Saturday, August 28, 2010

My Bengals vs Bills preseason recap


















-Wohoo!!! 2nd to last preseason game in the record books!!! Did I ever tell you that I hate preseason football? OK, for a preseason game, it became a statement game. It's still preseason and in order to write about the game, I must pretend that I care about the exhibition season. Alright, I'm lying, I cared about tonight's game and was very impressed with the offense. Hopefully, this will be a prelude for things to come, but I remain skeptical because it's...well, you know--

-Love him or hate him, you gotta give it up to Trent Edwards for his play during the preseason. Over the last two games, he went from Captain Check down to Captain Jack Sparro; guiding the Bills to five preseason touchdowns. He capped off tonight's outing by completing 13 of 17 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown. When Edwards can work those 10-12 yard routes, he's pretty affective. Now, two of Edwards touchdown drives went against some second-teamers, but he still played well against the Bengals starters earlier. Another stat going for Edwards was how he averaged over 10 yards a completion, which is impressive for a quarterback not known to stretch the field-

-Beyond the stats, the Trent Edwards that we saw tonight was a guy that was full of confidence, who stepped into the pocket and didn't stare down the pass rush like last year. He also didn't get flustered by looking at one read and then dumping it off to the running back. He took his time in the pocket and completed passes to his 3rd and 4th reads. That's progress, folks-

-After a strange start for CJ Spiller, who was running backwards instead of forward, he ended up putting on a show for the rest of the half by gaining 85 yards in total offense (52 rushing and 33 receiving) and two touchdowns. The guy is so explosive that when he gets the ball in his hands, look out! Something tells me that I'm going to need a dictionary to figure out more ways to describe Spiller's running ability. The guy is a gamer and I can't recall a rookie having a better preseason for the Bills-

-On a side note about Spiller: He touched the ball for a total of 14 times in the first half, which would be the around the number I would expect him to get during a regular season game. Have to wonder if the Bills plan on adding to that number when the regular season starts. I'll admit, seeing the guy run, makes me want to see him play every down. However, I think it would behove the Bills to bring him on slowly-

-To think that Spiller had minus 16 yards on his first three carries and was still able to get to 52 yards by halftime is quite impressive. What is even more impressive is that Chan Gailey didn't lose confidence in his back and just kept feeding him the rock. Something tells me that if Dick Jauron were still the coach, he would have taken Spiller out of the game for not wanting him to lose confidence or get hurt-

-I'll be damned! The Bills ran two successful screen plays! And these weren't crappy 4-5 yard gains or check downs. We are talking about gains of 22 and 18 yards. To think, slow ass Corey McIntyre got 18 yards on a screen pass. That should tell you that the Bills executed the play to perfection-

-I'll be damned #2?!? Roscoe Parrish finally showed something in the passing game by catching 4 passes for 56 yards and a touchdown. What made Parrish more affective tonight was being put in position to make plays after the catch. That's how the Bills have to use the Miami product. He's not going to be a possession receiver, but if he's put in position to make runs after the catch, he's going to be dangerous. Just get the guy in open space and you may have found a nice slot receiver-

-I'll say this: I'm so looking forward to see what the Bills will do with the wildcat offense when Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch return from injury. The biggest reason why the formation worked in Miami had to do with defenses not being sure who would get the ball in the backfield. When you have two dynamic backs like Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams, it makes it difficult for defenses to hone in on two players who might get the ball. I can't think of a reason why the Bills running backs can't duplicate the same success-

-So...who is still excited about the Bills 3-4 defense?! Yeah, me neither. Look, preseason or not, allowing six touchdowns against the opposition's first team offense isn't something you can just chalk up to August football rust. The Bills biggest weakness on defense are their linebackers, who can can't cover tight ends or rush the passer. My advice: If you have a tight end on your fantasy football and he's going against the Bills, you should start him....immediately! Other than my fantasy advice, it's going to be a long learning process for the Bills to transition to a 3-4 defense-

-Memo to Bills secondary: Maybe when Drayton Florence compared himself to Mr. Freeze, he didn't realize that the 4th Batman film was a complete flop and that The Terminator didn't do justice in playing the role of the villain. The Bills secondary got burned tonight by Palmer and company and should probably ease up on the trash talking on Twitter-

-Are you a little concerned that Lee Evans caught only one pass?

-Jordan and Carson Palmer= Johnny Drama and Vincent Chase (Entourage)-

-You know things are going great for the Bills when you read the box score to see that James Hardy caught a pass for 30 yards and Aaron Maybin had a sack. Good job, boys! It's just too bad that you can't play against second-teamers, who will be bagging groceries when the regular season starts. All kidding aside, good showing from Maybin-

4 comments:

  1. Were you able to watch the game in NYC, Joe? It was blacked out up here but is going to air tonight. So maybe I'll change my mind after that, but for now - No, I'm not concerned at all about Lee Evans catching only one pass. He's the established guy; last night was all about Roscoe Parrish answering the question of where he sees himself on this team (not to mention all the young guys trying to show something of themselves). So that's fine with me - I'm just glad Roscoe is still viable.

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  2. I watched it on a stream online. I'm always worried about Evans and Trent's chemistry. Over the years, the two have not been able to really establish much on the field.

    I agree, Roscoe looked great last night.

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  3. Spiller looked solid, but don't want to get on the bandwagon yet. Don't think he'll go less than 3rd round in FF draft.

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  4. Sad thing is, even with all this exciting new offensive scoring.

    The Defense will just get mowed down by the opposition's running game during the regular season. Ugh, and i dare say Florence is the Mad Hatter?

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