Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

[BillsImpossible]

Kyle Williams will be back in 2016 and turns 33 years old in June. His knee injury rehab schedule is right on track, and I expect Williams to have another excellent year without injury. Every time he's been injured, Williams comes back the next season better than before. 33 isn't old, he's got at least another year or 2 left in his powerful tank. After losing KW to injury in Week 6 against the Bengals, the Bills defense struggled to replace him. Having Kyle Williams back on the field is a huge plus.

Cutting Mario Williams is addition by subtraction. His teammates knew he quit last year, and the Bills D won't miss him or his colored contacts one bit.

Preston Brown had a bad year in 2015. It was more mental than physical. If any coach can teach a guy how to be more vocal, it's Rex Ryan and his twin brother, Rob Ryan. Vocalizing was Brown's problem last year, he couldn't communicate with his defense loud enough because he wasn't used to barking out orders like a Drill Instructor on Parris Island, SC. I have no doubt that Preston Brown will learn from his past mistakes and return to form with a new, much louder voice.

The return of Aaron Williams helps the Bills secondary a lot if he can stay healthy. Much like Stephon Gilmore, AW gets injured too often because he's over aggressive and lacks body control. It's very hard for a fish out of water to recover from blown coverage without being overly aggressive and getting hurt in the process.

I was always a fan of Donnie Henderson, but I can see why Ryan and Whaley let him go. He gave his players too much free will to his players, which was a detriment to the overall defensive system/scheme, and health of Aaron Williams, Stephon Gilmore and every other DB on this Bills roster.

If Doug Whaley can manage to draft 2 defensive players and they earn the right to start in Week 1, the Bills 2016 defense will be better than 2015.

When it comes to defensive talent, this year's NFL Draft is loaded with potential.

The Bills defense is 1 rookie linebacker, and 1 rookie defensive lineman away from being better than they were last year.

[YardRat]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

Well, they really can't do much worse without completely bottoming out, but there is room to move in either direction.

Points per game-15--Worse
Yards per game-19--Worse
Yards per point-9--Worse
1st downs allowed per game-20-Better
3rd down % allowed-23-Better
Fumbles recovered-22-Better
Rush yards per game-16-Better
Passing yards per game-19-Worse
Sacks-31-Better
Interceptions-6-Worse
QB rating-10-Worse

[Mace]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

My honest opinion is worse, though I think they should feed Ryan his players for his D or it will be even worse.

Been noted before they have complex playcalls and roles not easily learned by vets so won't be much diff for rookies no matter their talent. The two most ridiculous choices to drop into coverage, Kyle and Dareus are still there and will be dropped into coverage.

Biggest point to me is that this league has been chewing on Ryan's defense already for years, piles of film on it. More so in this division even. In doubling down on his scheme (and I think he was entirely serious without misdirection in his oblivious "I'm a genius, I'll show you all" mindset in saying it), any team with a staff worth a crap is going to know how to game plan for it. It's my opinion the league already solved it, and Ryan is neither adaptable or creative enough to change it.

So before Cookie asks, why do I say we need to feed him players for it ? Because that's the only way it might work better (will never be optimal) the year after. Rex is not going anywhere and will absolutely be here anyway, or else we have to rebuild out of his stupid scheme obsession that we just rebuilt into.

[Mr. Pink]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

Worse.

For as much as people bag on Mario Williams, he was still a force - when he wanted to be - that needed to be gameplanned and accounted for, for oppositions offensive gameplanning. The lose of him makes it easier for the opposition to gameplan and easier for them to pass block. This also will limit the ability of other passrushers, like Hughes, to have as big of an impact.

Weakened pass rush = weakened pass defense overall.

[OpIv37]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

I don't see how it can possibly be better. We lost Mario and Bradham. Granted, Bradham is average by NFL standards and Mario was overpaid, but who have we added that's equal or better? Where is the additional talent coming from when we are up against the cap and all the big FA's are signed?

[Victor7]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

Lets see if we draft someone of impact with the 19th pick.

But as of today I say worst. We already saw what Rex did in one year to an elite defense. Another year of his crap will take us further deep into the abyss.

[Figster]

Re: Do You Think The Bills Defense Will Be Better or Worse In 2016?

I don't see how it can possibly be better. We lost Mario and Bradham. Granted, Bradham is average by NFL standards and Mario was overpaid, but who have we added that's equal or better? Where is the additional talent coming from when we are up against the cap and all the big FA's are signed?

I don't see how it could get much worse, between mistakes/penalties, injuries, and players simply not buying into the system the talent level didn't mean squat IMO.


Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard...