Yasgur's Farm
11-17-2006, 06:47 PM
WANTED... 2 or 3 good O-linemen
Since analyzing every lineman every game would make a post horrendously long, even for me, we'll go with the Colts game. Get ready for some of my patented big bold letters.
JASON PETERS
Solid. The coaching staff made a choice I'm not sure if I agree with regarding their handling of Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. Upon further review of the tape, most backfield chips were executed to Peters' side, rather than Pennington's side. This bother me for a few reasons:
Mathis is having a better season than Freeney.
Pennington is a rookie.
Peters has had more success against speed rushers than most on this line. (ex. Kampman, an "effort" rusher a la Schobel, beat Pennington on a few plays but Peters held solid on KGB)
Peters has deceptively quick feet, which allows him to maintain his positioning aginst speed rushers and keep his feet beneath him. What happens when this DOESN'T happen is the o-line equivalent of the "chuck-n-duck", which I aptly named "lunge-n-plunge". We've seen this before, mostly with Gandy earlier in the year against speed rushers. When the LT feels like he's lost the battle, sometimes he will make a last ditch effort to divert the path of the LE away to buy the QB more time. What this does in practice, however, is take you completely out the play, and more often than not, it fails.
On Booger's sack of **, Gandy did to Freeney what you will see most LTs attempt to do against Schobel; he misdirected Freeney at a wide angle to use the defender's speed to take him out of the play, opening up a nice lane for a QB or RB draw, and a passing lane to the QB's left (which is usually where the #1 receiver is located). ****** attempted to step up, but was met very rudely by Mr. Snot, er, Booger.
WHY was ** greeted by the player with the best nickname in the league?
Well that brings us to...
MIKE GANDY
Wow. Just wow. On the play in question, Gandy engages Booger, and then, for reasons unbeknownst to me even after watching the play entirely too many times, he stops blocking, and turns to look at **.
You read that right. He stopped blocking. I'm not a rocket scientist by any means, but last time I checked, O-lineman have a role on the team. What was that role...wait, give me a second...wait for it...wait for it...I GOT IT! It's to BLOCK. Why Gandy stopped is beyond me, but in my earlier posts, I was talking about how we needed to incorporate more drag routes and wuick developing "oh no" routes for **. This is the sad thing about this play. ** had Royal on a 6 yard drag, that probably would have netted about 12 yards, but tried to step up and deliver, only to be met by Booger, as well as Gandy looking back at him.
Gandy is a sub-par lineman. On ******'s "fumble" in Colts territory, when Mathis came untouched, every single lineman, starting with Gandy, blocked one man to the left of who they should have been blocking. This could went wrong twice. The line call was right from Fowler, who blocked the right guy, along with Preston. But Pennington and Gandy both were looking for people to block while Mathis ran in untouched to crunch **.
A veteran player should not be looking for people to block, even IF the line call is wrong. Gandy's physical tools are decent, but the mental apsect of his game, for the aforementioned reasons, lead me to believe he needs to be replaced.
MELVIN FOWLER
Melvin holds up at the point of attack better than his predecessor Trey Teague, and it shows. Think about it; when ** gets sacked, where is the defender coming from? More often than not it's an end, unless you're talking about the Green Bay game where the guards didn't hold up their end much either. Melvin can also get to the second level on running plays better than Teague, which helps most on draws, traps, and counters. Since the Bills usually run iso and lead (not sure if they call them 34s here or not), that benefit doesn't get seen much, unless it's a draw play on 3rd and 13 (sigh).
Melvin also seems to have developed good chemistry with **. While at the line of scrimmage, the QB and center act as one brain, dissecting what they see to attempt to determine what to pay attention to and what to ignore. It's imperative that chemistry exist between center and QB.
Fowler plays with EXCEPTIONAL leverage; better than probably any of our lineman. He has no issue with behemoth defensive tackles (see Washington, Ted and Jackson, Grady) as he plays them lower than their pads. It might be his best trait.
CHRIS VILLARRIAL
He was signed because of his ability to run block, and it remains his strength. However, the Bills run most of the runs to the left now, practically eliminating that trait, and his pass blocking has always been suspect, much worse since the injury where he's had a difficult time staying light on his feet when pedaling to maintain position with a lineman. He got torched in Green Bay by an unheard-of tackle for multiple pressures and sacks, and now he's out for the season. I'm not sure if he will be on the roster next year except out of pure necessity it Marc and Co. don't pull the trigger on enough lineman in the draft/ free agency.
PENNINGTON
You can't judge a lineman after two games, but so far, it hasn't been pretty. I will reserve final judgement on him until later.
