Pat Kirwin is NUTS

[Avalanche]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

[obie_wan]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

 

Bills will going back to the cover-2 in full force next year.

 

If Magee plays zone like he did in 2006, he will be relegated to nickle back playing press coverage on slot receivers.

 

The big reason the pass defense improved in the 2nd half of the year was not that Clements was playing man-to-man- it was that Magee did not have to play zone.

[Beerball]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

He's the one who started the TKO for Briggs crap too. Bastard got me in hot water around here.

[Avalanche]

If I remember right, he also was all for Holcomb beating out Losman during Holcomb's training camp interview with him. How'd that work out for ya Pat?

[Buffalo Mike1]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

Yup- thought Holcomb should start in front of Losman during training camp.

[Mike formerly from Florida]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

 

I thought the Bills started playing good defense towards the end of the year. We weren't giving up a lot of points (except for the Titans game). Their run defense was not good but a little better as they started to understand the schemes better. I think we'll be better against the run this year just based on experience in the new defense.

[MartyBall4Buffalo]

Bills will going back to the cover-2 in full force next year.

 

If Magee plays zone like he did in 2006, he will be relegated to nickle back playing press coverage on slot receivers.

 

We can only hope Mcgee gets relegated to nickel back. I honestly hope we draft a good rookie corner someone like chris houston or Marcus Mccauley and youboty and rookie seriously outplay mcgee. I know a lot of people like terrence and that's fine he's a damn good kick returner. I just dont like watching him get consistently burned playing corner. The reason he gets noticed so much is because qb's consistently attack him. The good thing about cover 2 is with improved safety play a lot of mcgees defencies as a top 2 corner will not be as exposed. Part of the reason mcgee looked so bad playing zone, is partly due to inferior pass rush from the line and rookie safeties. He isn't much better in man to man.

[Yasin's BILLS]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

Not really, we did good in pass coverage, our run defense yes sucked but we didn't give up a lot of yards in the air last season. we left a gap from london fletcher's leaving because one he wanted to play some where else, and two he's old. nate clements is just an over paid corner back hope he sucks for the 49ers

[BuffaloBilliever]

McGee, and Peterson.

 

C'mon people.

[Nanker]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

 

Get with the program. Fer Kripes sake. We have to explain everything to ya?

 

Tom Donahoe left this team with great defensive AND offensive players.

It's Marv and Ralph who are going to fuce things up because they won't re-sign Tom's excellent players.

 

To answer your question about Magee, she was last seen near Salinas where she slipped away.

As to Pederson being there at 12, I certainly hope so. Everybody else is expecting him.

[BADOLBILZ]

McGee, and Peterson.

 

C'mon people.

 

Ackshuly, I think its spelt Muggee.

[BADOLBILZ]

I love Sirius but Kirwin is Nuts, Just heard him say that Buffalo had a "really good defense" prior to losing Clements and Fletcher. What defense was he watching? They couldn't stop the run to save their lives! He also stated Thomas would be playing opposite Yobouty, what happened to Magee? He also thinks Pederson will be there at 12.

 

Other than changing "really good defense" to an "effective defense" everything else sounds right on. McGee is a liability in zone coverage.

[Bob in STL]

Bills will going back to the cover-2 in full force next year.

 

If Magee plays zone like he did in 2006, he will be relegated to nickle back playing press coverage on slot receivers.

 

The big reason the pass defense improved in the 2nd half of the year was not that Clements was playing man-to-man- it was that Magee did not have to play zone.

 

Give Clements his due. Our 2nd half of the season adjustment had Clements man-to-man on the oponents top WR and performed at a high level. I wish we could have kept him. No one will miss Clements more than McGee.

[ganesh]

Yup- thought Holcomb should start in front of Losman during training camp.

 

And only because McGahee came with Holcomb when Kirwan wanted to interview him.

