Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha
I agree that Ladell "I heart fumbles" Betts needs to get more carries, but lets not think that a simple change of the back is going to be a cure-all. I'm not sure if anyone happened to see our O-line, but it was pathetic today. The pass protection was pretty awful and the run-blocking was non-existent. I'm no expert, but I think that the O-linemen are supposed to drive the defenders past the line of scrimmage. They seemed to be in drop-back, pass-protection mode all day.
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Here's the thing: the Bills had one more guy in the box than we could block all day.
There are three intelligent ways to approach this as a coach:
1) Trust your running back to hit the hole quickly to negate the backside blocker that you can't account for.
2) Get a new back who might be more successful at this than the first option.
3) Stop running the football.
Today, we tried option one until we were blue in the face. Portis just isn't good enough to succeed at that. I don't think too many RBs are good enough. Off the top of my head, Adrian Peterson, Ronnie Brown, Marion Barber, Brian Westbrook, and Tomlinson are the guys in this league who are good enough to account for the backside defender to the point where you can leave him unblocked. Portis was good enough 4 years ago. Not now.
So that leaves two options: See if Betts has the quickness to run against unblocked ends, or stop running the football against defenses who use their safeties to stop it. If we do the latter, we lose play action and pretty much have to resort to shotgun passing.
Today's gameplan just didn't cut it for me. Reminded me of the game plan the Chiefs used in the playoffs against the Colts last year. No plan B.