SB Nation User Blog: kaisertown

Fairly factual thoughts

kaisertown — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:20:30 -0000

It can be tough to judge arm strength while watching/scouting QBs. The trick is to see how much air gets under the ball. It's yet another example of science being our friend. The harder a QB throws the ball, the straighter of a line it can travel on. And remember, arm strength isn't about how hard a player is capable of throwing, it's about how hard a player is comfortable throwing and how much they can put on passes without losing touch and accuracy. So it's ok when a QB lofts one in there over a LB or on a fly route, but if there's a good amount of arc on 10-15 yard outs and comebacks, he doesn't have a strong arm.

I know that people don't need more evidence of how bad Jauron and the inner circle have been, but here's some anyways. There's been a lot of mention of mention of Donahoe lately as the possibility of a new GM is discussed and it got me to thinking about how many Donahoe players are still here. Think back to the end of last season, three years into Jauron's tenure and just 9 or 10 months ago. Who were the best players on the roster? If I had to pick the twelve (I choose 12 after making the list because I think it's where there's a bit of a talent drop off) best players who were on last year's team, they would be:

Lee Evans, Jason Peters, Marcus Stroud, Terrence McGee, Marhsawn Lynch, Fred Jackson, Poz, Jabari Greer, Aaron Schobel, Brian Moorman, Kawika Mitchell, Donte Whitner. All I can say is, what the hell? Only half of them were Jauron additions ... in three years! And some of those guys were average Kawika Mitchell, top 10 dissapointment Whitner and a middle of the first round RB who has been good, but isn't exactly a special player.

I keep thinking that Buffalo has a lot of good players and a good young core, but has only been missing some star power and that if Edwards stepped up at QB and a couple young guys made some strides, this roster could be a good one. But where has the development of these young players been? Whitner was showing some this year, Poz is good when he's healthy, but he was a polished prospect. Fred Jackson has come a long way and Marshawn has always been solid here, but this roster is so desperate for great players and Jauron simply hasn't been able to find or develop enough of them.

I've also realized that the way the Donahoe era went is a complete shame. He made some really great moves. We had a defense with Schobel, Pat Williams, Sam Adams, Spikes, Fletcher, McGee, Clements and Lawyer Milloy. That's a ridiculous group and those top five defenses were no fluke. It's a shame because Donahoe could never put together a solid offensive line and made some serious gaffes (JP Losman, Mike Williams). It's also a shame that those teams were the closest we've come to championship calibre since the mid nineties.

Dwight: I am going to begin this process with a simple test of intelligence and mental dexterity. What is the best color?
Andy: White, because it contains all other colors.
Dwight: Wrong. Black. It is the most dominant. How do you make a table?
Andy: You make a chair, but you don't sit on it.
Dwight: What is the capital of Maine?
Andy: The capital of Maine is Montpelier, Vermont, which is near Ithaca, New York, where I went to Cornell.
Dwight: Okay, also, moratorium on Cornell talk. Don't wanna hear about it. Forget your personal history, and learn the history of this company.
Andy: Should not be a problem. I minored in history in the Ivy League school which I attended.
Dwight: You're not off to a very good start, Bernard.
Andy: I agree. But in another way, I am off to a very good start, wouldn't you say?

What would Edwards have to do from here on out for the Bills to not draft a QB in the first two rounds of the 2010 draft? How realistic is it that he does that?

How the hell does Cedric Benson have the most rushing yards in the league?

Would anybody have a problem with the Bills starting the same three LBs next year as they planned to this season (Mitchell, Poz, Ellison) if they do a good job taking care of other needs (QB, OT, DL)?

How many tradable players do the Bills really have? And who is the most likely player to be traded before the deadline and over the offseason? Which player do you think the Bills should trade away next offseason?

Pennington out for week four?

kaisertown — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:09:44 -0000

Pennington out for week four?

"Miami's prospects of salvaging this young season have taken a hit in that starting quarterback Chad Pennington left the game in the third quarter with a right shoulder injury. The extent of the injury is not known right now, but it didn't look good. Pennington could be out a while."

A little bit of good news for Bills fans?

kry style dump - it seems to be the cool thing to do

kaisertown — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:56:09 -0000

A couple thoughts on the Saints: Their offense was really, really, really good last year too. They scored 1.5 points per game more than any team in the league. They still went 2-6 on the road and those wins were in Detroit and Kansas City. I know they destroyed Philly, but their offense only averaged 23.75 points per game on the road last year and that included a 42 point drubbing of Detroit (so they actually scored 21 points per game on the road against teams other than Detroit). Brees threw for 5,000 yards, so I'm not sure how much better that offense is really going to get.

Yes, Drew Brees is incredible, but let's not make him out to be this unbeatable player. Did I miss when ESPN decided that Brees is the best player in the league or something? I feel like people are more afraid of him than they were Tom Brady or would be if we were playing Peyton Manning on Sunday. Why is that? Brees had a handful of mediocre or worse performances last year, especially on the road. He had 33 passes for 216 yards and two picks in Washington, 39 attempts for 231 yards and threw a pick in Carolina, threw three INTs in Atlanta, 6.3 yards per pass attempt and three picks in Tampa and 232 yards on 43 attempts (only 5.4 per) and three picks in Chicago last year. Take him out of that dome and he was mediocre more often than great last year. The three road teams that Brees did play like the legend of Drew Brees against were Detroit, Denver and Kansas City. Even Trent ripped up two of those teams and actually did just as well as Brees did in those stadiums. If it's windy on Sunday, expect the weak armed Brees to throw a couple INTs.

