Re-Assessing The Bills' Offensive Line Depth Chart

I think the final group is exactly what you said, unfortunately. I would rather keep Hang and dump Wrotto, but that doesn’t seem likely as that would mean that we have no swing tackles at all.

Give Hang a shot at RG, i would understand this move taking place more so than replacing Levitre. Its not great but its not broke, so dont try to fix it. RG right now needs something more concrete, Urbik would make a good back up.

But i think OBD is looking to keep wang for another year at least. so i think we could see the bills cutting Hang and keeping wrotto, just because wrotto is more versatile.

This is true. The Bills need to not be paying Kelsay 6 million a year, and could have shuffled that cash to a Tackle like Clabo. Then move Wood back to RG. Imagine the possibilities with those 2 on the right side. Spiller may actually have a productive year.

yes.

I’m really starting to take issue with these kinds of responses in regards to the Bills apparent weakness at OL. I agree that the position overall is severely lacking in talent and until it’s resolved the Bills are going to have a really hard time being consistently successful on offense. But people need to be patient and let the front office do it’s thing and stop being so negative about one thing that hasn’t been fixed when so many other problems have been addressed.

Buddy Nix is trying to rebuild this franchise into a winner. No easy task, given the horrible mess he was dealt. See MRW’s article cataloging all the draft busts we’ve been stuck with over the course of the last decade as proof. He cannot correct EVERYTHING that was wrong in one off season, it simply cannot be done. When Buddy took over, the Bills were weak everywhere! Except maybe for WR. To expect him to fix the run defense AND the pass rush AND the QB situation AND the weakness at OL AND add quality depth to the bench with one draft and one free agency period while being slowed by the lockout is simply unrealistic and IMO completely unfair.

It seems to me that the focus this year was to plug the holes on defense. Get better against the run, and have pass rushing capabilities. I think, at least on paper, this has largely been accomplished. Drafted Dareus, got Merriman healthy, dealt with losing Poz, etc. etc. We should see some serious improvement on defense this year. If my guess is correct, the next offseason will be dedicated to getting our QB of the future and beefing up the OLine. At that point, we will be primed to start contending for the division and\or making playoff runs.

Patience!

They brought in Eric Pears, Kraig Urbik, Chad Reinhardt, Mansfield Wrotto and drafted Ed Wang and James Hairston. That is six somethings that they have done, now they are coaching them.

But if Gailey and Nix are concerned about the depth of the O-line, how come nothing has been done to address that depth?

considering we’re not even remotely close to the only team with offensive line problems – even the good teams – Bears, Steelers, Packers have had sub par offensive lines – one could easily surmise that it’s just not an easy thing to do.

As a fan we can easily see a weakness and say why haven’t they upgraded it – well there are other issues on this team besides offensive line. A) You cannot fix all at once and B) you don’t want to take lesser talented players at other positions because of a need at another position.

They’re not going to risk exposing a fourth-round pick to another team by putting him on the practice squad. They didn’t do it with a fifth-rounder last year (Wang), and they won’t do it with Hairston. Period.

Any chance that because Brad Smith plays QB/WR/special teams that it frees up a roster spot so CHIX can keep an extra Olineman?

Better than if Howard or Wrotto appeared on that list anywhere…

Wang is a left tackle prospect. Hairston is a right tackle prospect.

The main question with the “lack of depth” they have is with Wang, Howard, Wrotto where none of these guys are showing vast improvement where they are “pushing” the starters like Rhinehart is pushing Levitre. Those guys are “miles” behind Pears and Bell right now (who are not even considered “average tackles” by NFL standards. It is quite possible all maket the team or none of them make the team (if they got off their butts and signed some veterans to come in and compete). This then leads to their other main problem is signing veterans to come in an compete hasn’t proven effective for them either because it only takes about 3-4 games before these vets get hurt and then go on IR and we are back to just slotting guys into the position who are just “fill-ins”.

Hairston is safe for this year, but has the pressure on him next year to try and unseat Pears. Wang has all the pressure on him this year and needs to vastly improve during these preseason games to give the coaches enough confidence to see that he can continue this progress for the next year or two after.

except that if I was in charge, I’d want to keep Wang and let him and Hairston stick around over Wrotto and Howard.

I’m sure Chix would have never let him go!

Stitchcomb

Presume much?

Your comments are similar to mine. If we decide to pick up players from waivers it should be at the end of pre-season when all teams are cutting the players that just miss being on their rosters, not the ones being cut anytime soon that are not worth spending their teams’ time on for the remainder of pre-season.

So ARE the days of our lives…..