As the Bills head down the back stretch of their schedule they unfortunately are kind of lost at the quarterback position. If it was me I'm not sure I'd know which way to turn. I think that's part of the reason why Ryan Fitzpatrick is back under center. The last time it was due to injury, but now it's based purely on Trent Edwards' performance. He didn't perform and has found a seat on the bench.
Trent has had a lot of opportunities to prove that he can do it. The total blame should not be placed on him, but the fact remains that there have been opportunities where plays can be made and he either doesn't see them or doesn't make them.
Now that being said, the offensive line has to improve too, and that's not going to be easy. All the injuries they've sustained particularly at the tackle position, it's been difficult to develop any kind of continuity and that affects performance. And when their performance suffers the first person that's affected by that in turn is the quarterback and we've seen it happen.
It's not like Trent went into the season with time to throw each and every week. It's affected the way he looks at the secondary. There's no doubt in my mind about that. When you start dropping back as a quarterback and your main focus, which should be on the secondary, has been shifted to the pass rush, you are going to lose nine out of 10 times. The total blame should not go on Trent Edwards, but again when plays are there to be made and he does have time he hasn't made plays.
What I saw in training camp from him, I just haven't seen this season so far. Where they go from here remains to be seen with respect to next season, but I'm confident the front office is already looking to the college ranks on quarterbacks. They're looking at what quarterbacks in the league might be available and what free agent quarterbacks will be out there.
But in order for this team to compete with the upper echelon teams in this league the offense needs a big time playmaker.
With little else to build on with respect to the offense moving forward, one part of the offense that I feel could enhance their level of success this season is the 'Wildcat' formation. They used it a little bit more at Tennessee and put points on the board with it. I think they could use it more.
I'm not a big supporter of the 'Wildcat' formation, but right now with the way things are on offense there's no doubt they should start implementing more of the 'Wildcat' offense. Fred Jackson is a great running back and you put him in there with Marshawn Lynch and try to find ways to move the chains and keep that defense off the field.
Even though the defense hasn't played great, they've played well enough to win if the offense would just perform adequately things could improve.
The Bills have been outscored 101-40 in the fourth quarter and there's no debating that a big reason is because their defense is on the field too long. Nevertheless, this is a big topic of discussion when I speak to kids.
When I give speeches to high school kids I tell them a lot of their games are going to be won in the fourth quarter, and it comes down to how you prepare yourself and how you mentally focus on the fourth quarter and eliminate the mistakes. That's what happens in the fourth quarter. You win a lot of your games at that time.
It's something I've always known and something I always mentally prepared myself for. I really buckled down and focused at that time in the game. Championships can be won in the fourth quarter.
They definitely need to get better in that area, and one thing that would help would be not having their defense on the field for the majority of the first three quarters. We'll see if they can get that done this week with Perry Fewell at the helm.
