Utah John

What makes you sure Kugler wants to come here? McDermott fired Castillo after the three best starters on last year's O line left and SURPRISE our O line sucked this year. The O line problems were Beane's fault as much as Castillo's. So the track record for O line coaches here is, get used to the view from under the bus. And look at all the premium talent on the Bills' O line now. We've got..ummm... Sure, what a great spot for Kugler to come into. Why would ANY O line coach want to come to the Bills?

It would be just like the Jets to hire a DC before hiring a HC. What serious HC candidate would consider signing on with Wrecks in place already? Wrecks was a one-trick pony. He took a talented Jets roster which was a good fit for his scheme, and went to the AFC championship twice. I suppose that's better than taking a talented Jets roster and having a losing record...which is what he did to the Bills. I call him Wrecks because he arrogantly and selfishly took a great, powerful, scary defense built by Jim Schwartz, and flat-out broke it. He insisted on putting his own system in place with the wrong personnel, and I think the Bills gave up on him when he had Marcel Dareus dropping into pass coverage. I actually think he's a better bet for Miami. That's a franchise in free fall, giving up on their QB and HC, and having dumped all the talent on the roster. The Miami ownership could easily make the same mistake the rookie Pegulas did, bringing in a celebrity coach to get attention and sell tickets. Good luck with that, fish. You can battle it out with the Jets or last place for the next three or four years, while the Bills finally catch the aging Patriots.

I really don't care how many yards he passes or runs for. I want the Bills to win 12 regular season games a year, and Allen to stay healthy. Your wins are the only stats that matter.

Progress could technically be 8-8 next year, and that's not good enough. 10-6 or better, with a wild card game we win. That's real progress.

Looks like Robiskie is taking the fall for Kelvin Benjamin being a fat, lazy bust of a player. It wasn't Robiskie who traded for Benjamin and anointed him the #1 WR on the team. Robiskie had very little to work with talent-wise, but did get some of the younger guys going, which could pay off in years ahead.

What I like is that the Bills don't have so many holes to fill this year. They could stand to upgrade at some defensive positions but they have no suck-o starters on D. The O line and WR are the two areas of need, so the Bills can concentrate on those areas and bring in good FAs for depth elsewhere.

The Steelers should show AB who's boss. Cut Pig Ben and sign Nathan Peterman. Then we'll see how AB's stats look.

Exactly what was Alonso trying to hold up? A trophy?

I forgot about the Hoyer hit. OK, he's always had those tendencies. So suspend him before he cripples someone.

OJ went to prison for stealing some sports stuff, but really for murder. Alonso should be suspended for the hit on Allen, but really for hitting Flacco late -- and Flacco's never been the same since. Also for the Fins WR who cheap-shotted Aaron Williams, ending his career. Miami trash need to get the message. It's a culture thing with that scum team. Alonso didn't play like that when he was with the Bills or Eagles.

It's the same most years. Get a feel-good win over a hated rival, or lose and gain the equivalent of a second round draft pick. I'll take the win, and give the FAs around the league the idea this is a team on the rise, with a couple of obvious deficiencies that are all that's holding it back. That reputation is likely worth more than a crap-shoot second rounder.

Fournette is a beast. The new version of Marshawn Lynch. I don't know if he's a good character guy, but he's an excellent player. If the Jags don't want him, maybe we can trade a low-talent LB for him, and keep the string of larcenous trades going.

At one point I think there were 7 Williamses on the team. There was definitely a wide receiver, who was on the team for a while before being cut.

There's this invention called locking lug nuts that Sam might want to check out. His teammates aren't the only people who steal wheels in New Jersey.

Teams rarely if ever block a coach or front office person from moving if it's to a higher level position. The reason is simple. If a team does block moves, no one will want to work for them, because their career would be dead-ended.

