50 Rushing Yards? Against the Bungles!

[WG]

That ain't right!

Henry didn't even average 1.5 ypc.

This is gonna be a LOOOONNG season if that doesn't improve very quickly.

I was gonna ask who saw the game and whether it was that bad. But 50 yards rushing, there's no explaining that.

[casdhf]

Actually, the Bengals have one of the better rushing defenses in the league

[RedEyE]

The Bills coaching staff was obviously focusing on timing between the QB and the WRs in the first and part of the 2nd. Once Henry was pulled out, GW started running the ball more. I think that Huntley and Bryson were fighting for 2nd slot. Bryson won the battle.

[WG]

cas,

It's nowhere near bad enough to have justified shutting Henry completely down w/ our first unit OL.

Oliver Gibson and Tony Williams are their starting DTs. They were 11th last year against the run, but the reason is that they only played a couple of games vs. teams that had running games.

They're not good. We should have been able to run on them. If we can't run on them, we're gonna have some problems vs. teams that really do have tough Ds. The strength of our offense is gonna have to be our rushing game if Drew is gonna have a good year. If teams tee-off on Drew b/c they can contain the rushing game, it's gonna be a disaster.

If I were GW, I'd work primarily on our rushing game until we meet the Jets in the home-opener.

[WG]

More disturbing is their 181 rush yards by two guys who might not even be playing this year and certainly won't be starting no matter how you slice it.

[Novacane]

I would not get to worked up over it. We did not even try and establish the run. On a few of Henry's carries he had guys on him as he got the ball. Having Rueben back and Teague getting used to center will improve that. As for their running. The first defense looked bad on the first drive but shut them down the other two possessions they were out there. The majority of their yards came against guys who will not even be on our team.
Overall I saw more positives than negatives!

[John Doe]

Well, let's see:

1. Jonas Jennings - spent most of the pre-season practicing at center. It just may take him a little while to adjust.

2. Michael Early - enough said.

3. Trey Teague - spent most of the pre-season practicing at left tackle. It just may take him a little while to adjust.

4. Sullivan - second year man subbing for a starter

5. Mike Williams - rookie

It just may take a few weeks for the line to come together.

[Rude American]

With only 16 weeks in the schedule, I want to see a guy adjust in 7 days.

[The_Philster]

Great job pointing that out, John Doe.
I wasn't happy with the overall performance of the O-Line either but with Ruben and JerryO out, it hurt. And maybe Jonas and Trey should move back to where there were in the minicamps if this keeps up.

[kgun12]

The OL is the hardest position to play because you need to know what the guy next to you is thinking as well as doing, with all the musicial chairs and injuries so far it could take several game into the regular season for these guys to gel! The defense is what is worring the hell out of me. FIND AN EXPERIENCED LINEMAN TD!!!!!

[Butch]

Let's get this straight. Anybody who is worried needs to calm down about the running game. Just look at our OL

1. Mike Williams' first NFL game.
2. Trey Teague is playing center for the first time since college.
3. Marques Sullivan is in his second year, playing a position he didn't play in college.
4. Jonas Jennings is a second year player playing in a different position than was intended going into camp.
5. Reuben Brown wasn't even playing.

Give these guys more time to gel. It isn't like these guys have been playing together for 3 or more seasons. And on top of that, we got 2 second year players and a ROOKIE on our OL! Our running game will come, just because their first preseason game wasn't great doesn't give us reason to panic.

[DraftBoy]

First off about the excuses for the Oline only 3 of them have excuses:
1. Micheal Early- He hardly plays
2. Trey Teague- got switched a week or so ago to C
3. Mike Williams-Rookie

As for the others: Jennings, and Sullivan. In my mind they nave no excuse. Jennings played LT in College, Sullivan played some guard in college, and has been practicing there.

BTW where did the sack come from?

[HenryRules]

JJ gave up a sack, but after that he looked pretty solid. Winfield, IMO, they all have one excuse that you forgot to include - <i>its the first game of the preseason</i>. If everyone could play at midseason form as soon as the preseason started, there'd be absolutely no need for the preseason and you'd never see teams progress throughout training camp.

[Butch]

Originally posted by Winfield_26
First off about the excuses for the Oline only 3 of them have excuses:
1. Micheal Early- He hardly plays
2. Trey Teague- got switched a week or so ago to C
3. Mike Williams-Rookie

As for the others: Jennings, and Sullivan. In my mind they nave no excuse. Jennings played LT in College, Sullivan played some guard in college, and has been practicing there.

