patmoran2006
11-29-2010, 01:32 PM
Here are some things we learned about the Bills following the heartbreaking loss to Pittsburgh.
Steve Johnson Has Plenty Of Maturing To Do: I’m not going to pile on Johnson much; Lord knows he’s gotten plenty of it over the past 24 hours and didn’t help himself with his Twitter nonsense afterward. Plus, the drop seems to be all anyone wants to talk about it and I don’t want to hog up a lot of space on this with so much more to get to. I’ll just say I hope he learned a long-term lesson Sunday. The difference between a hero and goat at football’s highest level is miniscule and those who prepare the best—- play best.
Johnson spent all of last week making a national name for himself, doing countless interviews with the national media and spending plenty of time doing his own tweeting. I’m OK with that; Bills fans have complained about our irrelevancy for a long time and Buffalo finally had a player worthy of being on ESPN and every major media outlet. But it’s crystal clear it affected his preparation for the Steelers, as evidenced by five critical dropped passes.
Johnson is a very good player and will be an important part of Buffalo’s eventual turnaround. He already feels bad enough without fans dumping on him; so just hope he can flush Sunday out of his system soon, but learns a valuable lesson in the process. It’s not like the drop will cost Buffalo a playoff spot; give the man a chance to redeem himself.
The Bills Can Win With Ryan Fitzpatrick: Against the Steelers, some of his shortcomings were on display. Fitzpatrick had a miserable first half, throwing balls behind receivers under duress and overall looked extremely inaccurate. But he got it together in the second half against one of the best defenses in the league. He took a cheap near the head from James Harrison and didn’t get rattled. Fitzpatrick is gutsy, smart, poised and his teammates believe in him.
Plus, his numbers were pretty darn good; He still threw for 245 yards and a score and the one interception he had was Johnson’s, not his fault. He’s averaging better than two touchdown passes per game in his nine starts.
He’ll never be confused with Brady, Manning or Brees, but that doesn’t mean he can’t sustain success in this league. Plus, aside from Andrew Luck, I don’t see a quarterback worthy of a top five draft pick. Cam Newton and Ryan Mallet have humongous “boom or bust” factors; a risk I think is too great for Buffalo to take. Buddy Nix can’t afford another Maybin situation in this rebuilding process.
Just remember; the Bills have literally been within a single play of beating AFC contenders Pittsburgh and Baltimore with Fitzpatrick under center and in his first start put up 30 on the Patriots.
I’ve seen enough of Fitzpatrick at this point to be confident he’s part of the solution, not the problem. If you want to develop a quarterback taken in the middle of the draft for the long haul that’s fine, but I’m convinced the Bills can be winners with Fitzpatrick at the helm. Despite the old man beard, Fitzpatrick’s only 28 years old. He’s got room to grow even more.
Kyle Williams Is Elite: If he hadn’t already, Williams put the rest of the league on notice Sunday that he’s one of the best at his position. 10 tackles, two sacks, countless pressures and he drew four (wow) holding penalties in a game? If he played for the Jets or Patriots he’d be a Pro Bowl lock by now. Williams was simply unblock able Sunday and if you don’t believe me ask Chris Kemoeatu. Torrel Troup looked good in a backup role as well. Buffalo is set at defensive tackle.
Alex Carrington Can Play: It was a shame to see Dwan Edwards go down with a hamstring injury. He’s going to miss at least two games and quite possibly more. The good news is it gave third round pick Alex Carrington playing time and he took advantage in a big way. Carrington had a sack, came close to getting two more and drew a holding penalty. It makes you wonder what the coaching staff was thinking by barely playing him for much of this season. Countless people, including myself weren’t happy with using a third rounder on a bench warmer, but Carrington showed Sunday he could become an important part of this defense in the future. In fact, his progress will almost certainly spell the end for Marcus Stroud after this season.
Lee Evans Is Losing It: One catch for nine yards and the reception ended up in a lost fumble. Evans is still playing hard, but he’s no longer productive. On a critical fourth quarter drive as the Bills were going in to tie the game, Fitzpatrick went to Johnson on both third and fourth down plays, never looking in Evans direction. David Nelson played a more important role in the offense than Evans.
He’s gone four straight games with fewer than four catches and has been shut out of the end zone during that time. We’re 11 games into the season and Evans only has 34 catches for 506 yards. Those are third receiver numbers on most other teams.
