FightinIrishBills

There's been a lot of debating in the media lately with decreased ticket sales about going to the stadium for games versus watching them at home. For me, NOTHING can beat the stadium experience, especially as a Bills fan. The tailgating is awesome. The crowd is unreal. There's no greater joy than hearing the Shout song blaring through the speakers in the Ralph with the backing of thousands of the Bills' faithful. No you don't get analysis. Or cheap beer. But you do get the closest thing to magic that I can think of

The day I find a Frank Reich jersey it'll be like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one

Frank's and butter. Less butter if you want your wings hotter. And no, there is no replacement/substitute for the Frank's

Paging OJ Simpson.

Don't worry, those "hard-core" Dolphins fans will stop watching somewhere between when the Phins start their alleged playoff-bound season going 0-5 and the beginning of the NBA season. Dolphins are bad? Go LeBron!

I'll admit that I've come of age in a time where the hatred for the Phins has seemingly diminished, replaced by the noxious *Pats. But after looking through Miami message boards and blogs, where they talk keep talking about getting ready for Week Two against the Vikings with the Bills being an afterthought, I'm starting to understand the passion. Miami is everything that Buffalo isn't: leisure, cockiness, arrogance. It's the town of LeBron James and oceanfront property. Maybe I would love it if I were born there; but as it is, being from Buffalo, all I know is hard work, hard times, and the promise of better days. I try not to have my homer goggles on too much about this stuff, but there's no better time than now. The Ralph is going to be rockin', and we're gonna beat the living tar out of Miami this weekend!!!

God, I wish I was alive for this. I just love how they were saying the same things at the beginning of the 1980 season as they are this year. For the love of all that is good, let's hope we have the same kind of results this year as then. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBETnH4rB_Y

Since Gailey hasn't coached a regular season game for the Bills, all we (and more importantly, the management at OBD) have to evaluate him on is his record. Unfortunately, your assessment of Chan's history as a coach is off. As mentioned by another poster, his Dolphins team were not only 11-5 both of those years but also had the league's 8th ranked offense in 2001 (source: Pro Football Reference). Don't know about you, but an offensive coordinator that can take a team with Jay Fiedler as the starting QB and Lamar Smith at RB to the playoffs with an 8th ranked offense seems to be up to snuff. As for his time at GT, I agree, it was certainly disappointing. However, the college game is a whole different ball game. You're dealing with boys transforming into men; in many cases, you're not only a coach, but a father figure as well. The long history of NFL coaches failing at the college level and vice versa is well-documented. Being a Notre Dame fan, the Charlie Weis situation is a painful reminder that a coach can be successful at the pro level but bust out in college coaching. Chan has done enough so far to look good during his short time with the Bills. If you don't like him based on gut instinct, then you're certainly entitled to do so. However, his record is decidedly favorable overall and he seems to have the tools to successfully coach an NFL team, which is much more than can be said of our previous head coaches.

Quiet down, you're making too much sense up there. Haven't you heard the Bills are going to tank this season to draft Jake Locker with the first overall pick? The schedule is tougher, but 2-14 seems a lot more unreasonable than 8-8. My non-expert opinion here is that the AFC East is more competitive than ever nowadays. The Patriots have a defense absolute shredded by injuries. The Jets, while they may have made some improvements, are combustible. I don't trust Shonn Greene as a full-time starter due to his vast injury history, not just last year but in college as well, and at this stage of career, LT isn't an adequate fill-in. The Dolphins, despite Brandon Marshall, are mediocre across the board. The Bills are no great shakes just yet, but, based on the improvements we've seen so far in the off-season, I don't believe that we'll be epically bad, not even being able to compete in the division.

Quiet down, you might disrupt the "tank the season and take Jake Locker #1 overall!!!" crowd. This article pretty much sums up my feelings on Locker. People have been falling in love with his measurables without looking at his production. He's not a great decision-maker. He can be dynamic, but he also has been known to disappear in games. It's not like the Pac-10 has been fielding SEC-level defenses (USC excepted); he should be doing better against what he's been working with. Yeah, the Huskies have been all kinds of bad, but Locker has yet to prove that he's a stud QB.

Consider it a question geared towards those with negative opinions of the current squad. I wouldn't say that everyone in the division has better receivers by a "large margin", excepting the Patriots. I believe the Bills D-line, as is, is better than everyone else's, excepting the Jets. Coaching is TBD, as well as determining the effectiveness of a functioning, healthy O-line. I didn't mean this to be a long-view "Why are the Bills bad as an organization?" type question. Rather, going into this year, what are the key weaknesses and strengths that the Bills have relevant to the rest of the division (in your opinions)? I honestly don't think that the Bills are that far behind in the division, and it annoys me to no end to hear that we don't even belong in the same division (quite literally) with the Jets, Pats, and Dolphins.

