When we lost Dick Lebeau...

[CoachChuckDickerson]

Anybody else feel since we lost Dick Lebeau our D has been going down hill? They didn't get good until Dick came on as a "consultant" and we continued to be good one year after he left. But now, simply brutal again. Just my two cents on the situation.

[ch19079]

how can we blitz on 65% of our defensive plays, and not get any real pressure??

 

why do we blitz our outside linebackers, when the offense is obviously going to run? thats why we give up big runs, our LBs are out of position.

 

also, our secondary played horrible.

[ganesh]

Anybody else feel since we lost Dick Lebeau our D has been going down hill? They didn't get good until Dick came on as a "consultant" and we continued to be good one year after he left. But now, simply brutal again. Just my two cents on the situation.

484416[/snapback]

 

 

LeBeau was indeed offered the DC position by MM....But he chose to move

back to Pittsburgh. Our loss is the steelers gain....

 

The problem with Gray is he is not enforcing discplined play by his Unit.

[CoachChuckDickerson]

The problem with Gray is he is not enforcing discplined play by his Unit.

484501[/snapback]

 

I agree. There seems to be a lot of guys playing out of position on a number of plays.

[dave mcbride]

Anybody else feel since we lost Dick Lebeau our D has been going down hill? They didn't get good until Dick came on as a "consultant" and we continued to be good one year after he left. But now, simply brutal again. Just my two cents on the situation.

484416[/snapback]

 

i'm very lukewarm about gray, but this is false. the bills defense was signficantly better in 04 than 03. they were ranked #2 both seasons, but they led the league in turnovers last year and were last in 03. the problem is talent -- the bills do not have a credible run defending DT (nothing even close, actually) and their most explosive player, spikes, is out for the season. you can't make silk from a sow's ear, and the talent deficiency has really caught up to the bills this year. all it takes is a couple of key losses to destroy a unit. in retrospect, not (over)paying pat williams was a real mistake, but one that was predictable. williams was a butler guy and 31 years old. donohoe probably figured he was on the downside of his career, just as he did with ted washington in 2001. i of course expect to see williams playing solidly for another 3 - 4 years ...

[RuntheDamnBall]

i'm very lukewarm about gray, but this is false. the bills defense was signficantly better in 04 than 03. they were ranked #2 both seasons, but they led the league in turnovers last year and were last in 03.  the problem is talent -- the bills do not have a credible run defending DT (nothing even close, actually) and their most explosive player, spikes, is out for the season. you can't make silk from a sow's ear, and the talent deficiency has really caught up to the bills this year. all it takes is a couple of key losses to destroy a unit. in retrospect, not (over)paying pat williams was a real mistake, but one that was predictable. williams was a butler guy and 31 years old. donohoe probably figured he was on the downside of his career, just as he did with ted washington in 2001. i of course expect to see williams playing solidly for another 3 - 4 years ...

484552[/snapback]

Pat Williams and the stout Minnesota run D are ranked 30th, one spot ahead of us.

 

In 6 games, they've given up 4.6 ypc (5th worst in the league), 9 runs of 20+ (second only to you-know-who), and 142 rushing yards a game (3rd worst).

 

Either the Minnesota D is missing Sam Adams, or we just needed an upgrade at DT, period.

[ganesh]

i of course expect to see williams playing solidly for another 3 - 4 years ...

484552[/snapback]

 

Have you seen how he has played for the Vikings ?

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

Anybody else feel since we lost Dick Lebeau our D has been going down hill? They didn't get good until Dick came on as a "consultant" and we continued to be good one year after he left. But now, simply brutal again. Just my two cents on the situation.

484416[/snapback]

 

Cliff Noters begin- LeBeau does deserve credit for greatly improving the Bills D with is arrival in 2003. However, there are clear indications of further improvement under Gray and with LeBeau gone which Gray deserves credit for as Lebeau was gone and these episodes of improvement were done by the folks here.

 

Specifically, 1. The Bils made mid-game improvements last year like when they shut down Sammy Morris and a successful Miami run attack in the second half of a game which was not LeBeau doing. 2. The Bills D had a strategic approach for each opponent in 2004 which in cases like Miami mentioned above could and was improved but during the win streak generally it was the D performance which kept the Bills in the game unil WM wore them down or the ST made plays to give us a lead and LeBeau had nothing to do with 2004 game statagey. 3. The team implemented changes of the leBeau's designed D in the bye week last year which improved performance in sacks and turnovers where Gray gets the credit as LeBeau was not here.

