Dropped Passes A Recent Theme For Buffalo Bills

Why upgrade receivers when we can just wait for all our injured ones to come back?

I do my own Bills mock draft every season and I agree they need to upgrade the talent in the WR corps in 2012. My current 2012 Bills draft plan is below:

Round 1: SLB Courtney Upshaw/SLB Brandon Lindsey/JLB Brandon Jenkins
Round 2: JLB Melvin Ingram/WR Nick Toon/WR Dwight Jones
Round 3: JLB Vinny Curry/SLB Andre Branch/WR Marvin McNutt, Jr
Round 4: CB Donnie Fletcher/OT Matt McCants/CB Leonard Johnson
Round 4: OT Tony Bergstrom/CB Omar Bolden/OT Mitchell Schwartz
Round 5: C Michael Brewster/C William Vlachos/C Quinton Saulsberry
Round 6: DE Derek Wolfe/FB Cody Johnson/DE DaJohn Harris
Round 6: FB Joe Halahuni/DE Christian Tupou/FB Drake Dunsmore
Round 7: WR Jordan White/WR Rishard Matthews/WR Jarrett Boykin

Anyone who could draw the coverage. They don’t even have to be great. DC’s have recognized that they can keep both safeties up close and press the short routes, forcing Fitz to throw balls to tight spaces. The Bills lucked out on a few throws last week on catches that seemed very well defended.

And Spiller needs to dedicate the offseason to improving his receiving game.

I was curious in if the # of drops reflected the # of pass attempts. So from the link provided in the story I also looked at the # of receptions. I then divided drops by the sum of drops and receptions to get the % of dropped passes for all 32 teams.

New England has the least drops at 4.4%, Cleveland has the most at 12.4%. The Bills rank 7th with 6.0%.

As far as do we need another receiver: I think we could use an explosive burner WR to pair with Stevie (more of a possession WR). But I think we need to address OLB and CB more than WR.

We seem to drop passes over 10 yards, is there a seperate stat for that? Bubble screens, shuttle passes, and check-downs are not difficult passes to catch, thus the deceiving numbers.

So you dont think Stevie’s drop cost a win huh?

just my unsubstantiated opinion, but, it seems to me that receivers are “shy” about going across the middle. I have always thought Stevie is especially skittish anticipating a hit.

This WR corps is fine. Sure depth may be needed, but can easily be had. Did anyone see how many A Rodgers passes were dropped against NYG? We need depth on defense, not for WRs.

Perhaps the issue is when our receivers make the catches (and I don’t just mean game time). Fitz’s YPA has dropped to 6.8, the lowest of the top 14 QBs in the league. We have a passing offense that focuses on getting the ball out fast, but that obviously comes at the expense of the big play. Our recievers may be making the catches, but because we lack that Killer Strike that we had with Lee Evans, it highlights the drops they DO have because each short yardage play becomes more and more vital (especially when we play from behind).

I hope Brad Smith can develop into a reliable deep threat, and I sure as heck hope that Fitz tightens up his deep ball accuracy. The latter being more an issue than the prior.

They need a big fast receiver who can stretch the field vertically. A pass-rusher (OLB) and a big speed receiver will help their respective units (defense and offense) the most. If the Bill’s can fill both these positions, resign key free-agents, they will be a playoff team next year.

Its true we spend a lot of time talking about an offense that is being asked to compensate for a really bad scoring defense. They are constantly in a race to get to 25+ points to win a game and maybe a handful of teams in the NFL have offenses that can do that consistently. When we fail, we come down hard on offensive problems, but in the scope of the entire game we are putting a lot more pressure on these guys to be perfect.
With this group we are outperforming on offense and yet we usually spend two-thirds of our time wondering about playcalling, offensive scheme, and fitpatricks accuracy.

Meanwhile our defense is basically demanding that they score as many points as Green Bay, New Orleans, New England, Detroit or Houston in each game, so be a top 5 scoring offense. The fact we’ve even come close at times I think is a credit to these players. But every team has drops and ours is no exception. Our failings (not in every game, but in general) are much more related to our defense and in particular our defense getting crushed in the first half of games, which then contributes to putting more pressure on the O.

Its tough to be a top 5 O without at least one elite player on offense (and even when Fred is healthy, I think I’d trade him for 5 other backs). All those other teams have elite wideouts or CBs or RBs or a combination.

So while I think the offense can always play better. The low hanging fruit is can our defense get better and not allow 25+ points per game. It seems much more reasonable to ask this defense to get out of the bottom rungs of the elague on scoring d than to expect our offense to be a top 5 offense to over come that. To me that means I think asking perfection from the O is expecting too much, whereas asking competence from the defense could take as a big step forward.

To the people who compile these stats what constitutes a “drop”. When ever I watch a game, it seems like the balls are always bouncing off the receivers’ hands. In fact, I’ll bet almost half of Fitz’s interceptions this year bounced off one of our reciever’s hands first.

Our wide receivers are the least of our problems, Bills have good young talent – I’d say this is one of the strengths of the team. If at all, which is not a priority (compared to other issues)…get a burner on the outside to help Stevie out.

Brad Smith looks like the truth as of late too…don’t forget about Mr. Moneybags

They have a core of good, undrafted FAs or late-round draft picks. However, they also have a good number of solid, extremely talented superstars. I think that if we can keep our solid, hard-working guys going, and supplement them with some true superstars, we can go far. Unfortunately, we do not have any true superstars, except Fred Jackson, and potentially Marcel Dareus down the road. He’s already contributing greatly as a rookie.