The big news from yesterday IMHO

[Pyrite Gal]

was the way that the first draft class under Marv played for the Bills yesterday.

 

The majority of the players Marv oversaw the selection of contributed to the team positively in the first game of the season. This is simply a welcome change of events for a Bills fan who saw occurenes like folks like Denney and Edwards really need to sit for a year befor they were able to contribute to the team or a player like McGahee need to rehab from injury for a year before he could contribute.

 

I think it would be too simplistic to simply chalk this up to Marv being better than TD (though in the end, I think TD was likely driven by an underlying motivation of never getting fired again by a coach he hired as Cowher did to him in Pitts the end results produced under him were badly skewed).

 

It really is a team effort of a bunch of folks who produce a draft. For the most part, though the overarching management of Marv is very different from that of TD, the specific people doing the scouting out around the country, managing assessment of college players which Tom Modrak does, directing prio personnel as John Guy does, giving position guidance and direction as JMac does, or neogtiating deals and getting them into camp as Jim Overdorf does are the same folks under Marv as they were under TD.

 

However. when one looks at the specifics of:

 

Donte Whitner- Impresive game as he came off the bench to record an INT and credited with 8 tackles

John McCargo- Not nearly the stat productivity of Whitner, but the Bills used him as a regular part of its DL rotation which held the Pats O well below 20 points at hiome

Ashton Youboty- Inactive unfortunately but missed a lot of time in camp due to the death of his Mom

Ko Simpson- Second day pick did better than the norm as he was forced to fill in for an injured TV. Was credited with an impressive 7 tackles in a productive D performance.

Kyle Williams- Also, a nice find on the second day as he also played a key role in our DL rotation, and in fact after being crdited with 6 tackles seemed more productive IMHO than 1st round choice McCargo.

Brad Butler- Inactive

Keith Ellison- Stepped up impressively as hamstring injury to TKO forced us to go into the back-ups for significant PT. He answered the call being credited with 9 tackles.

Terrance Pennington- No gametime that i could see, but it was quite interested that the higher regarded Butler was inactive and he was active yesterday. We are almost certainly in big trouble if either starting taackle goes down to injury, but it is nice to see that a player viewed as the lesser of the two tackles drafted is actually ahead of his colleague in use. Perhaps this is becaise though Penningon is still rookie bad Butler is worse. However, it could also be that while Butler is rookie adequate Pennington is better. We'll see as time goes on.

Aaron Merz- Also inactive

 

One could try to explain this away as the rookies starting simply shows how bad the starters were and does not mean they really played well or even adequately.

 

This is true.

 

However, results in the game are the real proof in the pudding. There is work to be done because the ultimate result of losing, even on the road is that you are 0-1. Yet, again in terms of analysis of the game, holding a team which has won 3 SBs in the last 5 years to under 20 points (the conventional adequacy standard of play) at home is quite impressive. Due to injury (TKO and TV), player rotation, and poor play (Wire) these rooks logged significant time in producing this outcome. I was impressed.

 

It is depressing to watch your team lose and that is simply a fact. However, the oddity for me is that I really find it hard to remember feeling so positively about a situation where the team I root for lost than the way events occured yesterday. Perhaps, I am just whistling in the dark and I think NE fans should be after they rung up a win yeserday (If given the advantage of being at home and some not insubstantial benefits they received from some odd ref penalty calling and non-calls yesterday results in them needing to mount a nice comback to beat the Bills after the Bills misfired on a 4th and 1 which a better team would have made easily, this is the best they can do this may be a long season in Patland compared to their previous recent great records).

 

However, likewise, this is setting up to be a very interesting year in Bills land compared to our recent record of lack of production.

 

I do not feel good at all about losing, but i do feel far better about this team losing in a 4th quarter meltdown in Gilette to the Pats in our opener than I do about this team losing to Jax in the Ralph in another 4th quarter meltdown.

[Chilly]

Agreed FFS, mirrors my thoughts on the game.

[Bill from NYC]

was the way that the first draft class under Marv played for the Bills yesterday.

