All_Pro_Bills

NE players won't be receiving any fines or penalties for last Sunday's game. The regular officiating crews are back along with the preferential treatment certain teams and players receive. That's something I didn't miss during the lockout.

I'm not going to disagree with you and I have zero experience as an NFL defensive coordinator but I know what I see and no professional defense should surrender 86 points (plus 1 int for a TD and 1 punt return for another 14) in two division games. Whether its talent, execution, or scheme implemented by the DC I am weary of excuses and explanations. After 12 seasons of non-playoff futility and several GM/HC changes this is unacceptable. This regime is in its 3rd year and IMO given that timeline we are way past the point of using the talent excuse. You've had 3 seasons to get things in order and get the necessary talent and strategy in place. Either you can do it or you can't since its been demonstrated time and again that competent management and coaching can turn a profession program around in that amount of time.

NE ran their offense like they attended the Bills defensive practices the week before the game. Predictable is the word, they seemed to know everything the Bills would do, which was stick with the same basic set throughout the game with little variation. The gameplan was awful and the results even worse. I'd rather have Madden NFL 2012 calling the defense than Wanny.

I saw the same thing. One thing the regular refs do that the replacement refs did not is give preferential treatment to some of the 'star' players. The replacement officials for all their shortcomings were impartial when it came to their calls (good or bad). While the sports media had a field day pissing and moaning about the replacement officials you'll never hear a peep out of any of them about this obvious situation every Sunday. When I saw it was one of the league darlings, Green Bay, get screwed by a bad call I knew the strike would be over shortly. If it was the Bills instead, we'd still have the replacements.

You hit the nail on the head here. The Bills have been disadvantaged via coaching matchups, I dare say since Wade was run out of town. Not that Wade was top tier but he did put out a great defense and was the last coach to take us to the playoffs. The hard truth since is that working under the current ownership as head coach has not been a hot gig for members of the coaching profession, So we get a constant flow of 'B' level coaching and it shows on the field every Sunday and especially when going up against the top teams.

100 points allowed in 2 division games is valid cause for concern. These are the teams you need to beat to get into the playoffs. At this point I can envision the Bills dropping all 6 division contests this season. Miami, although they are 1-3, played hard and tough against an undefeated Arizona team on Sunday falling once again in overtime. The Bills on the other hand folded rather the going down fighting in the second half as soon as NE took the lead. The Bills defensive gameplan was so bad and without adjustments it appeared that NE's offense completely understood the Bills defensive strategy like they attended the Bills practices and knew exactly what to expect. And on offense continuing to have Fitz throw the ball 30+ times is asking for trouble. This shows a lack of creativity and flexibility needed to approach each game as a unique set of challenges rather than following a cookie cutter approach on offense. I'll wager the approach Gailey takes against the 49ers, even without two o-line starters, is not significantly different than what we saw on Sunday. IMO the front office is doing a decent job of gathering players but the coaching staff is falling down on the job here. Something we've gotten used to seeing for what seems like forever. Looking at the next 5 games and how they've played to date it's not hard to see the Bills at 3-6 unless a light goes on somewhere and this defense starts to meet expectations. That said, I;ll be rooting for them but there's nothing wrong with being discouraged by what we've seen so far.

11). The Bills defense was so bad today I even had moment of nostalgia for Dick Juron. I was yelling at the TV so much for the Bills to show some different looks on defense that my wife had enough and told me to leave the room. Base 4 man line/rush, no stunting, no blitzing, dropping the 4th guy to rush 3 a couple times. Stupor Mario invisible again. Made Brady's day easy. 100 points allowed in 2 division games ain't gettin' it done..

My thoughts too. Almost any place you visit or live is going to have good and bad attributes. People always associate snow with Buffalo but there are no wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, tornados (rarely), hurricaines, or erupting volcanoes to worry about either. And in the Summer you can go outside in the middle of the day and not die from heatstroke in 10 minutes. Does Buffalo have its share of issues? Sure, but so does every place else. The twin morons on the radio show seems to be a standard routine around the country with loud, rude, and stupid replacing what used to pass as entertainment or constructive dialogue.

