Giants 27, Bills 24: Three Good And Three Bad

Excellent read. Boy I hope Fitzy starts driving the fade off his front fit instead of his back foot. I an a huge Fitzy backer but Manning dropped long throws into the bucket all day long. It is eye opening to watch a top QB in terms of throwing ability play vs. Fitz. That said, I like everything else about Fitz and believe he will work to improve in that area. He played very well minus the bad sacks and ints.

my fear with Fitz has always been that “ooops moment” where he seems to have an arm cramp.
The critical throw that is wild high, in the dirt, or to a different colored jersey. He’s smart, a game manager, and so on, but, the “ooops moments” seem to come at inopportune times. The second interception was the inopportune time.
You can fault the play call( I would have run Fred 2X, drained some time, then threw this route) but, he’s a pro QB and you need to execute whatever is called. He plays well enough most of the time, just not well enough all the time. That in-between time is a killer.

I’m glad to see that we are not jumping off a cliff over a loss. Let’s face it 4-2 going in to the bye week is pretty good. I’m willing to bet that at the beginning of the season and after all of the injuries we’ve had and good players on IR already that no one would have guessed we would be 4-2 at this point. We definitely need a pass rusher and deep threat in the future but it is starting to come together. Can’t fix all problems in one year. Moats should definitely be on the field more and so should Shepperd. Andra Davis was having a terrible time in coverage. I know he is a great leader especially in the locker room but I think Sheppard needs to play over him. Any thoughts on that?

Wasn’t Carrington supposed to provide an edge rush?

Thought Batten played well in run defense. So did McGee, especially early in the game.

Liked Spiller at WR, but would like to see him add some Josh Reed nastiness. As an RB, he should be able to muscle DB’s. Maybe run a reverse or two with him. Bills faked a couple of reverses during the game, it appeared they could have gone well the way the Giants pursued the actual run.

I’ll beat this drum again: Buffalo needs an edge rusher and a cornerback with their first two picks next April.

Unless there’s a QB they want. I like Fitz, but he’s not going to be the man.

Sad to see Buffalo lose. But even in a loss they proved they are a quality team. The Giants are a good, solid team and Buffalo traded blows and played them evenly throughout the entire game. It came down to the last couple of drives and if Fitz gets just a little more air on the interception an open Johnson catches the winning score.

The Bills are not a ‘great’ team, but they are playoff quality and showed it. They have flaws, just like all teams, but if they can continue to work on those weaknesses and get back and keep their health they have as good a shot as anybody at a playoff spot.

It was also interesting looking at the standings at the end of yesterday. Buffalo’s opponents continue to have stronger and stronger records. Their losses are to a pair 4-2 teams, and they’ve beaten a 5-1, two 4-2, a decent 2-4, and a 2-3. Pretty tough schedule and they have more than held their own.

Tough stretch coming up, and I’m excited to watch it. Win or lose this Bill’s team is a blast to watch and root for.

Chan Gailey seems to have a short list of plays that he goes to: tunnel screen, spread comebacks, receiver bubble screen, Wildcat dive, etc. Buffalo breaks a couple of these plays each game. Buffalo’s passing game, however, is becoming less and less explosive as the season wears on.

Totally agree with this. I started thinking in the Cincy game that Chan was getting a little too reliant on repeating the same sort of shtick over and over. It’s too early to call it Jauron-esque, but I reserve the right to label it that in about 2 months.

That said, I’m thrilled to be going into the Bye Week at 4-2. After the win against the Patriots, I speculated that if we could get 2 out of 3 from the Eagles/Giants/Jets, and at least 1 from the Bengals/Redskins, we’ll be at 6-2 and in a pretty good place. I still stand by that assessment. If we can beat the Redskins (probably likely) and the Jets (who knows), I’ll be even more thrilled.

If only there was a way to help the Bills stretch the field this season by adding another probowl type WR?

