MDH Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 So I finally got off my ass today and watched the tape of the Oakland game as I wanted to see for myself who was responsible for the sacks...I was intrigued by Mularky's claim that only 1 of the 7 could be put on the O-line. I only watched the Bills offensive plays and took some notes on the sacks and other things...I'll keep this post to just the sacks though because it's pretty long. 1st Sack – Shelton runs RIGHT by the blitzing LB and goes into his route instead of giving a chip on his way out or staying in to block. 2nd Sack – Henry whiffs on a blitz pickup. He makes the correct read but just misses the block. 3rd Sack – Shelton decides to help double team a DE and realizes too late there’s a blitzing LB that’s his responsibility. Tag this one on Shelton. 4th Sack – Mike Williams gets beat for the sack. However, it takes 3.1 seconds for the man to get to Bledsoe and this comes from Bledsoe’s front side on a 3rd and 10 from the 29-yard line…HE HAS TO GET RID OF THE BALL HERE TO AVOID GETTING KNOCKED OUT OF FG RANGE. I’m not sure who I’d tag this sack on, probably both Williams and Bledsoe, but GD Bledsoe can’t make these kinds of rookie QB mistakes…getting knocked out of FG range on 3rd and 10 from a front-side rusher when he has 3 seconds to get rid of the ball is a huge mistake. Throw the ball away and let Lindell come in and miss the FG. 5th Sack – Jonas Jennings gets beat pretty cleanly, he gets shoved off balance and back and the DE then goes inside to get the sack. However, Drew is in the shotgun and it takes 4 seconds for the DE to get to Bledsoe…he had plenty of time to get rid of the ball. I’d put this one on Bledsoe, he’s got to get rid of the ball when he gets that much time to throw and can’t find a receiver. 6th Sack – This is a complicated sack. Ross Tucker is at RG. He engages the DL in front of him (a shifting DE) but then sees a blitzing LB coming inside and tries to hand his man off to Mike Williams. Williams, however, sees another blitzing LB coming on his outside and moves out to pick him up thinking Tucker has the DE that shifted in. Willis McGahee is in the backfield and sees the blitzing LB and picks him up too…so what you end up with is WM and MW on one blitzing LB, Tucker leaving his man to pick up a blitzing LB and the DE that Tucker originally engages ends up getting the sack. At the same time on the left side of the field the nickel corner blitzes from the side and gets in cleanly. The DL and CB meet at Bledsoe at the same time to share the sack. The defense sent 6 guys in and Drew has 3 seconds to get rid of the ball. It looks like a Mike William’s mistake (though it could have been a Teague and Tucker mistake…with Teague being the guy who was supposed to pick up the blitzing LB). However, with 6 guys coming on the blitz a QB shouldn’t be holding the ball 3 seconds, throw it away or dump it off to your outlet. I put this one on Drew. 7th Sack – Blitzing Woodson comes in totally unaccounted for from the left side. Not sure who’s responsibility this is. McGahee is in the backfield but he’s lined up on the right side and he picks up a blitzing LB from that side…so he’s not at fault. Took 1 second to get to Bledsoe…not much he could do about it. It might have been Jennings man, but he was engaged one on one with the DE with no help, so had he left the DE to pick up Woodson his man would have come free. This one just looks like a good D call at the right time. They overloaded the left side and there were one too many defenders to block. Without knowing the blocking scheme it’s impossible to know whose guy this is. So of the 7 sacks here’s how I’d break it down: 2 - Shelton 1 - Henry 1 - Mike Williams – Though Bledsoe shares this one and should get rid of the ball 2 - Bledsoe – Jonas got beat on one but Drew had 3.9 seconds to get rid of it and the 6th sack…he’s got to get rid of the ball when the D all out blitzes and he’s got 3 seconds to throw it…his penchant for trying to hard to make plays costs us in situations like this. 1 – Not sure without knowing the blocking scheme. It appears it was just a solid D play-call that overloaded the left side. So when Mularky said that only 1 of those sacks was on the o-line he wasn’t bullshitting, it looked that way to me as well. Though you could take one of those sacks away from Bledsoe and put it on Williams…but at the same time the sack I tagged on Williams could be put on Bledsoe as well. If you give ‘em each a half for both of those it adds up to the same thing. It all comes down to pickups and reads on blitzes. Only twice did an O-linemen get beat cleanly for a sack (one by Williams and one by Jennings, though he held his man off for 4 seconds)…everything else was a miscue on a blitz. We're going to keep seeing this until we get it right. That being said I didn't see WM make one mistake when it came to blitz pickups. Pretty good job for essentially a rook. And btw, whoever that poster was last week who counted how many seconds drew had to get rid of the ball was just out and out wrong with his 2 second counts…I used a stop watch from the time the ball was snapped and only on a few of the sacks did the D get there in 2 seconds or less. Also, damn I feel like Barry Brady (or Fake Fat Sunny as it is now)...how the hell do you have time for all those monster posts!?!
