st pete gogolak

Without researching NFL history, I'm pretty confident no team has ever successfully completed Single Digit Bingo in a single season. We've got a real shot! Zero - Check! Two - Difficult, not impossible. Three - Check! Four - Really, really difficult. Jets are probably are best chance. Five - Check!! Six - Check! Seven - How is this not already a thing? Total lock. Eight - Blowout, late touchdown and successful two point conversion (difficult, not impossible). Nine - Check! Seven games to cover four "squares". Let's get 'r done!

Fixed.

In hindsight? Pushing hard to sign Teddy Bridgewater and using all that draft capital to improve the OL and WR.

Hilarious. What a s***show. Happiest person to hear this news? Colin Kaepernick. Additional evidence for his collusion case against the NFL.

A little off topic. So who "won" the McCoy trade? On paper, you'd have to say the Bills won hands down. We get 3+ years of ProBowl caliber running back for a middle of the road, oft injured LB who was traded after we traded him. But what did we win? Would the resources (player and money) have been better spent somewhere other than RB? This is the old Sabres topic. It really doesn't matter whether you win battles (individual trades), it's whether you win the war.

I was going to start a separate thread but this may fit in this one (just about anything can fit into this one). It's the Animal House argument. "We're going to get waxed Monday night no matter what we do so we might as well have a good time doing it." Let's do something we haven't done in 17 years with Brady. Blitz every play. Play tight coverage. Hit him every play. Hit him after the whistle. Hit him at the knees. Hit him in the head. He'll kill you if you blitz but so what. He'll kill you if you don't. The penalties won't help but so what. We're not going to win the game no matter what. For chrissakes, he's 41, see if he can absorb some punishment. On an unrelated topic the local paper decided to print all time leaders in TD passes. Three of the top nine are from the same draft class (E. Manning, Rivers and Rothlisberger). Gee, to bad we didn't pick a QB that year.

I'm guessing 2-17 for 26 yards in a very low scoring affair.

I'm thinking Colts D may be a better move.

I'm usually in the "he (or it) can't be any worse" camp but this time I'm not so sure. As much as Peterman is not an NFL-caliber quarterback, Anderson has essentially not played in the NFL for two years, joined the Bills about 10 days ago, and even when he was "good", that was back in 2008-2009. The one year he was really good, Cleveland beat the Bills in Cleveland in a snow game and he looked meh and the next year was the infamous 6-3 game (aka "the worst football game ever played") and he was 2-17 for 23 yards. 2-17!! I'm thinking it's going to look like Matt Leinart in the preseason game a couple of seasons back.

Did you stick around long enough to check out D. Anderson's stat line from that game - 2 out of 17. That's when he was "good".

Thank you. That's all I'm trying to say. IF you want to salvage the season (and maybe you don't for a myriad of reasons), Fitzpatrick - as of October 15, 2018 - is better than Peterman, Anderson and Allen.

Also, it's a legitimate question as to whether the season should be saved. Is 4-12 better than 8-8, given the cap space opening up next year, given another opportunity to pick a blue-chip prospect and given that some people believe it's better to play Allen for the game experience than to sit him.

He's not a savior and he's not a long term answer. He's not even an answer beyond this year. I posted this only to posit this question - is the season worth saving? Do you waste this defense? I think Allen certainly has some potential but it's pretty obvious he's not ready. When is the last time Derek Anderson completed a pass in an actual NFL game? I think Fitzpatrick is a very limited QB but he's better than what we have. Anybody else out there that's can be had cheap that improves the situation?

Well, not in Tampa Bay, just nearby. There's a 35 year old quarterback named Ryan Fitzpatrick who as recently as a couple of weeks ago threw for 400 yards in back to back games. The Bucs aren't going anywhere, Winston will be the starter, they have a young third-string QB, so if the Bills offered something stupid (4th round pick for 35 year old back-up QB?), they'd probably take it. We all know what Fitzy is and what he isn't. He's certainly better than anything on the roster right now. It would be a shame to throw away the year when the D is playoff caliber. This isn't about Allen by the way. Some guys should sit their first year. He's one of them.

