Bills should share Ozzie Newsome's pass rushing philosophy

meant to say the Jets “were lead in sacks”

The Bills gave up 4.7 yards per carry the year before they promoted Nix and hired Gailey. They’ve given up 4.8 ypc in each of the last two seasons. Bills fans are learning how unimportant run D is without even realizing it because we gave up fewer yards last year and people don’t think it’s as much of a problem now, even though the run D was just as bad. What changed was the offense started scoring more points.

The Jets create pressure via scheme and have built a secondary that they can trust in man coverage intentionally because they believe in creating pressure via the blitz. It’s still a pass defense based scheme and it shows in the way that the Jets have had one of the top pass defenses 2 or 3 years in a row now. If the Bills played the pass like the Jets do, they’d have much more success against the run because teams wouldn’t be able to run as often.

Exactly. The better your offense is, the better your run defense becomes. The better your run D is ….. the better your run D is? Improving certain areas of the game improve others, but a better run defense doesn’t improve any other area of the game other than marginally improving your pass D and marginally improving 3rd down stop rates. There’s a correlation between a good pass offense and a good pass defense and winning in this league. There really isn’t one between running and stopping the run because it’s less important.

they thought they had 2 pass rushers in Schobel and Maybin

But they needed to have a better run defense. Drafting Carrington and Troup was an effort to at least not allow 150 yards per game. I agree that pass rushers are more important, but they were just so terrible on run defense something had to be done right away. They did try to address a little bit, pass rushers with Moats and Batten, but not to much success.This is the year when pass rusher is addressed.

Also we don’t need an elite CB, if we have a couple good ones (i think we need 1 more good starter) we can still have a great defense. The pass rush makes the whole defense better.

It seems like some expect us to be elite after 2 years. They look at SF and try to compare us and them. This team had no talent when Nix got here (as GM) outside of what- 10 guys? including the P and K? That is terrible.
It takes time to grow a franchise through the draft. Year 3 is when most of the guys start to work well as a team. What this team really needs is another good draft (like in 11) and health.

I just don’t get it.

Clearly, because it has absolutely zero to do with how good the Bills are now. Like less than nothing to do with the Bills not being a playoff team already. It’s all about the strategy of the rebuild and a focus on the less important running the ball and stopping the run which has led to passing the ball and stopping the pass being behind the curve in terms of drafting players to rebuild this team. The Bills are only going to get better if they improve the pass game and pass defense.

You mean like the Jets Ravens Niners and Texans? Yeah, those teams don’t have running games propelling them to victory do they?

For starters, those were four of the five best teams in opposing QB rating this past year. They are the elite pass defenses of the NFL. Houston is the random exception to the last 5-10 years of football in which the only run heavy teams have poor QB play. Teams run the ball to minimize the importance of their own QB play. Not exactly the best strategy and it shows when you look at the teams that have actually won Super Bowls. Teams employ run heavy offenses out of necessity, not by design. Teams like the Falcons and Panthers very recently have moved away from run heavy offenses with improved QB play. Less recently, the Steelers and Giants ran a lot with young QBs and moved away from it. Even the Jets and Ravens have run less recently as they have tried to open up their offense and hope for growth from their young QBs.

Also, I said franchise running backs, not strong running games. The RBs on those teams are more replaceable than people think. It’s worth noting that none of the four teams you list have drafted a RB higher than late in the 2nd round in forever.

Historically, you could point to a lot of RBs, but the game has changed. Recently, you could maybe throw Peterson out there, but he’s also the best RB the league has seen in a long time. Then you look at all the other elite players currently at the position and most of them are actually on bad offenses.