 

LeBeau's most significant effect was probably not the design which the Bills did not improve in his absence, but actually from whatever help he gave to the Pitts O last year to run all over the Bills in the last game and opponents have built upon that and we have found no answer yet to this problem.

 

However, the Bills did improve on the LeBeau design last year in ways which are clearly separate from what lebeau left. Cliff notes end.

 

While I think that the Bills current run D issues are probably linked to how Pitts exploited the run with Willie Parker last year (I would not be surprised if some deep analysis shows that Pitt's DC Lebeau helped the Pitts OC to exploit the Bills zone blitz he designed and other teams have built upon the methods which worked in that game and then through this season to beat out scheme).

 

However, I would disagree with the notion that we owe all good things about this D to leBeau and that Gray has done nothing well with this D. The facts do not indicate this at all.

 

2001-2002- The D fails miserably with Gray as DC but the lead reasons for this is my mind are Gray and GW's adoption of the Titans 4/3 scheme that they succeeded with while the Bills had run a 3-4 and were in the midst of losing the DL studs we had (Big Ted, Hansen, Wiley, Bruce). In addition to this basi DL personnel issue, the situation was made worse by the injury to Cowart at the same time we were extending and then cutting Holocek.

 

The team which desperately needed Blaine Bishop like talent at S also erred in extending then cutting Henry Jones, figuring Raion Hill could do the job and then figuring that Jenkins had something left and could start at SS when he couln't (forcing us to go to the not ready for SS Wire).

 

On the good side, this D actually performed better than I expected (which gives one an idea of how bad I thought they would be_ in 2001 but really could only maintain good play for 3/4 of a game until opponents wore them down, made gamebreaking plays in crunch time or our bad O could not compensate for the bad D play.

 

As far as Gray goes, he seemed to be learning how to be a DC on the job after moving up from being a secondary coach under GW with the Titans and I blame defensive guru GW for our overall crappiness as the buck stops with him.

 

2003- LeBeau comes in and as an old buddy of TD suddenly available because LeBeau proved not be up to the HC job in Cincy and got canned. However. implementation of his zone blitz immediately improved the teams D as we finished 5th in the league statistically on D.

 

Player personnel made a big difference here as TKO joined the team and our LB corps of Fletcher (who has led the league in tackles the last 5 years as a whole), Posey (who I think is better than folks give him credit for as he was learning the switch from a 3-4 to a 4-3 in 2003 and our expectations were too high early in 2003 becauseof his sack numbers for the Texans) and TKO became a Bill. Also add to that the acquisition of Milloy and the leadership of Krumrie and personnel made as big of a difference as LeBeau to the improvement of the D.

 

The Gray situation is interesting as he kept the title of DC and actually had individual play call responsibilities in 2003. If he did not retain this position then it would be a huge indictment of GW as he had already fired his first OC (Sheppard), his second OC (Kevin Killdrive) clearly hit the wall in 2003 and refused to chnage his patterns in 2003. Given that his ST performance under his coordinator was mediocre at best, if his DC pick got canned to when LeBeau came aboard its hard to not declare GW a bust heading into 2003.

 

However, Gray pretty clearly seemed to perform well in 2003. You do not get the 5th best statistical ranking for the D purely on scheme and personnel. If a team makes bad play calls and the scheme is not properly implemented and the players are not put into the best positions for them to make plays it likely all falls apart.

 

Gray pretty clearly demonstrated he had learned and has potential to master the LeBeau designed run blitz. I think this was not faked as it was also clear that LeBeau was chafing a bit not having play calling responsibility so Gray was responsible for something worthwhile on this D. I think the accusations against Gray that he is committed to only one system are simply shown to be wrong by the facts on the ground. He ran and implemented a GW system (which it is reasonable to say was based on the bears "46" model though it was different) and then ran and implemented the LeBeau zone-blitz scheme (which is different from the46 though they both are high-risk attacking schemes).

 

2004- Gray surprisingly to me was chosen over LeBeau to run our D and as LeBeau flew the coop to Pitts, this pretty squarely put Gray on the hotspot to prove himself on the obvious question for him. Did the improvement of the Bills D in 2003 come mainly from Lebeau and the personnel and could Gray show strategic ability on his own.

