Leslie Frazier on Bills’ new D: ‘We don’t want to complicate things for our players’
New Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier believes “less is more” and a more simplified scheme will reflect as much.
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver James Wright (86) can’t catch a pass broken up by Buffalo Bills inside linebacker Zach Brown (53) and the Bills defense on the final play of the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Cincinnati. The Bills won 16-12.
A complaint heard early and often from Buffalo Bills defenders the past two seasons was that Rex Ryan’s scheme was too complicated.
The result was confusion and mistakes and, to a large degree, the drop from No. 4 in the NFL in 2014 to 19th in 2015 and 2016.
‘We really want our players to be able to play fast’
The new men in charge of the defense, coach Sean McDermott and coordinator Leslie Frazier, aim to change that. As Frazier explained during his Late Hits appearance with Alex Marvez and Bill Polian, he comes “from a school where sometimes less is more.”
“We don’t want to complicate things for our players at all in what we’re trying to get accomplished,” Frazier said. “We really want our players to be able to play fast and they have adopted very well to the 4-3, and also some of the terminology that we’ve introduced them to. The guys, they’re really excited about the system and some of the things that we’re trying to get accomplished.
‘We think we have some very talented defenders’
“All the players, they all want to play fast. They want to be able to, ‘Just put me in a position, Coach, and let me go.’ And that’s what we want to be able to do with our players, because we think we have some very talented defenders.”
Frazier is especially pleased with what the Bills have on the line, with Marcell Dareus and Kyle Williams in the middle, and Jerry Hughes and Shaq Lawson on the ends. The coach went out of his way to praise Hughes’ offseason work in the weight room.
‘I really think we’re on the right track’
“We think our defensive front is going to be a pretty stout front,” Frazier said. “I really think we’re on the right track. I think we had a really good draft and the way the guys have competed throughout the offseason in our OTAs and some of the things that we were putting together, we’re excited, really exited about this 2017 season.”
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