Chandler#81 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Reporter to Tampa Bay HC John McKay: Coach, what do you think of your Offense's execution? McKay: I'm all in favor of it!
eball Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I'm having a hard time understanding why fans believe Hackett and/or Marrone are stupid. I've listened to them speak; I know their backgrounds. I'm pretty certain they are aware of the nuances of play-calling in the red zone and are working towards making that a strength of the Bills offense. I will revert to something many have repeated -- last season is a wash. Rookie (and oft-injured) QB, backups whose NFL careers are dubious at best, problems on the OL, injuries to WRs and RBs...show me an OC who was going to be successful under those circumstances. So far this preseason the starting offense has taken 6 out of 10 drives into scoring position. That's a positive, not a negative. May we please see some real live regular season football before we come to conclusions about how dumb our coaches are?
Wayne Cubed Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I'm having a hard time understanding why fans believe Hackett and/or Marrone are stupid. I've listened to them speak; I know their backgrounds. I'm pretty certain they are aware of the nuances of play-calling in the red zone and are working towards making that a strength of the Bills offense. I will revert to something many have repeated -- last season is a wash. Rookie (and oft-injured) QB, backups whose NFL careers are dubious at best, problems on the OL, injuries to WRs and RBs...show me an OC who was going to be successful under those circumstances. So far this preseason the starting offense has taken 6 out of 10 drives into scoring position. That's a positive, not a negative. May we please see some real live regular season football before we come to conclusions about how dumb our coaches are? Yes but the preseason is ALWAYS an indicator of how the regular season will play out. Or at least it is in the Bills case because the past 14 years the Bills have sucked in the preseason (eventhough they haven't) therefore it's been easy to to tell they would suck in the regular season. /sarcasm (even wrote it in Comic Sans, for extra sarcasm)
Nervous Guy Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I'm having a hard time understanding why fans believe Hackett and/or Marrone are stupid. I've listened to them speak; I know their backgrounds. I'm pretty certain they are aware of the nuances of play-calling in the red zone and are working towards making that a strength of the Bills offense. I will revert to something many have repeated -- last season is a wash. Rookie (and oft-injured) QB, backups whose NFL careers are dubious at best, problems on the OL, injuries to WRs and RBs...show me an OC who was going to be successful under those circumstances. So far this preseason the starting offense has taken 6 out of 10 drives into scoring position. That's a positive, not a negative. May we please see some real live regular season football before we come to conclusions about how dumb our coaches are? Yeah, the 49'ers coaches are really dumb, they've scored 3 points in 2 games!
Wayne Cubed Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Yeah, the 49'ers coaches are really dumb, they've scored 3 points in 2 games! Yes, but you aren't allowed to compare the 49ers preseason situation with the Bills preseason situation. It's in the rule book.
first_and_ten Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Every year there are teams who win in preseason and lose during the regular season and those who lose during preseason (or look bad) and win during the regular season. We don't know what any coaching staff is really trying to accomplish during the preseason, but I'm pretty sure winning isn't one of them. Does this mean the Bills will come out and look good on sept. 7? No, But one never knows.
GunnerBill Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I had a long day on Saturday. The game kicked off here in the UK at 12.30am Sunday morning. I had been to a house party... I'd had 3 or 4 beers I got home, made myself a coffee and sat down to enjoy (ok... to watch) the Bills game. When I saw Legursky starting at left guard I started to wonder whether I was more drunk than I realised.... what on earth was that all about?? Anyway... back to the topic title... I accept the pre-season argument and I agree with the sentiments that you don't show everything early... but one observation I have from Hackettt's play calling in goal to go situations going back to last year was that when we gave the defense a pass play look, we passed and when we gave them a run look, we ran. I look at what the Texans used to do under Kubiak (before last season when it fell apart) and they had success with Foster in goal to go situations out of obvious passing formations. It seemed to simple, but teams bought it week in and week out.
