Bills Offensive Woes, Who’s to Blame?

As preseason is coming to an end the Bills will look to finally work out the kinks in a very stale offense.  There is only one problem, they will again be missing their starting WR and RB for the last game of the preseason.  Buffalo has played a very dangerous game by not allowing Fred Jackson to get maximum repetitions with the first team offense.  They will now suffer as Jackson will have sat out the last two preseason games before the start of the season.  It is no wonder there is no rapport on offense, they have yet to actually play together.  Owens and Jackson will be ready for the season opener against New England, but does Buffalo really want their first real opportunity to test their offense, with all it’s components, against New England on national television?  Good management Dickie J.

At times it seemed Buffalo was putting more interest in making sure Marshawn was in game shape rather than make sure Fred Jackson was ready to be the opening night starter.  Since Marshawn will not be competing for the first 3 weeks of the regular season I would assume that it would be a priority to make sure the team that will be starting the season has the most repetitions together.  The problems go from bad to worse when the focus shifts from the RB position to the receivers.  Lee Evans has been completely lost on offense.  It isn’t that he is lost on offense, it is that Buffalo has lost one of their most dynamic deep threats in a long time.  How Lee Evans can go one game, in the preseason, without a catch is hard to fathom.  Although many “experts” will point to the fact that Evans does not have the luxury of having a legitimate receiver across from him in the preseason because of Terrell’s injury.  What seems to be lost is Evans is a 1,000 yard receiver and has never had a legitimate receiver line up opposite of him.  So again, how does Lee Evans not catch a ball?

I would not put this on Lee Evans.  Please, “experts,” don’t put this on T.O. either.  It is not as if Evans is dropping balls.  But as we move from RB to WR we are getting closer to the root of the problem.  Moving to the offensive line, it has not been impressive.  This has less to do with talent and more to do with time spent playing as a unit.  This group will be fairly young when the season starts and has gone through various changes since the turn of the century.  The Bills will not miss Jason Peters or Derek Dockery how where traded and released in the off season.  But, the line just lacks experience and may have problems keeping Edwards off his back as they continue to grow and learn to play together as the season goes on.  The good news is that Buffalo has quality veterans and talented rookies and younger players that should develop into a quality offensive line, just not this year.

So if the root of the problem is not the RBs and it is not the WR and it isn’t even the offensive line’s fault, it must be the QB’s fault that the Bills have not been able to produce on offense?  Sort of.  Trent Edwards has had difficulty adjusting to a new offense introduced by coordinator Turk Schonert.  The no-huddle offense was a staple of the Jim Kelly era Bills.  That nostalgia appears to be just that, only nostalgia.  The problem that the Bills coaches did not foresee was that changing an offensive playbook/gameplan is just a step under replacing an offensive coordinator completely.  It has also been said that when a team has a young QB and changes it’s offensive coordinator that it takes roughly 2-3 seasons to adapt and properly execute the new offense being introduced by that young QB.  In the Bills case, did they really believe that Edwards would be able to master an offense that took Jim Kelly years to truly perfect?  That seems a little arrogant by the Buffalo Bills, and unfair to Edwards.  Trent has been slow to call his plays, slow to snap the ball and slow to see the play develop.  Although it is him on the field making these mistakes, he is attempting to perfect an offense that he hasn’t even truly learned yet, so it is not Trent Edwards fault.  If Edwards is given the time to appreciate and learn this offense he will master it.  Again, like the offensive line though, it may not be this year.

So what does that leave us with?  Why can’t the offense score points?  There is only one stone that has yet to be unturned, the coaching staff.  I am an equal opportunity type of person and believe each offensive coach shares the blame.  From the QB coach, to the offensive coordinator, to the guy who is the assistant to the assistant TE coach, to the head coach, all are to blame.  With a poor showing this year, this could be coach Dickie J’s last season with the Bills.  It is amazing that he would agree to make such dramatic changes with a young QB with all of that on the line.  As mentioned before, even though this may be the right fit for Edwards, it is not the right fit for him right now.  Maybe a slow transition would have better served Edwards than a public press conference to announce to all of the NFL that the No-huddle offense was coming back.  It is also the coach’s responsibility to ensure that each player is prepared and making improvements.  If Edwards has yet to successfully run the offense is that on Edwards or poor coaching.  I refuse to believe Buffalo lacks talent, but they appear to lack the leadership to maximize their talent’s potential.

Tags: Buffalo Bills, Dick Jauron, Fred Jackson, Jim Kelly, Lee Evans, Marshawn Lynch, New England Patriots, Terrell Owens, Trent Edwards, Turk Schonert