Buffalonian-at-Heart

I agree with the exception I don't think Bell is going to come around, hence the position still needs to be addressed.

Wonderful, now that awesome passing game will be relied on even more. Could be a long day.

I was trying to determine how I felt after the game and all last night. I finally think it's embarrassment. I'm in Charlotte, NC and I've got Steeler fans to my left, Alabama fans to my right, Seahawks fans and Cowboys fans in the culdesac. Spent all of Saturday night cleaning the house to have people over for the game. Bought jerseys for myself and two sons. Built a bonus room out of the garage and got it decked out in Bills and Sabres. Went to the early service at church, started helping the wife make finger foods, dip, etc. People start piling in and got up to about 10 or 12. Had the shout song cued up on the computer. Adults and kids having fun dancing to the song, trying to get our kids to feel the way we did when we were young. And then we started playing. I felt like crawling into a hole. I didn't want to go outside and face the neighbors. I was completely embarrassed. I felt like a fool for believing that we would look different. I started to consider all the time I've spent reading every Bills article that was written in the off season, how I've watched film on our draft picks, how I've spent time learning the 3-4 defense, etc. Only to find myself with egg on my face. In a word, Humiliating.

In this league you need a stable QB situation to be respectable, you need a good one to be competitive, and you need a great one to be a yearly contender. If you don't have a stable, good, or great QB you must have something else that is discernible such as; elite coaching, great defensive unit, etc. The Bills are still trying to find their identity. I'm not ready to give up on Gailey, but Edwards is clearly the antithesis to the Bills being a viable contender. Let's hope the rest of the team develops. We will address the QB position next off season.

Is it possible to overact after that display of offense?

I think Bell is worse. And he certainly has the more important position. That whiff on the would have been screen play was pitiful.

After watching Edwards, I couldn't blame anyone for wanting anyone but him.

None of the living room, Bills Backer bar, fans at the Ralph things you mention are examples of fans disrespecting each other. One fan isn't telling the other to proverbial "carry his shoulder pads", because he's had a tail gate spot longer, or that's his spot on the couch. I'm not sure I understand the analogy. Unless you're trying to say you treat newbies badly because you have a shorter fuse due to the Bills not winning. As your post stands alone, I agree with everything you've said.

I sure do. And that's why people stop visiting the board, and is one of the main contributors as to why there is a lot of decent on the board. I'm not loosing the argument, because you're proving my point regardless if you agree or not. One of the contributing factors to why veteran posters are wanting to leave, is because they're fellow veterans are inducing discord. But the newer members are taking the lions share of the blame. The one thing we agree on is you completely understand what your doing and are proud of it, hence you are contributing to making the board less than what it could be.

And that's why Dez refused.

I'm not sure if some of the innuendos such as moron posters, rose colored fans, are being directed toward me and my posts to JW. I'm also not sure if I'm attached to the type of person that stops someone like Lori from coming to the board. But I do want to respond to clarify my point of view, and hope that If the aforementioned attachment is true, I can offer some perspective. I'd like to start off by saying, I am a good person. I'm a father of two boys, I've been married for 13 years, I'm a God fearing Christian man (that admittedly doesn't act like it all the time), and I've been a devoted Bills fan for as long as one can remember from his childhood. I spend way too much time reading article after article and post after post about a team that has become an important part of the entertainment or hobby side of my life. I've probably spent 10's of thousands of dollars in various ways over the years, with no regrets, it was all apart of the enjoyment. In saying that there's something that writers need to understand, and I hope I can give some perspective. There's something about Bills fans, not that they are unique from other Cities fan bases, but there is a personal attachment to the team by its fans. When a writer, in any forum articulates something dissident about the fan bases team, by definition it's charged. In fact a writer's objective is to invoke emotion. There's no doubt that the writer of the article mentioned in this post was to incite emotional responses. Intentional or unintentional, in this thread John Wawrow's responses to me had the same sediment. If you look closely it's like baiting. I'll admit he won, he poked fun at me and the team I've loved since I was a child and it got the better of me. But let's not just dismiss his participation, and for that matter the writer's involvement when they induce emotion from the fans. As I mentioned, after all it is their intent. I'd also like to respond about another issue. And that's the disrespectful way new posters or you might say lower posting total folks are treated. I assure you for every Lori that stops posting here, there's a hundred new people with less than 200 posts that stop visiting. Please Lori don't take that as I'm referring to you in any way, just using you as a recent example of a veteran mentioning not posting as much. Heck I do it too, you start reading a post and you skim down and begin to read, there's a subconscious thing that occurs. You find yourself dismissing low post totals and start looking for the folks you've come accustom to. Then if someone with low totals even remotely says anything resembling negativity or controversy, you say to yourself "he's gonna get killed for that". But it's somewhat dismissed for the veteran's. They often come to each others defense. So what happens is the low total posters are automatically tagged as stupid, troll, ruining the board, etc. So they leave or worse stop posting. How is that good? Why aren't we more outraged by this issue than we are about veterans threatening to leave. I'll submit one last thought. Just because you have over 1000, 2000, 5000, or 10000 posts doesn't by default make you a smarter or more devoted Bills fan. Nor does it make you a better person. Nor does it give you the right to disrespect the lower post total contributors. It could just mean that you found this site sooner and you post a lot. It's also not alright for writers to treat these folks with utter disrespect. There's little doubt that we've lost hundreds of people that would have otherwise been excellent contributors. If we continue on this road the veterans will have nothing but themselves and the true ignoramus's, because they will drive away the people they've labeled as such. I can say with almost certainty that if you replaced my name with say "The Dean" in my debate with John Wawrow, there would be an entire different tone to his speech. The comfort level that veterans have in disparaging posters not like them is as big of an issue as any other.