Even this year, has their offense been that unstoppable? Sure, they came out and spanked Detroit with 4 first half TDs. They also punted twice, had a FG blocked and Brees threw a pick. Can I point out again that it was Detroit? Two of those TD drives started at the 50 yard line and the others started at their 35 and 40 yard line. They also started inside their own 20 four times and came away with zero points on those possesions. Against Philly, they had 17 first half points including a great TD drive to open the game. After that score, they went three and out, had a drive start at their own 47 which ended in a FG, and had another drive start at thier 20 and end in a Brees INT. The INT was followed by another 3 and out and they finished the half with a ridiculous two play drive where both plays netted 25+ yards and ended with a TD. They started the 2nd half by scoring a pair of TDs, but they did it with two drives that started inside the Philly 30 yard line and the game was pretty much over after that. It's a great offense, but any chance we are overestimating this team at all?

And I mentioned this in the article with the Canal Street Chronicles guys answering some of Brian's questions, but their defense actually played better against crappy, inexperienced QBs than they have in the first two weeks this season. They dominated JaMarcus Russell, Kyle Orton and Dan Orlovsky more than almost every other defense those guys faced. Kolb was an INT machine in his limited playing time before NO and ~~Drew~~ Matt Stafford was playing his first game as a pro. I'm not going to consider that defense better than average until they play a real QB. I don't see why Trent can't have a game like he did against our first two opponents or why we can't run on New Orleans.

How about a random useless mock Bills draft? How about two?

Here's a mock for the Bills winning the SB and resigning almost all of their FAs, but not making any moves on unrestricted players from other teams:

1 - Derrick Morgan - DE - Georgia Tech - A pass rusher at LE? About time. Arthur Jones, Sean Weatherspoon, and any other LDE were other options.

2 - Jason Fox - OT - Miami - Decent chance that Bell can be upgraded, Butler doesn't come back the same or Butler wasn't that good of a RT to begin with too. Buffalo could certainly use better quality of depth along the OL too.

3 - Greg Jones - MLB - Michigan St. - the only reason that Jones might be available this late is his size and the depth of this draft class. Jones either passes Buggs and Digi on the depth chart as backup MLB/special teamer or competes with Ellison to start outside.

4 - Michael Hoomanawanui - TE - Illinois - Forgive me for a lack of faith in any of our TEs to become every down players. I think that even Nelson will need to be paired with a blocker (which could be Fine). A blocking force like Hoomanawanui could be a weapon for this team if used correctly.

5 - Brandon James - RB - Florida - nothing against Xavier Omon, but why not a homerun hitter and punt returner?

6 - Jim Cordle - OL - Ohio St. - very versatile player. An interior lineman in the middle rounds or FA seems like a lock. I probably shouldn't have waited this long.

7 - Shelley Smith - OG - Colorado St. - It worked with Lankster, might as well load up on interior offensive lineman and hope one works out. Plus if Steve Fairchild coached him, how can he not be good?

And here's a draft for Buffalo going 5-11, picking around 3rd-5th and a new coach trying to gut the roster, let the FAs walk and spend a year rebuilding some:

1 - Gerald McCoy - DT - Oklahoma - I might end up liking Suh better, but I think McCoy is a better fit in our rotation. not that Suh can't get after the QB, but I think McCoy could be a 6-8 sack per season guy and those are really tough to come by at DT. Also, I'm not in love with the idea of taking a DT, I just don't like any of the QBs enough, don't want to grab a safety or LT and think the top two DTs this year are total studs.

2 - Everson Griffin - DE - USC - the pass rush is a huge priority and a great place for a coach to start a rebuild, especially with Trent Edwards allowing the team to not find an immediate new starter at QB.

3 - Tony Pike - QB - Cincinatti - A new coach will grab a QB at some point. Pike in the early third might be a little optimistic. He seems to really be shooting up draft boards.

4 - Mardy Gilyard - WR - Cincinatti - another availability stretch, but I thought pairing Pike and Gilyard was a good idea, Mardy is a good returner and could fill Reed/Parrish's slot role and be a backup plan for Johnson and Hardy.

5 - Larry Asante - S - Nebraska - Scott and Wilson are both FAs. Asante is versatile, one of the few strong safeties in this draft and is likely a good special teamer.

6 - Ryan Reynolds - MLB - Oklahoma - has had serious injury issues, but is a solid player with some upside. I think Keith Ellison is an FA too.

7 - Dennis Landolt - OL - Penn St. - versatile player and Buffalo could use the depth.

The biggest thing that stood out to me while doing those mocks is how few needs this team could have with a good season and holding onto the coach and how many needs they will probably have with a new coaching staff.

Rumblers, You're gonna LOVE this mock!

kaisertown — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:26:33 -0000

Rumblers, You're gonna LOVE this mock!

Mike Harmon (who got fired by Yahoo a few years back for being the single worst fantasy prognosticator you could imagine), does an early mock. Apparently, Buffalo has the first pick!

1. BUF — Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame

The Bills get this pick because of the problems on both sides of the ball, and because history will tell you that since 1995 the team with a 1st overall pick finished the year before 7-9, and picked 11th more often than not. The bills have had the 11th pick twice in a row now, and had a 7-9 record in 2008. Sam Bradford is out 2-4 weeks, and might not be great again for half a year. Jevan Snead may be a little bit overrated for this 1st pick because of some major flaws he has had, and Jimmy Clausen is red hot. Clausen might be a reach this early into his junior season, but he looks like the most elite pro-style QB right now. Left tackle is one of the many options here, but a 1st overall pick likely means a new coach and "their QB" or it means Dick Juron needs a huge change.

