wardigital

Since this is based on what we know only from the "on paper" stuff and the limited exposure to talent in camp, can the people who think this team is going to lose 11 or 12 games tell me what those games will be on the schedule. I can name at least 5 non-divisional games which the Bills should have at least an even chance in winning.

Again, and without hesitation, you don't get to decide at what threshold something is true or isn't true. You are nobody important.

What has Chan Gailey not accomplished in his coaching career that you would like to have seen him accomplish? Are we saying that only Super Bowl winners are worthy of admiration, praise, or anything other than cynicism and paranoia? Chan made the team more fun to watch last year. When you're winning 4 games or 7 games, that's worth all the gold in Tut's tomb. Why are we presuming that 2 drafts and 2 off-seasons is enough to turn any struggling team around? This essentially sounds like impatience.

But they don't play all of their games on turf, and I have absolutely no interest in pretending that you're an authority on anything. Because, you know, you're not. There is no rule that defines when a catch phrase does or doesn't make sense, especially not one written by "DreReed83". They're not even actually all dead Bison hunters named Bill, either! Why are they not the "Orchard Park Black and White and Asian and Other Tall and Short and Fat People Who Lose Sometimes and Win Other Times, Too" of Anaheim. Dre should get right on this.

The Rams didn't play every game on turf, either. Hockey isn't actually "the coolest game on ice". Do you understand the purpose of a catch phrase?

It works but it's somewhat unreliable. Feeds cut off, get disrupted for copyright, they tend to stream a minute or two behind the actual action, etc etc. If you don't mind switching 3 or 4 times per game and missing a half a quarter of the game as a result, then it should be good. If you're the kind of fan who needs to see every play start to finish, you'd probably want to stick with your NFL Ticket.

What is the mysterious "other position" that he can play? He was drafted as a DE. Already pushed back to LB. He doesn't have the speed for the secondary or wide receiver. He isn't strong or physical enough to block or own the middle of the field as a tight end. Do you want him just to be the world's tallest, most expensive full back? LB is the only spot for him. Either it works or it doesn't.

Whether or not Buffalo is a pit, it is probably 28th or 29th in terms of the quality of city of the NFL. There are simply better options. And people who read that and get so blindly upset. It is not just the quality of the city. Obviously Green Bay is a bit of a pit too. But they have franchise stability and a quality roster. The Bills do not have either. Players value those things, because it impacts their job security. Look at P. Hillis with the Browns. He said just yesterday that he wasn't that upset with Denver anymore because their organization did not seem very stable anyway. And that's Denver. The problems with Buffalo are immeasurable compared to that. Also, we did not sign Drew Bledsoe, we traded for him. Additionally, it is hard to properly measure the quality of Marv Levy's GM tenure because Jauron was coaching, which probably had a severe impact on some players development. His tenure could have both been fantastic or awful in different circumstances. His big error was hiring Jauron, which doomed him from the start.

What more, other than leasing some facility space and putting Marshawn Lynch on a literal auctioning block would the Bills have to do to let people know he was up for trade? The entire league knew it. The national media spent two weeks talking about it. There was literally no one in the entire football stratosphere who was not intimately aware of the fact that the Bills were shopping Lynch around and that they wanted a high mid-round draft pick for him. And what else, the Bills are either guilty of talking to the Saints and being told to call them back or not knowing what the Saints wanted and having no idea that they wanted Lynch? It is literally impossible for a rational person to find fault in the way the BIlls handled the situation. The only negligent team in such a situation is the Saints. No, a "respected media member" (which is false, by the way), also said this season that it was profoundly disconcerting that Buddy Nix did not speak on the record about the failings of the team, and Nix didn't hold a public press conference for upwards of three weeks after this accusation when this happened. Regardless of whatever notion you have that the Buffalo Bills are interested in "appearing good in the eyes of the media", the multitude of evidence that suggest otherwise, that suggest that they don't care what the media thinks at all is staggering. I'm quite certain that if this was true (which it most likely is not), that even then, Buddy Nix would not care. He, like the rest of the Buffalo Bills organization, absolutely, positively do not care if you or Jay Glazer think he's inept.

Why? They have to deny every ridiculous assertion that comes before them now, or it's true? If that was the case, all they would ever do, all day long, is deny malicious rumors about the team. They don't owe it to anyone, especially people who *think* they do, to personally deliver special denials on every ridiculous report that comes out of the woodwork.

