Bill from NYC Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 in 1990, their offensive line was legitimately great. it was great in 91 as well, although they had a rough day against the skins. in 92 it was still very good, but the wheels were starting to come off a couple of the guys - ritcher/ballard. in 95, the line played very well. that was the last good year. 806825[/snapback] Sorry. The superbowl Steelers had a "legitimately great" OL. So did the Raiders with Upshaw, Shell and company. In recent years, I am going to call the Chiefs OL great. Who by the way were the Guards in 95, Lacina and Ostroski? They both absolutely sucked, and Fina was average on the best day of his life. Your standards are strikingly low.
dave mcbride Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Sorry. The superbowl Steelers had a "legitimately great" OL. So did the Raiders with Upshaw, Shell and company. In recent years, I am going to call the Chiefs OL great. Who by the way were the Guards in 95, Lacina and Ostroski? They both absolutely sucked, and Fina was average on the best day of his life. Your standards are strikingly low. 806830[/snapback] in 1990, the bills o-line dominated everyone they played, including the giants in the super bowl -- no sacks, and thomas had 15 carries for 135 yards. in 95, fina had a fantastic, pro bowl quality year -- and i say this as no fan of fina. as for the guards, ruben brown had a sensational rookie year, as you may recall -- the first rookie in recent memory to make the pro bowl as a guard. he's still kickin' ass in chicago, and i look forward to watching maul some cardinals in about an hour.
34-78-83 Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 I agree with Mcbride that the Early Nineties O-lines were great. Led the league in rushing multiple years (that's great) , could get a yard when we needed a yard, and gave Jim plenty of time for many of those deep developing routes on a very consistent basis. If that ain't greatness, I don't know what is. If you're comparing to the HOGs, the greatest O-line of All time, maybe your standards are too high. I did like your other points though Bill side note: I think T-Henry has finally surpassed the mark you set for him on the yards he will gain for the rest of his Career
ajzepp Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 What did the Redskins do to the Bills? The '91 skins had the NFL's second ranked defense in terms of points allowed, and the top ranked offense. I'd say that's a pretty good team on both sides of the ball.
Bill from NYC Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 in 1990, the bills o-line dominated everyone they played, including the giants in the super bowl -- no sacks, and thomas had 15 carries for 135 yards. in 95, fina had a fantastic, pro bowl quality year -- and i say this as no fan of fina. as for the guards, ruben brown had a sensational rookie year, as you may recall -- the first rookie in recent memory to make the pro bowl as a guard. he's still kickin' ass in chicago, and i look forward to watching maul some cardinals in about an hour. 806839[/snapback] John Fina was never fantastic. He WAS agile, but he was light in the ass. Ruben WAS a great pick, and a very good guard. What about RG? Are you going to make a case for Ostroski? Go ahead, call him a "lunch pail player," or some other tired, stupid cliche. He sucked, year after year. Who was the RT in 95? Oh, I remember!!! It was him! Good Lord Dave, you are easy to please.
Bill from NYC Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 side note: I think T-Henry has finally surpassed the mark you set for him on the yards he will gain for the rest of his Career 806842[/snapback] Not yet Bro, not yet. It was somewhere around 1600 yards. One poster had it in his signature, and then took it out as he floundered. He has slightly more than 700 yards since leaving the Bills. He probably will reach the 1600 benchmark IF he doesn't have another drug suspension or get locked up for having sex with a 10 year old.
dave mcbride Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 John Fina was never fantastic. He WAS agile, but he was light in the ass. Ruben WAS a great pick, and a very good guard. What about RG? Are you going to make a case for Ostroski? Go ahead, call him a "lunch pail player," or some other tired, stupid cliche. He sucked, year after year. Who was the RT in 95? Oh, I remember!!! It was him! Good Lord Dave, you are easy to please. 806848[/snapback] i didn't say they were "great" in 95 - i said they were "very good." i think that hull, brown, and fina had excellent years that year, and that the right side performed adequately. not great, but certainly pretty darn good. jimbo had a very solid year that year despite losing reed early in the season, and the run game was excellent despite thurman missing 4 games. btw, what's your take on letting ruben b. go knowing what you know now -- i.e., that he's performed quite well for the bears? i'm curious, actually.
obie_wan Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 in 1990, their offensive line was legitimately great. it was great in 91 as well, although they had a rough day against the skins. in 92 it was still very good, but the wheels were starting to come off a couple of the guys - ritcher/ballard. in 95, the line played very well. that was the last good year. 806825[/snapback] the Bills OL was never great. in the no huddle years, their production exceeded their skill because they were able to exploit their conditioning over fat and slow DLs. However, when they had to slug it out, they were not able to dominate.
