C.Biscuit97 Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 Honestly, I just have no idea what Mike Mularkey and Tom Clements were thinking last year. You have to find ways to get your best player the ball. Since (hopefully) we will have a young QB under center, you have to build up his confidence. Spread the field with 3 or 4 wideouts, let the rush come in, and have Royal (a great blocker) and Peters (a freak of nature) lead Willis up the field. I pray to God, Steve Fairchild realizes this because it could be so effective. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WryFMru4So Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 Check out THIS report Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajzepp Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 I totally agree. There were times on 2004 when I was afraid Willis was going to break cause we were running him so much and he wasn't that far removed from the injury. He proved to be a workhorse for us though and had a great year. Last year they just made dumb decisions on offense and relied on scheming and gadget plays instead of letting our stars put points up on the board. Stupid.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted August 12, 2006 Share Posted August 12, 2006 Honestly, I just have no idea what Mike Mularkey and Tom Clements were thinking last year. You have to find ways to get your best player the ball. Since (hopefully) we will have a young QB under center, you have to build up his confidence. Spread the field with 3 or 4 wideouts, let the rush come in, and have Royal (a great blocker) and Peters (a freak of nature) lead Willis up the field. I pray to God, Steve Fairchild realizes this because it could be so effective. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WryFMru4So 741233[/snapback] I think that last year they were so caught up in playcalling that did not have to work around Bledsoe's weaknesses (but the flipside is that they also made use of his strengths which were a rocket arm, great ball handling skills gathering in errant shotgun snaps and pitches from WM, and a ton of experience which though he could not translate tthem into improvising he could do programmed trick plays well). I think they had done some things in 04 which were essential to deal with his being a prime sack target as a statue. Even though no would mistake him for Elway they improved on Kevin Killdrive's inability to adapt by running DB occaisionally on plays like delayed QB draws which forced the LBs not to sell out on the sack and mind the middle of field rather than take outside angles on blitzes. MM loves trick plays but they became almost the norm for DB as the team needed to fake the WM run and have him pitch back so the LBs and safties came in to tackle in order to give the WRs single coverage deep. Liberated from this need, the Bills D seemed to go to far in relying on JP's escapability to avoid sacks. Even worse they took a vicious WM stiff arm out of the game by running him mostly between the tackles as they wanted to pound the ball. In the second half of the season when they found they were behind quickly because the D could not stop the run, they abandoned calling runs on early downs and would sit WM on third down. Part of WM's drop in production in the second half of the season was that he seemed to wear down a bit from all the pounding between the tackles and because he had bulked up weightlifting he was carrying a few extra pounds. However, part of the downturn in production was simply caused because the rushed him fewer time in second half of the season games where we fell behind and he logged less than 10 rushes in a few games. Part of this was due to WM not being as effective but part of this seemed to be a choice of poor play calling on our part. They clearly plan to get the ball into WMs hands more this year, but rather than slower developing planned plays like screens, i think the vehicle for getting the ball into WMs hands on the outside will be greater use of him as a checkdown receiver as a safety valve alternative when the fleet wideouts are covered by deep zones from the opposing D. Many Bills fans hate checkdowns after the KH 2 yard pass to Moulds on fourth and seven, but this would be a different beast as I really look forward to situations where by definition the other team's DBs are back in a deep zone for the WRs and if WM gets the ball in the flat if he makes one guy miss he will go a long way til they bring him down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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