Reviewing My Keys to Victory in Our WIN

[Flugel]

These were my keys to victory:

1) Win the turnover battle (last year Trent Edwards threw 4 INTs & it helped considerably. Also helps field position)

2) Win the time of possession (teams are running on the Bills this year)

3) Win the line of scrimmage - it's all about attitude & leverage

4) Win field position (Cribbs is #1 but Buffalo has very good STs and Parrish is a dangerous return guy as well)

5) Win the little things consistently (in a game of inches - they matter more than you'll ever fathom)

6) Win the intelligence, vision and discipline

 

Let's review in order:

1) The turnover battle was even this year with 1-1 without any theories or insults to player necessary. As they said the wind was brutal and it showed up when teams had to field punts. Cribbs had what seemed to be a fumble we didn't lose and they weren't as lucky.

2) Win time of possession: Life is wonderful when we can RUN the ball with a line that does NOT suck the way they've been accused of. As I said in a few posts - teams HAVE run on Buffalo and so did we.

3) Win the line of scrimmage: I think that was blatantly obvious we won that battle on both sides of the ball.

4) Win field position: Did anyone count how many punts we downed inside their 5? Inside their 1? They were VERY conservative and predictable as a result of this.

5) Win the little things - anyone pay attention to HOW well guys pulled like Steinbach and Mack? Anyone notice HOW LONG our oline sustained blocks for? Anyone notice how many sacks former Pro Bowl DE Aaron Schobel had vrs Joe Thomas? That's stud #3 he shhut ut this year right?

6) Intelligence, vision and discipline: WHICH teams got penalized ALOT more than the other? STs reflects this alot.

 

Obviously DA struggled with completion % but it's not like his passes were going off to different area codes. 31 other TEs in this league take the perfect pass to Robert Royal to the end zone. Buffalo knew they didn't even have to cover him and they were correct.

 

I had mixed feelings about the passing numbers because I've always been told that passes hitting receivers in the hands should be caught. I understand some of those (maybe even half) were slightly behind guys but if we're being honest there were many catchable passes that weren't caught. There was only 1 pass that hit a Buffalo defender in the hands and it was caught right? Maybe we should play dodge ball in practice because we dropped way too many passes regardless of imperfections and theories.

 

I'm reading the OC needs to get fired as our Oline is gelling for 2 consecutive weeks and our running game is possessing the football, resting our defense (giving them fresher legs), and giving us chances to win that we didn't come close to seeign in weeks 1-3. There's something to be said when opponents need to worry about a deep ball. I couldn't tell you who played Safety for Buffalo because I didn't see him stopping too many running plays as their LBers got depleted. I guess that also means our oline was hitting people so geee, fire the OC for all these fans that have all the answers.

 

The BIGGEST difference in MoMass between last week and this week is Buffalo didn't have to roll their coverages to Braylon Edwards leaving MoMass favorable matchups without help. This week, he drew Buffalo's attention in the film room and that led to a matchup with their #1 corner. He'll get better with experience with such a thing.

 

Last but not least, Trent Edwards seems very similar to Brady Quinn in every way. He's got 2 talented WRs he can only partially utilize on HIS terms. They might as well trade Lee Evans because the deep home runs died the day Edwards took over. At the end of the day, Trent had the better completion % that NEVER ONCE hurt our defense. I'm guessing their RBs had 80% of his completions while Me-O got his 4 short and harmless receptions. Tell you what, I'd consider trading Quinn for Lee Evans. Trent Edwards has been our MVP both of the last 2 times we played them. He's horrible. He was winless his senior year at Stanford regardless of how well his dink, donk and honk made his passer ratings look.

 

In the end, REFUSE to complain about winning. I also don't agree with FIRING the OC but it's obvious we need to work on the pass and catch thing a little. If one saw the game without Quinn bias - there were quite a few passes that SHOULD have been caught that weren't when we're talking about PROFESSIONAL receivers. Trust me when I say I've seen DA missing receivers by area codes in the past and I can't really say that about yesterday. I'm in favor of benching Robert Royal for Heiden's reliability over the middle. He's worthless and it's still hard to believe Rucker looked so much worse than that.

- Tom F.

[Guest ATENEARS]

Last but not least, Trent Edwards seems very similar to Brady Quinn in every way. He's got 2 talented WRs he can only partially utilize on HIS terms. They might as well trade Lee Evans because the deep home runs died the day Edwards took over. At the end of the day, Trent had the better completion % that NEVER ONCE hurt our defense. I'm guessing their RBs had 80% of his completions while Me-O got his 4 short and harmless receptions. Tell you what, I'd consider trading Quinn for Lee Evans. Trent Edwards has been our MVP both of the last 2 times we played them. He's horrible. He was winless his senior year at Stanford regardless of how well his dink, donk and honk made his passer ratings look.

 

Great point. Can you imagine if we had Lee Evans and Terrel Owens on this team and couldn't score against the Browns?

 

In the end, REFUSE to complain about winning. I also don't agree with FIRING the OC but it's obvious we need to work on the pass and catch thing a little. If one saw the game without Quinn bias - there were quite a few passes that SHOULD have been caught that weren't when we're talking about PROFESSIONAL receivers. Trust me when I say I've seen DA missing receivers by area codes in the past and I can't really say that about yesterday. I'm in favor of benching Robert Royal for Heiden's reliability over the middle. He's worthless and it's still hard to believe Rucker looked so much worse than that.

- Tom F.

 

Yeah, I don't see the point in trashing this site all about the negative when we had so many positives in that game, especially finding a way to win )or having the other team finding a way to lose).

 

Special teams & the run game were huge - but having our coaching staff stick to the run as the bread and butter even though everyone in the house knew that we would run, was big. Too many times our coaching staff tries to out-smart themselves ... today we stuck to what was working and managed the game well, IMO.

 

Basically, by getting rid of Edwards and starting the rookies with a player who had only been on the roster for about 5 days, pretty much eliminated anything and everything we've tried to establish since QB-camp last Spring.

 

Good post Tom.

[Greythan]

Way more positives than negatives from yesterday for me.

 

Loved the defensive effort.

Loved the OLine play.

Loved seeing JL run angry.

Loved seeing Cribbs run for 31 yards.

Love seeing Cribbs return kicks.

Loved seeing EW have Cribbs' back on his muffed catch and grabbing that fumble (first in years?).

Loved our special teams.

 

Yes, it was an ugly game against a struggling team but a win's a win. Playing for draft position is crap. Most of the players that will make or break this team next year are on the roster today. You want to instill a winning attitude.

 

Steelers look vulnerable.

[pl4tinum]

I have to agree, call Daboll whatever you want but when he saw the run was working and they couldn't stop us (especially with those injuries at linebacker that they had mid-game), that's what I would have done too, just keep running it right at them. It's too bad Jamal is so slow that he can't run more than 10 yards.