Bungee Jumper Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 John Fina was never fantastic. He WAS agile, but he was light in the ass. Ruben WAS a great pick, and a very good guard. What about RG? Are you going to make a case for Ostroski? Go ahead, call him a "lunch pail player," or some other tired, stupid cliche. He sucked, year after year. Who was the RT in 95? Oh, I remember!!! It was him! Good Lord Dave, you are easy to please. 806848[/snapback] And yet...the past five years, I'd have given my teeth to see a player of Ostroski's caliber on the line...
ajzepp Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 And yet...the past five years, I'd have given my teeth to see a player of Ostroski's caliber on the line... 806864[/snapback] perfect sig line (not the comment....your actual sig line )
bills_fan Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 And yet...the past five years, I'd have given my teeth to see a player of Ostroski's caliber on the line... God I hate Donahoe. Please lets rebuild the lineS.
Bungee Jumper Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 perfect sig line (not the comment....your actual sig line ) 806870[/snapback] About once a month, I do manage to make a decent football observation here. And it inevitably gets buried in piles of cyber-rat sh-- like "We suck! Fire everyone!" and "Woohoo! We signed Hargrove! Good times a-comin'!"
ajzepp Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 About once a month, I do manage to make a decent football observation here. And it inevitably gets buried in piles of cyber-rat sh-- like "We suck! Fire everyone!" and "Woohoo! We signed Hargrove! Good times a-comin'!" 806885[/snapback] LOL!!
Bill from NYC Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 btw, what's your take on letting ruben b. go knowing what you know now -- i.e., that he's performed quite well for the bears? i'm curious, actually. 806857[/snapback] When the Bills cut Ruben, he was still a decent run blocker. He had great technique. Still does. On passing downs, he was tossed around like a frisbee. If you recall, he looked like he lost 30 or 40 pounds. It is my opinion, and merely that, an opinion, that he went off the steroids, thus the weight loss. I wasn't too upset when he left. Little did I know that we would neglect the guard position for evermore.
Tasker Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 I'm very very disappointed with the loss in Detroit and JPs play. I wanted to be 3-3 right now, and we are 2-4 instead (we are not a 4-2 team yet, but that would have been cool). We do need patience this year, but the stuff that went wrong on Sunday was way to frustrating. I don't blame Marv at this point. I think that Hutchinson wouldn't have gotten the job done, and would probably have cost too much for his value. Our line needs to be improved, no doubt about it, but we DID draft two lineman. We would have drafted D'Brick, but nobody else was worth #8 to us. McCargo for who might have been available there at OLine? Maybe, but DTackle was a place we needed to address, and if Kyle hadn't exceeded expectations this would be an even bigger weakspot. This team needs to fight to get better every week and get some damn wins, but this year's team ultimately will be judged on how they build towards a successful 2007 team (and beyond), not whether we are 6-10, 7-9, 8-8, or 9-7. Right now we have 10 big games to get things going in the right direction. Every year there is a team or two who starts so so and finishes stronger than anybody expected, and that has to be our goal.
34-78-83 Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 in the no huddle years, their production exceeded their skill because they were able to exploit their conditioning over fat and slow DLs. 806860[/snapback] And??? A great O-line is not made up entirely on skill. However, when they had to slug it out, they were not able to dominate. There were cases of this, but they won those type of games as much as they lost them. There were many games where they knew they would just have to gut it out and run the ball 40 times against a good hard nosed defense and at the end of the day, came out with +200 yards rushing, including carries from Kenny D and even the fullbacks.