Over 29 years of fanhood Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 It's PRE-SEASON fooball folks. Why in God's name would you want to show anything meaningful? This isn't about impressing the fans. Blaming the offenses ability to score on the play calling is beyond stupid. I used to buy this, but it's preseason for the defense and all of the other teams too. Football is about scoring, if the plays that score are so secretive and exotic, they are going to have a tough season.
simpleman Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 The excuses keep coming. If the excuse is the preseason is the time to check out your rookies and see what they can do, how do you justify Pears, Urbik and mostly Legursky being in there at this later point in preseason? The Bills know what they are capable of, they have not shown they are getting any better. The Bills already know their ceilings. Legursky is not even average as a backup. If it was evaluating talent and trying out combinations, and not about winning, why not concentrate on Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio. Give them plenty of opportunity and experience in live game situations and see what you have in them. Loosing with Legursky, Pears and Urbik shows us nothing we already didn't know. They were not good enough last year, and still are not good enough. We did not have to suffer losing to know that. Losing with Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio at least serves a purpose of evaluating what you have and giving them live game exposure. Poor coaching decisions are piling up as we look at reasons for our offensive woes.
GunnerBill Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 They can't put Koundjio in there with EJ at the moment because he is a risk to his QBs health he is getting beat so bad and that is too big a risk to expose your 1 NFL capable Quarterback to in pre-season. Henderson started, so that is 2 of 3 taken care of. I agree Richardson should have started ahead of Legursky though.
Wayne Cubed Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 They can't put Koundjio in there with EJ at the moment because he is a risk to his QBs health he is getting beat so bad and that is too big a risk to expose your 1 NFL capable Quarterback to in pre-season. Henderson started, so that is 2 of 3 taken care of. I agree Richardson should have started ahead of Legursky though. The only problem with that is, by all accounts, Richardson looks better at RG, so putting him in LG would do nothing. I suppose they could have done the Urbik to LG and Richardson at RG, but it's being reported that that looked bad in practice. So as terrible as he may have been, until Richardson/Kouandjio look better, neither are a solution to the LG problem with C. Williams being out.
Solomon Grundy Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Let me challenge you a bit on this. In the Steelers, game the 1st team offense had one "goal to go" situation. The plays were: 1st and 6 at PIT 6 (1:27) (Shotgun) E.Manuel pass short left to F.Jackson to PIT 6 for no gain (S.Thomas). Timeout #1 by BUF at 01:21. 2nd and 6 at PIT 6 (1:20) (Shotgun) F.Jackson left tackle to PIT 3 for 3 yards (C.Thomas). Timeout #2 by BUF at 00:36. 3rd and 3 at PIT 3 (:36) (Shotgun) E.Manuel pass incomplete short left to R.Woods. Coverage by #22 Gay. 4th and 3 at PIT 3 (:32) (Shotgun) E.Manuel pass incomplete short right to S.Chandler (R.Golden). I am not seeing anything that was noticeably bad. The 3rd down play was pretty good, and a catch, albeit just out of bounds. 4th and goal from the 3-yd line--not sure there is a "sure fire" play there. My problem with all of that is where was Caveman Mike? He's supposed to be the "throw it up" to guy. Also, let's question the interior of this offensive line. They DO NOT push their guy off the line and that includes Eric Wood. Watching other preseason games, teams are running the ball in the end zone. The Bills have to get stronger in the interior that's why I'm pushing for them to try Kouandjio inside.
GunnerBill Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 The only problem with that is, by all accounts, Richardson looks better at RG, so putting him in LG would do nothing. I suppose they could have done the Urbik to LG and Richardson at RG, but it's being reported that that looked bad in practice. So as terrible as he may have been, until Richardson/Kouandjio look better, neither are a solution to the LG problem with C. Williams being out. Whilst I agree with all that I'd have thought getting Richardson the reps would have trumped anything else.... unless they felt Urbik at LG was so bad it was risking EJ's health as well. I pondered on here last year why Urbik didn't move across when Levitre went so that we were at least relatively secure on the blindside.... maybe he is that terrible at LG.