2. BUF — Sam Young, OT, Notre Dame

It should be noted that I hate this pick completely, but if the Bill do draft a QB with the first overall pick, they had better be looking for a tackle to block him. I think that with all of the tackles that are left here, Sam Young is maybe the 3rd best, but he would come with a ton of chemistry for Clausen. I figure Clausen is a big prediction already, so why not take Young too.

A few things Bills fans might be surprised to learn

kaisertown — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:16:54 -0000

In a kaisertown first, I might actually be posting a short fanpost .... and I just refered to myself in the third person. I've had a couple posts in which I essentially argue against myself on whether or not Copeland Bryan is any good. I still don't have an answer, but the fact that Bryan is already 26 years old and is now in his 4th NFL season (if you count PS time) had me looking at the ages of other Bills. I feel like I was a fairly pessimistic poster during the offseason, but now that the tone of the blog is starting to head south, the optimist in me feels obligated to balance things out with an upper of a post. Looking for players who could surprise this year, I think ideal candidates are players with very little experience in the league, but are older in life experince. Younger veterans are also primed for a breakout. Here are some breakout candidates based on age:

The most obvious one has to be Donte Whitner. Whitner just turned 24 in July. He does deserve some of the criticism that has been thrown his way, but for anybody who has given up on Donte, consider this: Whitner is 5 weeks older than Leodis McKelvin who just had his 24th birthday a couple of days ago on Sep. 1st (since some Buffalo Bills apparently read the blog, happy B-Day Leo). Shawn Nelson is barely two months younger than Whitner is. The potential is there for a breakout season.

Another player who I've often been critical of is Reggie Corner and part of the reason I have never liked the draft pick is because of how old he is. 24 year old players don't pose much upside in the draft, but they do tend to come as fairly polished athletes. Corner, who turns 26 this season, could be ahead of the curve compared to other 2nd year players. I've never been a believer in him, but I understand why so many of you are. Corner is only a couple weeks younger than Ko Simpson and just a couple months younger than Brad Butler.

And my final candidate to surprise is one who might be a shocker. I've never been a fan of his, but I don't think anybody is going to see these age differences coming. Derek Schouman. There, I said it. I'll get straight to the point, Schouman is almost a year younger than Demetrius Bell. He's six months younger than preseason legend Jonathon Stupar and almost 20 months younger than Derek Fine. Shawn Nelson, in all of his infinite potential is only 7 months younger than the 3rd year player from Boise St. Schouman turns 25 in March. Also, the younger and more experienced of the Dereks is from Eagle, Idaho. That has to count for something. USA!, USA!, USA!

my thoughts and a little film study

kaisertown — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:57:53 -0000

The first thing that needs to be discussed is how terrible Langston Walker was. He was awful. I think both of Trent's sacks were on him and for every pass play that he didn't screw up, there was one he did. He gave up a little early on a handful of plays, got beat by speed rushers, inside moves, bull rushes, a stunt and anything the D decided to throw his way. I don't think I can describe how bad he was without actually putting the tape up and making people rewatch each play. I'm hoping Ron will do a play by play OL review like he usually does. I actually thought the OL as a whole was pretty solid, but Walker was just dreadful.

So I did a little film study on the Bills' pass rush hoping I could track QB pressures. I won't be able to tally them up over the course of a season and I'm not ambitious enough to attempt to grade players, but I'll do a little play by play of Cutler's pass attempts. He threw the ball 10 times.

Pass one - No real pressure, but the front four as a group gave Cutler a small pocket to work with and Cutler settled for a short completion to Hester. McGee was covering.

Pass two - Both DEs got great pressure ..... but it was a screen pass.

Pass three - At first I thought this was a blown assignment. Schobel lined up way outside the TE, blew by the OL unblocked and an RB went low on him. Cutler had to get a throw out and it was the short 3rd down attempt to Hester where Hester never really made a play on the ball and McKelvin broke it up.

Pass four - Zero pressure. Completion to Hester, McKelvin was covering, but there wasn't much he could do.

pass five - Kelsay lines up outside the TE, isn't blocked by an offensive lineman, an RB goes low and Cutler gets the ball out quick. This was the play where Cutler overthrew a perfectly covered Hester down the sideline. McGee covered and Whitner would have been there in time too had the ball not been (intentionally?) overthrown.

pass six - No pressure, but the DL shrunk the pocket in every direction and Cutler forced that ugly throw to Hester which lead to the gorgeous INT by McKelvin.

pass seven - Poor pass rush, Corner drops the INT.

pass eight - Good bull rush by Schobel as the DL doesn't pose a real threat to sack the QB, but doesn't give Cutler any space to work with. Cutler had a great completion to Desmond Clark after Harris passed him off in zone coverage to a nowhere to be found Ko Simpson.

pass nine - George Wilson essentially lines up as a defensive lineman over the TE. Chris Ellis is lined up way outside the TE and again, nobody on the OL blocks the player coming from that spot. Buggs blitzes up the middle and is easily picked up. Chicago was in a two back set and both went low on Ellis whose presence still provided enough pressure to force a quick out to Earl Bennet.

pass ten - Buffalo was going to blitz heavily, but Chicago called a last second timeout. Somebody from the right defensive end position (looked like number 95, but didn't look like Kyle Williams, I'm guessing C. Bryan) came in unblocked as an RB predictably went low, but Bryan/mystery defender still provided enough pressure for Cutler to force a throw to the back of the end zone. This was the play where Harris got a hand on it, Florence was in place to maybe break up the pass and Ko Simpson laughibly came in two or three seconds after the ball would have arrived and tackled his own teammate.

