FightinIrishBills

"Rhodes Scholar? Didn't we trade that guy tah Arizona?" /Jets fan'd

Yes, I understand that. But no college QB would tank just so they wouldn't be drafted by a particular team. It's millions upon millions of dollars on the line. The difference in money between a top 5 or even top 10 slot versus a late 1st/early 2nd round slot is a wide chasm. And there's that off-chance that you're the much-hyped QB going into the season, only to find out that teams don't even think you're good enough to be drafted (ask Jevon Snead how his football career's going for him). So my point remains. This topic is ridiculous. It's ludicrous to think that a player would sacrifice not only his own individual success but his team's success as well due solely to the possibility of having to play on a bad team.

Sorry, it's not the Bills' fault for Locker's particular brand of suck. Every fan is critical of their team. Any football player worth his salt wants to win, no matter where he goes. Sure, the Bills QB spot hasn't been a favorable position in a long time, but a team has to turn the corner somewhere. This topic really makes zero sense.

Stories like this don't exactly help the players' image with this whole lockout thing coming up.

Not sold on Kaepernick. The guy has thrived in a great system and he has some wheels, but much like Locker, his mechanics are shaky at best. Right now the only real deal QBs I see out there are Mallett and Luck. And as much as I've championed Mallett, those 2 late interceptions against 'Bama were just bad. Meanwhile Luck is just an absolute stud. The kid is making perfect throws with blitzes coming at him all day (don't ask me how many times I swore at the TV last weekend as he sailed pass after pass into tight coverage). The rest of these guys are good, but not going to be elite level QBs anytime soon.

Cogent political analysis. Thanks for bringing your thoughtful discourse to a Bills message board. Anyways, what would you want Gailey to have done? I bet dollars to doughnuts that he had a private conversation with Edwards and told him something akin to this: "Here's your last shot with this organization. Either you're able to thrive in my system or not, but we don't have time to ride it out anymore. This is your 4th year in the league, get it together." And initially it did look like Trent had his act together, but once the games went live, Gailey had seen enough that Edwards was no longer redeemable as a QB in his system. Honestly, this is in the best interests of both the team and the player. Imagine if they kept Trent around all year and he kept looking like he did the first two games. Do you think that even any USFL teams would come knocking at his door? Certainly no NFL teams would. It allows Edwards to save a little face and make a roster somewhere else, and it also eliminates a potential locker room problem between Fitz and Edwards. Finally, it sends a message to both Bills fans and players. The new regime isn't afraid to make bold decisions and separate the wheat from the chaff. Gailey and Nix have the unenviable task of trying to rebuild this team while keeping them competitive. Edwards wasn't useful for either objective and at this point, his presence would only be detrimental to both parties. Happy trails Trent. Hopefully you find a better situation for yourself.

Can I vote for Kelly Holcomb?

Remember when the Bills went 5-1 that one time? Let's not rush to snap judgments. The Chiefs won a division game at home in primetime for their opener against a notoriously slow starting team (remember when we soundly beat San Diego?). Then they barely beat Cleveland. Today they beat a rather Jekyll-and-Hyde 49ers team. Congrats to them for doing so well thus far. Aside from their head coach, I think their coaching staff is pretty solid. And they really are showing a lot of improvement. But 3 games does not a season make. Check back at week 12 and then see how far they've come along.

Classy.

Ha, I might be a little biased, but I hope Andrew Luck looks like sh%t today. Maybe it'll be Dayne Crist's time to shine? Mallett, however, has the opportunity of a lifetime in front of him. I've been singing this guy's praises for a long time and I really hope that he's the QB of the future for the Bills.

