Are the Brilliant Bills Bringing Benefits?

By anello1960  |   Friday, September 25, 2009  |  Comments( 190 )

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We have all heard about the high academic achievement of many members of the 2009 Buffalo Bills. Coach Jauron was a “Yale Man”, QB Trent Edwards went to Stanford and excelled academically, Center Geoff Hangartner had the highest Wonderlic test score of his class with a 47 out of 50 possible points. (A score of 20 is average, Bills WR James Hardy scored 14, for your reference). Backup QB Ryan Fitzpatrick graduated from Harvard and reportedly had a perfect Wonderlic score. Rookie frontman Eric Wood was Academic All-Big East and Andy Levitre earned PAC-10 All Academic honors. Even their newest member of the team, Jonathan Scott, recently enlisted to replace injured RT Brad Butler, was on the Athletic Director’s honor roll at U of Texas for six semesters.

So what about those benefits? Are the Bills smart where they wanna be? While it might be too early to plan their reservations in South Florida for this February, we can get an early read on their success to date. The info below illustrates the success of the offensive line as it pass blocks, run bocks and allows the offense to succeed.

Sacks Against Per Game
2008 2.44
2009 3.0

Passing YPG
2008 185
2009 221

Running YPG
2008 206
2009 221

INTs Per Game
2008 1.2
2009 0.5

Offensive Penalties per game
2008 4.4 for 33 YPG
2009 8.0 for 63 YPG

Offense League Rank
2008 23rd
2009 6th

Clearly the Bills offense shows some very promising trends when compared statistically to the 2008 season. Obviously it is early in the season with only a 2-game sample, the information accounts for many other variables than IQ power, and statistics do not put points on the board or win games.
However, when we look at the fact that the incumbent offensive line averages just 11 NFL starts per man, the lowest in the league, one has to consider the achievement to date to be nothing less than spectacular. The inexperience of the line, state of the Bills offense through preseason and the last minute roster and coaching juggling had us all with visions of offensive disaster and Trent Edwards non-responsive in the fetal position being kicked for insult after repeated monster sacks by Vince Wilfork. No such luck for us gloom viewed prognosticators. Add in the fact that we are seeing typical rookie mistakes showing up mainly as penalties against further strengthens the case for brilliance. Penalties reduce over time. This is truly a no-brainer benefit that will show better results for the offense as the year progresses.

We will certainly learn more after this week’s match-up in a test of smarts vs. smarts as the cerebral Drew Brees brings his overachieving offense to Orchard Park.
To succeed, the Bills are going to need every milligram of amped up high flying adrenaline they can absorb into their cellular membranes. However the Cro-Magnon approach may have worked well for teams in the Pleistocene era, Brees seems to have evolved with reserve cranial capacity. He has the capability to surgically club the Bills into submission as evidenced by his recent history. Defenses have been at a loss to stop the Saints with the hard (blitz blitz blitz) of soft (cover) approach. The smart approach for this game would be for the offense to efficiently utilize their every microgram of grey matter to figure out a way to score more points than the other team. Wonderlic ‘em but good, as they say.
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