For this week’s Q&A to preview Sunday’s game at Nissan Stadium when the Titans host the Buffalo Bills, I’m pleased to be joined by Joe of Bloguin’s Bills site, Buffalo Wins. Joe is also on Twitter. As well as answering my questions, Joe sent me questions about the Titans for me to answer, and you can read those answers here.
Total Titans: Tyrod Taylor, four games into the season: good? Bad, but not too bad? Just enough that with the rest of the pieces around him he can help win games? Where’s your assessment of him?
Buffalo Wins: I’ve been impressed with him. Now, I had zero to no expectations about the guy and was hoping for him to get like a TD a game and not screw it up for us. So, when expectations are that low, any sort of positive numbers pop out more to me. He’s tied for 5th in TDs and has the 9th best QB rating in the league. He’s also completing over 70% of his passes. Now, like any young QB, consistency is his issue. Take last week. He was dreadful in the first half against the Giants (36 yards passing and 2 1st downs), but turned it on in the 2nd half (250 yards). The same thing happened against the Patriots in week 2. I think the Bills need to play better around him because he’s putting up points, but the plan really was for the defense and running game to do most of the work and I think both areas have been alright, but not great. Some think the best way to stop Tyrod is to try and keep him in the pocket and not let him run all over the place.
Total Titans: Coming into the season, I had big questions about the Bills’ offensive line and their ability to block well enough in the run game and give Taylor the protection he would need to make plays. How have they fared overall, and who are the best and worst players?
Buffalo Wins: I’m not impressed. Let’s start with the bad. The right side is a train wreck. When you have a 2nd year player who was drafted in the 7th round start as your right tackle (Seantrel Henderson), you have problems. Right now PFF has him ranked as the 50th best tackle in the league. His partner in crime, Jon Miller, is a rookie 3rd rounder and he’s currently ranked 76th by PFF. So, again, the right side is a disaster. When you get to the left side, Ritchie Incognito has done well as he’s allowed just 2 QB hits on the season and Cordy Glenn is a top 15 LT. Eric Wood is our center and he’s hit or miss. I think he’s overrated, but there are a number of fans who like his game.
Total Titans: The Bills’ defense has gone from Mike Pettine’s multiple pressure scheme to Jim Schwartz’s rush four and coverage back to a multiple pressure scheme with Rex Ryan, Pettine’s old boss in New York. We’ve seen in Tennessee lately the costs of a scheme transition. How is the transition back going?
Buffalo Wins: It’s still a work in process. The Bills have looked great defensively in their wins against the Dolphins and Colts. They didn’t get too many sacks in those games, but they got a ton of pressure on Luck/Tannehill. However, when they went up against Brady/Eli, they got shredded a bit. The scheme to beat the Bills defense right now is the quick passing game. I believe that Eli/Brady’s throws were timed as taking less than 2 seconds to attempt a pass after the snap. For instance, Eli was hit just once last week. As Marcell Dareus said this week, you can have a garbage can at QB playing, but if I only get 1.5 seconds to get to him, he’s not going to be able to accomplish that. So, I don’t know how the Bills can stop that. Maybe have more disguises prior to the snap would help.
Total Titans: Penalties are often the cost of doing business in the NFL. Many of the heavily-flagged secondaries are good because they straddle the thin line between legal and excessive physical contact. Ditto offsides for defensive linemen, as we saw in Tennessee with Schwartz. Yet, some penalties are just dumb and bad play. Where do the heavily-flagged Bills fall on that line between good and stupid penalties, and how much do you think Rex Ryan really cares?
Buffalo Wins: I think he really cares as he had the team doing push-ups this week in practice if they committed a foul. Here’s the thing. When the Bills win, everyone is touting Rex as this master motivator with his bravado. When the Bills lose and commit penalties, it’s all Rex’s fault because he’s belligerent with his teachings. It’s a BS narrative to be honest with you. The Bills were 5th in penalties last year while the Jets under Ryan were 20th. So, don’t tell me it’s all on Rex. Now, should he get blame? Sure. All coaches should. However, when you are Rex…it gets accentuated. But, yeah, some of the penalties have been on the Bills, especially the personal foul penalties which 30% of their flags this year have been those. Now, there were some dubious calls last week by the refs on a few holding and offensive PI calls. To be honest, the refs are out of control right now and are flagging everyone. Even the Pats/Giants combined for over 22 penalties against us. So, it’s not just a Rex dilemma.
Total Titans: Is there anything I haven’t asked about you’d like Titans fans to know about the Bills?
Buffalo Wins: The Bills offense is in some trouble without LeSean McCoy and Sammy Watkins (Sammy might be playing). We saw that last week as it was easier to stop the Bills running game and double up on Percy Harvin. I’m not sure how good you guys are against the TE, but Charles Clay has been putting up decent numbers the last two weeks and has been the Bills best pass catcher over that time. He’s very elusive. Also, rookie Ronald Darby has been very impressive. He leads the league in PDs and QBs are completing only 31% of their passes thrown his way.
Total Titans: Finally, if you’d like to make a score prediction, please go ahead.
Buffalo Wins: I got the Bills, 24-10. I think they are going to be able to get to Mariota.
Thanks a lot to Joe for a fun Q&A exchange. Don’t forget to check out Buffalo Wins for my answers to his questions and lots of great Bills (and Sabres!) coverage.
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