Hey, thanks guys, I really do appreciate it. Just calling it the way I see it. I haven't been a Bills fan for nearly as long as some folks on here, but I've lived through just enough to have taken my lumps (when your earliest childhood memories are the last of the Superbowl years and your formative sports memories as a pre-teen is the Music City Screwjob, you're officially part of the club). Still, with all of that heartbreak, I wouldn't trade one second of pain for the "glory" of a tainted victory. Honestly Jim, I can understand where you're coming from. You, just like everyone else who lives and dies with Buffalo Bills football, wants to see some heart and desire out of this organization again. I, however, don't think that cheating shows anything resembling heart. Do you really have faith in your players if you think they can't win without cheating? Do you have any pride in what you've built together as a team if taped signals are the key ingredient to your success? What a complete lack of trust in your organization if that's what you have to stoop to. For some people, winning is an end in and of itself, and it doesn't matter if it's completely divorced from anything resembling hard-work and passion. You might not think something like that has any effect on a younger generation, but in truth it's a cynical attitude that spreads like a cancer. Even if the Bills do suck the rest of my life, I'd like to know that at least they came by it honestly.

Please, allow me to smash through that nice little straw-man of yours. First off, I don't think I've ever posted anything on here one way or the other about Michael Vick, and I really don't think that you know how many fans who think the Pats are cheaters want to bring Vick in. The two are mutually exclusive, relative to the game of football anyways. Michael Vick committed some abhorrent crimes, but he didn't violate the actual integrity of the game. Remember that Donte Stallworth actually took a man's life and still plays in the league. There are lots of folks that play the game of football that in the privacy of their own lives, might be terrible, awful people. The Patriots, however, violated what was the universally accepted rule of law in the NFL. They essentially flipped the bird to the rulebook and betrayed a sense of arrogance and hubris that severely harms both the integrity of the game and the legitimacy of the league. It shows absolutely zero sportsmanship or sense of fair play. Besides, Michael Vick served a greater punishment for his crimes relative to the Patriots. He served his time and has proven to be someone in good standing, at least for now. The Pats got away with cheating and suffered little by way of punishment (sorry, I know draft picks are huge, but there should have been a greater penalty than that).

I'd rather they laugh their butts off at us than have them think of us as shiftless rule-breakers. At least if you're bad, you have the potential to be good at some point. But the taint of that scandal belongs to the Pats forever. And for the record, I think there's a snowball's chance that we go 0-16 this year. I would take 16 losses, though, over one illegitimate victory.

I would rather go 0-16 than win a Superbowl under those circumstances. Once you get caught cheating, you're illegitimate. It might not seem like much in the rush of the present, but think in terms of history. Do you honestly want the first Superbowl the Bills ever won to be tainted forever? You can think of football in a lot of different ways, but with the ever increasing emphasis on the NFL as a family oriented game (as evidenced by the increasingly stringent tailgating restrictions), you can't help but think about its impact on the next generation. Do you want to implicitly tell your kids that it's okay to cheat to get ahead, because their favorite team did it and was successful in doing so? What the Patriots did is so much worse than steroid use. Steroids are most often used by an individual to perform at higher level than they could normally achieve, one way or the other. The Pats, however, did something that violated the rules on an organizational level. It was a conscious effort by at least a few powerful people in the Pats coaching staff/front office to do something they knew violated the rules. Or maybe you don't care about winning with honor, dignity, or class. I'm not saying the guys all have to be saints (although I wish they played like they were Saints...), but win the right way. If Buffalo ever won that way, it would break my heart. I'd have to give up rooting for my team. Hopefully you're trolling. If not though, I'm stunned.

Wait, the Raiders are more organized because they benched the free-agent QB they brought in during the off-season to lead their franchise? Campbell was supposed to be a big upgrade for them as a starting QB, and while Gradkowski is serviceable, Campbell definitely should be better. Sorry, I'm not convinced that this is a cause for celebration in any organization. I would rather the Bills let Chan Gailey work with what he has now as opposed to bringing in subpar talent. Campbell wasn't the guy for us, and bringing in a guy like Campbell would have undermined (whatever was left of) our current QB's confidence. If they're bad, they're bad, but at least give them a fair shake in your system. Trent busted. Now Fitz has his go. And if he's a bust? Then you ride out the year and get your guy in the offseason.