This seems true. The replacement ref's incompetence is unbiased while the regular officiating crews baby 'star' players like Brady and give teams like the Pats the breaks. The fact that one of the league darlings, the Packers, rather than some also-ran got screwed by the officials on Monday night magnified the gaffe.

You don't build a billion dollar business by bullying your employees. The current situation is an unmitigated disaster. The quality and integrity of the product is now being questioned. At first by a few but now by almost all segments of the sport, coaches, players, fans, the media. Even people that don't watch football know the replacement ref's screwed the pooch last night. I'll wager its even on the evening network news shows tonight and they rarely cover sports. And today the NFL issued a statement that the 'got it right'. They've got to be kidding! It shows an arrogance and contempt for integrity that is beyond words. And why is it a bad deal? Perhaps you have more insight into the process here but IMO that amount of money is totally insignificant to the league. And if its profits not revenue you argue then I hope each owner is happy with an extra $93k in his pocket while watching game after game of player scrums after the whistle, indecision, inconsistency, with coaches looking to intimidate and abuse the officials. The fact is the owners will make that up 100 times over in the next TV contract so to me its got more to do with their belief they can just push anybody around that they care to rather than a quesiton of funding.

I read somewhere yesterday that the sticking point is that issue which amounts to .11% of annual league revenue. Compared to the potential damage to the league and the product from these prime-time gaffs that seems like a small price to pay. That's $93k per team.

Most of the noise about the replacement refs is coming from the media and more recently the players. So right now the only way this changes is if the players get fed up with having to deal with an out of control situation on the field and collectively decide to refuse to 'cross the picket line' of the officials. Something like every team staying in the locker room at halftime next week until the NFL deals with the official union would do the trick. Not that its going to happen because such an action would likely be a breach of contract action but that would do it.

Willing the team to his daughter would be an estate tax event but leaving the team to his wife would not be neither a capital gain or estate tax triggering action. As suggested by a couple other posters it would be nice to see the media 'press' the team management and ownership for some answers with regards to the future of the team. Right now the team and the county are in negotiations for a lease renewal with the team wanting $200 million in stadium improvements. The state and county want some kind of gaurantee that they are not going to dump $200 million into a stadium that might be empty in a couple years. As one of the governers spokeman plainly stated 'the only party not committed to keeping the Bills in Buffalo is the Bills'. One major problem I see with moving the team is the typical #1 reason has been the local market is not supporting the team, low attendence, etc. This is not the case here but that's not to say economics are not going be take a back seat.

This is true. Part of being a 'good' coach is being able to honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your players and develop a gameplan that plays to their strengths and that attempts to avoid or hide their weaknesses. So I agree the lack of production and the amount of errors have a lot to do with Gailiey's seeming unwillingness to adjust the offensive approach, that worked during the 1st half of last season, but isn't working now. My biggest frustration is the almost stuborn lack of resolve to run the ball more often when it seems to be working pretty well. Last week coming out at halftime the Bills executed a couple good running plays and then Fitz threw the gift pick 6 and it was game over. When your QB (and maybe your receivers) is making mistakes and the running game is going well then you run the ball until the defense makes adjustments and a commitment to stop it. Which might open up other opportunities to call some effective play action.

+1 Totally agree.

Which begs the question why the coach wants to run a high risk (with this QB at the helm) offense with so many 4 or 5 wide set plays, calls way too many pass plays, and does not utiize the running game more effectively when you have two very god backs and a relatively solid offensive line?

I didn't read anything in his latest rant that seems out of line given their performance on Sunday and the expectations that have been set. But it's only one game and a many good teams looked bad in week 1. As I watched the Bills being completely outclassed on Sunday I thought back to the home opener a several year back against NE where the Bills dominated and won 31-0. That year, like this one, they opened with the same team they close the season against. Recall NE returned the favor in game 16 with a 31-0 payback. Maybe by seasons end we return the favor against the Jets this time sending them to the golf course early?