My responses haven't been about his assessment of the team as a whole, just specifically as we are compared to the Dolphins.

I didn't say you cover the Dolphins. But you have had an opportunity to justifiably criticize them in this thread, and you won't do it. You've chosen to only malign the Bills. Hence my aggravation with writers such as yourself. So you're pretty sure you scathed them when they played us when they were 1-15, but don't feel it necessary to comment on their slipping from 11-5 to 7-9, winning only one more game than the Bills? Oh that's right you have them contending for the division this year.

I can see where I'd come off being snippy and admittedly Wawrow is good at agitating. I actually think the Dolphins have performed better than the Bills, but the margin isn't as big as the perception. For instance they haven't had a better record from 2004 to present, although they have had higher spikes of success. They've certainly had their share of coaching and ownership changes, that to me have shown as much dis-function as the Bills have had. My gosh Cam Cameron fired after one year, Nick Saban and that whole fiasco. Yet they go virtually unscathed of criticism from guys like Wawrow.

Your sarcasm is a weak attempt at salvaging a weak argument. This response is nothing but rhetoric and you know it. Let me go real slow for you John, you obviously have issues with paying attention. I never once said that the Bills were an organization to emulate, never. I have very clearly only been comparing the Bills and the Dolphins. Who have been given a biased pass on being better than the Bills over the last decade. I'm submitting they're not. Just because little Johnnie got his feelings hurt doesn't mean he should take things off on other tangents. Don't convolve the topic or start making fun of me personally just because you can't handle someone having a different opinion than you. You're an angry little guy, there's nothing wrong with having a debate and not taking it so personal. And for a little while we were having a good debate.

I thought Theismann was great in the Redskins pre-season game against us. Yikes!

I always considered you level headed, you're sounding more and more like another Bills hating writer. Just bashing them at every chance you get whether it makes sense or not. You are awfully disappointing. I actually enjoyed the debate until I read this post. Now you're just being biased no matter the content, and you are proving my entire point to the board. Thumbs down man.

There you go John. The highlighted sentence above is reasonable. However you start out with this false and ridiculous sentence "and the Bills have gone backward over the past four seasons. what's your point?" The Dolphins have gone 1-15, 11-5, and 7-9 the last three years - the Bills have gone 7-9, 7-9, and 6-10 respectively. For you this clearly shows the Dolphins are light years ahead of the Bills, and for me it creates a debate. If you're not understanding my point by now, then it's hardly likely you will. you are clearly your own problem. You are cherry picking your own thoughts while condemning me for doing the same.

I couldn't disagree with you more. I think you're failing to look at the facts objectively. You're following the trend of most writers. You're contending that there's an argument. And I'm not talking rivalry (I stated that is not the word to use). I'm saying the Dolphins haven't been better by such a margin that it's not within the realm of discussion that the Bills at the very least are competitive with the Dolphins. Albeit not for the AFC East, etc. but in comparison to each other. For example you stated that "given that the Dolphins are competing with the Jets and Patriots for the AFC East title this year". How do you know they are competing for the division, they haven't played any games yet? This is bias and not fact. You're stating it as fact, so I'm not putting words into your mouth. Now if you said it was your opinion that they will compete that's different, but you're not. Hence you aren't looking at the facts, you're following the Lebatard style bashing, that the Bills are the joke of the division. I'm merely submitting that there's reasonable facts to support it's the Dolphins. I look at the 1-15 to 11-5 so called turn around this way. They went 7-9 last year. So in my view there's an argument converse to the one you make. You build them up for the turn around, but I say it's indicative to how poor they are by loosing 4 more games the following year.

Leave the Dolphins alone.

You're exactly right, but the reason for that is the over all lack of respect given to the Bills. The Dolphins and their media outlets won't recognize the rivalry because the don't want to be associated with it. It's like it would be beneath them to do so. But the facts are the facts, it's a perception issue. And I'm disappointed with guys like John Wawrow that allow this misconception to go on. We are good enough or they are bad enough to be our rivals, take your pick. And maybe rivalry isn't the word, because that's not my point. My point is they're team and organization can be argued to be worse than ours. So the Buffalo media and National media reporting on the Bills (Tim Graham), need to have the guts to write an article debunking the garbage coming out of the Miami media talking heads like Lebatard. There is a debate there, do your research and stick up for the team - the organization - and Bills fans alike. Don't cowardly pile on, just because it's a harder road to defend us.

You could ask a Dolphins fan the same thing. They've gone 79-81 the last decade. Over the same decade the Bills have gone 66-94. The Dolphins have won 13 more games in a decade than the Bills, that's 1.3 more games per year. From 2004 to present the Dolphins had a record of 38-58, while the Bills went 41-55. The Dolphins also experienced a spike of 11 wins in 2008. Let's not let the Dolphins escape from being a part of the rivalries recent decline. However guys like Dan Lebatard ridicule the Bills on a national scene, and our home town writers join in. The fact is the Dolphins are at minimum just as bad as the Bills, and one could argue more recently have been worse. The Dolphins are the joke of the AFC East.

Nearly the worst 10 minutes of my life.

You don't get it?

FYI - DIEHARD1960 is no longer posting.