Amazingly, Evans makes more than a million per year more than Houston’s Andre Johnson. With the development of the younger receivers and Marcus Easley ready to play in 2011, Nix may want to send feelers around the league this offseason to see if Evans can bring Buffalo some value in a trade.
Demetrius Bell Isn’t: If the Bills hand out an award for most improved player, my vote is going to Bell. He hasn’t given up a sack officially all season, but struggled early in the year. That’s not the case anymore. His play has been so strong in recent weeks, at least from what I see, that left tackle is actually becoming an asset in Buffalo.
It’s funny now that going into Buffalo’s last draft the sentiment was quarterback and left tackle had to come before all else. Ironically, the two spots have become quite possibly our biggest strengths.
Bell’s play is developing enough that Nix can turn his attention towards right tackle next year, and that’s assuming that Mansfield Wrotto and/or Cordaro Howard can’t hold that down in a starting role… and I’m not convinced one or both can’t do that either.
If The Bills Have One Real Offensive Need: It has to be tight end. Jonathan Stupar leads all tight ends with seven receptions. Tony Martin is little more than a blocker and I don’t even know what to make of Shawn Nelson anymore. He’s barely played since losing the overtime fumble in Baltimore several weeks ago. Buffalo has seen firsthand all season how valuable tight ends can be when they’re playing against them. It would be nice to have a big (literally) weapon over the middle of the field. After years of neglect, it’s time to make tight end a priority in Buffalo.
Cornerback is a Concern: While quarterback and offensive line play have been a pleasant surprise, the play of the corners has been downright suspect. It’s odd considering our secondary was supposed to be among the best in the NFL. I paid particularly close attention to Drayton Florence against the Steelers and the results weren’t good. He was abused over the middle on several crossing routes and threw in an illegal contact penalty for good measure.
Here’s the bottom line when it comes to our corners; Florence will be a free agent at season’s end, Terence McGee is breaking down physically more and more each season (his knee kept him off the field again Sunday), Leodis McKelvin is still inconsistent and Reggie Corner is not starting corner worthy. It seemed unfathomable going into this season, but finding a quality corner may be a high priority over the winter. Could LSU’s Patrick Peterson be an early first round target of Nix?
Urbik Was a Solid Addition: Making his first start in place of injured Eric Wood Sunday, Urbik more than held his own against the team that let him go. Urbik did a good job in protecting Fitzpatrick and on Fred Jackson’s 65-yard touchdown; it was Urbik that made the key block 15 yards up the field that sprung him to the end zone. I’d like to see a lot more of Urbik whether Wood gets healthy or not.
Perhaps he could give Chan Gailey the option of moving Wood to center next season, or they could give Andy Levitre a shot at right tackle in 2011. Regardless, I like the way the kid looks on the field and its nice knowing the interior won’t automatically fall apart if a starter goes down.
The Coaching Is Getting Better: There are little things I saw against Pittsburgh I didn’t see early in the season that shows me this team is learning a lot more about winning football. For example, early in the season a Bills running back couldn’t identify and pick up a blitz to save their lives. That wasn’t the case Sunday as both Jackson and Quinton Ganther did an excellent job of moving around to pick off rushing linebackers. To me, that’s a sign of much better preparation. I also see receivers breaking off patterns at the right time based on defensive calls.
With the exception of deferring the opening kickoff (something I hate doing for the record), Gailey is really starting to call much better games. At the very least, he’s miles ahead of Dick Jauron.
Chris Kelsay, Your Still Brutal: A lot of fans will remember and be satisfied with Kelsay’s huge goal line sack on Roethlisberger that nearly gave Buffalo the overtime win before Johnson even had a chance to drop the game winner. But if you go back and re-watch the entire game, I assure you’ll see Kelsay was mostly terrible. He was out of position all game long and missed several tackles when he had his shots.
If he can make game changing plays more often like he did in overtime I’ll be happy to back off, but until he shows any sign of consistency I’ll continue to question what dirt this man has on the organization to warrant a $24-million extension.
The Good, And Bad Donte Whitner: It’s so tough to gage this guy. On one hand, Whitner had a mind-popping 17 tackles and unlike earlier in the season, they all weren’t 15 yards down the field with his patented falling shoulder hit. But he continues to be dreadful in pass coverage. There was a 25-yard completion over the middle to Heath Miller in the fourth quarter where I swear Whitner must’ve been lined up in the parking lot. I wonder if Whitner’s play or George Edwards coaching is the bigger problem.
