A technique question about how we ran our D scheme

[In-A-Gadda-Levitre]

I'm sure DJ finally relented to having NC cover Williams around halftime, but by then the damage was done. This sort of DJ ignore reality imindset is something I don't think he'll ever get away from. Amazingly, it took DJ a few quarters to realize his scheme didn't have the players in the secondary, besides NC. That day he had a fine CB to make him look better, but in 07 we didn't. Then again, NC was too expensive and wasn't necessary.

I watched this game and was glad when they made the adjustments later and you're right, it was too late.

 

However, to say that is was DJ that refused to make the personnel change is simply ludicrous. You're saying Catavalos and Fewell wanted to make this change and DJ refused? Didn't realize you were on the sidelines that day...

 

DJ is blindly loyal to his staff (like Fairchild) and players that he knows (like A-Train). That's probably one of his worst faults and the funny part is that it's correctable. Saying he's stubborn about listening to game day personnel adjustments from his assistant coaches and inferring that this happens a lot doesn't make much sense unless you can prove it.

[colin]

hey PG,

 

can you post something long and utterly insane about how the best CB in the nation won't be able to help our pass D?

 

thanks, i'll hang up and listen.

[Billadelphia]

hey PG,

 

can you post something long and utterly insane about how the best CB in the nation won't be able to help our pass D?

 

thanks, i'll hang up and listen.

 

[gobillsinytown]

To put it succinctly, it was supposed to be a variant of the "Tampa Cover 2". It was executed badly as our defensive ranking shows. You need a NT or 2 DT to bring the pressure of the middle and Lord knows we've been missing that for years. Our run D was absolutely atrocious. I can't believe it took us this long to acquire a player like Stroud. Letting Pat Williams walk was a big mistake just like releasing Ruben Brown (who BTW started at RG in his Super Bowl).

 

This is also another key aspect to the Cover 2, or any effective defense. The old cliche 'it all starts up front' will always be true. If a D can bring consistent pressure with its front four, and stop the run with the front seven, then you'll have a very good defense. The Giants beat the Patriots in the Superbowl for this reason. They were able to bring consistent pressure on Brady with 4-5 rushers, almost every time he dropped back to pass. Everything else flows from there.

 

As far as releasing Williams: I think one of Donahoe's roles was to get the salary structure of the team fixed. He did do that, but he got rid of the wrong guys.

[Pyrite Gal]

hey PG,

 

can you post something long and utterly insane about how the best CB in the nation won't be able to help our pass D?

 

thanks, i'll hang up and listen.

Who said that getting the best CB in the nation would not help. I didn't.

 

Who said having a better pass rush would help our pass D more. I did than getting the best CB. I did.

 

If you disagree fine, but is there more than fact-free opinion behind your view?

[Trader]

Who said that getting the best CB in the nation would not help. I didn't.

 

Who said having a better pass rush would help our pass D more. I did than getting the best CB. I did.

 

If you disagree fine, but is there more than fact-free opinion behind your view?

 

Pyrite gal how did you feel about the Bills first 3 picks? Would you have done anything different that what they did given who was available. Personally i would have drafted Harvey if there but clearly Mckelvin was the next best player.

Did you see it differently?

[Pyrite Gal]

Pyrite gal how did you feel about the Bills first 3 picks? Would you have done anything different that what they did given who was available. Personally i would have drafted Harvey if there but clearly Mckelvin was the next best player.

Did you see it differently?

McKelvin was the best value if one was going to make a pick. The Bills had him rated as a top 10 player and he slipped down the Board and was available when there no other player at a position of prime need for us that really was likely to go in the top 20 picks (as it turned out the plethora of lower first round-high second round talent at WR available made everyone hold off on these players and select players at thinner pooled positions).

 

If I were in charge (which fortunately for the Bills I am not) I would have wanted to trade down the #11 and use the added value to get two WRs of roughly Hardy talent because I think we are still a WR short on this team.

 

If no one will make a deal then McKelvin seems like the obvious choice to make. The only prob I have is that I believe there was still 4 min. or so on the clock when they chose McKelvin and I would have worked until the last minute to make a deal.

 

The Hardy pick is just the type of target (6' 6"") we wanted and real world accomplishment in the redzone to boot. The question mark is character because of some law run ins (a big part of the reason I would have preferred a second pick). However, none of us talked to him and either you trust the Bills or not to take the measure of a man's character face to face. i trust 'em.

 

The third round pick was my favorite of the three. I think Ellis likely will do a lot more to improve our pass D than McKelvin will. He fits in perfectly with the rotation for pressuring the QB which I think is far more important to good pass protection than pass coverage (in particular what a CB who can cover all over the field who in our base D will not even be asked to cover beyond the short zone.