BillnutinHouston Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 Good post, thanks. "So I finally got off my ass today and watched the tape of the Oakland game" - funny, I liked that.
kota Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 How about we stop blaming 1 person for a team sport.
eball Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 awesome post. most informational and relevant thing i've read in here in weeks. thanks for taking the time to "get off your ass" and analyze the tape. GET MCGAHEE IN THE GAME, MULARKEY!!!!
Matt in KC Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 Thanks, MDH. This is good stuff. I usually watch the games a second time on TiVo, but the Oakland game was erased before I could get back to it. Another thing I wanted to look for is this: does it look like Bledsoe has an outlet receiver, or is everyone running longer routes oblivious to the blitzes? He needs some help, but I'd rather see him take an intentional grounding penalty (at least once in a game) than just stand there.
Mark VI Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 How about we stop blaming 1 person for a team sport. 52978[/snapback] Because the other 10 team members must elevate their games to make a sub-par,slow thinking athlete with zero pocket presense look adequate. Plenty of blame to go around. Bledsoe deserves LOTS of it.
Corp000085 Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 This is the week. if bledsoe gets booed off the field and the score isn't respectable by halftime, its the shane matthews era here in buffalo. Then we can all blame mularkey for putting in this journeyman. edit: or we could kick the crap out of the pats and analyze how we dominated a good team. And i could finally watch the nfl films showcase on my tivo.
MDH Posted October 2, 2004 Author Posted October 2, 2004 How about we stop blaming 1 person for a team sport. 52978[/snapback] I didn't realize I was blaming "one" person for everything...in fact I broke it down on who I felt was responsible for each of the sacks...I guess that "one" person you speak of is beyond any reproach and none of the sacks were his fault... Who is that "one" person btw, Shelton?
MDH Posted October 2, 2004 Author Posted October 2, 2004 Thanks, MDH. This is good stuff. I usually watch the games a second time on TiVo, but the Oakland game was erased before I could get back to it. Another thing I wanted to look for is this: does it look like Bledsoe has an outlet receiver, or is everyone running longer routes oblivious to the blitzes? He needs some help, but I'd rather see him take an intentional grounding penalty (at least once in a game) than just stand there. 52989[/snapback] It's pretty much impossible to tell this from the broadcast tape unless for some reason they show an extreme wide of the field on a replay...so there could be more blame to go around to the WRs as well...though I can't imagine with the amount of blitzing that Oakland was doing that the WRs wouldn't catch on and cut their routes off.
Kelly the Dog Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 It's pretty much impossible to tell this from the broadcast tape unless for some reason they show an extreme wide of the field on a replay...so there could be more blame to go around to the WRs as well...though I can't imagine with the amount of blitzing that Oakland was doing that the WRs wouldn't catch on and cut their routes off. 53249[/snapback] That's a very good point, and your above analysis was much appreciated, too. The fact is, on TV you can see certain things and not see other things. If a OL has stopped his man briefly but the guy gets a sack, that sack MAY be the fault of a WR not on the screen that ran the wrong pattern and wasnt there where Drew thought he was going to be, then couldnt get rid of the ball. It looks like the OL and Drew but both could have done their job, the WR was the one that made the little mistake that blew the play.