Overall, Buffalo provided very little pass rush when Chicago chose to block them with their offensive line. I thought Schobel looked quick and healthy, but wasn't much of a factor. It was interesting watching Buffalo line up a DE outside of the TE and Chicago consistently give that rusher a free pass by the OT.

Other thoughts:

Buffalo only blitzed once and would have blitzed twice if it weren't for the time out. I think Buffalo blitzed too often and too predictably last year. Kawika Mitchell (who now has an awesome mustache by the way) is a player that needs to be used as a blitzer. It's probably his best asset as a player (aside from the fact that he could play a Mexican drug dealer in a movie now). But Buffalo rushed five far too often last year. I'd like to see them blitz 20% of the time (down from 32%) or less this year, but rush 6 or 7 way more often than they have under DJ.

That Edwards strike to Evans down the sideline was a thing of beauty. Rookie safety Al Afalava was starting at SS and was creeping up into the box. Trent read that Kevin Payne was going to back in a cover 1 playcall, stared down Derek Schouman forcing Payne to leave Evans one on one with Nathan Vasher. Vasher's a good CB, but that isn't a battle many CBs are going to win. It was easily the most encouraging play of the night. Great decision, poise and throw by Edwards.

Trent only made two throws that weren't great passes. He had a short throw to Fine that was low and while he caught it, Fine didn't have a chance to do anything afterwards. There was also one play where Urlacher (who I thought had a great game) showed blitz and backed into coverage. It was the slant to Evans and Urlacher read Trent, broke on the route and came pretty close to getting a hand on the ball or even picking it off. It was a no harm, no foul play and it wasn't a bad decision to throw by Trent, altough it was a bit of a close call. When those are the only not great plays your QB made, then he had a great, great night. Trent was forced to check down a lot, but I didn't think any were due to him hesitating or something like that. Walker and the Bears pass rushers forced the ball out of Trent's hands a few times.

That bootleg was an awesome playcall. Any chance we go from being really worried about Schonert a year ago, to a great no huddle offense, good playcalling and an offensive coordinator that we start viewing as a prefect hire by DJ? Maybe it's time we gave the coaching a break, or at least we gave the coordinators a break.

Some quick hitters:

Spencer Johnson had nice night.

Ko Simpson didn't have a nice night and is firmly on the bubble. After tonight, he may be on the outside looking in, I thought George Wilson was a better defender and if that's the case then Simpson is a goner.

I thought those 2nd team LBs looked really quick. They read and reacted to run plays very quickly, especially Buggs. They make our starting LBs look really, really slow. Ellison is probably still our third best LB, but we can't get him off the field quick enough.

Fred Jackson doesn't have much of a burst. I can see why he wasn't drafted and took a couple training camps to catch on. It's incredible how elusive and strong of a runner he is despite such average athletic tools. It makes me like him even more.

Dominic Rhodes is a reliable, versatile player. He's also not better than Lynch or Jackson at pretty much anything. With McIntyre not being a complete disaster tonight, will Rhodes be active once Lynch comes back?

Buffalo had 6 different RBs with 5+ carries. None of them had a run longer than McIntyre's 7 yard adventure and none of them averaged more than Lynch's 3.2 yards per attempt. It's time to officially put the run game on the list of things to be concerned about.

One positive thing about the run game is that after being shut down by a Haynesworth-less Titans D last week, Tampa Bay got shut down by that D too. Derrick Ward and Earnest Graham combined for 10 yards on 8 carries. So maybe Buffalo's run struggles are just the result of great run defenses. Chicago gave up the third fewest ypc in the league last year at 3.4. ypc.

On the flip side, what I thought was a poor TB run defense had a better performance than we did against Johnson and White. Chris Johnson had just 7 yards on 7 carries and White had 6 yards on 3 carries. I've now got my eye on those two for the rest of the preseason for fantasy purposes.

numbers for the optimists

kaisertown — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:10:23 -0000

Buffalo scored 30 offensive touchdowns last year. It was a strong 24th best in the league. Rian Lindell hit 78.9% of his field goals and Buffalo finished an even stronger 28th in that category. We also had a 1.25 to 1 ratio of attempted field goals to offensive touchdowns. That was the 27th best in the league. And my personal favorite, our Bills turned the ball over 29 times. The team also had 9 turnovers on downs and their 38 total turnovers tied Houston for the 3rd most. That Dick Jauron style offense never really happened last year and only four teams turned the ball over more times than Buffalo did. Now, this may look like I'm doing my usual talk people down from their unrealistic expectations routine, but considering that Buffalo had a decent year despite all that (insert soft schedule comments here) actually has me thinking that a little growth from Trent, a new center giving this team a fighting chance on 3rd and 1 and that TO character really could push this offense into the top 10-15 in the league.

The first thing to discuss is whether Buffalo's 38 FG attempts from last year (4th most, behind only NE, PHI and NYG) is a good thing or a bad thing. Obviously it's a negative when your thinking about how the season went last year, but if your using that number to try and forecast how the Bills' offense is going to do this season, then I think it's a good thing. The fact that Buffalo had that many drives resulting in a chance to score is a positive. Add in Buffalo's 30 TDs and their 68 drives that resulted in a TD or FG attempt was the 16th most in the league. Not great, but not terrible either.

Here's a positive stat: Buffalo only punted 53 times last year. It was tied with Indy and Houston for the 4th fewest in the league. Want to know why Chicago traded for Jay Cutler? Here's one reason, Denver only punted 46 times last year. It was 4 fewer than NE who punted the 2nd fewest. San Diego was the other team to finish ahead of Buffalo. Chicago on the other hand punted 96 times, the second most in the league.

