VJ91

Alvin Bowen & Copeland Bryan deserved to be on this team. How could they keep Ryan Denny over Bryan? Bryan was constantly around the QB and ball carrier, and Denny barely takes up space whenever he gets on the field! And Alvin Bowen made some monster hits every preseason game. He apperared to be a terrific special teams player at the very least. Aside from those two cuts, at least the preseason is finally over. We'll see what kind of team takes the field a week from Monday night against the Pats. Here's hoping T.O.'s toes last beyond two catches into the regular season.

Outstanding take! That quote is right up there with this one..."I think we did Trent a disservice by not preparing for for the Packers and Steelers, so I didn't see the point in making Trent go out against a third straight team we had not prepared for." I have never heard a head coach say anything like that before. Come on, the Packers and Steelers run a 3-4, just like the Pats do most of the time. DJ has over 70 players running around - many of whom rarely get any quality reps at their respective positions anyway. Would it have been that hard for him to spend time setting those backups up in 3-4 alignments, and had his starting offense practice against that scout team for a few damn hours the week leading up to the Packers and Steelers games? And wouldn't that also have been getting his starting offense quality reps against the Pats main defense, instead of having his starting offense practice against his starting defense, a defense that the Pats do not run at all?? No of couse not. How stupid of me. The defense has been practicing against a no huddle offense, that they will not play against at all this season. And the offense has been practicing against a 4-3 two-gap cover-2 defense that they will not play in 10 of their 16 games this season. Now that makes perfect sense.

Very stupid of Schoenert to open up against DJ like that. His openness to speak his mind is refreshing to us fans and the media, but it may screw him getting another job as OC or even QC for another NFL team. Besides, I agree with DJ if Schoenert speaks the truth, anway. How many guys to you need to put in motion, and how many different formations do you have to implement in order for your QB to throw 4 yard passes all over the place? I hope AVP does simplify things down, and allows Edwards to look down the field faster and get the ball into his wide recievers hands more often. Turk-ey's offense reminded me of other OC's that have worked here before him the past 10 years. With all of them it was always about his "packages", and multiple formations, and knowing your "reads" and assignements, and giving the QB 18 freakin' check down options on every stupid pass play. Does anybody remember that Jimbo called all of about 5 different plays during an entire No-Huddle game, in which his Bills usually blew out their opponents up and down the damn field? That's right. Kelly simply changed formations and put his tight end on different sides depending on down and distance, but his entire "arsenal" of "schemes, packages and reads consisted of about 4 to 6 different play calls.....for an entire football game. Ok, Ok, of course these Bills are pathetic compared to the athletes Kelly had on the field helping him run those few plays to perfection. But my point still has meritt. The simpler, the better, for young Edwards, young tight end Nelson, young linemen Wood, Levitre and quite possibly Bell. Who knows, maybe dumbing things down is exactly what this group of young veterans and old pros needs to rack up some points and yardage??

A couple of fumbles, and allowing that little 98 yard drive (the one they call "The Drive"), to Elway at home with the lead and just a few minutes left in the game. However, had his defense kept Elway from making "The Drive" and his Browns had gone to the SB that season, they would have matched up 100% better against the Giants, and I think they may have even won the game. A lot of things go into a coaches Conference Championship and SB games records. Nobody gives Marv Levy credit for his sterling 4-1 record in AFC Championship games, naturally becuase of his 0-4 record in SB's. Tony Dungy had problems getting over the playoff win hump in Tampa, and then the very season he left for Indy, Gruden strolled in and won a SB with Dungy's Bucs. Finally, Dungy got past the Pats after a few years losing to them with the Colts, and into the SB, and had an inferior Bears team waiting for him in rainy Miami. Bang, he wins the Lombardi, and lives the rest of his life as a Hall of Fame coach and mentor to NFL felons. Marty never got lucky in the playoffs. That doesn't mean the NFL should give up on him yet if he still has the energy and desire to coach. Tony Dungy, Marv Levy, John Gruden and Marty. All four outstanding coaches who knew how to build and / or motivate a team to win at the highest levels. Two got lucky, and two didn't. Of course I would love to see Marty end his coaching career with 3 to 5 years in Buffalo after Dick goes away this season. Why not?? He was drafted by Ralph Wilson as a linebacker back in the mid 60's. Why not finish up his outstanding coaching career back here where it all started for him as a player??