[obie_wan]

Give Clements his due. Our 2nd half of the season adjustment had Clements man-to-man on the oponents top WR and performed at a high level. I wish we could have kept him. No one will miss Clements more than McGee.

 

yeah and if the QB had half a brain in his head, he would be throwing to his #2 WR.

 

McGee played much better on that #2 WR because he was not playing zone coverage.

 

Getting both CBs out of the zone helped the defense improve.

 

But since they are going back to the cover-2, they may end up replacing both CBs with guys more capable of playing in a zone scheme.

[Pyrite Gal]

Give Clements his due. Our 2nd half of the season adjustment had Clements man-to-man on the oponents top WR and performed at a high level. I wish we could have kept him. No one will miss Clements more than McGee.

 

My sense of the big problem McGee had last year was not one of his physical ability to cover, but his mental ability to adjust to the requirements of the Cover 2.

 

I think we saw this with a significant improvement in the pass coverage and McGee's play in the second half of the season compared to a first half implosion which led to his benching.

 

This improvement also coincided with the Bills shifting from their traditional scheme which saw the CB always cover a particular side of the field regardless of which receiver lined up there to one where NC covered the other team's strongest receiver where ever he lined up. However, my sense is that the primary benefit this provided to McGee was not that he was overmatched less often, but that he simply had one less thing to worry about in each game and he finally got his head around what he was supposed to do in the Cover 2.

 

Thus, I think the primary thing which will improve McGee's actions this season is likely to be Whitner and Simpson needing a bit less help as McGee's greatest failings in the first half of last season IMHO was that it was clear on several plays that our safety's were not lined up properly to provide the deep zone coverage that the Hybrid Cover 2 we ran called for, and even worse, one should have been able to see that it was doubtful that any receiver was going to come into the short zone which McGee was assigned to cover.

 

Rather than shifting his coverage on a fly pattern being run by the WR and covering this player deep, he instead set up for press coverage or cut off his coverage after 10-15 yards and as in play like the fly pattern where MN's Johnson fortunately over-threw the streaking WR (I think it was Robinson) but on a couple of other plays it led to TDs by the opponent as McGee was not able to make even the most fundamental mental adjustment early in the season.

 

Credit should go where credit is due and NC was clearly the best CB last year after he had a pretty horrible 2005 season where McGee actually even presented more of a threat than Clements did (McGee tied for the team lead in INTs in 2005 and it was Clements who in fact was picked on). However, lest anyone hyperventilate about how good NC was, please remember that no CB is perfect and a top notch WR like Detroit's Williams not only embarrassed McGee last year, but when the Bills shifted NC to cover him he tore NC a new one as well.

 

I think the Bills improvement with the D in the second half of last season was in strong part because this rookie laden unit finally got the hang of how to run the Cover 2. Unless folks want to explain the second half improvement in McGee's production as being because he suddenly got faster or more physically adept, the answer IMHO was that sitting down was good for him because it gave him a chance to sit back and understand what was going on.

 

The is no guarantee that he can in fact step up or continue his development so that he is certain to be an adequate #1 CB in 07, but the thing to remember is that the Bills do not need to find a CB as good as NC to have a productive D this year, Instead, they need to find 3 CBs adequate to the limited and specific tasks generally called upon from CBs in the Cover 2 and this can work,

 

The Bills have a need for 2 starting CBs who specialize in press coverage and only occaisionally van run deep with the WR because the down and distance and the way opposing patterns are run calls for it. I think that devoting the resources which would have been necessary to sign NC (or would have been required to franchise him) was simply too much of our cap resources to be assigned to a position which has an important, but not generally a playmaking role in our D.

 

I still think we could use a second tier CB to strengthen the competition for the 4-5 CB slots on this team. However, we would likely be looking for a CB of Nick Harper quality at the most (a starter at CB in the Cover 2 run by last season's SB champ the Colts) and no where near the quality and likely cost of a CB of NC skills (or the better CB skills of a Champ Bailey or Assante Samuel type).