 

The majority of the players Marv oversaw the selection of contributed to the team positively in the first game of the season.  This is simply a welcome change of events for a Bills fan who saw occurenes like folks like Denney and Edwards really need to sit for a year befor they were able to contribute to the team or a player like McGahee need to rehab from injury for a year before he could contribute.

 

I think it would be too simplistic to simply chalk this up to Marv being better than TD (though in the end, I think TD was likely driven by an underlying motivation of never getting fired again by a coach he hired as Cowher did to him in Pitts the end results produced under him were badly skewed).

 

It really is a team effort of a bunch of folks who produce a draft.  For the most part, though the overarching management of Marv is very different from that of TD, the specific people doing the scouting out around the country, managing assessment of college players which Tom Modrak does, directing prio personnel as John Guy does, giving position guidance and direction as JMac does, or neogtiating deals and getting them into camp as Jim Overdorf does are the same folks under Marv as they were under TD.

 

However. when one looks at the specifics of:

 

Donte Whitner- Impresive game as he came off the bench to record an INT and credited with 8 tackles

John McCargo- Not nearly the stat productivity of Whitner, but the Bills used him as a regular part of its DL rotation which held the Pats O well below 20 points at hiome

Ashton Youboty-  Inactive unfortunately but missed a lot of time in camp due to the death of his Mom

Ko Simpson- Second day pick did better than the norm as he was forced to fill in for an injured TV.  Was credited with an impressive 7 tackles in a productive D performance.

Kyle Williams- Also, a nice find on the second day as he also played a key role in our DL rotation, and in fact after being crdited with 6 tackles seemed more productive IMHO than 1st round choice McCargo.

Brad Butler- Inactive

Keith Ellison- Stepped up impressively as hamstring injury to TKO forced us to go into the back-ups for significant PT.  He answered the call being credited with 9 tackles.

Terrance Pennington- No gametime that i could see, but it was quite interested that the higher regarded Butler was inactive and he was active yesterday.  We are almost certainly in big trouble if either starting taackle goes down to injury, but it is nice to see that a player viewed as the lesser of the two tackles drafted is actually ahead of his colleague in use.  Perhaps this is becaise though Penningon is still rookie bad Butler is worse.  However, it could also be that while Butler is rookie adequate Pennington is better.  We'll see as time goes on.

Aaron Merz- Also inactive

 

One could try to explain this away as the rookies starting simply shows how bad the starters were and does not mean they really played well or even adequately.

 

This is true.

 

However, results in the game are the real proof in the pudding.  There is work to be done because the ultimate result of losing, even on the road is that you are 0-1.  Yet, again in terms of analysis of the game, holding a team which has won 3 SBs in the last 5 years to under 20 points (the conventional adequacy standard of play) at home is quite impressive.  Due to injury (TKO and TV), player rotation, and poor play (Wire) these rooks logged significant time in producing this outcome.  I was impressed.

 

It is depressing to watch your team lose and that is simply a fact.  However, the oddity for me is that I really find it hard to remember feeling so positively about a situation where the team I root for lost than the way events occured yesterday.  Perhaps, I am just whistling in the dark and I think NE fans should be after they rung up a win yeserday (If given the advantage of being at home and some not insubstantial benefits they received from some odd ref penalty calling and non-calls yesterday results in them needing to mount a nice comback to beat the Bills after the Bills misfired on a 4th and 1 which a better team would have made easily, this is the best they can do this may be a long season in Patland compared to their previous recent great records).

 

However, likewise, this is setting up to be a very interesting year in Bills land compared to our recent record of lack of production.

 

I do not feel good at all about losing, but i do feel far better about this team losing in a 4th quarter meltdown in Gilette to the Pats in our opener than I do about this team losing to Jax in the Ralph in another 4th quarter meltdown.

769536[/snapback]

 

Your point is taken, but why give us misleading stats? You are of course combining tackles and assists.

[Chilly]

Your point is taken, but why give us misleading stats? You are of course combining tackles and assists.

