Chan Gailey Disappointed With Bills' Offensive Line Play

But wasn’t able to land anyone. This will get addressed some how or another before the season starts.

The need to be more physical shouldn’t be at the expense of OL having huge gaffes.

Hangartner isn’t as physical as the team seems to like, but of the potential RG candidates he’s probably the least likely to have kill plays against him. (Although I’m not sure about Rinehart one way or the other.)

The good thing is that Gailey is acknowledging the problem; hopefully a fix is in the works.

I don’t think that they were unaware they needed help on the line but I think they’re now very aware how urgently they need help. I don’t know how hard they pushed for a trade or FA but it obviously wasn’t hard enough to bring in real veteran help so far.

At least it is now being publicly acknowledged and the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it.

He gets center reps with the 2nds because that’s where they want him ultimately. However he is a proven veteran interior lineman who knows how to play but he isn’t part of the long term vision of the team. So he would be a last resort solution is no one steps up. OBD isn’t going to explain every little decision for us and without a major incident or reason they typically won’t. Neither Gailey or Nix are particularly talkative so you’re not going to have information leaking out like you do for other teams.

I’d say the starting line’s pretty average at best with a lot of talent, but the depth is atrocious. If anyone has to come in due to an injury, it’s a serious downgrade (and that’s really saying something considering our starting line isn’t that great to begin with), save Rinehart for Urbik possibly.

Fitzpatrick is really the saving grace here though. He makes them look so much better than they are with his quick decisions. However it would be nice if he had some time, or if Freddy/Spiller/Brad Smith had some holes to run behind…

That is a direct hint from Chan to Buddy, get me some help on the O-Line.

Move Hangartner to guard, that’s where he played before Buffalo got him. We have some serious issues on the O-Line. Buffalo could seriously commit next years entire draft to the O-Line.

He was talking about guys stepping up and playing at the next level with that quote and that to me means the depth guys, not just o-line specific.

Note to Nix:

B. Waters age 34, played very well for KC last year and I believe is still available. Played for our coach so might know something about our offense. At the very least can play a year and teach some tricks to the youngsters.

I took it to refer to the second and third string o-lines — i.e., I thought Chan was complaining about his reserve troops — but I suppose it could mean the first-stringers as well. But if it was the first-string o-line, why would he specifically call it “down-the-line”?

Gailey should be embarrassed to even comment on it at this point. I know I’m embarrassed for him.
Our season ended 7 months ago. There was time before the lockout, the draft, and free agency, and now it dawns on him? Unfortunately, it does not speak well for any of them. Nix, Gailey and Whaley share the blame for this situation. Frankly, I had thought Whaley would bring more to the table. If his voice is being stifled, he won’t put up with it and won’t be around long. His departure would be proof positive there is dysfunction running rampant at OBD. I already think it’s a good bet.
It surely didn’t take a genius to draft Dareus and it doesn’t take a genius to see the quality or lack of it on the OL. By many accounts, CHIX have been hailed as geniuses with a master “plan” . Yet, apparently our two “resident geniuses” didn’t see this.

Since last offseason, Bills fans have been calling for improvements to be made on the Oline, particularly the OTs. They did nothing to address that in 2010, then remarkably, added zero help to the Oline in 2011.

The Bills FO put the Bills in this situation thru gross incompetence. Bell, Urbik, and Pears wouldn’t even make the roster of half the teams in the NFL. What does that say about the Bills 2nd stringers?

Overmatched Olineman get injured. There is no way that Bell and Pears stay healthy for the entire season. There were servicable OL in FA (besides Clabo) that would have improved the team and provided depth. But they’re mostly gone now.

I haven’t done an analysis to back this up, but I believe if you go back and track the draft position of the O-line starters for San Diego, you’ll see that they were predominantly 4th Round and later guys, at least that’s my impression. If true, the inference would be that Nix believes that a quality O-line can be built by drafting guys later and/or picking them up as FAs, which, as a draft strategy would allow a GM to use high round picks to build / continually refresh other parts of the team, rather than using the picks on the O-line.

I’m not personally advocating this strategy, just pointing out that many successful teams (e.g., Pittsburgh, San Diego, et al.) have a strategy built along these lines (look at the to Ts we were considering in FA, one was a 4th R pick, the other a FA). The various late round picks the Bills have made plus the FA signings would seem to indicate that the Bills are going to pursue the same strategy. Point is, you might just have to get used to seeing developmental guys like Hairston or Wrotto drafted and developed, with FAs augmenting those mid to late round picks.

How can I drink the Kool-Aid and believe in the master plan of a FO that doesn’t have room for a pass catching TE in their “Offensive Philosophy” and spends months convincing themselves that they have quality players along the Oline?

I still don’t understand why they moved these guys. All they did was weaken an already suspect Offensive line. Did Hangartner play that bad last season? WTF…Gailey and the boys had all summer to fix this and now its an issue again. They can only blame themselves…Let the finger pointing begin.

Even if he justs stands there he will force people to run aorund him

Any Info. on who is in it and how it work. Is Buffalo still at #3 pick.

It could be worse. We could have the bears OL

and he has skill positions, but he knows the O-line may keep him from success. I am sure he believes strongly he can win w Fitz and the weapons, but he needs a line. Buddy and ralph, you paying attention?

It’s never a good sign if the coach of your team is upset with the way that a specific group played. When the offensive line managed to not only do a bad job, but not meet expectations, Chan Gailey vented.

Chan’s Review of Game

Bills head coach Chan Gailey had a chance to go over the game film from the preseason opener and some of his initial suspicions right after the game were correct. After the first team offense and defense Gailey said there was a lot left to be desired.

"Overall I thought the ones on offense and defense did okay," he said. "We’ve got something we can build on from there. The rest of them were not very good at all and we’ve got a lot of work to try to find which of those guys are going to come up and help this football team be a championship football team. And our special teams overall were extremely poor. If we play like that on special teams we’ll lose two or three games because of special teams this year."

In light of Gailey’s assessment of the special teams play, one wonders if more of the practice time might be devoted to it moving forward. Gailey was a special teams coach earlier in his career with Denver.

I think we finally have a solid coach who wants to win. I respect his comments