Conclusion to VT vs. Bledsoe

[DLCassidy]

You can make stats say some pretty interesting things. For example, you combined Holcombe and Losman for statistical sake. Holcombe actually took sacks at a lower rate than Bledsoe but Losman's particularly high rate skews the numbers to favor Bledsoe. It's not surprising to anyone that a QB in his first season struggled making timely reads.


You also neglected to note Bledsoe 50+ sack season of 2003 which was a marked increase from Buffalo's '02 season.


If you really want to play a statistics game, I'd suggest you look at Bledsoe's career numbers in inclement weather. Feeble at best and in the NFC East he'll have at least one poor weather division away game in December.

Holcomb's sack#'s were slightly worse than DB in 2004 and he's a dinker and dunker. Losman is a 1st year starter but he's also supposed to be a LOT more mobile and by no means do all 1st year starters take a lot of sacks. 2002 and 2003 the Bills played a different offense with a lot more vertical passing under Kevin Gilbride who ran a version of Mouse Davis' "run and shoot". You'd better have a good OL or you're going to get your QB killed in that offense (which the Bills did not), ask Warren Moon who did have a good OL but took a lot of hits. The sack #'s in 2003 weren't that much worse per attempt than 2002. In fact they were bad both terrible, just a bit worse because the Bills got rid of Price, and Moulds was hurt for most of the year.

I'm not playing any game, just answering a point that was raised and the #'s back up my point. You want to talk about QB's in inclement weather? Start another thread.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

You people forget. Who were we SUPPOSED to sign if not Bledsoe last year?

I would have taken Holcomb or Brad Johnson in a heart-beat.

 

[DLCassidy]

It can be done for a time. Never long enough to win a Championship.

I will be honest with you. I like Bledsoe, as a person and even as a pro player. I hate him as a QB but I honestly like the guy. He does things in a way that I feel is admirable. I just keep coming back to the fact that he's a guy who has played in a league with a lot of very smart people. In 12 years, nobody has been able to design an offense that he could win it all in. Granted you must have some luck to win a championship but to me, that is all the more reason you don't pigeon hole yourself with the kind of QB you can use. I guess I just believe that with all the smart guys in this league, somebody would have already found a way to design an offense that worked with Bledsoe. It hasn't happened yet and I don't think it's going to.

Here we go. It's not tennis, you know? Are you hinting that THIS team, the team we watched get overmatched on the OL in losses to the Giants and Commanders on the road was better QB play away from winning a SB? Please. You can't really believe that. Is that what you're saying? Winning it all is hard to do and it takes a lot more than a great QB. Marino was a great QB. He never won a SB. Manning is a great QB, so far he's never won. You could make quite a list. And I'm not even arguing DB is a great QB. But IMO he's plenty good enough to win a SB surrounded by a great team. Great TEAMS win SB's. Aikman was great but who can deny the quality of the entire squad. When the talent level dropped, so did Troy.

The design of this offense is identical to the one DB played in in NE. It suits him well. He got to a SB in it and NE lost to a superior opponent, a team that had the #1 defense in the league. He was playing lights out in it this year until FA got hurt. The injury to FA was bad luck- the 1st games he's missed in 8 years. It's impossible to overestimate how badly his injury hurt our offense. ALL the #'s dropped like stones, particularly when we played a team that could rush the passer well.

If you put DB on the Commanders I'd give him a good chance to get to the SB this year. Win it? Have to go with Indy. Better team.

 

[StanleySpadowski]

Holcomb's sack#'s were slightly worse than DB in 2004

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from but using just NFL.com I show that Holcombe dropped back to pass 247 times (230 attempts plus the 17 times he was sacked and didn't get a pass off) and was sacked 17 times or once every 14.5 drops.

Bledsoe had 487 dropbacks and was sacked 37 times or once every 13.2 dropbacks.

Now this doesn't even take into account the times that they dropped back to pass and ran, hence avoiding a sack because one site has Holcombe at 14 of those and another has 13 so I chose not to factor that in seeing that whichever it is only further puts Holcombe in front because Bledsoe only had 22 carries (which obviously includes sneaks and kneel downs) in '04 so the gap would have widened further.