BTW where did the sack come from?

When did Sullivan last play guard on a regular basis? Freshman or Sophmore year of college? Come on now, that's over 4 years ago! He was a full time LT his junior and senior years.

[WG]

Nice commentary Butch. It's appreciated.

As to time however, keep in mind that we only have a couple of weeks left. If we go into the season taking a few weeks to adjust, it could be the difference of several wins. The Jets at home in Buffalo are beatable. Same w/ @ Minnesota. If we lose those two games b/c we're adjusting, we're wasting a couple of wins. After that we play Denver on the road, followed by Chicago and Oakland at home. If we're still "adjusting" then, we'll likely be 1-4 or 0-5.

I did forget that Brown wasn't playing however. Still, the fact that the Cincy O was able to move the ball against our first team D at all w/o Dillon and only Warrick as any other player who's worth a crap to me was disturbing. What's gonna happen against Rice, Brown, and Gannon? Or Denver's O? Or w/ Anthony Thomas and a revamped Chicago passing game? Curtis Martin, Chrebet, Coles, and Moss? The Minnesota O? We'll give up 40 ppg.

[Captain gameboy]

I second what Henry said. After the sack, reports are that Jennings did a pretty good job. This was a QB-WR gameplan for the first team O. Very little running game and little tight end use. I like Gilbrides approach. Hpoefully we'll get a chance to feature more of a running game in the upcoming weeks.

[John Doe]

The main thing to note is that our two most experienced linemen did not play. COMBINED, the starters last night had 2 regular season games of NFL experience at their respective positions. Wys does have a point - we are running out of time. They better gel quick. I think they can, but staying healthy is critical.

[WG]

The reason that we need to be ready this particular year by game 1 is that we got hosed in the schedule. We have two very winable games up front followed by three games that figure to be a tremendous challenge.

If we can't beat the easy teams, how are we supposed to beat the better ones.

[HenryRules]

Wys, we have almost a month and three preseason games before our game against the Jets. When you consider that our QB and receivers are already clicking, our OL is very close to being ready and once RB is back in it should be ready to go, our special teams are looking great, and our key players on D are already looking good, I don't think there's a whole bunch to worry about at the moment.
Perhaps one of the reasons that some things looked bad yesterday is that instead of working on things the coaches think we're already set at, the coaching staff instead tried to work on the weaker aspects of the team (i.e. I think everyone is confident our running game is going to be good and perhaps they think its already there, so why spend valuable time practicing it when they think our pass blocking and timing needs work).

[Butch]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
Nice commentary Butch. It's appreciated.

As to time however, keep in mind that we only have a couple of weeks left. If we go into the season taking a few weeks to adjust, it could be the difference of several wins. The Jets at home in Buffalo are beatable. Same w/ @ Minnesota. If we lose those two games b/c we're adjusting, we're wasting a couple of wins. After that we play Denver on the road, followed by Chicago and Oakland at home. If we're still "adjusting" then, we'll likely be 1-4 or 0-5.

I did forget that Brown wasn't playing however. Still, the fact that the Cincy O was able to move the ball against our first team D at all w/o Dillon and only Warrick as any other player who's worth a crap to me was disturbing. What's gonna happen against Rice, Brown, and Gannon? Or Denver's O? Or w/ Anthony Thomas and a revamped Chicago passing game? Curtis Martin, Chrebet, Coles, and Moss? The Minnesota O? We'll give up 40 ppg.

I think we will see our RBs play a lot more in the Minnesota game. I wouldn't be surprised if Henry, Bryson, and Huntley each got 10 carries a piece. I will start to worry if we still can't run the ball, but don't forget we have a very young and inexperienced line. Besides, if Bledsoe is tearing up a team's secondary, that will open things up for a running game as well.

[WG]

Let's hope so. They're obviously gonna start running better than we did yesterday. I agree w/ Dozer who said that they just wanted to come out throwing to loosen up DB. Smart move. Now we have to do the same thing w/ the run.

I'm quite optimistic about our O actually. But I'm not very optimistic at all about the status of our DL and our ability to stop the run. That gives us two options this season.

A. Match the opponents in ball-control

or

B. Try and outscore them by passing our way to tons of points

I'm just not sure option B will work. It's been tried and has generally failed.

The Minnesota and Indy games will be key. If Drew continues to look that sharp, we're good in the passing department.