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Tuesday, September 1, 2009 7:12 PM EDT
POLLOCK: Bills pleased with Maybin’s NFL debut
PITTSBURGH - After his Bills were manhandled, 17-0, by the Steelers on Saturday night at Heinz Field, to drop to 1-3 on the pre-season, Dick Jauron was bombarded by questions about his impotent no-huddle offense.
Of the night’s effort, the Bills’ fourth-year coach admitted, “There wasn’t a whole lot good to say about that (performance).”
His reference wasn’t just to the first-team offense, which has produced a mere field goal in six quarters. Buffalo’s starting defense has given up five touchdowns over that same span and the most galling stat posted by Pittsburgh was a nearly 60 percent success rate on third-down conversions (10-of-17).
On third downs, the Steelers, at various times, needed 8, 10, 8, 6, 5 and 12 yards, situations that normally favor the defense, yet converted them.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s first unit was 6-of-9 on third down against the Bills’ starters.
As Jauron lamented, “We could not get off the field ... that’s a credit to them.”
BUT EVENTUALLY the subject got around to defensive end Aaron Maybin, the Bills’ first of two opening round draft choices, who missed all of preseason in a salary holdout.
Despite only a couple of practices, the former Penn State star saw considerable action, logging a sack of Roethlisberger - the only one by Buffalo - making two tackles, one for a loss, and getting a quarterback hurry, the lone one for his team.
Said Maybin afterward, “Obviously, there’s always things I can improve on, but I felt like I had a decent game coming out.
“Hopefully, this week coming up I can make a little more progression and take momentum into Week One.”
And Jauron admitted, “He looked quick ... I thought he looked fast off the ball.
“Quite frankly, I was more pleased than I thought I’d be. I didn’t expect much from him tonight. I thought his legs would be very heavy and way behind. But he came off the ball ... I thought he got the edge on the guys a couple of times.”
Playing on the right side, Maybin victimized veteran Steelers’ left tackle Max Starks on the sack.
And he conceded, “Hopefully, as my practices continue and I get better in practice, it will continue in a game. I stayed in shape (while holding out) but there’s a difference between being in shape and football shape.”
Maybin was used as part of Buffalo’s defensive line rotation and, as a result, he scored the first sack by any Bills’ first-teamer in the first four games.
“I thought he cornered well,” Jauron said. “In other words, he got back to the quarterback to attack around the edge.
“So I was very pleased. He stunted inside, he stunted hard. That was probably a plus (in an otherwise disappointing game).”
When asked about Maybin’s short-term goals Jauron said, “Get his legs under him, get more used to the pads, get in football condition and keep coming off the edge ... keep coming off the ball.
“As long as the offensive tackles fear that speed off the edge, he’ll be OK with it because that’s his gift ... that’s what he’s got. He plays hard and we like that.”
(Chuck Pollock, the Times Herald sports editor, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
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