769556[/snapback]

 

I believe tackles aren't an official stat and can therefore vary widely.

 

However, I have no problem combining tackles and assists because its a good measure of whether a player actually had an impact on a play or not.

[Pyrite Gal]

I believe tackles aren't an official stat and can therefore vary widely.

 

However, I have no problem combining tackles and assists because its a good measure of whether a player actually had an impact on a play or not.

769575[/snapback]

 

Exactly. I use the word "credited" with tackles rather than offering it up as a clearer statistical claim (you either scored a TD or did not, you either got credited with an INT because you got one or you did not get credited with one) as the tackle "stats" are a bit lousy-goosey.

 

To answer BINYC question, I used these numbers because this is what the Official Bills page gave in its listing of stats for the game.

 

I contemplated trying to state a measuirement of accomplishment by the individual players by parsing out whether they were credited with solo tackles or assists the Official Bills page does break out these numbers this way) but did not bother as the point of the post was merely to compare this year's rookie contribution to contributions from other Bills rookie groups and not to try to compare rookies with each other this year.

 

Such an analysis can be done, but really seems to make little difference in terms of judging the teams performance right now.

 

(Though as an aside, I am going to keep looking at the relative performance of kyle Williams vs that of McCargo for us. Ironically, I think that the way this is playing out right now is generally a kudo in the Bills 2006 draft performance. The team had clear needs on the DL as the loss of Adams, Edwards and Phat Pat in 2 years represents a substantial meltdown in talent in a short time. The top 3 DTs on the depth chart in 2004 sre all gone.

 

As a replacement, the Bills got Triplett from FA, hoped that the retained fisrt day pick Anderson would develop and still they saw a need because of the desire to finally have a real rotation at DT to stetch up into the 1st and take the first player selected in the 5th round (with the pick acquired from Texas for Moulds) on the DT position.

 

It looked like a dicey move in the first half as Maroney and Dillon hit for big runs. However, things calmed down a bit as their play against the run improved. I was impressed with the Bills pass rush yesterday as the initial blitz by TKO produced a score on the 1st play. They overplayed a bit early and Maroney in particular got some huge yardage on cutbacks. However, eventually, they got their act together on run plays and the speed which allowed them to get some sacks, block some passes and generally mess up some plays through quick penetration or pressure resulted in holding the Pats under 20 at home.

 

The interesting story that the tackle numbers imply though is that though this draft looks for now like a success for the Bills as they got contributions to the DL rotation in the very first game from two draftees. Ironically, it appears to be the 5th rounder Williams who is more of a contributor than 1st rounder McCargo.

 

Quite frankly i do not care which one is the lead guy as long as one of them is doing the job. In fact, it is very impressive that the Mev led draft team got two players able to immediately contribute as DTs from the draft.

 

However, the credited tackle #s which saw McCargo log 1 assist and Williams log 3 solos and 3 assists are an interesting reversal. Did the Bills make a mistake reaching up to get McCargo? Right now the answer appears to be yes. It will take 3 years before we can rationally assess (fortunately there is no requirement us fans be rationale).

 

However, before anyone gets into prematurely haranguing Marv for this move, they also should prematurely praise him for getting an immediate contributor in the 5th round.

 

It comes out in the wash when assessing the Bills braintrust, but will play out in interesting ways as we assess the individual players. My guess is that the jobs of the RDT and LDT are that one job will be to penetrate and the sack numbers will show success at this job (or more likely QB pressures) while the RDT will be the stay at home guy there to seal up the center against the run and credited tackles will be a better indicator of success for this job.

[smokinandjokin]

I agree Pyrite. I mentioned a while ago that it is important for the draft picks to perform- and particularly Whitner and McCargo. Everyone said they were reaches, but if they play well (I'm not talking Pro Bowl here, just play consistent and make an impact) it will give Marv a little lee-way from the fans and media heading into his roster decisions and draft picks for next year. The first two picks were the guys Marv coveted, and if they make him look smart, we'll trust his decisions a bit more in the spring.