Back by popular demand is our weekly columns where we grade out the offense, defense and special teams. Our first look will be at the offense and how they fared against the Bills defense. We'll go unit by unit and highlight some players along the way. As usualy, this is just a one week look at the offense. We take a gander at how they did in Week 2 against the Bills. We do not factor in rpevious week's performance.
Let's take a look.
Quarterback
This is pretty easy with only one player to look at performance-wise. Leftwich had a day that was as good as it was bad. For every good throw he made, he made an equally bad one. 50 attempts, 26 completions, 296 yards for 3 TD's and 2 picks. He moved the ball, distributed it around pretty well, relied on the check down a bit much and took some brutal hits. He may not win league MVP but he's getting the job done. Still don't want him throwing it 35+ times. Decision making was questionable, particularly on the interception (the first one). Grade: B-
Running Backs
As a group, not a very good performance. 18 carries for 57 yards. That's just north of 3 yards per carry. Clearly they miss Faine. The running game lacked the explosiveness from all three guys that we've seen. Caddy and Ward were hit in the backfield and often made a 2 yard loss into a 1 yard gain. Cadillac has added another facet to his game. Actually catching passes as opposed to knocking them to the ground. Not their best effort, but when you're hit in the backfield every other play (slight exaggeration) it's tough to run. Grade: B-
Wide Receivers
Almost everyone on the team got involved in some aspect here. Winslow put up a nice day with 7 catches for 90 yards and a TD. His blocking is very suspect (and by suspect, I mean it sucks). Not too shabby from K2 Grade: B Stovall and Clayton weren't big factors in the game. Stovall did have a nice catch down the field, but did drop a pass and committed a stupid penalty, though it didn't hurt us. Would like to see more from these guys. Grade: C Stroughter had a rough go of it. Dropped a few passes, one that led to a pseudo interception. Regression after a decent first game. Grade: C- Stevens. Had a nice TD grab but still is a lousy human being Grade: B- The rest of the guys just aren't NFL material at receiver. Overall WR Grade: C+
Offensive Line
Let's get this out of the way. We need Jeff Faine. Our line looked remarkably different last week. Leftwich took some shots both weeks, but he was absolutely destroyed in the second half of the Buffalo game. Of course, anytime you drop back 50 times, you're gonna get hit. The run blocking wasn't as sharp, with several Bills setting up camp in the backfield. Blitzes weren't picked up as well either. More penalties, less yards, more hits. Not the worst day, but we need better from this group. Grade: C
Overall
That OL grade looks harsh, but they didn't play very well at all. The quarterback play was slightly above average as we noted, the running backs didn't fare well, but all things considered made a bad day slightly better with their running ability. The wide receivers just don't scream explosive plays. Outside of K2, there really wasn't any average NFL production. A highlight here or there that was offset by a drop or penalty later. This was a tough week for the whole offense. They did put up 20 points, but 7 of those came off a short field. Take out that big fumble return and the offense puts up 13 points. Below Average in my book. 363 total yards, but 25% on 3rd down. They were 2 for 2 in the red zone though, that's 100% in 2 weeks. But we have to call a spade a spade here, this was an average performance once you look at all the parts together. I don't know that any team would have traded for any one of our units this weekend. Grade: C-