(Stats deleted - Someone notified the Pro Football Focus folks about either this thread or the one at Finheaven and apparently it's a violation of their terms to post stats from one of their games)

Most Impressive on Defense:
Freeing 19 players into Trent Edwards' face on 40 pass snaps, despite rushing an average of LESS then four players per pass. That right there is using less to do more, working smarter not harder. For one thing you can credit this to the defensive players who obviously dominated the offensive players in their one-on-one matchups. But you have to also credit Mike Nolan on this one for finding different ways to panic the quarterback. With a guy like Trent Edwards, you can panic him by dropping 8 men into coverage, taking away his options, and then letting his own internal clock drive him crazy.


Most Depressive on Defense:
I think Benny Sapp and Jason Allen are still the going concerns, in the secondary. If Ken LaVicka is correct that the miscommunication on the 30 yard TD was more on Benny Sapp than Tyrone Culver, then you add that 30 yard TD to his coverage day and he let up 58 yards and a TD on 5 targets, with a blown opportunity to help outweigh that by snagging that one interception. As for Jason Allen, again I have to point out that 6.4 yards per attempt on passes aimed your direction is good for a corner, but considering Trent Edwards' overall performance and considering the man coverage assignment he blew on Lee Evans where he fell down and the ball was overthrown...it was a day that could have been a lot worse. It concerns me that he also blew his opportunity to outweigh any mistakes with a pick-6. That concerns me because when someone says "oh he'll get that corrected and catch it next time," the first question that comes to my mind is...how do you know that? Based on what? This is not a guy with a history of making good on us. Mistakes for him are just another tack-on in a long string.


Most Impressive on Offense:
I'm going to go with the pass protection on this one. The Buffalo Bills were MUCH more aggressive than the Dolphins in their blitz calls. They averaged 4.5 players rushing Chad Henne per pass snap (remember, Dolphins averaged 3.8). The Dolphins combated that by having about 5.7 offensive players stay in and block per pass snap (versus 5.8 in 2009)...and yet Chad Henne was only pressued by a total of 10 Bills' players on 8 of his 39 pass snaps. That's just superior blocking by a line that honestly had to be questioned a little bit on their pass protection after the training camp reports and some of the preseason showings. At the bar, my Bills friend and I were watching the game and we noticed the same thing on almost every play...ALL DAY to throw the ball. The numbers bear that out.


Most Depressive on Offense:
I think overall I have to go with Chad Henne over Brian Hartline on this one. Yeah, Hartline going out for 34 pass patterns and returning nil yards is concerning and depressing, but I know that some of that was really on Chad Henne not finding him. As has been noted by several, Henne couldn't find him on a deep post where he was wide open. He checked it to a back instead I believe. I think when Sparano talks about Henne's performance and said that there were plays where Henne could have found someone instead of panicking and checking it down, that concerns me. That means that Henne was even more conservative than the coaching staff wanted him to be. Henne still put about 80% of his passes in a place where his receiver could have caught it, but his ball placement was generally sh-tty. That contributes to the drops you see. Only being pressured 8 times and taking 3 sacks on those plays is a bad statistic. That's not something that can or should continue. Eery how similar it was though to his first game against the Bills in 2009 when the pressure was really overstated by the number of sacks he took against them. So between ball placement, panicking and checking down at times when even a conservative staff didn't want him to, having yet another pass batted at the line, and being bad in the pocket with taking sacks even though the offensive line is giving you a lot to work with...that was not a good performance for him.