The need for an upgrade at the QB position has never been more obvious to me as it was yesterday. The problem with Fitz is not his lack of top-notch arm strength. We also heard all off season about how QB coach Lee worked with him to improve his footwork and his delivery but none of that was apparent yesterday. My problem with him is his is that for all his 'smarts' he either cannot understand or refuses to accept his limitations and play within his ability. Many QB's have less than optimal physical skills but some (Pennington for example) use their intelligence and understanding of the game to compensate as much as possbile and have been successful. Fitz does not, but rather he has a gunslinger mentality without the ability needed to play that role. On all 3 picks it looked like the DB 'read' the QB's intent and jumped the route. And in all 3 cases guys that I suspect have intelligence levels far below the Bills QB outsmarted him. I'm no expert at designing an offensive scheme but it seems clear to me that neither the HQ or the QB are willing to deal with the reality and limitations of Fitz and design a gameplan and offensive approach to eliminate these high risk mistakes.

The main purpose of the Wildcat is to give ESPN and the NFL Network an excuse to talk about the Jets and Tim Tebow for about for 99% of their broadcast time. The theme of the storyline is that it's the 'secret' weapon that's everybody knows about (including believe it or not all NFL defensive coordinators) being run by the biggest garbage talking team in the biggest media market with the twist of now being aided by the hand of God himself through the new messiah backup QB.

The game was originally scheduled to air on NFL Network on Thursday night but that's been removed from the scheduler on DTV and replaced with their pre-season around the league show. If you have the NFL Network the game replays on channel 212 on Friday at 4 PM and Sunday at 6 PM.

My dish got cooked by lightning in an nasty thunderstorm that rolled through in the morning on 6/25 along with one of my HD receivers that I had for only a month. The storm also blew out the HDMI connections on my TV and the phone connected to the HD box. So I am using S-Video until I get that fixed and needed a new phone too. A tech came out and fixed the dish and ordered me another HD box for the one that got blown up. The replacement HD box (an R24-200) overheated and lasted 3 hours, then they sent me another one via fedex, an R24-100. Set up that one and it also got really hot, like burning your hand hot if you touched the bottom of the receiver. So I turned that box off before it fried and I called and a tech came out the next day. After some discussion and checking he agreed to replace the 3rd box with a new one (the other two replacements were refurbished). He told me the Directv people were getting pissed because it was my fourth box in a month. I felt that it was their problem not mine because the replacement boxes they were sending were garbage. I checked out all my electrical outlets and they checked out good so it wasn't a power problem from the storm. Long story short, the new one worked fine but I called to voice my complaints and got a month of free service for all the problems. Anybody else had problems with R24-100 or R24-200 refurbished boxes overheating? The new R24-500 works fine..

True. Assuming it was intentional, they should have put Vincent on waivers the next day.

Like the list but I'll add one: 1A - Nix and Whaley 'get it' They've brought systems and management approaches with them from successful organizations (and have been empowered by ownership to install them) and appear to have molded their experience and football understanding into a system customized for the Bills challenges and needs. In this case building a defense that can win in the AFC East. This includes how to's on running the organization along with talent evaluation and player acquisition plus building relationships with players and fans. Just how well it works can only be judged by wins on the field this coming season but I can't help but have a feeling of legitimate and justifiable optimism vs. what has been for season’s just plain hope.

Not to minimize the potential for the Bills to move, but what's it been about 20 years since the Raiders moved back to Oakland? You've got to ask the question, if it's so strategically important for the NFL to have a franchise in the 2nd biggest media market in the country why is it taking so many years to act on? Clearly it's not really a priority of the league's ownership. If it was so important to put a franchise in LA there be one there now. There must be some significant opposition working under the radar here and if I had to guess it's the possibility of the Raiders moving back or the Chargers moving north at some point.

I forsee Williams and Anderson coming around the edges and Brady stepping up right into Dareus busting up the middle through a double team. After the game Giesele (excuse my spelling) will say 'my husband cannot throw the football and f'ing block all those pass rushers'.