Using DB to compsre Clements and Killdrive

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

Amidst all the piling on many are doing on Bledsoe I think getting lost in all of this is how bad Kevin Killdrive was compared to Clements and how bad GW was as an HC compared to MM.

 

Look, everyone says the reciord is the thing. As inadequate as the Bills were to start out 0-4 and to miss the playoffs by a game losing at home to Pitts reserves, one should not forget that this team went from a 6-10 recird to a 9-7 record and actually after the 0-4 start finished the season going 9-3. Obviously the buck stops with the HC abd MM gets the lionshare of the blame for missing the playoffs but the kudos for the streak and the massive improvement of this team.

 

The D had already been turned around by LeBeau and adoption of the run blitz, but kudos to MM for making a good choice in picking Gray, He couldn't go wrong as LeNeau went to Pittsburgh and got that unit deep in the playoffs and #1 statistically. However, from looking at the team, Gray did better with this D than most expected and showed in addition to the good tactical display he showed the year before as play caller, an excellent strategic sense which saw him generally gamplan well but most impressive analyze whyt the opponents were doing well in the 1st hal, choose a method for stopping them and get the team to understand and adopt the seitch during the brief halftime in most games during the streak.

 

The hirning and the work of Bobby April may well have been the co[ordinator hiring of the year.

 

The O improvement is the area I wanted to focus upon.

 

Among the things that Clements used that impressed me were:

 

1. Run and run the ball again- If anyone has a comparison of the % of running plays this year versus the % running plays last year I'd love t see it (particularly any down and distance occurence stats would be intererstimg. One obviously has to lay alot of this on WM being a far more effective runner than TH. This is no rap on TH because I think for two years he was one of the most productive Bills gaining roughly 1400 yards a year in the Gilbride Noffense smd catching over 40 balls in 2002 when he was employed this way. However, WM has recovered to be the top 5 draft talemt he was touted as before his injury and it shows with an incredible combination of power and speed and one of the best stiff arms I I have ever seen.

 

Still one, cannot give total credit to just the RB as the OL really improved over the course of the season and this crew was effective with Shaud Williams as well as WM. I can't wait to see them over a whole season and even the likely loss of JJ (who quiite frankly we seemed to lose for a quarter to a third of the game due to nicks does not phase me.

 

2. Just cause Bledsoe is more comfortable in the pocket doesn;t mean you never run him- In fact Clements seemed to realize you must run him or the Ds would go to the blitz given the slightest down and distance provocation. AS WM actually teded to start slowly and get stronger it was not unusual for the Bills to face a 2n and 9 or 8. Clements called Drew;s number on the QB draw a couple of times and even though I don;t think he ever got a 1st down but this tendency made the rusher sit back a little to dope out the plat. Through in some liberal use of flea flickers MW gas always loved from pitches back to DB fri=om WM followed by a bomb and a very nice play fake on a QB sneak and a pitch back to WM who scampered for a score and the Ds were gussing. Throw in some nice passes to Evans by Bledsoe on the rollout and I was impressed.

 

3. The redzone impriovement was great- one of the big differences about this ream after the first four losses was they improved their redzone play. Again the tough running of WM made a difference but the more impressive thing was that even before the concept of using D players on O (or vice-versa) was popularized ny Belichel's use of Troy Brown, Mike Vrabel and Seymoir, MM and the gang used Bamman and Adams ti add aggression and thus effectiveness to the redzone play. Oddly Lawrence Smith proved to be more effective at pass pro than the usually easier to master run blocking, but replacing him in the redzone was a boon to the teams effectiveness and a key to the streak.

 

4. Limiiting Bledsoe's ability to audible- As best as I can tell Kevin Killdrive was pass happy calling too many passes and Bledsoe'over confidence made them pass crazy- In addition to the run simply being good bread and butter if you can do it, from all everyone said the O just got far simpler and easier to execute than he overly complex Killdrive model. The K-Gun for example had few plays but the O set such a fast tone that the D never knew which of the relatively few choices were coming. Thw O had a fun to it I hadn't seen since the good ol days. One of the reasons we probably had more running plays as well is that we were burning clock alot more in the fourth quater rather than killing the clock with oass plays abd going OB.

 

At any rate, i think that the move to JP should be a boon for the O not becuase I ecpect the near rookie to play alot better, but from ehat I understand having a mobile QB will really open up the MM/Clements playbook.

 

I can barely wait.