Whitner is going to be a free agent and Nix is going to have a tough decision to make. I’ve come around enough on him that I wouldn’t mind having him back in Buffalo next year, just not if he’s going to get overpaid anywhere in the ballpark Kelsay was.
Offseason Priority No. 1 Without Question Is Linebacker: Nix needs to use every free agent and draft resource at his dispersal to find better linebackers. Paul Posluszny is going to be a free agent. I say let him walk. He’s no better in 2010 than he was in 2007. Kelsay, Reggie Torbor, Andra Davis and Akin Adoyele are all journeyman in starting Buffalo roles. Aaron Maybin is toast. While we’re probably stuck with Kelsay due to the extension, this a team that should have three new starters at linebacker next season.
Arthur Moats has shown potential in recent weeks but linebacker is far and away this team’s biggest weakness.
Don’t Get Me Started On Maybin: He played one snap in the first half and drew a holding penalty. Don’t get excited; the hold was on Jonathan Scott. Furthermore, he barely played after that, proving this coaching staff has zero confidence in him. I’d be shocked if he’s in Buffalo next year, so I’m not going to waste space and energy discussing him.
Lastly, This Team is NOT Bad: I generally believe in the wide-spread philosophy that “you are what your record says you are.” But I really am developing a soft spot for this Bills team. They are a much better 2-9 team than the Detroit Lions or Cincinnati Bengals. You can’t discount them losing four straight games by three points, with all of them being against teams that would be in the NFL playoffs if the postseason started today.
It’s not going to happen this year obviously, but I have a lot of confidence this team is going to turn things around. The Bills are much better off at critical positions (quarterback, left tackle, wide receiver) than I ever thought they could be with this personnel at training camp.
They still need help and most of it needs to come on the defensive side. I also think Edwards could be a one-and-done defensive coordinator. But this is at least an offense right now that can win eight games and if the defense can get up to speed with more difference makers, the Bills could leapfrog an awful lot of teams in 2011.
That is of course, assuming there is a 2011 season. It would be just Buffalo’s luck.
Steve Johnson Has Plenty Of Maturing To Do: I’m not going to pile on Johnson much; Lord knows he’s gotten plenty of it over the past 24 hours and didn’t help himself with his Twitter nonsense afterward. Plus, the drop seems to be all anyone wants to talk about it and I don’t want to hog up a lot of space on this with so much more to get to. I’ll just say I hope he learned a long-term lesson Sunday. The difference between a hero and goat at football’s highest level is miniscule and those who prepare the best—- play best.
Johnson spent all of last week making a national name for himself, doing countless interviews with the national media and spending plenty of time doing his own tweeting. I’m OK with that; Bills fans have complained about our irrelevancy for a long time and Buffalo finally had a player worthy of being on ESPN and every major media outlet. But it’s crystal clear it affected his preparation for the Steelers, as evidenced by five critical dropped passes.
Johnson is a very good player and will be an important part of Buffalo’s eventual turnaround. He already feels bad enough without fans dumping on him; so just hope he can flush Sunday out of his system soon, but learns a valuable lesson in the process. It’s not like the drop will cost Buffalo a playoff spot; give the man a chance to redeem himself.
The Bills Can Win With Ryan Fitzpatrick: Against the Steelers, some of his shortcomings were on display. Fitzpatrick had a miserable first half, throwing balls behind receivers under duress and overall looked extremely inaccurate. But he got it together in the second half against one of the best defenses in the league. He took a cheap near the head from James Harrison and didn’t get rattled. Fitzpatrick is gutsy, smart, poised and his teammates believe in him.
Plus, his numbers were pretty darn good; He still threw for 245 yards and a score and the one interception he had was Johnson’s, not his fault. He’s averaging better than two touchdown passes per game in his nine starts.
He’ll never be confused with Brady, Manning or Brees, but that doesn’t mean he can’t sustain success in this league. Plus, aside from Andrew Luck, I don’t see a quarterback worthy of a top five draft pick. Cam Newton and Ryan Mallet have humongous “boom or bust” factors; a risk I think is too great for Buffalo to take. Buddy Nix can’t afford another Maybin situation in this rebuilding process.
