Bills should attack Favre: It’s fun!  Oh, and effective

By Anthony Bialy  |   Friday, December 12, 2008  |  Comments( 131 )

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The 6-7 Buffalo Bills are running out of chances to show that they’re not the team they’ve shown themselves to be. While their shameful falloff mostly has to do with the fact that the offense has become a lost cause that isn’t going to suddenly outperform anyone, the defense is capable of tweaking its performance, too. Assuming reaching the end zone remains a hazy dream for the Bills, their best shot at taking down the 8-5 New York Jets this weekend is for the defenders to rev up and attack a quarterback who just asks for it.

As for the big shot in question, Brett Favre has thrown 15 interceptions in 2008, tied for most in the NFL with Gus Frerotte; matching Frerotte at anything is legal proof that things aren’t going entirely well. The Atlanta Falcons’ 1991 second-round pick is also wallowing in a funk to the surprise of no one who’s followed his career: His passer rating the game before last against the Denver Broncos was a woeful 60.9, which he almost unfortunately matched with a 60.8 this past Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers.

He’s also been sacked 26 times, having been brought down in 11 of New York’s 13 contests; unsurprisingly, one of his safe games was the first Buffalo matchup. On the bright side for his opponent, their unfortunate inability to generate even marginal pressure in the initial fixture makes it easy for the Bills’ defense to spot the worst thing they did wrong.

As for fixing the exhibited problem, more attackers would the easy answer, and Buffalo should make it more complicated by using players who for it are unusual attackers. Specifically, the Bills should be looking to crush hopes of an all-Jersey Super Bowl by hassling Favre into even more frequent mistakes, namely by attacking him with linebackers.

For one, middle man Paul Posluszny has already proven that he’s fine at patrolling, but it would be nice to see him leave his jurisdiction and occasionally take on a roguish quarterback. He had nine sacks as a Penn State Nittany Lion, which is unfortunately nine more than he’s obtained as a pro.

Shockingly, Posluszny still hasn’t gotten a sack in the 16 games he’s played as a Bill. Or, it’s not shocking, as Buffalo’s philosophy tends to make linebackers stay home; that said, with this season having gone as it has, this is as good a time as any to unshackle him. His partner in Kawika Mitchell has been allowed to speed ahead slightly more frequently, getting up to three sacks so far, and he may as well be given the chance to prove he can inflate his total.

As for the third linebacker, Keith Ellison’s primary job is to not get knocked over, so he may not be a good candidate for fifth man in. But this stands as a great chance for his two more prominent corps members to show how useful they could be if they were included on blitzes.

It’s not that the Bills should be trying out a new defense. Although they could: While the unit has held its ground as the offense has lost its footing and slid into oblivion, that doesn’t mean the defense should remain content with where it is and what it's done. Seeing if using linebackers more belligerently would be practical is a fine way to spend a game that can be best seen as a live playbook trial for 2009. It’s especially true with end Aaron Schobel now officially done for the season: This defense may as well experiment the rest of the way to see if anyone else could be a potentially useful quarterback pursuer.

While it’s risky to institute such an aggressive change, the fact remains that sticking to their guns has caused the Bills to go 0-4 in their division; now’s the time to go all in and hope their foe blinks. If nothing else, the best way to make use of some of the time remaining in a squandered season is to get some joy out of hitting Favre a lot.
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CommentsComments: 131  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Kegman		10:02 AM
12/12/2008
I don't see any of that happening. Since the Bills still have a mathematical shot at the playoffs (how is that possible...), they...
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No.2
ddd		10:18 AM
12/12/2008
Let's see here: JP Losman vs Brett Farve Duke Preston vs Kris Jenkins Yea right, the reason the Bills suck is because of Jauron...
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No.3
ba bye		10:32 AM
12/12/2008
The Bills could play spoiler here, and save some face. If they lose out, they'll have lost 9 of their last 10. They'll have won...
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