On Bills middle linebackers and fan expectations

Many expected him play like Brian Urlacher even though Poz was a rookie. If that wasn’t unrealistic enough, many failed to realize Poz was not surrounded by the talent needed to produce like Urlacher. Then, he got injured which didn’t help him living up to expectations because he lost a year of experience. I hope this is the year Poz shines.

How often does a good pass rush help out a MLB? Shouldn’t a MLB be forcing fumbles, picking off passes and getting sacks on blitzes on his own?

Poz was super overrated coming into the league simply because Bills fans irrationally believed he was already a superstar.

I really like that article you cited in the second to last paragraph. Very informative. If I’m gonna shill, I’m gonna shill baby!

Fletcher also played in all 16 games his rookie year (starting 1 of them).

His 4 INTs came in a four game stretch in 2000

1 – Kerry Collins (NYG) – The Giants were down 28-7 at the half
2 – The Illustrious Aaron Brooks (NO) – Rams L
1 – Steve Beuerlein (CAR) – Also a Rams L – Car 16 / STL 3 – Kurt Warner threw 4 picks to no TDs. Actually that was a pretty messy game, no TDs by either QB. Here’s the box score.

Looking through the box scores, I can see how people may underestimate Fletcher’s contributions. The overall defense for the Rams that year was abysmal, and he disappeared from the “big play” categories for many games at a time. However, looking at his year by year career stats, from the moment he entered as a starter, he was incredibly consistent, regardless of scheme and the players around him.
  
By the way, the site I linked above Pro-Football-Reference.com is my current favorite for historical info.

And shouldn’t Poz be compared to Fletcher’s final season in Buffalo, the one where the Dick Jauron Party Extravaganza had rolled into town with its Cover 2 defense?

In 16 games in 2006, Fletcher had 2 sacks and 4 INT’s, as well as a pair of TD’s. Isn’t that a more apt comparison?

I’ve totally forgotten, or blocked out, how bad Poz is on blitzes. Zero career sacks, despite what seems like a lot of blitzing from him, is pretty bad.

I like Poz and hope the best for him. Having said that, so far he has been a disappointment. Yes, he’s adequate against the run. Against the pass he is virtually irrelevant. Please stop with the excuses and explanations for his lack of impact play production. Simply put, Poz needs to step it up a few notches. All things considered, he has been merely a fraction of what Fletcher was.

I believe Poz is the most overrated player on the Bills defense but I hope he proves me wrong. Possibly Bills fans thought we were getting the reincarnation of Shane Conlan. Clearly, this has not been the case. My understanding of the role of the MLB in the Cover 2 is to “read and react.” Due to either a lack of speed and/or experience, Poz does not read or react quick enough. Poz had 110 tackles last year (tied for 24th in the league and well behind the aging Fletcher) and no impact plays. His only INT was a ball deflected right into his hands. Every time I think of Poz I remember Jay Cutler (not Jim Brown) running right through him like he was a kicker.

maybe i’m missing something. he did lead our team in tackles, right? that means that he can’t be THAT bad. i’ve always enjoyed watching him play.

a steady reliable presence……….and I agree fans are over hyping him.

He’s consistant…….not over powering…..just one steady spoke in the wheel.

First of all, there is a huge difference between a second round pick and an 8th overall – expectations cannot be at the same level.

Second, he really only had last year. Let’s please give him 2009 to start spreading his wings before we use the word bust. I certainly cannot understand the word overrated? How can a second round pick be over rated?

Brian, you made a great point when you showed the correlation to sacks, I’d add that fletcher had the luxury with the rams of being able to sit back because many teams were playing from behind and went to the air a lot, whereas we’ve been the ones playing from behind while opposing teams tend to be pounding it up our throats.

Poz will continue to improve and develop as one of the top defensive leaders.

Despite the overwhelming sense from football fans that low sack totals for a team constitute some kind of excuse for low interception totals, the numbers don’t support this. ( I borrowed these stats from another poster so thanks for doing all the legwork Bilzrok)
Out of the teams in the Top 10 for Sacks Made (pressure)
- DALLAS was #1 with 59, yet they ranked 30th for Interceptions with just 8.
- MINNESOTA ranked #4 with 45 but only pulled in 12 for T21st.
- CAROLINA ranked 9th with 37 sacks and tied MINN for 21st with 12 ints.
- SEATTLE ranked 10th with 35 and only pulled in 9 for 29th place in ints.