Just remember; the Bills have literally been within a single play of beating AFC contenders Pittsburgh and Baltimore with Fitzpatrick under center and in his first start put up 30 on the Patriots.
I’ve seen enough of Fitzpatrick at this point to be confident he’s part of the solution, not the problem. If you want to develop a quarterback taken in the middle of the draft for the long haul that’s fine, but I’m convinced the Bills can be winners with Fitzpatrick at the helm. Despite the old man beard, Fitzpatrick’s only 28 years old. He’s got room to grow even more.
Kyle Williams Is Elite: If he hadn’t already, Williams put the rest of the league on notice Sunday that he’s one of the best at his position. 10 tackles, two sacks, countless pressures and he drew four (wow) holding penalties in a game? If he played for the Jets or Patriots he’d be a Pro Bowl lock by now. Williams was simply unblock able Sunday and if you don’t believe me ask Chris Kemoeatu. Torrel Troup looked good in a backup role as well. Buffalo is set at defensive tackle.
Alex Carrington Can Play: It was a shame to see Dwan Edwards go down with a hamstring injury. He’s going to miss at least two games and quite possibly more. The good news is it gave third round pick Alex Carrington playing time and he took advantage in a big way. Carrington had a sack, came close to getting two more and drew a holding penalty. It makes you wonder what the coaching staff was thinking by barely playing him for much of this season. Countless people, including myself weren’t happy with using a third rounder on a bench warmer, but Carrington showed Sunday he could become an important part of this defense in the future. In fact, his progress will almost certainly spell the end for Marcus Stroud after this season.
Lee Evans Is Losing It: One catch for nine yards and the reception ended up in a lost fumble. Evans is still playing hard, but he’s no longer productive. On a critical fourth quarter drive as the Bills were going in to tie the game, Fitzpatrick went to Johnson on both third and fourth down plays, never looking in Evans direction. David Nelson played a more important role in the offense than Evans.
He’s gone four straight games with fewer than four catches and has been shut out of the end zone during that time. We’re 11 games into the season and Evans only has 34 catches for 506 yards. Those are third receiver numbers on most other teams.
Amazingly, Evans makes more than a million per year more than Houston’s Andre Johnson. With the development of the younger receivers and Marcus Easley ready to play in 2011, Nix may want to send feelers around the league this offseason to see if Evans can bring Buffalo some value in a trade.
Demetrius Bell Isn’t: If the Bills hand out an award for most improved player, my vote is going to Bell. He hasn’t given up a sack officially all season, but struggled early in the year. That’s not the case anymore. His play has been so strong in recent weeks, at least from what I see, that left tackle is actually becoming an asset in Buffalo.
It’s funny now that going into Buffalo’s last draft the sentiment was quarterback and left tackle had to come before all else. Ironically, the two spots have become quite possibly our biggest strengths.
Bell’s play is developing enough that Nix can turn his attention towards right tackle next year, and that’s assuming that Mansfield Wrotto and/or Cordaro Howard can’t hold that down in a starting role… and I’m not convinced one or both can’t do that either.
If The Bills Have One Real Offensive Need: It has to be tight end. Jonathan Stupar leads all tight ends with seven receptions. Tony Martin is little more than a blocker and I don’t even know what to make of Shawn Nelson anymore. He’s barely played since losing the overtime fumble in Baltimore several weeks ago. Buffalo has seen firsthand all season how valuable tight ends can be when they’re playing against them. It would be nice to have a big (literally) weapon over the middle of the field. After years of neglect, it’s time to make tight end a priority in Buffalo.
Cornerback is a Concern: While quarterback and offensive line play have been a pleasant surprise, the play of the corners has been downright suspect. It’s odd considering our secondary was supposed to be among the best in the NFL. I paid particularly close attention to Drayton Florence against the Steelers and the results weren’t good. He was abused over the middle on several crossing routes and threw in an illegal contact penalty for good measure.
Here’s the bottom line when it comes to our corners; Florence will be a free agent at season’s end, Terence McGee is breaking down physically more and more each season (his knee kept him off the field again Sunday), Leodis McKelvin is still inconsistent and Reggie Corner is not starting corner worthy. It seemed unfathomable going into this season, but finding a quality corner may be a high priority over the winter. Could LSU’s Patrick Peterson be an early first round target of Nix?
