When will they start panicking?

[lordofgun]

Obviously, our rush defense was abysmal on Friday. When will the Bills start panicking? IF this keeps up, do you guys think they'll do anything about it or just go into the season as is? Are they serious about winning this year, or are we leading up to next year when we can draft or sign a free agent DT?

If I were TD, I'd wait another preseason game, play my defensive line starters longer to see what they can do, then evaluate. If they can't stop the run, I do everything popssible to get someone in here who can help Patty on the D-line.

ESPN says they're asking Ostroski to take a pay cut. Maybe it's because they're going to go after Sam Adams?

If this doesn't change in the next preseason game or two, should the Bills panic?

[Pride]

Your Mom! :)

[HenryRules]

I think, as all GMs, TD is always looking for a way to improve his team, so I wouldn't call panicking if they were to sign a new DT. However, I would call it panicking if they overspent incredibly and I think that's one thing that TD will not do, no matter who it is. Adams would be nice, as long as his contract is not as huge as he was rumoured to have been demanding. I think everyone knows - including the front office - that our DL isn't where it should be. However, I also think most people will admit - especially the front office - that we have too many holes to be considered a serious Super Bowl threat this year, so TD will try and sign someone without messing up future years - I fully believe that TD has been trying to do this all along, but nothing has come up yet.

[northernbillfan]

Good poll log.

I hope htey don't wait too long to see if the D-line is going to get better. Give them another game, if they don't improve after that, get some help.

[TigerJ]

I voted for "panic," though I'm not particularly expecting anything to happen.

[lordofgun]

Me neither TigerJ, but I wouldn't put it past 'em!

[Halbert]

Unfortunately I think they'll probably stick with the guys they have. If they can pull off another sweet deal like Robinson or Moore or Jenkins they'll do it but it's unlikely they'd find that in a thin DL market and they won't abandon their strategy of keeping cap costs in line. All they have to do it get through this season and they'll have the second highest cap space in the league next season when they can plug any holes left from this year.

I still think they'll get a lot better once the season starts and will improve as they go on. Whether that's good enough to contend remains to be seen but it will be much better than 26th in the league like it was last season.

[WG]

They had plenty of sweet deals on the table during the offseason and didn't even check out some of them. I still don't understand it. The time to move was 3 months ago. Not now.

I fear we have what we have. Even if we find 4 starters, we're an injury away from being among the league's worst rush Ds again this season, possibly worse than last season.

At this point, patience may be the only viable option. I'm not sure that there are too many other options around at this point in time! If PW goes down for any reason for more than a few games, you can absolutely kiss our rush D out the window and pencil us in for 31st or 32nd in the league.

I also feel that we needed to sign one more very good starting OL man which we didn't do. Our best bet on this entire thing, which our OL injuries are making more and more difficult, is to generate an offense that will be among the top 5 or 6 in the league to counter our lack of D.

While our pass D will be solid, inasmuch as our pass rush isn't concerned, the weakness of our rush D is gonna cost us dearly.

I guess where I'm the most puzzled is that simply signing a proven DT, not a premier one, just one who has experience, could have easily been accomplished w/in very facilitating cap concerns. Yet, we chose not to pursue that. Now, as IMO was simple to predict given the absence of actions to address just that, we are paying the price.

I don't want to say that GW and TD are unintelligent, b/c I truly don't think that they are, but I do have to highly question the lack of addressing this issue during the offseason. We did absolutely nothing to shore up our DL. Nothing, and it was among the worst in the league last year. Hoping that rookies and 2nd year guys, who showed nothing special at all last year, step up, is unwise.

TD and GW have created this mess by not addressing it in what I consider to have been a relatively easy fix, so they're the ones upon whom this should fall. No one else.

We had plenty of viable options, we chose not to address the issue at all. If we had been 18th last year in rush D I could have understood it. But we were 26th and no single player other than Schobel showed us any reasons to be excited that they may step up huge this year.

At this point, we'll be lucky if we get 4 decent starters. If we have an injury, we'd all better hope it isn't to Schobel or Williams.

[MissBuffalo]

Whatever happened to Chidi Ahanatu??? I don't think he's been signed yet. I'm sure we can get him for the minimum.

[Earthquake Enyart]

Still think they are setting themselves up for a run next year. No quick fixes for TD.

[WG]

A run, w/ the DL the way it is?

How? Who's gonna "step-up" after this year? We'll need to draft and sign some DLs. We'll have no 1st rounder, so getting a "gimme" isn't an option. So anything we do for our "run" next year is gonna have to come thru FAcy.

I trusted that GW knew his talent and had a few surprises on the DL. It's becoming quite apparent now that he didn't. Word from inside the organization is now insisting that no one's stepping up.

This isn't good! It's gonna take more than a 2nd-rounder and another DL FA to make the kind of difference next year that we'll need for run.

[don137]

Besides Sam Adams there is nothing there now. That could change in a couple weeks after some teams cut some players. Unfortunately this team had too many broken parts to fix in just one off season.