ghz in pittsburgh
11-20-2008, 01:41 PM
The reason: I don't think our defense is good enough.
It's sad but true. Coming into this season, most people, me included, figured the Bills should have a steady, playoff caliber defense. I no longer believe that now. The supposed strength, our secondary, now becomes a liability with all the injuries. The linebackers are a little below average the whole year. The D-Line, while the tackles are better with Stroud and the improvement of Williams, the ends are just not good at all, particularly now Schobel has been out.
I become more appreciative about the importance of linebackers. The Steelers, despite all the injuries and subpar performance of big Ben this year, brings probably the best linebacker corp in the league that pushing them into #1 defense. The Pats, the Dolphins, and even the Jets have good linebacker performance. Conversely the Chargers, after Merriman is out, cannot really stopping anyone even they have a good D-Line and strong secondary.
Unfortunately for the Bills, they may have to wait another year to address the linebacker position. Defense wins championship and defense makes playoff, too. I think they need to put more emphasis on that this off season.
For now, I'd be content to play McKelvin and Corner. I think both of them can be quality NFL players. Maybe get Ellis in there a bit, too.
On offense, this will be a figuring out year for Trent. Forget about Losman. You know defense attack your weakness. With Losman, teams blitzed while covering up Lee; which means they think Losman is a weakness. With Trent, teams now use 8, sometimes 9 in coverage; which means they think our receiving targets are a weakness.
Trent is finding out now that accuracy has degrees. He is considered one with good accuracy, but he needs to throw with much more accuracy if he wants to be ranked with the elites. He needs to study his receivers as much as he studies the defense so that he has the confidence of what they will do in different situations. Despite what he said to the media, I think his confidence is shaking. We have 6 more games to see if he can climb out of it. If he does, he'll be that much better in 2010. If he does not, the search continues ...
It's sad but true. Coming into this season, most people, me included, figured the Bills should have a steady, playoff caliber defense. I no longer believe that now. The supposed strength, our secondary, now becomes a liability with all the injuries. The linebackers are a little below average the whole year. The D-Line, while the tackles are better with Stroud and the improvement of Williams, the ends are just not good at all, particularly now Schobel has been out.
I become more appreciative about the importance of linebackers. The Steelers, despite all the injuries and subpar performance of big Ben this year, brings probably the best linebacker corp in the league that pushing them into #1 defense. The Pats, the Dolphins, and even the Jets have good linebacker performance. Conversely the Chargers, after Merriman is out, cannot really stopping anyone even they have a good D-Line and strong secondary.
Unfortunately for the Bills, they may have to wait another year to address the linebacker position. Defense wins championship and defense makes playoff, too. I think they need to put more emphasis on that this off season.
For now, I'd be content to play McKelvin and Corner. I think both of them can be quality NFL players. Maybe get Ellis in there a bit, too.
On offense, this will be a figuring out year for Trent. Forget about Losman. You know defense attack your weakness. With Losman, teams blitzed while covering up Lee; which means they think Losman is a weakness. With Trent, teams now use 8, sometimes 9 in coverage; which means they think our receiving targets are a weakness.
Trent is finding out now that accuracy has degrees. He is considered one with good accuracy, but he needs to throw with much more accuracy if he wants to be ranked with the elites. He needs to study his receivers as much as he studies the defense so that he has the confidence of what they will do in different situations. Despite what he said to the media, I think his confidence is shaking. We have 6 more games to see if he can climb out of it. If he does, he'll be that much better in 2010. If he does not, the search continues ...