 

As it stands right now, McGee, Youbouty, and Kiwaukee Thomas will compete for the two starting slots, with the lose of this fight competing with Jabari Greer for the 3rd CB slot of a nickel back. The 4th best of these 4 will be our backup and our dime guy.

 

Kiwaukee envisions himself as a starter and will get a shot at that role though I have my doubts he is even a second tier CB in this league. I am comfortable with him playing nickel but doubt he is good enough to start. Greer is a player who I have found to be impressive in pre-season but he never has extended this performance into the regular season and seeing him as a viable nickel is about all I think we should reasonably expect.

 

McGee strikes me as a player we can expect to be a reasonable starter. I think he showed signs of being a better player than NC back in '05 as he seemed to have greater confidence after making the Pro Bowl due to his kick return ability and his sheer athleticism and open field ability which makes him a good return guy. Unfortunately, he had real trouble mastering a different D system as we went away from the soft coverage model used in the LeBeau/Gray zone-blitz t really having different CB requirements in the Cover 2. To a great extent it is simpler as the CB only has responsibility for the WR 10-15 yards downfield and then he turns him over to the safeties and MLB for deep coverage.

 

The problem I felt with McGee was that he seemed to take on the new scheme without adjusting well to how he needed to alter his coverage based on what plays the other team seemed to be running and what his fellow DBs were doing. He simply failed to make relatively simple reads that the opponent was going to send the WR deep on a fly pattern and since it seemed unlikely that a receiver was even going to come underneath (or if they did the OLB would need to come with them if they were not blitzing on a pass play).

 

McGee got caught several time either cutting off his coverage when he should have gone deeper because our safety was going to be late and there was no one coming underneath anyway or he was looking into the backfield to provide run support on what turned out to be a pass play.

 

However, he seemed to get the hang of the running the Cover 2 and learned enough to not be so doctrinaire in its application and I am comfortable with him being one of our two starting CBs and there is a slight (and far from guaranteed) chance his play will resume the position player trajectory he was showing at the end of the 05 season so he can be a real #1 CB (not as good as NC but that is not required to be an adequate #1CB in a Cover 2).

 

Youbouty is clearly the interesting wildcard. It amuses me that many seem so hot-to-trot for us to get a CB in the 1st round. It would seem quite likely that if we do, then this 1st round choice is going to sit on the bench at least initially for the Bills behind McGee and Youbouty or Thomas.

 

Youbouty was seen by many pundits as a possible (if not probable) based on his rankings by scouts of CB talent as a 1st round quality choice last year. I would guess teams seemed to pass on picking him for two reasons:

 

1. Pundits agreed he needed another year of experience before he would definitely be a #1 talent

2. The surprising number of safeties picked among the top 15 players (3 in Huff, Whitner. Allen) meant teams had already devoted significant resources to DBs. This pushed Youbouty down until someone labeled him the best player available and this was the Bills.

 

Anyone who advocates that we need to devote a 1st rounder to CB simply needs to note that we already have done that in acquiring Youbouty. Almost all draft choices (and all of them if one looks at top 10 picks like Harrington, Mike Williams or Ryan Leaf) are simply a crapshoot. Youbouty could easily fail (though the coaches had enough confidence in him to give him a start against NYJ last year and the D with him starting was good enough to beat the tar out of this Pennington led team on the road.

 

While no one can guarantee Youbouty will start his chances of being good enough to do this are clearly hire than those of Hall or Revis or any of the CBs deemed 1st round worthy this year.

 

It would be nice IMHO if we picked up another CB to compete with McGee, Youbouty and Thomas for the 2 CBs spots, but FA would seem a more likely option for doing this than spending draft resources.

[Koufax]

Good post by Pyrite Gal. I think McGee will get every chance to compete as a starter with the inside track, but if we draft anybody any good, and even if we don't and KT plays well, Terrance could very easily find himself in the nickel. I wouldn't mind this because he has never been a great corner, the nickel is still an important role, and his legs would be kept fresher for kickoff returns.

