What’s it gonna take to improve /prioritize our run defense?

[WideNine]

2 hours ago, Kelly to Allen said:

I think he means poona Ford. 

 

Wrong Ford - thanks.

 

Poona is a head scratcher too. The book on him was a high effort 1-tech that Seattle played all over their line.

 

Not sure what got him in the dog house, but his snap count was almost non-existent when he was here.

 

 

2 hours ago, WideNine said:

 

True, but I never thought Ford was a good fit for our spread, shotgun, pass-heavy offense back when.

 

A bit slow-footed so not the best in pass pro, or pulling which we asked our OL to do quite a bit, but a mauler on runs.

 

...and frankly until recently with Kromer I don't think we had the right OL coaching staff to recognize and develop offensive lineman.

 

I still remember when we traded Teller to the Browns only to watch him very quickly become a pro bowl guard. Just a poor ability to recognize OL talent and/or develop it.

 

I feel so much better about our OL this year and that the pipeline of talent for the next man up stepping in without too much drop from that unit.

 

They have done a great job coaching up this position group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would delete this in shame, but think I will keep it around for the swing and a miss value.

 

Doh!

 

[BillsPride12]

Getting Dewayne Carter back is a going to a huge step in the right direction 

[MDH]

3 minutes ago, BillsPride12 said:

Getting Dewayne Carter back is a going to a huge step in the right direction 

He had some splash plays but down to down he got moved off the LoS on a pretty consistent basis. Not sure how much help he’s going to provide. 

[gonzo1105]

Just now, MDH said:

He had some splash plays but down to down he got moved off the LoS on a pretty consistent basis. Not sure how much help he’s going to provide. 

I think early on he was but the last two games before injury I saw significant improvement. Hopefully he can return at the level he was playing at before injury 

[Joe Ferguson]

Benching Ed Oliver would greatly improve the run defense. 

[hondo in seattle]

On 12/3/2024 at 6:08 AM, gonzo1105 said:

It’s scheme and personnel imo. The Bills run a 4-2-5 which was actually created to stop college spread offenses back in the day. To be able to run a 4-2 your Linebackers and added DB(Johnson) need to be your best players on defense because they have to be versatile and be able to do a lot of different thing including coverage on both zone and man against smaller quicker players.

 

... 

 

This is a great explanation!  But I think the historical note may be wrong.

 

Spread offenses became a big thing in college about 30 or 40 years ago.  The 4-2-5 became much more popular in college after the spread emerged but was created earlier. 

 

When the NFL started becoming a "passing league," in the 1970s, NFL teams started experimenting with a variety of "pass prevent defenses" - including as I recall the 4-2-5 and even the 3-1-7 in late game situations.  

Jerry Williams, an Assistant Coach with Philly, is credited with inventing the Nickel in 1960 NFL Championship game, to combat Mike Ditka, the star TE.  But I don't know if Williams employed a 3-3-5 or 4-2-5.   I would guess it was the 4-2-5 since the 5-2-4 was the common defensive deployment at the time.  

I wonder if we have any NFL historians here with better information on the history of the 4-2-5?

[gonzo1105]

15 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

This is a great explanation!  But I think the historical note may be wrong.

 

Spread offenses became a big thing in college about 30 or 40 years ago.  The 4-2-5 became much more popular in college after the spread emerged but was created earlier. 

 

When the NFL started becoming a "passing league," in the 1970s, NFL teams started experimenting with a variety of "pass prevent defenses" - including as I recall the 4-2-5 and even the 3-1-7 in late game situations.  

Jerry Williams, an Assistant Coach with Philly, is credited with inventing the Nickel in 1960 NFL Championship game, to combat Mike Ditka, the star TE.  But I don't know if Williams employed a 3-3-5 or 4-2-5.   I would guess it was the 4-2-5 since the 5-2-4 was the common defensive deployment at the time.  

I wonder if we have any NFL historians here with better information on the history of the 4-2-5?

Nickel packages and the 4-2 both employ 5 DBs but they are deployed differently. The creation of nickel defense isn’t the same as the creation of the 4-2 defense. The 4-2 was created in the 80s while Nickel was created in the 60s. They are similar yet different. 
 

Nickel was created as a 3rd down package to stop 3rd and long passing situations. The 4-2-5 was created as teams started to widen the field horizontally. Nickel essentially takes a 5th DB on the field that is smaller and shiftier with two heavy LBs to stop the run. The 4-2-5 was created to get lighter in the LB range and the 5th guy is supposed to be a hybrid player that is bigger. Think Shaq Thompson of the Panthers when McDermott was there. The Bills decided to go lighter with that hybrid position with Johnson here. 
 

This guy explains it well, just don’t want to type it all out 

 

https://gtswarm.com/threads/nickel-vs-4-2-5-d.2169/

Edited December 8 by gonzo1105

[QLBillsFan]

On 12/7/2024 at 2:41 PM, ganesh said:

The Bills lost to the Bengals at Orchard Park, because they couldn't stop the run.  Mixon had a 100 yard game.

I’ll give you that. The entire Bills team did not play well that game. Certainly the run D was part of that. But that was one of many reasons.