Why all the Pettine love?

[HankBulloughMellencamp]

If you cannot see a vast difference in the Bills defense from the past several years you are simply either not paying attention or do not want to see the improvement. It has been a massive turnaround in one year. There have been significant improvements in the play of key players (Mario, Kyle, Dareus, McKelvin to name a few), outstanding secondary play when there key players have been he healthy, and some significant additions who have contributed greatly including Hughes and Lawson. By the way, all this with a rookie middle linebacker. Pettine and staff get credit for this. The run defense needs improvement clearly. Whether this is scheme, players, or a combination needs to be addressed but I am confident they will.

 

 

Completely agree. Yesterday’s game gets thrown out in my mind. Not having Dareus in the 1^st half hurt, but with as hard as it was raining, I think the stats are misleading. The season ending stats bear them out to be a top ten defense, which usually gets you places.

 

I credit Billy Boy with yet another good game plan. Keep giving it to your battering-ram RB (who knows where he is going – mainly N/S). Force the defenders to absorb the blows (with iffy footing to anchor themselves) if they were to stuff him with a clean shot. This also obviously worked on kickoffs, with the same kind of logic. To bring Blount-force down, you had to be willing to get concussed, or hitch a ride & go for the 5-10 yard ride.

 

Pettine has been nothing short of a revelation as our DC, and I hope he stays here for a long time.

Edited December 30, 2013 by HankBulloughMellencamp

[Dopey]

Love the difference in this years defense, however it takes more than one season(usually) for a unit to reach its potential. The players are not only learning a new and complicated system but they're also learning how to play with each other in that system. On top of that you have a new DC and defensive coaches that are learning their players and what those players strengths and weaknesses are. Add to that a generally young group of players being led by a rookie MLB.

 

I'm not making excuses but to expect them to be consistent at this point is a little much. Lets give them another season of playing together and see what happens. Leading the league in sacks and ints is a very good start and is one hell of a foundation to build off of.

[Thunderstealer]

Completely agree. Yesterday’s game gets thrown out in my mind. Not having Dareus in the 1^st half hurt, but with as hard as it was raining, I think the stats are misleading. The season ending stats bear them out to be a top ten defense, which usually gets you places.

 

I credit Billy Boy with yet another good game plan. Keep giving it to your battering-ram RB (who knows where he is going

 

Yes Belechick with another zinger. This is his era like it or not.

[BackInDaDay]

looks like the Pats did their homework on our DL and LBs - creating a gameplan that took advantage of our aggressive front 7 - especially our LBs' penchant for biting hard on their keys. they ran over 40 times, and from my count our D-line had less than half the tackles. Belichick and McDaniels did a great job preparing their O for our tendencies. the rain and a motivated O-line made it difficult for us to recover at the point of attack.

 

stuff happens. the Pats lost and recovered 4 fumbles - 3 were caused by our D, i think. we picked off a pass in Pats territory.

our D didn't lay down, but yesterday the Pats had our number

[Spillnation]

The defensive mentality was definitely all or nothing, hence the insane amounts of sacks. DAREUS needs to grow up and I hope he saw what stefan charles was able to do with his first half of meaningful time. Did anyone else notice how impressive this kid was?

Pettine did very well this year, work on getting a run stopper and we will be top 5. I would say we are keeping all our coaching staff besides Crossman. That includes Hackjob... Defense was a bright spot for us this year.

[Billsguy]

We are a tip 10 defense in total yards allowed. We lead the league in sacks and are second in interceptions.

 

We are not perfect, but we are formidable. Lets see what they do next year.

 

IMHO, the Bills defense was not formidable. If you can't stop the run, your defense is fatally flawed.

[BADOLBILZ]

Outside of the Dolphins game, what did they do? They got run all over game in and game out. And not by studs, by average players. It's a joke how badly we can't stop the run. Yes we get sacks and ints, but only because we sell out on every play. If we don't get the sack or int, they are behind us.

 

I don't hate the guy, but our d was not what people are making it out to be.

 

Today's game was a perfect example. They knew where we would commit and just went the other way. We looked like we were being toyed with. We knew the run was coming and couldn't stop it. How is that so great?

 

 

IMO, the NFL is about QB play and pass defense. Pettine gets a good grade on his half.

 

It's hard to get pressure on the pampered passers of the NFL with a bunch of run pluggers up front. The Bills play a modern style NFL defense which is built to support an aggressive offense by trading big plays against for turnovers and negative plays. Nobody rushed the passer better than the Bills and they were excellent in forcing turnovers.

 

IMO, the Bills planned to play an attacking, high pressure offense..........but of course then they got to camp and realized they didn't have the QB's or personnel in general to do so. That's on Marrone, Hackett and Whaley. Pettine did his part.

Edited December 30, 2013 by BADOLBEELZ

[thewildrabbit]

While I think the defense has improved if all you can do is point to the Miami 19-0 game, you don't have much of an argument.

