TKO is the best linebacker the Bills ever had

[Adam]

Am I the only one who believes that neither TKO or Fletch would be nearly as effective without the other?

 

They are both difference makers alone, but they need each other.  It'd be like Biscuit without Bruce in front of him.  They were both talented, but together they're greater than the sum of the parts.

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Bruce played in front of Talley, if I remember correctly

[AKC]

One of the finest games I ever saw a Bills linebacker play was by Damien Covington.  His injury agains the Broncos cut way to short a career that could have had his name as part of this thread.  Rest in Peace Mr. Covington.

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He filled in very well when Speilman retired, if I remember early due to his wife's condition? But it seems like he got hurt soon thereafter- we hardly knew ya' kid. No doubt a sad story.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

He filled in very well when Speilman retired, if I remember early due to his wife's condition? But it seems like he got hurt soon thereafter- we hardly knew ya' kid. No doubt a sad story.

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Actually, I think it was Spielman got hurt one Sunday...then Covington got hurt very shortly thereafter (a few days later in practice, if memory serves), which left the Bills with Holoceck in the middle and a surplus of capable interior linemen, prompting Wade Phillips to switch to a 4-3 mid-week just before the Miami game...in which Miami was pretty much slapped around for having game-planned for a 3-4 all week. That game's a pleasant memory.

 

Covington...isn't. I remember seeing him in preseason as a rookie, flying all over the place and in on every play, and thinking "Too small, hell, this kid's a gamer." Was very proud to see I was right, and sad to see his career and life cut short...

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Finally having read this whole thread...

 

On the Fletcher/Spikes discussion: I don't know. I really don't. If I were pressed...I'd say Fletcher's better. Reason I'd say that is simple: Fletcher's production has been consistent through his tenure with the Bills with (2003-2004)or without (2002) Spikes. Ergo, while I can make a reasonable statement that Fletcher's play is not materially affected by Spikes' presence or absence, I cannot make the same statement about Spikes' play vis-a-vis Fletcher (though I don't believe Spikes would suffer in Fletcher's absence...but I have no objective support for that, it's just my opinion).

 

As for the original topic of this thread - the best linebacker the Bills ever had - frankly, in the handful of games before he was injured, Sam Cowart was doing things that were leaving me speechless. I have never seen any other Bills' LB (or any LB other than Lawrence Taylor) completely dominate an entire offense as he did in the now-infamous Tampa game. On skill alone, ignoring longevity, I think Cowart was the best LB ever to wear a Bills uniform.

[Matt in KC]

Re: TKO vs. Fletcher

 

Stats as a Bill adjusted to a per year (16 game) average:

 

TKO / Fletcher

Sacks: 2.91 / 2.77

INTs: 3.39 (*2 TDs total) / 0.0

Forced Fumbles: 2.42 / 1.31

Fumble Recoveries: 1.45 / 1.63

Passes Defensed: 8.24 / 2.94

Durability: perfect / perfect

Tackles: 109.09 / 141.06 (over 3 years - wow) Sure it's a flawed stat, but Fletcher has nearly 9 tackles per game for 3+ years. (and no pro bowl... wow)

 

Misc

Playcalling: advantage Fletcher

Consistency: both good, but advantage to Spikes

Penalties: I couldn't find this, but would guess it's about 10 yds per year for Spikes and 50 for Fletcher. And yes, I know, several of those were bad calls.

 

$The Cap Hit$ (2005 only): $5.4M / $3.8M

 

While I think TKOs stats are stronger, Fletcher's still my favorite. I think I like rooting for the under-appreciated badass that consistently performs. I'd love to see him and Spikes both make the Pro Bowl this year.

 

As FFS points out though, having 2 LBs so good we have to debate all aspects of their game to argue who is better is a great problem for us to have.

[Chalkie Gerzowski]

Chris Keating

 

 

[Simon]

The scary good thing here is that though some valued TSW posters rag on Posey as not being a good player, in know as I have looked at the Bills zone blitz and tried to understand what they are doing I have really grown to repsect his talent and play a lot.

 

Its unfortunate that this play is actually not easily seen in stats as his role is not generally one of producing a lot of sacks the way he was employed last year nor even one of a lot of big open field hits that get a player noticed.

 

As best as I can tell though Posey has show great advanatages over his back-up Stamer in that the far more veteran Posey makes good reads as to whether players are lined up and the down and distance have led to a play call of a run or pass.