The obvious thing to factor in is JP Losman's ineptitude. In just 3.5 games (AZ, MIA, NYJ, half of SF), Losman turned the ball over 9 times. The Bills also managed to have 4 drives end on downs with Losman at QB. Talk about clutch. They only turned the ball over on downs 5 times in Trent's 12.5 games. So including downs, the Bills turned the ball over 25 times with Edwards at QB. Let's also subtract Robert Royal's two fumbles because I doubt that whoever takes over his role is going to fumble once per every 15 touches or whatever Royal averaged. So that's 23 turnovers and if you extrapolate that out to 16 games then it's 29.5 turnovers. If you include the turnovers on downs for each team, then Edwards' extrapolated turnovers would have been the 13th fewest in the league. Not too shabby.

Losman also struggled to put this team in a position to score points. Buffalo had 11 drives with Losman at the helm that ended in either a TD or FG attempt. As a team, Buffalo had 68 of those drives, so Trent had 57 of them. Extrapolate that out and it's a hair short of 73. Believe or not, but that would have tied Arizona and Green Bay for the 8th most in the league.

So with Edwards at QB, Buffalo didn't turn the ball over too often. They punted far less often than your average team and had more drives into scoring territory than all but the best offensive teams. Rian Lindell should bounce back this year considering that he hit 88.9% of his FGs in 2007 and 92% in 2006. So it all comes down to those 38 attempted FGs to 30 offensive TDs ratio. Things really might be as simple as finishing off drives with TDs instead of field goals for this offense to take off. I know that's a tall task, but it's the kind of thing that a little improvement from Trent, a few more third and short conversions and some guy named TO might be able to pull off.

Poll

Where is Buffalo's offense going to finish in points per game?

Top 5 - look out New England!

9 votes

6 - 10 - TO and Evans are really, really good

36 votes

11 - 15 - Too many weapons to not be pretty good

81 votes

16 - 20 - Offense won't stink, but Trent's gotta prove it

24 votes

21 - 25 - This team finished 23rd last year for a reason

2 votes

Bottom of the barrel - This is the year Trent goes on IR early

2 votes

154 votes | Poll has closed

Some thoughts

kaisertown — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:13:27 -0000

I'll start with something I found by accident. I'm not sure if people have ever seen this, but pro-football reference has a list of the Bills' starters by year and also gives their record each season. It goes way back and looks accurate. It's worth a quick glance for amusement and stashing in your favorites for later reference.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/lineups.htm

So I was thinking about the sack numbers that Mark Gaughan writes about in a Buffalo News article that you can read HERE that Kurupt discussed in a fanpost HERE. In the article, Gaughan claims that the Bills blitzed on 32% of pass plays and that 17 of their 24 sacks came on plays where they blitzed. So if you figure that the Bills opponents threw the ball 516 times (and that doesn't include plays where a QB felt the pressure and took off) and Buffalo blitzed on 32% of those plays, then there were 350 plays where the opponent threw the ball and Buffalo didn't blitz. 7 sacks on 350 plays is exactly 2%. When Buffalo rushed 4 players, they got a sack one out of every 50 pass attempts. Maybin is a fine start to rebuilding the defensive line, but don't expect me to stop asking for more help anytime soon.

And more on the pass rush, I really like the duo of Stroud and Williams, Johnson is decent and I feel like I'm one of the few who has never completely given up on McCargo, but don't expect the Bills' DTs to be part of the solution to a better pass rush. Stroud and Williams are both good for a few sacks a season which is very respectable for 310ish pounders who are better run stoppers than pass rushers. I was hoping that Spencer Johnson would be able to come in and provide a few sacks situationally, but that doesn't seem likely after watching him play last year. McCargo wasn't a good pass rusher in college and probably profiles better as a two gap player than he does in this defense. That is why I wanted Buffalo to draft a pass rushing DT and would have taken Jarron Gilbert with the 42nd pick. Buffalo should have done everything they could to improve the pass rush. They didn't and it's going to show again this season.

I have every intention on doing some some film study of Buffalo's defense this year. My intentions are more about compiling numbers then analyzing who is doing good and who isn't. I'm trying to keep it as objective as possible and don't feel expert enough to do grades like Ron does. I'm thinking about trying to keep notes on: How often the team blitzes, how many players they blitz and what players do the blitzing. How many yards the opposing team gains when we blitz vs. when we don't blitz. Who is getting double teamed on pass and run plays. Which CBs and safeties generally cover which players and who gives up the completions and maybe how bad the coverage was. Where players record tackles (something like close to line, 4 or more yards away from line and way down field). Anyone have other ideas? I can only do so much so what do people want to see the most? Anyone planning anything similiar?

Part of being a fan is being optimistic and getting excited. One unfortunate result of that is that players regularly don't live up to the expectations of the fans. I'm getting worried that TO is going to be one of those players that dissapoints. I think he'll have a really good season here, but he's not the top 10 WR that he has been for his entire career. The fanpost about Steve Johnson supplanting Reed in the slot got me thinking about this. If Reed's drops are still fresh in peoples' memories, then what are they going to do when TO starts dropping a ball every other week? Here is a stat for you: TO has dropped 35 passes over the last three seasons. It's easy to rip on someone like Braylon Edwards for his struggles last year, but he only dropped a few more passes last year than TO drops every season.

