Buffalo Bills' Brad Smith: Lockout Limited His Effectiveness

More of the same, unfortunately.

Early in the season I thought Smith was very effective in the Wildcat. And when I use the term “effective” it seemed as if each of his carries resulted in a first down. As injuries forced him to play more WR, we saw much less of the Wildcat formation.

If he can remain an effective Wildcat option, while also serving as a solid back-up WR and occasional KR – that will be fine with me.

I know that I am in the minority for Brad Smith but I thought he played well for us, especially in the begining of the season. For the first 4-5 games 3rd & 2 or less were “automatic” for this team with Smith running very basic wildcat plays. He averaged over 4 yds a cary when everyone knew he was going to run.

When WR’s started to drop like flies Chan had a choice to put a rookie or 2nd year WR in the lineup or a vetran like Smith. By playing him at WR full time the WC became a thing of the past. As far as his production at WR, I thought it was acceptable considering he wasn’t brought in here to be a #2 WR.

I know a lot of you hate the WC and I don’t want to see it all the time but its hard to argue with the initial success it had. I imagine that early in the offseason workouts the Bills will spend some quality time devoloping a more comprehensive package not only for 3rd downs but also for the final 4 mins of a game when we need to run out the clock.

On the flip side I was very dissapointed in his KO returns. He seemed to run very hesitant on the few KO’s that he returned. I don’t know if this was just a lack of knowledge of your teammates or a lack of trust. I don’t want to write him off as an option for KO’s but he is definetly not the first option right now.

For explaining why we picked him in such plain language. Smith’s signing had, until now, seemed very odd to me. The rule change! Of course! I feel Much better about his signing now. To answer your prediction question, I’m going to say that ALL of his numbers rise, except (hopefully) WR, as I hope he will not be needed nearly as much. Also, this realization gives Nix and Gailey a few more “good job” points, in my book.

his 18.8-yard kick return average was a monumental disappointment following a 29.0-yard average over the past two seasons.

Could this be contributed to the new kick-off rule?

Wasn’t a big fan of him on the outside. His wildcard looks were effective. And I wish he wouldve attempted a couple of the passes that looked to be there.

I expect him to get more looks like he did in the beggining of the year last year. People will gripe about how much we are paying him. But until we get near the cap, i dont see the problem. As long as he can help this team in the slightest.

(new rule). Also, I’m not sure most of us dislike the WC, it does work. It’s just, well, boring.

I expect mostly the same. I tried to talk myself into Smith’s signing (mostly because Jets’ fans really loved the guy), but deep down I always suspected it was a strange move. A bad team that has holes everywhere and a history of frugality in free agency spends lavishly on a hood ornament like Smith? Weird. Add in the fact that much of Smith’s value was at kick returner and the NFL was actively seeking to eliminate kick returns and Nix comes off looking confused yet again. I doubt Smith finishes his contract at this point. He’ll go down as another misguided move by Buffalo’s floundering braintrust that is led by a GM who has no real plan.

why they stopped using him on 3rd and short, it worked almost everytime.

It would be nice to have that extra cash this year for Mario or Vincent

1.) Team was overcome by absurdly high number of injuries, leading to poor play from backps.
2.) Ryan Fitzpatrick played the 2nd half of season although badly injured, leading to poor play from Fitzpatrick.
3.) The NFL lockout limited Brad Smith’s effectiveness in the offense, leading to Smith not contributing fully to team.

Any others for 2011?

Any estimates on what these reasons (“excuses”) will be for missing the playoffs next year? Here are some of the ones I think:

1.) Change to 4-3 defense and first-year defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt means defense needs some time to learn and gain experience in new system, leading to poor play defensively.
2.) Loss of Stevie Johnson in offseason left Bills scrambling to adequately replace him, (but who could have known that team X would throw that much money at Stevie Johnson? Team X can have him at that price!), leading to an offense lacking in big plays AND part of the reason for Fitzpatrick’s up and down season.
3.) Fred Jackson, angry that the Bills did not redo his contract prior to the season, publicly demands to be traded, causing a distraction to the team, leading to poor play.
4.) Buddy Nix, in attempting to satisfy Ralph Wilson’s request to acquire “some tight ends that don’t get injured”, signs Wolverine from the X-Men, citing his ability to “recover from virtually any wound, disease or toxin at an accelerated rate” and also his ability to “chop block”. Wolverine is tossed from the first game for seriously wounding 3 defensive linemen with his sharp claws, and subsequently suspended from all league play by the Roger Goodell (Wolverine’s appeal to the league, citing that Ndamukong Suh
has performed worse actions without a league suspenion, was denied. The Commish was later found unresponsive with claw marks all over body.) Somehow this lead to poor play.
5.) And of course, as with all Buffalo sports teams, an absurd amount of injuries, leading to poor play.

I buy the lockout and injuries explanation.

I choose to believe that they do have a Kordell Stewart type plan for Smith. It is consistent with Gailey’s comments about what he sees as the future of the QB position.

With that said, I think the guys who point out Gailey seems to have a hard time utilizing all the talent on his roster is a little too true. Spiller and Smith being these examples.

got some big hits early in the season despite converting on a few 3rd and shorts, I wonder if that dissuaded Gailey from continuing to use him in such a fashion down the stretch.