The Buffalo Bills aren’t having the kind of start they were hoping for under Rex Ryan. Possibly getting too creative with an extremely talented defensive line that’s meant to pass rush the quarterback and not drop into coverage is their biggest problem.
First it was Mario Williams following the loss against the Cincinnati Bengals talking about how displeased he is with how he’s being used and the defensive approach overall.
I think I probably set a record on dropping today. When we got four guys rushing, we can do some things. Some of the calls we had today, we just didn’t have four guys out there rushing in certain situations, things like that. You just play the call. We don’t make the calls as players. We’ve got to go out and execute whatever’s called by any means. If it’s three guys going, then it’s three guys going, and we have to figure out a different way to get there faster on our part.
Now, it’s Marcell Dareus, speaking from the Play 60 event in London as the Bills get ready to play the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium.
Hey, like Williams said, they pay us a lot of money. And we want to use our talents the best way we know how. If we’re going to be dropping we don’t want to get questions about not getting sacks. That’s just how it is. We want to make some plays. We don’t want fans looking at us crazy. We like making plays. We like getting sacks, just being out there exerting a lot of energy and having fun. But when we’re dropping, when I’m not out there on third down or just I’m dropping or Kyle is dropping or Mario is dropping or Jerry is dropping. It’s not been a lot of times where there have been all four of us, full tilt, ears pined back and we’re going after it. We haven’t had a lot of that this year. Hopefully Rex is going to implement it. There’s nothing we can do.
The Bills have spent a lot of money on building their defensive line: Five-year, $45 million for Hughes, six-year, $96 million for Mario Williams, six-year, $96.5 million for Dareus. And yet they’ve gotten only nine sacks in five games. Ryan’s speciality is defense, yet so far he hasn’t been able to bring the best out of this unit, with a disappointing 3-3 record as every win is followed by a loss, to start out the season.