Out of the teams in the Top 10 for Interceptions
- CLEVELAND was #2 with 59 yet ranked 30th in Sacks with only 17.
- CHICAGO was T3rd with 22 ints and was only ranked 22nd in Sacks with 28.
- G.B. was T3rd with 22 and was ranked 25th in Sacks with 27.
- T.B. was T3rd with 22 and was ranked 20th in Sacks with only 29.

The teams that placed in the top 10 for both categories were:
- PITT
- TENN
- NYG
- MIA

Many of the best sacking teams were among the worst at intercepting the ball and vice versa. only a few teams excelled in both categories and they were all dominant teams. Actually, if you think about it, when a team gets a sack, it is not possible to get an interception on that play. So a high number of sacks means a high number of passing plays where there is no opportunity for an interception.

As far as Poz vs London Fletcher goes, Fletch had a higher number of tackles in his first two seasons with Buffalo, but he was also a seasoned Veteran while Poz was a rookie/2nd year guy who missed most of his rookie season. As for big plays, you make it sound like Fletcher had dramatically better numbers than Poz. Not so. Since the two players had dramatically different playing time, the appropriate way to analyze the numbers would be to take the average number of each type of “big play” per game. When we do this we get the following:

                                                G Tk/G Sk/G INT/G FF/G FR/G PD/G
Posluszny (‘07-’08) 19 7.2 0 .05 .05 .05 .32
Fletcher (‘02-’03, Bills) 32 8.8 .15 0 .06 .09 .21
Fletcher (‘99-’00, Rams) 32 6.9 .27 .13 .03 0 0

For comparison’s sake, here are the numbers for Patrick Willis over his first two seasons ( I selected Willis since he has been at the top of the pack for defenders the past two seasons and is a player that many Bills fans feel the Bills should have gone after instead of Poz)
Willis (‘07-’08 49ers) 32 9.8 .15 .03 .09 0 .47

If you ask me, Fletch and Poz are not significantly different. Poz didn’t get any sacks, but that has more to do with scheme than anything. The Bills mostly rush with their 4 down lineman, where the Defenses London Fletcher played on did more linebacker blitzes.

I have never understood the discourse among Bills fans when it comes to Poz and I don’t think I ever will. It breaks down into two camps: those that say he is a disappointment and those that say too much was expected of him. Both are wrong!

First, to those of you who say Poz is disappointment:

1.) Get over yourself, he’s played one full season. By comparison let’s take a look at the first full seasons for some of the better MLB in the NFL.

Mike Peterson, 96 tackles, 1 pass defended, 3 sacks, 0 Ints (started rookie)
Ray Lewis, 110 tackles, 6 pass defended, 2 sacks, 1 Int (started rookie)
Poz, 110 tackles, 6 passes defended, 0 sacks, 1 int
Antonio Pierce, 112 tackles, 3 passes defended, 1 sack, 2 Ints (started full time 4th season)
Barrett Ruud, 114 tackles, 3 passes defended, 0 sacks, 2 Ints (started full time 3rd season)

The ONLY department that Poz is noticeably lacking compared to those guys statistically is in sacks. Knowing how our defense performed in that department, and with Schobel injured and Kelsay and Denney rushing the edges is that a suprise? Can that really be blamed on him? And even if it can, its not like Ray Lewis and Pierce were racking up sacks their first years starting. So to say Poz is a disappointment because he’s just a steady guy is jumping the gun WAY too early.

2.) This has become typical Bills fan mentality over the last few years and I think its a sign of boredom that comes along with losing. We have so little to focus our energy on that we become obsessed with self-depreciation. By your logic the Bucs Ruud was a disappointment because he had no “big plays” (a term I’m getting tired of around here) with 0 sacks and only 1 pick more than Poz with 3 less passes defended. You know what happened the next year? He came out with 137 tackles, 3 sacks, 2 Ints and 6 passes defended. That was in his fourth season! Poz is entering his third.

Second, to those who say expectations were too high for Poz, please thats a cop out.

