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Preseason priority

Marcus,

One has to say it's a pessimistic view. Games are to tough to win in the NFL at any point in the year. A win is a win but we (fans) keep looking back to the start we had last year and the promise that it showed without putting the games in a proper perspective.

One other thing to analyze about that start. 3 Wins at home in 90 plus degrees and 2-1 on the road.

Some may look at the Indy game and say "hey they made the playoffs" but we all know that Indy did not belong in the playoffs. How many points were put on Indy in that game, 44 ?

So in other words on the road we beat our perennial punching bag Indy, Lost to the worst defense in the NFL, and won against a team that was a mirror image of what we have (Strong Defense and running game).
 
That entire analysis of the first half of the season wasn't just pessimistic, in fact thats the kind of thing I would expect to see from the most homeristic of Jet fans (ray_ray1 comes to mind).

The truth of the matter is that in the first half of the season we went 5-1 against teams who would end up in total to be 47-44 in every other game they played besides the one we played against them in weeks 1-6.

Indianapolis's defense ended up being one of the best in the NFL. At the time we played Denver they had the best run defense in the league. Sure we beat the Jets when Vinny was at the helm but that has nothin to do with the 30 points we put up against their D.

That offensive line that proved nothing in terms of pass protection only had 6 or 7 teams allow fewer sacks, and that was WITH a stint with Ray Lucas stumbling over himself in his 5 step dropback like a dozen times without being touched.
 
No offense here because we need all types of fans on a message board but...

My posts can be described as pessimistic or realistic and it don't much bother me as you can tell from my self-description in them.

One thing that I have noticed is that you look at the team with them "rose colored glasses" a little too often. No offense, just my two cents.

Now there is nothing wrong with that because I do it when I participate on a Bills board. I'm not going to disparage my team among enemy fire. It's just on this board I call it as I see it.
 
if the raiders lose gannon, they are toast to name another contender that relies heavily on one offensive player.
 
Thought I would add my two cents:

1972: I don't agree that the first 6 games were against poor quality. But, I will concede that we usually get off to a fast start, so trying to claim that Fiedler would have maintained his pace for the rest of the year is probably a bit too "rose colored." We just don't know. But, I'm guessing that he would have done better than Lucas. Just an inkling I have.

Personally, I think our problem is defense. Even with the Lucas disaster, we should still have made the playoffs. Jay and the offense, while only average, still put up enough points to win the last two games, but the defense couldn't get the stop when we needed it. That's what really hurt. Year after year the defense seems to go from dominate to dominated by some pretty mediocre teams late, and that is just hard to take.

As for the article: If anyone noticed, it was written by Todd Archer. He's the beat writer for the Palm Beach Post. So I don't think he qualifies as "national" media.

I like Toliver, but until he does something with pads on, we have to be a little cautious about projecting him as an impact player. It seems like every year there is a player or two that gets us all excited and then ends up flaming out and being cut. This year I'm going to wait for the pads before I get to excited about anyone but Ricky.
 
Three of the six - Indy, KC, and Detroit.

Since you brought up the defense I'll add my two cents to that also. The defense did get help last year from the running game that kept them off the field. If they were as good a unit as we thought, you are correct. They should have made the playoffs.

In defense of the unit

I was watching a edge NFL matchup at one point or another and they pointed out our weakness and who exploited it. The weakness was running on our corners. The defensive ends (Taylor and Oge') got their push upfield so much faster than the two inside (Bowens, ect) that it created a seam to run on. At that point it is the outside linebackers duty to fill the gap. The guys on NFL matchup said that Buffalo found the gap and exploited it. I don't have game footage to see if they were accurate and I didn't identify it myself so I'm not sure if they were entirely correct. But it sounds good to me because we got rid of one of the exploited (Derrick Rodgers) and drafted yet another. The NFL matchup guys said that after Buffalo did it with success the rest of our schedule followed their lead and had similar success.

I remember alot of plays where I was disgusted with passes five yards and out and delayed runs that were successful too. I'm sorry I didn't get to watch for what the NFL matchup guys pointed out after the season's completion.

The one thing keeps passing through my head about the defensive unit is that when you "spring a leak" somewhere you look to patch it immediately with other resources. The resources for us may have come in the form of other players that were on the field trying to make up for the failed efforts of others. I described that big Moulds reception against Madison where Moulds had about four yards on him in another thread. Madison gave a one arm push at the line and started downfield with Moulds who would slant to the inside and up 10 yards out. Madison would then look back at the corner to the sideline and Moulds blew by Marion with the ball in the air. Why did Madison look back to the corner ?

This play and alot of others flow through aching head constantly but not knowing the defense called and having the game film to look at it, I just don't know what happened. But it is my suspicion that our weakness in the play of the outside linebacker lead to this teams downfall on the defensive side of the ball.
 
72: That's actually pretty interesting. I didn't see that matchup show, but my recollection of our defensive weakness (in no particular order)is:

1. Running Backs running pass routes on linebackers.

2. TEs up the middle.

3. Safety/Corner Communication


I don't really remember the rushing issue, but it makes a fair amount of intuitive sense. BTW, I think the Fins did a good job addressing the weaknesses with Seau, Moore and Knight. I like our chances.
 
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