New Offensive Line and the 2009 Bills

to see someone shed a positive light on our situation. I think our OL will be fine if we don’t draft a OT in the first round. Whether it be Bell or Chambers or someone we add in a later round who starts at LT, depth and versatility is going to be the key to our OL this year. There are multiple T/G and G/C prospects in the draft that we can add.
I would love to see the Bills take the best available player at #11 and #28 while filling holes at the same time.
My ideal picks for the first round would be Curry / Maualuga at 11 and Ayers / Johnson / Pettigrew at 28. That way we take the best person available and fills some of our needs.
NICE WAY TO SHED A POSITIVE LIGHT ON THE 09 SEASON!

I like the positive outlook. I’ve been trying to get everyone around here to take their Peters “Pro Bowl LT” goggles off for a while now. If he and the rest of them were so great, why didn’t we have a top 10 offense? O-Line play is the key to that. There were bad players (Fowler,Preston), underachievers (Dockery), and egomaniacs (Peters). They are gone. Between our current roster and the draft I think the Bills will end up with a nice group of “mauler” type linemen that we’ve needed for years. Enough of the “you’re the biggest guy so you must be the best” garbage. The best thing we can hope for is silence in the media and defenders pancaked on the field. I think the Bills are going to be more than ready for the upcoming season, and we should be pleasantly surprised come the Patriots on MNF. My reservations are on the defensive side of the ball, but I think that will work itself out as well. We’ve got a great arsenal of draft picks to solve a lot of our problems.

When push comes to shove I also feel that the defensive is going to be our weak side. But as you said we have plenty of draft picks to help fill depth and starter positions.
Is it Saturday yet?????

The Bills are better because of who they let go. All the team has to now is just focus on one goal that is winning games that lead them to making the playoffs. No holdouts, no underachievers, just players who want to play and win. The motto of the 2009 Buffalo Bills – (it is old school) – Just win Baby!!!!!

It’s great to be optimistic about the O, but numbers 2 and 3 won’t happen if we don’t solidify the OL. Sure, we’ll be able to run the ball against crappy D’s or protect Trent against the Chiefs, but can a lineup with Walker at LT and Bell at RT really handle going up against the Jets or Dolphins run D’s (those are the best we face this year!?!?!?) or some of the top pass rushers we’ll be facing this year???? We need to get over the hump, which includes finally winning games against the best. I’m not sure if it’s possible with that bookend duo, at least not until Bell shows us something.

I do think we’ll be able to run the ball effectively IF our goofball OC sticks with it and we get a quality OG.

The Bills traded Jason Peters from a postion of strength, not weekness. They would not have done so without having the player they like to take over that postion. I see them taking a Guard in the Second rnd and a offensive tackle to develop later in the third or fourth rounds. With that said. I still believe the bills will use their first two picks on BPA’s (best players available)
11th LB/DE Hybrids Orakpo, E.Brown or A.Maybin
28th DT that can play LDE like P.Jerry, Ziggy Hood

I’m with you…we’re a playoff team in my mind, just like we are every April! Half full, or half empty, it’s always kool-aid in my glass from March-August…and then reality sets in (OK it waited until October this year!).

Seriously though, I like your points. I think the draft is key and there’s no reason to believe we can’t get two (or more!) quality rookie starters out of our first handful of picks. I would like to see one more piece added to our OL though…for competitions sake. Another point you could add is that our OL will have a full offseason working together, something we couldn’t say last year.

Granted I went off the deep end recently when I have ripped the Bills for allowing the Peters situation to degrade into us losing one of the best OT in the league, event worse, one that is only 27 years old.

We play in a tough division (probably the toughest in football). We face some pretty good NT’s which require help from our guards to handle.

To reconcile the OL, I think we need to do the following:
1) Draft Andre Smith or Michael Oher with the #11 pick. Simply put Langston Walker is not athletic enough to play LT and please don’t have any illustions the Bell is anywhere near ready to play such a premium position.
2) move Chambers to LG, I like Chambers and think he could play well here.
3) Do NOT draft a center, let Hangartner play at the position he plays best.
4) Don’t move Walker, his perfect spot is at RT, not the blindside.
5) Draft Pettigrew (hopefully) with the #28 pick. We will need a decent blocking TE to help out, especially initially in 2009.

Unfortunately, this does not allow us to draft a much desperately needed pass-rushing DE, but it will allow our offensive line the possibility to be effective.

Is that positive enough? You see, I am coming around!