All-22 Grades for Bills/Packers (The Athletic)

[GunnerBill]

4 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

If you're grading our pass protection on a curve, yes it has been very good. OL play across the league is at an all time low. The Eagles probably have the best OL in the league and even they struggled a bit against the Texans tonight. We have two top 10-ish starters in Dawkins and Morse which is more than at least half the league can say. You look at a team like the Chiefs who have invested a ton into their OL, and their fans complain that it is a weakness. Every fanbase feels that way.

 

The Bills pass protection is so up and down. I do agree it isn't great league wide and the Bills issues are maybe magnified by the fact that we pass so much. The numbers I have are through week 6 and come from Larry Holder at the Athletic - but the Bills had given up the joint 11th most pressures in the NFL. They are, however, 9th best in pressure percentage..  so they give up a lot of pressures but they throw a lot so kind of to be expected (the Bengals are similar). Where the Bills excel is the % of pressures that turn into sacks. They were through 3 weeks the third best in that category. Josh essentially covers for some of the oline flaws. 

 

I wouldn't describe the Bills pass protection as "very good". I'd describe it as inconsistent and it does over the last two years have a habit of failing in clutch situations. It remains in my view the unit most likely to cost the Bills in the playoffs (it did two years ago, not last year) and it remains the unit I would focus on the most in the offseason if I was Brandon Beane.

[GunnerBill]

17 hours ago, BearNorth said:

Tre is 27 coming off an ACL,

There are 3 cornerbacks above age 30 in the top group [Peterson at Minny, Gilmore at Indy and Slay at Philly]. 

Corners are a perishable commodity, good to have some fresh talent in the pipeline.

 

And of those three only Slay is really still playing at an elite level (and might be no coincidence that he is the one who has been the most healthy through his career). Pat Pete and Gilmore are both still solid players, but neither is still elite. 

[GunnerBill]

20 hours ago, Big Turk said:

 

In general the Bills OLine has been stellar at pass pro most of the season and trending up in run blocking...in weeks 5-8 the Bills have the #1 run win rate percentage in the NFL.

 

Kromer seems to be having this group rounding into shape as the year goes on, which is what should be expected.

 

They have improved run blocking the same way they did last year, they have got away from so much zone blocking stuff and have gone to much more gap scheme. That was how they kicked the run game into gear last year down the stretch. I do not understand why they went back to the zone looks at the start of 2022. That is on McDermott IMO. I think he is obsessed with being a zone blocking team. He has tried to install the inside zone run game pretty much every season. I think part of it is that there may be some tells for defenses to key in on about when we are going to run because our runs look different than our passes but at the end of the day we were running at 7 yards a clip in the first half last week, so even if it is easier to predict run or pass for the D it isn't necessarily easy stopping it. 

[GunnerBill]

19 hours ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

I think that there are several examples of where corners transitioned into excellent S. 

 

There are. The two Woodsons - Rod and Charles - spring to mind. Corey Graham and Aaron Williams both did it here in Buffalo. But I will say two things on that.... three of those four names did it late into their careers when they could use their experience and ability to read the game better from centre field rather than have to rely on declining athleticism outside. Secondly, there are few defenses in the NFL that ask more of their safeties than this one. 

 

Sure I think Benfield has the skillset to make able to make that move at some point, but a 6th round rookie out of a small school learning a new position just feels like an awful lot to put on his plate to me. Could they try it after the season? Possibly. But I think it would need to be the plan from OTAs on and they would need to commit to it.