Sweet Jesus. What a tragedy. My prayers are definitely with him and his family.

No, I'm not cherry-picking. I agree with the basic premise that you do need to bring in the people you believe that will help your team be successful. However, the Lombardi example just doesn't cut it. Football was an incredibly different game in 1958, with a much higher level of skill and athletic prowess required in the modern game. It was also a smaller league with only 12 teams, with a shorter season of 12 games. Long story short, I think it's simplistic and wrong-headed to demand that after one season in the modern NFL that it's not only reasonable but expected that the Lombardi example can be easily imitated. Maybe Lombardi was able to immediately bring in the level of talent that put him up to championship level, but in today's game, that takes more time due to a whole host of reasons.

Are you kidding me? You're really going to compare the game of football of today to how it was in 1958? And you're going to compare Chan Gailey to one of the greatest football coaches of all time? And THEN you're going to say it's reasonable to expect that level of improvement based off of your comparisons? You've lost your marbles.

Not sure, but as bad as the Bills problems might be right now, we don't have the albatross of an unhappy Albert Haynesworth hanging around our necks, we don't have the undue pressure to be successful immediately with a big-named head coach, and we don't have an owner who throws crazy money around towards players that usually don't pan out (you might prefer an owner who's willing to spend huge, but I guarantee you that even if we had the Redskins financial resources, people would be on franchise suicide watch the way they hand out money to marginal talent). I can't tell you which situation is better, but we've only seen one week of football, a week that some analysts (hopefully this is the only time in my life that I have to cite Skip Bayless as a credible source) have described as an extended preseason.

Haha hey man, I don't like gripers as much as the next guy. But that clock CLEARLY was at zero before the ball was snapped. Add to the fact that those referees wouldn't know a holding call if they were being felt up themselves by Sparty's O-line, and it was just an awful job by the Big 10 crew.

C'est la vie. You can root for whatever team you want. Just don't expect much sympathy from die-hard Bills fans when you gloat about jumping ship to a franchise on the rise. But riddle me this, Batman: if and/or when Green Bay wins the big one, will you have gained a deep sense of satisfaction? Was that fandom earned through years of heartache and devotion? Do you deserve the right to say "That right there, THAT'S my team"? It's not a mortal sin and again, it's your life. But every time I watch the Bills all I beg for is "just one time". Just one time let it be magical for this town, this team. And by God, when they do finally have that one shining moment I'll be crying my eyes out and basking in the afterglow, and it'll be because I rooted for that damn miserable team from the day I was born. So take your satisfaction where you can get it. But for some of us, being a Bills fan isn't just about liking red, white, and blue laundry.

I guess they don't know how to count in the Big 10. That playclock clearly ran out before the ball was snapped. Ugh.

Do you like a challenge? Do you like knowing that people will straight up laugh in your face when you tell who you root for? Do you want to know unfathomable sports misery, with the hope that once, just ONE time you'll feel unbridled elation? I grew up with the Bills, but I drifted away as I got into my teen years. The hurt was too much, the disappointment and the shame were intolerable. But I came back into the flock because ultimately, being a Bills fan isn't something convenient or easy. Hell, sometimes the only fun you'll have with the Bills is in the parking lot with a fine tailgate (see last Sunday for a prime example of that). But as Bills fan, you'll always have hope. Yeah it won't seem like much. You'll get disgusted, disappointed, just plain sad most of the time. But you won't care, because you know deep in your heart that, for better or worse, there's nowhere else you'd rather be right here, right now than rooting for that damn team. And who knows? Maybe one day that faith will be rewarded. And it'll mean more to you and a whole community more than you can ever understand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PlWZDZboQw&p=15C4404C488AC9BF&playnext=1&index=2 Welcome to the fold. Sticking it out won't be easy, but we're all praying it'll be worth it.

Replace the O-line with Herman's Hermits. At least those guys have harmony together.

Wonder what the Vegas line on "crater" is...