I'm not trying to be facetious here, but I'm genuinely curious about the perceived strengths/weaknesses of our division foes amongst Bills fans. Some are obvious (of course the Patriots are head and shoulders above us in the passing game, and the Jets have the league's best overall defense). However, there are other things I'm not so sold on. For instance, I believe that the Bills rushing game this year is equal to if not better than any of our AFC East rivals. While everyone (at least that I know) bemoans the Bills WRs, is Miami that much better? There's a significant drop-off after Brandon Marshall (although I do think that Davone Bess has potential). Long story short, I don't think that the Bills are so bad as to automatically disqualify them from competing in the division; in fact, I think that there are a lot of things that we have going for us that our opponents don't (see New England's defense, for instance). What are some of your thoughts?

There's absolutely no chance Joique Bell would clear waivers. He has to be part of the 53 man roster if he stays with the Bills.

This line of thinking really bothers me. How can we adequately judge the talent we do have based on the offensive (and one could argue defensive, as well) schemes they've been playing in? Roscoe Parrish could be the prime example of that if he pans out. In my very humble opinion, there is a great deal of talent on this team. Unfortunately it hasn't been utilized to maximize its strengths.

Well I for one find this very relevant to the Bills' struggles so far at OLB If we were on a political message board, I wouldn't be short on ways to prove that you're foolish and just plain wrong on this issue, considering only the breadth and scope of definitive research on climate change over the years. But we're not. So kindly let us indulge in discussion of the topic we've all agreed to talk about--how much Trent Edwards looks like Justin Bieber

Having come up in the age of *Patriot "greatness", I feel only the slightest twinge of enmity against Miami. I want the Bills to beat them of course, but it doesn't have the feel of the great rivalry that it holds for my older Bills compatriots New England, though...that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I hate the smugness of their fans. I hate the cockiness of their team. I hate their filthy, disgusting, cheating ways. I was in the Rockpile two years ago during that infamous "wind game" when the gusts were so bad, the field goal posts shook. We were long eliminated from playoff contention at that point, but I didn't care, just as long as we knocked the tar out of the Pats. We lost that game (f*%k you Duke Preston for getting provoked into a fight at the end of the 1st half), but even if it was inconsequential in the standings, it still meant something because it was the damned Patriots. The only other teams that I hold such passionate hatred for are USC and Michigan; you can understand why Tom Brady gets a double whammy in my book. This season I despise the Jets for many of the same reasons, including that pretty boy USC chump at QB. They haven't yet exhibited the dominance that the Patriots have consistently shown over the years (and I personally don't think that they ever will), but God help us if they do.

I was just looking through Tim Graham's blog and stumbled across this gem from the Jauron era: http://espn.go.com/blog/afceast/post/_/id/5143/parrish-dresses-but-probably-wont-play-for-bills Yes, I know it's a dead horse that might have taken one too many floggings. But gosh, how incompetent can one coach be? Jauron had many shortcomings but if Roscoe Parrish turns out to be a major playmaker in Gailey's offense, then I think it's safe to say that mishandling 'Scoe was his greatest folly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBg8RJdcSEs The whole thing.

Is this some advanced form of super-trolling?

Once I find a Frank Reich jersey, I'll wear it every day of my life.

Being a bit younger, Gale Sayers has always been just a name in a list of great RBs. But after watching that video...wow. Simply breathtaking. If CJ Spiller has 1/4 of that guy's ability in the NFL (he certainly did in college), I think we'll be very happy for a long time.

I was at the game and I was telling anyone within earshot this very fact. If I remember correctly, last year's preseason games, in an awful foreshadowing of the coming season, were riddled with false start and holding penalties. Not only do these type of penalties kill drives, but they ruin an offense's flow. You need to have everyone on the offense fully focused; sloppy play breaks up that concentration and if it's gone, it's extremely difficult to get everyone's head back in the game.

Living in Buffalo, I have to resist the impulse to do this every time I open up the Buffalo News and see that dour mug.

I responded to another thread like this once, but I'm a fan of this simple yet effective name: The Herd

Awesome pictures of our fair city. It would be even cooler if you had pictures of all of the beautiful homes down on Delaware or the hip stuff going on in the Elmwood/Allentown area, but good job nonetheless! And Buffalo's not perfect, but it sure is beautiful to those who behold it.