Bills' Leslie Frazier: `Problem was Execution, not Personnel Package'

The defensive coordinator defends his decision to keep nickel package on the field despite being eviscerated by Colts' overpowering running game.

Not even Tremaine Edmunds would have changed their minds, Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier insists.

Had the linebacker, who missed his second straight game with a hamstring strain in Sunday's 41-15 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, been available, the Bills still likely would have stayed in their nickel package with just two linebackers — Edmunds and Matt Milano — on almost every play. This, despite the Colts wearing the front seven down with a running game that produced 185 yards on 32 carries for Jonathan Taylor.

As it was, the Bills played with Edmunds' replacement, A.J. Klein, and Milano as the only linebackers on the field.

"No, we didn't really talk about [adding another linebacker]," Frazier said Monday. "We had a plan going in and we felt like it was a good plan for what they did and it just didn't work out yesterday for us. It's worked out in the past, but it didn't work out yesterday.

"I think if Tremaine had been healthy, we probably would have still been nickel. Just for us, it wasn't so much nickel versus base, but what they were doing. We played those same runs out of nickel. It was our lack of execution as opposed to one grouping on the field versus another. We didn't execute very well in nickel. And if you're not doing that, being in another personnel grouping is not going to really solve it. You have to be able to execute in either one."

The message Frazier, who cut his teeth as a player on one of the nastiest defenses (mid-1980s Chicago Bears) in NFL history, obviously was trying to convey was for his players to just get tougher.

"It usually comes down to, you know, a guy being able to win his one-on-ones, whether you've got the secondary or the linebacker making a tackle on the back or the D-lineman going against an offensive lineman," he said. "There are some things that you can try to do schematically, but when a team is doing what they were doing yesterday and you get in your eight-man fronts and you're not winning, it usually comes back to gap integrity, poor tackling, or someone just not winning their one-on-ones."

Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.