Holy cow Sunny, you talk about Posey more than I do. Two things:

>It is indeed unfortunate that "his play is actually not easily seen in stats as his role is not generally one of producing a lot of sacks the way he was employed last year". Especially when you consider the high number of instances where he is allowed to rush the QB, sometimes even with his hand on the ground, and is still easily taken out of hte play by any average RB or TE.

>Reading pass/run is about as complicated as an old McGuffey Reader.

 

One of the finest games I ever saw a Bills linebacker play was by Damien Covington. His injury agains the Broncos cut way to short a career that could have had his name as part of this thread. Rest in Peace Mr. Covington.

A hearty congratulations to the Fencesitter for finally reaching double-digit posts!

 

 

As for this interesting discussion and fantastic thread:

I absolutely love London Fletcher's intensity, smarts and courage. At teh risk of sounding like a homer, he has become one of my favorite players in this league and if he continues in this vein will take his place beside Sam Mills as one of my favorite players of all time.

That being said, Takeo Spikes is one of the handful of NFL players I've ever seen that actually, and quite literally scares the living shlt out of me. I don't know what it is or why it happens, but there's been a couple guys over the course of the years who have simply put a knot in my gut when I watch them play. For some reason my visceral reaction to these few guys' games has been abject fear! Takeo Spikes is a member of this select group. The cat is a monster, the stuff of nightmares, and quite possibly the most frightenng player on the entire planet right now.

[Alaska Darin]

Holy cow Sunny, you talk about Posey more than I do. Two things:

>It is indeed unfortunate that "his play is actually not easily seen in stats as his role is not generally one of producing a lot of sacks the way he was employed last year". Especially when you consider the high number of instances where he is allowed to rush the QB, sometimes even with his hand on the ground, and is still easily taken out of hte play by any average RB or TE.

>Reading pass/run is about as complicated as an old McGuffey Reader.

A hearty congratulations to the Fencesitter for finally reaching double-digit posts! 

As for this interesting discussion and fantastic thread:

I absolutely love London Fletcher's intensity, smarts and courage. At teh risk of sounding like a homer, he has become one of my favorite players in this league and if he continues in this vein will take his place beside Sam Mills as one of my favorite players of all time.

That being said, Takeo Spikes is one of the handful of NFL players I've ever seen that actually, and quite literally scares the living shlt out of me. I don't know what it is or why it happens, but there's been a couple guys over the course of the years who have simply put a knot in my gut when I watch them play. For some reason my visceral reaction to these few guys' games has been abject fear! Takeo Spikes is a member of this select group. The cat is a monster, the stuff of nightmares, and quite possibly the most frightenng player on the entire planet right now.

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Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Couldn't have said it better myself. Any of it.

 

Special thanks to Jeff Posey for actually showing up everytime we play the Texans. At least he's consistant.

[Kelly the Dog]

A couple more points. Watch the replay of the play that Spikes made to cause a fumble on the sack of David Carr. It was awesome. He came crashing in, saw that he could not only make the sack but carr didn't see him coming so could probably cause a turnover, took a swipe at the ball with one arm, missed it, and then took a swipe with the other arm and knocked the ball away, which we recovered. It happened so fast but was simply a phenomenal play.

 

Think of how Fletcher benefits from having Fat Sam in front of him to take up the blockers and allow him to fly to the ball. I am not denegrating Fletcher's ability and production, and will even concede that dollar for dollar he is worth what TKO is to the team, but that makes his job a lot easier.

 

Tackle stats are very often misleading as we all know. Jay Foreman. Nuff said. A tackle five yards from the line of scrimmage is an adequate play. A tackle being dragged two yards is a fair to bad play. A tackle on your man after he catches a pass is a fair to bad play.

 

The simple difference to me is that they both have extraordinary fire and range and production but TKO does all Fletcher does and significantly more. Fletcher does most of what TKO does and has a few liabilities.

[VABills]

Okay, I personally don't think Spikes or Fletcher is the best Bills LB'er, so let me chime in on the old well Fletcher benefits from having Fat Sam and prior to that Williams in front of him. True, but how much does Spikes benefit by having Shoebal in front and Fletcher who is always at home next to him. Spikes can tee off and be everywhere because he knows Fletcher is there, he knows Milloy or Wire would tackle the guy if he missed. Yes I said wire. Because while the boy can't cover very well, he can flatout tackle and do run support. So Spikes benefits tremedously there.