[obie_wan]

My sense of the big problem McGee had last year was not one of his physical ability to cover, but his mental ability to adjust to the requirements of the Cover 2.

 

I think we saw this with a significant improvement in the pass coverage and McGee's play in the second half of the season compared to a first half implosion which led to his benching.

 

This improvement also coincided with the Bills shifting from their traditional scheme which saw the CB always cover a particular side of the field regardless of which receiver lined up there to one where NC covered the other team's strongest receiver where ever he lined up. However, my sense is that the primary benefit this provided to McGee was not that he was overmatched less often, but that he simply had one less thing to worry about in each game and he finally got his head around what he was supposed to do in the Cover 2.

 

Hard to see how Nate gets credit for playing man coverage on the other teams # 1 WR, but McGee was playing in a zone by his lonesome on the other side of the field.

 

 

The biggest benefit to McGee in the 2nd half of the year was that he was not playing zone any more.

 

He played better because he was playing man, just like Nate was.

 

 

If he can't figure out how to play zone this year, he will be the nickel back covering the slot WR.

[Pyrite Gal]

Hard to see how Nate gets credit for playing man coverage on the other teams # 1 WR, but McGee was playing in a zone by his lonesome on the other side of the field.

The biggest benefit to McGee in the 2nd half of the year was that he was not playing zone any more.

 

He played better because he was playing man, just like Nate was.

If he can't figure out how to play zone this year, he will be the nickel back covering the slot WR.

 

I think McGee got burned playing man to man in the first half of the season when he would incorrectly chop off playing man when he would reach whereever Fewell had set the point 10-15 yards down the field when he was to turn a WR going further over to the safety playing deep routes in the Cover 2.

 

McGee's mistakes were it seemed to me that he would cut off his coverage when it should have been clear to this vet that the rookie safety was not going to be there in time to make the cover and even worse when it should have been obvious to McGee that there was really no receiver who was likely to come into the short zone.

 

In the second half, Mcgee made better reads not of only where the opposing receiver was going but how his DB colleagues were doing and where he needed to be to make the pass coverage most effective.

 

I think it is a mistake (and it was a mistake McGee was making) to get too caught up in whether this was a zone coverage or a man-to-man coverage because the Cover 2 when run correctly is both for the CB. The CB is expected to launch tight press coverage on the WR which can be mistaken for man-to-man, but he is also supposed to turn this WR over to the safeties and MLB who are doing the deep coverage in our cover 2.

 

One can call this a zone if you want as the deep 3 really are covering the deep zone and the CBs are covering the short zone. However, as this coverage is supposed to be a pretty tight coverage (particularly in the press coverage called for of the CBs it can be considered a man-to-man coverage as well as it does not involve the sitting back and picking your spots the way the Bills traditionally ran their pass coverage and that actually is the type of coverage where Nate plays his best and the CBs tend to have more shots at INTs (hence the public complaints by Dre Bly of Detroit that he wanted out of there because he hated being a CB in their Cover 2 scheme which Jauron designed.

 

The change which the Bills made did not involve a switch where McGee played zone in the first half of the season and then switched to man-to-man for the second half (IMHO opinion and please correct me as specifically as you can if I am wrong), its that the Bills D switched from NC always lining up on one side of the field and McGee lining up on the other without regard to how the offense lined up, but instead, NC lined up on the side of the field generally where the opposing team's most talented WR lined up so he and McGee flip-flopped sides also.

 

However, both players were doing generally the same type of coverage in both the first and second half of the season which was press coverage in the short zone.

 

These harsh distinctions are somewhat illusory however since a defense needs to change of its coverage scheme a bit from time to time within a game and clearly will change it up from game to game depending upon the qualities and skills of their opponents other wise they will simply get burned as soon as the opposing OCs figures out their patterns and calls plays to exploit it.