 

A good day overall, but I like our picks of good ST talent on the second day even better for its potential to help the team.

[Steely Dan]

McKelvin was the best value if one was going to make a pick. The Bills had him rated as a top 10 player and he slipped down the Board and was available when there no other player at a position of prime need for us that really was likely to go in the top 20 picks (as it turned out the plethora of lower first round-high second round talent at WR available made everyone hold off on these players and select players at thinner pooled positions).

 

If I were in charge (which fortunately for the Bills I am not) I would have wanted to trade down the #11 and use the added value to get two WRs of roughly Hardy talent because I think we are still a WR short on this team.

 

If no one will make a deal then McKelvin seems like the obvious choice to make. The only prob I have is that I believe there was still 4 min. or so on the clock when they chose McKelvin and I would have worked until the last minute to make a deal.

 

The Hardy pick is just the type of target (6' 6"") we wanted and real world accomplishment in the redzone to boot. The question mark is character because of some law run ins (a big part of the reason I would have preferred a second pick). However, none of us talked to him and either you trust the Bills or not to take the measure of a man's character face to face. i trust 'em.

 

The third round pick was my favorite of the three. I think Ellis likely will do a lot more to improve our pass D than McKelvin will. He fits in perfectly with the rotation for pressuring the QB which I think is far more important to good pass protection than pass coverage (in particular what a CB who can cover all over the field who in our base D will not even be asked to cover beyond the short zone.

 

A good day overall, but I like our picks of good ST talent on the second day even better for its potential to help the team.

 

If the first three draft picks pan out and the Bills suffer no significant injuries this year, , they should be a force to be reckoned with.

[Búfalo Blanco]

McKelvin was the best value if one was going to make a pick. The Bills had him rated as a top 10 player and he slipped down the Board and was available when there no other player at a position of prime need for us that really was likely to go in the top 20 picks (as it turned out the plethora of lower first round-high second round talent at WR available made everyone hold off on these players and select players at thinner pooled positions).

 

If I were in charge (which fortunately for the Bills I am not) I would have wanted to trade down the #11 and use the added value to get two WRs of roughly Hardy talent because I think we are still a WR short on this team.

 

If no one will make a deal then McKelvin seems like the obvious choice to make. The only prob I have is that I believe there was still 4 min. or so on the clock when they chose McKelvin and I would have worked until the last minute to make a deal.

I completely agree with you and how you would have gone about it... although at the end of the day, I'm fine with the pick and think there will now be a dangerous triple threat on returns... and apparently he was Buffalo's guy from the beginning... I just hope we get him signed for 5-6 years, at least...

 

There was one post by Pete before the draft that still makes me curious as to whether we were going to trade down if McKelvin had not been there...

[colin]

Who said that getting the best CB in the nation would not help. I didn't.

 

Who said having a better pass rush would help our pass D more. I did than getting the best CB. I did.

 

If you disagree fine, but is there more than fact-free opinion behind your view?

 

 

you posted an insane sitting by yourself in a train car talking type thread titled something about how our pass d isn't improving enough.

 

yes, you tried to imply that a passrusher rook would have helped more, but that's wrong and insane.

 

you also posted about how no rook could play MLB but that's lulzy since like 7 of the past 9 ROY on D are LBs, many in the middle.

[BillsVet]

I watched this game and was glad when they made the adjustments later and you're right, it was too late.

 

However, to say that is was DJ that refused to make the personnel change is simply ludicrous. You're saying Catavalos and Fewell wanted to make this change and DJ refused? Didn't realize you were on the sidelines that day...

 

DJ is blindly loyal to his staff (like Fairchild) and players that he knows (like A-Train). That's probably one of his worst faults and the funny part is that it's correctable. Saying he's stubborn about listening to game day personnel adjustments from his assistant coaches and inferring that this happens a lot doesn't make much sense unless you can prove it.

 

I've got no issue with DJ being loyal to his staff. Ultimately he's the deciding factor on anything when it concerns gameplanning and mid-game adjustments. He has demonstrated an unwillingness to change his whole career, and if it happens, takes place after the game. It wasn't working that day and I believe is emblematic of Jauron's inability to adapt in-game.

 

Look, this was two seasons ago and I'm not going to cry over spilt milk. The fact is, you need good corners, Tampa 2 or not.

 

The greatest key to the Cover 2 is generating a pass rush with the front four. I think the Bills will be better able to do that with Stroud being able to draw double teams and McCargo playing the "3."

[jjsiepierski34]

Not exactly, that is, unless you feel like your in a better position to judge the problem then our coaching staff. I would say 3 corners drafted would indicate it wasn't just the pass rush to them.