And to continue on TO, what kind of production are people really expecting? Dallas threw the ball at TO 140 times last year. It was the 8th most of any WR. For the sake of camparison, Buffalo threw at Evans 102 times. TO caught 69 passes which is actually a pretty pathetic 50% catch rate. That basically means that dropping 10 passes per season is bad news and that Dallas forced some balls at Owens. The WR with the next most catches to also have a rate lower than 50% was Braylon Edwards and his 55 catches. What are the odds that TO goes the whole season without complaining about not getting the ball enough? My guess is somewhere around 1 in 4.

I don't want to sound pessimistic about TO because I thought the signing was the perfect decision. So I'll throw out some things to be excited about: Lee Evans is the obvious one. Teams are going to have to play a lot of two deep zone or else they are really going to be relying on the FS to cover more ground than most guys can handle. As long as Trent can read those safeties and is willing to trust his instinct and take some shots downfield, Evans could have more big plays than ever. The next thing to be excited about is that Terrell Owens has the single greatest middle name ever. I'll give you 1,000 guesses ..... Nope it's Eldorado. How awesome is that? And the best thing about TO is TDs. TO can beat you on every route in the playbook and his big physical frame and style make him the perfect addition for a team that has really struggled in the red zone.

I know it's early for fantasy football, but after looking at Yahoo's rankings, I'm already worried about how to rank the top 25 or so players this year. I'm in a very deep, very competitive money league with some friends. It's a touchdown league and we start 2 QBs, so they go really fast. When you figure that there are 7 QBs who should go really high in my league (Brees, Manning, Brady, Romo, Warner, Rivers, Rodgers), 4 STUD WRs (Fitz, Moss, A.Johnson, C.Johnson) and 15 or so RBs that could be put in a million different orders, I'm already sweating out the first few rounds of the draft. Is Tomlinson in the top 3 or out of the top 10? Is Peterson really worth the number one pick? DeAngelo Williams had 20 TDs last year? What about time share guys like Chris Johnson? Can Steve Slaton or Jones-Drew hold up to a full season at their size? These rankings might literally push me over the edge into insanity.

The trend for hiring head coaches has been to go with the hot coordinator. But so many teams have done that, there aren't many names left out there. I'm sure we will see some former HCs get some jobs next offseason, but I'll throw Leslie Frazier's name out there as my guess as to who the Bills will hire if Jauron can't do better than 7-9 again.

Alright Rumblers, there's a lot in there and I know you've all got some thoughts. We've got little else to talk about for the next few weeks, so let's hear what you're thinking.

Who did better, me or the Bills?

kaisertown — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:41:43 -0000

I did a live shadow draft where I made the picks for Buffalo when they were (or were going to be) on the clock. Now that my mock offseason has gotten to the point where the roster has taken shape, I wanted to compare my offseason vs. the Bills'. But first, I want to throw some quick thoughts out about the draft.

I thoughts the Pats did an awesome job. It makes me hate them even more.

On the flip side, I didn't like KC's draft or Denver's all that much. I would actually go as far to say that I think KC's draft might have been worse than Oakland's. I think it becomes more clear every year that Belichick is light years ahead of the rest of the league in evaluation, schemes and philosophy and that even includes the coaches and front office people that he surrounds himself with.

I'm sure there are some people claiming that Maybin isn't a good fit in a 4-3, but the right defensive end spot in this defense is designed to specifically limit the run stopping responsibilities. One of the goals of the scheme is to protect the RDE. On run downs the job of the right defensive end is to cover the gap to the outisde of the left tackle. As a speed rusher that also happens to be the same place that Maybin would be heading on pass plays. If the run is to the outisde of the LT than the RDE's first option is to make the tackle (something that Schobel has excelled at), but if Maybin's explosion off the snap can force the RB to go back inside than it would also be considered a successful job. The RDE could also just string the run outside as far as possible and leave the CB or FS to make the tackle near the sideline. Maybin will typically line up so far outside the LT that an offense can't really try to run right at him. The LT will have a really tough time trying to square up on Maybin and drive him in a way where he isn't covering his gap. Even if the LT gets a great push on Maybin, but pushes him outisde and creates that hole between himself and the LG, then it isn't Maybin's responsibility anymore and Kawika Mitchell will be the guy making the tackle.

I loved the Bills draft except for that one little ommission of a left tackle. It doesn't make sense to me that Buffalo would draft a building block type player in Maybin, but would then do something as short sighted as assuming Walker can play LT this year and that Bell can be the guy in the future. Buffalo ends up in a pretty tight spot if Walker can't handle the position. How do they set up the OL if you have to move Walker back to RT?

Onto my mock:
Here's a quick recap of what I did:

I traded Peters to Philly for the 28th pick and the 4th pick in the 5th round (141). Since the Bills got more than that, I just threw in Philly's 7th rounder (230) as well. I also traded Roscoe Parrish to KC for their 5 round pick (139).

I retained all the same players that Buffalo did except for Corey McIntyre and some other minor players and let all the same players leave other than Angelo Crowell who I gave a solid contract to. I cut Chris Kelsay and signed Hangartner, Houshmandzadeh, Charlie Batch, Keiwan Ratliff, Jason Babin, Jeremy Newberry and Michael Pittman. So with similiar needs to the Bills, I drafted:

11 - Michael Oher - I really thought this should have been an obvious pick and I would bet that the Bills are looking for a new LT next offseason.

28 - Everette Brown - I was prepared to reach a little on Connor Barwin or even Michael Johnson, but got rather lucky. How did he last as long as he did? At least Carolina gave up their first rounder next year which reassured my belief that he was truly a first round prospect.

