Jennings finds there is not a huge market for him which drives up his contract. The Bills will have to spend $3-4 million for a top flight FA elsewhere on the line anyway, if Jennings can be had for this amount (it is more money than he hasever seen before) then I say resign him.

 

The bottom line is I think we have options at OL and I'm not worried.

[jahnyc]

I don't think we have great options at LT (assuming Jennings departs) or LG. I am not comfortable with Teague or M. Williams at LT, or Tucker or Peters at RT. I think that would be a recipe for disaster.

[njsue]

Whether it is Bledose or Losman, we need to improve our o-line.  Most of the successful teams over the recent years have had very good o-lines (i.e., Pittsburgh, KC, Philadelphia, Indy, etc.)  If we lose Jennings, we will need a LG and LT (unless Teague is moved to LT, then we will need a center).  Should we be comfortable with Teague at LT?  I am not sure.  In addition, we have no depth and Price is a free agent.

 

McNally did wonders for the overall play of the line, but I think Tucker should be a reserve and not a starter and Pucillo should be cut. 

 

We need help, free agents and draft picks.

196358[/snapback]

 

Oh Thank you for making this point. The oline is a definite problem.

Pukcillo & Teague need to be tossed.

[Mark VI]

Teague actually played good this year. I watched the OL closely from the stands and didn't see him being pushed back on the bull rush, like I did in 2003. He improved by leaps and bounds. Mike Williams improvement was obvious. He was just trampling people in many games, providing a good body for Willis to follow. Chris V played well when healthy but fought some nagging injuries in the 2nd half of the season.

 

I'm not sure whether Ross Tucker is a front line Starter at LG. Plus Jennings looks like he'll leave at OT . So the Bills may need to sign 2 FA's to solidify the left sign of the line. That's the QB's blind side. Think about that. Little wonder TD didn't give DB a rousing endorsement as the #1 QB for 2005. Something tells me TD knows he needs a little bit more mobility from the QB position, heading into 2005. In looking at the Buff news article in this mornings paper, TD seems more interested in talking about JP. Talks about how he needs to get into the film room with Wyche and get ready with lots of reps during the off-season. You'll read it later and see what I mean.