There you are. Line analysis, based mostly on the Colts game.
Since analyzing every lineman every game would make a post horrendously long, even for me, we'll go with the Colts game. Get ready for some of my patented big bold letters.
JASON PETERS
Solid. The coaching staff made a choice I'm not sure if I agree with regarding their handling of Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. Upon further review of the tape, most backfield chips were executed to Peters' side, rather than Pennington's side. This bother me for a few reasons:
Mathis is having a better season than Freeney.
Pennington is a rookie.
Peters has had more success against speed rushers than most on this line. (ex. Kampman, an "effort" rusher a la Schobel, beat Pennington on a few plays but Peters held solid on KGB)
Peters has deceptively quick feet, which allows him to maintain his positioning aginst speed rushers and keep his feet beneath him. What happens when this DOESN'T happen is the o-line equivalent of the "chuck-n-duck", which I aptly named "lunge-n-plunge". We've seen this before, mostly with Gandy earlier in the year against speed rushers. When the LT feels like he's lost the battle, sometimes he will make a last ditch effort to divert the path of the LE away to buy the QB more time. What this does in practice, however, is take you completely out the play, and more often than not, it fails.
On Booger's sack of **, Gandy did to Freeney what you will see most LTs attempt to do against Schobel; he misdirected Freeney at a wide angle to use the defender's speed to take him out of the play, opening up a nice lane for a QB or RB draw, and a passing lane to the QB's left (which is usually where the #1 receiver is located). ****** attempted to step up, but was met very rudely by Mr. Snot, er, Booger.
WHY was ** greeted by the player with the best nickname in the league?
Well that brings us to...
MIKE GANDY
Wow. Just wow. On the play in question, Gandy engages Booger, and then, for reasons unbeknownst to me even after watching the play entirely too many times, he stops blocking, and turns to look at **.
You read that right. He stopped blocking. I'm not a rocket scientist by any means, but last time I checked, O-lineman have a role on the team. What was that role...wait, give me a second...wait for it...wait for it...I GOT IT! It's to BLOCK. Why Gandy stopped is beyond me, but in my earlier posts, I was talking about how we needed to incorporate more drag routes and wuick developing "oh no" routes for **. This is the sad thing about this play. ** had Royal on a 6 yard drag, that probably would have netted about 12 yards, but tried to step up and deliver, only to be met by Booger, as well as Gandy looking back at him.
Gandy is a sub-par lineman. On ******'s "fumble" in Colts territory, when Mathis came untouched, every single lineman, starting with Gandy, blocked one man to the left of who they should have been blocking. This could went wrong twice. The line call was right from Fowler, who blocked the right guy, along with Preston. But Pennington and Gandy both were looking for people to block while Mathis ran in untouched to crunch **.
A veteran player should not be looking for people to block, even IF the line call is wrong. Gandy's physical tools are decent, but the mental apsect of his game, for the aforementioned reasons, lead me to believe he needs to be replaced.
MELVIN FOWLER
Melvin holds up at the point of attack better than his predecessor Trey Teague, and it shows. Think about it; when ** gets sacked, where is the defender coming from? More often than not it's an end, unless you're talking about the Green Bay game where the guards didn't hold up their end much either. Melvin can also get to the second level on running plays better than Teague, which helps most on draws, traps, and counters. Since the Bills usually run iso and lead (not sure if they call them 34s here or not), that benefit doesn't get seen much, unless it's a draw play on 3rd and 13 (sigh).
Melvin also seems to have developed good chemistry with **. While at the line of scrimmage, the QB and center act as one brain, dissecting what they see to attempt to determine what to pay attention to and what to ignore. It's imperative that chemistry exist between center and QB.
Fowler plays with EXCEPTIONAL leverage; better than probably any of our lineman. He has no issue with behemoth defensive tackles (see Washington, Ted and Jackson, Grady) as he plays them lower than their pads. It might be his best trait.
CHRIS VILLARRIAL
He was signed because of his ability to run block, and it remains his strength. However, the Bills run most of the runs to the left now, practically eliminating that trait, and his pass blocking has always been suspect, much worse since the injury where he's had a difficult time staying light on his feet when pedaling to maintain position with a lineman. He got torched in Green Bay by an unheard-of tackle for multiple pressures and sacks, and now he's out for the season. I'm not sure if he will be on the roster next year except out of pure necessity it Marc and Co. don't pull the trigger on enough lineman in the draft/ free agency.
PENNINGTON
You can't judge a lineman after two games, but so far, it hasn't been pretty. I will reserve final judgement on him until later.
There you are. Line analysis, based mostly on the Colts game.