Slag's Official Opponent Breakdown-Bills

[Slagathor]

QB- Losman is the primary reason the Bills will win 6 games at most this year. In college he relied on his running ability and a strong arm to force things to happen. JP is figuring out that won't work in the NFL. You need to be smart and have firm unserstanding of the game and what's going on around you. He's another guy who lacks mental capacity at the QB spot.

RB- McGahee as never really wowed me. Don't get me wrong. I think he's a good back, but he lacks something in my mind. I can't put my finger on it. He'll only be as good as his O=Line allows him to be.

OLine- Villarrial and Gandy are good. Everyone else is pretty suspect. I'm looking forward to see what our front seven will be able to accomplish. It could be scary

WR- Lee Evans could be on the verge of being something special. Everyone else is a bunch of names, meaning recognizeable but the volume of work does not impress. None of their guys are big either, so I like the way our secondary matches up against them.

TE- Not a strong point of the team, but I think Buffalo and Levy still look at Tight Ends as an extra blocker for the running game only.

DLine- Schobel will keep Light very busy. How Light and the TE's handles Schobel will be the difference between winning by 14 or winning by 3.

LB- Lotsa tackles from this group. Very Solid. I think they've benefitted from better D-Lines in the past, so I think their production will drop off a bit.
One of their strengths going against one of our strengths...TE.

DB- Very Formidable. That's all I can say. They'll be able to handle our WRs without problem, but how will they fair against our big fast TE's roaming deep in the secondary. That'll be an interesting match-up also.

ST- Great special teams. Seely better have the troops in top shape for this one or McGee will be returning kicks all over our butts.

My prediction is 24-13 Pats, but it'll be a fight. My opinion is if the Bills had an above average QB and a slight upgrade to the O-line, they are easily a playoff team. I love their D.

 

[BelichickFan]

This is a good place to mention that I think Felger's got it wrong when he talks about some matchups the Bills have that will keep it close and he talks about their CB. I think he has it wrong because, for now, almost every team has a solid matchup against our WR - hopefully Gabriel and Jackson will start to change that. I think we can run on them and get the TE matched up against the LB/S and cause big trouble. Right now I'm more concerned about the opposite defense, ones like Pittsburgh's, who can stop the run and make you make big plays 1-1 with your WR because our WR, right now, probably can't do it against average CB. Felger seems to think the opposite that it's bas for us for a defense's strength to match up against our weakness - I think that's overkill for the defense.

 

[Slagathor]

This is a good place to mention that I think Felger's got it wrong when he talks about some matchups the Bills have that will keep it close and he talks about their CB. I think he has it wrong because, for now, almost every team has a solid matchup against our WR - hopefully Gabriel and Jackson will start to change that. I think we can run on them and get the TE matched up against the LB/S and cause big trouble. Right now I'm more concerned about the opposite defense, ones like Pittsburgh's, who can stop the run and make you make big plays 1-1 with your WR because our WR, right now, probably can't do it against average CB. Felger seems to think the opposite that it's bas for us for a defense's strength to match up against our weakness - I think that's overkill for the defense.

I think most writers/analysts including of course Felger hold a traditional view of football analysis.

"If your WR's are bad and the opponents DB's are good, your passing game will suffer"

or

"If your LB's are suspect, the opposition will run all over you"

These guys truly view football so one-dimensionally, it really is aggravating.

I think boards like this one carry better analysis than any paid observers, because the media tends to take a macroscopic view of the game.

Football amongst all sports should be analyzed by the value of each individual part and how it is utilized rather than the sum of all the parts themselves.

 

[PatsFan37]

QB- Losman is the primary reason the Bills will win 6 games at most this year. In college he relied on his running ability and a strong arm to force things to happen. JP is figuring out that won't work in the NFL. You need to be smart and have firm unserstanding of the game and what's going on around you. He's another guy who lacks mental capacity at the QB spot.

NE Tailgate last night had an excellent analysis of Losman, showing how in pre-season, he was set up with simple patterns and simple reads. Now, that could easily be the coach not showing his hand in pre-season, but you wonder when Losman will learn to work with more complex patterns and progressions. Still, he's got some accuracy and if his receivers can get separation, he'll be okay. But he's a long way from the complex sight-adjustment offense that Brady used to have with Givens and Branch. (Troy may figure big on Sunday).

Problem for Losman on Sunday is he'll have very little time and BB will keep Evans on a tight leash.

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

Nice topic.

Here is how I see the key matchups and thus key's in the game.

On defense the Billis run a cover 2 defense that relies on generating a pass rush with just the front 4 so that the back defenders can play back and take away the deep pass and stop the big play. The best way to counter such a defense is to not allow the DL to pressure your QB and also to run the ball effectively. If the Bills DL isn't able to generate a pass rush on their own then they'll be seriously exposed to play action pass plays which, if completed, will go for huge gainers. Especially so with a QB as good as Brady in the play action game.

Fortunately for the Pats the DL is probably one of the Bills biggest weaknesses this year. At the same time the Pats OL might be one of their biggest strengths. So I really like this matchup in the Pats favour. I would expect to see the Pats flooding zones galore as well as hitting on some deep post patterns along with plenty of Watson in the seams, all very exploitable areas in a cover 2 defense.