Orton's Arm Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Defense wins championships, plain and simple. Thats why you build defense first. Look what the Buccs D did to the Raiders O in the SB. Look what the Pats D did to the Rams O. And so on, and so forth. If you build for offense first, and try to patch a D together, you end up like the Colts, always falling short. Defense and Pitching win championships. 806527[/snapback] Bill from NYC had an outstanding response to this, but I may as well add a little myself. In my opinion, greatness wins championships, whether that greatness is on offense or defense. Typically, you need to be truly great on one side of the ball, and at least above-average on the other. Take the Super Bowl wins of the 49ers in the '80s. That team's passing game was one of the best ever. Its defense was considerably above-average. The result? Four Super Bowl wins. Or take the Ravens of 2000. That team had a great defense, and a very solid offensive line and running game. Its passing game could, um, at least do something, but it was first and foremost the greatness on defense which won it that Super Bowl. You point to what the Bucs defense did to the Raiders offense in the Super Bowl. But was the Raiders' offense really that great? It was good, certainly, but clearly inferior to, say, the Troy Aikman/Michael Irvin offense the Cowboys once had. Since you brought up the Rams, their red hot offense did in fact lead them to a Super Bowl win. The second time around, the Rams' attack had cooled a little, and they faced a team with Tom Brady. The Colts have fallen short in part because their offense isn't the elite unit it's portrayed as. I remember a playoff loss a few years back to New England, where the Colts were held to something like 3 points. I see three differences between the Colts and the Rams team that won the Super Bowl: 1. The Rams had a better defense, 2. The Rams had a significantly better offensive line, and 3. The Rams' skill position players achieved something magnificent that year. The Colts' skill position players are very good too, but typically play at a notch or two below what the Rams' skill players did that particular year.
Orton's Arm Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Also, I think that Marv took a look at the O and said, yep, we have decent skill position guys. Let them gel together and we'll work on the D. Also, the opportunities to "fix" the OL this offseason were pretty limited to signing FAs (Hutch, Bentley). There was no LT prospect, nor was there a decent one for us to draft given our position (if we lost @Cinci in 05, we'd have had D'Brick. Thanks Mularkey). I see a big push for the OL this offseason. I'm also hoping the DL gets some attention. 806689[/snapback] Had I been the Bills' GM, I would have used my first round pick either on Cutler/Leinart, or I'd have traded down to take Mangold at center. All three players have gotten off to a promising start, so I don't know you can argue that the offensive talent wasn't there. Nor has Fowler been such a godsend that the Bills can afford to ignore a talent like Mangold. So there were opportunities to fix the offense via the draft. It would be very hard to argue with the fact the offense needed fixing. But Marv chose to focus on the defense instead. I personally would have done things differently. On the other hand, maybe the players Marv drafted will work out well, and maybe he'll address the offense in a commanding way next draft. But Bill is right--the biggest problem on the team is in the trenches, and you're not going to fix that by using your early picks on defensive backs.
Dibs Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 The '91 skins had the NFL's second ranked defense in terms of points allowed, and the top ranked offense. I'd say that's a pretty good team on both sides of the ball. 806844[/snapback] I think you've gotten close to nailing it there. It is teams that win championships pure & simple. A team (usually) needs to be at least solid in all areas....dominance in one...i.e. Defence....can make up for a weakness...i.e. QB play(Ravens SB team as an example). Bill from NYC had an outstanding response to this, but I may as well add a little myself. In my opinion, greatness wins championships, whether that greatness is on offense or defense. Typically, you need to be truly great on one side of the ball, and at least above-average on the other......807444[/snapback] I disagree, the Patriots showed quite clearly in their first SB year(& probably the following 2) that they were not great in any area....offense, defense, special teams.....the only things they were great at were winning games, playing as a cohesive team that would never give up & kicking game winning field goals.
ajzepp Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 But was the Raiders' offense really that great? It was good, certainly, but clearly inferior to, say, the Troy Aikman/Michael Irvin offense the Cowboys once had. 807444[/snapback] Actually the 2002 Raiders offense scored more than each of the Cowboys SB teams of the '90s.
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