my whitner perspective

[djjimkelly]

i have a very simple outlook on whitner

hes in the wrong scheme

this poor kid coming out of ohio state was touted as a safety with CB skills in fact he did play plenty of man to man at ohio state

now hes stuck in buffalo told to play cover 2 and man the deep zone.

to me thats like telling your landscaper

no dont use that lawn mower use the weed eater becuz id rather have u do it like that.


im giving this kid a pass for his 3 years here for one simple reason


he has no coach no scheme no nothing to help him be a player

[djjimkelly]

ive been preaching the cover 2 sucks from day 1 in buffalo

and the bills keep trying to square peg round hole most of our first rounders for the last 10-15 years

[BillyT92679]

Yeah, but a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. If he was great enough he could compensate more for his situation. He's not as bad as others make him out to be but I really think what you see is what you get with him.

[Prov401]

i have a very simple outlook on whitner

hes in the wrong scheme

this poor kid coming out of ohio state was touted as a safety with CB skills in fact he did play plenty of man to man at ohio state

now hes stuck in buffalo told to play cover 2 and man the deep zone.

to me thats like telling your landscaper

no dont use that lawn mower use the weed eater becuz id rather have u do it like that.


im giving this kid a pass for his 3 years here for one simple reason


he has no coach no scheme no nothing to help him be a player

100% agree. Iv'e always said the Cover 2 is horrible. I hate the scheme, it puts all of our secondary in prevent. Which means, 'hey guys, don't let up the 40 yard pass, but let the underneath 5 yard route get caught, and ran up filed for another 20 yards'. It's stupid, and most teams have abandoned it. I will say, if you have the right personel, this scheme can work better. Recently in 2006, the Colts and Bears were both in the Superbowl. Both ran Cover 2 schemes. However, it is integral to have an outstanding middle linebacker for this scheme. Speed, and flawless tackling is required. We don't have the guys for this. Our LB's are not fast.

I think Whitner can be a good saftey in the right scheme. He hits hard, and never gives up. Yea, we reached for this guy, no question, but he was projected in the first round either way. I would give him one year in a new scheme, under new coaches before I would dismiss him in a Bills uniform.

[Ickybaluky]

Indy plays the Tampa-2, right. Both their S, Bob Sanders and Antoine Bethea, manage to make big plays.

Tampa Bay playing Tampa-2 didn't keep John Lynch from becoming a big-time player, right?

You guys love to blame the coaching, but the players are ultimately responsible for their play. Can great coaches make a difference? Without doubt. But they aren't going to turn chicken salad into chicken crap, and visa-versa.

Whitner is what he is, and would be on another team. He is a steady guy who doesn't make big plays.

[bigbub2352]

You can give Whitner all the passes u want, doesnt change the fact he is late to react in covereage doesnt pick off or aniticpate throws very well, gets run over alot with his arm tackling style by RBs when he comes up to make a play, and lets not forget he is a poor blitzer form the Safety position hence why Scott is now the SS, and whitner the 8th overall pick is now at FS
Guys he is and probably should have been a CB, not a SS or a FS u can pin that on our coahcing and talent evaluation
sad pick he is a bust

[ddaryl]

he should have never been drafted at #8... Plain and simple. it was a bizzare reach.

[djjimkelly]

Indy plays the Tampa-2, right. Both their S, Bob Sanders and Antoine Bethea, manage to make big plays.

Tampa Bay playing Tampa-2 didn't keep John Lynch from becoming a big-time player, right?

You guys love to blame the coaching, but the players are ultimately responsible for their play. Can great coaches make a difference? Without doubt. But they aren't going to turn chicken salad into chicken crap, and visa-versa.

Whitner is what he is, and would be on another team. He is a steady guy who doesn't make big plays.


yeah bob sanders also has the luxury of knowing its a pass on most plays becuz indy is winning by 20

regardless i agree he should be more of a playmaker

i just truly believe no one here is set up to suceed

for example lynch is probably our best player on the team

we reward him by starting 5 new O LINE in 2009

thats all im saying the thinking at one bills drive is flawed

[Ickybaluky]

yeah bob sanders also has the luxury of knowing its a pass on most plays becuz indy is winning by 20

regardless i agree he should be more of a playmaker

i just truly believe no one here is set up to suceed

for example lynch is probably our best player on the team

we reward him by starting 5 new O LINE in 2009

thats all im saying the thinking at one bills drive is flawed

But, there are examples of guys on bad teams being real good. I mean, Oshiomogho Atogwe plays S for a pretty crappy Rams team, but has managed 16 Interceptions, 11 forced fumbles and 27 passes defensed over the last 3 years. He was play S in a similar scheme as Whitner.