thewildrabbit Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 The excuses keep coming. If the excuse is the preseason is the time to check out your rookies and see what they can do, how do you justify Pears, Urbik and mostly Legursky being in there at this later point in preseason? The Bills know what they are capable of, they have not shown they are getting any better. The Bills already know their ceilings. Legursky is not even average as a backup. If it was evaluating talent and trying out combinations, and not about winning, why not concentrate on Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio. Give them plenty of opportunity and experience in live game situations and see what you have in them. Loosing with Legursky, Pears and Urbik shows us nothing we already didn't know. They were not good enough last year, and still are not good enough. We did not have to suffer losing to know that. Losing with Henderson, Richardson and Kouandjio at least serves a purpose of evaluating what you have and giving them live game exposure. Poor coaching decisions are piling up as we look at reasons for our offensive woes. I agree! While I don't have much faith in Nate Hackett's very predictable play calling. I have even less faith in some of the current starters and backups on the line. I understand why Hackett played that first string line for the first half is because he wanted more production out of that unit. EJ needs all the experience he can get at this point, and it makes no sense to put the backups in to get the QB killed in preseason. More particularly because a lot of those backups aren't even close to playing up to even an NFL backup level. Lets face it, that aside from Henderson, who has been playing surprising well from the start. Richardson, Cujo look very bad at this point. Kouandjio looks more like the 7th round pick and Henderson is looking more like the 2nd round pick. Then Richardson is about on the level of what you would expect from a 5th rounder. Look at the history of this teams drafts and realize that very few players have become solid starters drafted later then the 2nd round. I know I'd rather see Hairston, Richardson in at OG then Legursky, Urbik. Hard to believe, but that #2 draft pick in Cujo looks like a complete bust at this point. I didn't think I would ever see anyone who could play worse then Colin Green... But then there are still two preseason games, and 20 days of camp to go.
mattsox Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 Hackett doesn't seem to understand there are different rules for playcalling when in the red zone and especially inside the 10 yard line due to the compression of the field and more people in a small area... They move the ball very well in between the 20s but stall time and again in the red zone. Where are the play action passes to the TE's that always seem to work for every other team? Our playcalling isn't adjusting properly...same calls, same plays, not working It's PRESEASON!!!
CountryCletus Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 It's PRE-SEASON fooball folks. Why in God's name would you want to show anything meaningful? This isn't about impressing the fans. Blaming the offenses ability to score on the play calling is beyond stupid. +100000
snamsnoops Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 For the record, the premise of this thread is that our *preseason* play calling is bad? I'm more of a "wait till we have our regular season personnel and game plan for opponents before freaking out" kinda guy... I'm with this guy!
YoloinOhio Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 (edited) If Hackett has a set of goal line plays that in his mind are guaranteed TDs, he should not use them until they count. The defenses are pure vanilla and no one wants to put anything of significance on tape. There are no game plans. It is player evaluation. IMO worrying about play calling and personnel packages you see in PS is an exercise in futility. Edited August 18, 2014 by YoloinOhio
FireChan Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 I'm sure we'll shock the world and be great in the end zone this year.
billybrew1 Posted August 18, 2014 Posted August 18, 2014 It's PRE-SEASON fooball folks. Why in God's name would you want to show anything meaningful? This isn't about impressing the fans. Blaming the offenses ability to score on the play calling is beyond stupid. I think the problem maybe is that you can tell the Bills are pressing. We kept our starters in there for quite a while. I'm not saying the Bills are giving it all they have, but Marrone clearly wanted to win that game and he clearly wanted seven badly. I think the reason Aaron Williams was in there in the third quarter was two-fold, he is not playing as well as they would like and they wanted a vet in there to call the defense (so we would win). More On defense, Big Ben tore us apart. He had over 3 seconds on that TD pass beating Gilmore, yet everyone is blaming Gilmore. Sure, Gilmore is having a bad summer to date but, the story in Pittsburgh is you cannot give a good QB over 3 seconds. Nobody is talking about this though but if that is Schwartz's D we're in trouble. Pettine knew how and when to blitz, I am not sure Schwartz understands this. I know it sounds a little crazy, but consider that the last coordinator we had that knew how to do this was Greg Williams. That's a lot of coordinators in between. I am so used to seeing the Bills blitz not get even close, watching things like Bills players running into the backs of other Bills or right into blockers ALL the time.. I saw a couple Bills blitzes against Pitt. And they were not pretty. When we rushed four, we didn't get close. I think the most depressing thing about the stealers game, was our defense; BiG Ben scored easy.... That game was not all about EJ and the offense, there is plenty of concern on both sides of the ball. How bad were the Bills trying to win is a good question, we'll find out in Chicago....
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