 

To those underestimating Conlan or Bennett, don't. They didn't have the safety support that Spikes and Fletcher do. TKO and London can have a lot more free wheeling that those other two couldn't.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

A couple more points. Watch the replay of the play that Spikes made to cause a fumble on the sack of David Carr. It was awesome. He came crashing in, saw that he could not only make the sack but carr didn't see him coming so could probably cause a turnover, took a swipe at the ball with one arm, missed it, and then took a swipe with the other arm and knocked the ball away, which we recovered. It happened so fast but was simply a phenomenal play.

 

Think of how Fletcher benefits from having Fat Sam in front of him to take up the blockers and allow him to fly to the ball. I am not denegrating Fletcher's ability and production, and will even concede that dollar for dollar he is worth what TKO is to the team, but that makes his job a lot easier.

 

Tackle stats are very often misleading as we all know. Jay Foreman. Nuff said. A tackle five yards from the line of scrimmage is an adequate play. A tackle being dragged two yards is a fair to bad play. A tackle on your man after he catches a pass is a fair to bad play.

 

The simple difference to me is that they both have extraordinary fire and range and production but TKO does all Fletcher does and significantly more. Fletcher does most of what TKO does and has a few liabilities.

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I can certainly live happily with this assessment. I think it is consistent with my sense that it is a close call between the two and different folks make different judgments in the end which come out with a vote for Spikes with the views expressed here or with a vote for Fletcher if folks value his signal calling, ST role and tackles highly. as Rodney says why can't we all just get along.

 

I agree that having Sam Adams at DT is a big benefit, but trying to link his prescence as a reason for Fletcher's performance is a bit of a stretch. As folks have noted in several posts it is not even totally accurate to disentangle Spikes and Fletcher's performance because they one excels because of what the other does. Particularly in a zone blitz where the scheme calls for not only shifting responsibilites but shifting line-ups to link an LB's performance to being primarily or significantly due to a particular DTs performance stretches reality to try to bolster an argument.

 

I think the most important thing to consider in light of the points you make is to actually think about Fletcher's performance for the Bills without Spikes or Sam around. I would say the biggest benefit they have given to his performance is that rather than focusing on setting a record for Bills tackles as he did in 2002 without them being around, with them he is able to focus on ST work where he has set a great performance tone for starters on this team and played a productive role as a short kick returner and wedge blocker for McGee..

 

Just as they did when you introduced the salary cap to the discussion by raising the GM issue (I'm glad you seem to acknowledge that this broader discussion you raised in actually to Fletcher's advanatge as his bang for the buck is so high) I think the focus on what the interplay with Sam and Spikes does for allowing Fletcher to contribute even more to the team on ST is the important thing here.

 

Another interesting sidelight (yeah Simon I am at it again) your mention of the Spikes hit on Carr actually reminds me of another Bills LB hot on Carr in the 2003 season where none other than our good friend Jeff Posey not only caused Carr to fumble by hitting him (unfortunately Adams could not recover in the endzone and we only got a safety as the ball dribbled out of his hands and out of the endzone, but hit him so hard he knocked him out of several games.

[Kelly the Dog]

As I recall, Fletcher in 2002 was a tackling machine five yards from the LOS. We were 29th in the league in run defense, 24th in YPC. The next year, with Fat Sam (and TKO) we were 8th in run defense, 5th in YPC. Granted, the Bills got better on defense with three or four quality players but I think the stats indicate that Fletcher's tackles were not him being able to crash the LOS like when Sam is there.

 

For my money, even though I started this thread with TKO is the best LB the Bills have ever had, I don't think he's the MVP of the defense, I think that is Sam Adams. Although that shouldn't be all that surprising I suppose, because IMO the only competition for best ever LB is Bennett, and he wasn't the MVP of his defense either, for the most part, that was Bruce.

 

Someone earlier brought up Bennett's phenomenal year when he had to move inside and I concur, that showed what a fabulous player he was.

[Alaska Darin]

A couple more points. Watch the replay of the play that Spikes made to cause a fumble on the sack of David Carr. It was awesome. He came crashing in, saw that he could not only make the sack but carr didn't see him coming so could probably cause a turnover, took a swipe at the ball with one arm, missed it, and then took a swipe with the other arm and knocked the ball away, which we recovered. It happened so fast but was simply a phenomenal play.

 

Think of how Fletcher benefits from having Fat Sam in front of him to take up the blockers and allow him to fly to the ball. I am not denegrating Fletcher's ability and production, and will even concede that dollar for dollar he is worth what TKO is to the team, but that makes his job a lot easier.

