I wouldn’t count out Cutler among QBs, though he certainly has some proving to do in Chicago.

So if you figure that the Bills opponents threw the ball 516 times (and that doesn’t include plays where a QB felt the pressure and took off) and Buffalo blitzed on 32% of those plays, then there were 350 plays where the opponent threw the ball and Buffalo didn’t blitz. 7 sacks on 350 plays is exactly 2%. When Buffalo rushed 4 players, they got a sack one out of every 50 pass attempts.

And that’s exactly why I was calling for multiple additions to such a putrid unit. I feel like any four of us could put up 1 sack in 50 attempts. For all the nice additions the team made this offseason, including Maybin, they still don’t look to be close to where they need to be from a pass rushing standpoint, IMO. It’s going to continue being an ongoing problem. This year will see a number of quality passing games that will have no problem carving up our defense if they don’t face pressure. New Orleans, Indy, NE twice, Houston could really take it to us. QB’s like Pennington, Delhomme, Garrard, Cassel, Collins are so much easier to shut down when pressured, and tend to turn it over. We have to get pressure on these guys, and I’m afraid it’s going to be a problem again.

Buffalo should have done everything they could to improve the pass rush. They didn’t and it’s going to show again this season.

Yup….And that’s exactly why I wanted them to add Everette Brown as well. I don’t care that he would only be a situational rusher. When you’re relying on Kelsay, Denney and a declining Schobel with a foot injury that could return at any time, you should have been adding more players with pass rush talent. It would have helped this year, and really been beneficial for the future. Ugh.

Anyone have other ideas? I can only do so much so what do people want to see the most? Anyone planning anything similiar?

If you do all that work, I’m not sure how much more can be added! I’m always curious about QB pressures, so that’s a good one to be aware of. Obviously, that’s an area that has killed us in recent years, so I want to see how bad it really is statistically if at all possible. I already look forward to whatever you do analyzing the D. There are certainly 16 rec’s in your future.

The difference between TO’s drops and Edwards’ drops of last season were that TO still made plays, and always seems to make plays. Edwards was just dreadful for the Browns last year. If TO continues his drops (likely), but still gives us a number of big plays and gets in the end zone, I don’t think we’ll be too ticked off.

I still can’t believe some think Johnson will supplant Reed this year. Reed is too valuable and too much of a security blanket for Trent. Let’s let Johnson get more comfortable and prove himself for more than a handful of games before anointing him.

I’m not worried about TO getting his 1000 yards and 8-10 TD’s. I think he’ll find a way to get it done. I am more worried about Evans being what everyone expects this year. He indeed should see less doubles and more chances deep, but that goes hand in hand with Trent have the confidence to throw it downfield to him. He did it early last year, but then pretty much shut it down after that. That was partially the doubles Evans saw, but I still maintain that Trent didn’t have the confidence to throw it downfield as much. That absolutely has to change. If Trent has that confidence, I expect Evans to have a pretty darn good year, but if not, his numbers will really suffer as TO racks up the underneath stats.

Fantasy….ooooh yea! I was bored this morning and tried a Mock Draft on ESPN.com. What a mess! I had the 3rd pick and ended up with MoJo, Moss and Roddy White with my first 3 picks. Normally, I try to grab a pair of RB’s and a WR with those first 3, but it just wasn’t worth it. The top 8-10 RB’s are all so similar but after them there is a ton of time shares, injury concerns and other quesion marks. Finding that RB2 after the top 15 picks in the draft might be difficult this year. I ended up adding Joseph Addai and Jon Stewart within the top 60, and LeRon McClain and Freddie a few rounds later. Nice depth, but no sure things.

Not that it means anything, but LT went 8th, right after DeAngelo Willams and Chris Johnson. That’s going to be some tough picking in that range. I think LT has one more monster season in him, so I think I’d take him above those other two for sure. My money league is PPR, so LT has a ton of value still. I think MoJo can hold up based on his size, he is 210 lbs of solid muscle and attitude after all. Where he might have problems is with the way he plays; he runs like he’s 230 lbs. He’s got to be able to avoid some of the contact he’s grown to enjoy to survive the year, most likely. I’m still amazed Slaton had such a good year. I never thought he was anything special in college and was shocked at how well he ran the ball last year. Throw in his receiving skills and he really has a shot to be a top 5 back this year, no question. I’m just a little concerned about him.

The guy that is really going to mess w/my head is Matt Forte. Is he as good as he played last year? Is he really worth a top 3 or 4 pick? How will Cutler affect his receiving numbers this year, since I don’t recall Cutler throwing to his RB’s that much in Denver.

I think McNabb and Cutler should be included at the end of your top QB list. I’m thinking they might even be ahead of Romo. Matt Schaub, when healthy, is as productive a QB as you’ll find not named Brady, Brees, Manning or Warner. I really like him, but he’s a guy you really need to have a quality second option for, or in your case a quality 3rd QB.

You got me all excited about FF now….damn you!

that goes hand in hand with Trent have the confidence to throw it downfield to him. He did it early last year, but then pretty much shut it down after that. That was partially the doubles Evans saw, but I still maintain that Trent didn’t have the confidence to throw it downfield as much.

Some of the blame for this has to be put on the O-line and the lack of time they allowed for the deep routes to develop. When Trent has to get the ball out right away or run away from D-lineman who are in his face, it is not conducive to a lot of deep balls. Hopefully the changes to the interior of the O-line will turn out to be upgrades. If we are pining for Duke Preston and Dockery by week 8, needless to say the team will be in big trouble. We all know this already but there is plenty of blame to be spread around for the offensive ineptitude.

Edwards needs to throw with anticipation, not wait until receivers are standing wide open. Hopefully he’s getting more confident in his ability to read defenses and will put the ball where the WR will come open. My guess is that we see some horrible INTs during the first part of the year as Edwards misjudges those windows…but that he’ll keep after it and improve steadily.

and I read it a few days ago but I’ve been very busy for the past few weeks and haven’t had much time to respond to much of anything on this blog lately. I’ll write a longer response later on but for now, in regards to this

And to continue on TO, what kind of production are people really expecting? Dallas threw the ball at TO 140 times last year. It was the 8th most of any WR. For the sake of camparison, Buffalo threw at Evans 102 times. TO caught 69 passes which is actually a pretty pathetic 50% catch rate.

I wonder how many times Johnson and whoever their other back up (name on the tip of my tongue but I can’t remember) was threw the ball at TO out of desperation. They did look horrible in place of Romo last year for that 4 game stretch that he missed. Maybe they hucked some of those ducks in his direction?