Midway through a week between a landmark win and a trap game against a two-win squad in which a loss would end the team’s postseason hopes, the Bills are still trying to figure out if one of its most explosive players, C.J. Spiller, will return to the playing field, according to head coach Doug Marrone.
“I’m not going sit up here and say he didn’t look good,” said Marrone. “He looked good, but he’s still working his way back into the football part of it.”
On the season, Spiller has 287 yards on 69 carries (4.2 yards per carry), but if you take away the 53 yard run he had against Minnesota in Week 7 in which he broke his collarbone, his average dips to 3.44 yard per carry). Thus, an offensive line that has had its problem in both the running game (only 3.8 yards per carry, 26th in league) and in the passing game (35 sacks allowed, 15th most in NFL), needs to “get better”, Marrone, an offensive lineman for five years in the NFL, said.
“There’s been times in games where there’s been spurts where you think, ‘Okay, here we go,” said Marrone. “We’ve finally got it going,’ but there’s been a setback, for whatever reasons. Those guys will continue to work hard. We need to challenge them this week. We’ve got a tough challenge going against Oakland’s front. We’ve got to be able to respond well and play with that consistency that they need, where people will say, ‘Hey, you know what? Those guys are doing a good job.’”
A player on the offensive line that has been as consistent as the team could have hoped is right tackle Seantrel Henderson, who came in as a seventh-round draft choice despite being a blue chip recruit out of high school.
“Obviously, he’s not a seventh round type of talent,” said Marrone. “I think everyone understands that. He’s played extremely well. Now you see he plays right tackle, but the league has changed so much, where you can get dominant pass rushers on that side. He’s played against the Cameron Wake’s, the Von Miller’s, the Julius Peppers’. He’s played against those players and has played well. He’s continuing to get better. The only concern I had was him being able to get through the season, because he really didn’t play a lot of games last year at Miami. He’s done a good job of holding up. I don’t think he’s even been on the injury report, to my knowledge. He’s going under-the-radar because of where he was drafted.”
Another area the team has been great all year has been its ability to get players who haven’t been successful elsewhere to make an impact, like waiver claims Marcus Thigpen, who returned a punt for a touchdown versus Green Bay, and Baccari Rambo, who substituted for an injured Duke Williams and picked off two Aaron Rodgers passes. Marrone called Jerry Hughes, who has 9.5 sacks in his second year with Buffalo after 10 last season, and forced and recovered a fumble for a touchdown in a key win versus Cleveland this season, is “one of the best examples”.
“I think sometimes change lets things happen,” said Marrone. “A lot of times, usually after the first time, let’s say things don’t work out for a player, they either learn or they don’t. I think it changes from player to player, but generally that’s what I think. Then, all of the sudden, when that light goes on, you can get yourself a pretty good football player on your active roster. I think it’s case-by-case for the most part, but generally you only have a certain amount of time to show what you can do. Once you get the stigma of not being able to play on one team and then go to another team and not be able to play, it becomes difficult.”
Rambo said on Wednesday that he is playing “every down” like his last.
“I’m just thankful and blessed to be here with the Buffalo Bills and I’m just very thankful and blessed for the opportunity that they gave me,” said Rambo. “The second chance.”
Quarterback Kyle Orton, who has struggled recently with one touchdown to five interceptions in his last three games, is “excited to have a chance” to get to the postseason, though a very small one at that.
“I’m excited to be where we’re at,” said Orton. “I’m excited to be winning football games and there’s nothing better than coming down the last couple of weeks knowing that you have to win.”
With his three years in the AFC West, mostly with the Denver Broncos, Orton has plenty of experience in playing against the Raiders, but his previous experience versus the division hasn’t helped this year, as the Bills have lost versus the Chiefs and Broncos with Orton under center. While Oakland has had its recent struggles, Orton certainly has appreciation for what the Raiders and the Black Hole represent in the league.
“There’s a lot of history there,” said Orton. “Fun to play there. Mr. Davis really…revolutionary guy if you go all the way back to everything he did in this league…a revolutionary guy in this league and I certainly appreciate that fact.”
One player who appears to be helping Oakland get back some respect is rookie linebacker Khalil Mack, who has 68 tackles and three sacks this season, and his a very versatile player that Orton is wary of in both pass rush and coverage.
“Behind the end of the line of scrimmage and they like to bring him as the fifth man quite a bit,” said Orton of who they use the rookie in pass-rush situations. “He’s got good matchups against running backs, he’s got good matchups against tight ends and certainly has pass moves to beat D-Tackles as well so he’ll be a big part of the game plan.”
In terms of the entire offense, Orton is taking the process game by game, though having someone like Spiller potentially playing would be a huge positive.
“A weekly battle to improve and improve consistency and that starts with me,” Orton said of trying to get the offense on track. “It’s our job to score points and we’ve got to do a better job at that and that means that I’ve got to do better, so I’ll work as hard as I can to get my own game and to get this offense where they need to be.”
“It’s huge,” Orton said of Spiller being back. “Obviously everybody knows he’s an explosive player, a dynamic player, good in the receiving game and in the running game so we’re excited to have him back.”
Whatever the offense does, however, the Bills’ best chance would be to depend on a defense that has allowed just 47 points in the last three games, with the young linebacker duo of Nigel Bradham and rookie Preston Brown playing very well. While Derek Carr is also a rookie for the Raiders, the young signal-caller has 18 touchdowns to just 11 interceptions, with Bradham saying Buffalo’s defense “definitely can’t sleep on him”.
“(Derek) Carr is good quarterback,” said Bradham. “He’s hot and he’s going to be a great quarterback in this league. He’s learning. Like you said, he’s a young guy and of course he made some mistakes…rookie mistakes like we all do so you have a guy like that back there who has potential, you never know what you’re going to get. He made some great throws too.”
As good as Carr has been, however, if the Bills can play against him the way they did against Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers the last two weeks, they should be able to severely limit Oakland’s offense, hopefully enough to give a struggling offense less pressure to be consistently great.
