Brian – I really like this point; it makes a lot of sense. But, I can’t say for sure if I like the bandaid approach. There has got to be another way to improve this. For the life of me, I don’t know what it is though.

and I never thought about height before but it makes sense. They always talk about lowering your center of gravity to get more push and that kind of stuff. It is much harder for a guy 6’6" to get low and push a guy back. I would to see the Bills start to show some delays and counters.

My main concern continues to be the tight end position. Truly elite offenses have many weapons to utilize including tight ends and ours are terribly inconsistent. Only Schouman had an 11 yarder against the Jags and Royal seemed to be erased. Our offense is a pseudo-West coast offense and that means lots of quick dump offs and screens. If our tight ends continue to disappear for whole games it will be hard for this offense to hold on to any rhythm.

Interesting theory, Brian.

I don’t understand why the Bills don’t have a dominant running game. Is it Fowler? Ron, where are you? Do the Bills primarily man block or zone block? I need to watch that phase of the game a little closer.

Dallas has a pretty tall offensive line also. I think their shortest starting lineman is their center, who is listed at 6-4. Adams, Columbo, and Davis are all listed at 6-6 or taller.

I’d like to find out what Lynch’s best/worst runs are. Sweeps, counters, traps, delays, inside, outside, designed cutbacks, etc.??? I need to re-watch more games again.

Emmitt Smith was a better inside runner than outside runner. Dallas’ bread and butter in the 1990’s was the lead draw.

I may be wrong on this, but it seemed the tight ends were far less involved in the passing attack. Were they not getting open, or used more for pass protection, or do you think this was an outcome of Jackson’s production?

Also I don’t think you can downplay how much the heat effected all facets of this game, especially in the later quarters. This factoid really caught my eye from the Buffalo News today:

Whitner said he needed five bags of intravenous fluid after the game because of the heat, which pushed the temperature on the field into triple digits.

"I feel weary right now, a little tired," he said Monday. "It was mentally tough and being in those conditions with that kind of heat takes a real toll on your body."

and could be an advantage if coached properly. This is a nice observation, accounting for subtle aspects that can hamper a line. But really guys, how can the line be expected to excell at all aspects of the game with the #1 LT appearing in his first game in a new system, and one week of crash course playbook. Walker is back to the other side, and all of his instinctual footwork is changed. I bet they concentrated on pass pro last week, knowing Beast Mode could compensate a bit. My O-line coach used the analogy of a unti as a fist. You can’t throw a punch with one finger extended. This is something that reps will address. Give them time to build trust and intuitive communication. I am way more confused as to how the Jags held Williams, Stroud, and company out of the game to such a degree with the same circumstances as I just decribed for the Bills O-line, but I guess that will be tomarrows discussion.

Our passing game is very effective right now. The ball is going to a lot of players and to more and more parts of the field. It’s only a matter of time before the run game opens up. I can’t wait to see Marshawn start getting loose and I think he will start getting some running room our of the spread packages.

That’s not a bad theory Brian. However, I can’t imagine it’s really the issue. These guys have gotten this far at their heights, it’s not like they’ve never been able to run block before. If they couldn’t run block in college, I doubt they’d be here. Plus, there are plenty of other OL’s in the league with tall guys on it, that don’t seem to have any trouble opening holes. The Dallas line was a good example above. These guys start in a crouching position, so unless they immediately stand straight up, they should be able to get some leverage. No matter what it is, it needs to improve. We can’t have run blocking like this continue.

Also, has anybody else been somewhat unimpressed with Lynch thus far? He looks extremely slow to the hole, which may be mostly due to the blocking in front of him, but last year he seemed to hit it so much harder. We also haven’t really seen him breaking that many tackles either. He is still a tough dude to bring down, but he doesn’t seem to be going forward as much as he did last year. Does anyone else have any concern here, or am I just paranoid?

I love the RB’s ability to catch the ball. I sort of wish they’d still try getting it to Lynch more in the passing game. I liked the few plays where he was split out and we ran a sort of bubble screen to him. If anybody wants to know how I wish Lynch were used, take a look at Marion Barber. The Cowboys will throw in a screen pass or two pretty often, and he is always out in a pass pattern after chipping DE’s. I love that they occasionally have him run a swing and up pattern, like the TD he scored last night. I want to see the Bills get the ball to Lynch upfield more, if that makes any sense. I don’t think too many LB"s would be able to cover him. Also, keep using Jackson in the pass game. I was surprised by the lack of that in game 1, but was thrilled to see him back involved against Jax.

One thing I want to see is more passes to Evans. We still don’t seem to be looking to him underneath or over the middle like many of us wanted. I’m not sure if he’s still running predominantly deep routes or if he’s doubled underneath, since it’s hard to tell on TV. Can we use more crossing patterns for him? And Roscoe too?

Time to pick on DeAngelo Hall this week. I’d be throwing double moves at that guy all game this week. He’s probably the most overrated player in football, by a considerable margin….

The Bills need to take more shots downfield to loosen up defenses, which are currently keying on Marshawn and the short passing game Trent seems to prefer. You’ll see defenses start to back off a little after they get burned a couple of times by play action passes downfield.

The “sack” by Reggie Hayward on our second to last offensive play of the game was no sack. Every WR and Schouman were blocking from the snap on that. It was a designed bootleg run for Edwards. Why we called that, I have no clue…..

I wonder if Turk was going for the kill shot. Looks like Edwards did the right thing by not getting rid of the ball in order to let the clock run. Thank God for Lindell making the kick.

Are you saying there were no WRs even in the pattern? That does seem like an odd call. Maybe they didn’t anticipate that Edwards would get chased so soon.

Alot of times we are seeing teams put 8 men in the box on 1st down, and keeping a minumum of 7 guys near the line of scrimmage throughout the game. Hard to open running lanes with 5-6 guys against that many bodies filling the gaps.

As for height, it will effect the run game some as the game wears on and guys get tired, but as noted above, they made it to the NFL so they have to be decent at least. Fowler is some of the problem, but not all of it.

The main issue is lack of downfield passing early in the game. Until we start forcing teams to double cover Lee and Co. deep downfield, Lynch and Jackson will continue to face 7-8 men in the box and the run game will suffer on. We need to start running more deep playaction passes and to also keep running the screen to the RBs and WRs as this will cause teams to delay a little bit in rushing upfield to stop Lynch and Freddy. Once we’ve slowed them up, hit them with deep posts and draw plays.