Final Grades 2007 Season

by Coast

The Bills season is over and it is time to reflect on the 2007 season. The Bills finished with a 7-9 mark good for second in the division. They finished 30th in total offense and 31st in total defense. They beat the Jets twice, Dolphins twice, Bengals, Ravens and Redskins (Fluke win after Sean Taylor's death). These teams have a combined record of 26-54 (32.5% Winning Percentage). Let's face it, the Bills are nowhere near a 7-9 football team, they played the Dolphins and Jets twice. When matched up against the top teams, they couldn't compete (see NE, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville), Dallas was obvioulsy an abiration. Denver is a bad team and the Bills fell to them at home. Their quarterback melted in bad weather and the defensive shortcomings can to fruition. If you look around the league right now, there are only 8 teams that I would give the Bills a legitimate chance at beating on a neutral site: Jets, Dolphins, Ravens, Chiefs, Rams, 49ers, Falcons and Raiders. Any other team in the league I would say is a 50/50 shot at best. If this is what you deem as a success after two years Marv Levy then I am glad you resigned.



Let's issue a final report card for the 2007 season. It won't be sugar coated, it is going to be downright ugly.



Coaching Staff



Dick Jauron: During the week: B-, on Sundays: F.

• The players like him and play hard for him on gamedays, their is no arguing that. He did a good job getting this young and overmatched team ready to compete on gameday. However, on Sundays Dick Jauron is an embarrassment to professional coaching. From the Browns game to the Cowboys game Dick Jauron made decisions on Sundays that make you want to stab yourself. His job should have been lost after the mental lapse on Monday night against Dallas and against Cleveland, his scared play calling cost the Bills even a chance. Draw on 3rd and 8 and punt down 8 with 6 minutes left and your season on the line. That is pathetic.

Steve Fairchild: F

• Have you ever seen an offense get this much worse with improved personnel? Last year the Bills offense showed sparks of coming along with their young quarterback JP Losman. This year with an improved running back and a bolstered 100 million dollar offensive line, the offense nose dived. I have never seen a fallout like this in my life. The quarterback was benched twice. The Bills play calling was all of a sudden ridiculously timid and when they should be conservative, they gambled (Neuman's pick against Dallas, no one needs a reminder). Against Cleveland, 16 runs on their first 18 first down plays. Josh Reed coming out after the season and saying his 8 year old son could figure out what we were going to do on offense. Fairchild is gone, thank God. This was the single worst offensive season I have ever seen and the worst job by a coordinator since I can remember. The Bills scored 20 touchdowns on offense in 16 games. How bad is that?

Perry Fewell: C-

• The Bills lost some guys on defense this season. Poz and Simpson getting hurt cost us. Fact is, the Bills didn't have the personnel to compete but I blame this at least somewhat on the scheme. The small quick defenses don't work, I have never seen them work and never will. The Bills linebackers in Ellison and DiGiorgio were so undersized that opponents running backs were actually bigger. The Bills have noone on the D line that requires a double team. This defensive mentality is what Fewell and Jauron want to implement so they deserve the blame more than the overmatched players. Fewell should have lost his job as well after the Dallas game. 10 yard cushion with 7 seconds left and no time outs? Come on, that type of mis step cannot be had in this league, unless of course, the game was fixed. All in all, the Bills defense did manage to hold some teams, the bad teams, off the score board and considering how bad they were, I will give Fewell some credit for that.

Offense

Quarterback: Trent Edwards: C-, JP Losman: D

• We all had high hopes that JP Losman would build on his solid second half and have a break out year this year. It didn't happen. He had one good game against the Bengals. He was inaccurate on a lot of Balls, but not more so than Trent Edwards. Losman was affected by the ultra conservative play calling on opening day and then the debacle that occured at Heinz Field. After the cheap shot from Wilfork, Edwards came in and showed he could be efficient especially for a rookie. He won 5 of his first 6 starts, but he beat noone of any consequence. He made a great throw against the Redskins which I thought would be a momentus occasion for him. Now, when I think about it, it was just plain luck. As soon as the temperature dropped below 40, he was downright awful. His strength was that he could complete a high percentage of passes and keep the chains moving and our defense off the field. He went 11-23, 13-33, 9-26 and 16-30 in his final 4 games (43.75% completion percentage). What does this tell me? When the games are most important late in the season, this guy is effected by the cold weather. I still think that JP Losman, given the right coach who would not try to turn him into a traditional pocket passer, will succeed in the NFL but not with Buffalo. The Bills are going to try to move forward with Edwards, but I will be honest, I am not optimistic. (This just in, Losman wants out of Buffalo http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3181919).

Running Back: Marshawn Lynch: A

• What can you say about this guy. He ran for 1115 yards and had 7 touchdowns. He also missed three games. He runs hard and has the speed to break long runs. "Beast Mode" is the franchise and couldn't have more validated his 12th overall selection in the 2007 draft. The Bills need to find a way to get this guy the ball as much as possible, running, catching, even let him throw the ball as he added a touchdown pass to his resume this year. He accounted for 40% of all our offensive touchdowns. This guy is the real deal and I can't wait to see the level he can reach in the future years.

