Hopefully Drew isn't too excited for this game like the last one

[PA Season Ticket Holder]

It seems Drew thought of the last game as fun too much instead of business. It's not a family reunion, it's football and business.

I can understand looking foward to playing against your old team and some of your buddies, but I think Drew got a little carried away last time.

Hopefully he'll put business in front of pleasure this time. Remember what uniform you're wearing Drew. You're not in Foxboro anymore.

[WCoastFin]

Drew wasnt excited, he was exposed!

[WG]

Indeed!

Hopefully Drew won't continue to get worse and worse just like he has.

Exposed is a good word. I'm tired of defending a bunch of chumps who have everything they need to put up 30-34 points a game and struggle to put up 17.

It's pathetic!

[WCoastFin]

there you go Wys you know what Im talking about....

[WG]

Dude, this isn't steppin' out here. All one has to do is to look at the way the offense has gone since the first 5 games or so.

It's a travesty!

[PA Season Ticket Holder]

He was the same Drew as he was in the first game out there today.

[The_Philster]

Let's just face it, Belichek is the best defensive guy in the league. He stopped us in Super Bowl XXV...with a little help from our shoddy tackling, he kept Flutie under wraps while we had him, and he's got Bledsoe's number.

[itsandthings]

Bledsoe was exposed in the first game against NE.

In the first 8 games the Bills went 5-3 while Bledsoe's numbers were:

203-for-318 (63.8%), 2500 yds (7.86 yds/att), 16 TD (5.03 TD%), 5 Int (1.57%), 98.3 QB Rating.

In the last 5 games starting with the first NE game the Bills are 1-4 while Bledsoe has gone:

120-for-192 (62.5%), 1342 (6.99 Yds/att), 7 TD (3.65 TD%), 8 Int (4.17 Int%), 78.1 QB Rating.


The Bills averaged 28.9 ppg in their first 8 games but only 18.2 ppg in their last 5 games. Bledsoe didn't play well in 4 of the 5 games, and probably would have been poor in the 5th except that Miami is stupid enough to not follow the blueprint Belichick has outlined for defensing Bledsoe.

Face it, when teams play cover-2 and take away the deep pass while bringing pressure up the middle Bledsoe becomes average. While the Patriots didn't pressure Bledsoe a lot yesterday, but they did collapse the middle of the OL and not allow Bledsoe to step up into the pocket. If you can do that then you force Bledsoe to move out of the pocket, either to the side or backwards. As soon as he has to pull the ball down, mistakes follow.

I would expect Bledsoe to see a similar defensive schemes for the remainder of the season. His trouble with it goes back to his last few years in NE.

[WG]

"...and probably would have been poor in the 5th except that Miami is stupid enough to not follow the blueprint Belichick has outlined for defensing Bledsoe."

its,

He wasn't good in the Miami game. He had three passes that basically accounted for that game. 177 yards total. After that he was 12 of 24 for around 130 or so.

On "those" 3 passes, one was short, 11 yards, and run downfield by Price. So give Price credit for outrunning three or four defenders. The second was tipped into Moulds' hands by Madison, so thank Madison, not Drew.

Drew has gotten worse as the season has progressed and has played his worst ball against our own divisional rivals. Not giving me any hope is the fact that that's no different than it was while he was at N.E. He struggled mightily there against the East.

IMO he really needs to step up these last three games or there're is going to be a cascade of criticism from many sources. By stepping up I don't mean tons of yardage either. I mean good solid, effective, error-free football for the most part. 30 attempts is fine assuming we run Henry. Drew just has to not toss the game in however many passes he throws.

Your assessment is dead on however. And I have no idea where any hope for next season's offensive performances are going to come from if the coaches, including Gilbride, don't get fired. We upgraded our O this season and don't have either the resources or ability to upgrade a whole lot further.

Our OL is fine. If Drew is waiting for the Hogs of '92 it ain't happenin'! WRs/TEs aren't going to get much better. Henry's playing as well as any RB in the league right now and may have been leading the AFC if Gilbride knew how to utilize a RB.