So the Saints called the Bills, and said, "We're not going to tell you what we'd offer for Lynch, but if you call us we'll tell you what we would offer for Lynch. Okay, so I'm going to hang up now, and you call me back and then I'll tell you."? Yeah, this story is bogus.

The team was remarkably well coached by Gailey this year, considering the absolute lack of talent. If Ralph does this to his coaches, it doesn't seem to have hurt Gailey very much. I don't think Gailey could have squeezed another drop out of this team. Several remarkably close games against playoff teams, a big comeback victory, beating one of our division rivals.

Because he isn't going to be used as an "all around running back", and was never drafted to be an "all around running back" and for whatever reason you and the obnoxious nincompoop that is Mike Schopp seem to be judging him by that standard.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was and is on some bad teams. A good quarterback on a bad team doesn't interest me, a good QB on a good team does. I'll take Billy Joe Hobert on a 11 win team before I take Peyton Manning on a 3 win team. I want to win. Why do I have to find another team and when I have I ever indicated that I am not willing to get Fitzpatrick a chance? I think Fitz has earned himself another full season and I want the team to win. This has nothing to do with front running. I just think it's silly and typically Buffalonian of people to take the smallest modicum of success and begin comparing Ryan Fitzpatrick to hall-of-famers and the league's top tier quarterbacks. Jump on board what? What does that even mean? I watch every game, discuss them on this board, have opinions, support the team financially. What else do I have to do to jump on board? Sit in unquestioning silence so that you feel better about your own assertions? Don't be a fool. Perhaps you should exhibit the same amount of patience and optimism with fellow posters as you have for the Bills losing. And finally, I'm not playing "Mr. Hard to Impress". The team was losing and is still losing. They're certainly more entertaining than they used to be, and I like that. And it also seems like they care and they are trying, which is what I like to see. But the goal is to win games, not to be impressed or unimpressed. Instead of getting so defensive of what I'm trying to say, why don't you try to get outside of yourself for a second and actually let it soak in. I'm not saying anything negative about Fitz that isn't true, and nothing that discounts that he's certainly the best QB we've had in a very long time. But it's still not good enough.

These comparisons are always so silly. You can just as easily draw comparisons to the 2000 or 2001 Bills, for instance. This year's team is the 2010 team all over again, and next year they will be the 2011 team all over again. To heap this sort of praise on current guys is also unfair to them. We are in a salary capped era now, where assembling that sort of talent on a team is incredibly difficult if not impossible. As long as the system stays the way it is, there will NEVER be another team that can replicate the sort of success that Bills of the late 80's and early 90's had on a position-to-position basis. There will always be weak spots.

JohnC makes an excellent point, and this is a two way road. What has the secondary done under Gailey? Why is our special teams suddenly ordinary under Gailey? What has the running game done under Gailey? And as to the perception that the only thing holding Fitz back from being a marquee quarterback is his draft status: nonsense. His QB ratings coming into this season were 58.2, 70.0 and 69.7. Two of those in seasons with double-digit games. This year he's played better, but his statistics have come back to earth. He has seven losses. The team has scored more than 20 points once in the last five weeks. We like him because he tries hard. We like the team because they are trying things in a different, more entertaining way than previous teams. But they are not any better than they were under Jauron record wise, and that in the long run is the point. Until they become a playoff team, no one at One Bills Drive deserves any credit for improvement. Maybe making the team more fun to watch, but not better. One other thing on Fitzpatrick. In 370 plus attempts in his first true look at an NFL starter with the Bengals, he threw for 1,900 yards, 8 TD 9 INT and was sacked 38 times. Last year in 10 games and 227 attempts he threw for 1,400 yards, 9 TD and 10 INT. He averaged 142 yards passing per game. Until this season, speaking statistically and including this year speaking record wise, Ryan Fitzpatrick has been almost incomprehensibly bad.

Kelsay is occasionally formidable with his hand on the ground, which is where he should be. He is simply not made to be a linebacker and should not be put in that position, ever. He might be the worst athlete standing up right that I've ever seen before. With his hand on the ground and working an edge he is a bit better. And, for weeks I've been saying: If you put Kelsay on the d-line at least he is going to miss his tackle 1 yard downfield instead of 6 yards downfield, potentially saving the team 5 yards every play simply by not screwing up so far down the dang field. LT's are generally more athletic blockers, though, and because they are coming from the blind side a QB's step motion to release the ball is away from the RDE and their escapability also caters more often to running away from the RDE than it would the LDE. Each position has its advantages.