I have no problems dumping Schouman for Stupar, but I still think Shawn Nelson should be on the field from the first snap against the Pats a week from Monday. Now that Turk-ey's gone, maybe AVP can convince DJ that regardless of how inexperienced or imperfect their "techniques" may be, the Bills need as much pure talent on the field they can get. And Nic Harris? Oh yeah, he has future Pro Bowler written all over him. That kid needs to start over Ellison now. He could be one of the biggest steals of the '09 draft.

Wendling.

Very good....this staff most likely have set the record for notebooks budgets.

This "rivalry" ended when Kelly and then Marino retired. It is about as "real" these days as the young ladies' "best feature" in your avatar are.

Thank you Mike Brown, not only have you ended up NOT being a "chip off the old block", after your Dad brought NFL football to Cincinnati in the mid 60's as a coaching legend, you continue to make Ralph and his organization shine in comparison. By the way, NFL experts, scouts, gurus and talking heads were warning teams to stay away from Andre Smith as far back as last January. I certainly feel no sympathy for the Bengals on this one. They can only hope that Smith takes this injury seriously and does a Bruce Smith like turn around towards hard work, nutrition and pride in himself, or he will walk straight into the Mike Williams Hall of Shame. Of couse, the Redskins will most likely trade for him or pick him up if the Bengals give up on him anyway.

DJ thinks James Hardy is doing a fine job of rehabbing his knee. Isn't that nice? Listening to these passionless, emotionless coaches and VP's of Pro Scouting and College Scouting calmly excuse away why our beloved Bills suck year in and year out, I'm at the point where I would love to have Ralph hire a new GM and/ or Head Coach that reminds me of Jack Nicholson's General character from "A Few Good Men" Couldn't you picutre the meeting after a week of training camp last year between that guy and his college scouts after realizing James Hardy was the dumbest player ever to be drafted?? He would say; "Who the f... convinced us to draft James Hardy?"...."apparently this kid can't run a pass route from here to there, without falling down or forgetting how to do it, much less learn our entire damn playbook!"....."and you, receivers coach?.....you will train Mr. Hardy to learn his damn playbook, and if he doesn't run every damn pattern perfectly by the start of this coming season, I'm going to blame you, and then, I'm going to kill you." Wouldn't that be a refreshing change? Someone in a position of authority with the Buffalo Bills that has a freakin' pulse?? Read that entire article from today's D&C about how nobody really knows if Hardy will catch one damn pass this season, yet his knee seems to be coming along just fine, and once again we are left to read between the lines. James Hardy still cannot understand Turk-ey Schoenerts' offense. His "geek" coaches, who only care about their players memorizing their schemes and patterns, and don't seem to have a clue about the emotions that run high in the game of NFL football, still don't seem to be very optimistic about Hardy "contributing" this entire damn season. Blow it up after DJ and his geeks once again can't MOTIVATE or INSPIRE this team into the playoffs once again this season, Ralph. Blow it up just one more time even though you're 91 years old. You certainly have nothing to lose at this point, and it would be fun to be able to watch a new coach on the sidelines get fired up about the good and bad things that happen in a game, and/or fun to watch a young emotional GM get fired up about his job like the young Bill Polian did 25 years ago!! Russ Brandon, Tom Modrak, John Guy, Dick Jaruon, Turk Schoenert and Perry Fewell, collectively, are like golf officials raising the QUIET signs to the fans in the stands. BLOW THEM ALL UP Ralph, just one more time!

No offense, but who cares? Unless you are practicing to be an NFL scout, the last preseason game of every NFL team is the most boring of them all. Half the teams don't even put all their starters on the field for at least one play, and the other half have all their starters off the field after one series. After that, it's all about watching the kids and marginal vets battle it out for one of those 53 spots. We can curse the calander this year for Labor Day coming so late, and forcing the NFL fans to wait almost an additional full week for the regular season to start, but I don't even listen the the annual Thursday evening Bills-Lions "cut-down" game at the Ralph, and even if by some miracle it sells out in the future, I won't watch it either.

Well Jerry McGuire, as bad as the Bills have looked so far this preseason, you may not even get the fish from the aquarium to go along "with you", much less the hot accountant inspired by your "memo" of a rah rah post above.

DJ would have been fired by about 31 other teams in the NFL after his team collapsed to a third consecutive 7-9-0 season after starting 5-1-0 last season. Yes, siree bob, this team/organization does indeed drive you crazy.

"Driving Miss Daisy."