MadBuffaloDisease Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 4th Sack – Mike Williams gets beat for the sack. However, it takes 3.1 seconds for the man to get to Bledsoe and this comes from Bledsoe’s front side on a 3rd and 10 from the 29-yard line…HE HAS TO GET RID OF THE BALL HERE TO AVOID GETTING KNOCKED OUT OF FG RANGE. I’m not sure who I’d tag this sack on, probably both Williams and Bledsoe, but GD Bledsoe can’t make these kinds of rookie QB mistakes…getting knocked out of FG range on 3rd and 10 from a front-side rusher when he has 3 seconds to get rid of the ball is a huge mistake. Throw the ball away and let Lindell come in and miss the FG. Disagree. It would have been a 46-yard FG try. Lindell (if they went for it rather than punted which is also a possibity) likely misses that and the Raiders get the ball at the Bills' 35 yard line. Instead it leaves NO doubt that it should be a punt, and the Bills pin the Raiders at their 10-yard line. Even if Bledsoe had thrown the ball away, the Bills would have probably taken a 5-yard delay of game penalty to give Moorman more room to pin it inside the 20. 5th Sack – Jonas Jennings gets beat pretty cleanly, he gets shoved off balance and back and the DE then goes inside to get the sack. However, Drew is in the shotgun and it takes 4 seconds for the DE to get to Bledsoe…he had plenty of time to get rid of the ball. I’d put this one on Bledsoe, he’s got to get rid of the ball when he gets that much time to throw and can’t find a receiver. It was a sack, but only for a yard loss. IOW no big deal. Had he fumbled, gotten injured, or missed an open receiver I'd say it was a bad sack, but 1 yard isn't going to kill you.
Mike in Syracuse Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 How dare you analyze the play of this team in a objective fashion. Let's make sure this doesn't happen to often or I may have to ban you. The last thing we need here is logic and reasoned analysis. What's next, harmony on the PPP board?
Last Guy on the Bench Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 Great post. Thanks. I've been very curious about the whole "Does DB actually have enough time or not?" question. My gut impression is that he's generally had a normal amount of time. Last week, however, I decided to put some numbers to the problem, so I took advantage of the bye to watch a bunch of other games at the local sports bar. Whenever I could, I timed the interval between the snap and the throw (or sack). I was there pretty much all day, so I did it a LOT and for a number of QBs. I counted off mentally (one-one thousand, etc.), but I checked my watch frequently too to make sure my counts were basically accurate (they were). Here's what I saw: The vast majority of throws were made between two and and two and a half seconds from the moment the ball was snapped. The quick dumps were around two or just under, and almost every "normal"-feeling pass (based only on my having watched a lot of football for the last 30 years) was right around two and a half seconds. When the QB held on to the ball for three seconds (not four) the pocket almost always was breaking down signficantly. A QB who wanted to throw after longer than three seconds almost invariably had to make something happen on his own - not just step up in the pocket, but break a tackle, or run outside the pocket, etc. Sure, once in while a guy would stand back in the pocket for four or five seconds, but this was extremely rare - about as rare as it has been with the Bills lately. So yes, this "evidence" is purely anecdotal, but it involed collecting a lot of "anecdotes" from a number of teams, some with very good OLs. Based on MDH's timing of the Bledsoe sacks, anything over three seconds is on the QB (or WRs), not on the OL (unless you expect your OL to be vastly better than the average OL in the league - we wish).
Mile High Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 7th Sack – Blitzing Woodson comes in totally unaccounted for from the left side. Not sure who’s responsibility this is. McGahee is in the backfield but he’s lined up on the right side and he picks up a blitzing LB from that side…so he’s not at fault. Took 1 second to get to Bledsoe…not much he could do about it. It might have been Jennings man, but he was engaged one on one with the DE with no help, so had he left the DE to pick up Woodson his man would have come free. This one just looks like a good D call at the right time. They overloaded the left side and there were one too many defenders to block. Without knowing the blocking scheme it’s impossible to know whose guy this is. alright i'll take a stab at this. it sounds like it's bledsoe's fault because he didn't read or see the blitz coming OR whoever woodson was on (moulds or reed) for not running a hot route to help bledsoe get rid of the ball via quick target. or sometimes i've even seen one of the interior lineman shift across from the inside to p/u the blitz. probably the receivers fault on that one. plus not to mention if it is apparent to the receiver that a cb is blitzing they should chip the cb at the line. so yeah that was the wr's fault on that one.
Rubes Posted October 2, 2004 Posted October 2, 2004 That was a really interesting post, thanks. My belief is not that Bledsoe is to blame for the sacks, or the offensive line is to blame for the sacks, or whoever. The real reason for all the sacks? We just have a bunch of guys on offense that, after all these years of playing football, still can't recognize a blitz and react appropriately, whatever position you're talking about (OL, RB, QB, WR,...)
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