You do realize that the Bills just released Trent Edwards? Why? Maybe they should just release the whole offense.
Now wind back to my earlier post question, "Does Buffalo suck or just Trent Edwards?" Care to guess why I like asked the question?
How do you think Buffalo answers that question? It's possible that they think they sucked because of the QB....just sayin.
Or perhaps it's that Edwards sucked, only threw checkdown routes, and Buffalo didn't feel as if they needed to carry three quarterbacks. The only difference between Fitz and Edwards, though, is that Fitz is willing to throw the deep ball. He's not very good at it, but he's willing to try. With that said, though, Fitz doesn't somehow turn Buffalo's offense into some juggernaut. Our defense just allowed them to look like that yesterday.
Again, I am not saying that everything is peachy keen. However, if the defense sucks, 20 defenses suck even more or a different criteria needs to be applied.
Uh... what? We've been down this road before, and it didn't end any differently than you want this one to end. I don't think I have to tell you that bringing up the old "20 DEFENSES R TEH SUCK" argument doesn't address or change the fact that our defense had a lot of trouble with the worst offense in the league yesterday. However, just to hammer something in, I'll go ahead and post the stats of our defense through three weeks...
Total Defense: 27th (5 defenses are worse so far)
YPG: 27th (5 defenses are worse so far)
Passing: 25th (7 defenses are worse so far)
Rushing: 19th (Not bad considering the issues we have so far)
Scoring: 28th (4 defenses are worse so far)
As you can see, our defense is pretty much near the bottom of the league in every major category through three weeks. So I'm not sure where you got your "20 defenses" assertion from, but it's pretty faulty. On top of that, we didn't exactly face dominating offenses through the first three weeks. Our opponents' offensive rankings...
1. Bengals - 14th
2. Jets - 21st
3. Bills - 32nd
So, yeah, that's cool. Other defenses are having some issues. But let's not ignore our own elephant in the room.
Based on the league rules and philosophy of generating offense, the shutdown defenses of old are less and less applicable. That's why the big boys talk about a "QB driven league".
How many true "shutdown defenses" have there ever been in this league? I'm not expecting a shutdown defense. I am expecting a defense that can force a QB the calibre of Fitzpatrick into more than just six true incompletions. I'm expecting a defense to be able to stop a horrid offense like Buffalo's into more than just two punts. Maybe you should heighten your expectations.
In today's world turnovers and red zone defense are more important than ever. On those two criteria, the defense was much better than the wrist cutters want admit.
The defense caught two badly overthrown balls. I'm not sure how that can be seen as "forcing turnovers". However, they did hold onto them. So I guess that's worth something. However, both (forcing turnovers and red zone defense) obviously need to improve. The stats I just posted should bear that out.