1.) How can you say expectations were too high when he hasn’t had a chance to meet any of them? As a first season starter he was up there with the likes of Ray Lewis and Antonio Pierce in terms of numbers. Its as if you guys think that Patrick Willis is the norm as opposed to a once in a lifetime draft pick. I’m probably the biggest Poz fan out there, I bought his jersey as soon as he was drafted, and he did exactly what I wanted or thought he would do in 2008 that I was hoping for in 2007 if he hadn’t gotten hurt.

2.) A fact in the NFL is that players look better on paper and in the media when the team is winning. Its a team sport. If your offense is scoring a lot then your forcing the opposing offense to take risks which helps inflate the numbers of guys like Poz. Don’t lower your expectations just because Poz played on the other side of the ball as the ugliest show not on turf last year. We stunk on offense, the opposing teams took zero risks because they didn’t have to. Ed Reed makes a lot of plays because opposing QBs have to huck the ball up with 6 minutes left.

In conclusion:

Thanks for the piece Brian, what you’re insinuating had to be said. The Poz haters are misdirecting frustration with losing at a guy who has started one full season and is pretty on track to have a productive even excellent career. Part of playing well and making plays is about trusting the guy next to you to do his job so you can focus on yours. He plays next to Keith Ellison. Give him time. He’s doing just fine.

NAME TOT SOLO AST SACK FF BK INT TD PD
P. Willis LB, SFO 141 109 32 1.0 1 0 1 1 10
P. Posluszny LB, BUF 110 87 23 0.0 1 0 1 0 6

Wow, so 1 sack and 30 extra tackles is the difference between a disappointment and a “once in a lifetime draft pick”. If Poz is so disappointing, why aren’t Patrick Willis’s numbers dramatically better? In fact comparing Willis and Poz is a pretty safe comparison considering the 49ers finished as the 13th ranked defense (based on yards allowed) and Buffalo was ranked 14th. Considering San Francisco only allowed 1 yard less than Buffalo, the teams’ defenses were pretty similar. Although Buffalo was way ahead of San Francisco in terms of points per game allowed, Buffalo ranked 14th to San Francisco’s 23rd. Buffalo also took the ball away 22 times to San Francisco’s 18. So if Patrick Willis is such a rare talent, why isn’t Poz? Their numbers are similar…

Who in the world was doing all the sacking for the Rams back then? I can’t remember one guy who stood out on that team/era.

There’s a lot of great points in here, but I think what’s leading to so many different opinions is the term “overrated”. What if we changed that to overhyped? He was so hyped before ever playing a game that there was almost no way he could live up to it. And I think that’s why he was always going to be overrated early in his career.

I also think it’s impossible to really say that Poz is overrated or underappreciated or anything like that because everyone seems to have pretty different opinions of him. When a player comes into the league with as much hype as he had, you’ve got the casual fans who bought into it and don’t pay enough attention to notice that he’s been good, but not great. They have overrated him so far. Then you’ve got the fans who also get into the hype, but watch every single play of evrey single game and yell at the TV when the team isn’t playing well. That guy is probably dissapointed with Poz’s play to this point and is underrating him. It’s all relative.

My opinion of Poz is that he’s a pretty awful blitzer and I don’t think he ever will be anything more than opportunistic in that department. That’s fine though because Buffalo really needs to improve that front four and their pass rushing ability anyways. We shouldn’t be relying on our MLB for sacks. And he’s very average in coverage, but we pretty much knew that when he was drafted. That is something that should get a little better with experience and I bet he starts to pick off a pass per year or something like that. He’ll never be great in coverage, but I think he’s already adequate. And I think he’s rock solid and still improving in run support. He’s a good player who will only get better.

Then I guess they’ll have to be disappointed. That said, Poz is a solid guy at MLB – no complaints here!

Solid player….and I hope this year he improves…if not, then we’ll have a prblem, but I just don’t see it….unless we suck, the staff is fired, and in rolls a 3-4….YEESH!

Brian wrote an article about Poz and Whitner in the same week….The two biggest lightning rods on the defense are always a good source of controversy and discussion. Is another Trent article in the works? :)

a NFl magazine about mostly predictions and it predicted the all AFC MLB this year to be Paul Posluzny hahaha (also predicted marcus stroud as all AFC DT next to shaun rogers). name of magazine is called “Athlon Sports, Pro Football”. Front cover is “supermen” with the steelers Polamalu and James Harrison