This is the 1st year to see if our O Line is good or not.

[Mitchell55]

Last year was a 1st year for Doc, Walker, and Butler to play a game as a bill. Fowler and Peters had to deal with a new RB and they struggled. Now that they know each other a little better and know Lynchs running style, they should be alot better.

[John Doe]

I think that the line would have looked better last year if Lynch and Edwards had more experience. Many times Lynch kept trying to make a big play out of nothing and ended up losing yardage instead of just taking the 1 yard gain. The experience that they gained is going to be a big factor this year.

[jamze132]

eh, yeah, I woudn't say Peter's struggled?

He did kind of, sort of, just a little bit get selected to the Pro Bowl...

[Mitchell55]

eh, yeah, I woudn't say Peter's struggled?

He did kind of, sort of, just a little bit get selected to the Pro Bowl...



Meant to just say fowler. I combined 2 things into 1 sentence.

[jamze132]

Meant to just say fowler. I combined 2 things into 1 sentence.
Yeah, I will give you Fowler.

[Luisito23]

MLynch23 always comes up with the best threads!

[Tatonka]

eh, yeah, I woudn't say Peter's struggled?

He did kind of, sort of, just a little bit get selected to the Pro Bowl...

because everyone knows the probowl is always about talent or who is playing the best, not popularity or being the trendy "up and comer" pick.

[X-Era]

Last year was a 1st year for Doc, Walker, and Butler to play a game as a bill. Fowler and Peters had to deal with a new RB and they struggled. Now that they know each other a little better and know Lynchs running style, they should be alot better.
Is this the same OL that recorded a franchise low number of sacks for the year?

and they struggled?

They will be better because they are the same with no changes. But we had a rookie RB run for 1100 yards in 13 games, no I think were just fine.

That said, we can go from good to one of the better OL's in the league with further development.

Heres the link on sack total (26), read down a bit:

http://www.buffalobills.com/news/news.jsp?news_id=5810

[coastal]

The reason our running game sucked (and our whole offense for that matter) is that oppposing teams knew what we were doing before we did half the time.

The ineptitude at the offensive coordinator position was mind boggling.

The biggest source of confusion for me, is why did it take Jauron till the end of the year to do anything about it?

[Jan Reimers]

I look for Butler to continue to improve. In fact, I think he will become one of our better linemen.

[yordad]

I don't know if you guys know, but our yards per carry was highest running behind Butler, and lowest running behind Peters.

[Bone]

MLynch23 always comes up with the best threads!

Agreed!

[jamze132]

because everyone knows the probowl is always about talent or who is playing the best, not popularity or being the trendy "up and comer" pick.
That's the exact coment I would expect from you.

Peter's deserved that selection as much as anyone in the NFL did.

[Mahdi]

I don't know if you guys know, but our yards per carry was highest running behind Butler, and lowest running behind Peters.
I definitely noticed that... Lynch had a lot of good runs behind Walker and Butler. One reason is teams expecting us to run left the other is that Walker is just a very good run blocker. IMO Walker played just as well as Peters did last year.

[Philagape]

The line had a split personality last year .... Excellent pass protection, horrible run blocking.
I'm not going to go searching for it, but wasn't there talk here about the run blocking being at least partially due to Fairchild's blocking scheme, which even McNally didn't support?

[Mahdi]

The line had a split personality last year .... Excellent pass protection, horrible run blocking.
I'm not going to go searching for it, but wasn't there talk here about the run blocking being at least partially due to Fairchild's blocking scheme, which even McNally didn't support?
The Bills were running a zone-blocking scheme early on in the season and McNally said that they decided to move away from it later on in the season. We have the biggest OL in the league which is not characteristic of a zone-blocking line such as the ones Denver and Atlanta had with slimmer, quicker linemen. Our blocking this year will be based mainly on straight ahead blocking and pulling which should suit our line.


The other reason we had trouble run blocking this year was that we played so many 3-4 defenses. You have to have very good cohesion and line chemistry to run block against 3-4 teams effectively because of all the moving parts in a 3-4 that OLmen have to adjust to and know who is blocking who. If you look at our stats in the run game against the 4-3 teams we played last year there will be a significant difference.