 

There were plenty of games where the defense let the Bills down as well. How about going up 14-0 to Atlanta and the defense couldn't hold that lead. Or the TB game or the 2 Pats* games.

 

I know the argument will be the offense didn't do there part sometimes but having a rookie QB the team needed to lean on the defense. That can only help a rookie QB. Wilson in Seattle leans on his quite a bit, so does Kaepernick in SF. Sure, Manning, Brady and Bree's don't to an extent need to lean on theirs, but those are seasoned and established QBs.

 

Point is, the defense still has a lot of room to improve.

I agree, and give this DC a second year along with some better players at different positions they will improve, IMO

 

 

That Atlanta game where the TE & WR both fumble the ball away on two consecutive drives late in the game? I wouldn't fault the defense for the loss of that game. If the Bills could ever control the LoS or clock with the run game they would win games like that one. Or in either the Patriots game where New England is 30th against the run, and although the Bills ran the ball fairly well, they still failed to play keep away.

 

While I agree the defense still has issues. Like letting the 4th string NE RB rip them a new one in a rain storm, and 267 yards rushing to the Patriots on the road

 

Its my take that the offense has even more issues with the fact that they lead the NFL in rushing attempts, and are #2 overall in rushing. Yet they can't get a first down by rushing when they need to, can't control the clock or LoS. They were #4 in the NFL in QB hits allowed. They were #5 in the NFL in sacks allowed. They were #3 in negative rushing yards.

 

The entire Bills team seemed to play so much better at home then on the road this year. Anyway, Pettine and the defense has been a bright spot at times compared to what the Bills fielded the previous 3 years. JMO

[Mr. WEO]

As others have pointed out, the points allowed is the bottom line. There was a small improvement from last year and it came against (as our buddy Sully points out) mediocre offenses. They allowed 20 or more 1st downs in 8 games. Nearly half of their total turnovers came in 3 games.

 

This D still isn't in the same league as Seattle, Carolina, SF, Cincy......even Arizona. Anyone would have been an improvement over the (predictably awful) Wanny, and Pettine fits the bill. Keep him--it's not like he's going to be offered a HC job any time soon.

[peterpan]

I think the real difference has been more individual progression than as a team.

 

McKelvin was pretty bad for a while but he was absolutely great this year. Dareus had his best year by far. KW had 10.5 sacks when his previous high for a season was 5.5 - nearly double. Aaron Williams was much better at Safety. Jerry Hughes was a 1st round bust that we traded our own 3rd round bust for and he had 10+ sacks. Manny Lawson is on his 3rd team and he had his best year here. Gilmore missed most of the season, but showed dramatic improvement from his 1st game back to his last, and when was the last time we had a rookie have as good a year as Kiko or Robey??

 

Next year I hope we can improve as much as a unit, as we did individually this year.

[bbb]

I think the real difference has been more individual progression than as a team.

 

McKelvin was pretty bad for a while but he was absolutely great this year. Dareus had his best year by far. KW had 10.5 sacks when his previous high for a season was 5.5 - nearly double. Aaron Williams was much better at Safety. Jerry Hughes was a 1st round bust that we traded our own 3rd round bust for and he had 10+ sacks. Manny Lawson is on his 3rd team and he had his best year here. Gilmore missed most of the season, but showed dramatic improvement from his 1st game back to his last, and when was the last time we had a rookie have as good a year as Kiko or Robey??

 

Next year I hope we can improve as much as a unit, as we did individually this year.

 

Great post.

[Doug Flutie Band]

Congrats.

fail

 

by 2nd post i meant the thread was already answered effectively in post #2

 

ALSO

 

bills defense

 

2012

362.9 ypg 22nd

27.2 ppg 26th

12 int 20th

36 sacks 18th

 

2013

333.4 ypg 10th

24.2 ppg 20th

23 int 2nd

57 sacks 2nd

Edited December 31, 2013 by Noodle

[Solomon Grundy]

He did a marvelous job with the talent he had.

[JohnnyBuffalo]

Defense was much better...not great. Led the league in sacks which is fun to watch. Much better than no pressure Wanny's mind numbing D. Hence the love. I want to see more offensive TD's which in turn makes the other team throw the ball which in turn allows the D to play to its strength. Had the Bills scored TD's more often in the red zone the D would have been more than enough to win games. Hence the love.

[8-8 Forever?]

Well, you have a choice on Defense in the NFL… you can play Wanny-ball , catch and react and hope the offense screws up somewhere along the way on the drive. Or you can attack, because turnovers and negative plays are how you stop offenses in today's NFL. You will give up big plays now and again, yes, but hopefully you also give your offense 3 or 4 short fields every game. Putting a practice squad QB and rookie coaches up a against HOF coaches and HOF QB ultimately cost us the Pats game. Thad missed like 3 TD throws in that game that Brady makes all day. We were never going to win that game. Don't have the horses yet. Someday.

Edited December 31, 2013 by 8and8Forever