I have figured who is to blame for slow 1st halfs

[BillsWatch]

I'll give you some clues:

1. He has been with Bills since Superbowl years
   
2. It is NOT a front office position (we can not blame it on ticket office manager despite him should have been fired years ago)
   
3. It is NOT Ralph
   

Give up?

 

 

Chuck Lester

Assistant to the Head Coach/Special Projects

Among Lester’s responsibilities are breaking down film of the upcoming week’s opponent as well as tracking statistical tendencies throughout the NFL

 

I have heard front office and other teams rave about his work (i.e. ex-coaches telling things he did which help team and telling them implement those things) we are getting slow starts and the coaches & players depend upon film breakdown and tendencies to game plan and prepare. When they see the actual opponent they are able to adjust their game.

 

Either this or is due to conditioning - Bills are better conditioned and are better suited for 2nd half play than opponents.

[Ish]

i was going t blame losman since that's the easy thing, but yea chuck lester, or maybe its just no big deal and that edwards likes to come to the party late

[Chandler#81]

Many of us figured film study would be inconsequential for this game. As desparte as the Rams were, you knew they'd come up with new wrinkles. 4 new starters on D meant we had no idea what they would play and switching QB's in mid week, all Lester could do is come up with old Miami and KC tapes. For me, Cudos goes to Fewell and Shonert for halftime adjustments.

 

That, and an ever increasing belief -teamwide- that they will somehow find a way to win.

 

[Speedy G]

film study can only take you so far, it's film of what they've already done, granted, tendencies of a team can be studied, but any new wrinkles might take a half to figure out!

[Mickey]

I'll give you some clues:

1. He has been with Bills since Superbowl years
   
2. It is NOT a front office position (we can not blame it on ticket office manager despite him should have been fired years ago)
   
3. It is NOT Ralph
   

Give up?

 

 

Chuck Lester

Assistant to the Head Coach/Special Projects

Among Lester’s responsibilities are breaking down film of the upcoming week’s opponent as well as tracking statistical tendencies throughout the NFL

 

I have heard front office and other teams rave about his work (i.e. ex-coaches telling things he did which help team and telling them implement those things) we are getting slow starts and the coaches & players depend upon film breakdown and tendencies to game plan and prepare. When they see the actual opponent they are able to adjust their game.

 

Either this or is due to conditioning - Bills are better conditioned and are better suited for 2nd half play than opponents.

Another option would be that it is too early in the season for there to be much tape out there giving you a solid idea what a team likes to do. As a result, the first half game plan has more of a tendency to be off the mark.

[Fan in San Diego]

I thought it was Turk's stubborn tendancy to always run on the 1st down and get stuffed. I was calling for more passes on 1st down.

[reddogblitz]

I think the reason for the slow start this week was that Trent was throwing too many long lower percentage passes that were coming up incomplete. Maybe this was to try to get a fast start, but it didn't work. We might be better off to let the "King of dink and dunk" dink and dunk a few series to get his sea legs before going long too often. We didn't start off slow against probably the best team we've played so far, Jacksonville.

 

Maybe Chuck just got lucky that week?

[Orton's Arm]

I think the reason for the slow start this week was that Trent was throwing too many long lower percentage passes that were coming up incomplete. Maybe this was to try to get a fast start, but it didn't work. We might be better off to let the "King of dink and dunk" dink and dunk a few series to get his sea legs before going long too often. We didn't start off slow against probably the best team we've played so far, Jacksonville.

 

Maybe Chuck just got lucky that week?

The main reason for the slow starts is that the offensive line's play has been abominable in the first half. St. Louis had 3 sacks going into their game with the Bills. They got 4 sacks in the first half. In addition to allowing those 4 sacks, the line blocked for fewer rushing yards (18) than offensive linemen had in penalty yards (at least 20). Throw in numerous hurries and knock downs allowed, and you have a pathetic performance even by the standards of the post-2000 Bills.

 

As the game wears on, defensive linemen become tired and start to slow down a little. This line can, at times, play very well against tired defensive linemen. The transition is amazing--it goes from looking like a camp fodder line in the first halves of games to looking like a top-10 line in the 4th quarter. Trent has shown that when he's given decent to good protection he knows how to light up a scoreboard. Because that good protection only happens late in the game, his 4th quarter stats look a lot better than his stats for the first three quarters. And I think that's fairly typical of QBs--even good QBs. If you let guys rush unblocked to the QB, even the best QBs in the league aren't going to be all that productive. While Trent has some improving to do to find himself in the "best QBs in the league" category, the "no offensive line in the first half" problem won't solve itself no matter how well he plays. The only solution to that problem is to either get our current offensive linemen to play a full 60 minutes of football, or else to find replacements who can.

[/dev/null]

Chuck Lester

Assistant to the Head Coach/Special Projects

Among Lester’s responsibilities are breaking down film of the upcoming week’s opponent as well as tracking statistical tendencies throughout the NFL

 

Chuck's evil twin Moe likes to watch other films