Wow. And Peter King was and still is a respected "expert" on the NFL? That is the stupidest article I have read from a pro sports write since Woody Paige warned the Nuggets not to draft the one dimensional lazy slacker; Carmello Anthony, from Syracuse a few years after King spouted his nonsense for all to read! Look at some of King's predictions of things that would happen, and should happen, for the Pats in just that one little article from 2000: *Kraft should have given up on hiring Belicheck and hired Dom freakin' Capers instead! *Kraft should also have hired Tom freakin' Donahoe to run his entire football department! (Damn you Ralph Wilson, for reading that King article and actually believing King knew what he was talking about!) *Kraft would most likely lose Teddy Bruschi in free agency that year. *The Pats should have used the draft pick saved by not hiring Belicheck from the Jets, on Ron Freakin' Dayne, who would have fixed the Pats running game for years to come! Oh I know hindsight is always 20/20, and that most of us all believed the Donahoe was a good to great football guy, that Capers was a fine coach and that Dayne would be a star in the NFL back then. But really, it is hard to believe that Peter King could have been that wrong about so many things in one sports article: *Belicheck became the coaching genius only Robert Kraft seemed to think he was capable of becoming, and has led the Pats to 3 SB wins since 2000. *Donahoe could not hide his ineptness behind the great Steelers orgainzation up here in Buffalo, and he was exposed as the fraud he was, that almost nobody knew he was. *Not only did Bruschi not leave in free agency in 2000, but he never left the Pats at all, and was called the "perfect player" by a teared up Belicheck during Teddy's retirement news conference yesterday. *Ron Dayne turned out to be one of the biggest draft busts ever. Simply amazing. If only Kraft had thought as highly of Donahoe and Capers as Peter King did! If only....reminds me of that story in the book "Relentless" written by Sal Marianna years ago. It seems Bill Walsh would have been very interested in meeting with Ralph Wilson back in 1977, as a head coaching candidate. Walsh was not surprised that Ralph never set up an interview with him back then, since Walsh had never coached in the NFL and Chuck Knox was the big "catch" that year. Again, think about Bill Walsh coming to Buffalo back in 1978 instead of "high profile" Knox!

I would never want to be a coordinator in the NFL. In addition, that commercial does not have me pegged, I never worked in a hobby store, was a waiter, or called a boss an "alien-face". However, I do enjoy being a Bills fan, and although the preseason means nothing, the entire team (accept for Morman's foot), has indeed looked confused and unprepared to play vanilla ball in 3 of their 4 preseason games. Your "little rant" is passionate and optimistic, but I think we would all feel better if the no-huddle offense had just one TD drive so far!

Excellent post, and hard to argue any of those points. However, here are the fans of NFL teams that wish they could replace their history with the exact history of ours in Buffalo you listed above: 1) The Detroit Lions under the Ford family. 2) The New Orleans Saints under whoever and then that screwball car dealer that used to dance around with that stupid hat after the Saints won a few games years ago - Bentson I think? After over 40 years, still 0-0 in SB's. 3) Despite their amazing run in last years' playoffs, Bidwell's Cardinal fans would absolutely have loved to trade their history with ours over the last 50 years, both the fans in St. Louis and Arizona. 4) The Cleveland Browns from 1965 on, under scum bag Modell and then the Lerner family. 5) The Tenessee Titans fans, since they have only been to one SB and lost it, and of course their Houston fans before them, under Bud Adams who regularly lost to our Bills in the playoffs. 6) Possibly the Chargers fans??...They have had their share of lousy losing seasons over their long history, and also have never won a SB either, with a 0-1 record. (Playing in 4 straight is still better then playing and losing just one, right?) So although the Bills overall history is in the bottom third of NFL teams, we can always point to other fans in the NFL that have had it worse then us over 40 to 50 years.

Tom Donahoe screwed all of us until the day Ralph goes to the great Rock Pile in the sky. Wilson gave him the keys, and full authority, and Donahoe did less then nothing with it. While dealing with his own ego and control-freak issues, Ralph barely co-existed with Bill Polian despite the amazing years of success, and then big John Butler's stubborness despite one more SB appearance and more playoff games under him, and then Donhoe's stupidity and ego. Finally, Ralph decided until he dies, he will control the operations using Yes-men and marketing gurus under him. Sucks for us fans, doesn't it?

...right. When I said good inexperienced DE's I meant the young inexperienced DE's already on the roster. That would be Chris Ellis and Aaron Maybin, and a few of the others that seem to play much better then the more experienced Schoebel, Denny & Kelsay.