I would say that if what Fitzpatrick is doing right now is what he will do for the next 3 to 5 years in his career, then he falls into the category of a Tier 2 QB, probably not top flite, but just in that next level. In other words, I think he's good enough to get you to the second round of the playoffs sort of QB, but probably not good enough to win the big one unless he's on a team with a lot of other big time weapons. So the answer for a team like the Bills is obviously: try to build around him with big time weapons. I think to consider him a possible Top 5 NFL QB is a little out of the realm of reasonable. But Top 10 isn't bad. I'll take second round exits for the next decade after the last one.

I don't know if "several" is accurate. A look at the past 20 years of NFL Super Bowl winning QBS. Let's qualify "marquee" as top 5ish in the league or so: 2010 - Drew Brees (marquee) 2009 - Ben Roethlisberger (borderline) 2008 - Eli Manning (borderline) 2007 - Peyton Manning (marquee) 2006 - Ben Roethlisberger (borderline) 2005 - Tom Brady (marquee) 2004 - Tom Brady (marquee) 2003 - Brad Johnson (no) 2002 - Tom Brady (marquee) 2001 - Trent Dilfer (no) 2000 - Kurt Warner (marquee) 1999 - John Elway (marquee) 1998 - John Elway (marquee) 1997 - Brett Favre (marquee) 1996 - Troy Aikman (marquee) 1995 - Steve Young (marquee) 1994 - Troy Aikman (marquee) 1993 - Troy Aikman (marquee) 1992 - Mark Rypien (no) 1991 - Jeff Hostetler (no) 1990 - Joe Montana (marquee) That's 14 marquee, 4 not marquee, 3 borderline. I really think that all things considered, Roethlisberger is probably in the marquee list, or at least was during the Super Bowl seasons. But even without those 2 extra games, its pretty obvious that having one of the best QBs in the league is a significant help. Now there are other factors that help that. Montana had a great scheme, Aikman and Elway had great complimentary casts, Brady had a brilliant coach and an army of extras. Having a great team around you is in part what makes you a great QB. It does seem as though things have become a little easier without a top flite QB. I think this is because defenses have caught up and in some respects passed offenses in the NFL. We're definitely in a league right now of hyper parity where being tremendously good at one aspect of the game can put a team in contention if they get hot at the right time. I am starting to wonder if that trend is shifting back a little bit. Last year we saw a Super Bowl with teams with comparatively soft defenses to what one might consider for a championship team.

If memory serves correctly, a field goal wins the game. And there is a difference between passing for one series unsuccessfully and passing on four different series in the same situation unsuccessfully.

They were dropping seven into coverage on every play on the KC side of the ball the last four possessions too. Daring Gailey to run. They had a pretty good handle on the fact that he wasn't going to.

This might be the most hypocritical post in the history of the internet, considering you started by lambasting me for living in a universe of "what if", and literally two sentences later proceeded to tell *me* exactly what *I* would have done. I'm also not crying, and I don't know why there is some sort of necessity out of you to make that implication, other than you are compensating for something else (small penis? lack of a valuable point of view in this discussion? something). If you think it is unreasonable to, in the 4 times the Bills had the ball on the KC side of the field with a chance to make a game-winning score, to try running it, for one series, then whatever universe I'm living in is a universe in which you are not invited. Here in the "We're allowed to have different opinions" universe, we don't take kindly to pithy !@#$s.

They also weren't moving the ball that well on passes in overtime. They had one nice throw to Evans when Spiller drew all the underneath coverage. The other big plays were a reverse by Parrish, a scramble by Fitzpatrick for 14 yards. Fitzpatrick threw well in the fourth quarter for the most part, but exactly in overtime. One running play, taking the sack, etc etc.

I'm not saying one run, I'm saying three runs. Run the ball three times. Jesus, you can fall forward three times after the snap and get 3 yards, which also would have made a difference.

Who said he was anything special? The title of this thread is not "Fred Jackson is special and Chan Gailey doesn't recognize it." It's not like Jamaal Charles is special either. I think it's perfectly reasonable to wonder about Gailey's relationship with Jackson considering he did not trust him to get five yards on 3 carries, which, at 2.9 yards per carry today, he was statistically likely to do.