It's been nearly two months since Mario Williamssounded off on his frustration with Rex Ryan's defense.
Two months later, he says nothing has changed.
"We're still doing the same thing," Williams told Vic Carucci of The Buffalo News this week, ahead of Sunday's critical showdown with the surging Texans.
The core complaint from Williams centers around a scheme that asks its pass rushers to frequently drop into coverage, leaving less opportunity to wreck the quarterback. He has a point after watching the Bills drop from a franchise-record 57 sacks in 2013 -- and a league-leading 54 last season -- to just 13 all year by their defensive linemen in 2015.
Williams admitted that he's still catching up to Ryan's complex playbook.
"It makes us switch up certain things that we do," Williams said Friday. "Now, we might have to do this, we might have to go that way and might not be in the same, as comfortable a position as we've been in previous years. But other than that, I don't think it makes it difficult. It's just a different look. It's a different feel for us."
Williams and his fellow high-priced sack artists -- Kyle Williams, Marcell Dareus and Jerry Hughes -- are earning about $50 million this season. None of them have more than three sacks on the year, though, after Mario had 14.5 sacks and Hughes had 10 in 2014.
Mario isn't the only Bills defender to express his displeasure with a defense that ranks 18th overall and 29th in takedowns. We're fed a weekly diet of hype over Ryan's "exotic" blitz packages, but "invisible" would serve as a better term during this up-and-down season.
The problems on defense only amplify questions about where Mario will play next year. The Bills can save $12.9 million against the cap by releasing him in the offseason -- a change of scenery he might be fine with.
