Archives for December 2012

‘The one thing I believe is that Ralph IS loyal to Buffalo … he’s not doing this to carry his money bags into the great beyond. He’s in financial trouble and in desperation to keep the team in a town that’s incredibly loyal with a fan-base second to none. But you get the idea the fight won’t/can’t last much longer.’

‘This team plays with no emotion, no intensity and no inspiration.’

‘Given the investment taxpayers will be making in this operation, there’s one more item that the Bills need to fix. It’s time for the team to drop its recent practice of playing some "home" games in Toronto. Such games have not sold well to begin with, and taking the team away from the fans that have supported them and the governments that are subsidizing them is not good policy.’

‘This is the fourth straight season the Bills have registered double-digit losses. The Bills haven’t won more than six games in the Chan Gailey era, and they haven’t won more than seven in a season since 2004, when the team went 9-7 and missed the playoffs.’

‘”It stinks that we’re not winning, and a lot of people are gonna lose their jobs because of it,” said Bills center Eric Wood after the team’s dismal, 24-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins.’

‘They paid through the nose for Mario Williams. The schedule was in their favor. They had five games against rookie quarterbacks. It was a perfect setup. They’re 5-10. This makes them 0 for their last 3 against teams starting a rookie quarterback. That should get people fired.’

‘Johnson had a day to forget. He fumbled. He dropped passes. He failed to secure what should’ve been a touchdown, losing the ball after crossing the goal line and leaving the call open to interpretation.’

‘It was the 14th fumble of the season for the Bills. Buffalo entered the game tied for the fifth most fumbles in the league.’

‘The Bills didn’t produce on offense and failed to stop the Dolphins when it mattered. The Bills came out flat and played with no sense of urgency when down by 21 points with a full quarter to play. Their hurry-up offense didn’t look too eager. The Bills were minus-4 in turnovers and committed 11 penalties for 93 yards. The Dolphins didn’t have any penalties until there were less than five minutes to play.’

‘”The reality is that it’s going to be very difficult to keep this team here in the long run,” Giambra said in a telephone interview. “It appears to me that in order to keep this franchise in this community [long-term], it’s going to take an ownership group willing to lose tens of millions a year for a long period of time. We should find out now if there is an ownership group willing to buy this team,” he added. “Shouldn’t we find out sooner, rather than later?”‘

‘Buffalo had four turnovers, committed 11 penalties for 93 yards, scored only one touchdown, allowed Miami’s Reggie Bush to score three touchdowns, and thus lost to a rookie quarterback (Ryan Tannehill) for a third straight time.’

‘On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Mario Williams, who did almost nothing in the game, and never once referred to himself when he reeled off all the problems the Bills had on defense. Lots of “we” and “us” but never “me.” And he was more than eager to call out punter Shawn Powell’s shanked punt and the offense’s four turnovers which put the defense in bad spots.’

‘Not even playing Miami’s pop-gun offense could help the Bills, though it must be pointed out that for a good chunk of the game the defense wasn’t terrible. It was just that in the key moments it was unable to come up with critical plays, a long-running problem.’

‘We can continue to hammer away at Chan Gailey’s play-calling, but in this game, his players let him down with constant mistakes and turnovers. Now, as for Gailey’s continual bungling of late-half clock management, and his failure to challenge plays that seemed warranted for challenges, that’s another matter. Not too much to say about Dave Wannstedt and the defense, just another game where his guys failed to make anything happen. Everyone’s used to it.’

‘Under the new agreement, the state will again contribute $123 million toward stadium improvements, but this time the Bills must ante up $44 million. Erie County agreed to pay $103 million of the overall $226 million project cost.’