[BillsOwnAll]

This boards been talking about this for 3 years now....sigh.

[djjimkelly]

But, there are examples of guys on bad teams being real good. I mean, Oshiomogho Atogwe plays S for a pretty crappy Rams team, but has managed 16 Interceptions, 11 forced fumbles and 27 passes defensed over the last 3 years. He was play S in a similar scheme as Whitner.

bro i agree

whitner should have way better stats but lets be honest

teams have attacked the other safety spot for the last couple years.

i have no clue to where to find a thrown at stat or something along that

i just dont think hes as bad as everyone thinks

hes no way near good enough to be the 8th pick in draft and we should have grabbed ngata

however i do think hes a better then the average safety

in i wont say the right situation.

id say a better situation

[Mr. Pink]

In 3 years, you should have made one big game changing play, at least.

Whitner's biggest play?

Tackling Johnnie Lee Higgins eight yards deep in the endzone.

[Nighthawk]

The guy doesn't earn his paycheck...period! Make a play, do something!

[PECKERWOOD]

Why give him a pass? Dick Jauron know's how to coach secondaries, for as bad of a coach that he is. Our staff has coached up Corner, Youboty, McKelvin, King, Greer and now it looks like Lankster is going to be a stud. I don't know about you guys but we seem to have great coaches as far as the secondary is concerned.

[djjimkelly]

In 3 years, you should have made one big game changing play, at least.

Whitner's biggest play?

Tackling Johnnie Lee Higgins eight yards deep in the endzone.


week 1 vs the pats his rookie year he won the game but a phantom penalty took it away

[Nighthawk]

Why give him a pass? Dick Jauron know's how to coach secondaries, for as bad of a coach that he is. Our staff has coached up Corner, Youboty, McKelvin, King, Greer and now it looks like Lankster is going to be a stud. I don't know about you guys but we seem to have great coaches as far as the secondary is concerned.

Ehh...I think "great" is a very strong word. How many of our CBs have led the league or been in the top 5 in interceptions? How many have gone to the Pro Bowl? How many dominant/shutdown CBs do we have or have ever had under this staff?

[PECKERWOOD]

Ehh...I think "great" is a very strong word. How many of our CBs have led the league or been in the top 5 in interceptions? How many have gone to the Pro Bowl? How many dominant/shutdown CBs do we have or have ever had under this staff?

I could have worded that better for sure, but the production is still there. Personally, I love our secondary.

[Ickybaluky]

i just dont think hes as bad as everyone thinks

hes no way near good enough to be the 8th pick in draft and we should have grabbed ngata

however i do think hes a better then the average safety

in i wont say the right situation.

id say a better situation

I'd agree he isn't as bad as some people think. However, I'm not sure he is much better than average. The fact is he hasn't made a lot of plays on the ball in his 3 years of NFL play. He hasn't been around the play as much as hoped, which would lead one to believe he doesn't read plays and anticipate where the ball is going quick enough.

3 years is a pretty good time frame to judge a player. Most players are going to exhibit their skill after that much playing time, no matter what the scheme. At that point, you have a pretty good idea of what the player is.

Occasionally a guy will get into a new situation and become something he never showed previously. However, in those cases, it is almost always a situation where the guy is playing a different position. For instance, Mike Vrabel established himself as a real good 3-4 OLB in NE after being an average DE in Pittsburgh. However, even those cases are rare.

With Whitner, I would guess at this point you can be pretty sure what he is. He is a solid player who doesn't make a lot of plays on the ball. I'm going to continue to think that until he proves otherwise.

[djjimkelly]

Ehh...I think "great" is a very strong word. How many of our CBs have led the league or been in the top 5 in interceptions? How many have gone to the Pro Bowl? How many dominant/shutdown CBs do we have or have ever had under this staff?



i think we have 2 and i will say GREAT man to man CBs starting right now

however they play zone

[jamze132]

Whitner is wasting a roster spot. When Byrd is ready, the job should be his if for no other reason than he couldn't be much worse.