Brandon Lloyd. He’d have looked good in a Bills uniform. So he’ll probably end up in an AFC East winning Patriots uniform.

But hey, at least we’ll still have that mid-3rd round pick in next year’s draft.

Couldn’t agree more with all you say. Mark Gaughn of the Buffalo News recently wrote that the priorities next year should be TWO pass-rushing OLB’s and a CB. Hard to argue with that, except that the team may already have the CB on its roster in the form of Justin Rogers. They are very high on his athletic skills and instincts, but coming from a small school he apparently has a lot to learn on the technical side. I’m hoping that they give him some time at CB toward the end of this season so they can really see what they have in him.

On the fade route, your comments make me think of a drill that has now become a routine part of training camp in which the QB’s are asked to throw a fade pass into a garbage can located on the back corner of the endzone starting about ten yards out and then moving steadily back to increase the distance. The best Bills QB at the drill was Levi Brown, who actually put the ball in the can or hit the rim again and again. Thigpen came next, and then Brad Smith. Fitz was lucky if he got the ball within five yards of the can. Of all the passes in the QB’s arsenal, this seems to be the one that gives him the most trouble (which, I suspect, is why they installed this drill and had the QB’s spend 15 minutes doing it every practice).

In this game at least, the compression of the offense was as much a product of the plays Fitz DIDN’T make as the plays we called. We had the Giants all set up to let Stevie beat them for a TD twice, precisely because they were playing up on the WR and we missed those deeper plays. To me it was less about the playcall or even the personnel at WR this week, but Fitz not making the throws he needs to make to keep the defense honest. We’ve seen it before. Against other teams he’s done it, but he had a few opportunities this week to take this game running away and the int’s on vertical plays ended it.

I’m looking forward to the the 2nd half of the season to see if the rookies and 2nd years start to settle in and elevate their game. There might be a CB or pass rusher already on the team and he just hasn’t broken out yet.

The Giants radio announcers kept pointing out that Fitz didn’t seem to have a progression to go through after his primary receiver was covered. I couldn’t tell if this was because of the injuries, better coverage of the 2nd and 3rd receiver, or a lack of time due to a pass rush.

Did anyone else notice that? It suprised me when they said it.

I agree with the pass rusher comment but take slight issue with the CB call – I think they need a bigger CB to help deal with the bigger WRs but not as one of the top 2 priorities. I have them taking a taller CB in Round 4 (I give higher priority to also completing the upgrade of the defensive line with a more dynamic RDE and also boosting the WR corps before drafting yet another CB).

2012 Bills Draft Preview
1. JLB Vinny Curry
2. WR Mohamed Sanu
3. RDE Kendall Reyes
4. CB Trumaine Johnson
4. RG Amini Silatolu
5. NT Derek Wolfe
6. FB Joe Halahuni
7. RT Mitchell Schwartz

I would take Curry, who leads the nation in TFL with 17 and is 2nd in the nation with 9.5 sacks, to eventually replace Merriman at JLB but he would probably be a situational pass rusher who fills in at SLB on passing downs as a rookie.

Then I take advantage of the strong WR class by taking a stud outside receiver to replace Ruvell Martin in Round 2. Then I complete the defensive line upgrade by taking a much more disruptive RDE prospect in Round 3, and THEN I take that bigger CB in Round 4.

If Troup can somehow manage to remain available the rest of this season and do enough good to justify at least keeping him for 2012, I would change my Round 5 pick to taking a TE. But I believe he is a total bust and that Nix won’t hesitate to replace him if he feels the need in this next draft.

Are you kidding me this season is at hand and we have a good team that just needs alittle tweeking, what would it hurt to bring in M.S.Walker, or someone else that can streatch the field and use our FB to carry the ball sometimes, also if we have to blitz let’s do it otherwise wasn’t there a LB from the Dolphins that retired early that can come in and help us with our pass rush? All these things can be done quickly without trades and maybe even on the cheap.