Perry Fewell: High as a Kite

by Ryan


The Bills, um, "situation" is not a good one. In fact, I've been avoiding any Bills post like the plague because it is downright depressing. Well, until I read what Perry Fewell has to say about the D.

"Oh, this is one of the highest challenges I've been faced with," said Fewell, in his 10th NFL season and second with Buffalo. "But I can't dwell on numbers. I'm focused on winning games. And I've got to go out and do a better job of teaching. ... And if I can do that, I don't have to worry about the numbers."

Yeah, it's really cute when coaches try to spin things to the good, but Fewell's gotta be smoking something if he thinks "teaching" is going to fix this mess.

He almost had me, too. Hargrove is coming back next week, Denney will be usable in the near future. The rallying cry had been sounded, and even with Poz and Co. out of the picture, who knows what can happen when a few healthy players get dropped into the scheme. I may have even whistled "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" once or twice.

Then a number stuck out: 458. That's how many yards our D gives up on average. Mean. Boilerplate. The norm.

Good Lord that's a ton of yards. Our opponents score on over half of their possessions, too. If I were Anthony Hargrove, I'd be looking for another cop to punch. Who really wants to be a part of this defense anymore?

Oh yeah, Leon Joe does. Do you know how irrelevant our starting linebacker is? I can't even find anything worth linking after an extensive Google search. However, safety Bryan Scott takes lovely wedding pictures.

"We've stripped it back a lot. It does concern me," Fewell said. "When you practice them, if they don't come off smooth the first or even the second day, you have to kind of take those things out and stick with something that's very base."

If the defensive playbook consists of one page that reads: "Tackle the guy with the ball", I wouldn't be surprised at all.

I would further analyze the D we may see on Sunday, but I can't find a properly updated depth chart anywhere. The Four Letter's still has Coy Wire active, and the NFL.com version still has Poz starting in the middle. Needless to say any roster that has more depth than a kiddie pool has yet to be updated.

I will say one thing, though: if we give up less than 400 yards this week, high fives all around. Perry should take the squad out for ice cream, just like the good old Pop Warner days...

***UPDATE: This depth chart from Sportsline.com looks pretty good. Well at least until one of our defensive tackles loses a limb...

Land of the Lost

By Chris

It's only Week Two but you can already feel it. The season is over.

"How this Bills team reacts will be key." That's what the Roost's own Ryan wrote this morning in our Pregame Post. We found out how they reacted this afternoon and the Buffalo Bills have given us reason to believe that football is on the back burner.

The offense was struggling, the defense couldn't stop anyone--especially on third down plays--and the thought of Kevin Everett lying in a hospital bed couldn't have been in the back of the team's mind. It was right there in front of everything.

Lee Evans' tirade in the fourth quarter was the tip of the iceberg. Maybe there was pass interference on that play, but that's irrelevant. To overreact over that play, and to do it after already taking an unsportsmanlike penalty for spiking the ball is just uncalled for. Evans is supposed to be a team captain and lead by example. His meltdown was symbolic of the entire team. All of this regardless of the fact that "Getting into the face of the official" is a real penalty.

J.P. Losman threw offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild under the bus in his postgame press conference. He said play calling was the reason for the poor performances. He has a point. His longest throw of the year came today on a 22 yard toss to Peerless Price. But watching Losman's game, it's not Fairchild's fault that he waits to long to make a read and decide what he's going to do. It's not Fairchild's fault that Losman is overthrowing his receivers. It would be nice to see Losman take at least some of the blame for his poor performance. Unfortunately he just wants to pass the buck.

This team was unfocused and undisciplined, especially late in the game. They played awful and imploded. Too many distractions have hurt this team and the sting of this loss isn't going to go away anytime soon.

Sometimes it seemed that the only players who cared were Marshawn Lynch, who runs hard on every play (something we haven't seen a Bills running back do in a long while) and Jabari Greer, who's out to show Dick Jauron and company why he deserves to start (even though he probably should have been starting all along).

A team with lost focus. A team with players lost to injuries. A team that will lose to everyone but themselves. In Buffalo, we're living in the land of the lost...for another 15 weeks, at least.

