By: Jason Phillips
The Buffalo Bills season has had an interesting start. In the first two weeks, they squared off against the two teams that played for a conference championship last year, so to come away with a record of 1-1 isn’t the worst thing in the world. In the Colts game the Bills showed the dominant defense with the average offensive play that most people were expecting coming into the season. In the Patriots game the defense struggled a lot. Tom Brady (who should have been suspended) picked apart the Bills defense with three step drops and quick passes. It also didn’t help that the Bills had to lose yards penalties on every other play of the game. The Patriots game is proof that this team we have right now cannot be a major contender for a super bowl. Their defense takes way too many penalties and is easy to pick apart with quick routes and passes like the Patriots did. The secondary is not good enough in coverage to be able to stop an offense when the team blitzes as much as Rex Ryan likes to. It doesn’t help that starting safety Aaron Williams just got carted off the field with a neck injury and will most likely miss at least one game. It also doesn’t help that our number two corner seems to be as fit to play as Rex Ryan himself. The rookie starter and second round pick Ronald Darby got picked on against the Colts and demolished against the Patriots. If you go back and watch the interception he caught in week one he was beat badly. Andrew Luck just under threw his receiver on the play. This secondary is nowhere near as good as the one Rex had in New York when they made the AFC championship game in back to back years. The defensive line might be better, but when you’re going to send more guys than the offense can block pressure isn’t the issue.
The offense had been somewhat impressive throughout the first two weeks of the year. Tyrod Taylor has done better than expected as starter and has pretty much claimed that spot as his for the rest of year unless he gets injured. Lesean McCoy has been good not great, but the offensive line has really struggled to create the holes he needs in order to get to the second level. The plays where he has gotten past the line of scrimmage in some space his ability to break tackles and his speed has certainly been on display. Percy Harvin has been a key edition for the team and Watkins has some work to be done. The biggest issue is the offensive line play. Glenn and Henderson have been awful through the first two games. The constantly have been getting beat by defensive ends and each have had several holding calls against the, John Miller the rookie guard has been lackluster too. He has trouble creating holes to run the ball and he struggles to pick up the blitz. When 60% of your offensive line are struggling to do their jobs the whole line struggles. Hopefully Miller progresses and gets better at reading blitzes other than that I expect shaky o-line play throughout the year.