This is half-serious. Can someone please tell me the last time the Bills CORRECTLY managed the QB situation? It wasn't when the passed on Bridgewater. It wasn't when they picked Manuel. It wasn't when they cut Fitzpatrick. It wasn't when they traded a #1 for a washed up Bledsoe. It wasn't when they picked Losman. It wasn't when they traded a top ten picked for Rob Johnson. It wasn't when they gave a huge contract to Johnson for no reason. It wasn't when they passed on Drew Brees to pick yet another DB. It wasn't when they lost Jim Kelly to the USFL for THREE years. It wasn't when they traded Lamonica to the Raiders. OK, now I've made myself depressed. Sorry.

I'm not trying to define the kid's career after 4 games. Really, really not. The point of the thread was to speculate as to his ceiling. Key word there is speculate. Cam Newton has had two years with a completion percentage above 60% (actually one of the two years was 60% so he's had a grand total of one year above 60%). Newton's kind of a unicorn in that respect. An extremely successful NFL QB who is not terribly accurate. The point however is that if we drafted unicorn 2.0 we still can have a franchise quarterback who's completion percentage hovers around 60%. And it isn't fair to even compare rookie Cam to rookie Josh. Cam won the Heisman and played in the SEC. I am firmly in the camp that Allen would have been better off sitting this year but it is what it is.

Agree wholeheartedly but that doesn't seem to stop anyone else from expressing an opinion!

I was among the crowd unhappy with the Allen selection. As Vince Lombardi is often misquoted "accuracy isn't everything, it's the only thing". But after watching some of his college tape and especially the pre-season games, I came around. Based on the first five games of the season, it's WAY too early to make any generalizations as to where this ends up. But. . . you've got a kid with linebacker size, really strong arm, very good runner and serious accuracy issues. Remind you of anyone? Cam Newton, perhaps? If Allen's ceiling is in the Cam Newton zip code, is that a bad thing? After all, Newton's got an MVP trophy and has taken a team to the Super Bowl. Are the similarities to Cam what attracted McBeane to Allen? Better line, much better receivers, a year to learn how to diagnose defenses and make quicker decisions and, most important, just like in Carolina, an offensive scheme designed to take advantage of his strengths and I think we will be ok.

I hear that the Gronkowski kid out of Arizona is pretty good. Home town product. Probably be able to get him early second round.

You're kidding, right?

Licht is just blowing smoke. Unless the Bucs are 3-0 [Ron Howard narrator voice: "They're not."] Winston starts game 4.

Vlad, Vlad, and more Vlad.

Thank you. I don't have the analytics at my fingertips but I'm guessing that at the time of the overtime punt against the Colts, there was about a 90% chance of the game ending in a Bills loss or a tie. No I didn't walk out of the Oilers game at halftime. My brother did. I was taping the game in LA. Turned the recording off at halftime (why would I ever want to watch that nightmare again?). When the comeback started, I was too "superstitious" to turn the recording back on! I still have the Shout magazine cover with Reich and Christie jumping in the air. It's hanging in my office. Christie, by the way, lives in St. Pete and his daughter went to my daughter's high school. My wife got him to talk at career day. It was pretty hilarious.

Yeah, it was pre-season but frankly the ultra-conservatism is troubling. There is absolutely no way on earth we should have punted in overtime against the Colts. A tie puts us out of the running for the playoffs. It was extraordinarily lucky to win that game. My son and I attended the JAX playoff game. We walked out when McDermott punted on 4th and short with about three minutes to go. Yeah, they got the ball back but my God, show some moxie. You're in the playoffs for the first time in 17 years! Fun fact. I attended two Bills games in person last year. Carolina and JAX. Bills' O totals: zero touchdowns; two field goals; 6 and 7 point losses.

Boy, this is a really, really stupid topic. The playoff drought is over because the Bills were in the playoffs last year. It's not figure skating. There aren't style points.