[SABURZFAN]

i have a very simple outlook on whitner

hes in the wrong scheme

this poor kid coming out of ohio state was touted as a safety with CB skills in fact he did play plenty of man to man at ohio state

now hes stuck in buffalo told to play cover 2 and man the deep zone.

to me thats like telling your landscaper

no dont use that lawn mower use the weed eater becuz id rather have u do it like that.


im giving this kid a pass for his 3 years here for one simple reason


he has no coach no scheme no nothing to help him be a player


now that Losman is gone, you've managed to find another poster boy to make excuses for. :rolleyes:

[djjimkelly]

now that Losman is gone, you've managed to find another poster boy to make excuses for. :rolleyes:



lol

im so indifferent on all the bills players for the most part.

i do have favorites whitner isnt one of them

[LifetimeBillsFan]

I think that Whitner, like a number of Bills players, has enough talent to be a much bigger force on the field under a different coaching staff.

It's not the system or, at this point, the players in the system, but how those players are utilized by the coaches within the system. Yes, Lynch, Sanders and Mike Brown all were big playmakers within Tampa 2 schemes, but the coaches who used those schemes were much more aggressive than Perry Fewell in how they mixed up the calls within the scheme. Even though he was hampered by injuries, when the coaches became less aggressive in Chicago, Brown, who was a top playmaker, virtually became invisible, even when he was healthy enough to play (Urlacher's sacks, FFs and fumble recoveries also dropped dramatically as well--not because he became a worse player, but because the way he was being used in the system changed). None of Tampa Bay's safeties since Lynch departed has been the consistent playmaker that Lynch was (although for a couple of years there before they really changed the scheme to feature Barber, they did have one safety who made his share of plays--but not recently).

A perfect example of how the way players are used in a system can impact how they perform was Thursday's Pittsburgh win over Tennessee. When the Titans dropped off into a passive zone in pass coverage in the second half and were unable to get pressure with their front four, Roethlisberger carved them up so easily that even the announcers were saying that the Titans could not continue to continue making that call. Not a single Tennessee DB was able to make a play until Griffin managed to strip Ward at the end of regulation--and only because Ward was slowed by another DB and was not aware of Griffin coming up behind him. In OT, the Titans looked helpless. The only time that Tennessee got pressure on Roethlisberger and was able to stop the Steelers in the second half was when they did, briefly, mix things up and come with the blitz and played some man-coverage.

Now, most people acknowledge that Tennessee has a pretty good defense. Yet, Roethlisberger made their DBs look bad when the Titans played a passive, Cover 2 zone. That had less to do with the players playing on the defense than it did with how the coaches employed them. The same applies to the Bills and to Whitner.

How many times have Bills fans howled in frustration at the way that Perry Fewell has had the defense sit back in a passive Cover 2 zone over the last couple of years? How many times have you seen the Bills really surprise a team by properly disguising a blitz (why is it that every other team can pull off a successful corner blitz, but the Bills CBs never seem to get to the QB when they blitz?)? That's as much on the coaches as it is on the players.

Has Whitner been less than stellar in coverage? Has he missed tackles that have led to big plays for the opposition? Has he failed to make game-changing plays? Yes. There is no doubt that he could be better in all of these areas. However, it should be noted that every player--even the best safeties, like Polamalu, Sanders and Reed--gets beat or misses a tackle to give up a big play sometimes. The best ones come back and make plays that more than make up for the times they make mistakes or get beat--but they have to be in a position to make those plays, which is partly on the player, but also partly on the coaches.

A coach's job is to put a player in a position to succeed and not put him in positions where he will fail. That is part of the definition of the coach's job. But, it can hardly be said that Perry Fewell has put Whitner in positions where he could succeed. Instead, he has used Whitner to fill all of the various holes that the Bills have had in their secondary: he has played Whitner at SS, FS, CB on the outside, nickleback, and on the offense's strong side in a 3 safety, "big nickle" package. Whitner has been moved around that much because he is the only player in the Bills' secondary who has the ability to play all of those different positions. Which Fewell needed to do because he had to find someone who could fill those holes in the secondary. But, that hardly amounts to putting Whitner in a position to succeed at any one of those positions--especially with the way that Fewell has made his defensive calls.