Yes and no. Preseason football is completely meaningless. Some coaches use more of their real stuff then others, and that puts teams at a real disadvantage trying to line up vanilla every play. That said, I am worried about the Bills more then I was before these summer games, however. No matter what gameplans the Bills' coaches are using or not using, the players look like dog s...

Greg Paulus may be a leader, but I cannot imagine the kid making it through his entire one year career as starting QB for the Cuse this season without getting injured. Logic dictates that at the major college level, playing basketball 4 years does not prepare one's body for the punishement of football. Now I'm a huge Orange fan, and of course I want Paulus to be in contention for the Heisman by the end of this year, by leading Syracuse back to over .500 and playing his butt off. But sadly, I just don't see it happening that way. I just don't see any kid taking 5 years off of football completely, and then being able to walk out on the field and make it through a season without a scratch. I think Paulus, his family, and Doug Marrone are all nuts for allowing this "experiment" to take place at all. In fact, I'm upset with coach Marrone for taking this path and using Paulus for cheap exposure and "quick fix" selling of seats in the Dome, when he came in and talked only about doing all the hard work it takes to rebuild the proud program the right way.

I'm not about to defend how bad the Bills starters' have looked this preseason. But the reason I hate the damn preseason games and would like the NFL to do away with them completely, is that they really don't mean anything. Of course it defies logic for any rational Bills fan that understands the basics of football, that these players and these coaches can really take the field for the regular season and win as many as 9 games and sneak into the playoffs this season. It is almost insulting our intelligence to have any member of the Buffalo Bills try to convince us that this is possible after watching those first 4 summer games so far! But if there was ever any better proof that preseason football games mean nothing, the Lions from last year erased all doubt. Before the 2008 season last year, the Detroit Lions were the only team to go 4-0-0 in the preseason. They then "rode that momentum" into the regular season and proceded to lose all 16 games. So again I say, as we despair over how amazingly bad our beloved Bills have looked this preseason, "REMEMBER THE LIONS.!"

Classic post - I know the feeling! So please, for the benefit of Bills Nation, lay your money on the under 7 today!! By the way, what's with the woman licking the Stanley Cup? It's kind of gross if you asked me, as if you were using the most treasured championship trophy in all of sports in a cheap porn flick or something.

Really? Wow, I would to love see the Bills defense play like the Giants too. If they did play their 4-3 like the Giants, we would not be having this debate now would we? But the reality of Perry Fewell's boys is that the ends don't pressure the QB's with any semlence of a pass rush, the light tackles don't stuff the run on a consistent basis, and the 3 linebackers spend more time over-persuing, and taking wrong first steps almost every other play, that they really don't stuff the run "first", and get any pressure blitzing "second." Now these are NFL football players. Kawika Mitchell excelled in your Giants 4-3 and won a SB as a starting LB for them. Poz is looking faster and stronger this season, and even Ellison continues to beat down his critics with his effort and speed. Kyle Williams motor never stops running and Marcus Stroud is a proven Pro Bowl performer with 8 or 9 years of experience at the highest level of play. Give these 5 players to most defensive cooridnators in the NFL and they will be able to build a solid 4-3 defense by adding two very good DE's. The Bills seem to have some very good young inexperienced DE's already on the roster. But I cannot put all the blame on Schoebel, Denny and Kelsay. I believe Fewell's coaching sucks. On one basic running play the Steelers gained over 10 yards and an easy first down, or may have even walked into the end zone untouched - I don't remember exactly the play, but I watched Poz take a huge step to the right, even though the entire play started left and continued left. Poz cannot possibly be that stupid, so once again, Perry had one of his maddening "schemes" going that effectively took his young rising star MLB out of the play without even needing to be blocked. This "over-coaching" with stunts and schemes is pathetic. Poz wants to be emulate Urlacher. Has Fewell ever watched Urlacher play football? He runs from sideline to sideline, making plays all over the damn field. Brian Urlacher does not need to stunt and scheme every other play. He simply uses his natural talent and instincts to make plays. Perry Fewell only cares about asignments, filling gaps, running stupid stunts, and his precious schemes. He better be ready to make it all come together in just over two weeks, because Tom Brady, if healthy, will slice up his schemes and stunts like swiss cheese all night long, if this is as good as it is going to be for yet another season.

No kidding. I'm sure Perry is breaking down the kids' plays on his laptop on the plane ride home, and will spend all day tomorrow in the film room going over Maybins' many missed asignments mis-reads of schemes. By the Detroit game Thursday night, Maybin will be much more worried about learning Fewell's playbook that I'm sure he will slow down and be just as passive as the rest of Fewell's defenders are.