Every point Boatdrinks made about the rules changes is correct. I have some tapes of Bills games, including commercials, from the 90s and before, and it was amazing how much more football was played in 3 hours when there were only 60 second breaks for commercials instead of 90 seconds. All those half minutes add up to 10 minutes or more of time out of the 3 hrs, and the way to generate 10 extra minutes of commercial time was to reduce the amount of football plays actually run. With the clock running more often, and officials eyeballing close calls on first downs (and often being very generous on spots when a runner is tackled a little short of the line to gain), the game is shorter and teams behind in the fourth quarter have a really hard time catching up. The rules aren't really about increasing scoring, they're about increasing passing and opening up the game with the intent of increasing scoring. Defenses were getting really good, and the last thing the NFL wanted was something like soccer, where a 1-0 game could be considered a very exciting one. The NFL is about big hits, big catches, not about grind it out football anymore.

My thought was, QBs wear red jerseys in practice so the defenders know not to hit them. It was worth a shot that a Lions defender would hesitate a split second before hitting Allen, just from years of conditioning. Hey, whatever works.

Allen is turning out as expected/hoped for. Lots of talent, some rookie mistakes, unmistakable progress through the year. But there were a lot of doubters about him. Poor completion percentage, weak competition in college, yada yada yada. A lot of people on this board thought we took the wrong Josh. Chubb on the other hand was a definite, 95% probabiity success, and they need to rebuild their D. I think Elway thought Chubb plus Keenum was better than some FA DL player plus Allen, and went with the combination that had a better chance of working out. And Keenum isn't a terrible QB, either. Like every other QB he needs to be in the right situation with good players around him.

No Cordy Glenn. No Eric Wood. No Richie Incognito. Take the three best O linemen away and replace them with a young Dawkins, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and bad things are gonna happen. When we lost Wood and Incognito, this season immediately became about getting Allen experience, and not expecting to win much. A crappy record this year? Fine. It means we don't have to give up second round picks to elevate in the first round.

So Allen played with below average receivers in college and so far in Buffalo. I don't know what his O line was like in college but this year his O line has been a disaster. I don't know whether he had a good complementary RB in college, but this year Shady can't get it in gear (probably the O line's fault since he can still scoot when he gets a chance). You NEVER hear Allen complain about the shortcomings of his teammates. I think they're impressed with him and want him to succeed. So far this is all good. I don't care if the Bills win many more games this year as long as they keep playing hard, and the guys who won't be good enough next year keep demonstrating that to the coaches so it will be easy to eliminate them. Playoff likelihood for next year? I say 75%. In 2020, 90%.

Part of the problem is that the only guys who make it onto an NFL team were the stars of their college team (well, nearly always) and those stars didn't learn how to play STs in college. They were too valuable to risk injury. So they show up at an NFL camp and they're suddenly at the bottom of the roster, assuming they make the team, and now they're out there trying to figure out how to block legally or tackle people. Players like Lorax are the exception. It used to be common for a team to keep a player or two on the roster because they were great at covering kicks, even if they weren't all that great at their designated position (remember Mark Pike, who used to make more tackles than Steve Tasker when they were both playing). The Bills had a WR who was great on STs but not at receiving until a couple of years ago. I don't see that happening much anymore.

Well, Jerry, he might have called you that, but after getting a fellow ref in hot water, this Sunday you're going to be reminded what payback is. Which is a shame. The refs should not be part of the game. The NFL is drowning in this crap. They finally fixed the stupid rule about not completing a catch if you lose it falling to the ground. They started the year with the impossible rule about not falling on a QB when you sack him, but they seem to have backed off on that. I'd like to see the rule book from about 1980 brought back. Let defenders play. Let all the players play. It's a tough game, not a dance where every move has to be choreographed a certain way, or a penalty gets called.

I think Clay misjudged it because it wasn't a typical Allen rocket. It was fluttering a little and didn't travel as much as Clay would have expected. I'm not excusing Clay. He was uncontested and it was up to him to get in position to make the catch. Anyway I agree, all Clay had to do was keep his feet and charge back for the ball. He might not have scored but there was plenty of time for that, if he'd gotten the first down. I asked that question, who still thinks we drafted the wrong Josh, last week. Got nothing but crickets. This guy is going to be really good.

Anyone still think we took the wrong Josh?

OK, on the off chance this wasn't sarcasm, I'm going to point out that Jack Nicklaus was a great golfer, perhaps the best or second best ever. Jack Nicholson was the actor who was in The Shining. Also -- I was a little sorry to see O'Leary get cut by the Bills. He was a middling talent, hard-working player. I guess he just didn't fit into the Bills long-range plans.