42 - Jarron Gilbert - I stayed true to my mock from a few weeks ago and went Oher, best DE, Gilbert. Jarron is mostly a DT on my squad and gives us an instant pass rusher from the inside as well as someone who can be slid outside on short yardage plays. The selection of Gilbert and the presense of Spencer Johnson also lets me ignore replacing Kelsay. Denney will start at LDE with Gilbert, Johnson and even Chris Ellis and/or Jason Babin seeing time situationally.

75 - Shawn Nelson - I was surprised to see him here in the third round. Who woulda thunk he could've been picked 35 spots later? With all the TEs still on the board, I considered waiting a round, but I thought there was a decent dropoff after Nelson and Chase Coffman.

110 - Chip Vaughn - A sliding Duke Robinson or Tyronne Greene was almost the pick, but I figured there was enough depth there to take a player in Vaughn, who like many fellow Rumblers, I really believe in.

139 - Duke Robinson - In the pick I got for Roscoe, I take a player who I don't like very much, but provides good value. I'm very comfortable with a Chambers/Robinson competition at RG with Butler starting at LG.

141 - Marcus Freeman - LB isn't a need with Crowell coming back, but like Robinson, Freeman has great value at this point in the draft. This is the second pick that I got from Philly and am quite happy with a return of Brown and Freeman with a 7th rounder still to come.

147 - Coye Francies - Another value pick. I'll take a gamble on the inexperienced player with size, speed and upside over Victor Harris who I also considered. With Keiwan Ratliff and Reggie Corner as the 4/5 CBs, Francies might push a good player off the roster or force me to keep 6 CBs.

183 - A.Q. Shipley - Shipley should be a great backup center for his career. Not the sexiest pick, but an interior offensive lineman was a need and this late in the draft any remaining need had to be addressed with this pick.

220 - Brannan Southerland - one of my biggest regrets was being unable to add a great FB. Luckily, I was able to take Southerland who went undrafted. Considering he's the only FB on my roster, he is essentially a lock to make the team and that alone makes me happy with the pick.

230 - Kory Sheets - Michael Pittman isn't exactly reliable at age 34 so Sheets could be a necessity if Jackson misses any time when Lynch is suspended.

I also grabbed some players after the draft to fill out my 80 man, training camp roster. This is always tough because you have to be able to not just grab all the best players and try to be somewhat realistic. I did cheat some and end up with a far better list than Buffalo will actually be able to pull off. So after all that, here are the 60ish players who are most likely to make my final 53 man roster:

QB - Trent Edwards - Charlie Batch - Gibran Hamdan
RB - Marshawn Lynch - Fred Jackson - Michael Pittman - Kory Sheets - Xavier Omon - Bruce Hall
FB - Brannan Southerland - Travis McCall(ufa)
TE - Derek Fine - Shawn Nelson - Derek Schouman - Jonathon Stupar - Travis McCall(ufa)
WR - Lee Evans - TJ Houshmandzadeh - Josh Reed - James Hardy - Steve Johnson - Justin Jenkins - Felton Huggins
LT - Michael Oher - Demetrius Bell
LG - Brad Butler - Chambers/Robinson
OC - Geoff Hangartner - Jeremy Newberry - A.Q. Shipley
RG - Chambers/Robinson
RT - Langston Walker

RDE - Aaron Schobel - Everette Brown - Chris Ellis - Jason Babin
LDE - Ryan Denney - Zach Potter(ufa)
DT - Marcus Stroud - Kyle Williams - Jarron Gilbert - Spencer Johnson - John McCargo
OLB - Kawika Mitchell - Angelo Crowell - Keith Ellison - Marcus Freeman - Blake Costanzo - Ace Bowen - Jon Corto - Marcus Buggs
MLB - Paul Posluszny - John DiGiorgio - Kelvin Smith
CB - Terrance McGee - Leodis McKelvin - Ashton Youboty - Reggie Corner - Keiwan Ratliff - Coye Francies
SS - Bryan Scott - Chip Vaughn
FS - Donte Whitner - Ko Simpson - George Wilson - John Wendling

Poll

Who had the better offseason?

You did. The LT, DE and DT in the draft as well as Housh can be both early contributers and a core to continue to build for the future

18 votes

Buffalo. Give me Maybin, TO and the new guards and leave the work to the actual professionals

128 votes

146 votes | Poll has closed

A bunch of quick (for me) thoughts followed by a mock draft

kaisertown — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:44:55 -0000

Buffalo's DEs had 8 sacks last season. That tied with Cincinatti for the second fewest of the 22 teams that ran a 4-3 (Cleveland was the only 3-4 team with 8 or fewer sacks from their OLBs and they tied Buffalo with 8). So I have to ask, why doesn't everyone have Buffalo addressing DE with one of their first couple picks in all the mock drafts that keep getting posted? (note: I love that people post their mocks, I'm going to put one at the bottom of this post) Everyone would have Buffalo picking a RB if Marshawn and Jackson only averaged 3.7 ypc for the last couple of seasons. Who wouldn't have us taking a QB if our team had the 3rd worst QB rating of any team? If Buffalo gave up 5 yards per carry last year, wouldn't we all want a new DT or MLB? Why is it different for the DEs? I don't get it.

Aaron Schobel is not the savior of the pass rush. In 2007, Our DEs only had 11.5 sacks. So for two seasons in a row, with Schobel playing 21 of the 32 games, Buffalo's DEs have consistently been one of the worst units in the league. Schobel is is soon to be 32 years old. He barely weighs 240 pounds and comes to camp a little slimmer every season in an attempt to maintain his average athleticism. And most importantly, Schobel has 7.5 sacks in his those last 21 games.