Wide Receivers: Lee Evans: C-, Josh Reed: C, Roscoe Parrish: C-

• Lee Evans had a breakout season in 2006. Where was he in 2007? No where to be found. Evans obviously excels when Losman is under center and without him in there to throw bombs, Evans was a non factor most of the time. Evans had 55 catches for 849 yards and 5 touchdowns this year. 55 catches is not what we need from our number one receiver. Josh Reed seems like a decent number 3 or 4 but that is all he is. He made one huge grab against the Redskins on that fluke play to get us into field goal range. That was by far the best play of the season probably for our offense. Against Jacksonville though he actually ducked on a pass from Losman because there were defenders around. That sums up our offense...scared. Reed finished with 51 catches for 578 yards but had 0 touchdowns. Parrish was nowhere to be found almost all season. Fairchild could not find a way to get this guy the football. 35 catches 352 yards and only 1 touchdown. This guy is supposed to be an explosive threat. He made one play on offense all season and it was in a 56-10 drubbing. Worst of all, the wide outs all stand under 5 foot 10. What a joke.

Tight Ends: Group: F

• Do I need to give detail? Royal is a bum and makes stupid play after stupid play. Gaines chokes every time he needs to make a big catch. I am through with these guys. I have been through with Robert Royal since opening day 2006. Gaines huge drop against the Browns-possibly cost us the season.

Offensive Line: B

• The Bills bolstered their offensive line in the offseason. They spent 75 million dollars to do so. The improvement was evident in the passing game. Bills quarterbacks at some points had all day to throw. The run blocking however was sub par. Marshawn Lynch earned every single one of his 1115 yards this year. Melvin Fowler is an awful player. I have seen this guy get blown up one too many times and I think the Bills need to move on. The only reason why they get a B is left tackle Jason Peters. Peters may be the best in the game. Without the excellent decision by Mike Mularkey to put him at tackle, who knows if he would have found his niche there. That is right, an excellent decision by Mike Mularkey.

I will keep this short, the offense as a whole gets an F. This is the worst unit I have ever seen.

Defense

Defensive line: D

• AARON SCHOBEL 50 MILLION DOLLARS ARE YOU KIDDING ME. That's right, Aaron Schobel inked a 50 million dollar deal this past year and he sure did validate it let me tell you. He had 6.5 sacks and trust me, none of them were huge. Where was he when Tom Brady was standing in the pocket for 20 minutes? Where was he when David Garrard picked up 3rd and long after 3rd and long? What an overpaid, overrated player. I would trade him in a heartbeat. On the other side, Chris Kelsey made 12 million dollars this year as part of the 4th largest payroll in the National Football League. Chris Kelsey...12 million. I don't care if that includes a signing bonus. At least Kelsey made a couple big plays, Td vs Dallas and a safety vs Miami. Kelsey had 2.5 sacks. That is 9 sacks combined for our "book ends" who are making 75 million dollars between the two of them. The D tackles are just too small. McCargo made some plays this year and actually looks like he can be a good player. The only problem is that every time he made a good play he would be off the field the next series for Jason Jefferson. Kyle Williams is a nice player and Larry Tripplett made his first 2 plays as a Bill against Washington. The problem is, none of these guys are big time play makers and none of them can occupy blockers. Therefore we have lineman getting to the second level and then we have Ahmad Bradshaw running 88 yards. The Bills defense allowed 500 yards to Jamal Lewis, Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs in TWO GAMES. We aren't talking about Tomlinson, Peterson and Westbrook here, we are talking about Lewis, Jacobs and Bradshaw. They are lucky they get a D.

Linebackers: D

• Way too small. Wayyyy too small. Angelo Crowell was the only one of the three (himself, Ellison and DiGiorgio) who should ever be playing on defense in the National Football League and even he had some real bad moments this season, just ask Rich Gannon. The Bills backers are smaller than most of the running backs they go up against and that isn't a good formula. Ellison is a nice reserve player but is undersized. DiGiorgio is not an NFL linebacker. Paul Posluszny looks like he is going to be a stud but unfortunately he went on the IR in week 3. The Bills need to address this need in the offseason obviously. I am sick of looking at little twirps getting blown up by big running backs, especially in the snow and especially by a drug dealing/using felons.

Secondary: C-

• Donte Whitner was the 8th overall pick in the draft and I am still waiting to see him play like it. I see guys around the league like Bob Sanders and Troy Polamalu, neither of which were drafted as high as Whitner. KO Simpson getting hurt was a blow, I expected big things from this guy. Then I had to mercifully watch George Wilson get ripped apart. People actually say he played well, he didn't. He is a wide reciever and isn't good enough to be one in the league. Jim Leonhard is undersized and is not a starting NFL safety. The corners McGee and Greer had some moments, but like the rest of the team are undersized. McGee had 4 interceptions and Greer had 2. 4 is decent for a corner, not great but decent. Whitner only had one and only has 2 in his career. He needs to get better. The only reason why the Bills get a C- in their secondary is because their run D was so much worse.

Overall, the Bills defense gets an F. They were one of the worst teams in NFL history on third downs. They were ranked 31st in the league in total defense. How can you give them anything better than an F? When they played decent teams they were exposed big time. New England is just a haunting game. The number of third and longs the Jags converted is incredible. This unit needs some work...everywhere.

Special Teams: C

How many punts did Brian Mooreman shank this season? This was the worst year of his career. I felt like he actually killed us in some games. The return game suffered a huge fall off from previous years. Yeah Parrish was great on punt returns averaging 16.3 yards per return and did score a touchdown (in a loss). McGee scored a touchdown also (in a loss) and averaged only 24 yards per return. The special teams was supposed to be a strength this year but they were nothing more than ordinary. They even gave up a touchdown (in a win). I guess based on this evidence, special teams touchdowns don't really matter.

This year was a huge disappointment and let's face it, it was over after that September 9th 3rd and 26 conversion by Denver. The team ranked IN THE BOTTOM 3 ON OFFENSE AND DEFENSE!!!!!! The coaches cost them games also. People can take solice in the fact that "ohhh they had injuries, what a job by Jauron." I say get some talent in here and try and crack the top 30 in something. Christ, maybe next year...again.