 

Tackle stats are very often misleading as we all know. Jay Foreman. Nuff said. A tackle five yards from the line of scrimmage is an adequate play. A tackle being dragged two yards is a fair to bad play. A tackle on your man after he catches a pass is a fair to bad play.

 

The simple difference to me is that they both have extraordinary fire and range and production but TKO does all Fletcher does and significantly more. Fletcher does most of what TKO does and has a few liabilities.

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Show me a middle linebacker in this day and age who can peel off an interior lineman better than London Fletcher. If there is one, I don't know who it is.

 

DT is the most important position on that side of the ball for a reason. All of the better ILs have VERY good DTs in front of them. ALL OF THEM.

[BEAST MODE BABY!]

while I can make a reasonable statement that Fletcher's play is not materially affected by Spikes' presence or absence, I cannot make the same statement about Spikes' play vis-a-vis Fletcher (though I don't believe Spikes would suffer in Fletcher's absence...but I have no objective support for that, it's just my opinion).

 

Well, I think you could look at who played in the middle next to Spikes in Cincinnati, and I bet Spikes had great production there too no matter how untalented the MLB was. Purely looking at his production as a Bill to judge what kind of linebacker he is silly, IMO. For example, if Thurman Thomas had only played one year as a Bill in his prime...he's still freakin' Thurman Thomas.

[stuckincincy]

Finally having read this whole thread...

 

On the Fletcher/Spikes discussion: I don't know.  I really don't.  If I were pressed...I'd say Fletcher's better.  Reason I'd say that is simple: Fletcher's production has been consistent through his tenure with the Bills with (2003-2004)or without (2002) Spikes.  Ergo, while I can make a reasonable statement that Fletcher's play is not materially affected by Spikes' presence or absence, I cannot make the same statement about Spikes' play vis-a-vis Fletcher (though I don't believe Spikes would suffer in Fletcher's absence...but I have no objective support for that, it's just my opinion).

 

As for the original topic of this thread - the best linebacker the Bills ever had - frankly, in the handful of games before he was injured, Sam Cowart was doing things that were leaving me speechless.  I have never seen any other Bills' LB (or any LB other than Lawrence Taylor) completely dominate an entire offense as he did in the now-infamous Tampa game.  On skill alone, ignoring longevity, I think Cowart was the best LB ever to wear a Bills uniform.

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Brian Simmons was drafted in the same year - both 1st-rounders - as Spikes. Simmons played ILB, and his play certainly helped Spikes. He moved outside when TKO left (and does well - quite good against the pass), with an aging Kevin Hardy taking over then - mixed results - nothing against Hardy; just was a bit low in the 'ole gas tank.

 

Don't get me wrong - I've posted repeatedly that I feel that Spikes is the most important Bill and that it took 2 years for the B'gals to fill the loss.

 

It's a good situation - Spikes covers much territory, and Fletcher like Simmons did before, picks up a lot of the other.

[Lori]

Based on what we're seeing with Fletcher out of the lineup today, anyone care to revisit this?

[Grant]

Fletcher and Spikes are a good tandem, but they need each other to be great.

[Gambler]

The scary good thing here is that though some valued TSW posters rag on Posey as not being a good player, in know as I have looked at the Bills zone blitz and tried to understand what they are doing I have really grown to repsect his talent and play a lot.

 

Bertainly Spikes and Fletcher are better players, but there is a good argument that the key to our run blitz working as well as it does is actually seen in some very good play by Posey.

 

As best as I can tell though Posey has show great advanatages over his back-up Stamer in that the far more veteran Posey makes good reads as to whether players are lined up and the down and distance have led to a play call of a run or pass. He uses these reads and the play calls of Fletcher to back-up the DL at the POA on run plays or fall back into a zone or pick up a potential receiver in man-to-man correctly on most plays.

 

No one is perfect and neither is Posey, but one of the reasons the Bills proved to be statistically successful last year was some good consistent play by Posey at the other OLB slot.

 

I think the Bills really do have the best LB corps in the NFL

 

It is incredibly entertaining to watch our D perform.

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Maybe it is a lttle clearer why people rag on Posey. The invisible man. You can watch many games and never know he even suited up.

 

After watching the Bills D shut down Tampa, I think your words are truly prophetic.

 

"I think the Bills really do have the best LB corps in the NFL

 

It is incredibly entertaining to watch our D perform." Cadillac Williams agrees with you.