The offense is set and it still can't put up points and compete. Our D could have held N.E. to 18 yesterday and we still wouldn't have won.

[Earthquake Enyart]

When are you people going to learn? When you take away all the long plays, these guys aren't all that good.

[TedMock]

I agree that Drew's performance, excluding last week, has declined over the past few weeks. He made some seriously bad decisions yesterday too. I also think that if the defense didn't suck so bad that some of these decisions wouldn't have been made. I am not making excuses for what he did because there are none but don't you think that if the "D" was playing well at all we would be able to run a more efficient offense and use Henry better. I think we get away from him way too fast and that they panic too fast and put all the burden on the QB. That's more OC and DC fault than it is the players. Drew had a horrible game but if they can't stop anybody KG is going to put the offense in bad situations with his playcalling and make the QB feel that he has to make a play. I would hope that if the D holds a team to 18 points the offensive play calling is then different. Maybe not but god I hope that's the case next year. The D's so bad that Drew can't make a mistake and when he does it's magnified so much. Peyton Manning threw 3 picks yesterday and ESPN gave a lot more time to Drew's. Although the Colts lost their defense didn't allow every turnover to convert to a score.

[mybills]

Originally posted by PA Season Ticket Holder
He was the same Drew as he was in the first game out there today.

He was the same Drew as he was in NE.
Which is exactly why I said I didn't want him to begin with.

[WG]

The problem is that Gilbride (and the fans) have made him the "go-to" guy when he's never excelled in that role. He plays OK when he's got at team around him. But even now, he's not even doing that.

We'll be fine if and when we have an O.C. that makes Henry the focal point of this offense. Otherwise, we're sunk. I suspect that we'll keep Drew around until that option year kicks in, then we'll part ways. I'm fine w/ him here as long as he isn't the focus of the offense which he is.

[colin]

Originally posted by itsandthings
Bledsoe was exposed in the first game against NE.

In the first 8 games the Bills went 5-3 while Bledsoe's numbers were:

203-for-318 (63.8%), 2500 yds (7.86 yds/att), 16 TD (5.03 TD%), 5 Int (1.57%), 98.3 QB Rating.

In the last 5 games starting with the first NE game the Bills are 1-4 while Bledsoe has gone:

120-for-192 (62.5%), 1342 (6.99 Yds/att), 7 TD (3.65 TD%), 8 Int (4.17 Int%), 78.1 QB Rating.


The Bills averaged 28.9 ppg in their first 8 games but only 18.2 ppg in their last 5 games. Bledsoe didn't play well in 4 of the 5 games, and probably would have been poor in the 5th except that Miami is stupid enough to not follow the blueprint Belichick has outlined for defensing Bledsoe.

Face it, when teams play cover-2 and take away the deep pass while bringing pressure up the middle Bledsoe becomes average. While the Patriots didn't pressure Bledsoe a lot yesterday, but they did collapse the middle of the OL and not allow Bledsoe to step up into the pocket. If you can do that then you force Bledsoe to move out of the pocket, either to the side or backwards. As soon as he has to pull the ball down, mistakes follow.

I would expect Bledsoe to see a similar defensive schemes for the remainder of the season. His trouble with it goes back to his last few years in NE.

We should also face that when our last in the NFL D blitzed and manned up tight on Miami and NE (in the second half) we destroyed them. Cover two and disguised up the middle blitzes, and hidden coverages make passing hard, but running easy. We just did not run enough. A deep cover 2 and nickle and dime get smoked by bad running teams, let alone the biggest youngest line in the NFL and a top 4 RB.

Brady did not play well at all in 4 games against non-terrible Ds, any time a team got a lead on the Pats they had no trouble destroying them when they had to pass.

Favre gets smoked when teams make him try to win it himself, and Marino get destroyed by the Bills every time we were in the lead and he had to pass.

Bledsoe's troubles are not unique at all, if he is behind and his team has to pass and refuses to run he is stoppable.

It's called football.