Let me try to explain why Peters' trade value is so low if he won't come down off his contract demands like this: If Buffalo just cut Peters and he was available to any team without having to give up compensation, how many teams would actually sign him to the contract he wants? So if teams are barely willing to do that, then why would any team give up a first round pick AND other pick(s) to sign Peters to a huge contract? Buffalo better hope that Peters' demands go down with a trade (I think they will).

I know a lot of people would like our defense to be more like Philly or the Giants, but both of those teams had more sacks from their defensive ends than Buffalo did as a team. Both the Giants and Eagles get 62% or more of their sacks from their DEs (Buffalo's 35% is pretty easily the lowest percentage of every 4-3 team). So in my opinion, drafting say, Clay Matthews, makes Buffalo's defense look less and less like NY or Philly.

Speaking of Philly, we really should model our DL after them. They have two established pass rush threats who can handle their duties as run stoppers, but are pass rush first guys. Trent Cole weighs an impressive 270 pounds, but he is an all-out get after the QB guy with 30 sacks in his last 3 seasons. Darren Howard weighs 260 and had 10 sacks last year. They then supplement those two with situational guys. Juqua Parker weighs 250 and has had 5 or more sacks 3 years in a row. Despite the presence of those 3 players, Philly still went out last offseason and gave 15 mil to Chris Clemons, a 240 pound speed rusher who had 4 sacks last season after having 8 as a situational guy in Oakland 2 years ago. Buffalo really needs to revamp their entire group of DEs if they ever want to have a dominant defense. A LB simply isn't going to impact the game enough to change the overall look of this defense.

If I'm drafting for Buffalo then I'm putting an emphasis on defense for a reason that we havn't really talked about yet. Special teams. Buffalo has by far the best punt return group in the NFL. They averaged a league best 15.5 yards per punt return last year. Oakland came in at 2nd with 13 yards per return while Houston and New Orleans both avereaged about 12. Only 7 other teams even averaged 10. With that big of an advantage a team that forces our opponents to punt from inside their own 40 more could help put more points on the board without addressing the offense as much. Last season, Buffalo only returned 30 punts. Only 6 teams had less than 29 returns while the leader, Philly, had 52. Don't blame the Tampa 2 either because the 2nd most PRs were by Tampa Bay and their 47 and that was in a very strong offensive division too. Just stop for a second and imagine how much better this team could be with Roscoe or McKelvin getting an extra punt return per game (not fair catch, actual return).

Here is one more reason to trade Peters (or at least one more reason for us fans to hope the team trades Peters). If the Bills end up with a coaching change next offseason (which we can all agree is very possible, if not very likely), then not paying Peters, letting TO and Denney leave and making some cuts like one (or both) of our other 30something DEs, maybe Walker, maybe Spencer Johnson and who knows who else could put this team into position to have a huge offseason. If this team trades Peters and has a solid draft, I think a new coaching staff could come in and have the roster flexibility and money to instill any new type of scheme they want and bring in their kinds of players immediately. I think this roster could be turned over in just one offseason and Buffalo could start competing immediately while still building for the future.

In my mock offseason, I traded Peters to Philly for the 28th pick and the 4th pick in the 5th round, so for this mock draft, I will do that again.

11 - Michael Oher - no explanation should be necessary

28 - Connor Barwin - Immediate pass rush contributer with the upside to be an every down RE in just a season or two. He also has plenty of schematic versatility, which I would be drafting for If I were the GM and got final say over a potentially soon to be fired Jauron. Michael Johnson and Larry English would also be options here if Barwin was off the board. I would have to be pretty confident that one of those three would still be available with our second round pick to not go DE with this pick.

RD2 - Jarron Gilbert - I would use him as a true one gap DT who can provide pressure on pass plays, take Stroud out of the game for a few extra plays (did anyone think Stroud played too many snaps last season?), make the overpaid Spencer Johnson expendable after this season, play DE in short yardage situations and/or a third DT for short yardage/goaline and he also offers that long term upside and schematic versatility that I would be looking for.

RD3 - Tyrone McKenzie - I'm not sure if he can take Ellison off the field in year one, but I like his upside and just think he is one of the few best players available at this point regardless of position.

RD4 - I'm praying that a TE I still like is available. I think one of Beckum or Casey is still here and I grab him. I'm a big fan of Casey and I think he has a higher floor than the other non-Pettigrew TEs, while still having the potential that guys like Beckum and Ingram have. If nobody is left then I'm taking the best interior OL player available.

RD5 - Best G or C available. I'll be honest and say that I don't know if that will be Tyronne Green, Louis Vasquez, Cornelius Lewis, Greg Isdaner, AQ Shipley, Edwin Williams or whoever. I'm pretty comfortable with Chambers starting so I'm not afraid to wait on a guard. If I went OG in round 4, then I'm probably settling for a blocking first TE like Anthony Hill with this pick.

RD5 - Best G or C available .... again. I am making sure that at least one of these two played center in college and can back up Hangartner.

RD6 - There are some intruiging late round safeties that I would look into here. I would consider FS Trimane Goddard and see if his 7 INTs last season were for real. To be honest, I don't really view either safety spot as a bigger need than the other right now, so I'm just taking the best available safety and that player is likely a FS. I just think you find more late round gems with the smaller ballhawk types than you do with the bigger in the box guys this late in the draft.

RD7 - Slade Norris, Oregon St. I'm hoping the 245 pound DE is still available here and I'm hoping to stash him on the practice squad and tell him to work on strength, but to not bother trying to get bigger. I would like to see Buffalo keep a 5th DE who they can use solely as a pass rush specialist (like Copeland Bryan is supposed to be) at some point. Slade is a bad-ass name and his 19 sacks over the last two years are just as bad-ass.