 

[DLCassidy]

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from but using just NFL.com I show that Holcombe dropped back to pass 247 times (230 attempts plus the 17 times he was sacked and didn't get a pass off) and was sacked 17 times or once every 14.5 drops.

Bledsoe had 487 dropbacks and was sacked 37 times or once every 13.2 dropbacks.

Now this doesn't even take into account the times that they dropped back to pass and ran, hence avoiding a sack because one site has Holcombe at 14 of those and another has 13 so I chose not to factor that in seeing that whichever it is only further puts Holcombe in front because Bledsoe only had 22 carries (which obviously includes sneaks and kneel downs) in '04 so the gap would have widened further.

You're right, I meant slightly worse than Holcomb but that difference isn't a big deal either way. 1 in 12 or 1 in 13 sacks per attempt is quite good behind Buffalo's OL. It requires playing a certain style though which is not ideally suited for a guy with Bledsoe's arm. Holcomb is actually a very good QB IMO, particularly for a team like the Bills that has major problems protecting the QB. Losman's sack #'s were higher because right now his only real asset is a decent deep ball and that menas holding onto it, which won't work with that OL.

 

[StanleySpadowski]

You're right, I meant slightly worse than Holcomb but that difference isn't a big deal either way. 1 in 12 or 1 in 13 sacks per attempt is quite good behind Buffalo's OL. It requires playing a certain style though which is not ideally suited for a guy with Bledsoe's arm. Holcomb is actually a very good QB IMO, particularly for a team like the Bills that has major problems protecting the QB. Losman's sack #'s were higher because right now his only real asset is a decent deep ball and that menas holding onto it, which won't work with that OL.

I somewhat disagree with you about Losman's problems with sacks (I think that it has to do with him being dumber than a box of rocks not the deep ball) but I pretty much agree with what you're saying but wouldn't you say that a decent deep ball is Bledsoe's biggest asset if not his only one as well?

I've said this before but I think Bledsoe could be a decent bus driver if he could realize that he's a bus driver and not a formula one driver.

 

[Kilyin]

I somewhat disagree with you about Losman's problems with sacks (I think that it has to do with him being dumber than a box of rocks not the deep ball)

This suspicion was confirmed when I heard him quote Yoda in a postgame conference. And I'm completely serious.

 

[DLCassidy]

I somewhat disagree with you about Losman's problems with sacks (I think that it has to do with him being dumber than a box of rocks not the deep ball) but I pretty much agree with what you're saying but wouldn't you say that a decent deep ball is Bledsoe's biggest asset if not his only one as well?

I've said this before but I think Bledsoe could be a decent bus driver if he could realize that he's a bus driver and not a formula one driver.

You could be right about Losman's brains. The Bills had him learning that offense for over a year and he still was lost in space. But he was only successful throwing a straight fly pattern which is kind of a tough game plan to go with every week in the NFL, especially with no line.

Bledsoe has the arm for all the throws. He throws not only one of the best deep balls but the best middle to deep out's in the league.

The bottom line? You can surely find QB's that can get more out of a bad OL than Bledsoe because DB can't run and he's not a scrambler. But at the end of the day, you can't win a championship without a good OL. So it really doesn't matter, you still need the line. Fix the OL and DB will be fine.

 

[The Curly One]

Nothing in the last 5 years has changed. Larry Allen is still totally useless. Flozell has been hot and cold plus a bunch of false start penalties. And the Quarterback has not been the problem since before aikman left. The fact is if you do not protect the Qb (who ever it is) they will get sacked, fumbles, intercepted and hurt. You have to protect the Qb and it has not been happening. Now with the poor offensive line we have the best Qb would have been Quincy because he was the most mobile. Still Quincy was not a good overall Qb just more mobile than the others we had.
Bledsoe is of the quality of Aikman and if he had the offensive line that Aikman had with Eric Williams and them Bledsoe would be amazing. The fact is our current O-line is no where near as good as 92 -95 was.

I definatly like Bledsoe much more than Vinny. Aikman is one of my favorites and always will be but he had the best overall team that I have ever seen with the totally dominant offensive line we had, Emmitt Smith, jay Novechek and on and on. Point is I think on the same team Bledsoe could be as good or close to Aikman. Bledsoe does not have nearly the same players around him that Aikman had. Curly