Urbik Was a Solid Addition: Making his first start in place of injured Eric Wood Sunday, Urbik more than held his own against the team that let him go. Urbik did a good job in protecting Fitzpatrick and on Fred Jackson’s 65-yard touchdown; it was Urbik that made the key block 15 yards up the field that sprung him to the end zone. I’d like to see a lot more of Urbik whether Wood gets healthy or not.
Perhaps he could give Chan Gailey the option of moving Wood to center next season, or they could give Andy Levitre a shot at right tackle in 2011. Regardless, I like the way the kid looks on the field and its nice knowing the interior won’t automatically fall apart if a starter goes down.
The Coaching Is Getting Better: There are little things I saw against Pittsburgh I didn’t see early in the season that shows me this team is learning a lot more about winning football. For example, early in the season a Bills running back couldn’t identify and pick up a blitz to save their lives. That wasn’t the case Sunday as both Jackson and Quinton Ganther did an excellent job of moving around to pick off rushing linebackers. To me, that’s a sign of much better preparation. I also see receivers breaking off patterns at the right time based on defensive calls.
With the exception of deferring the opening kickoff (something I hate doing for the record), Gailey is really starting to call much better games. At the very least, he’s miles ahead of Dick Jauron.
Chris Kelsay, Your Still Brutal: A lot of fans will remember and be satisfied with Kelsay’s huge goal line sack on Roethlisberger that nearly gave Buffalo the overtime win before Johnson even had a chance to drop the game winner. But if you go back and re-watch the entire game, I assure you’ll see Kelsay was mostly terrible. He was out of position all game long and missed several tackles when he had his shots.
If he can make game changing plays more often like he did in overtime I’ll be happy to back off, but until he shows any sign of consistency I’ll continue to question what dirt this man has on the organization to warrant a $24-million extension.
The Good, And Bad Donte Whitner: It’s so tough to gage this guy. On one hand, Whitner had a mind-popping 17 tackles and unlike earlier in the season, they all weren’t 15 yards down the field with his patented falling shoulder hit. But he continues to be dreadful in pass coverage. There was a 25-yard completion over the middle to Heath Miller in the fourth quarter where I swear Whitner must’ve been lined up in the parking lot. I wonder if Whitner’s play or George Edwards coaching is the bigger problem.
Whitner is going to be a free agent and Nix is going to have a tough decision to make. I’ve come around enough on him that I wouldn’t mind having him back in Buffalo next year, just not if he’s going to get overpaid anywhere in the ballpark Kelsay was.
Offseason Priority No. 1 Without Question Is Linebacker: Nix needs to use every free agent and draft resource at his dispersal to find better linebackers. Paul Posluszny is going to be a free agent. I say let him walk. He’s no better in 2010 than he was in 2007. Kelsay, Reggie Torbor, Andra Davis and Akin Adoyele are all journeyman in starting Buffalo roles. Aaron Maybin is toast. While we’re probably stuck with Kelsay due to the extension, this a team that should have three new starters at linebacker next season.
Arthur Moats has shown potential in recent weeks but linebacker is far and away this team’s biggest weakness.
Don’t Get Me Started On Maybin: He played one snap in the first half and drew a holding penalty. Don’t get excited; the hold was on Jonathan Scott. Furthermore, he barely played after that, proving this coaching staff has zero confidence in him. I’d be shocked if he’s in Buffalo next year, so I’m not going to waste space and energy discussing him.
Lastly, This Team is NOT Bad: I generally believe in the wide-spread philosophy that “you are what your record says you are.” But I really am developing a soft spot for this Bills team. They are a much better 2-9 team than the Detroit Lions or Cincinnati Bengals. You can’t discount them losing four straight games by three points, with all of them being against teams that would be in the NFL playoffs if the postseason started today.
It’s not going to happen this year obviously, but I have a lot of confidence this team is going to turn things around. The Bills are much better off at critical positions (quarterback, left tackle, wide receiver) than I ever thought they could be with this personnel at training camp.
They still need help and most of it needs to come on the defensive side. I also think Edwards could be a one-and-done defensive coordinator. But this is at least an offense right now that can win eight games and if the defense can get up to speed with more difference makers, the Bills could leapfrog an awful lot of teams in 2011.
That is of course, assuming there is a 2011 season. It would be just Buffalo’s luck.