But if Buffalo is spending most of its time with Paul Posluszny and the aforementioned Mitchell on the field in sub-package situations, how crucial is it for them to have a third linebacker that won’t play every snap like his two cohorts?

I think this assesment is dead on. If we had drafted Matthews people would have said “Awesome we have a starter over Ellison.” but Ellison played like a third of the snaps last year with Youboty and Scott/Simpson doing some heavy lifting. Matthews or any other new LB would have a hard time cracking ahead of Poz and Mitchell in the nickel so that new linebacker would be situational at best.

I had LB far down the list on draft day. I’d rather replace Kelsay with Maybin, Dockery with Wood, and Simpson with Byrd than Ellison. While he’s not great at any one thing, he’s not bad at anything and he’s a situational player anyways.

Ouch…

Indy, headed up by Bills castoff GM Bill Polian,

I agree with the premise of the Bills’ plan, but don’t like their execution of it.

Not needing a top-notch OLB makes sense if he won’t be on the field all that much, but why does it have to be Ellison? If this LB isn’t going to be much of a factor in passing situations and when we go to the nickel, why don’t we bring in a better run stuffer? Ellison is not that type of player and routinely gets overwhelmed and lost in the scrum around the LOS, wouldn’t it be smarter to have a guy who can support the run better? That’s my qualm with how they have addressed the position. Ellison just doesn’t fit with what they need, IMO.

And if we dont’ get a better run supporter, why not quicker LB’s? We currently have one of the slowest LB trio’s in the leagu, at least it would appear so. We’ve heard so much about the Tampa 2 D’s needing smaller, quicker players, but we don’t have that…Kind of odd, eh?

I’m hoping this Nic Harris dude can make the transition, though his quickness numbers aren’t that impressive either. At least he appears to be a big hitter and strong in run support, so that’s to his and our advantage.

I think we’ll be looking for an impact linebacker next year, as one of the highest priorities.

I agree with everything you said in that piece.
Ellison didn’t cost us many games and actually came through admirably in the beginning of the season. I would have preferred they go after a sure linebacker instead of Harris in the draft, but you never know what will pan out. Urlacher was a safety in college. I’m not annointing Nic Harris as the next Brian Urlacher it’s just a correlation.
Going after top-notch linebackers is a luxury when you have all the needs the Bills had this off-season and I think they handled it all very well.

All 3 teams have had success playing the Tampa 2, while the Bills have had moderate at best success.

In Tampa the Bucs had 3 all-Pros—Safety Lynch, DT-Sapp and LB Brooks, 3 great players that made that defense click.

In Indy the Colts have DE Freeny, DE Mathis and Safety Sanders again 3 great players that make the defense click and having Manning as the QB is icing on the cake.

Da Bears have LB Urlacher, LB Briggs and DT Harris again another trio of all-pro players that produce big plays.

Who do the Bills have in comparison——no one yet. So it is hard to pin-point Ellison as the weak link. Maybe he is or maybe he isn’t but without any playmakers on defense how can we be sure. I’m looking forward to watching Maybin & Byrd play, hopefully they will be the playmakers the Bills defense has sorely lacked….

to see Alvin Bowen play. I actually think he is going to be the guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYLcn0_jbRk&feature=related

I think one thing that has to be pointed out is that Buffalo doesn’t really run a Tampa 2 defense. Buffalo doesn’t do things like Indy or TB do. We play a cover 2 that is more similiar to Chicago and Minnesota and those teams have put an emphasis on LBs.

Chicago drafted Urlacher really high and the guy is freakin huge. Lance Briggs weighs 240 and the Bears have invested a ton of money into the two of them. They have essentially ignored that 3rd LB spot with Hunter Hillenmeyer though. He’s been pretty bad and they havn’t really made an attempt to replace him.

MInnesota drafted Chad Greenway in the first round and EJ Henderson was taken early in the 2nd round. Those two, along with Ben Leber all have pretty big contracts and aren’t the 225 pound speedy, sure tackling types.

Linebacker and Running Back are positions that it just doesn’t really pay to over pay for. Quality vets can be worth a reasonable pay increase, but there is never a reason to give a linebacker or Running Back huge dollars.

I think Joe B from WGR is in your head.

With all due respect to Keith Ellison — I mean, I’m sure he’s got at least what, two fans? But is this coaching staff really this sold on a guy who’s been, at best, blatently average for the majority of his career? Color me disappointed, and I’m sure Bills fans would tend to agree.

i agree that LB seems to be like RB on offense in that they are easily replaceable. with that said i think ellison is pretty bad.

Apparently we only field 3 LBs less than 30% of the time, therefore we don’t need to upgrade that third position very badly… right?

Wrong.

Short-yardage situations are huge in football, that should go without saying. And when the LB we bring in for those situations is 235 lb Keith Ellison, that’s just silly. If it were as you all say it were, then why wouldn’t our coaches bring in a thumper with more size and strength to manage the strong side of our defense? Instead, we put a coverage LB in during run situations. This does not make any sense.

People say, “in our scheme, it’s important that our LBs are good in coverage…” Well, our best coverage LB is probably Keith Ellison, and he doesn’t get put in the game during coverage situations, he gets taken out. Kawika Mitchell and Poz are not good in coverage. Their instincts and athleticism are both marginal in that department. They are physical pursuit LBs. Buffalo’s personnel groupings make no sense in that respect. They acquire players that are not ideal for a zone scheme in the front seven.

That is where Bill Polian deserves a lot of credit. He went out and got the 2 most important things for the Colts’ style of D in their DEs, which are complemented by LBs that are good in space… Buffalo needs to do one of 2 things: change the scheme to fit the personnel, or change the personnel to fit the scheme. Since the it’s much more difficult to change personnel, DJ and PF need to sit down and complicate their defense. Buffalo is easy to game-plan for defensively. The coaching staff just relies on their guys to execute better. That’s lame to me. Why bother hiring a guy like that? There are times when Fewell shows some creativity with some wrinkles to alignments and maybe a new blitz every now and then… but he has to be more vigilant in keeping OCs guessing. Why do you think the Pats defense is good every year? Bilicheat does so much with his old, slow LBs and his untalented, uninspiring secondary because he understands how to create pressure and turnovers with scheme.

END RANT

Is that while he did yeoman like work the first half of the season, he wore down over the course of the season and became less noticeable on the field, and not in a good way. IF Thomas/Bowen/Harris can keep their weight and health in check for the season we may have Ellison’s replacement, from those three, but the bigger issue is wear and tear.

So I am down with the Bills going quantity over quality here for this season as that has been an issue for us on the D in general, that being health. But at some point, we need a true blue 3 down player in our LB corps and I don’t really count MItchell as such since he disappears for long stretches. We need a stud out there making the calls and plays for us, and we need them next year at the latest.

I think even with the rest of the D coming along and Trent hopefully taking big strides forward, we can only really mask our LBer deficincies for a season, maybe two at most more, we need a real Hoss out there.