 

I think the 2004 events indicate the answers to this were yes! Gray showed good strategic ability in 3 ways in 2004-

 

1. He diagnosed. designed and implemented changes in mid game for the bills successfully in 2004- One could call this tactical, but given the breadth anf success of these changes I think calling them strategic is more accurate. In several games with the first game against Miaimi being the best example, Gray led changes in the Bills D which really change the nature of the game and performance. Sammy Morris runs all over the Bills in the first halfand in the second they shut him down. This situatiion is borne out by the overarching stats as the Bills D performed incredibly wellin the 3rd quater of games last year in terms of points given up and yardage allowed.

 

Gray clearly demonstrated last year that he could not only make the right calls at the right time as he did under/with LeBeau in 2003 but in 2004 he could diagnose problems, design changes, and get the implemented with on field results. LeBeau did not make these changes as he was not here so gray deserves credit for these improvements.

 

2. He gameplanned for each opponent- Clearly, the gameplans could be improved as Gray led these improvements overall throughou the season. However, particularly during the streak, the Bills were at least holding their own with the D performance until WM running wore the opponents down or the ST made big plays which got us a lead. Gray demonstated an effective ability to strategically plan for opponents from game to game in 2004 and LeBeau was not around to do this.

 

3. He made switches during the bye week- Its hard to see what these were as we were effective with the D both before and after the bye week. Howerver, this team really put the pedal to the metal after the bye during the streak and improvements in sack totals and turnovers are indications of good strategi changes and fixes where what LeBeau left was improved.

 

This year is the real quandary and certainly the Bills have not found an answer for it so gosh forbid that a couch potatoe such as myself (and the vast vast majority of posters to TSW) have an answer.

 

Gray has simply not shown the same success he had in the last two years and though the buck stops with MM, it passes through Gray's hands and he has to take a lot of the blame for the D problems.

 

However, I think the events on the ground draw a pretty clear line between the turnaround and success which came with LeBeau and the even greated success which came post Lebeau. As this success was almostcertainly in part vested in events which LeBeau could not influence not being here (mid-game improvements, individual 2004 game strategies, and 2004 bye week improvements) and all of these improvements are clearly reflected in the stats last year. it does not strike me as correct to give LeBeau all the credit.

 

LeBeau is obviously a factor, but mty sense is that his biggest impact is likely that he showed in the last game last year by helping the Pitts offense to prepare how to exploit the Bills run D and folks have built upon that this season.

[dave mcbride]

Pat Williams and the stout Minnesota run D are ranked 30th, one spot ahead of us.

 

In 6 games, they've given up 4.6 ypc (5th worst in the league), 9 runs of 20+ (second only to you-know-who), and 142 rushing yards a game (3rd worst).

 

Either the Minnesota D is missing Sam Adams, or we just needed an upgrade at DT, period.

484568[/snapback]

wait a second - you can't just point to the vikes' run defense and say case closed and that williams wasn't worth it. there are all sorts of problems with minnesota, and like i said, a couple of weak or broken links can destroy a defense. for instance, sam adams is still a good player despite the overall performance of the defense. he just can't do it all by himself. as for pat williams, he clearly gelled with the bills defensive unit, and i suspect he would have stopped the run well enough for the bills this year if he had stayed. believe me, he's not the problem in minnesota.

[BillsObserver]

to all the pat williams naysayers...

 

despite edingers 56 yarder, pat williams was given his 2nd gameball of the year this past weekend. tice put him over as being all over the place again and making a lot of plays amongst other things.

 

must be doing something over there!

[jahbonas]

LeBeau was indeed offered the DC position by MM....But he chose to move

back to Pittsburgh.  Our loss is the steelers gain....

 

The problem with Gray is he is not enforcing discplined play by his Unit.

484501[/snapback]

Lebeau was offered the Bills job...at what rate of PAY ???? I'm sure if he was compensated well enough he would have stayed...but ralph hs a salary cap on coaches...so we get stuck with 1st time coordinators like Jerry Gray & Tom Clements....surprise surprise we are often out coached !!

[scribo]

This goes for this whole season so far -- there has not been one decent, effective halftime adjustment made. Not one. I see that as a major reason Gray will not be a head coach anywhere next year. But I see the same problem on the offensive side of the ball.