 

Let's not forget, not being able to stop the run, or stop teams on third down and get off the field.

[Pyrite Gal]

you posted an insane sitting by yourself in a train car talking type thread titled something about how our pass d isn't improving enough.

 

yes, you tried to imply that a passrusher rook would have helped more, but that's wrong and insane.

 

you also posted about how no rook could play MLB but that's lulzy since like 7 of the past 9 ROY on D are LBs, many in the middle.

First off I prefer to refer to myself as deranged rather than insane. I think it is more accurate as insanity points toward a virtually total disassociation from reality while deranged points toward taking a warped view of reality. I can easily be completely wrong about my conclusions about the NFL, but I do not think that the NFL game is played by a bunch of potted plants or inanimate objects or some other truly insane notion.

 

As far as my conclusions about rookies playing for the Bills, if you took the time to sit with me in the train car, one can see how my thinking and proposed conclusions actually revolved not around a conclusion about all rookies at all time, but in particular about counting upon a rookie to play well in the Cover 2 scheme as employed by the Bills.

 

If you look at this particular question which is the one we care about, the performance of rookie LBs in the past is in fact a reasonable indicator to consider but one is in grave danger of going wrong to simply draw conclusions from these facts.

 

For example, while yes it is true that many of the D-ROYs in the past 10 years (to choose this arbitrary but round number rather than the arbitrary convenient for the argument # you chose) were LBs (choosing AP. ROY, Diet Pepsi's , Sporting News or other will give one differing results.

 

However, it goes a bit to far to say they were mostly or even to some extent MLBs because actually the base Ds of some of these teams were 3-4s rather than 4-3s and there is a significant difference from being an MLB in a 4-3 and an ILB in a 3-4. There is even a large difference between being an MLB in a typical defense or the MLB in a Cover 2 (or something more like a Tampa 2 run by the Bills).

 

I was in fact reminded and learned from TSW that in fact there was an MLB who played a Jauron designed D and played it well which was Brian Urlacher. I learned from this point and agreed with it. The conclusion I drew from it however, was that a rookie may well be counted upon to do a good job as MLB in a Cover 2, but this player had better be good enough that he draws an elite draft status (which i define as someone who is good enough to garner a top 10 choice).

 

I think we saw this play out last year in two questions:

 

1. Should we have taken Patrick Willis in last year's draft-

 

My answer was no not with the #11 or 12 choice we had last year. My thinking was that if Willis was in fact that good he likely will go in the top 10 and I felt that we had other huge needs (like RB which we filled with Lynch) from this draft and we were better off using our resources to get more players rather than using them to trade up. As it happened, the professional upon seeing Willis changed their views on him from the initial thought he would go late in the first to in fact if we wanted him we would have had to trade up into the top 10 to get him. I felt we would be better filling the gap left by the WM trade and look for an LB later in the draft. This is what we did and I think folks feel pretty good about the results.

 

2. Would an LB taken later in the draft be good enough to play MLB for us?

 

My answer to this question was not immediately and I think I was right about this as well. Pos is a very good player I think but I felt that we would have been better off going with Crowell at his natural position of MLB and let Pos get used to the NFL and the Cover 2 at his natural position of SLB. We did not do this, but ironically Pos did get mostly a learning experience out of his first year because he ended up on IR.

 

I think folks are not paying full attention if they want to simply declare Pos great as a rookie at MLB for us based on his leading the team in tackles before he got knocked out. IMHO, Pos deserves great praise for leading the team in tackles but to me he looked like a poor man's version of the Bills previous MLB leader in tackles London Fletcher.

 

IMHO, Pos did show incredible speed last year, but also of this showing happened after he got faked by the opposing OC and/or players into taking a false step backward on run plays or forward on pass plays. He showed great recognition and recovery when he scrambled back into position to make the tackle after the initial misread. However, one need only look at the significant number of yards gained and 1st downs by outlet receivers in the few initial games Pos played to see the result of a player learning the Tampa 2 as they went along.

 

Ironically, I hope and expect Pos to be much better this year because he had a year on the bench to simply sit and watch NFL plays develop while sitting on the bench without the distraction of having to worry about stopping the opponent on the next play.

 

However, the perspective of recognizing the importance of rookie status was borne out to me by the results.

 

This at least is my deranged opinion. My apologies for calling your opinions fact-free. There were some facts behind them (the ROY #s) even though it is a conclusion drawn by looking at these facts only at the surface. To understand how these LB numbers relate to the Bills one I think needs to understand what the difference is between a MLB and an ILB in a 4-3 and a 3-4 and one needs to understand that the MLB has significantly different duties in a standard NFL D and in a Tampa 2.