Astrobot Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 The Giants o-line: Kareem McKenzie (free agent, former 3rd rounder)Chris Snee (2nd rounder, impregnated Couglin's daughther) Shawn O'Hara (UDFA) Rich Seubert (UDFA) David Diehl (5th rounder) The Colts o-line: Ryan Diem (4th rounder) Charlie Jonson (6th rounder) Jeff Saturday (UDFA) Ryan Lilja (UDFA) Tony Ugoh (2nd rounder) The Pats oline: Nick Kaczur (3rd round) Stephen Neal (UDFA) Dan Koppen (5th rounder) Logan Mankins (1st rounder) Matt Light (2nd round) The Bills oline: Langston Walker (FA, former 2nd rounder) Brad Butler (5th round) Melvin Fowler (FA, former 3rd rounder) Derrick Dockery (FA, former 3rd rounder) Jason Peters (UDFA) And if you add in sometime starter Duke Preston (3rd round), the Bills have 3 players on their line picked in the 3rd or higher. The Giants have 2, the Colts have one, and the Pats have 3. Again, there is more than one way to build a football team. This notion of drafting o-line high to achieve success is clearly outdated. Excellent post!
cantstopbeastmode Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 OF COURSE!! i mean our o line did let up the fewest sacks in frachise history -- so they are ok at the least. or corners were TERRIBLE last year. we schemed and did things up front to try to stop the passes (and did fairly well against the long deep bomb) but every 3rd and long it was just a matter of watching the cb cut the wrong way or just get jumped over for the ball. 2nd and 3rd wr's had career days against us all year. You didnt watch the games apparently. I know it says a lot for me to call out somebody when this is only my 5th post ever, but you just simply arent a Bills fan. Send me a tape of any Bills game this year, and if you can find me one game where Greer/McGee cut the wrong way twice combined on 3rd down I will wear a dolphins jersey or something. It happened about 500 times a game where the middle of the zone was wide open. Personal CB mistakes rarely happened. Really, look through the tapes man.
BillsWatch Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 Schobel, Kelsay, and Denney combined for 26.5 sacks (more than the Giants big 3) in 2006 playing next to Larry Tripplet and Tim Anderson. So did they magically all become terrible? I'm assuming no. The biggest difference was no Nate Clements. D-line helps the secondary and the secondary helps the d-line. Funny that all the people complaining about not picking oline don't point out that the last 2 Super Bowl champs picked corners in the 1st round. Difference was that Kelsay and Denney were healthy two years ago as well as "playmaker" Clements. Hopefully they stay healthy this year. Trippet also still had gas in tank.
colin Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 You didnt watch the games apparently. I know it says a lot for me to call out somebody when this is only my 5th post ever, but you just simply arent a Bills fan. Send me a tape of any Bills game this year, and if you can find me one game where Greer/McGee cut the wrong way twice combined on 3rd down I will wear a dolphins jersey or something. It happened about 500 times a game where the middle of the zone was wide open. Personal CB mistakes rarely happened. Really, look through the tapes man. i flew up to buffalo to see the faketriots visit. as bad as the rush was (very bad) the secondary was worse. guys letting moss go inside to cover no one outside, just dropping off of coverage with the ball in the air, and the best was wilson pulling a highschool flag football mistake move of stopping and just jumping straight up about 5 yards shy of where he could be. if personal mistakes were rare why were we so horrible in coverage?
cantstopbeastmode Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 i flew up to buffalo to see the faketriots visit. as bad as the rush was (very bad) the secondary was worse. guys letting moss go inside to cover no one outside, just dropping off of coverage with the ball in the air, and the best was wilson pulling a highschool flag football mistake move of stopping and just jumping straight up about 5 yards shy of where he could be. if personal mistakes were rare why were we so horrible in coverage? The Pats game was different. Nobody showed up. But we werent really that horrible in coverage the rest of the year. I never really saw a guy pull a double move on a corner or anything, they pretty much just found soft spots(which is what happens in zone defenses.) It really sucks for you that you flew here to watch that game, though. I live in Hamburg and kind of regretted making the trip.
