ESPN ranks Bills Pass Defense 26th in NFL

[Ramius]

Why stop there? Another DE and we might have the best pass defense in the history of football!!! Schobel (one of my favorite players) = LC Greenwood, no? All we need is another Dwight White because our starting tandem at DT is clearly superior to "Arrowhead" Holmes and Joe Greene!!!

 

If Nate does leave, screw it, no? We can always use a few more first day draft picks and grab more corners and safties!!!  Who needs anything else? 

 

Brother, I should have been the one drunk on my birthday!       

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I know you wont understand this, but this team actually needed some safeties this season. Unless you'd rather have Coy Wire starting at SS this year Therefore next offseason there wont be a need for safeties, so i dont know why you think we'll draft more of them???? Draftbad!

 

As for Youboty, if he can step in and start in '07, and clements leaves, that means we have an extra 7 mil in cap space to spend on some linemen. i knoe THAT will get your attention.

 

You are right tho in that ajzepp was a little too optimistic in his assessment of our defense. One good thing...this defene was/is being built for the long haul.

[MDH]

Based off last year, the defense was terrible almost completely. Passing D is just one place they need to improve. And, please remind me, didnt you lose Gray?

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If by "lost" you mean "booted to the curb" then yes, we lost Gray.

[AJ1]

Based off last year, the defense was terrible almost completely. Passing D is just one place they need to improve. And, please remind me, didnt you lose Gray?

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Yes, and we 'lost' Mularkey too. Both could have been replaced by cardboard cutouts on the sidelines with no ill effects to the team. My question to the bashers/raters is how did the Bills come to this pass? Might it have something to do with the competency of the previous regime? Front office and coaching? staff?

[Puhonix]

You see, this is where I get lost. I don't follow Bills football like most of you do, so all my opinions are based off of what I read here. I can swear that you were all prasing Gray two years ago when you had one of the best Ds in the NFL, but now he's as competent as Paris Hilton?

 

I understand the ill will towards Mularkey (Trust me, I wish he was a Jet, and not a Dolphin), but Gray was even talked about as the new coach before Jauron was brought in.

 

Just make up your minds and stick with it please.

[OGTEleven]

You see, this is where I get lost. I don't follow Bills football like most of you do, so all my opinions are based off of what I read here. I can swear that you were all prasing Gray two years ago when you had one of the best Ds in the NFL, but now he's as competent as Paris Hilton?

 

I understand the ill will towards Mularkey (Trust me, I wish he was a Jet, and not a Dolphin), but Gray was even talked about as the new coach before Jauron was brought in.

 

Just make up your minds and stick with it please.

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According to ESPN we rank in the lower 3rd of the league in every category. Based on this, our biggest mistake was canning people like TD, Mularkey and Gray.

[HurlyBurly51]

Just make up your minds and stick with it please.

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Now that's funny!

[RuntheDamnBall]

You see, this is where I get lost. I don't follow Bills football like most of you do, so all my opinions are based off of what I read here. I can swear that you were all prasing Gray two years ago when you had one of the best Ds in the NFL, but now he's as competent as Paris Hilton?

 

I understand the ill will towards Mularkey (Trust me, I wish he was a Jet, and not a Dolphin), but Gray was even talked about as the new coach before Jauron was brought in.

 

Just make up your minds and stick with it please.

716106[/snapback]

Believe me, there were a lot of folks here who weren't happy with Gray and thought the #2 ranking was a paper ranking only. When that defense needed to produce (against Steelers 3rd stringers) it did not come up large. Gray's "blitz blitz blitz" philosophy caught up with him last year when he lost some personnel. Good and great coordinators build a system suited to the personnel they have.

[apuszczalowski]

You see, this is where I get lost. I don't follow Bills football like most of you do, so all my opinions are based off of what I read here. I can swear that you were all prasing Gray two years ago when you had one of the best Ds in the NFL, but now he's as competent as Paris Hilton?

 

I understand the ill will towards Mularkey (Trust me, I wish he was a Jet, and not a Dolphin), but Gray was even talked about as the new coach before Jauron was brought in.

716106[/snapback]

I don't remember hearing talk of him being the new HC, maybe if TD was still around he had a chance.

 

AS for fans praising him when they were on of the best defences in the league, that was also before anyone realised it had a little more to do with LeBeau then Gray

[BB2004]

I would argue with this and the WR one.

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I saw the wide receiver clip on ESPN and was a little suprsied also. They said that we had a lot of slot receivers. I thought we would have been a little higher but until our recivers can prove otherwise that is where we are.

[syhuang]

I find it much more difficult to see how we are going to do a reasonable job in stopping the run with out top 4 DTs on the depth chart maxing out at 305 lbs.

715885[/snapback]

Again, Tampa 2 doesn't need big DTs. Here is my old post on the DT's sizes of the teams currently running Tampa 2.