I'm not saying that Whitner could not do better and have been more of an impact player. I think he probably could and should have played better. But, I don't think that it is all on him--I think that he would be much more of an impact player if he were playing for a different coach, even in a Tampa 2 system, who was more aggressive in his play-calling and more demanding in preparation (I believe that the Bills are not a very good tackling team because they do not work enough on their tackling in practice and rely on gang-tackling, rather than honing their individual tackling skills, far too much).

Finally, much has been made of the fact that Whitner has not lived up to his draft status as the 8th pick in the draft. To a certain extent that is true, but to a certain extent it is not.

I made a big point at the time of that draft that the Bills went into that draft needing and determined to get a SS and a DT at the top of their draft in order to fill the key spots that they needed to fill in order to run the Tampa 2 defense that they had decided to adopt. I further pointed out that the draft classes at those two positions were very thin that year, with a significant drop-off in the ratings of the prospects at those positions after the top couple of players. As a result, whether the Bills went SS first, then DT or vice versa, either way, the Bills had to try to come out of that draft with the best combination at those two positions that they possibly could.

Michael Huff was the consensus top safety in that draft. Whitner, Allen and Daniel Bullocks were the next three highest rated prospects at that position. After that, there was a significant drop-off in the ratings.

At DT, Haloti Ngata and Broderick Bunkley were the top two prospects. Ngata was considered a better fit in a 3-4, Bunkley a better fit in a 4-3 defense. The third rated DT was John McCargo. Then, there was a significant drop-off to the DT from LSU who had just been suspended for failing a drug test. The next DTs Gabe Watson, Kyle Williams and Tim Cofield were rated as 5th round prospects.

If you want to say that the Bills made a mistake in passing on Ngata you can do that. But, if they had taken Ngata, they would have had to trade back up into the first round to take Whitner in order to get the SS that they had to have. Otherwise, the Detroit or St.Louis would have taken Whitner and the Bills would have had been stuck with Daniel Bullocks-if he was even still on the board when they were to pick in the second round. Bullocks, who was taken by the Lions one pick before the Bills would have selected in the second round, was so bad that he just was cut and is out of football at present. And, you must also concede that most of the 12 other teams that passed on Ngata also made a mistake as well, including New Orleans, Tennessee, Oakland, San Francisco, Detroit, etc.

Moreover, you must also concede that, in taking Whitner, the Bills did not make the mistake of taking either Bunkley or Winston Justice--the two other players that many Bills fans wanted them to take with the 8th pick (including some who are now moaning about the fact that the Bills didn't take Ngata!)--who have performed about as well as John McCargo thus far in their careers.

Finally, if you look at the top four safeties in that draft, you would have to concede that Whitner, despite all of his faults and all of the things that he hasn't done, has been the best and most consistent player thus far in their careers. Now I know that saying that Whitner is the best of a bad bunch isn't saying much, but anyone who watched the Bills the season before Whitner was drafted will have to admit that, whether they switched to a Tampa 2 defense or not, they needed to get a safety out of that draft. So they had to take a safety with one of their top two picks regardless. And, who, of the top four rated safeties in that draft, would you have wanted them to take?

They never had a shot at taking Huff--who Bills fans would have been screaming for them to take if he had dropped to them--who has been so bad for a bad Oakland team that he has been close to being benched more than once. Allen has been so-so at best for Miami, although he has had his moments. And, Bullocks couldn't even cut it in Detroit.

OK, the Bills missed out on Ngata, who may end up being perhaps the best player out of that draft. But, remember that Ngata has benefitted by playing in a system that has been a perfect fit for his talents and been surrounded by great players ever since he came into the NFL, which has greatly aided in his development into a star player. No doubt he would have been a good player, but would he have been as dominant a player playing for the Bills and being surrounded by their cast of lesser and younger talents? It's hard to say.

Right now that year's draft is shaping up to be a pretty mediocre draft at best. While the Bills may have made a mistake in passing on Ngata and Whitner may not be the kind of impact player that one usually expects to get with the 8th pick in the first round, Whitner may well end up being one of the better picks in the first round of that draft, even if the Bills don't end up changing their coaches any time soon. And I do believe that he can become more of an impact player if he were playing for a different coaching staff.