Aside from the lackluster QB play and miserable play calling, our fins are suffering from serious communication/continuity problems on our Offensive line, in our Secondary, and at QB. We've all heard over and over again about the communication breakdowns on the OL and in the secondary and lack of timing between QB and WRs. Saban says this will improve with time. The problem is, he hasn't given it the time. For the second year in a row we have major personnel turnover in all three areas. 3 new starters along the OL and 4 new starters in the secondary (would only have been 3 if Daniels was healthy), and a new QB. This is the second year in a row we've seriously retooled both of these areas. How can you expect to develop cohesiveness with so much turnover from year to year? Why did we waste a year developing communication between Frerotte and our WRs when everyone knew Frerotte was a 1 year solution. Since we were a rebuilding team, we should have had a young developing QB here rather than an aging journeyman.
Unfortunately there is more to come. As soon as the defense starts to gel, we'll probably put Daniels back into the starting lineup. He will not have played with these other starters at all yet. And a few weeks after that, we'll probably disrupt things again by elevating Jason Allen to a starting spot. On most teams I would say this is no big deal, but apparently our defense is so complex and requires so much communication, that it takes weeks and weeks to feel comfortable in our system. Jason Allen, who's supposed to be a smart guy, coming from a major football program, and possessing great physical tools, doesn't seem to have a clue what he's supposed to do out there in our system. Maybe we need to simplify the system a bit, cause the Bills inexperienced secondary sure did shut us down with a bunch of new starters.
With the secondary finally figuring things out during the second half of last season, why did Saban feel the need to blow up the unit and start from scratch? I agree that we didn't have great talent, but with such a great learning curve, how did we expect to have a good secondary with 3-4 new starters?
The same can be said for the OL. By the second half of the season, our OL was opening some good holes for the running game and giving Ferrote plenty of time to throw. So what do we do, that's right, we bring in 3 new starters and we will now need 8-10 weeks to start playing well together. This brings up a question that I keep asking myself. Why didn't we work on this stuff a little more during the preseason? We had 4 preseason games where we could have worked on timing/communication but chose to play our starters for a quarter or less in most of those games and when we did play them, we ran vanilla plays and schemes...not the stuff we use during the regular season. God forbid we show our hand. I know conventional wisdom is not to risk injury to your starters, but with so many new players, maybe the risk would have been worth it. Cause we're now in an 0-2 hole cause everyone is "learning the system", "learning to communicate", or "working on their timing". All of those things could have been "worked on" in the preseason. I mean that is supposed to be the point of the preseason, isn't it? Instead we developed some great timing between Cleo Lemon and Cliff Russell rather than Duante Culpepper and Chris Chambers. I think you get my point.
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. My guess is that we do the same thing again next year. We probably look to replace a few guys on the OL and a few in the secondary, and then we spend the first half of the season blaming the communication/timing problems. Hopefully, we'll at least be patient enough with our QB and WRs so we don't go through this again in that area too.
Sorry for rambling on but I'm so frustrated!!!
Unfortunately there is more to come. As soon as the defense starts to gel, we'll probably put Daniels back into the starting lineup. He will not have played with these other starters at all yet. And a few weeks after that, we'll probably disrupt things again by elevating Jason Allen to a starting spot. On most teams I would say this is no big deal, but apparently our defense is so complex and requires so much communication, that it takes weeks and weeks to feel comfortable in our system. Jason Allen, who's supposed to be a smart guy, coming from a major football program, and possessing great physical tools, doesn't seem to have a clue what he's supposed to do out there in our system. Maybe we need to simplify the system a bit, cause the Bills inexperienced secondary sure did shut us down with a bunch of new starters.
With the secondary finally figuring things out during the second half of last season, why did Saban feel the need to blow up the unit and start from scratch? I agree that we didn't have great talent, but with such a great learning curve, how did we expect to have a good secondary with 3-4 new starters?
The same can be said for the OL. By the second half of the season, our OL was opening some good holes for the running game and giving Ferrote plenty of time to throw. So what do we do, that's right, we bring in 3 new starters and we will now need 8-10 weeks to start playing well together. This brings up a question that I keep asking myself. Why didn't we work on this stuff a little more during the preseason? We had 4 preseason games where we could have worked on timing/communication but chose to play our starters for a quarter or less in most of those games and when we did play them, we ran vanilla plays and schemes...not the stuff we use during the regular season. God forbid we show our hand. I know conventional wisdom is not to risk injury to your starters, but with so many new players, maybe the risk would have been worth it. Cause we're now in an 0-2 hole cause everyone is "learning the system", "learning to communicate", or "working on their timing". All of those things could have been "worked on" in the preseason. I mean that is supposed to be the point of the preseason, isn't it? Instead we developed some great timing between Cleo Lemon and Cliff Russell rather than Duante Culpepper and Chris Chambers. I think you get my point.
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. My guess is that we do the same thing again next year. We probably look to replace a few guys on the OL and a few in the secondary, and then we spend the first half of the season blaming the communication/timing problems. Hopefully, we'll at least be patient enough with our QB and WRs so we don't go through this again in that area too.
Sorry for rambling on but I'm so frustrated!!!