 

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Exactly, tampa 2 doesn't need 350 cloggers.

 

The DTs in Bucs depth chart are McFarland (6-0, 300), Hovan (6-2, 296), Bradley (6-0, 301), and Wyms (6-3, 290).

 

Bears: Harris (6-3, 300), I.Scott (6-3, 302), T.Johnson (6-3, 300), and Boone (6-4, 318).

 

Colts: Simon (6-2, 293), Reagor (6-3, 285), Reid (6-2, 288), and Williams (6-3, 285).

 

Among the three, only Bears drafted a DT this year, Dvoracek (6-3, 298).

 

Thus, stop worrying about our DTs' sizes. We're fine.

[obie_wan]

Believe me, there were a lot of folks here who weren't happy with Gray and thought the #2 ranking was a paper ranking only.  When that defense needed to produce (against Steelers 3rd stringers) it did not come up large.  Gray's "blitz blitz blitz" philosophy caught up with him last year when he lost some personnel.  Good and great coordinators build a system suited to the personnel they have.

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hard to run a secondary when your safeties can't cover anyone.

 

could be that he blitzed Milloy all the time because he was a liability doing anything else.

 

Lack of safety help also could be why he had the CB play so far off of the line.

 

Based on the draft, seems Marv and Jauron weren't too impressed with the defensive backfield either.

[RuntheDamnBall]

hard to run a secondary when your safeties can't cover anyone.

 

could be that he blitzed Milloy all the time because he was a liability doing anything else.

 

Lack of safety help also could be why he had the CB play so far off of the line.

 

Based on the draft, seems Marv and Jauron weren't too impressed with the defensive backfield either.

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And it's hard to do anything when the cornerstone of your defense is out with an Achilles tear, and then the joker lining up on the other side (Posey) is doing his best Eddie Robinson impression.

 

That said, Gray is not a great defensive mind, IMO, and when Pat Williams left his system was exposed. I'm hoping the athletic model that DJ is introducing across the board is a recipe for success and we don't get manhandled on the lines.

[AJ1]

You see, this is where I get lost. I don't follow Bills football like most of you do, so all my opinions are based off of what I read here. I can swear that you were all prasing Gray two years ago when you had one of the best Ds in the NFL, but now he's as competent as Paris Hilton?

 

 

716106[/snapback]

 

I never liked Gray from the beginning. If he was lucky enough to go up against a OC who never made in-game adjustments, he was ok. Otherwise, he was lost at sea. Had 14 weeks to cobble together a new D after TKO went down and came up with nothing. His HC was either too stupid or too timid to say anything to him. Both went down with the ship along with the chief architect of the disaster, TD.

[1billsfan]

I saw the wide receiver clip on ESPN and was a little suprsied also.  They said that we had a lot of slot receivers.  I thought we would have been a little higher but until our recivers can prove otherwise that is where we are.

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WARNING: Putting any stock whatsoever into ESPN NFL rankings could be harmful to a fan's football knowledge.

[MartyBall4Buffalo]

Even though Im a huge fan of Clements and I think McGee is only going to improve as well they're both fairly young, and before the draft we had extremly poor depth behind them at at the safety position. We replaced an agining run stoping safety who was a liability in coverage with Whitner, and added depth to corner spots and hopefully a future replacement for Troy Vincent in KO Simpson. From the fact we have fairly young an inexperienced depth behind 2 solid corners and a rookie starting ss I think the ranking is justified. Although I think this is one area were we will prove to be better then what the "experts" think.

[dave mcbride]

I don't remember hearing talk of him being the new HC, maybe if TD was still around he had a chance.

 

AS for fans praising him when they were on of the best defences in the league, that was also before anyone realised it had a little more to do with LeBeau then Gray

716130[/snapback]

the bills were a far better defense under gray in 2004 then they were under lebeau grey in 2003.

 

there was an interview in one of the washington papers a couple of weeks ago (linked to on the homepage) which i was surprised to see no one discuss. it was an interview with gray, and he flat out stated that it wasn't his decision to let pat williams walk, and if he had to do it all over again, he would have fought a *lot* harder to keep him. at least 50% of the bills defensive fall last year can be attributed to donohoe's absolutely boneheaded decision to let him go. gray added that it became abundantly clear to him in retrospect on the absolute priority of players over schemes.

 

http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20060604-124945-4303r.htm

 

here's the relevant quote:

 

"My first couple years there, we were cap strung but we competed," Gray said. "We were in the middle of the road defensively and then we were really good for a couple years. Last year, things broke apart when we lost Takeo [spikes to injury] and Pat [Williams to free agency] and other core players. It taught me that I have to make sure in the future to stand on the table for your core players. The scheme you teach is just a starting point. You need players to make it happen."