MartyBall4Buffalo Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 Sounds good in a vacuum, but when you consider that he hasn't played at that level since the 2004 season, you might be wise to lower your expectations. I don't believe there's a player on the roster who will have a greater impact on our 2008 record than Stroud- if he defies all the odds by starting 12 or 13 games and playing at the level he did in 2004, we could be competitive in our division and take advantage of a weak schedule to at least be knocking on the door come the postseason. On the other hand, and if his last two season are any indication, he's likely to play in less than half our games and we'll be as bad against the run as we were last year, making us once again a below .500 football team. Of his 7 seasons Marcus Stroud has only played in less then 10 games once in his career. So I think that's a rather sharp rush to judgement. Other then that little sidenote, I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post. I don't understand the outage of lack of oline depth, when our dline is borderline terrible and has been for awhile. Lack of 2-3 quality starters, and nonexistent depth. Relying on 1. Stroud to stay healthy 2. McCargo to become more consistent and not take plays off 3. Kyle Williams to play above his actual talent level, and fit the scheme 4. Spencer Johnson to be more then quality depth. Lose Stroud, and we have the worst dline in the league. Not to mention, the lack of quality edge rushers. It could get ugly fast. I'm curious to see how it all turns out, while being miffed, at the trust placed on this unit by the front office and coaching staff. We needed an oline esque overhaul, and instead rented from The Used goods section.
colin Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 The Pats game was different. Nobody showed up. But we werent really that horrible in coverage the rest of the year. I never really saw a guy pull a double move on a corner or anything, they pretty much just found soft spots(which is what happens in zone defenses.) It really sucks for you that you flew here to watch that game, though. I live in Hamburg and kind of regretted making the trip. they also blew sh-- vs the giants and philly. yeah they were back up back ups, but they were switching off their man and sh-- with the ball in the air. against cleveland half the time you saw whitner blowing his top at guys missing assignments. they just sucked dude, except they picked off passes OK and stopped the deep bomb.
MartyBall4Buffalo Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 The Pats game was different. Nobody showed up. But we werent really that horrible in coverage the rest of the year. I never really saw a guy pull a double move on a corner or anything, they pretty much just found soft spots(which is what happens in zone defenses.) It really sucks for you that you flew here to watch that game, though. I live in Hamburg and kind of regretted making the trip. Without going back and looking over games. We were pretty terrible in coverage in the jags game. I seem to recall David Garrard routinely killing us on 3rd downs, while we stone walled Jones-Drew in the run game, and other then one long fred taylor run, he didn't do much either. We gave up a lot of yards in the bengals game, again while stone walling rudi johnson. The skins put a lot on us thru the air, the d held them to fgs though. The Jags game was eeirly similar, till the defense, eventually gave up, and the jags pulled away. In all we were 29th in the league in pass defense. Considering we were 7th in 06. That's just god awful terrible. Frankly attributed, to lack of pass rush/secondary starters, and depth. Good for the fans, that the idea of football is to compete in your division. I'd like to eventually say a little more then "Dude sorry you went to the pats game". Maybe that's just me.
cantstopbeastmode Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 they also blew sh-- vs the giants and philly. yeah they were back up back ups, but they were switching off their man and sh-- with the ball in the air. against cleveland half the time you saw whitner blowing his top at guys missing assignments. they just sucked dude, except they picked off passes OK and stopped the deep bomb. No argument on those games. I guess I did lie about the whole show me one game theory. I just kind of get fired up when people blame things on the personnel, because I think that coaching is the main problem. Off on a tangent, I didn't really see whitner bitching at anyone, but I'm glad to hear that. Nobody on this team ever shows any sort of leadership or toughness it seems. If Whitner wasnt around, our team would be so much softer. Nobody on this team ever really seems badass, besides Whitner and Marshawn.
Sisyphean Bills Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 Yeah, but we don't want to short-change anyone here. I'd like to think our corners are all above average.
Ralonzo Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 You're correct. McGee, Greer, and (who the hell played nickel?) could all start in most college intramural leagues. But not Webster.
Orton's Arm Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 i think the point that bill (who i like but bugs me with this!!! STOP IT BILL11!) is missing is that DBs are generally the best immediate impact rookie performers. That may well be why this staff has emphasized DBs so strongly. The first and second round picks that haven't been spent on DBs have generally been spent on other "immediate impact" positions, such as RB and LB. Positions that take a longer time for a player to develop--such as OL--have been filled via free agency. Now that the TD-era players have been by and large replaced, it's time for the staff to start using high draft picks on players, such as OL, who play at positions which take longer to learn. The Bills lack a starting quality center; and to be honest I wouldn't mind seeing Langston Walker replaced by someone who's better at run blocking.
obie_wan Posted May 15, 2008 Posted May 15, 2008 That may well be why this staff has emphasized DBs so strongly. The first and second round picks that haven't been spent on DBs have generally been spent on other "immediate impact" positions, such as RB and LB. Positions that take a longer time for a player to develop--such as OL--have been filled via free agency. Now that the TD-era players have been by and large replaced, it's time for the staff to start using high draft picks on players, such as OL, who play at positions which take longer to learn. The Bills lack a starting quality center; and to be honest I wouldn't mind seeing Langston Walker replaced by someone who's better at run blocking. why waste high picks on OL when you can get perffectly good starters as undrafted free agents. we got us a backup LT, C and RG from the undrafted ranks- we are set. It worked for jason Peters - it will for anyone.
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