Talking Bills/Redskins Matchups With Hogs Haven

I just hope we play the young guys a ton (in other words guys like Spiller, Levitre, Steve Johnson, Shawn Nelson, Torell Troup, Carrington, Maybin, McKelvin a ton) because it goes without saying that they need the work in. A lot of them are still a bit new to this offensive and defensive scheme Gailey is running (not surprisingly), so seing how they fare in actual game action against a solid team like the Redskins will be intriguing to monitor.

Three concrete things I’m going to be focusing in on with this game:

1) How does Trent look?

This is really the most important question leading up to the season opener, as the QB of our team eventually will be the one to largely decide the fate of our season. What I’m going to be looking for in particular in terms of Trent’s play is his propensity to check the ball down constantly; that tactic hasn’t worked the slightest in his career so far, so hopefully he mixes it much more up with a deep ball now or a solid slant or curl route now and then. Another important thing to pay attention to is how Trent handles the pressure, when the Skins are blitzing.

2) The play of our O-line

I mentioned that if we were to have a successful 2010/2011 season, we’ll need a sharp Trent Edwards behind center (consider me quite skeptical), another thing we’ll absolutely need in addition is solid, stable O-line play. Tonight will probably be a very long night for the O-line considering that we’re missing three starters and how much Kirk Chambers and Meredith actually suck.

3) Our run-defense

We’ve talked and written about it quite a bit here on Buffalo Rumblings speculating how improved our run-defense will be with the new 3-4 defense in place etc. It’s going to be quite interesting to see how the D-line will fare and how much the additions of Dwan Edwards, Torell Troup, Alex Carrington and Andra Davis may have helped our before so paltry run-defense.

That it is the 1st pre-season game and things tend to get sloppy…

A few players I would like to watch of course Maybin then Troup, Whitner, CJ, Carrington, McKelvin and whoever plays the #2 WR spot.

Great way to get views counter views from the opposing teams site.

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But i’m rooting for Kelsay right now. Why? Well if he cements the Sam, then he’s earned it. We know Gailey isn’t playing favorites and it would be a nice feather in Kelsay’s cap if he proved capable of manning the position, for at least this season. I don’t necesarily think it means he wins by default, either.

We all rag on him, and it would very cool to see him succeed in a new role. I know it’s a long shot, and most people will make fun of me for even mentioning all this, but I said it! I’m no fanboy, either.

I was thinking about it today and I realized that even though it’s a pre-season game, I really want to beat them. Very badly.
That got me thinking – can we still consider them a rival? Sure it’s been about 15 years, but my hatred of Mark Rypien seems as fresh as ever. I think as long as he is still alive, we can hate him, right? That doesn’t need to die down in retirement…

No one is confident about where the Redskin offense is to date. McNabb is not picking up the offense as smoothly as they would have hoped. The only threatening part of their offense is the 2-TE combination, but there are still a couple of problems. McNabb will have to get the ball to them, which he can, but not consistently and in the context of the play. The other problem is that Fred Davis has uber talent but bad work habits and is said “drift off” and “lose concentration” when he is not involved in the play. So the 2-TE sets would be limited. Nonetheless, if there’s a team best suited to show off Davis’ raw ability, it would be the Bills.

I was watching Flacco last night and I have to say that I don’t see why so many people bash Edwards. Flacco had a beautiful bomb to Clayton of about 30 yards. But it was consistently set up with screens, short passess and check downs. Short completions are the bread and butter of great qbs. Brady does them all the time. The problem is if you have a bad O-line that does not let you do more than short passes. Unlike many, I am looking for great things from Edwards. I’m still a big fan.

I’ll be looking at the O-line depth to see if they dominate the 2s and 3s because it is clear that our depth players will see significant time this year and if so, then we’d better see some dominance of the 2s and 3s to be hopefull.

To be honest, I am queasy about the secondary. I don’t buy the whole carrying over of a prior season’s performance. I remember the season that the Bills finished 2 or 3 in total defense, (Milloy and Vincent) and thought that it would be a strength in the next season and then we got all run over.

I’ll be interested in Maybin versus Trent Williams.

Hey Brian,

Have you seen the new Weezer album cover? It’s both incredibly odd and incredibly amazing.

I hope he gets some reps tonight. For some reason I’ve had a gut feeling since the draft that (if given the chance) he may become our guy at some point. Of course sometimes gut feelings are indications of food poisoning….

…Kevin and Brian. I’m digging the head-to-head matchup discussion format and hope we get to see more of it this year. We read about our players’ strengths and weaknesses daily, but for the past several months, it’s been in the context of inter-team competition…nice change of pace to see how they stack up against other benchmarks in the league.
thanks

“If he wants to go to the next level, he’s not an outside guy. He’s a guy that has to get big and strong and bang around and have great hands. He’s doing that.”

Urban Meyer, UF Head Coach

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Enjoyed both articles, it was refreshing to read both posts without the juvenile smack talk between opposing fans like i saw on NFL.com last night (about who will win the first preseason game). I only hope our O-line can compete just enough to put some extended drives together. I’m excited to see what CJ can do with his touches.

I beat the Skins 31-0 on Madden 11 last night in my first preseason game.

I’m expecting a blowout.

I’m also expecting Edwards to play half the game going 11 for 12 and nobody capable of tackling Lynch in the second half. I’m also also expecting Moorman to be taking the kick-offs in the second half and be blasting them deep into the end zone, and if the guy runs out I expect Moorman to be the first one down there to make the tackle. That’s how it all worked out in Madden. Controlling Moorman in the game is like controlling an all-star. Clearly the Bills should be using him in more positions, he is lightening fast and a good tackler. I might try him as a wide out in my next game.

Beside the fact that Ewold is a homer (so are we), it was a real interesting read.

Hogs Haven (no, not “Hog Shaven”)

Strangely, I sometimes read it as Hog Heaven.