1-0*

By Chris

So one pointless game down, three to go. That's pretty much what it boils down to, really. Sure a win is a win and we saw some things from the lower-tier guys who might play a few downs in the regular season, but for the most part, it was just a warm-up game for the Buffalo Bills.

In the preseason, stats really don't tell the story, but they do say a lot about the coach's gameplan and which players they wanted involved in the play. And it's hard to argue against that gameplan when it results in a 13-10 win against the New Orleans Saints, even if it is just an exhibition match.

For starters, the Bills passing game was so-so. Craig Nall led the team with 54 yards, with many of them going towards Roscoe Parrish's 43 receiving total. J.P. Losman went 4/6 for 20 yards but the real story with him is how he continues to refuse to slide at the end of a scramble. When recalling his 12-yard run in the first quarter, he said he never even thought about sliding to end the play. That kind of talk allows for doubt about where his head really is in the game.

Marshawn "Money" Lynch only carried the ball twice, gaining a mighty three yards. He may have only been in one series...I'll have to go back during the film session tomorrow just to make sure. What we did get was a whole lotta Fred Jackson. You know his name now. The NFL Europa stand-out busted out for a 17-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. He probably should've been flagged for excessive celebration when he decided to hit the Square Button and dive into the end zone. Really unnecessary, but I guess it'll get him on SportsCenter. Whatever, he's got a new fan in me.

Regardless, Jackson made his case for a roster spot and should see more playing time in the coming weeks. He'd most likely be battling it out with Shaud Williams, who gained 14 yards on five carries. Shaud also had two kickoff returns, averaging 22.5 yards. They'll only be duking it out, however, if the Bills even carry four running backs, since Anthony Thomas, Lynch and fourth-round pick Dwayne Jarrett, who didn't look too bad in his pro debut, seem to be locks to make the squad.

The wide receivers were all over the place to be honest. Parrish made some really nice runs to get open, but it's really had to get a good reading on who will be predominantly backing up Evans when Sam "Special Teams" Aiken led the corps with four catches and no one is really sure if Peerless Price, the incumbent #2 put on a jersey tonight. What I'm most disappointed in is the fact that Jonathan "Fast Freddie" Smith decided to go with the "J." initial instead of the "F." this time around.

Rian Lindell's winning field goal was a 54-yarder. I remember back when the guy couldn't hit anything beyond 40, whether he was in a dome or not. He has quickly and silently become a pretty reliable kicker. When that officially happened, I'm still not sure but I've actually got some faith in the guy if the team needs to kick with the game on the line.


The defense can't tackle and seems hesitant to go after the quarterback. And even if they do penetrate the pocket, the can't take the quarterback out of the play. I can see this trend spiraling into the regular season which is a very bad thing. Remember, the Bills don't practice tackling in training camps, so it's all a "hands-on" learning experience when they get on the field. "Hands-on," that is, only if they can get a hold of the guy they're supposed to be taking down.

Paul Posluszny had a nice sack late in the game and led the team with 9 tackles. He still made a few misreads early on, but that'll happen with any rookie. A few bumps along the way is normal, but, for the most part, I liked what I saw from him. Whether he can step up and be a Pro Bowl talent like Shawn Merriman was in his rookie year is yet to be seen, but the kid can only get better.

Cornerback Jason Webster played like absolute garbage. He was burned multiple times by the Saints receivers (Devery Henderson in particular) and looked out of place more often than not. If that guy we saw tonight is the leading candidate to replace Nate Clements, then the team may be in bigger trouble that it thinks.

Reggie Bush+Screen Pass=Easy Yardage. He only rushed for 15 yards on two carries and only had 26 yards on three catches, but he seemed to be involved in nearly every Saints play in the first quarter. For the small amount of time he played, he looked very very good.

And I think Vince Young has better mechanics as a passer than Saints backup Tyler Palko. And that's saying a lot.

So basically, the game didn't mean anything, but it was a fun game and we saw some good plays. The blocked field goal and both Jabari Greer interceptions come to mind, just to name a few. At least they didn't embarrass themselves on national television, even if it is only preseason.

This Buffalo Bills team should be fun and exciting to watch this year, but I'm afraid the youth and inexperience of the defense will keep us out of the playoffs again. Unless they can grow up pretty fast and learn to play like veterans sooner rather than later, I'm afraid we'll have to save the playoff predictions for next year.