On the other side of the ball most everyone knows that Belichick gameplans around removing the opposing teams biggest threat while taking his chances that the secondary threats won't do him serious harm. As such, I would expect that the Pats will look to render RB Willis McGahee ineffective and see if QB JP Losman has it in him to beat the Pats defense. Seeing as how the Pats 3-4, with its excellent front 7, is ideally suited to stopping the run, I would think that the Pats defense should be quite effective in controlling McGahee sufficiently enough that he won't do major harm. Then it's Evans, Price, Reed and company against our secondary. Like with the other side of the ball, I like this matchup for the Pats.

So my two keys in the game are:

Don't allow the Bills front 4 to pressure Brady and stop McGahee along the ground and force Losman to beat us thru the air.

 

[BelichickFan]

On the other side of the ball most everyone knows that Belichick gameplans around removing the opposing teams biggest threat while taking his chances that the secondary threats won't do him serious harm. As such, I would expect that the Pats will look to render RB Willis McGahee ineffective and see if QB JP Losman has it in him to beat the Pats defense. Seeing as how the Pats 3-4, with its excellent front 7, is ideally suited to stopping the run, I would think that the Pats defense should be quite effective in controlling McGahee sufficiently enough that he won't do major harm. Then it's Evans, Price, Reed and company against our secondary. Like with the other side of the ball, I like this matchup for the Pats.

I think Belichick can typically take away the two top threats as long as they aren't monster talents. I don't think he forces a team to their secondary threat, more like their third. Magahee is #1, Evans is #2. They'll be able to stack the line enough to still have a safety help out on Evans. Which will leave Losman trying to beat us with the likes of Price, Reed and the TE. Good luck with that.

 

[ATippett56]

OLine- Villarrial and Gandy are good. Everyone else is pretty suspect. I'm looking forward to see what our front seven will be able to accomplish.

Mike Gandy is actually one the worst offensive left tackles in the AFC. Buffalo made a huge mistake allowing Jonas Jennings to leave via unrestricted free agency.

 

[PatsFan37]

So my two keys in the game are:

Don't allow the Bills front 4 to pressure Brady and stop McGahee along the ground and force Losman to beat us thru the air.

Agree about the OL. Given time, Brady can pick these guys apart with the reliable weapons in his arsenal: Faulk, Brown, Watson, and Graham. Maroney and Dillon can run on them.

But I would add one more key. Don't allow the new receivers to run a timing route where they zig instead of zag and Brady gets picked by McGee and run back for a touchdown. We'll never hear the end of it from Felger and his boxing buddy.

 

[Brownfan80]

I'm the most interested to see:

How our TEs do against a pretty good set of LBs.

How our OL blocks their DL, particularly Schobel.

Who our WRs are and how they do against what has historically been a pretty good secondary.

How our run defense will stack up against McGahee.

It should be a very interesting game. I think those points of interest are the ones that I'll be paying attention to the most.

 

[flutie2phelan]

Located up there along the Niagara Frontier, Bob'sMyUncle should know more about these Buffs than most of us do.
I like those parts of his analysis i can understand.

Like him, i believe we shut down McGahee. Putting the burden on Losman's shoulders
should be more than he can carry against the Patriots' excellent front 7.

Offensively, i think that Gabriel and Caldwell ... however unpracticed with TB they might be ... are fast enough to stretch the field.
Givens and Branch having been two of the surest-handed receivers in the league,
expect the new boys to grab fewer balls. But they still are fast enough, and threatening enough,
to stretch the field.
CBs will go out deep with them ... and safeties will rotate to assist.
This is all that needs to happen for the Pats' strong run game and ball-control offense
to harvest enough points.

My only worry is the field position and quick-score advantages
that the Bills' superb kick teams may exert against us.

ps - funny how disorienting it is to read a thread which didn't even mention Leion until now ...
much less feature his shenanigans.

 

[Ungeheuer]

Who are the Bills' defensive tackles these days?

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

Who are the Bills' defensive tackles these days?

Larry Tripplett, ex Colt, and Tim Anderson are the vets. 1st round pick John McCargo and rookie Kyle Williams are the backups. McCargo hasn't done squat thus far. Williams may see considerabe time. Not an impressive bunch to say the least.

 

[PlattsFan]

I'd be very surprised if the Bills managed any kind of offensive attack at all. You'll need to have a quick strike passing attack and very good receiving RBs to beat the Pats D this year, I think. And the Bills offense strikes me as very plodding. I highly doubt the grinding running game of the Bills will work when their O-line is completely overwhelmed by the Patriots front seven.

I think the only potentially exploitable areas in the Patriots D is going to come from fast receivers against the corners and TEs/backs against the Patriots LBs. The coverage ability of the LBs seems to be one potential problem I see. But with Bruschi and Vrabel on the field ... that's much less of a problem.

Frankly, four games against the Jets and Bills are going to do some considerable statistical padding for a very good Pats D.

The fact that the Bills' strength on D is on the corners seems almost completely neutralized by the fact that the Patriots attack doesn't depend on those areas of the field.

All in all, this seems like a game where one team is clearly better than the other AND the matchups favor the better team. Not a good combination.

 

[BillsFan4Life]

Fair assesment, except for a few things:
1: Losman didn't rely on his legs in college. In fact, he had just 1 yard per carry. And if you've seen him this preseason you'd know he's better than last year. He could turn into a good QB, you've only seen him for 8 games, way to early to write off his career.

2: Oline, I don't think Villarial is as good as you make it sound, and without a doutb Peters is the best lineman on the team. He may very well be a probowler this season.